"Beca, calm down. Your food isn't going anywhere."
Chloe's got a tiny amused quirk to her lips, watching as Beca scarfs down her second cheeseburger like it really might get up and run. Squinting her eyes at the redhead, she just takes an exaggeratedly large bite, maintaining eye contact even as she internally realizes it's a little too much. But she's already here; she can't back out. Desperately chewing, she ignores the cackle as Chloe goes back to her stupid salad.
They're seated on Chloe's couch in her shared apartment. The TV is on, turned to a jazz station because the brunette doesn't want to watch anything and Chloe wanted something. Music is a good middle ground. There are no pictures playing, but the redhead seemed delighted when Beca would imitate one of the instruments, gleefully informing her she would have fit in perfectly in the Bellas. Blinking away some tears from the struggle of dealing with the consequences of her actions, Beca takes a sip of her soda.
"So, how can you just eat like, grass all of the time?" Chloe scrunches her nose.
"It's not grass, Becs. These, these are called vegetables." She points to the lettuce with her fork. "And this here?" She holds up a speared tomato. "This is a fruit." The brunette rolls her eyes.
"I know what those things are, Chlo. I do try to eat something healthy. Like, once in a while. But you always eat grass." There's a huff.
"Vegetables! And I'm not like, raw vegan or anything. Besides, you could definitely benefit from going vegetarian for a while. Or maybe come running with me sometime, y'know?" She picks up her water bottle, giving Beca such a heated sidelong glance that she imagines herself being dropped into a dry sauna. "Being healthier does wonders for your stamina." That suggestive wink punctuates the end of the statement, sitting in the silence like a promise. Beca coughs.
"Uh, I'm good. I don't like exercise." She picks up a french fry to give herself something to do.
Chloe shakes her head. "You're so lucky that you can just do whatever you want and look the way you do, Beca."
"Well, maybe you should stop taking such great care of yourself, because you're so pretty it's kinda unfair to the mortals you're surrounded by." She rolls her eyes and stuffs the french fry in her mouth, avoiding eye contact. Chloe's tinkling laughter is musical, like everything else she does. The redhead sets her food on the coffee table and fixes her sparkling eyes at her. Chloe props her elbow on the back of the couch and rests her head in her hand. It's really something, how you can hear a smile in a person's voice.
"Do you really want me to stop looking so good?" Beca's full of shit.
"Yeah, but I somehow think it's probably impossible. It sounds like something that can only backfire. Like if destroying Dorian Gray's painting opened Pandora's Box."
A manicured hand drifts onto her lap, nails skating along her jeans, dancing towards her inner thigh. Chloe leans in, sighing into her ear, "We need to finish what we started, by the way. I think you'll be thankful that I'm in such great shape, babe."
Beca shifts restlessly, a canary caught between a cat's jaws. She stares at a spot on the wall as the redhead pulls at her ear with her teeth, soothing with a light flick of her tongue. She feels the coiling, low in her gut, winding tighter as she's suddenly reminded how turned on she was earlier in the day.
"You're right, what was I thinking?", Beca mutters as she turns to meet Chloe. She barely registers the smirk gracing red lips before she's sinking into the kiss.
It's hot and heavy from the start, the static that's been building all day finally sparking and setting the room on fire like it's been filled with gasoline. Chloe nudges the brunette down so she can lie on top of her as their legs tangle. Smooth hands run up her sides, brushing her ribs like Chloe's an archaeologist dusting off precious artifacts. Beca grunts as the redhead uses those perfectly manicured nails to scratch down with a low chuckle against her mouth.
The brunette surges up, pushing into the kiss and licking into Chloe's mouth. She can tell how well-received her actions are by how deeply the redhead moans, gripping at her hip and rolling into it. It feels like a lava flow, slow and steady and fiery. She's suffused in Chloe again, tasting her in the air and on her tongue. Beca lets her head fall back as her hips are pulled against a knee, shutting her eyes and running her hands through her hair.
As she looks at Chloe, she sees that the redhead has her head bowed, resting her forehead on Beca's collar bone, focusing on rocking her knee into the brunette. She reaches down to pull swollen lips back to hers and raises her own knee to give Chloe some relief. It draws out a light whimper, pushed out on the end of a whine.
They move against each other, and Beca's one half of a whirling tornado, stirring and pulsing with all of everything that's between her and Chloe. She can't seem to get close enough, grabbing at the redhead's shirt like a lifeline. She keeps pulling, but they're still too far away. Beca considers just tearing her shirt off. Chloe breathes out against her lips, clicking her teeth like she finds something funny and wants to bite. Licking the brunette's bottom lip, she purrs, "Baby, I really like this shirt. Please don't rip it."
Beca's hands feel like they're going to be sore from how tensely she's holding onto the fabric. She spreads her hands wide and lets go, giving the redhead a searing glare.
"Then take it off, or I will tear it off." And she really didn't mean to, but it comes out in a growl. Fortunately, Chloe's eyes darken and she accepts the command.
Laying beneath Chloe like this, with the redhead shirtless, she thinks about how glad she is that Chloe is so dedicated to her body. The brunette reaches out and runs a palm up Chloe's abdomen, feeling the muscle tense under soft skin. She hears Chloe's breath hitch, sees her hands fist on her thighs. She can practically feel how much the woman is holding herself back, giving Beca the time she needs to examine Aphrodite's temple. Not that Chloe would ever call herself that, but the brunette really can't help but make the comparison.
Beca sits up, surprising her, and buries her face in the redhead's neck. Chloe's hands come around to rest over her shoulders, idly running fingers through dark locks. The brunette takes the time to breathe deeply, just reveling in the moment. "I'm so glad that I met you."
She can feel the gentle smile in the way Chloe combs through her hair. Feel it in how softly the redhead rests her head against Beca's, nuzzling and pressing a barely there kiss to it like a whisper in the wind. With a cute little breath of a laugh, Chloe says, "I thought you were a badass." She tries to lessen the blow with another kiss, but it's too late.
The brunette tilts back towards the arm of the couch, biting out a, "I am. I'm tough and totally bad news. Don't you see my tattoos and piercings?" And yeah, it's more BS because her tattoos are deep and not skulls or spikes and even she knows she's not that tough (her girlfriend is actually more of a badass), but she's come 24 years with this. Beca scoffs. "I swear, it's like we don't even know each other." Chloe doesn't seem the least bit convinced, instead looking like she's the big wolf in a story where little furry things are eaten. Beca feels like she's giving off 'delicious forest critter' vibes.
Her redheaded wolf leans in, gripping Beca's thighs in a vice, crooning into her ear, an angel sound all sultry and salacious. "Baby you're no gooood, 'cause they warned me 'bout your type girl." Her reaction is immediate. It's a wet fire glissading down, dripping and melting everything. It's wild and hot and sucks all of the air out of the room.
"Baby you're no gooood. Think I fell for you, I fell for you, I fell for you." She resettles on Beca's lap, hands massaging the brunette's shoulders, serenading Beca with a voice like liquid sex. She's grinding in time to the lyrics of The Weeknd's 'Acquainted' like she wrote the song herself, just for this moment.
"You got me puttin' time in, time in. Nobody got me feelin' this wayy." And Beca has no idea how she hasn't just completely been absorbed by the couch, feeling like a puddle, the remnants of an ice block under the scorching heat of her personal sun. She can feel Chloe's chest brushing against her with every roll of redhead's hips, dark blue lace straining around ample breasts.
Chloe skips over a couple of lines, instead simply humming as she works Beca over. The brunette's hands are clamped over Chloe's waist and her mouth feels like a desert. She figures it's probably because all of the moisture in her body has moved south. She reaches behind to unclasp Chloe's bra, exhaling in admiration. The redhead is still moving on top of her, winking and piercing Beca with a hooded gaze as she purrs out, "girl, I'm so glad we're acquainted."
The brunette dips her head down to kiss along Chloe's collarbone, dropping to the swell of a breast. The lyrics are interspersed with sighs that are coming more frequently. When she takes the redhead's nipple into her mouth, Chloe's singing cuts off, replaced with a cry and a breathy, "oh god." She throws her head back and runs a hand through her hair, grinding down harder.
Beca licks up to her ear, singing a line from the song, "You got me touchin' on your bodyy." And it seems like it's the right thing to do, because the redhead jerks her up roughly by the collar of her shirt, locking her in a bruising kiss that takes the air out of her lungs.
Beca's never really experienced the kind of all-consuming obsession that she's heard others use to describe people they liked. She's always been a careful kind of girlfriend, dating but not getting so invested or reliant. Jesse once described her as a "bottomless pit of emotionless sarcasm" jokingly. People have thought of her as uncaring because of her issues, and rightfully so. It's taken a lot of work to get to the point where she doesn't feel the need to kick in place of a hug, or to hightail it when someone admits to liking her in any way.
Everything that she feels with Chloe is new. It's a new experience, to think about someone from the moment she wakes up until she goes to sleep. It's new, feeling such an intense fluttering of butterflies that it's more like a sandstorm. It's new to look at someone and feel like you just can't see enough, that you can't be close enough, that nothing short of coalescence is sufficient. She's never felt this way about anything, the way she feels about Chloe.
So when she moves her hand to the button of Chloe's shorts, it's with this revelation in mind. The redhead sucks in a breath, snapping her eyes to Beca's face, searching. "Becs?"
The look that Chloe is giving her is supercharged and swirling with emotion. Beca nods. "I'm sure. I... I lo-" Chloe's eyes widen.
Like a blast from the past, an interruption arrives. This time, it's in the form of Aubrey opening the front door, some old song falling from her lips as she strides in, perfectly calm and unaware. Beca's noise of shock draws attention to them, something like a mouse being stepped on. Everything freezes as the three process the situation. Then, Aubrey drops her keys on the floor and screams.
That prompts Chloe to scream as well, and she ducks down into the brunette's chest. At the same time that Beca instinctively begins to roll off the couch, her arms wrap around the redhead. There's a solid thump from between the couch and coffee table.
Chloe sits up, grabbing her shirt from the floor and covering herself with it.
"Aubrey! What are you doing here!? I thought you were spending the weekend at your parents'!", she screeches out around a blush. The blonde stomps her foot and puts her hands on her hips.
"God, Chloe! I told you I WASN'T! Is this what you do when I'm not home?!" Beca winces as the yelling gets louder. She wants to de-escalate the situation, but she's not sure how to. She's pretty sure a joke would only make everything worse.
As Chloe gets dressed, the two bicker back and forth. Aubrey demands they get the couch steam cleaned, to which the redhead angrily replies that they didn't get far enough to warrant that kind of intensive cleaning. Beca decides to quietly eat the rest of her fries.
"So, that was fun. I'm super glad the drill sergeant came home. I haven't been yelled at like that since I was a teenager." Chloe's remorseful puppy eyes tug at Beca's heart strings. "I'm really sorry, Becs. I should've listened harder."
"It's fine, we should have been in here anyways." The brunette muses whether it would have been worse if it was Jesse. Probably.
They've relocated to Chloe's bedroom, lying side by side. The redhead has her head resting on her elbow, in between Beca and the wall. The brunette is staring at the ceiling, sorting through her feelings in the background as they converse. Chloe sighs, wriggling a bit as she stretches. "She's crazy if she thinks I'm getting that couch steam cleaned. We were dressed."
At the arcing of Beca's eyebrow, the redhead shrugs a shoulder, a flirty smirk on her lips. "Well, mostly dressed. Point is, I wasn't rolling around butt naked on it."
It's said casually, but it has a big impact. Beca is assailed with images of a fully naked Chloe, writhing beneath her, heated and wild, letting loose wanton noises. It's insane, how intensely things concerning Chloe make her feel. Beneath her daydream, she can hear the redhead saying something. Refocusing her eyes, she sees the woman watching her, the embodiment of a firecracker, waiting for a spark to set her off. Before Chloe can say anything, Beca opens her mouth.
"Yes, I was thinking about you naked. Yes, it was hot. Yes, I'm bothered." And she just rolls her eyes at the tremendous solar blast of a grin her words evoke. The redhead looks like she just got all of the good Halloween candy and Christmas presents on her birthday. It kind of illuminates the whole room and Beca fights the urge to squint her eyes. Turning her body to face Chloe, she pushes a fiery lock behind her ear, tracing the shell of it.
"I know I almost said something, and I know you probably know what I was going to say. I still..." Beca drifts off. "Like, I think-" she stops and forcefully pushes a breath out, trying to find a way to say what she means without making it seem like she was unsure or regretful. The silence stretches for a few minutes, with only their breathing between them. Worry begins to collect on the redhead's brow, beading in small amounts and gathering in between her eyebrows and at the corners of her mouth, pulling them down. Beca kisses her forehead, tapping Chloe's chin with her index finger to bring their lips together, establishing a physical connection that will soothe them both.
"I'm just being dumb. Everything with you feels so crazy and new and amazing and I just, I need time to process it. Is that okay?" And now she's the one with the furrowed brow, the one with the worry and the anxiety. But she's forgotten who she's talking to, because it's Chloe.
The woman who, after only two weeks of knowing each other, showed up to her apartment when Beca was sick carrying chicken soup and spewing a corny song like she was a singing gram. Who delivered the most ridiculous one-liners between spoonfuls that she had to feed Beca. Chloe is the woman who admitted to usually falling into relationships quickly, jumping into bed, who nodded like it was no big deal when Beca wanted to take it slowly even though the brunette could see how badly her arousal messed with her. This is Chloe that she's talking to, who's been looking at Beca like she could fly. She exhales deeply, staring into eyes that seemed like they never stopped sparkling.
Chloe reaches out, tracing the line of Beca's jaw delicately, brushing her fingers across with such an aching tenderness that the brunette feels her eyes water. They dance briefly over her lips and then continue their trek. Her eyes close of their own volition, spurred by the magnitude of the emotion pouring through Chloe's touch.
"Beca, of course it's okay. I'm not going anywhere." A patient smile, like there's absolutely no rush in the world.
Aubrey walks by, knocking loudly on the door as she passes. "You'd better steam that couch, Chlo!" The redhead sits up, yelling at the door. "If you hassle me about the couch ONE more time, Aubrey, I'm going to burn it!"
And yeah, of course it's okay, it's Chloe.
Beca changed her mind. It's not okay. Nothing is okay.
"I regret this so much. Why did I believe you?" There's a grunt from behind her.
"Don't be such a sourpuss, babe. This is fun! We're bonding!" She turns to glower at the redhead, covered in mud and still looking like sunshine.
"Yeah, babe. Great idea. Thanks for convincing us to come bond." Cynthia Rose snarks over Chloe's shoulder, just as muddy as the rest of them.
They're at Aubrey's other job, as an actual drill sergeant, being yelled at by the blonde to "buckle up! Work together ladies!", with her trained singing voice, bellowing from her diaphragm. Beca knew it. She knew that the niggling in the back of her mind was warning her about something.
But no. She had to be weak. She had to be swayed by a beautiful redhead with her winsome smile and adorable little pout, pulling on Beca's shirt and saying, "Please, baby? For me?" with her tone a mix between begging and whining. And now here she was, paying the price by crawling through the muck and bonding. Her contempt for the situation causes her internal scoff to materialize.
"Shawshank, you're a terrible person, and I just wanted to be a good friend and let you know that, yeah." Fat Amy lies on the other side of the mud pit, looking very much like a mound of wet dirt. Her eyes are closed.
Directly in front of her, Stacie is slumped over, half in and half out of the mud, exhausted from trying to help Amy out. She laughs with her head on her forearms, face turned into the ground.
"We can't be too mad. If I had someone like Chloe to sleep with, I'd agree to stupid things, too." There's a lot of sputtering from Beca, from the comment and from the mud that she's battling. Whose idea of bonding is this?
"We're not-!.. No. You know what? Green isn't flattering on any of you." She climbs over the last log with a grunt, pushing Chloe back into the wet slush when she comes up behind, gearing up to join the teasing. Her high-pitched shriek is worth it.
"Beca!" As the brunette sits on the edge of the pit, she grins at the sight before her.
Chloe's one big stick of mud, luminous blue eyes the only thing any color other than a murky tan. And she's frowning, hands on her hips, still one log between them. "You jerk!"
She can't help but throw her head back and laugh fully, because okay, guilty. She was a little bit of an ass. Through her tears she sees the redhead approaching with a face like thunder. Beca scrambles up and away, dodging Chloe as she lunges. "Get back here!"
The brunette maneuvers back passed the rest of the group, passed Jessica who was helping Ashley through the mud pit. She jumped over Lilly, lying on the ground making a mud angel while Flo scraped mud chunks out of her hair next to her. Hot on her heels, like a hellion in the night, was one Chloe Beale.
She must have run track in high school.
Ignoring Aubrey's shouts, the brunette makes for the woods, intent on hiding out until Chloe cooled off. She quickly makes her way past the first few lines of trees. Before she knows what's going on, she's in the air, suspended in a net. "Whoa!"
Caught between the exhilaration of running for her life and the adrenaline of being trapped in a net, she goes silent. Underneath her, Chloe races by and further into the woods. The brunette takes a second to admire her form and speed. Because yeah, that's still a thing.
After she's done smirking about evading her girlfriend, it dawns on her that Chloe was the only person who saw her this far out. "Oh my god, what if I die out here? Oh no. I still need to learn how to juggle! I-"
In the middle of her panic and wondering if she should have replied to that post card Sheila sent her from their trip to Florida, Beca hears a creaking from above her. Fearing that the branch she's suspended on is cracking, she twists her head up, already praying in advance.
From among the leaves, Lilly is hanging upside down, staring at the brunette with eyes wide open. Air leaves the brunette's lung in a loud whoosh, expelled with all of the rush of a flash flood. Relief about not dying out here fills her.
"Lilly! Help me!"
The Asian woman descends on the anchoring rope, climbing downwards like Spiderman. Once she reaches Beca, Lilly licks the side of her face and gently pats it. It's weird, but it's Lilly. With a strangely intense whispering, she produces a kunai and saws into the rope, allowing Beca to fall through the hole and into the leaves.
"Oof!"
Lilly lands beside her, completely silent, even in the crunchy leaf litter. Beca groans.
"Ow. Thanks for saving my life, Lilly." Her ghostly friend opens her mouth to speak, but stops when she hears rustling from far off. She instead squats down to pat Beca a couple of times on the head succinctly, a one-two flat-palmed little thing, before springing away like a deer. The brunette briefly considers calling after her, but rethinks her decision. Just as she's getting up and peeling leaves off of herself, she feels a burning sensation on the back of her head. She doesn't even have to turn around to know.
"There you are, you little sneak." The tone is low.
Beca spins around, ready to wink her way out of trouble, but before she's even finished turning, Chloe has her pinned against the tree by her shoulders. For all of that sprinting, she's not even remotely winded. The brunette swallows nervously and blows out a tiny laugh that cracks in the middle like a ship about to sink. "H-hey Chlo, so, you're looking really pret-wah! Okay!"
Chloe hikes Beca's legs up with her 'bungee-con' arms and steps in to support her weight. It's a pretty provocative situation, admittedly. The brunette's arms fly to Chloe's shoulders reflexively. She wants to ask a question, about what's going on or if she's going to die out here, but her words die in her throat.
The redhead's stare bores into her, eyes like a roaring flame. Beca briefly remembers comparing Chloe to a wolf, and sees the humor in being pinned against a tree in the woods by the very same woman. She feels a lot like lunch.
"So, uh... about earlier..." Beca has never really seen eyes actually flash in any way, but right now it seems it would be the first time she experiences it. Chloe's hands slide from the backs of her thighs to squeeze her ass. As her eyebrows fly off of her face, the redhead smirks.
"You're such a jerk, Beca Mitchell. You didn't even make sure that I was okay." And she doesn't sound as upset, instead kinda like she's already gotten her revenge. Considering their positions, Beca would agree.
"But you're totally okay. It's just mud. Did you get hurt?" The redhead nods.
"I've got a little boo boo. Kiss it better?" The pout on her face is ridiculous, but the brunette feels herself falling for it anyways.
"You're just as pretty covered in mud, Beale. It's really not fair," she sighs, wrapping a hand around Chloe's neck to pull her in. As their lips connect, Beca idly notices how long the redhead's lashes are.
It's never been a secret that Chloe's coquettish. She's as slyly flirtatious as they come, especially where Beca's concerned. She uses her skill in that area to manipulate the brunette and it's pretty much a fact. Stacie was right, Chloe convinces her to do a lot that she would normally say no to.
It's not so bad though, because she's experienced so many new and sometimes wonderful things with the redhead's encouragement. As Beca thinks about how all of the struggling through the obstacle courses and the mud pit lead to this moment - after the almost dying in the bear trap, that is - she's grateful for how easily she's swayed by Chloe.
"Are you really saying that those bear traps are for our safety? Because I didn't feel so safe when I almost died." Aubrey seems to have a bit of a smug smirk.
"Yes, Beca. They not only encourage camp-goers to stay on the trails, but keep bears from coming too far into camp." The brunette scoffs and gathers her shower items. She can feel the blonde watching her, and wonders where Chloe went.
"What are your intentions with my best friend, Beca?" She sighs, knowing that this conversation was going to come up sooner or later.
The brunette throws a towel over her shoulder and turns around. This isn't really a conversation she wants to have standing outside the tent that she's going to have to share with a bunch of other women in the middle of the woods. Tilting her head towards the showers, she makes her way over as Aubrey follows.
"I really like Chloe. She's special." The blonde hums beside her, but remains silent. Beca squints up at the sky for a second, figuring out her words.
"I've never like... I'm not just playing around." She doesn't know if it's enough, but the brunette doesn't want to say too much, admitting feelings to the blonde that she hasn't even told Chloe yet. Thankfully, Aubrey seems to understand enough about Beca to know that she can be hard to pry specificity from.
"Do you see yourself with Chloe five years from now?" Beca raises her eyebrows and turns to stare at Aubrey, stumbling a bit as they walk.
"You do know we've only been together for like, a couple of months, right?" She hears her own voice mocking her in the back of her mind, reliving her near-confession the day Chloe almost burned her couch. Aubrey shrugs.
"If you can't even imagine it vaguely at this point, Beca, with how much time you two spend together, then you have no business being with her. I don't want her falling for you more before you decide that you really don't want to be with her. It would break her heart, and I can't let that happen again if I have a chance to protect her." And Beca's ready to bite back, to put Aubrey in her place, but she realizes that the blonde is right. Her throat burns harshly, and it pulls her back to a memory from a month ago.
Beca's sitting at her desk, playing around on a mixing program Jesse got for her. She likes the challenge of putting songs together, to make things that would otherwise never work fit seamlessly. She pulls the bottom of her skirt down a little to adjust it.
Behind her, Chloe stretches on the brunette's bed, rustling around after a quick cat nap she had no intention of taking. She hums into her stretch. "Mmm, why did you let me fall asleep, Becs?" And she has to turn away when the redhead rubs her eyes, because she's so cute that Beca's heart squeezes painfully. Chair turned back towards the laptop, she shrugs.
"You seemed tired. It's fine, I don't mind a relaxing day. Should we order in?" Beca picks her phone up from beside her. "What do you want?" She feels the redhead drape herself over the back of the chair. A hand burrows into her locks, combing through them. The other hand runs down Beca's arm to toy with her fingers.
"Aside from you?" Like it's nothing. "Maybe like, Thai or something. What are you feeling?" Over the last month, the brunette has come to realize just how touchy and flirtatious the redhead is. Beca supposes that to her, a question like that is just a statement of fact. Chloe rests her head on Beca's shoulder, nudging it with hers.
Turning her head, she mumbles, "I'm feeling you, I think." And there's this minuscule curving of lips, a small twist that indicates that Chloe's charmed by the response but won't make it a huge moment. She presses a kiss to the brunette's lips, withdrawing to let the smile grow.
They decide to get Thai food after playing 'Indecision Ping Pong', where they keep passing the choice to the other. As Beca puts the phone down, Chloe returns from the bathroom, pressing a towel to her face. Instead of letting her go back to sitting on the bed by herself, Beca gets up to tackle her. With a giggle and a shriek, they go down in a heap on the duvet.
She's covered in piles of Chloe's hair as they lie next to each other, all of these fiery waves. She's breathless, for no other reason than the redhead. "You took forever in the bathroom, dude." Another giggle, another wink, another painful heart squeeze.
"Aw, did 'Badass Beca' miss her lil' ol' redhead?" And she doesn't wait for Beca to say anything, just laughing like she knows exactly how the denial will go.
"Yeah, actually, I did." The brunette sees she's caught Chloe by surprise from the way her eyebrows lift. She's pleased, though. Chloe slowly rolls them over, curtaining them with her hair.
"Well, are you going to show me how much you missed me?" A self-satisfied smirk. Beca leans up, pressing a kiss at the same time that she slides her hand over a hip and into the back pocket of Chloe's jeans.
As with every other time they're this close, things get heated pretty quickly. Chloe seems especially appreciative of the skirt that she chose to wear today, running eager hands up and down her thighs. "Thank God for skirts." What else can she do but huff a laugh in response? Because yeah, thank God, indeed.
"I'm glad you like it, Chlo."
In lieu of words, the redhead puts her hand on Beca's ass, grinning like a bandit at her when she pulls away. She's about to spout off a flirty remark when Chloe squeezes hard. "Oh yeah, I definitely like it, Beca. You should wear more skirts." Shutting her eyes, she nods in response, biting her lip as she fights the urge to seek relief against the body above her.
Distantly, she notes that Chloe is beginning to slide down, but it's only when the hand moves away to lift her shirt that she really pays any attention. From between her legs, Chloe's sliding her shirt up. The redhead rests her head on Beca's bare stomach, looking as content as a tiger in the sun. The air is full of honey, so sweet it's heavy, but this moment that they're in is soft as a feather, so light it only needs the slightest draft to float up, twirling.
"Y'know, Aubrey is jealous of you." That pops the bubble they've been sitting in, and Beca bunches her eyebrows together.
"What do you mean? Does she- does she like you or something?" Chloe wrinkles her nose and shakes her head, relaxed.
"No, just that, I've been spending all of my free time with you and she's upset that she only sees me as I'm leaving in the morning and sometimes when I get back at night. I feel bad because I was just thinking about how I could do this forever with you." And still so casual, still just a statement of facts. Beca opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
It's like her throat has been filled with hot lead and she's afraid to try speaking again. She's afraid that if she opens her mouth, she might cry instead. Chloe's just there, laying her head on her stomach, hands laced together under her chin, not rushing, not hurrying to do anything. Just happy to be where they are, hanging out in a bedroom. Beca shakes her head.
"I've never met anyone like you, Chloe." The tiger stretches, a little mewl sneaking out.
"Yeah, I've been told I'm one of a kind. Usually it's in a bad way, because I'm pretty outgoing and it makes people uncomfortable." She laughs at herself, agreeing with that assessment. And that's just wrong, because Chloe shouldn't feel that way about herself, that she ever makes anyone feel bad just by being how she is.
"No, you're one of a kind, in the best way possible. I'll say it however much and in whatever way I need to." Beca needs Chloe to understand it. She pulls one of the redhead's hands to her mouth, kissing her knuckles, staring into sky blue eyes. Chloe nibbles on her lip, a blush forming. She takes her hand back to crawl up and kiss Beca.
"I don't know how this isn't a dream, Beca. Sometimes it feels like you're too good to be true." The doorbell rings, and Chloe slides away. She squeezes Beca's knee affectionately, pressing a long kiss to it, closing her eyes and inhaling, before getting up completely and going to get the door.
Beca covers her face with her hands, struggling to put her heart back into her chest. She feels like she's just been electrocuted. The tears she was trying to push away spring up, a couple of them escaping before she takes a deep inhale to settle herself. There's a small knock, and Beca looks up. It's Chloe, leaning against the doorframe, head rested against it. "You okay, Becs?"
Beca nods, the beginnings of a smile making its way out from underneath her feelings.
"Yeah. I'm great. I'm just happy."
When she turns back to look at Aubrey, she wonders what her face looks like. She feels like someone's been trying to strangle her while she was reminiscing, and her eyes burn like she'd put onions in them. As she tries to clear her throat, she can definitely hear how wet the sound is.
"I don't know what else to tell you, Aubrey, other than that nobody has ever made me feel this way. I'll be with Chloe for as long as she wants me." And it's not quite a confession of love, but it's as close as one can get without saying the words, because Beca pretty much just promised forever. The blonde studies her.
"You're good for Chloe. You keep her grounded. You help her in a way that I can't. So for that, thank you." Beca nods, and Aubrey keeps talking. "But if you hurt her, if you break her heart because you don't want to do this, I swear that I will do everything that I can to break you back. Chloe feels everything with her whole heart. When it breaks, it breaks fully too."
"We both know how special Chloe is, Aubrey." She rubs her knuckle over the bridge of her nose. "We both know she's too good for this world."
And like fate, like destiny, like magic, Beca's eyes are drawn to the redhead. Through the trees, passed the cabins, across the distance. Chloe is standing by the lake, trying to skip rocks with Amy and Flo. Amy's cast goes horribly wrong, flying off to the side and into the grass. The blonde gesticulates wildly, spitting out what Beca assumes are colorful insults. Chloe throws her head back, arms around her stomach, laughing so loudly that Beca can hear it from where she stands.
She really has no idea how long she stares, but when she remembers Aubrey, she notices the soft smile the blonde has.
"Maybe you're okay after all, Beca."
