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One of the first things that Beca determines in the morning is that she definitely doesn't have as many knots in her neck as she expected sleeping on the floor would warrant. Which is nice.
It's also not lost on her, however, that there is a particularly sweaty arm wrapped around her midrift, and her sleep-slobber had pasted a lock of hair against her face, which is totally disgusting. She feels like she'd just spent the last few hours in a steam room. Even her eyelids kind of stick together when she tries to open them, and she sort of swivels her neck as much as she can to take in her surroundings.
It's not entirely light out yet, which must mean it's pretty early. But there are a few discarded sleeping bags strewn around the floor, where she imagines a few other Bellas must have woken up and decided that they'd participated in the sleepover situation enough to relocate themselves in the morning. Amy, Stacie, and Lily are still situated here in the living room, however.
And Chloe.
With said sweaty appendage strewn across her.
But if the other Bellas are allowed to jump ship, Beca is absolutely not abiding by the rule that she must stay.
Exhaling through her nose, Beca carefully wriggles her hand down the sleeping bag until she reaches Chloe's arm, wrapping her fingers around the lithe wrist and, awkwardly trying to remove it from her person. A task proved more difficult than she first thought it would be. Chloe's dead weight was like a vicegrip and Beca has never boasted about her upper body strength. She sort of manages to loosen it as she pushes though, trying to brush Chloe's arm off of her. Through her sleep, Chloe must sort of sense the movement, because there's a deep huff of an inhale followed by a grunt. Beca freezes. She'd kind of feel like an ass waking Chloe up, which is stupid because she knows that Chloe could still probably sleep like a baby somewhere in the middle of the woods, but still.
She goes over the choreo they'd recently gotten down in her head a few times. Wonders if they're going to need to do another one of those fundraiser mixers for one of the frat houses again, now that they're out of actual tour gigs to give the Bellas some extra funds. They haven't had to do one of those since their 'Barnyard Explosion' freshman year; and that memory alone is enough to make Beca cringe and not want to proceed in anything that embarrassing ever again. However, she remembers that it was also right before Chloe had confessed her nodes diagnosis; though the imminent threat of never being able to sing again lingered near for Chloe, Beca could admire her determination. And she remembers that portion of the day fondly; Amy's brash and completely inappropriate response, and even Aubrey's quick concern.
It was the first time Beca's really felt love and connection for the group as an entirety. Though, she's never admitted out loud. The bunch of nerds didn't need to know that; they'd get mushy or something.
After what must be a few minutes of silent contemplation, she winces before attempting to detach Chloe from her once more. Chloe grunts in her sleep again as Beca tries to push the girl's hand past her hip and off of her, and Beca tries to weigh in whether or not she should just do it fast, like a Bandaid.
"Becs," Chloe murmurs, softly, just above a whisper. She can hear the smirk in her voice, though, and Beca frowns. "Where are you taking me?" She sounds happy to be along for the ride- teasing- looking for a reaction.
"Turn it off, perve." She mutters back, deciding that since Chloe was awake already, she'd might as well just finish shoving the girl's arm back into her own personal space, and out of Beca's. Though in the confines of this sleeping bag, the line was incredibly blurred as to where who's starts and who's ends. "I'm going to bed."
There's a beat, in which Beca sort of wiggles her way farther out of the bag, silently reveling in the cool air that meets her outside of the bag. "I can't turn it off." Chloe finally answers, still with the same badgering lilt to her voice, though her next words are spoken with an exaggerated pout. "Not by myself." Beca steels herself, glancing at Chloe for the first time over her shoulder to make sure that the girl sees her roll her eyes. Chloe's still laying, with her head rested in the crook of one arm and the other- the one Beca had thrown from her- brought up and planted flat against the bottom of the sleeping bag. Her red hair tousled and messy and her eyes were still a little puffy, but the longer Beca looked at her, a dopey kind of smile stretched across her face, and Beca just knew something was coming. Chloe raises her eyebrows at her earnestly. "Wanna know where my off switch is?"
"Oh my God." It's still a whisper, but there's a bit of an effort to keep it at that level.
"I'll give you a hint- it's right next to the on switch."
"And," Beca pushes herself all the way out of the sleeping bag. "That's my cue." Chloe giggles to herself, nestling herself in against the sleeping bag once more without a word. Beca collects the few blankets and pillows of hers that hadn't been Shanghai'd by the other Bellas, and tiptoes her way back up to her room.
The next time she wakes, it's at a more respectable time, in her opinion. The snow had stopped falling, but when she pulls the curtains back on the one window next to her bed, she squints against the brightness of the world greeting her, and groans about the size of the snowdrifts out there.
The city crews must have been working all night, because the power had returned, even if the snowplows hadn't quite made their way to Barden yet. It takes the better part of a half an hour to psych herself up and ask her boss if he expected her in, or if she could perhaps suggest that she may not be able to make it in, in lieu of the snowfall. But when she finally composes the email- takes another five minutes before convincing herself to hit send- she slams the lid down of her laptop with a bit more brute force than necessary, and a bubble in her chest that feels both like anxiety and relief.
And then she lays in bed, still trying to improve her overall rest. At some point close to noon, Amy finally staggers up the stairs; Beca hears her coming, and greets her as she gets to the top. "When'd you sneak back up here, Shortstack?"
"This morning," Beca says truthfully, knowing full well that she would berate her if it was any other time. "Early."
Amy rubs at the sleep in the corner of her eye, nods, grunts as she slumps back to her bed, and mumbles something mostly incoherent about her spine and the Australian outback. When her snores signify her consciousness, and Beca's end of peace and quiet, she unplugs her laptop and tucks it under her arm, making her way back down the staircase.
The Bellas house is quiet. Like the snow that was pressing on the building from the sides provided extra insulation, absorbed all sound. Sure, she could hear the muffled, quiet voices from the TV in Flo's room when she passes, and a shower running when she passes the bathroom. But there's a thick silence, it seems like. And when she glances out the window and sees that blinding white again, she frowns. It reminds her a little too much of her adolescence at her mother's.
With that thought in mind, she halts, one foot hovering thoughtfully over the top step of the second staircase, before she wheels and returns to her bedroom. She snatches up her headphones, curses when she bumps her toe into the corner of her desk in her retreat, and steals a look in Amy's direction; fearing the outburst might have woken her. But it hadn't, so she relaxes, and continues on her venture downstairs. By the time she makes it to the living room- mostly cleaned, but still a little bit haphazard- she'd booted up her laptop and had her headphones fastened snugly around her head. With a sigh, she plops down on the far end of the couch and pulls a leftover pillow across her lap, and opens her mixing program. She doesn't even want to think about whether or not Sammy has read her email yet.
As usual, she obsesses over the demo of the last mix for the Bellas she'd done. Tweaking. Listening over and over, until Natalia Kills and Skrillex sound like robots in her ears and she has to open up a fresh program for a new start. She stares. Does nothing. Opens up the mix she'd been working on last night when Chloe had entered and they had their bizarre sing-off session. The intricacies of which Beca wouldn't like to think too deeply into, due to the fact that the second her mind skirts around Chloe lately, she hears Jesse. Which isn't cool. Because Chloe is her friend, and there's something wrong when she can't consider talking or thinking about her without seeing Jesse's annoying puppy-pout in the forefront of her mind.
And with that, Beca grunts and closes her laptop, slipping the headphones off of her head and around her neck with a haughty huff, before there's movement in her peripheral vision that catches her attention.
Stacie stands there, eyebrows raised curiously, overflowing laundry basket clasped in her hands. "Alright, Becs?" She asks after a pause that was spent entirely with them staring at each other, even though Beca had been embarrassed about being caught in the middle of a temper tantrum.
And no, she's not alright, she's annoyed to no end, actually. There's not an idea in her head about how to work around the situation that didn't include just breaking up with Jesse. And that idea in itself was both unappealing yet liberating. She's not entirely sure how to proceed, because in all honesty, she'd never had to break up with anyone because there hadn't ever been anyone in her life before Jesse that she'd officially 'dated'. And she'd never been one to talk things out with the gals, because having a close-knit group of friends was also something Beca had never experienced before Barden. Compartmentalizing was generally more of her forte in her youth. She wasn't very good at it, but it was just how she worked things out. The problem is that, compartmentalizing is just getting harder for her as she grows.
Beca can feel her mouth open and close a few times; battling the urge to ask Stacie for advice. It's new ground. Chloe was usually the person she'd open up to, or occasionally Amy. But in this situation, Chloe doesn't seem right and Amy had never been the best when it comes to relationship advice; moreso she was a great confidence booster, even if it was often done in bizarre ways.
But, she supposes, if anyone would know relationship advice, it would be Stacie.
"No?" It comes out uncertain and squeaky, and she purses her lips in a thin line as she takes a deep breath. Stacie cocks her head to the side, taking a few small steps closer to her. "I mean," Beca taps her fingers against the top of her computer, trying to string the words together in a sentence to say out loud. "I just..." Stacie gently places the laundry basket on top of the tabletop, before crossing the room to sit in the loveseat, legs crossed and hands planted firmly on top of her knee. Beca is immediately struck by how much she looks like a therapist- all that was needed to complete the image would be a pair of glasses. "When do you know it's time to break up with someone?" It leaves her in a rush, and she averts her eyes for a moment after she says it.
Stacie hums. "Ah, boy trouble."
"Well," Reproachfully, she returns her gaze at the other girl. "Sort of."
Stacie clucks her tongue. "You can tell Aunt Stace." She urges softly, but not without making an arguably comedic pause, reaching forward and patting Beca on the knee in a motherly fashion. It only furthers her sense of how out-of-the-box this interaction is, on her part, at least. Stacie, on the other hand, Beca figures would sit down with a complete stranger to give them romantic advice. It's one of the things that she and Chloe have in common. "Would you like tea? Do we need tea? Wine? Vodka? I can make tea."
Surprised at the sudden shift, Beca raises her hands. "No, no thank you." Stacie just nods her understanding, leaning back slightly in her seat. Awkwardly, Beca folds and unfolds her hands. She may as well just spit it out. "I just- I mean, like, I like Jesse. He's great. He's been a good, fine boyfriend." The need to clarify this is strong for her, because it's true and she knows it- that's part of the reason why it's eating her up. "But I just don't know if he... if we, if we're working anymore, you know?" Stacie just hums again, narrowing her eyes slightly as a sign of her contemplation. "I thought it was just a rough patch, like, all relationships have rough patches right? But it just... we haven't really progressed, I don't think. I don't know. It's weird, dude."
"Well," The other girl says it with an exhale, running the palms of her hands over the fabric of her jeans. "In my experience," Beca takes a moment to appreciate the fact that she can pretty much be confident in Stacie's knowledge on the subject. "It's time to break it off with a partner when it honestly just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort. Simple as that." She raises her hands into the air in a partial-shrug, and suddenly Beca isn't quite so certain in her choices.
"Yeah, but,"
"But nothing," Stacie interrupts. "I'm not saying that doesn't mean they- Jesse- aren't good people, but listen to me child,"
"Older than you, actually, by like two weeks,"
Stacie just raises her voice. "If you feel drained-" Subsequently, Beca shushes her, immediately checking over her shoulders to make sure there were no other Bellas lurking. "If it's bringing you down, if it's making you feel down," The girl pauses, quirking a brow as though challenging Beca to say something. She just levels Stacie with an exasperated glare. "Then it's not the end of the world to just break it off. If he's your friend, if he wants to be mature about it, he will still be there afterwards. And if it's right, then, you can always try it again."
She could be right.
She probably is, and Beca knows it, but the stubborn part of her is still screaming at her various different "but Jesse," scenarios. But Jesse and I were so good. But Jesse is different. But Jesse and I have so much history. But Jesse is the first guy I've ever felt happy with.
She can't just pretend Stacie doesn't know what she's talking about though, because it makes sense. Jesse should be a bigger person, right? If Beca were to breakup with him.
She's too busy over-analyzing it to really pay any attention to Stacie as she stands, sighs, picks her laundry basket up, and then when she pats Beca reassuringly on the head, it jolts her out of her thoughts. "Think about it, DJ B."
She does. For the next three hours she agonizes over it. Even after she sees Sammy's response- still calling her Reggie, but telling her that he'll see her in the office tomorrow- she returns to her bedroom and buries herself in her blankets for a while. Amy had woken up at one point, they'd had a short conversation that didn't do much to distract her, and then the Tasmanian had gotten a text message and not so subtly, she was off to get a "smoothie". By now, Beca knew it was code for seeing Bumper.
Stacie is right.
She should breakup with Jesse.
It's something she's known for a while. She should do it. Procrastinating, however, is a larger talent of hers than actually, you know, facing anything she doesn't want to deal with. Like Jesse's teary-eyed reaction or his anger, or the general sensation that she might be making a mistake, even if she knows deep down that it's right. Like she somehow failed him. Like somehow she's failed everyone, when her dad inevitably asks her why Jesse hasn't been attending family events anymore.
Mixing does absolutely nothing to help her work through it. She's in a rut. Mindlessly scrolling through Twitter does nothing, either, especially not when she sees that Amazonian German from DSM boasting about their acapella prowess, it just actually ends up stressing Beca more. In times like this, Chloe was usually her go-to, because she's great with distraction, but considering she's an unknowing part of Beca's problem, she nixes that idea. And with Chloe off the table, Beca feels grumpy and stumped. Lying, staring at the ceiling, with her phone sitting face-down on her chest. Because as much as the sudden, compelling need to break up with Jesse motivates her; there is no way she's trekking through all of that snow to do it.
A growling stomach is what alerts Beca to what time it really is. She'd been deep in Spotify looking for new artists, but when she pulls the blinds back and sees the night staring back at her- though muted and blue from all of the snow- she realizes that she definitely, probably, needs to eat something.
A small voice, one that Beca barely hears until she's halfway through the empty living room on her fast track to the kitchen. She stops, because, though the Bellas house affinity with a constant singing, Beca is always going to feel like walking in on someone singing is going to be embarrassing for them. Even if that person is Chloe. And she knows that Chloe couldn't care less. Naked singing, hello?
"Spin around now
Can you hear me?
Am I still buzzing in my sleep?
What does it feel like to shine between everything?"
Beca clears her throat subtly as she turns into the kitchen. "Wow," She remarks, smirking as she slides over to one of the island stools. "that sounds like another angsty song from your youth?"
Chloe glances at her from over her shoulder; where she's standing over the stove stirring a pot. It smells good. But she's smiling, small and quietly amused. "You just missed Stacie and CR, they were keeping me company in here."
"Well, now you have me." Chloe moves away from the pot, back towards the cutting board set on the counter to her left. The girl hums, and Beca watches for a moment as she begins slicing up a green bell pepper. "What are you making, anyway? Smells good."
Chloe pauses her chopping in order to send Beca another wry look over her shoulder. She puts on a thick Southern accent when she speaks her next few words. "Miss Mitchell, we is makin' gumbo."
Beca snorts. "Oh my God. Where are we, the bayou?"
"Mmhmm." Chloe plops the pieces of pepper, along with some garlic and onion, into the pot. "I lived in Louisiana for almost two years, of course I learned how to make gumbo."
"That's..." She has to jostle her memory for a moment, taken momentarily off guard by this information. Chloe must have told her that at some point. It takes a long, drawn out, befuddled second to find a strand of memory, but it's lodged in there, vaguely. "fair."
"Yeah, you hungry? You've been holed up in your room for a while," She gives her a crooked grin. "I was starting to think I'd have to go check for a pulse up there."
Beca rolls her eyes, lifting her hands up to her shoulders in her defense. "Hey, well, I'm down here now, aren't I?"
Chloe groans. "I guess you are, aren't you?" She stirs the contents, before putting the lid atop and setting the temperature to a simmer. "It'll be about twenty minutes."
"You're going to share your gumbo?"
The redhaired girl slides onto the stool next to her, propping her elbow up against the countertop and resting her head in her hand. "I know how to share my food." And she stares at Beca, unfalteringly, silently daring her to argue. And she must see the small combustion of a flame behind her eyes, because her smirk pulls even wider, and she closes one eye in a wink. Of course Beca remembers the Moon Wok incident from last month; the one in which she was worried Chloe was going to assault her.
"Yeah," It comes out a bit sharply. "Okay." Chloe giggles.
The air between them grows for a moment. Comfortable, quiet. It's disrupted by Beca's stomach growling at her again, and she groans, throwing her head dramatically around on her shoulders. She whines. Chloe is unimpressed. "It's not my fault," Giving Beca a light shove, she leans back in her stool. "What were you doing up there, anyways?"
"Cleaning." Moping.
Two very skeptical eyebrows raise in response. "Cleaning?"
"Amy's not going to do it."
"I guess. I could have helped you organize, you know," Hopping off of the stool, Chloe makes her way towards the pot on the stove. Lifting to top, she begins to give it a little stir. "I wasn't doing anything, and I like to help."
Classic Chloe. All surprised she hadn't been asked to help, the thought makes Beca grin. Which is kind of dorky, she realizes, so she presses the back of her hand against her mouth to hide it. "Oh, you know," She sighs after taking a moment to collect herself. Chloe gently places the lid back atop of the pot, spinning around with the spatula still in hand. "sometimes I've got to pull up my socks, do stuff on my own. I don't deliver coffees all day and learn nothing,"
"No?" Tossing the spatula onto the counter, Chloe smooths out the front of her pyjama shirt nonchalantly. "That's funny," She doesn't look up as she says it, "I could have sworn you were useless."
Indignant, Beca can't catch her jaw before she drops it. Chloe's only joking, obviously, by the way she peeks up at Beca from under her eyelashes, a big shit-eating grin on her face. Beca uses the next few moments spent sputtering while Chloe laughs to find her tongue. "Well that's rude."
Coming up to the corner of the counter, Chloe leans in again on her elbows- so close, that Beca has to jerk her head back. "I call 'em as I see 'em, Mitchell."
"You're such a little bully," She can't keep a straight face, though. Not while looking at that smile. "Did you get picked on one too many kick-a-ginger-day's?" Chloe's composure cracks, just a little. One microsecond of a smile; lip pulling ever so slightly on the left side of her mouth, but she straightens herself, jutting said lip out in an exaggerated pout instead. A solemn nod. All for show. Snorting, Beca reaches forwards; snatching up the hand towel some other unorganized Bella must have discarded there earlier. Her money's on Amy, or Stacie. That doesn't matter. But her immediate impulse is to flick it in Chloe's direction.
She screams.
Well, yelps. And jumps backwards with a wide grin that's a mixture of disbelief and delight, like she's wondering how Beca could ever have the gall to do such a thing. "Don't snap towels at me, Beca," But Chloe's laughter lets her know that she's not mad, not at all. "I had a very traumatic childhood!" It's a look that makes her heart start beating faster, for some reason. Beca can feel it, hammering steadily against her ribs.
She just feels it, for a moment. Staring. Before she scoffs again. "Okay." It's kind of like she can't think; otherwise, she'd like to believe she'd have a better quip to return with. As it stands, though- she doesn't.
Chloe pulls her jaw back together after a moment, but that same look shines in her eyes. And Beca's staring deep into them from across the counter space, she knows it, because she's waiting for them to give her any sign of action. Which is how she jumps to her feet the half a second before Chloe's lunging her way around the counter with a growl. "Come here, you brat!"
The hand towel is her first line of defense. Beca uses it to keep Chloe at bay; snapping it in her direction like some fruitless attempt to ward off a wild animal; in this particular situation, though, she's laughing. They both are. And Chloe's just as uselessly trying to fight her way around it; flailing arms that bat it away just as fast as Beca can snap it again. For a moment, Chloe's hand catches around the fabric and gives a firm tug in an attempt to disarm her, but Beca manages to slip it out from her. It's not until she's nearly cornered against the pantry that she snaps it again and this time, it makes contact with Chloe's thigh with an echoing sound of a whip that makes Beca cringe and immediately drop the defensive assault. Her mirror neurons can feel the sting in her own leg.
"I'm sorry." She apologizes quickly, probably sounding insincere in the way she hasn't gotten ahold of her snickering yet. "I'm sorry."
Chloe's still, but the imprint of the smile is against her face despite this, so Beca takes that as a good sign. Slowly, she lifts the hit leg up and down, as though testing whether or not it was still usable. Beca does feel bad- it'll probably welt. But she trusts that Chloe will know it's an accident.
And then she starts to laugh. Slowly, but with more heart coming into it, as she drops her head against her shoulders and lets it loll. "Oh my God," She mutters, lifting and lowering her leg again. Chloe's hysterics do nothing to help Beca tame her own, nor to slow her heartrate. "I hate you so much right now."
Beca half-heartedly apologizes once again. Chloe's eyes narrow, despite the hiccups still in her breaths, and she drops back to rest against the counter next to Beca. "That's gonna bruise."
Sideways, Chloe stares at her. "No? You think?"
Beca rolls her eyes, finally starting to catch her breath. It was a brief fight, but it had winded her. "Pretty sure I know,"
Chloe grunts, big blues not leaving Beca for a second. Though there had been weak scrutiny in them before, she looks about as winded as Beca feels now. "I better still be able to dance on that leg,"
"Oh, you'll live."
"If I don't?" Batting her lashes at Beca, Chloe's eyes search her now. She has a hard time figuring out what for, but looking away seems like it would be some kind of wrong. The realization of that strange feeling scatters her brain. Takes her off-track for a moment. One that's entirely too long, so she lets herself try speaking before it can get any stranger.
"I don't know if-"
Now, this takes her a second longer.
A couple.
Actually, Beca has a hard time making a lot of sense of anything. Maybe there just isn't a right thing to say, and that's why she couldn't think of anything, started talking only to fill the silence. Maybe Jesse was right. Was that always how Chloe looked at her? Did she really not ever think about it much before now?
They're kissing.
She, and Chloe. It takes a second for her to wrap her head around that. But when it comes to, slowly, it sort of feels like Beca's been dropped out of a plane at a mind-staggering altitude of thirty-five thousand feet- without a parachute- head first. Her world is upside down. Fast.
And she can't help but think about how it compares to Jesse. There's no scratch of stubble, is, bizarrely, what she notices first. Her lips are softer. She smells good- like the strawberry shower gel that Beca has had to borrow a few times when hers ran out. And she's not really sure how, among all other things, she notices the smell- but she does.
And it's chaste. Polite, almost. Lips that slant and move in all the right ways. Not missing a single step.
That's the second she comes-to, all the way. Because with a jolt of shock, she realizes she's kissing back. That's the second everything begins spinning, and Beca's jerking her head back with so much force that it bumps against the cupboard.
Chloe's shocked. Somehow, Beca is able to take in enough information to realize that; notice it on her face, the way her mouth falls open in a tiny 'o'. It's not what she expected. Not to see Chloe shocked- and that makes Beca wonder if Chloe even knew what she was about to do, or was doing.
Startled, Beca brings her hand up to her mouth; feeling around her lips. Amidst her freefall of confusion, she wonders if she'd just imagined the whole thing. She had been obsessing over it the last few days- whether or not Jesse was just being a giant, paranoid dickhead, or if he could be right- by some unknown act of God- that Chloe had been harboring things for her. Intimate things. Intimate feelings. Ones that Beca has absolutely no idea how to react to.
Chloe bites her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes dropping to the floor like a scolded eighth grader. Her hands are suddenly tucked behind her back and there's a flush crossing her cheeks- still nothing compared to her hair, or Beca's face, by the way it's burning up- and Beca knows it's real. She hadn't imagined it.
Fuck.
"I've got to go."