Her day has actually been pretty good. Which isn't to say that they were usually a steaming pile or anything, but ever since Sammy had listened to the Flashlight demo, people have sort of been taking notice of her around the studio. And in a good way for once, not because she spilt hot coffee on one guy's keyboard. They talk to her like she's a person, rather than the snack monkey, which is always nice. Sammy, while never an outright asshole to her in the past, speaks to her like she's halfway to being his equal. Like her opinion matters and has worth. And she should, maybe, probably, be beyond the point where she relies on the approval of others to make herself feel that way, but in spite of the aloof exterior she's spent years perfecting, that's something she's never been able to shake.
Not being good enough is always where Beca stumbles.
She knows she's good, that she has something. It's the ability to manifest that something into something noteworthy that makes her uncertain. That frightens her, makes her think she might not be good enough. She'd been spiralling for a short while there, but making the demo with Emily had turned things around. Made her believe again. It made her think about Amy's pep talk and Chloe's unfailing commitment. Chloe's proud smile and happy laugh. Chloe's arms wrapping her up in a gleeful, triumphant hug that never failed to infuse Beca with something that felt like adrenaline. That made her feel like she could do anything. Chloe has that effect on people, she knows this. She also knows that Chloe has pretty much always had this effect on her.
It's just that she doesn't usually think about Chloe this much – like, seriously, all day – especially when she's at work, but every time she stops whatever she's doing long enough to take a breath, Chloe's there. Like a friendly haunting, smiling at Beca from the corner of the room or across a desk. Brushing by her when she reaches to pull a handful of disposable coffee cups down from the cupboard, along with two too many lids. Steadying hands at her waist, against her back, drifting over her stomach.
She definitely doesn't think about Chloe like this.
It's like there's some tiny mythical creature – a troll, sure, why not – hiding out between the neurons in her brain, poking different areas at seemingly random intervals and laughing maniacally when the action brings forth a memory that hits Beca with a force so bold and unexpected that it leaves her reeling. Dazed, lost in a daydream.
And it's disconcerting, but only in the sense that she doesn't realise she should find it disconcerting until she's already spent a good while finding it anything but. She's worried that she isn't worrying enough, which is quickly becoming Beca's modus operandi in all of this. It's how she's stumbling through; action first, worry about not worrying later. If she would slow down and take a second to actually take stock of what's going on around her, she'd probably realise a thing or two that might help clear things up.
But Beca is busy and slightly more important than she was five minutes ago, something she doesn't hesitate to tell Chloe when the texts start coming in. The texts about boobs. About Beca's boobs in particular. And holy god, how exactly is she supposed to respond to something like that? She knows Chloe's playing around, trying to get a rise out of her – which, for the record, works like a charm, not that she's willing to admit, and there's a ten minute period where Beca could light the entire studio with her cheeks alone if the space was suddenly plunged into darkness – but Beca is a little out of her depth. She isn't used to people talking about her body parts so openly, to her, and in such an unashamedly appraising manner. Even Jesse, he talks about her boobs more now that they aren't together than he ever did when they were dating. Which, she considers with a frown, she really should ask him about because what was up with that?
Texting is usually a safe space though. The area where Beca doesn't have to panic and where she articulates best. Maybe it's all the daydreaming that has her so utterly incapable of dealing with Chloe's brash compliments today. She's pretty sure threatening to turn off her phone is sort of the opposite of 'dealing' and as for the daydreams, the second she snaps out of them she pushes them away. Kicks them under the rug in the hopes that they'll be forgotten about. Because it was bound to happen, right? You can't engage in a topless groping session with your best friend and then just forget about it the next day. That's not how things work.
There's a part of her, tapping at her shoulder and whispering in her ear, telling her that reliving such a session and in such meticulous detail – her skin remembers exactly where Chloe had touched her, kissed her, and the ridges of her spine remember just how it had twisted and arched – is probably not something so easily assumed to be inevitable, but she brushes it away with her hand. Like swatting at an annoying fly. It's not like they're bad thoughts. They don't even make her feel guilty, not really.
They mostly just make her feel her feel kind of warm. Kind of all over.
She can count on one hand the number of people she's been naked, even semi-nude, in front of. She remembers each anxiety-infused incident and how she'd felt so nervous it had almost made her sick every single time. Except last night. And the knowledge that she hasn't ever felt such a startling lack of discomfort weighs a little heavily on her shoulders as she presses the plastic lids down over the rims of the coffee cups.
It shouldn't surprise her. It doesn't, but it does give her pause. Her hands hover over the mouth of the lid, palms catching the steam as it rises from the opening, and she stares without focus into the black shell of the coffee maker she's standing in front of.
So, okay, there had actually been a moment of brief unease. And Beca's been called beautiful before, she's even had Chloe tell her that in the past, but something in the redhead's tone had made that specific instance different. The sincerity behind it. She'd meant it all those other times too, but the idea that Chloe had really meant it last night – in the kind of bone-deep way a person means it when they tell someone that they'd die for them – sticks to Beca. And whenever she tries to pull it off, it only stretches until she finally gives up and lets go, and it snaps back into place somewhere near the centre of her chest.
There had been a rush of something when Chloe had said that. Something raw and profound, something so entirely capable of actually breaking Beca that she'd jumped off of the proverbial thin ice before it had chance to crack. It makes her feel confused and panicked, like her lungs are trying to strangle her heart, and it turns her stomach into a mess of knots.
But then Chloe's there, inexplicably putting her at ease despite being the unwitting and unwilling reason for the upset. And Chloe makes everyone feel at ease, that's sort of what she does. She makes everyone smile and laugh, makes everyone feel happy. Feel loved.
But she makes Beca feel that way a lot.
She makes Beca feel a lot.
She lands quietly back into reality with thoughts of Chloe's hands and unabashed leer floating at the fringes of her awareness, where they've been hovering ever since she'd left Chloe's room, and she lifts a hand to rub at her forehead before picking up three of the cups between her hands.
She's on her way to deliver the last one to her boss when he breezes by her, snatching the cup out of her hand with a practised ease and a half pirouette that brings his sunglasses into her line of sight. He points to her with the hand holding the mug, one finger extended.
"Good job today, Reggie!" He calls out, then turns and keeps on walking. Beca allows herself a small, kind of proud smile.
Yeah, all in all, it's been a good day.
And it's not as though she's consciously looking for Chloe the very second she makes it in through the front door or anything – although at this point, it really should be her subconscious that she takes the time to consider – but if she happens to wander into the kitchen and then the living room before heading upstairs, well, she always stops to say hi to the other girls. It would be rude not to.
That there's a noticeable sense of disappointment within her when she doesn't spy fiery red hair among the Bellas is not something she dwells on. Nor it is something that can readily be passed off as a regular occurrence like her inconspicuous checking of the downstairs rooms. But it's not a big deal, she's just been thinking about Chloe a lot and wants to her see.
No big.
She dumps her bag in her room and grabs a change of clothes and a towel, then heads for the shower. Running back and forth for coffees and burritos, whilst simultaneously having a silent nervous breakdown whenever the boss would look at her can work up a bit of a sweat. She feels grimy and is about eighty percent sure she can smell Dax's sriracha lingering somewhere about her person.
Her brain shuts down while she showers and there's nothing but the sound of her voice and the occasional wait, wait, what's the next lyric to break up the rush of running water. She emerges from a cloud of steam, with freshly combed hair and the clothes she'd worn that day draped over an arm, and climbs the stairs to her room again. Amy is still absent, as she is more often than not these days and Beca, accidentally, finds herself wondering how long two people can go engaging in coitus before one of them has to tap out. She squinches her nose when she realises she's just said 'coitus', albeit to herself, and shakes her head as she drops her clothes into the hamper.
Her laptop is sitting patiently in its place on her desk, waiting to be brought to life, and she spares it a glance as she passes by on her way back down the stairs. She'll come back to it, she will. She has stuff to do, but there's an anxious kind of fluttering buzzing around inside her stomach, pushing her towards one specific destination and she knows it's not going to dissipate until she visits.
And whatever, she's just going to see if Chloe's in her room.
Chloe isn't in her room though and when Beca closes the bedroom door, feeling a little like she's just done something she shouldn't, she stands in front of it for a long moment considering where Chloe might be. Then it hits her that it doesn't matter, she's not about to go door to door looking for the redhead because she has literally no reason to go to such extremes. Other than that anxious fluttering, which surprisingly does not ease once she's determined Chloe is either out or somewhere else in the house, and with every one of her footfalls her mind goes over one more idea of where Chloe might be, when she'll be back, if Beca will see her then. By the time she's sat in front of her desk, she's rolling her eyes at herself and attempting her very best Taylor Swift impression.
Shake it off, Mitchell.
But even that reminds her of Chloe and Beca's caught between frowning and smiling as she opens her laptop and presses the power button. She takes the lid off the jar of candies sitting on her desk and pops one into her mouth as the monitor wakes up. It doesn't take too long for her to lose herself.
Mixing has always provided Beca with an escape. Into a place that could be either heavenly or hellish, or anywhere in between; it's always somewhere that isn't here. Beca needs that, less lately than in previous years, but it's still something she depends on. Something she craves. Like a soothing hit of nicotine or a warm shot of whiskey. Even when a mix isn't coming together, the familiarity of the act, of the programs and the beats, it grounds her. Still takes her away from the noisy static of reality. It's one of the reasons she reaches for it again and again, slips beneath it like it's an old, worn blanket. Because that's what music has always been for her.
And just like that, Chloe's face pops up between the equalizer bars, the thin green lines morphing into blue orbs for an instant in which she abruptly finds herself recalling a thought she'd had involving the redhead and stuffies, and something weird spreads through Beca. She doesn't know how to describe it, doesn't know what it is and it's gone before she can really analyse it. She blinks and the bars return to normal, then a movement in her periphery catches her eye.
This feeling, this sense of sunshine seeping into her skin, this one she knows. This one is 'Chloe's' feeling. It is inherently Chloe, in that it's a very specific strain of feeling that Beca only gets whenever the redhead is with her. Different from the rest of the girls, different from Jesse; it is Chloe.
Chloe, who's standing at the top of her stairs like she's just appeared out of thin air or a genie lamp and Beca's smile is instantaneous.
"Hey." Her voice is too loud, she can tell as much even over the thumping beat of the music in her ears, but she doesn't really care because it makes Chloe laugh. She holds her hand up, a single finger extended in a silent request for Chloe to give her a second, and then she looks to her computer to save her work. She manages, but doesn't get time to pause the track before the headphones are being pulled down by unseen hands. Beca jerks and tries to turn her head around to ask what Chloe's doing, but then there are lips at her ear and a confession is being whispered against it, and she's gasping as that fluttering from earlier returns. "Oh, wow, that's-" her stomach turns as her chair is spun around and heat rolls over her in a wave as Chloe drops into her lap, straddling her. She glances down to where their bodies now meet, then back up to glittering blue eyes and feels her ears turn pink. It reminds Beca of the car and the way Chloe had kissed and marked her neck. And she needs to say something, but she's pretty sure her mouth has been hanging open for about an hour now and nothing is coming out of it. "Jesus, dude." Inwardly, she cringes at how rough the words are and because she's not helping Chloe's argument from the night before in the slightest with that one.
"What?" Chloe's twisting her headphones free and then leaning forward until their upper bodies are as flush as they can get. "Is this not okay?" The curve of Chloe's nose brushes the crook of her neck and fingers touch the opposite side of her face, and Beca's spine wants to straighten and shiver at the same time. "I thought you wanted me to act on my impulses." Beca's impulses are screaming at her from all directions, each one demanding she do or say something different or entirely contrary to the last thing that was yelled out.
Chloe's fingers slip into her hair and there's a second of mindless black bliss as Beca's eyelids flutter, but Chloe's are still on her. Heavy and hot, and Beca needs to say something.
"No. I mean, no I do, I just-" It's almost a valiant effort. Then her head is being tilted backward and all at once, it's almost a curse as Chloe drifts closer.
"You. Just." Chloe's smile is enough to blind her, throw her head-first into a whirlwind of dizziness that makes her truly appreciate the fact that she's already sitting down. "What?" There's the vague impression of Chloe's lips against her own and Beca feels her breath hitch, feels herself strain against Chloe's weight and gravity as she tries to chase the touch. And it isn't a fluttering inside her chest anymore. It's a raucous cacophony of percussion instruments that shouldn't be anything other than senseless noise, but it somehow makes a melody. Swelling and crashing, only to build back up again as Chloe hovers out of reach and says, "Ask me. Nicely." And that's when Beca's sees it; a spark of her own private symphony mirrored in Chloe's eyes. Daring her with an undertone of desire and a brash, gloating gleam that has Beca battling with the urge to fight Chloe on this or fold under the weight of everything. Chloe is watching her so very closely now.
"You're the one that's been thinking about it all day," she hears herself say, insides trembling even if her voice isn't. "So, kiss me." It's a moment of boldness and it streaks through her like lightning as she feels Chloe shift imperceptibly on top of her, muscles tensing in the legs bracketing Beca's thighs. The longer Beca looks at her though, the less bold she becomes, and that lightning fizzles to nothing a second before the plea floats out from between her lips. "Please." And it should have been so easy to avoid saying that, to take Chloe's bait and forge on with this little game of 'challenge' that they had started yesterday on Chloe's bed. It should have been easy to avoid giving in.
But it isn't.
Beca hears the "please" echo back on itself, bouncing between her hands where they stutter and stumble, but eventually find purchase at Chloe's sides. Reverberating off the stark, white walls of her mind to leave splotches of red and blue that are the same shade as the hair and eyes in front of her. Then there's blackness, as sudden and sweeping as an eclipse, and only the pale pink of Chloe's lips to light her way. Even with that though, Beca's lost. At the first touch, the first sinking swipe of Chloe's tongue, she's turned around inside her own mind. Everything's upside down and backwards, inside out and back to front. Things spin and swirl, changing size and shape, and somehow it all still fits.
Chloe's kisses are slow but needy, and Beca lets out a lazy sigh as her idle hands lead themselves beneath the cotton barrier of the redhead's shirt. Chloe's hand is still wrapped in damp tendrils and Beca meets every stoke, every kiss, without missing a beat. The pads of her fingers pull shudder after shudder along Chloe's spine before her palms eventually rest, curling around the curves of her torso just above her hips. Red hair tickles Beca's cheeks with every small move of Chloe's head and she can smell her shampoo, can taste her own Chapstick on Chloe's lips. And that's the strangest thing about this she thinks, fleetingly, that Chloe's wearing something now that was once part of her and she can taste it in a way that's different from simply licking her lips. It's sweeter, somehow.
She feels Chloe's chest heave right before she pulls away, breaking the kiss with one of the low, pleased hums that has quickly become synonymous with moments like these and tugging at Beca's kite string. Opening her eyes, she finds Chloe looking at her from beneath half-hooded lids, a sort of cheekily secret smile painting lines along her mouth.
"You're really good at that," Chloe says, her tone thick with a complimentary appraisal that makes Beca both blush and gives her ego a boost. The hand in her hair moves, drifting sleepily down the back of her neck towards Beca's shoulder.
"I mean, I'd have to be." Chloe tilts her head curiously to the side and Beca allows the smirk that's threatening to take over her face. "All day, huh?" She sounds sickeningly pleased with herself, and she is. "Seems someone is becoming a little bit dependant." Chloe wrinkles her nose.
"Oh please, this is not news," she scoffs, airily, "I've always needed my Beca fix." Beca raises an eyebrow, her thumbs tapping a thoughtful rhythm against the underside of Chloe's ribcage.
"Is this like, can I charge for this or something?" Beca asks and the redhead purses her lips.
"I think that might be illegal in this state." When Beca's reply is a huff of disappointment, Chloe lets out a chuckle and absently toys with the neckline of the long-sleeved blue top Beca's wearing. "Are you telling me you're not already getting enough out of this? That you want more?" Her fingers meet at the buttons, thumbs brushing over the corners where the stitching is thicker and tugging at them to reveal a touch more skin. Beca blinks uselessly as she tries to think of an answer that isn't the first thing ready to fling itself forward. Her sarcastic bite has gotten her into a lot of trouble over the years but it's never been anything too serious; she thinks "I want you" might tip the scale.
She doesn't even know what, exactly, that means. They're just the words, there's no thought behind them to tell her what the 'you' part of that potential scenario is. Obviously, Chloe, but beyond that it's like a dark ocean of danger. A hundred-thousand different possibilities lurking beneath the surface, ready and waiting to strike. The thought trips her and she feels her toes touch water, but then she's skidding backwards.
"I mean," she lets her hands slip down until they're at Chloe's hips, touching more of her pants than her skin, "I'm not saying you need to pay me or anything. I just think, like," she takes a breath and then blows it out, trying to wrangle her words, "I really am good at this." She grimaces like it's paining her to agree with Chloe's earlier statement. "I kind of think maybe I'm being too generous?" And Chloe's whole face lights up at the teasing. "Like, maybe I should hold back a bit." Beca watches as Chloe's eyes narrow a fraction and she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, biting down gently, thoughtfully, before letting go. Sparkling baby-blues leave her face then, tracking the path of her fingers as they journey down over the few fastened buttons, and leaving Beca to wonder if her heart is actually beating as fast as it sounds or if she's just hearing another kind of echo.
"You want to even the odds?" Chloe asks, fingers dipping down over Beca's stomach in the space between them and making the muscles there twitch. "Is that what this is about?" She draws patterns, swirls, over the corduroy-esque material and flicks her eyes back up to meet Beca's. Then she pulls her hands back toward herself, crossing them wrist over wrist until they're at opposite sides of her body and reaching for the hem of her shirt. "Because we can do that." Beca's eyes pop wide when the flapping lever inside her head finally snaps into place and makes the connection. "If that's something you want." Then Chloe's arms are moving and Beca drops her gaze long enough to see a sliver of pale skin and the kind of lines that promise taut abdominals, and then she's reaching for Chloe's upper arms, gripping tight.
Chloe stops, Beca's heart stops, and somewhere around them time stops too. But Beca's mind never takes a break and it's already spinning away towards a place that's eerily reminiscent of last night, only she's not the one on her back this time around. There's a flash of dull beige tile and pale skin, and then Chloe's laughter sets time ticking again as she swoops in to steal a quick kiss from a dazed Beca.
"Oh my gosh, you're so easy." A hand closes around Beca's face, squishing her cheeks. "I love it." Beca squeaks, an indignant little peep of sound.
"What if I had wanted it?!" She sputters around the grip, struggling to comprehend the possibilities, and Chloe just lifts her shoulders in a shrug.
"Then I," Chloe lets go of her face to prod the tip of her index finger against the end of Beca's nose, "would currently be topless."
"Just like that?" Chloe confirms it with a happy "mmhmm" and a nod, and part of Beca marvels at that. The ease with which Chloe can conduct herself, specifically during intimate moments, but also just in general. Beca's always too busy being self-conscious or second guessing herself, unless she's drunk. If there's alcohol involved, she has a nasty habit of ceasing to care. There's a video, floating between the Bellas' phones and refusing to be deleted, of her and Stacie getting their dance on during a house party last year. In this instance, 'getting their dance on' had meant 'grinding up on one another and dropping low' in a manner that would have made Beca's Grandmother roll over and then spontaneously combust in her grave. Beca doesn't actually remember living the incident, but the proof is right there. Being texted to her every time the word 'party' is so much as mentioned. Sober Beca doesn't do those things because Sober Beca is mortified by the very idea of her doing those things. She knows she can at least appear sexy, if she tries hard enough and has the right dance moves down in the right order. She knows how to roll her hips to a rhythm and tilt her head to throw a smirk just the right way, but being sexy outside of the a cappella limelight requires a kind of confidence that Beca Mitchell does not have in spades. She has sporadic handfuls at best, tiny teaspoons of what she'd initially perceived as sugar but which turn out to be salt at worst.
She feels awkward and exposed, often like she's doing something or everything wrong despite the reaction of the other person. Not that there have been too many of those. She knew Jesse had found her attractive, he never made her feel anything less than that and especially not in the bedroom. She doesn't really like thinking about him that way, but she can't deny the fact that he made her feel like she was worth looking at.
She's no Chloe though. She can't walk into a room and turn every single head, regardless of gender or sexual orientation; Beca's seen her do it. She's seen her do it when Chloe's been dressed to the nines and she's seen her do it in that old, dark green, well-worn knit sweater that's fraying at the cuffs but she refuses to throw out.
"But it's comfy."
"That's because it looks like it's spent a half-century being worn in."
It's fine, it's not like it bothers her. She'll never be a Chloe and that's cool. She's been Beca long enough now to be content with being that, but that doesn't mean she can't admire Chloe's Chloe-ness. Or whatever.
"Do you like, even have to try?" Chloe's brow furrows, a small but wondering smile moving her mouth, and it takes a few seconds for Beca to register that she's said anything at all, let alone asked a question. Because wow, this is about to get embarrassing.
"What do you mean?" Chloe's all genuine curiosity and intrigue, and the answer's right there, burning the tip of Beca's tongue. She is however, abruptly, painfully aware of their position and it's acting as a dam against the words, because she knows how it's going to sound when they eventually spill over. Chloe's hands squeeze her shoulders and Beca thinks she's probably trying to reassure her.
"Sexy," she blurts, then awkwardly clears her throat before she adds, "being it, I mean." Chloe doesn't blink and her expression doesn't change, and the period of time she spends just looking at Beca is long enough that the brunette's skin starts to itch. But Beca doesn't look away and she feels her throat bob with a swallow as Chloe bites the corner of her lip until her growing smile stretches it out of her teeth's reach.
"You think I'm sexy?" She's somehow both shy and jubilant, like an early sunrise, and Beca first instinct is to look away. She gives into it, sighing loudly and removing her hand from Chloe to fold her arms over her chest.
"I didn't," Chloe walks the first two fingers of both hands across Beca's shoulders, "say..." up along the sides of her neck, until they touch her cheeks and Chloe's thumbs can press up against the underside of her jaw, "that." With some gentle persuasion and not a lot of fighting on Beca's part, Chloe nudges Beca's head up until their eyes can meet.
"It was implied." Really it had been somewhere between implied and directly stated, and Beca thinks Chloe might be going easy on her. Which is confusing and appreciated, because Chloe revels in making Beca blush, but Beca's feeling a bit out of her element right now. She's floundering.
Because this thing she's doing, equating Chloe with 'sexy', it's becoming a semi sort of frequent thing – within her brain, if not outside of it – and it feels weird even if the rest of this doesn't. She's not used to thinking of Chloe like that, it has all the beginnings of making her feel like a creeper, and there's no quick guide available for her to peruse in order to figure out how to deal with it. So instead, she says dumb things and acts like a person who has lost total control of their hormones, and Chloe doesn't appear fazed by any of it. She seems, in fact, to enjoy it. Which only makes Beca's mental spiralling act all the more perilous.
"I think you're sexy," Chloe confesses with an ease that makes jealousy swell like a bubble inside of Beca before it's burst by the sharp point of that last word. Digging between her ribs.
"You- what?" It's at that point that Chloe slips off of Beca lap, rocking her body forwards then back to gain the momentum needed to swing her leg around and lift herself to her feet. Chloe lets out a short peel of laughter and turns away from Beca, walking over to sit on the edge of her bed. Beca uses the time to sit a little straighter and she brushes at her thighs, trying to sweep away the chill that has settled there in the redhead's absence.
"I think you're sexy," Chloe repeats, dropping down onto the bed with a light bounce and a shrug of her shoulders. "It doesn't have to be like this big, weird thing to say, Beca."
"It... doesn't?" Beca narrows her eyes, looking for gaps in what the other woman is saying, the spaces where the verbal booby-traps usually lay. Chloe presses her lips into a line, rolling them together before parting them with her tongue. Beca's attention flickers to where it licks at first the top and then the bottom. Then they come together again and pull sideways into a cute little half-smile that has Beca looking up again.
"I don't think so." Chloe lifts her hand to tuck her hair behind an ear and Beca follows that motion too. Because there's something to the way Chloe moves, something she's noticed before but she hadn't realised how much it bled into her everyday. Outside of the rehearsal space. It's such a silly, small action to focus on, but there's a level of grace and fluidity to it that jars Beca and it's something that hangs off of Chloe's every movement. Briefly, she wonders if that has anything to do with the whole 'sexy' thing. Somewhere at the back of her mind, something assures her that yeah, it has everything to do with that. "I think," Chloe's fingers tease the ends of red hair as she considers her words, her gaze distant and aimed somewhere over Beca's head. "I think you can acknowledge the idea that a person is sexy, but still not actually be sexually attracted to them." Beca blinks and then Chloe's eyes are back on hers. "Does that make sense?"
"Um..." she trails off, one hand going to her neck where it rubs needlessly at the muscle laying between it and her shoulder, "yeah." There's a flash of Chloe's hand at the same place, then her lips, and Beca's falls away. "Yeah, I think so."
And yeah, it does make sense to Beca.
She's just not sure that's what's happening here.
After a while, sounds of life float up from the floors below the attic room, growing incrementally until it becomes apparent that the rest of the Bellas are home and, if Flo's yelling is anything to go by, in desperate need of Chinese food. Chloe flashes Beca a smile and scoots off the bed, telling Beca to finish what she's working on and that she'll order hers for her. And Beca smiles right back because after three years of living together Chloe was bound to remember her exact order. Just like she knows Chloe's preferred choice of coffee.
So, Chloe bounces away, down the stairs and out of Beca's field of vision, and Beca goes back to the mix she's working on with a fond shake of her head. For the next half hour, it's just her and her headphones.
Mostly.
Amy sends her a text to tell her that the food is here and Beca saves her work after tweaking one last thing. She grabs a sweater and shrugs into it, hastily gathering her hair into a bun, then heads down to the kitchen. The smell hits her at the top of the staircase and her stomach growls to make its sorry state of hunger known. It's a bad habit, she knows, but she usually forgets to eat when she's wrapped up in a mix or obsessing over a set list. She's been that way since before Barden though, so she can't blame it on the stress of being captain. But unlike that period of her life, the one that had bore a startling lack of sequins and synchronized lady-dancing, at Barden Beca has a Chloe and a Jesse to help her remember to do that pesky eating thing more often than not. Back then she'd only had her mother to do that and while playing the part of a surly teenager, listening to a parent simply wouldn't do. Jesse isn't always physically there anymore to poke her until she concedes, but Chloe does a pretty bang-up job.
There's a small mountain of shiny foil containers on the kitchen counter when she enters, the space occupied by by two thirds of the Bellas. Chloe is on hand-out duty and Beca hangs back near the doorway for a few seconds, watching the way she checks the numbers that have been written on the lids to indicate the contents before handing them to the right person. Every time, without fail. It makes Beca smile as she shuffles forward. She sidles up behind Chloe, who's facing away from her as she disperses the food, and spies her number scratched in red pencil across one of the lids. She sneaks closer and slips her arm through the small space between Chloe's elbow and hip, and her fingers graze crimped foil before an arm clamps down hard to hold her in place. She yelps and tries to pull her hand back, but only manages to wriggle it free up to her wrist.
"You," Chloe turns her head so that she can smirk at Beca over her shoulder, "are a ferret." Beca stops trying to pull away and stares at her.
"Excuse me?" She cocks an eyebrow as Stacie breezes by them, twirling around Chloe to grab her container of food.
"She's calling you a stinky little thief." Stacie informs her with a quick kiss to Beca's cheek as she walks out of the room. Beca's head swivels around on her shoulders, first following Stacie and then swinging back around to glare at Chloe, a second eyebrow rising to join the first. Chloe chuckles, relinquishing Beca's hand and turning to face her.
"Seriously?" She doesn't know whether she's mildly impressed or bemused. "That's the most obscure insult anyone has ever paid me." Chloe's smile grows and the glow of her grin makes her eyes sparkle.
"Ooh," Chloe coos, reaching across the scant distance between them to hook a finger into Beca's pocket, "do I get a prize?" She gives her hand a gentle tug and Beca feels the action all the way through her as she stumbles forward half a foot to bring them almost toe-to-toe. She opens her mouth to say something – definitely witty and clever, she's sure of it – but all that leaves her is a half-choked, vaguely indignant sound that only seems to make Chloe glow brighter.
"Mm, not before I get my food, yeah?" Beca jumps, Chloe twists her head around, and Fat Amy is suddenly there beside them. Regarding them like she might an unfortunate mess that she's just realised she somehow has to make her way through. "I don't want you two going at it on the counter and knocking my chicken chow mien all over the floor, so if you could just," she holds out her hands to part the air in front of her and Beca takes a full stride backward as if she's being controlled by it, "keep your toners in your pants for another five seconds."
"Amy," Chloe chides, putting on her very best captain voice and folding her arms over her chest. The blonde freezes, her hands closed around the silver container and eyes suddenly wide at the unspoken threat in Chloe's voice. "The only toner in here is the one your sporting for Lao Ma's Asian Cuisine." Amy purses her lips, parting them with an audible pop a moment later and shaping them into a small 'o' of silence that holds for all of three seconds.
"Yeah, it's actually pretty big." At that she leaves, with no small amount of side-eyeing dealt to the pair of them as she goes. Beca's the only one paying attention to that though; Chloe has turned back to the two remaining containers of food on the counter.
"Does that not bother you?" Beca addresses the question to the back of Chloe's head and it's one she doesn't realise she wants to ask until it's out.
"What?" Chloe turns back to her, still holding both boxes and not making any effort to hand Beca's over.
"Amy," she pauses, tongue pressed flat to the front of her teeth, then gestures to the doorway, "all of them. Making jokes." Beca shifts on the spot uncomfortably, hands pulling at the pocket of the hoodie she'd thrown on as she glances down. "About us." When Chloe doesn't respond right away Beca looks up again and finds her standing in the same spot with her head tilted to the side, expression pensive.
"Should it?" Beca doesn't know if the question is rhetorical or not. She hopes it is. "Does it bother you?"
And she doesn't know what to say to that, because her gut reaction is to tell Chloe that yes, it does. Only, there's no real reason it should. It's been going on so long now that Beca should be used to it, but every time Amy or one of the other girls makes some kind of innuendo in their direction, it's like a cold front moves in inside her body. Even when she laughs it off, there's always a lingering sense of unease. They're 'Beca and Chloe' and that's, like, a thing, and even Jesse has joked about it a handful of times over the last few years. About how he hadn't known Beca would be a package deal when they first started dating or something similar and it had never been meant as anything other than a joke, but Beca's not finding it as funny as she once might have.
She's sure Amy doesn't know what's going on with them, there's no way she really could, but they've unintentionally given her enough fodder – as close as they are, they really haven't had that many sleepovers since they started living together – to allow her to speculate, loudly and without filter. To increase the amount of jokes she can get out in one twenty-four hour period.
"It just..." she blinks once, then shakes to head to clear away the far-off look she can feel making her gaze hazy. "I don't know. It just makes me feel kinda weird." Lifting a shoulder in a half shrug, she flashes Chloe a small smile, wrinkling her nose up. "It's fine. Not a big deal."
"But if it makes you uncomfortable," Beca's about to stop her right there when Chloe cuts herself off, exhaling in a rush. "Do you want me to say something?" Beca's eyes pop and she lifts a hand to wave it frantically in front of her body.
"Dude, no. That's not," her eyes flutter shut and she bites back an annoyed laugh. "Why can't I ever just say what I mean?" Chloe's worry melts a little at that, a smile lifting her lips.
"Talking is hard," she offers and Beca looks at her for a long moment before she laughs again, more humour to the melody this time, and rolls her eyes.
"It never is with you but lately you're like, melting my brain." Chloe's next breath comes under cover of a disbelieving squeak and in the split-second it takes Beca to go back over her words, she's burning a blinding shade of red. She can feel it. She can also feel the way Chloe is staring at her, but Beca is physically incapable of looking directly at her all of a sudden, and she wants to say something, maybe make a joke. Nothing happens though.
So, in lieu of speaking, she steps forward and snags the topmost container from where it's balanced on the one between Chloe's hands. Then she shuffles backwards, catching sight of Chloe's questioning – but pleased? – smile at the fringes of her vision before she turns away.
"Hey!" She's stopped in the hallway by Emily, who she didn't even know was here, shouting excitedly at her from the living room. "Aren't you joining us?" Mindlessly, Beca veers in that direction and finds the Bellas spread out across the room.
"'Course she is," Amy scoffs around a mouthful of food. "No one escapes movie night." Beca's halfway through a placating, rolling nod of her head when it snaps straight with recognition, her face abruptly void of everything but displeased surprise.
"Wait, what?"
"No, no, you," Amy's pointing at her with her fork, "are the last person about to wriggle out of one. Get your cute butt in here, Mitchell." Beca lets out a whine of dissatisfaction and pulls off a nearly immaculate impression of a tiny child with her "it's not fair!"
"You were out-voted, girl." Cynthia Rose shrugs from her place in the arm chair, one chicken ball skewered on the end of her fork. Beca sputters, messy bun swaying at the top of her head as she points wildly to herself and then out into the hallway at nothing.
"I wasn't even here to vote! You always do it behind my back!"
"It wouldn't have made a difference even if you had been here." Chloe says from behind her, walking in from the kitchen and hip-checking Beca as she breezes by with a wink that makes her stomach dip. "You'd pout and grumble, and still end up sitting next to me on the couch. Brooding, while the rest of us actually watch the movie."
"And that kind of poor company is fun for you?" Her eyebrows are almost at the very edge of her forehead as she asks and Chloe takes the empty end of the couch, looking over the back at her.
"Aww, Becs, you're the best company." Beca's eye roll is a hard one, but then there's a hand being waved at her, or more specifically, fingers are being snapped and wiggled at her. "Please, Beca." Chloe draws out the vowels in each word in a manner that is painful to listen to and Stacie, Amy and Cynthia Rose soon start yelling at her to just sit down and sack up.
"Oh my god, whatever." Grumbling, she walks around to the front of the couch and sits down in the empty space between Chloe and Stacie. Chloe's just taken the lid off of her food container and she flashes Beca a happy smile as she licks sauce from her fingertips. Beca catches her eyes drifting and redirects them to her own food.
"Was that so hard?" Amy asks and Beca shoots a glare toward her. Amy remains unfazed. "It's not like you're going to have to put up with this for much longer anyway." Beside her, she feels Chloe freeze. It's just for an instant but she feels it, feels the realness of it. When she turns to Chloe though, the redhead isn't looking at her anymore. "Speaking of the big 'G'," Amy pops a shrimp into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a few seconds, "those fancy gowns, are clothes underneath optional or...?" Beca drops her face into her hands and mutters a mournful "oh my god" that no one has trouble hearing.
Then Chloe is laughing and it spreads around Beca like wildfire, infectious, like a happy plague. Warming up the room.
After that, they don't manage to start the movie until basically everyone is done eating. Beca glances at the time on her phone and thinks about the mix and the email she'd received from her boss seconds after leaving the studio that evening. It seems like she's running out of time in more ways than one lately and that's weird, because when did she start thinking of graduation as something she was being pulled towards instead of willingly led? There aren't quite a million thing she needs to do, but there are a decent amount and she really should be putting up more of a fight here.
But then Chloe's back from her trip to the kitchen with their garbage and she's dropping down onto the couch so that she's practically laying across Beca's lap with the biggest smile on her face, and Beca sighs.
Reality can wait for a while.
"What are we watching?" Ashley asks, cuddled up to Jessica's side on the love-seat.
"This okay?" Chloe's voice is in her ear and her hands are taking a blanket from Stacie and draping it over their bodies. Her butt is on one side of Beca, her legs bent across Beca's lap, and her feet are shifting against the cushion on her other side.
"Will my answer make any difference?" Chloe's chuckle is a low hum as she leans into Beca's side and Beca's forced to wind her arm around the other woman's back or sit with it stuck between their bodies for the next ninety minutes.
"Maybe." Neither of them buy that.
"Uh huh," Beca breathes out and Chloe turns her head, resting her temple against Beca's shoulder. "But if this is some sappy tearjerker and you start crying on me..." She leaves the sentence hanging and thinks she can feel Chloe smiling. She lets her hand fall to the redhead's shin, lets it rest there.
The movie starts, Beca misses the title. There's a pretty girl and a pretty boy, and no one is screaming or getting bits cut off, so it's not a horror. That's all she manages to grasp before she flips about ninety percent of her attention away from the movie, turning it inward instead. She thinks about the mix, about Worlds and graduation. She thinks about the additions she's made, with the help of Jessica and Ashley, and she thinks about that dumb DSM chick's stupid face. All perfectly sculpted angles and impossibly soft skin, cheekbones that could kill and eyes that somehow capture the frigid terror of winter. She doesn't know what it is about Kommissar, but the fact that there is something has her feeling incredibly frustrated with herself, and there are only so many times she can chant "she is the enemy" at herself before she starts feeling like Aubrey.
Kommissar does actually do something besides intimidate and confuse her sexually though; she puts a bit of a spin on what Beca's feeling towards Chloe. Because it's obvious to everyone within a fifty-foot radius whenever Beca is near the towering pillar of pale, Amazonian perfection that she's harbouring a slight attraction. To a woman. Which isn't something Beca has experienced before, consciously at any rate.
Whether or not she's attracted to Chloe is a little more muddled. She knows that Chloe is attractive and Chloe touching her, well, does things. Certain things which a person to whom you are experiencing some kind of attraction is usually the cause of. But Chloe is her best friend – Amy can never know – and so that complicates things for her. Mixes the acrid taste of guilt into the concoction already brewing. That there's guilt there at all should give Beca her answer, but Chloe sighs a quiet chuckle and her breath drifts down through the gap at the neck of her sweater. Chloe shifts against her, stretching her legs until her feet are practically altogether in Stacies's lap – who doesn't even bat an eye and automatically moves her hands to rest them over Chloe's ankles, green eyes never leaving the T.V. lighting them – and Beca's hand resettles over Chloe's knee under the blanket. Things are still for a handful of seconds and then Chloe lifts her head from Beca's shoulder.
"Enjoying the movie?" Is spoken quietly into her ear and the tickle it elicits pulls a shiver down Beca's spine. She turns her head an inch or two towards the other woman, her eyes going to their corners.
"As much as always," she hedges, gaze flickering over Chloe's face. She feels like she's always noticing something different about the redhead whenever they get this close. A new freckle or crease, a new slant to her mouth. She would have thought that after four years all of these things would have been seen and documented, stored away in some distant part of her brain. And maybe they have been.
But they feel new.
Chloe hums and the look she's wearing is one Beca recognises as her 'I'm pretending to give something serious thought but I'm really just biding my time' face. It makes her hand twitch where it's resting lightly against Chloe's back. Then Chloe drops her head again, touching her nose to the curve of Beca's shoulder so that the lower half of her face disappears behind the brunette and Beca almost jumps right off the couch when she feels Chloe press a kiss through her shirt. Then she pulls back up, dropping her chin to Beca's shoulder.
"Well how can we make this more exciting for you?" Chloe whispers, her hand slipping easily into the pocket of Beca's hoodie where she presses it flat to an abruptly tense stomach. Beca claps her hand over Chloe's, pressing it tighter to her but holding it in place, her expression deadly serious.
"What are you doing?" She doesn't think she's ever barked a whisper quite like that before. There's a flash of white as Chloe smirks that's brighter than the television set and Beca's stomach flip-flops.
"Watching a movie," Chloe insists and Beca has to choke back her snort of incredulity.
"You're not even looking at-" Stacie shifts beside Beca and the motion makes her vocal cords seize, but the would-be honour student doesn't bat an eyelash in their direction. And Chloe, ever the opportunist, takes Beca's brief distraction and runs with it. Or, more precisely, sits perfectly still with it, save for the hand Beca had had trapped which now slips easily out of her grip, and the pocket, to sneak beneath the cuddly material. Beca inhales sharply, teeth clacking as she snaps her mouth closed to stop any sound from toppling free. Her eyes fly around the room, taking note of where everyone's gazes are settled while her heart pounds hard and fast behind her ribs.
"Hey, Becs?" Chloe's voice is even quieter now, so much so that Beca can hear the way she grinds her teeth before she tips her head around to look at her friend. When she does, she sees that Chloe's smirk is still in place, her eyes still glittering, and it's only when Beca turns than Chloe leans in again. "No one can see." There's a silent giggle to the words and a funeral pyre burning in Beca's gut. "No one," slowly, Chloe's hand starts to move, "is paying," stroking over Beca's skin as she might folds in fabric, "any attention." Beca's stomach dips again, fingers curling around into her sweater.
And it's momentarily startling, how quickly her breathing drops, turns shallow and dense. Like she's breathing in one hundred percent humidity. She can feel Chloe's smile in the air beside her face even after she's moved, scooting down so that her head rests against the front of Beca's shoulder rather than the top, her bright blue eyes trained on the movie once more. Her hand doesn't stop moving though and every touch feels electric. The tips of Chloe's fingers send out a charge, each one a slightly different voltage, every one of them making muscles jump and the hair on Beca's arms stand on end. Shivers trickle along her back and she stares blankly ahead at the moving pictures, barely hearing the audio over the sound of her heart.
Chloe's hand never strays higher than the blanket's coverage and she keeps her movements slow so as not to attract attention; all things Beca would greatly appreciate, if she were able to register any of it. But Chloe's hand never stops, not for one second, and it demands every last drop of Beca's concentration as it all pools in the same place.
Chloe's touch makes her feel electric. Like she might accidentally jump out of her own skin or end up doing something else similarly life threatening. It's simultaneously exciting and terrifying, nerve-wracking and thrilling. A skydive or a bungee jump; you know you're safe, more or less, but that niggling "what if" is enough to give you the jitters. But you do it anyway, because it's a rush. An opposite to mixing and the deep sense of relaxation that gives her, but something readily craved nonetheless.
The moment she realises it, the roll of her stomach throws a tidal wave through the rest of her body. Cold and strong, battering every corner of her inner workings and carelessly rearranging the furniture.
Just like mixing, the way it makes her feel, Beca feels like she's starting to crave Chloe. The moments they share, beyond their bedrooms; she likes making Chloe smile. Likes making her laugh. She likes it when Chloe just looks at her. She likes being with her, in all senses of the word. She craves those things.
Craves this; Chloe's touch. Her teasing glances and comments. Her kisses.
She craves Chloe.
Chloe sighs heavily, contentedly, beside her and her hand finally stills. Arm pressed against Beca's bare stomach and hand curled around her side, she settles against Beca.
And Beca feels something inside her settle too.