A/N: Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Real life is kind of getting in the way. Thank you once again to all of you who have donated. I really can't explain what this means to me. You guys are literally helping me survive right now adn that just... well. There aren't words for that, you know?
When Beca wakes, it's to a mouth as dry as sandpaper and the sensation of her face being stuck to the pillow beneath it. Because, despite the aforementioned dry mouth, she is dully disgusted to realise she's somehow drooling. Grimacing, she tugs her hand free from where she's got it wedged between her neck and the bed and lifts her head enough to wipe the back of it over the side of her mouth. The furrow at her brow deepens when her hand comes away wet – really, what had she been expecting? - and she rubs it against the sleeve of her shirt, sleepily smacking her lips. Her eyes don't open; it's like the lids have some kind of surface sensor that can detect the hour by the amount of sunlight hitting them, thus deeming it much too early for something as strenuous blinking. It's a thing she's immensely grateful for in the next few moments, as her headache hits her full-force and the mere thought of those ghastly rays of golden pain is enough to make her nauseous.
Pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead, she would swear she could feel her brain thump against it and she turns her face further into the pillow. A pillow that smells like fancy-named berries and sunshine. Which is to say, it smells like Chloe, and Beca's body responds automatically. She inhales deeply, then heaves a sigh and feels herself sinking down into the mattress, back towards sleep. The arm around her waist tightens, a pair of knees brushing the underside of her thighs as breath tickles the back of her neck, and for a moment it's all part of some warmly filtered, dreamy snapshot. Something that belongs on Instagram, drenched in sepia tones and captioned with 'Peace'.
"Your hands twitch when you're asleep." Beca's eyes pop open at the voice, heart shooting into her throat and thumping, wild and uncomfortable, against her oesophagus. "Did you know that? Like you're mixing in your dreams." Chloe's voice is like a dream, Beca muses; wispy and fragmented, still a little rough with sleep. Her words are gentle, almost idle, as if she's merely thinking aloud, talking in her sleep. And just like that, there's heat emanating from every inch of Chloe, pouring into Beca at all the junctions where their bodies meet. From the toes skimming the backs of her ankles to the arm wound beneath the thin material of the shirt Chloe had given her the night before and wrapped around Beca's bare midriff.
She hums, a mostly vague sound that leans maybe a bit more towards the negative than affirmative while she isn't nearly awake enough to commit to either. She doesn't remember Jesse ever mentioning her having restless hands, though. Nor anyone else she's ever shared a bed with, not that that list is particularly long.
"Were you dreaming about that?" The words disturb the fine hairs at the base of Beca's neck, the curve of Chloe's nose ghosting over them a second later, and it isn't until she's asked that Beca even remembers she'd be dreaming.
There had been no mixing board or laptop beneath her hands though and the music that had filled her dreamscape had been the layered tracks of their own voices, their melody a breathless song of 'R rated' sounds stretching towards a climax. It comes back to her in flashes in the wake of Chloe's question and Beca shifts restlessly beneath the weight of an arm that somehow seems heavier now.
"No." It's too clipped, too insistent, she knows it and, more importantly, she knows that Chloe knows it too. "Um..." she takes a breath and uses it to blow the hair out of her eyes, twisting her hips to relieve the slight pressure the angle of her body had been putting on her spine. Chloe moves with her, maybe unconsciously, maybe not, and slots right back in against Beca. "It was just like," she pauses, taking another breath in her eternal effort to remain alive, and finds herself holding it as Chloe's fingers begin absently skimming over her stomach. The touch can't really be considered new anymore, but Beca's muscles still flutter and jump as though they haven't received that message yet. "About choreo and stuff."
She doesn't condone lying, really she doesn't. Growing up, her house had been filled with its fair share of lies, from little baby white ones, all the way to those that were the darkest shade of black. There had been a period in her life where she had sworn to only ever tell the truth, no matter who got hurt, because that momentary pain would subside far more quickly than the result of a falsity left to fester. She hadn't made many friends using this method, but Beca Mitchell hadn't needed friends. Somewhere along the way, that truthfulness had turned into the biting sarcasm that had become the trademark of her later teen years – the very same snark that had earned her the 'bitch' title at the activities fair where she first met the woman currently spooning her – and the truth had become something she didn't waste on people who weren't worth her time.
She'd tried at first with Aubrey, tried to make her see that what her former captain was doing was going to ruin the entire group's chances of winning that which the blonde had become so obsessed with obtaining. Her harsh truths hadn't worked there though, had only served to poke an already agitated badger, and so Beca had walked because she was done wasting effort on people who would never appreciate it.
Only some of them had appreciated it, the evidence was there in the text messages she'd received over the following weeks. Apologising for not sticking up for her and calling Aubrey a "harmonic terrorist" - Amy, of course – and more than a handful from Chloe that begged for forgiveness and spoke of how much she believed in Beca. And it was that word specifically that made the difference. Typed to her maybe three times over the course of Spring Break, it had somehow made more of a difference than the rest of the Bellas' efforts combined. Beca's background is a far cry from a sob-story, but she hadn't had too many people actually tell her that and it's a number that had been infinitely less prior to joining the group. And even back then, if there was one thing Beca knew about Chloe, it was that she was earnest. In everything she said and did, and tried to do.
So, if it had been anyone other than Chloe who had sent her that message about the Footnotes being disqualified, Beca isn't sure it would have made a difference. Cant be certain that she would have returned like she did, with true remorse and an armful of apologies. Because while she really had come to like the girls, that alone hadn't been enough to battle her pigheaded stubbornness. If it hadn't been for Chloe's text, these last few years might have turned out drastically different.
Aubrey's starting rehearsals back up today. 5pm. I know you're still angry and you have every right to be, but I really hope you'll come. We need you, Beca. I believe in you. I believe that you make us better. And imagine the look on Aubrey's face... don't you at least want to come to see that? ;) x
Should couldn't exactly turn down an offer like that, could she? Of course, what she'd arrived to hadn't been quite what she'd expected, but miraculously, everything had turned out okay. Better than okay. Now, Beca can't imagine any alternate time line or what she might have been doing if she'd never gone back that day.
Well, that's not entirely true. She'd have probably jetted off to L.A. after her first year to get a head start on breaking into the music scene, rather than building up and then breaking the reputation of a respected a cappella institution, but c'est la vie.
"What are you thinking?" Chloe's question brings Beca back to the present with a firm tug of invisible reins, jerking her out of the past and back into the bed she's currently sharing with the redhead who really sort of changed her entire life. Or at the very least, reshaped the path Beca's life was on.
"Nothing." It's Beca's automatically reply, let loose without thought after years and year of habitual practise, but Chloe only chuckles softly and clicks her tongue. It's a reproving sound and Beca closes her eyes against what's coming.
"Liar." She can hear Chloe's smile as her fingers dance up over Beca's ribcage and down her side. "I can hear your brain whirring." It's definitely not whirring, she thinks, it's nowhere near awake enough for that kind of piston-like commitment, but, as per usual, Chloe is right. Beca's just not all that talkative first thing in the morning.
"What time is it?" She's also not great at subtly changing the topic, but that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that she's still half asleep. She feels Chloe lean away from her with a quiet reply of "early", the warm press of her body vanishing in a rustle of sheets and the sound of a stifled moan as her movements turn into an extended morning stretch. Beca lifts a hand to brush the end of her nose first with her knuckle and then with the tips of her fingers, motions jerky with agitation and back turning stiff and rigid. She blinks her eyes open, staring at the wall as she listens to Chloe existing beside her, and tries to focus on her own breathing instead of the memories from the previous evening that are suddenly trying to valiantly resurface.
"It's a whole twelve minutes past six." Beca groans and pulls one of Chloe's pillows up over her head, muffling the noise. It's another thirty seconds or so before Chloe rolls back into place, her hand slipping right back under the baggy tee she'd loaned Beca with neither warning nor prompting, but Beca doesn't jump this time. Doesn't jerk or twitch, and when Chloe's hand curves around her ribs again, like she's trying to smooth out the ridges, Beca actually feels her muscles relax instead. All that tight stiffness just melting away. "How're you feeling?"
Her head hurts and her mouth is still too dry for her liking, but Chloe is a solid presence at her back and there are snapshots that are only hours old flashing to life behind Beca's eyes. Blurred by alcohol at the edges and hazy with something else at the centre. The image might be distorted, but the feeling carries through clean and clear. The hot and heavy press of Chloe's body against hers, the chilly layer of pool water seeming to evaporate between them, the firm push of the wall as soft but strong hands had pressed her into it.
She remembers the way Chloe had kissed her, clutched at her, and peeled away her clothing. Remembers every burning touch of lips and fingertips, of groping palms and the sharpness of her teeth. She remembers undressing Chloe, removing her shirt and unhooking her bra, and things after that become a little more difficult to discern. Because after that there had been flame and fire, impressions burned into Beca's mind and onto Beca's tongue. She remembers tasting new skin for the first time and feeling something wild and uncontrollable expanding inside of her, fuelling her movements and decisions like gas on a pyre. Charring her to nothing, leaving her as ash.
She remembers, quite distinctly, not wanting to stop. Remembers the confusion over Chloe's unexpected words and the desire to insist that no, they we're fine, it was okay. That they should, in fact, do the opposite of stopping, because Beca had felt that she might die if they didn't continue. She remembers feeling that. The ignited sparks of desperation. Flooding her. Filling her. She remembers the ache, that endless abyss of need she's only ever felt with Jesse before and even that, she thinks, had felt different.
She'd never wanted to tear his clothes off and press every inch of her skin to his.
"Fine," she eventually manages to croak out, once she remembers that Chloe had asked how she was doing and is probably waiting for an answer. She squeezes her eyes shut and licks her lips, as Chloe fingers follow the lines etched into her stomach by rigorous Bella rehearsals and those two weeks she grudgingly spent at the gym at Cynthia Rose's behest. "I mean," she clears her throat as Chloe's hand slides idly over the curve of her hip, "headache, but," then sweeps across her abdomen, just above the waistline of the shorts she's wearing. "Fine." In the lull that follows, Chloe's hand never stops moving, and the near-constant reflexive tensing of Beca's calf muscles makes her legs hurt, but she bites her lip and doesn't say anything. Tries not to make any kind of sound at all.
Meanwhile, her mind is fit to burst with the messy static of a thousand different thoughts, all emerging from more or less the same place. All buzzing with a similar, singular thread of tension that's being pulled taut through the memories of the previous night and leaving Beca with what is, ultimately, one lone question being voiced in a hundred different ways.
Why hadn't she wanted to stop?
Why does Chloe's touch unravel her the way it does?
Why is all of that okay?
Why?
"Jesse texted me, looking for you." Beca frowns, shifting enough to roll half onto her back so she can turn her head towards Chloe, and it's a few seconds before she remembers she doesn't have her phone. And that she had sort of disappeared on him last night.
"Shit." She flashes Chloe a sheepish smile and gets one in return for her efforts. "Guess I kind of forgot about him." Inwardly, Beca cringes. She'd never been the most attentive girlfriend when they were together, but Jesse had never faulted her for that. He was about as easy going as they came and though she'll likely be greeted by at least ten messages when she checks her phone later, none of them will be angry or demanding. If anything, he'll probably be asking if she got lucky.
"You guys looked pretty chummy." Chloe's hand stills against Beca's stomach, fingers strumming a rhythm as Beca raises her eyebrow at her choice of wording.
"Chummy?" She curves her lips around until her smile turns teasing and watches Chloe lift a shoulder in a half-shrug.
"Yeah. Like, dating-chummy." Beca's features automatically twist into a mask of revulsion before Chloe's even finished saying the 'd' word. "Is the looming unknown making you regret certain decisions?" The question, despite Chloe's teasing tone, sounds far too close to serious for Beca's liking. She scoffs, loudly, crinkling her nose up and pulling an arm in to weakly backhand the redhead's shoulder, a feat made awkward by the angle of her body.
"Dude, don't be gross." And Chloe laughs, but there's something off about it. Something hollow, something lacking, but her hand is moving again, effectively erasing the realisation from Beca's brain. At least for the minute.
"It's a valid question," Chloe points out and Beca rolls her eyes because no.
"It's really not." Fingers idle over the curve of Beca's hip, gently scratching at the bone and sending a shiver cascading along her spine. Chloe drags her hand down towards Beca's tailbone, then twists it around at the wrist to take it back up, thumb dipping below the waistband ever so slightly.
"You were together for a long time, Becs. It wouldn't be that unexpected if-"
"Are you high right now?" Beca's question all but explodes from her, but Chloe hardly blinks in surprise. Her hand keeps moving, the tips of her fingers tickling intricate patterns over the smooth expanse of the brunette's stomach as Beca tries to wrestle her thoughts into submission. "How much did you drink last night?" But it's like trying to grab at something covered in Jello and with every brush of Chloe's hand, they slip out of her grasp again and again.
Chloe doesn't answer right away and the silence that fills the paper-thin slip of space between them is weird and uncertain. Because Beca has literally no idea what Chloe is going to say next and that kind of stark, blank anticipation hasn't been common for years now. Long gone are the days where she would be taken aback by unexpected filthy comments – Beca can pretty much determine what will and won't jostle that portion of Chloe's brain awake by now and anticipate accordingly – and co-captaining has had them working so closely together over the last three years that they spend a good majority of the time with their thought patterns in near perfect synchronisation.
"Does he know about... this?" But that's a question Beca never would have expected Chloe to ask. Not in a million years, though she isn't sure why her brain is so adamant about that. It isn't as though Jesse became a non-entity in her life when they broke up; quite the opposite. Very little had changed between them, so Beca has no clue as to why this question has struck her with all the force and inexplicable ninja-like stealth of a freight train. She doesn't know what to say and the silence slinks back in for a few heartbeats, heavy and thick, until the part of Beca's brain that governs her gut reactions kicks in and pushes out the first thing it's able to.
"Uh, yeah." Which, as is usually the case with Chloe, is the truth. "I mean, not..." she takes a breath, mouth open and working without sound as her heart thumps out of rhythm, "he doesn't know, like, details." She can feel a brush creeping steadily along her neck and anxiously twists her lips as she waits for Chloe to respond and tries not to glance in her periphery.
"Did you..." she hears Chloe lick her lips as she pauses and feels the blush spread, warming her ears, "was there something you couldn't talk to me about?" Now, over the years, Beca's heart has taken a few beatings. She doesn't think it's ever truly been broken, but it has definitely had the crap kicked out of it once or twice and the bruises, faded though they may be, are still there, adorning the surface like twisted medals of honour. Every now and then, something happens and one of those bruises ends up being jabbed or smacked. And it stings, a lot, so she'd gone out of her way to avoid situations that could lead to similarly painful agitation.
Chloe's tone, her words, the apprehension in her voice; it's like some gnarly old witch is running her serrated, inch-long finger nails across purple-stained flesh, scratching and slicing in a way that makes her whole body hurt. It's an ache that is both sharp and numbing and, as she shifts and rolls to look at Chloe properly, Beca feels it chill her insides as it swims in to fill the space Chloe's retreating hand and arm leave. Like a cold dread. Chloe's expression does nothing to alleviate the feeling; she's trying to cover it with a smile, but the 'it' in this case is a somewhat uncharacteristic trepidation so unfamiliar, that it practically screams itself right in Beca's face.
"No," she breathes out, shaking her head against the pillow and drawing in a lungful of air as she rushes to expand. "No, nothing like that." Only she doesn't really know where to expand to, not in a way she can put to words. She remembers going to him with this, the tense, twisting anxiety that had balled her lower intestines into something resembling a tiny plastic Pokemon figure Benji had used as part of a trick he'd been showing her. "I think I just..." but Beca's never been very good with verbalising her thoughts, "needed to say it out loud or something." Not so that they easily make sense to anyone who isn't her. "To another person, someone not involved." Talking with Chloe has never really been hard though, which had only made her decision to go to Jesse all the more difficult. "Jesse seemed like the safest option." Because he hadn't been her gut's first choice. "Sorry." Chloe blinks at the apology and Beca thinks she looks a bit surprised by it. "I hope that's okay?" She watches Chloe absently chew her lip, her fair brow furrowing as something weighs on her mind, and Beca's about to ask what that might be when she spies movements at the edges of her vision.
Chloe's fingers disturb the hair at the side of Beca's face and then, she sees nothing at all but the backs of her eyelids. Her chest tightens, she feels it like a coil slipping into place around her lungs and squeezing. And something like stardust leaks free, dashing Beca's body with pleasant pins and needles that leave her tingling as Chloe's fingers gently sweep errant locks from Beca's face, grazing her skin.
"It's okay."
And it reminds her of how Chloe had touched her last night. How each time it had felt simultaneously soft and earth-shattering. Like every touch could be either easy or everything, or some amalgamation of both. Beca thinks about how she hadn't been thinking, how her mind and mobility had stood united on their front and she recalls how utterly befuddled she'd felt when Chloe had quietly suggested they stop what they were doing before they go to where they were headed. Which was without a doubt their current position, only sans clothing. Probably sans a few other things as well.
Hungover though Beca may be, she knows lingering alcohol isn't to blame for the somewhat startling fact that she hadn't wanted to stop. She also knows that it hadn't been the sole slice of kindling used to incite such a hormone-infused riot in the first place. Sure, it had helped get things started, but there had been a whole host of other things in place. Beca isn't about to admit to any of these things, but she is aware of them. About as aware as she is of the fact that her underwear hasn't miraculously dried perfectly after being plastered to her body for the last few hours. She makes a face, opening her eyes again, and tries not to trip over the words already making their way out of her mouth when she sees how Chloe is looking at her. Open and intense, searching.
"My underwear is still really uncomfortable." Chloe blinks and the look dims to something less shattering. She quirks an eyebrow and teases the side of her smile into rising, parting her lips enough to press the tip of her tongue into the corner of her mouth.
"You could always," Beca jerks a little as she feels Chloe twist their legs together below the comforter, "take them off..." She imagines tiny cartoon beads of sweat forming on her brow, shrieking their dismay as they trickle to a pointless death as her heart beats comically fast almost out of her chest. She garbles her first attempt at a response, nothing but random vowels and consonants spewing forth in lieu of words, and she flushes when Chloe's smile widens and her hold on Beca's legs tightens.
"In your dreams." It's the wrong thing to say, but at least she manages to say something. She even manages to mostly avoid Chloe's eye when the redhead's smile turns into a smirk and she hums, low and suggestive. Beca feels the sound move through her.
"How do you know what I was dreaming?" Chloe asks, with the feigned kind of seriousness that usually accompanies her tone whenever she's teasing Beca and most especially when that teasing is sexual. Blushing again, Beca tries to roll away but Chloe holds fast, clamping down with her extraordinarily strong thighs – and really, Beca figured her legs would be pretty strong anyway what with the whole Bella regime, but wow – and preventing Beca from going very far. "Was I talking in my sleep?" Chloe throws an arm around her, grabbing onto Beca's shoulder with her hand and using it to anchor herself closer as she giggles. They're the kind of giggles that feel infectious, that become infectious the second you realise who they're coming from, and even knowing this they still manage to catch Beca off guard. She shrieks when Chloe's hand slips down to her waist, gripping tightly and tickling Beca as she presses them closer together. "Or was I moaning your name?" Chloe pushes her hand up under the material of Beca's shirt, ripping a sharp gasp from the brunette, who finally has the presence of mind to grab at Chloe's forearm before her hand can wander too high. "Again." Chloe's nose bumps her ear, then her cheek, and she feels Chloe's smile even before her lips find Beca's jaw.
And Beca thinks that it's probably telling, just how quickly she forgets why she's holding onto Chloe's arm. Or why she's craning her neck away from lips that give chase the second she turns away. It all disappears beneath a blanket of squeals and laughter, and Beca forgets she even has a headache.
After Chloe had finally taken pity on her, thus allowing Beca to wrangle her breathing and heart rate back to an acceptable level, they'd dozed back off for a while. Swimming in and out of consciousness as Beca's headache once again made itself known and her eyeballs begged for the dark solitude that lay behind their lids. And though Beca had half expected to be politely kicked out, Chloe seemed more than happy for Beca to remain in her bed. She'd gone right back to cuddling once all the squirming had stopped, literally draping half of her body across Beca who remains on her back, and the rhythmic puffs of air whispering into the hollow of Beca's neck lulls her to and from slumber in a way that's both comforting and maddening.
Eventually, Chloe had nudged her awake with a hand against her ribcage, gently murmuring that it was eight o'clock and Beca needed to get ready for work. Then she'd chuckled quietly at Beca's sleepy frown and kissed her cheek, and Beca had begrudgingly clambered out of the bed and tried not to think about how her cheek still tingled. Tried not to focus on the way her stomach flip-flopped when she glanced back to see Chloe extending all four of her limbs in a satisfying morning stretch, a low, lewd moan spilling from closed lips. She'd muttered a "see you later" and skittered out of the room.
Sure enough, there had been a text – a few, actually – from Jesse waiting for her when she'd reached the loft space she shared with Amy.
Becaaaaw where u go
omg u totally ditched me 4 ur ladypiece! Bros b4 hos becky!
R u seriously not cumin back out
Omg r u hooking up rn?!
Bec u need 2 txt me RITE. NOW. If u r
okay not rn. But l8r. I want detail
Since u ditched me
She'd rolled her eyes and considered ignoring the messages, then in a moment sponsored by her snarky side, she'd remembered that Jesse often forgot to turn his sound off. And that he'd most likely still be trying to sleep off a hangover.
Morning
Asshole
I hope
These
Hurt
Your hangover
And she'd headed to the shower with a spring in her step and a smirk on her face. All in all, her own hangover aside, it hadn't been a bad start to the morning.
It's not that the rest of her day goes poorly. As shifts at the studio go, it's all rather easy and borderline mundane. Things are slow, but she manages to keep herself busy except for the times she finds herself distracted. Which is precisely why her day doesn't go poorly per say, but rather strangely. Because while she's been here before, in this specific mindset, everything is far more grandiose this time around. All of those distracting thoughts are bigger, louder and more derailing. The mental interruptions more vivid.
She's been out of Chloe's bed for hours now, but somehow she's spent more time than that back in it since vacating. Caught in the moments before and after that first awakening, the first set hazy and warm with more than just the alcohol she'd imbibed. She's lucky there isn't too much going on at work, because she's fairly certain any actual production would have been disastrously hindered since everything seems to remind her of the previous night, that morning, or just Chloe herself in some way. And that, she realises, is weird. Because she's had this issue in the past. She's strolled along this particular pathway that winds through memory lane on previous occasions, so it's not all that unfamiliar, the main difference now being that Jesse isn't the star of her thoughts.
Which, after last night, one might argue is to be expected. Only the more Beca thinks about it, the more she considers the fact that it maybe shouldn't be. That she should maybe be slightly more freaked out about things than she is. Granted, there's a certain level of dissonance to everything going on inside her head right now, but considering she came perilously close to at least attempting to bed her best friend, she's somehow managing to remain remarkably level-headed.
With the exception of the small, slightly muffled voice standing somewhere at the back of her mind, positively screaming its throat hoarse about how she'd had her mouth on Chloe's breast and "that's the kind of thing you can't ever come back from!" But like, that totally wasn't right, right? Of course she could come back from this. She just needs to, you know, stop thinking about things long enough for her to move past it.
Things like how Chloe's hands had groped at her, kissed her, and undressed her. How Beca had done the same to her. How soft Chloe had been under her fingers, against her mouth. Things like that primal pull of arousal and attraction that had yanked so fiercely at her once Beca's eyes had focused and she'd taken in the sight of the half-naked redhead lying beneath her. She remembers the feeling like a physical blow to her gut, to her chest and head, and it swims through her like an echo as she recalls the moment. An eternal slice of time that will probably live on in her memory forever, simply because she's fairly sure it has been burned into her synapses.
And she knows there's something there. That there's something to that, specifically. Something different. Something that maybe shouldn't be, or is unexpected at the very least. Much like the "being sort of, kind of aroused at work because you can't stop thinking about your best friend and the things you did to each other the night before" thing as a whole. She's running in circles inside her head and by the time her work day comes to a close, she feels physically drained from the mental marathon. From spending hours trying to convince herself to stop thinking about it, about her own reactions and desires in the moment, and to stop thinking about Chloe, period. Which of course, only ever led to her dwelling on all of those things.
"You look like crap." This is the greeting she gets upon entering the Bella household.
"Thanks, Amy," she deadpans, nudging the front door closed with her shoulder. Amy shows no sign of repentance, not that Beca had been anticipating any, and she shuffles after her captain as Beca moves for the stairs. She just wants to shower. Maybe the hot water will help.
"Where'd you end up last night, then?" Beca groans inwardly and resists the urge to tip her head back and scream at the ceiling. Amy's following her up, she can hear her footsteps, and so she takes a breath and prays her voice comes out in a nice, semi-neutral tone.
"Nowhere. Just like, just back here." She habitually clears her throat and allows herself a brief roll of her eyes as she crosses the landing. "Change of clothes turned into peejays and bed." She lifts her shoulders in a shrug and hopes Amy is actually looking at her, though the heat she senses boring into the back of her skull suggests that Amy's eyes haven't moved since she first started after Beca.
"Yeah?" Amy asks, as they climb the steps to their room. "'Cause like, a couple of us placed bets-" Beca spins, one hand gripping the railings in front of her desk while the other clutches the strap of her bag in a death grip, and she flashes wide, wild eyes at Amy. Who shapes her mouth into a tiny circle of confusion that a furrowed brow echoes, and continues. "That you and Chloe each found a boy toy to play with." The relief that floods her leaves her light-headed and with an ache she'd spent the entire day trying to get rid of. Amy pulls a face and it looks almost like a grimace. "Actually, that was just one of them. There was also Chloe found a sizeable piece of meat, but you passed out. And then that you both passed out because holding the Bella captaincy has made you two old before your time and ruined you for most future endeavours." Beca narrows her eyes, heart starting to wean its beat away from rapid.
"What did you bet?" Amy purses her lips at the question and lifts her hand to wag a finger at Beca.
"A lady never reveals her hand before all the chips are down." Amy gestures with her hand in a way that tells Beca this story isn't done yet, so she waits for the rest. "Unless there's a crocodile on the table, then all bets are off. But that only happened once."
"How are you a real person?" Beca gasps after a pause, shaking her head.
"I was conceived on the steps of the Sydney Opera House."
"Oh my god." Throwing her hands up in the air, Beca turns and takes the last couple of stairs two at a time.
"So, is it just you that passed out then or-"
"Talk time is done now!"
She hides in the closet until she's certain she hears Amy clomping back down the stairs and only then does she turn the overhead light on. Forehead pressed against the door jam, she rolls her head against it a few times, laughing derisively at herself before straightening with a groan. She may have jumped the gun, just a little. Of course they hadn't placed bets on her and Chloe.
She takes an extra long shower and shampoos her hair twice, trying to massage the ache in her brain. There are knots in her neck that Chloe would have worked out in sixty seconds tops, but the instant she thinks that her skin runs flush with goosebumps, as if someone had opened the bathroom door to let in the cold air from the hallway. Only the door stays shut and the water is hot enough to fill the room with steam. Slipping her tongue out, she presses the front of it to the flat of her teeth and holds it there for a moment, breathing in through her nose. Then she sends it across her bottom lip in an agitated swipe and blindly reaches to shut off the tap.
It isn't even so much that she can't stop thinking about it than it is that she can't stop thinking about how she can't stop thinking about it. She keeps telling herself that she's being silly, childish, that it's okay that she enjoyed it and that wanting to go further in that moment doesn't necessarily mean she'd feel that way again. Alcohol is funny that way. Right?
She changes quickly, tying her hair back, and dumps her laundry into the hamper before glancing at her phone to find the little cassette icon that means she has a voice mail message waiting to be heard staring at her.
"Beca, it's me. Dad." She rolls her eyes at the pause that hovers right before the word 'Dad', smiling at the hesitation in his voice. They've been on good ground for a while now, but she can tell he's still unused to it. Unsure maybe, about how to approach her, in case he says something that wakes up teenage-Beca to rip his head off. "Just calling to let you know that everyone will be arriving for the party at around six. If that works for you. If it doesn't, call me back and we'll work something else out. No good having a party if the guest of honour can't attend!" He ends the call with a dry laugh and a goodbye, and Beca lets her head fall back between her shoulders as the automated system robotically runs through the menu options.
She'd almost managed to forget about that impending fiasco.
Trudging down the stairs, she goes over all manner of possible outs to this situation. She could research the symptoms of some violently contagious disease and claim it as the reason she's unable to attend. Or she could conveniently skip town right before the party and just say she forgot. It is, after all, better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Then there's always the option of going, but insisting temporary deafness in order to avoid actually holding a conversation with anyone. She had plenty of practise pretending to be deaf in her youth, so she's fairly confident in her skills there. She could pull it off. That way, she'd only have to hear people talk about her and not have to partake, it's almost the perfect plan. Except for the part where her father will see right through it and, as she realises that, she feels her will to live begin to slip away. Replaced instead by the ball of apprehension and anxiety that had always accompanied the promise of 'family time'.
"Hey, you." The soft voice breaks Beca from her reverie and she blinks to find herself standing in the doorway of the kitchen, sky-blue eyes looking right through her in an entirely different manner. There's no suspicion there, but there is a sense of knowing. A playful mirth that, while Beca isn't really privy to, still feels familiar. Like they're sharing an unspoken secret.
"Hey." Beca offers up a random wave of her hand towards the woman leaning against the far end of the counter before turning to pull the fridge door open.
"How was your shift?" And she hadn't really noticed during, too preoccupied with actively avoiding all thoughts of Chloe, but the redhead hadn't texted her at once all afternoon. Something about that sits uneasily at the pit of Beca's stomach, stinging as she glances at the contents of the fridge and deems the remnants of Stacie's mac and cheeseburger casserole a more than suitable meal for the evening.
"Uh, it was," she grabs the edge of the glass pan and wiggles it out from between the milk and a bottle of the home-made dark green liquid she knows belongs to Ashley. It has the consistency of a smoothie and contains an amount of raw egg that Beca is decidedly uncomfortable with, but apparently it's the only thing that has kept Ashley going for the last four years. "It was fine." She straightens, closing the fridge with her elbow and turning to slide the container onto the counter. "Pretty uneventful." She pries off the rubbery lid and stretches onto her tiptoes to pull a plate down from the cupboard, licking a crumb of cheese from her thumb. "What about you? Get up to anything exciting after I left?"
"Miss Mitchell, just what are you suggesting?" Nothing, of course, Beca's just asking a question. She has no idea what Chloe is even suggesting she's suggesting at first, but then it clicks and her knuckles turn white against the plate in her hands as she tries not to drop it. She has to press her lips together in order to stop herself from outright gasping, but when she does speak, she's mortified to hear the slight squeak to her voice.
"Nothing. Oh my god, I was just asking a question." Chloe's laughter pulls her around and Beca's inexplicably surprised to find the other woman already looking at her. Or perhaps it's the manner in which she's being looked at.
The smile Beca had seen shining in her eyes is reflected now on Chloe's lips, small and secretive, but beyond that, the rest of her expression is inscrutable. As though Beca is seeing Chloe for the first time, and hasn't yet had the chance to unwind all of those intertwining threads that, when inspected, tell you everything you'd ever want to know about Chloe Beale. Something, she knows, is different. Not missing, but new or altered. And it startles Beca, because in that moment she's struck with just how much attention she must pay Chloe, has paid her over the years, in order to note such a subtle shifting. The shock passes almost as quickly as it arrives, acceptance of the simple fact that she's been looking swiftly moving in to fill its place, because that shouldn't sound like new information to her.
"Well," Chloe starts, expression morphing away from that which Beca had been finding hard to read and back towards one that has her convulsively swallowing. She isn't sure which one she prefers. With a teasing twist of her mouth, Chloe bends forward at the hips with her arms crossed over her chest, and whispers, "I did spend a lot of time thinking about you." Then winks.
Beca does her very best to level Chloe with a glare that would have made her parents flee from her bedroom back in the days of yore, but all it serves to do in the moment – or truthfully, any time she attempts it with Chloe – is stretch the redhead's smirk into a grin. So she gives up on that and turns back to dish herself out a helping of casserole with a roll of her eyes. Ignoring the thump of her heart and the tumble of her stomach.
And it's not as though Beca isn't aware of the changes. She knows that they're there, casting shadows against the corners of her mind. She can feel them twisting away from what they've always been and turning into something new. She feels it in the way she reaches for Chloe now, a little more often and with a little more ease than ever before. She feels it in the way she watches Chloe, watches her stand and walk and speak and breathe. It isn't uncomfortable and it doesn't really frighten her. It isn't something that seems to be vying for or demanding her attention. It just is. Existing without effort in a way that allows Beca to almost forget any kind of change is occurring at all.
Until Chloe looks at her like that. Or rests a hand on her. Smiles at her.
And they should talk about last night, they really should. Chloe had sounded like she wanted to talk about it, or at least Beca thinks that's how she sounded. And they should probably talk about it soon, because part of her is screaming out for the knowledge of whether or not that's something Chloe wants to pursue with her. It's desperate to know the answer to that so it can start digesting it. Dissecting it. Figuring out what to do with it.
Then, there's the part of Beca that's just plain old curious.
All of that does actually require that they talk about it though, and that's something that gives Beca's majority shareholder an enormous amount of anxiety, which she really doesn't need any more of at this current point in time. Between Worlds, graduating, and her father, she's got more than enough of her bases covered on that one.
"So, I was thinking," she hears Chloe say to the back of her head, soft and quiet in a way that makes Beca imagine that she feels the words murmured against her neck, and in a blur of motion, she's spinning back around to face Chloe.
"Do you want to come to my dad's dumb party with me?" The question trips over itself on its way out of Beca's mouth, rushing out fast enough to give the impression that she's being brazenly betrayed by her own body, again, and once the betrayal is complete, she's left staring owlishly at Chloe. Sweating uncertainly, and waiting.
For her part, Chloe looks similarly shocked. That doesn't last long though, then the smirk is back, crawling across Chloe's face as she takes one wide step to the side and slides her body along the counter and closer to Beca. The hair on the back of Beca's neck rises in time with the movement and her eyes flicker nervously to their corners, watching.
"Are you asking me out, Becs?" An undignified grunt makes its way out from the back of Beca's throat. "Is this a date?" She inhales deeply through her nose and lifts a hand to tuck hair that isn't there behind her ear. There are butterflies mating in her stomach, she knows it.
"Do you want free food and wine or not?" She grouses, and tries not to react to the way Chloe's eyes light up with mirth.
"What? Free food? Booze? What?" Fat Amy swaggers into the kitchen, and right into their conversation, and Beca's honestly a little relieved. Though she wonders how much Amy has overheard. "If Ginger won't, I'll take you up on that." The blonde tugs open the fridge and bends to retrieve something. Beca takes the opportunity to shoot Chloe a sidelong glance and instantly regrets it when she see that Chloe's attention hasn't shifted in the slightest, and that her smirk is still in place. "I can even sweeten the pot with a pash, if that's what it takes." Amy's eyes crinkle at the edges as she smiles that wide smile of someone who thinks they're being funny. Beca keeps her expression neutral, empty, and is silently pleased when it conveys the appropriate message. "No? Good. I didn't want to have to actually follow through there." Amy's retrieved a bottle of brightly coloured vodka-soda mix and she unscrews what Beca is fairly certain is not a screw-off top with her hand. "Not that you aren't attractive Bec." Beca's expression cracks and she lets the anticipatory grimace wash over her features, as Amy tosses the cap onto the counter and takes a healthy swig. "I'm sure there are like, leagues of wannabe punk-rock baby gays swooning over you as we speak." Beca's eyes drift shut in a moment of silent prayer, then she licks her lips before rolling them together.
"Thanks, Amy," she says, exasperation staining the words. Amy tips the neck of the bottle first towards Beca, then towards Chloe, bidding them farewell before disappearing to parts unknown. Both hands gripping the edge of the worktop, Beca's eyes flicker over the casserole as the seconds tick by and she waits for things to miraculously change around her. For time to rewind to a point right before she asked Chloe that awkward question, perhaps.
"Beca?" The way Chloe says her name is like a gentle press of a hand against Beca's cheek, slowly turning her face in Chloe's direction. And, pursing her lips to stop herself from saying anything else, Beca's helpless to do anything but give in. Slowly, she brings her attention back around to Chloe and is relieved to find the redhead's smirk has faded to a smile that, while easier for Beca to handle right now, is no less shaking. There's a heart-stopping minute then, where Chloe doesn't actually say anything and Beca is just waiting and unwittingly holding her breath without knowing why. "I would love to go to your dad's party with you." And she exhales in a loud stream that makes Chloe laugh and somehow, the tension dissolves.
"Yeah?" Chloe nods and Beca goes about trying to get the lid back on the casserole container. It takes longer than it should. "Okay. Cool." And after a solid thirty seconds of struggling, Beca feels a body she's becoming rather acutely familiar with – she knows the curve of Chloe's hip and how the breasts brushing her back feel in her hands – press against her and arms slip under her own.
"Yeah," Chloe's breath drifts over her neck as her hands take over and lever the lid into position in the time it takes Beca to gasp. Chloe pulls back just far enough to rest them lightly at Beca's waist and she knows she feels lips against her shoulder, even though the touch feels like a ghost. Beca knows. "Cool."
Chloe drifts away with a chuckle and a pat to Beca's backside, and Beca hears the other woman's "I can't wait" through a wall of cotton. And all she can think is, yeah.
Neither can she.