The sounds of rustling material and laboured breathing spill into the otherwise silent room like lava over the edge of a cliff. Trickling down into darkness along the sheer, steep face of it at a rate that is deceptively slow, considering the destruction it can cause.
Fingers skim over smooth skin and lava scorches the rock, burning away any signs of life that lie in its path, causing a billion tiny fatalities that are neither seen nor heard, but are felt on a level that is borderline cataclysmic.
A sigh joins the quiet cacophony, one born from contentment rather than frustration, and soft pink lips part at the sound of it. Curving at their corners and turning into a small smile; a display of obvious pleasure felt at receiving such a response, and fingers that had lain idle for all of a moment resume their tender, almost reverent mapping of the backs of Chloe's thighs.
Beca has no idea how long they've been lying here. Time seems to clock out whenever she finds herself willingly locked inside these moments with Chloe. Which should say something, and it does. It say a lot. Her ears aren't open to that right now, though. Like the walls of the room, they're absorbing every small noise and somehow there's no space for anything else. Only what's happening inside each second as it ticks by unnoticed.
Considering she's basically living each second as it comes, Beca isn't too caught up in her own thoughts. She isn't thinking about where her hands are moving or if they should be moving at all. If she should be doing something different with them or her mouth. And it's been a fight, but finally loosening the reins has been good, she thinks. It feels good. She thinks it's been good for Chloe, too, having Beca relax and let go. If it hadn't been for Chloe they wouldn't be here at all and if it weren't for her constant reassurance, Beca would have probably scared herself off a while ago.
As it is, they're making out on Beca's bed quite comfortably, unhurried and without the pinching pain of worry to distract them. Chloe still looms over Beca, her arms having not yet given out in holding her up, and Beca isn't surprised in the slightest. She's seen Chloe's arms, after all.
"What," Chloe breathes against Beca's lips, "are you smiling about?" Chloe's voice hitches at the end, as Beca trails her fingertips up and over the curve of Chloe's backside. All she feels is bare skin and her stomach drops at the thought of what that might mean.
"That," Beca manages despite herself, releasing an airy chuckle. "Just…" she inches her fingers higher, mercifully encountering a waistband, and feeling bold, she snaps it. Chloe lets out a surprised squeak. "The sounds you make." It isn't as though this is the first time Beca is expressing her enjoyment of such things, but Chloe hikes an eyebrow like she's surprised.
"You find them amusing?" Chloe bows her head again, this time nuzzling the underside of Beca's jaw, and Beca's eyelids flutter closed. She gives a noncommittal hum as her initial response.
"Not the a-word I would have gone with but…." She trails off as Chloe's lips find her neck, kissing the spot just below her ear and then travelling downward. Teeth graze her skin and Beca barely manages to withhold the gasp that tries to escape. Because she knows what Chloe's doing.
"Beca Mitchell." Chloe's voice washes over her like silk, her tone dripping with the kind of fun-filled feigned shock that makes Beca's insides jerk with excitement. "Is that a white flag in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
And it's as though some weird sense of something like euphoria rushes through Beca, fills her with warmth and at least three other things she can't think of words for. Happiness is both too broad and not enough, giddy doesn't quite cut it, and she doesn't think she can describe something as 'alarmingly content'. Still, those are as close as she can get.
Her brain doesn't allow her to dwell on that, though. It's already turning her head to the side, away from Chloe's lips and into the pillow beneath her head. A grin begins to overtake her face as she turns, the kind that's uncontrollable and impossible to fight, and she lets out a peel of laughter that's quickly echoed by Chloe.
Beca lets her hands fall from Chloe and brings one to her face, covering her eyes with the back of her right one as she continues to chuckle. Chloe takes the opportunity to straighten, pushing herself up until she's settled against Beca's thigh, and when Beca finally composes herself enough to look up at her, she feels her stomach tumble over itself.
Chloe's red curls are messier than they'd been prior her to ending up on Beca's bed, but Beca can hardly be blamed for that. It's not as if she can just avoid threading her fingers into Chloe's hair as they kiss. Even Chloe's teddy is rumpled, which, okay, Beca will take the blame for. After all, Chloe is wearing a teddy. How is that fair? What did Chloe think was going to happen?
Which is actually a very good question.
"I," Beca begins, pausing for dramatic effect as she slips her fingers into the front of her hair and locks eyes with the redhead above her. "Don't believe I'll dignify that with an answer."
"You don't need to." Chloe laughs again, pressing her hands to Beca's shoulders and slowly lowering herself down until she's hovering a few inches over Beca. And not even the darkness surrounding them can dim the starlight shining in Chloe's eyes. "You were staring."
Beca assumes Chloe is talking about earlier in the bathroom, when Chloe had appeared on the other side of the door wearing that. And, while Beca has no concrete evidence to prove it, she is one hundred percent sure that Chloe doesn't just randomly wear sexy nighties to bed.
Sexy, obviously, being subjective and not necessarily what Beca actually thinks.
Of course, it is what she thinks, but that's besides her point.
"Wasn't that the idea?" she counters, watching carefully for any changes to Chloe's expression. Aiming for nonchalance, and mostly pulling it off, Beca languidly retracts her hand from her hair and moves each of them to rest on one of Chloe's thighs. "Isn't that what you wanted?" Her palms arch around the sides of Chloe's legs, underneath the lower half of the teddy but not too high, thumbs idly stroking back and forth.
Chloe stares down at her, the corner of her lip snared between her teeth, clearly thinking, but they're close enough that Beca can feel the intensity rolling off of the other woman. It makes her want to crawl away and crawl closer simultaneously.
"Maybe," Chloe finally admits, releasing her lip and flashing a small smile. Chloe isn't embarrassed, Beca knows that, but she's something. And as she lets her hands wander, just a little, over the swell of Chloe's rear, Beca thinks that she could press the issue.
"Well, I'd hate to disappoint." Only she doesn't feel like pressing anything other than herself into Chloe, so, there's that. Instead, she lets her hands squeeze, just once, and feels her guts twist at the reaction Chloe gives her. Her hands grip Beca's shoulders a little tighter and the eyes swimming just above Beca's own snap shut, and Chloe next words come out as a wisp of breathless air.
"You haven't yet."
If it were solely isolated to the conversation they're having, the statement is playful in its affirmation. Only, Beca knows it isn't isolated, that Chloe doesn't mean just here and now. It's the way she says it and though Beca couldn't put a finger on what about it tells her that, she still knows it to be an inarguable truth.
In that moment she recalls lying in Chloe's bed feeling the exact same way she's feeling now. Unnerved by an unwavering and unyielding belief. She remembers how her emotions had rushed over one another, climbing higher until they toppled forward into a tidal wave. She remembers the desperation she'd felt and how she'd frantically reached out to Chloe then.
And when Chloe blindly bumps Beca's nose with her own, Beca finds herself reaching out again.
There's desperation here in this moment, too. It's there in the way her mouth catches Chloe's, hungry and possessive. Startlingly so. Beca swallows Chloe's high whimper of surprise and feels the desperation clawing at the pit of her stomach. Controlling her hands as they sweep down the backs of Chloe's thighs, then slip beneath the hem of the teddy to grip slender hips. Chloe nips at Beca's lip as she pulls out of one kiss, only to dive straight into another, and there's desperation there, too.
She wonders what Chloe is thinking, wants to ask, but can't find her voice. It's been lost to gasping whimpers and careless moans, drawn out by shifting hips that don't belong to Beca, but the pressure of which she can feel. Against her hands, behind her ribs. The movements are idle, as though instinctual or unconscious, but Beca feels their purpose like a brand. Burning her, marking her for some later event.
A promise of probable possibility.
And instead of scaring her, Beca feels that notion settle inside her like a weighted blanket. Something that could be moved or shifted, shrugged off, but not without some effort.
"I don't really want to inflate your ego," Chloe pants, pulling back to look at Beca, who only has a small amount of trouble opening her eyes. When she does, it's to the sight of Chloe wearing swollen lips and a hooded gaze, and Beca feels something white-hot begin to coil in the pit of her stomach. "But I think people need to know amazing things about themselves, you know?" The question sounds rhetorical, which is good because Beca isn't sure she can find words to answer. She can only stare at Chloe's lips as she licks them, preparing to speak again. "And you," Chloe's fingers brush fine hairs away from Beca's face and she smiles down at her, "are an amazing kisser."
Beca can't tell if she's blushing; her whole body still feels hot. Truthfully, she doesn't care if she is right now. That desperation she'd been feeling has suddenly fizzled away, leaving only a buzzing warmth behind as a reminder. Something that Chloe's compliment only serves to heighten and Beca feels the cocky grin pull at her mouth.
"I mean," Beca pauses to exhale quietly, lifting her eyebrows as she does, "I always kind of suspected." There's a heavy sense of false modesty to her voice and it makes Chloe laugh as she straightens to sit back on her haunches. Beca's hands drift out from underneath silky material and come to rest atop Chloe's thighs once more.
"You did, huh?" Chloe arches a brow of her own and Beca taps her thumbs against firm muscle as she hums her response. "Did Jesse give you a lot of," bright blue eyes narrow as dread rises in the back of Beca's throat like bile, "hard evidence to support that?"
"Dude!" Beca yelps, pushing at Chloe's thighs before lifting her hands toward shoulders she can't quite reach. "Oh my god, why would you-" she cuts herself off with a grunt of disgust and a visible shudder. Because now there are mental memory images rising to meet her and she thinks she might just shrivel up and die. "What is wrong with you?!" Beca resorts to slapping at the woman above her and Chloe laughs, easily deflecting the attacks.
"What did I say?" Chloe's chuckles muddle her words in a way that Beca finds pretty adorable and as soon as she realises that, she feels heat begin to creep along the back of her neck. She feels like her brain just caught her hand in the cookie jar. So to speak.
"You need to get off." Beca shoves at Chloe's knees, just once, but still Chloe refuses to move. She only aims a smirk back down at her.
"I was working towards that."
The words, spoken in such a purposefully husky tone, has memories she'd rather forget colliding head-first into visions she doesn't know what to do with. Heat spreads to her face and now Chloe's laughing.
"I hate you," Beca grumbles and feels the heavy blanket of warmth that had been draped over her lift as Chloe moves away from her.
"I really wish you wouldn't lie to my face." Chloe sighs, all sad and dramatic. "How am I supposed to trust you enough to let you experiment with me if you keep lying to me like that?"
It's a joke. Beca knows it's a joke. But it's also a reminder.
Because right, that's what they're doing. That's what they've been doing this whole time.
Beca had forgotten that for a moment.
"I'm starving." Beca blurts suddenly and her stomach takes its cue, growling loudly. Chloe laughs again and Beca sits up.
"Me too." Chloe glances down to adjust the front of the teddy and Beca's eyes drift again without her permission. She manages to look away before Chloe catches her, though. "Amy hides a stash of frozen pizzas behind the cooler Lilly keeps in the freezer downstairs."
"I don't like touching that cooler." The words come out in a rush and for a moment, Beca feels real fear at the prospect of having to actually touch it. "No one knows what's in it."
"That's why it's the perfect hiding place." Chloe's eyes glitter in the darkness.
"Dude, I'm pretty sure there's a head in there." And it's maybe a little far-fetched, Beca thinks, but then again, it honestly might not be.
"Do you want pizza or not?" Chloe arches an eyebrow and Beca frowns, thinking it over.
"I'm just going to order one."
Thankfully, virtually all of the pizza places in a twenty mile radius around Barden are open until at least three in the morning. After all, that's when the study bugs and stoners come out to play, either starving from skipping dinner or just trying to deal with a case of the munchies. Beca wouldn't be surprised if she learned that they made most of their money between midnight and closing.
They end up eating the pizza on Beca's bed, managing to sit side by side against the headboard without either of them toppling off the edge. And they don't discuss what they'd been doing less than thirty minutes before - or it's free! - and that's fine, Beca thinks. She doesn't really feel like they need to talk about it. It doesn't swim around in her head like a shark waiting to be noticed.
They just eat pizza and talk about Worlds. And yes, Beca does catch herself thinking that it's probably incredibly unjust that anyone can look as good as Chloe does right now, wearing sexy undergarments and eating a pizza, a smudge of grease at the corner of her mouth. Beca's thumb itches against her thigh and she forces herself to pick her half-eaten piece out of the box.
She has no idea when Lilly arrives home because neither of them hear her on the stairs. In fact, the first sign of her comes in the form of two wide eyeballs peering at them from between the banister railings. Beca shrieks, Chloe nearly rolls off the bed, and Lilly mutters something about an ex-boyfriend and pizza crusts. Chloe takes that as her cue to leave and drops the box and the last two slices into Lilly's waiting hands as she descends the stairs. Beca watches them both disappear from view and spends a few minutes sitting in silence before getting up to brush her teeth again.
She passes Chloe's room on the way and definitely doesn't think about sneaking in there for absolutely no reason at all. She doesn't think about how that familiar feeling of desperation had taken hold of her again, left her feeling like she had fire racing under her skin. She doesn't think about the way Chloe had responded to her shift towards possessive or how Chloe's thighs had felt beneath her hands.
She doesn't think about how Chloe's eyes change or the way her body moves. She doesn't think about the smirk she wears whenever she teases Beca or how Beca had reached forward without thinking to lift the thin strap of Chloe's teddy back up onto her shoulder after watching it slip down.
She doesn't think about the cooling coil of something she doesn't want to name sitting in the pit of her stomach, still curled tight.
She drops her face into her pillow and pulls her covers over her head, and wonders how she's supposed to sleep when her bed smells like pizza.
And not at all like Chloe.
When she wakes up the next morning there are three text messages from Jesse waiting to be read, the timestamps start at eight twenty-three and there's about five minutes separating each one. Beca rubs the sleep out of her eyes and tries to pat down her wild hair, then rolls onto her back to read them.
Are u awake yet?
hello?
K call me when u get this pls. It's actually important.
Beca's brow furrows and she immediately pushes herself into a half-sitting position as she hits the call button.
"Becaw!" Jesse answers on the second ring and Beca actually winces at his piercing greeting. "Sleeping Beauty has awakened!"
"Oh my god, can you turn it down a notch? I literally just woke up." She brings a hand to her face and covers her eyes, pressing her thumb and middle finger to either temple.
"You know, I don't miss how grouchy you are in the mornings." It's clear that Jesse is eating while he speaks, the dampened crunch of soggy cereal audible over the phone.
"Yes, I'm a hard person to live with, whatever," Beca sighs, wanting to move past this part of the conversation already. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" Jesse parrots back to her, his pitch lifting at the end to convey confusion and make it clear that he isn't just asking her the same question.
"Well, you don't usually ask me to call you about important stuff." Not because he wouldn't, Beca knows, but rather because there haven't been too many things either one of them found important enough that it couldn't be talked about over text.
"Oh," he laughs and Beca can see him smiling. "No, it's a good important." Beca feels relief settle over the rats chewing through her stomach like a weighted net and she hears a slurping noise, then the sound of a spoon hitting the bottom of an empty bowl.
"I so don't miss watching you drinking the milk after you're done eating cereal." She makes a face. "Gross."
"It's just milk, Beca." He laughs again and Beca shakes her head even though he can't see her.
"No, it's milk with bits of leftover cereal floating around in it like gross, waterlogged pieces of sponge and-"
"You are so weird," Jesse interrupts, feigning awe, and Beca rolls her eyes.
"Shut up, that's my thing. Only I can say that." Suddenly remembering that she doesn't room alone, Beca snaps her head towards Amy's bed only to find it empty and unmade, and she uses the break in conversation to listen for signs of life downstairs. "I really hope that isn't Lilly using the blender unsupervised again."
"Again?" Jesse asks, like he doesn't really want to know.
"Last time…" Beca pauses, closing her eyes briefly and deciding that she doesn't want to relive it. "She just, she'll put anything in there, okay? Now, can you please tell me whatever it is that demanded we speak verbally so early in the morning?"
"It's like ten-thirty, but okay." He pauses and Beca waits with rising anticipation, until finally he says, "I got offered an internship at Williams and Horner."
Beca's mind goes blank for a nano-second, then the tiny version of herself that lives inside her brain makes a heroic leap for the oversized pull-string attached to the blind that has the correct answer written across it, drawing it down for her to read.
"Dude, that's awesome!" Beca throws her arm out, her torso rocking forward as though readying the rest of her body to climb out of bed. She stays put, though, a genuine smile on her face.
Jesse has been talking about Williams and Horner for as long as Beca's known him. It's his dream job, he's been waiting for divine intervention to fly him there, to New York, since he was ten years old. She can hear how happy he is, can imagine the elated look on his face and the giddy way he's pacing around his dorm room.
"I'm so happy for you! Seriously." Because Beca has a tendency to somehow sound incensire when she's being the exact opposite.
"Thanks," Jesse laughs, breathless, like he can't believe they're talking about this. "I'm happy, too. I guess. I mean, a little bit." His goofy smile is practically visible through the phone and it widens Beca's smile. "Can I pick you up? Take you out to celebrate?"
"Mister Swanson," Beca says, sounding slightly scandalized. "Are you asking me on a date?"
"I mean, a little bit," he repeats without missing a beat and Beca lets out a laugh.
"Shut up. Can you give me like an hour?" She throws the covers back and swings her legs off the bed.
"Sure. Text me when you're ready."
Beca isn't surprised in the slightest when they end up at Barden's Beanhouse. Jesse waves her away to get them a table and goes off to order their usual. She finds a spot near the back with two armchairs nestled against the exposed brick, a small table separating them, and drops into the one on the right. She pulls out her phone to place it on the table, but stops when she sees she has a text.
Hey where'd you go?
Chloe. Beca hadn't seen her before she left with Jesse.
Out with Jesse. He got that internship he wanted, so we're celebrating over coffee.
That's amazing! Tell him I said congratulations! :)
I will.
I'll see you later?
Well, we live in the same house so... ;)
:P
"That your girlfriend?" Jesse grins at her as he sits down and it's the kind of grin that perfectly conveys the fact that he knows he might very well still be on thin ice, but also that he's a boy so he's going to try walking across the lake anyway. He places her drink of choice down in front of her and Beca grabs it with a roll of her eyes, sucking up a mouthful of the frothy, white slush-type stuff through the straw just as Jesse's own phone vibrates against the table. Beca hikes an eyebrow.
"Is that yours?" She lifts one side of her mouth into a smirk and allows her one lonely eyebrow to join the other near her hairline as she slowly closes her lips around the straw. Jesse, somehow failing to anticipate the rebuttal, blushes the colour of Chloe's hair and Beca almost chokes on her drink because of how adorable it is. "You're ridiculous," she manages after swallowing, wiping the corner of her mouth with the heel of her palm.
"Right. I'm ridiculous." His muttering is just loud enough for Beca to hear but when she calls him on it, he breezes right over it. "She's not my girlfriend." He makes the word sound silly and childish, like it's something only a schoolboy would chase after. But then he's picking up his large coffee with about eighteen sugars and following it up with, "Yet."
For a second, Beca's torn between screaming and laughing, eventually deciding on the latter and shaking her head as she lets it out.
"Man. I did not see this coming." She's staring in his direction, but it's more at the table than it is at him and she isn't really looking at anything. Instead, she's replaying every moment in which she can remember the two of them interacting over the last few years. Shaking her head again, she lifts her gaze to meet his eyes. "Seriously. Like, no clues. Nothing." Then he's the one laughing.
"Yeah, well…" he rubs at the back of his neck and then offers up a half-shrug. "Sometimes it's the unexpected stuff that ends up mattering the most."
"I," Beca starts, eyes crinkling at their corners as she aims an open-mouthed smile at him, "really want to make fun of you right now, but I can't." He laughs again. "It's totally gross and I don't understand it, but I'm also feeling this weird sense of like… light? Or goodness or-"
"That's happiness, Beca," Jesse says and Beca's eyes pop wide as she mouths a silent, "oh!"
"Wow, that's- that's happiness? This is what that feels like?"
"Uh huh." He's nodding encouragingly with a grin slowly lighting up his face and it's nice, Beca thinks. That they still have this, have them, that they can still be stupid and goofy and no one hates anyone for anything. "Feels good, right?"
"I think it's making me feel nauseous."
And she doesn't like thinking about him not being around, just a phone call away, but she can't help it right now. What with his awesome yet kind of upsetting news and the possibility of her landing a job at Residual Heat's Los Angeles branch. Life is moving on, whether she wants it to or not.
They talk about the internship and Jesse's entire being seems to vibrate as he's explaining the ins and outs. He's so happy and it makes Beca's heart hurt, but in a good way. Like it's being strangled by puppies.
"How was the dinner party thing with your folks?" He takes a sip of his coffee as he asks.
"Surprisingly free of bloodshed," Beca quips. "Both of my parents made it out with all of their fingers and toes. My Mom was like… really nice to Sheila? It was weird." She frowns, thinking back on it, and Jesse molds his mouth around a silent 'wow'. "I felt like a bank teller by the end of the night, though. That was pretty awesome."
"And Chloe?" He hedges, with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, and she shoots him a glare that tells him she knows exactly what he's doing.
"Chloe… was… also there," she says, slowly, and his fingers tap out an impatient rhythm against the mug he's holding. He doesn't say anything though and she hates it, because that's always been his trick for getting her to talk. What's worse is that, somehow, knowing that it's his go-to method of interrogation does nothing at all to keep her from succumbing to the same fate every time.
She finally gives in with a roll of her eyes. "You know Chloe. She's always good with people, even perfect strangers. I'm pretty sure she spent most of the night over-selling every slightly intelligent thing I've done since getting to Barden to every member of my family."
Jesse laughs at that and despite the fact that she says it in the same tone a person would take when describing mild embarrassment, she can't help but smile. Because she'd enjoyed hearing all of those stories from Chloe's point of view, exaggerated though they have been. She'd enjoyed watching Chloe tell them, her excitement almost infectious.
She likes hearing Chloe talk about her like she's special. Regardless of whether or not Beca believes herself to be, it makes her feel warm and fuzzy inside. As well as a little awkward and kinda like she wants to crawl under a rock.
It's like an uncontrollable smile that creeps across your face even though you're trying so damn hard to remain serious or upset with the person who is making every effort to ensure that smile keeps on growing.
She doesn't want to show just how much she enjoyed Chloe's presence the night before, but she's nowhere near confident that she's going to manage to keep that hidden.
"If Chloe's anything," Jesse says, lifting his coffee cup by the rim and extending his index finger across the mouth of it to point at her. "It's Beca Mitchell's biggest fan." The middle of his face disappears behind the mug as he drains the rest of his coffee.
"I thought you were my biggest fan." Beca feigns disappointment and pretends to wipe away a tear. She knows where arguing his statement will lead them. "It was- I actually had a good time? I don't think that would have been possible if I'd been there alone."
"So, everything's good there?" His inflection turns the question into one of mild surprise and Beca shakes her head at him.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Of course, she knows why. She's aware of the various alternate ways this venture could be playing out.
"Oh, I don't know," Jesse says, idly glancing around in a way that conveys that he knows exactly why. "Maybe because yesterday you told me you were messed up?"
"I said kind of messed up," Beca snaps, rushing to her own defense.
"Beca." Now he's doing that thing where he looks at her. Really looks, right through her, all-knowing and patient. Just waiting for her, like he knows neither of them are leaving until she says something. "You've barely mentioned her, you know. This entire time."
Beca tries to bury the jolt of anxiety his statement sends through her under a raised eyebrow.
"So?" She watches his mouth stretch into a smile and then open to release a chuckle.
"So, I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing after that text." He shrugs. "She usually comes up somewhere in our conversation these days."
"Yeah," Beca sticks her neck out, nodding at him with wide eyes, "because you bring her up."
"Well someone has to." He grins and she rolls her eyes at him, because no. No one has to. This is definitely something they could just not talk about in her opinion and she doesn't know why he insists on the opposite.
Except, she does know, but she doesn't like it.
"Do you really want to do this after yesterday?" She's referring to their fight now, which had all come about because Jesse had been pushing and sure, maybe Beca could be blamed for a little of it.
"Oh no, I think we need to do this after yesterday." He glances sidelong at her. "You wouldn't have sent that text if you didn't want to talk about it."
She clenches her jaw, the motion unconscious, and stares him down. She's already lost, though. Can feel it inside her. A sagging tightrope that will be immensely difficult, not to mention hazardous, to walk across.
"We had this… talk."
But she'll never make it to the other side if she doesn't try.
It's tough, but she knew it would be. There's a fine line between just enough information and too much, and something inside of her won't let her discuss things with Jesse that she hasn't yet talked about with Chloe.
Things like feelings and what they mean. Not that Beca really wants to talk about those things, but if she ever did she should probably talk about them with Chloe first and foremost. So, she skirts around the edges and dances around the details, but she's confident that the important bits are conveyed with at least seventy percent clarity.
She also talks a little about the night of the Bellas' grad party. How things had escalated to a point where they almost hadn't been able to turn back and she goes out of her way to make sure to mention the fact that they'd been drunk at the time. She's confused, she tells him, about whatever is going on inside her head. Frustrated because nothing makes sense in the way she wants it to anymore.
"Well, how do you want it to make sense?"
"I don't know," she replies, with a desperate smile. "In a way I can understand without my brain suddenly feeling like it's too big for my skull?"
There's pressure, she realises, buried amid the changes. Pressure to do something about it all, but she's following a map without a legend and keeps getting lost. Keeps chasing the same trail and if she would just stop and ask for directions, she might end up on a different path. A better one.
But Beca is stubborn and the fear of being led toward a dead end overpowers her common sense.
"I'll figure it out." Her words are dismissive and she can tell by the look on his face that he knows the conversation is over. That she's closed up shop for the day. "I mean, crushes are like, a totally normal thing for people to have, right? It's not that weird."
Jesse nods in agreement but it's suspiciously lackluster and devoid of eye contact.
Beca decides not to press the issue and inelegantly changes the subject back to Jesse's internship.
"So, when do you start?" She asks the question idly, picking bits of flakey pastry off of the half-eaten, jam-filled snack Jesse had gotten up to get ten minutes ago and popping them into her mouth. They've been talking about his job again for a while now and Beca's glad to be able to lose some of her anxiety under his excitement.
"Yeah." His shift in tone makes her look up and she finds him wearing creases of hesitation across his face. "That's also kinda why I asked you here."
Something in the pit of Beca's being slips off kilter, like a tiny earthquake lifting up a manhole cover and setting it back down slightly askew.
"I have to catch a flight to New York in two days." He states it as gently as possible, but it still feels like a sharp slap to Beca and her whole body twitches. "My dad actually paid for the ticket, which is pretty awesome." He keeps talking, Beca hears his voice as a low hum, and while she does try to pay attention, she's about as successful as she would be at trying to keep her balance if someone pulled a rug out from under her.
"Two days?" she blurts, cutting him off with a hard stare. "That's-" Glancing across the room, she can see that she's drawing the attention of the other patrons in the small area and tries to adjust the shrillness in her voice. "Dude. Two days? What the hell?"
"I know, I'm sorry." He looks it, too. "Listen, if I'd known earlier-"
"I know," she echoes him, tucking her hair behind her ears and frowning down at her half empty plastic cup. She doesn't want him to apologise, she isn't mad at him. "I'm just…" she exhales slowly and offers him a smile that's shakier than she'd been anticipating. "Surprised."
"Yeah." His mouth quirks upward, but the strings that pull it there are weighted with sadness. "It surprised me, too." His happiness is rapidly evaporating and, as much as Beca feels sorry for herself at the thought of losing him so quickly, she's going to do her very best to hide that.
"Look, whatever. It wouldn't matter if it was two or twelve, I'd still be bummed you were leaving." He opens his mouth to comment but Beca cuts him off. "So let's just, like, hang out like normal. Or we can go back to your dorm and watch one of your stupid movies for old time's sake." She sees the shine of happiness return to his smile and steadfastly ignores it. "Maybe I'll help you pack, because I know you haven't started that yet."
"Hey, I started," he protests with a pout and Beca eyes him skeptically. "But that was really just Benji trying to fold himself into my suitcase so I didn't leave him behind." Beca nods.
"That's what I thought."
Looking around, Beca wonders how long it'll be before the smell of popcorn is exorcised from the dorm room. She's sure it's been absorbed into the walls on a microscopic level by now and, honestly, she can't be sure that the paint job doesn't look a little more buttery-yellow than it did when he first moved in.
They start with the packing. Benji had brought over some empty boxes he'd found in the basement of the Trebles' house earlier that day and, after Beca gives Jesse shit for telling Benji before her, they begin organising things into piles.
"How did you accumulate so much crap, dude?" From her spot on the floor, Beca tosses another small stuffed toy onto the ever growing pile of them she'd started to her left.
"What? I really like claw machines, okay?" Jesse is standing beside the bed, going through his clothes and folding the ones he's taking. Which is the majority, but Beca does make him toss one with literal holes in it. Jesse fights for his paint-splattered Jaws t-shirt, though, arguing that it would serve as a reminder of the time the Trebles all went paintballing together and Bumper ending up shriek-crying inside a concrete tube.
Beca let him have that one.
"I think you have a problem." She drops a keychain into what she has named the random pile and glances around her. She's created a semi-circle of Jesse's things, the 'keep' stacks to her to her right and the 'maybes-slash-you-need-to-toss-this' on her left. There's more to go through, she knows it. This isn't everything.
Bending forward, she reaches out for Jesse's duvet and lifts it in order to glance under the bed.
"Do you think I'd be able to wear a Hawaiian shirt in New York?" He asks, staring at the bright orange shirt he's holding up. It's decorated with red and blue macaws and Beca visibly winces as she glances up at it, but he isn't looking at her.
"At no point whatsoever." She finds a box under the bed, a little larger than one that would customarily hold shoes, and she pulls it out. "I swear, if this is your porn stash." She fiddles with the lid, lifting it off as he finally glances down at her. "I will never let you live-"
"Oh, don't- not that one." His call comes too late, though.
The lid comes off easily enough, just lifts away from the lower half of the box and reveals such a hodgepodge of different things that it could easily be mistaken for a really weird place that Jesse likes to keep his garbage. Then she spots the glossy corner of a photograph and, tilting her head, Beca reaches into the box. She pinches the corner and lifts it out from underneath some other more nondescript items, watching as it's revealed bit by bit.
It's a photograph of the two of them, taken during their second year at Barden. He's giving Beca a piggyback ride, leaning so far forward that it looks as though they're in danger of falling, but she's gripping him so tightly, her fingers tangled in his shirt as they laugh at the camera. She's pretty sure Stacie had referred to it as their 'Honeymoon Stage' and, looking at it now, Beca can see that way more clearly than she'd been able to back then. Then, she'd just felt happy all the time. Now, she can see how happy she was, how happy they both were, and she feels the echo of something tug hard at her heartstrings.
Because it hadn't stayed that way. Sure, they'd been happy for a while, and when the break up came they'd parted on really, really good terms. Obviously. But part of her was still sad that they hadn't worked out and she wasn't sure how to reconcile that with herself, or if it was even okay that she thought that way.
She sees bright orange drop from his hands to the bed and his legs turn with the rest of him as he sits down on the edge of the mattress. Beca doesn't look up; curiosity gets the better of her and, since he isn't outright stopping her, she starts looking at the other things in the box after setting the photo aside.
There are a couple of different ticket stubs for concerts they'd gone to together, a program from their first ICCAs, and a wristband from a waterpark he'd taken her to over spring break. There are other photos, too. Mostly just of the two of them, but Benji, Amy and Chloe pop up in a few of them. The Breakfast Club CD she'd sort of, maybe, totally stolen from the radio station and then had given him as some gross, sappy gesture that she'll deny if anyone brings it up is in there as well, along with the receipt from the restaurant he'd taken her to on their first date.
"Jesse…" she looks up at him through her lashes and he smiles at her, half-hearted and sheepish.
"It's not what it looks like." He sounds different now, solemn in a way, but Beca almost wants to laugh at his words, because isn't that what they always say in movies?
"All that's missing is a lock of my hair, man." There's a touch of sarcasm in there, but her frown conveys the bulk of what she's feeling. She's confused and is, frankly, terrified of what he's going to say. She's scared he'll give her some excuse and she'll know that he's lying.
"It's in there somewhere," he deadpans, then laughs at whatever look just crossed her face. Probably one of mild horror. "I'm kidding." He points towards the box. "That's isn't… I'm not still-" he sighs, lifting a hand to scratch his scalp. "When we were together, everything was like this new, amazing adventure. I wanted to remember every second of every single thing we did with each other. If I could have copied those moments and pasted them into a folder in my brain, I would have. But we don't have that kind of tech yet, so I had to settle for this." Bending his knees, he slinks down to sit across from her with his back against the bed. Reaching into the box, he rummages around until he hooks a plastic gumball ring on his pinky finger and holds it up. It's teal in colour and doesn't fit him at all.
"Seriously?" Beca barks a laugh. "Why do you still have that?"
"Because you won it for me." He grins at her. "All of this stuff is... there are memories attached to everything in here. Things I don't want to forget, even though we aren't in that place anymore. You were so important to me, Beca. You still are." His words hit her right between the ribs and sting the backs of her eyes. "I never want to forget a second of the time we spent together."
She had no idea he was this kind of person. Someone who held onto material objects in order to stay close to something that wasn't present anymore. The realisation upsets her a bit, as well as the idea that there's probably so much more she doesn't know. Because she never asked.
And now he's leaving.
She doesn't cry, but her vision swims dangerously for a few moments until Jesse nods towards the first photo she'd set aside and says, "Maybe put that on the right."
There's so much emotion wrapped up inside of her. A tightly tangled ball of vines that will take an eternity to untwist with the care needed to make sense of it all, so she doesn't bother.
They finish with what they're doing and Jesse decides to pack the rest of his stuff up himself later. She wonders if this is him giving her an out. If he feels awkward or is worried that she feels awkward, when neither of them really have anything to be awkward about. Jesse's always been sweet, Beca reasons. She just didn't realise it was dental-work level sweet.
With a wry smile, she asks him if wants to watch a movie.
They're over halfway into The Breakfast Club when he asks her.
"You know why I didn't tell you first, right?" He turns his head towards her and she can feel him staring.
"Mm?" Beca hums, slumped against his shoulder as they lie squished together on his bed, her eyes still fixed on the laptop screen.
"You were always going to be the hardest one, Bec," he murmurs and Beca feels her chest constrict painfully. "To tell. To say goodbye to. To leave."
"Yeah, I know." She manages to swallow around the lump in her throat and shifts a little onto her side so that her cheek is resting near his collarbone. "Now, shut up and let's finish this."
The arm he has around her flexes as he squeezes her shoulder and she feels him drop a kiss against the top of her head.
And if a single tear escapes when she closes her eyes for a second, it's fine.
She can blame it on the movie.
When he drops her off at the Bella house, she exits his car with a quick kiss to his cheek and an offer to help him finish his packing tomorrow. He waits until she's got the door open before driving away with a wave and Beca enters a suspiciously quiet house alone.
There's a note on the fridge door, held there by a magnet in the shape of a music note, that has Chloe's name written in pretty cursive at the bottom of it.
"If you get back before us, we're out making an ice-cream run," Beca reads aloud, pulling the piece of paper free. "Don't have too much fun without me." There's a hand drawn winky face punctuating the sentence and Beca smiles.
She's about to crumple it into a ball, ready for garbage tossing, when Jesse's box pops into her head. She glances around, even though there's no one else home, then folds the note in half and shoves it into her pocket before heading for her room.
She takes full advantage of the empty house, not knowing how long it'll last, and opens up the Singing In The Rain mix she's been working on. It's almost done, she just needs to tweak a few things, add a few bits.
With her headphones on, she doesn't hear her phone go off, but she sees the screen light up. It's Jesse.
U no I'm just tryin 2 be supportive when I ask u abt stuff right?
She does, of course she does. It's not Jesse's fault that she's so... something about it all that she's liable to bite his head off without warning.
I know. But here's an idea…
How about you support me by learning to type in full sentences?
Just for you. This took me like ten minutes to type BY THE WAY.
She laughs, because it's only been about two and she knows it didn't even take him that long.
Such hardship.
She refocuses her attention on the mix but keeps her phone screen on so that she can see if he messages again with a quick glance. It takes a few minutes, but he does.
What you were saying earlier
Do you think maybe you're into girls now?
And the question honestly surprises her, so much so that she actually feels herself react to it, sitting there in her chair with her headphones over her ears and the melodies of the mix she's making for Chloe filling the space between them.
She frowns, consciously thinking it over for the first time since this thing with Chloe started. She thinks about the women in her life, celebrities, women she's passed on the street.
Maybe?
Nothing really pops out, though. Nothing beyond the fact that she's realising she has been looking.
No? I don't know.
You don't have to know. I was just curious.
She spends a moment worrying her bottom lip, blinking down at the phone and wondering why her answer isn't sitting right with her. Her thumbs twitch a few times and then they're moving.
I think I'm just….
Into Chloe
There's no response from him after that and Beca finds she can set her phone down without wondering.
Sitting comfortably.