Chloe is good at emotion. In fact, Chloe is great at it.
Chloe is great at feeling it, and great at dealing with it, and great at soothing it, when she thinks that's something that might be necessary. Chloe is great at happy, and she's also great at sad; she's great at heartbreak and love and devastation and joy, and most of the emotions that rattle around in the spaces between. Chloe is just- great at it.
It isn't something the redhead has ever really needed to try at – it's just always been that way, for Chloe; she's just always been a little more empathic than most, even as a kid, and, if she's honest, Chloe pretty much adores relating to other people on a more intimate level, like that.
But this– It's something different.
Chloe honestly isn't sure how to react to Beca's emotion, because the love and devastation and heartbreak that Beca is expressing, right now, is deeper than Chloe thinks she's ever been able to feel, in the first place. It's strange, for Chloe, that she can't relate to this; at least, not really. There are tears in Chloe's eyes, and her heart aches and aches and aches, all for Beca, and Chloe truly does feel sad, in the deepest way she's ever known, but- even Chloe knows that it can't compare.
It's like Beca is just that tiniest bit out of sync, with Chloe; like her emotion is something that Chloe can see, and like it's reaching out to Chloe, begging for her understanding, but- all the redhead can feel is an echo of it.
It's frustrating, for Chloe, because she wants to understand. Chloe wants to share that emotion with Beca, completely, just so that Beca doesn't need to feel it alone.
Because she shouldn't have to do anything alone. Not anymore.
The Vampire Queen's hauntingly silver eyes are weighted and wet, and her fingers pull so tightly against Aubrey's hand that Chloe can see the blonde wince, even as she tucks the inside of her cheek between her teeth and stubbornly refuses to complain about the discomfort. And, really, that's what makes Chloe sure.
Beca is always looking after them.
In a way that surprises Chloe – and, in retrospect, actually probably shouldn't surprise her, even if Beca is Queen and should probably be accustomed to the opposite – Beca sort of- takes care of them.
She cleans up after the Bellas trash Aubrey and Chloe's home, despite that she hadn't participated in its wreckage, and she never seeks a word of thanks, in return. She cooks to ease their hangovers, and she cooks again when Chloe asks, pretty much just because she asks. Beca seeks Aubrey out to calm her, when the blonde begins to panic, and it's pretty (preciously) obvious, to Chloe, that she has no idea how to comfort people, in the first place, but Beca still tries, anyway – and, with Aubrey, at least – the Vampire Queen succeeds. Beca carries Chloe to bed, when she's too drunk to move or too tired to try, and she makes coffee for them, too, even though Chloe's never once seen Beca take a sip of the stuff, herself.
Beca doesn't just care for Aubrey and Chloe; she literally cares for them – takes care of them – like it's somehow both her responsibility and her honest privilege to do that, and it makes Chloe feel honored, and flattered, and so, so in love that it's hard for her to breathe; Chloe's heart just feels so full and satisfied that she doesn't usually even care if she ever remembers to breathe again.
Beca looks after Aubrey and Chloe like she truly is their angel; like they are two of the most important things in her whole world, and like Beca will do anything she can to be sure that they are safe, and happy, and healthy.
Except, right now, Beca is so torn apart by this huge, complicated emotion that the Vampire Queen doesn't actually even realize that she is causing Aubrey pain.
The redhead doesn't know what to do, and, frankly, Chloe isn't even sure what she's allowed to do, right now; Beca is behaving a little erratically, and the redhead isn't afraid of her – could never be afraid; not of her Beca – but she also isn't stupid.
Beca isn't very good with people, and she's never had that many of them in her life, anyway. She might have Aubrey and Chloe, now, but three thousand years of loneliness isn't a simple thing to shake, and Beca has made it very clear to them that she has no desire to go back to that – but she is positively terrified that she might not have a choice.
The Vampire Queen's emotion stems from one, very simple fear: she doesn't want to lose them.
Beca is afraid that they will leave her, or maybe that they will be hurt if they don't leave her, and neither option is a win, for Beca. The brunette wants to have them forever – even if 'forever' only really means forever to Aubrey and Chloe – and Beca is afraid that her already-limited time with them will be cut even shorter. Beca is just- afraid.
And that– That is something Chloe knows what to do with.
"Look at me," Chloe pleads on a whisper, knelt on the floor between the Queen's knees. Beca doesn't immediately obey, but, when she does, her head lifts until silver eyes meet with Chloe's blue, and Chloe sighs gently before stretching her palm up to cradle Beca's face, her thumb hooking just beneath Beca's ear and rubbing softly against it. "Beca, I love you; you know that, don't you?"
Beca's eyes skitter away, only briefly, before she returns them and smiles – a sad, fabricated thing that sinks in Chloe's stomach with all the weight of a brick.
"You don't even know me," The Vampire Queen replies, a tiny crack in her voice that makes Aubrey lift their paired hands to her mouth, however much her own might ache, to press her mouth into the ridges of Beca's knuckles.
"That's a lie," Chloe frowns swiftly in answer, "and, if I'm honest, it's a little insulting," she chides, but she's soft, and careful not to anger. "I don't need to know what you've done to know who you are, Beca, and who you are is the girl that I love. No matter what you say to us, tonight, Becs," Chloe murmurs, tugging Beca's face just slightly downward, so that Chloe can kiss her gorgeously tearstained cheeks, and her nose, and that sweet, worried little line bridging the gap between the Vampire Queen's eyes, "that isn't going to change. Not ever."
"You can't know that," Beca replies with a burdened sigh, shoulders slouching deeper, and Chloe can't really can't even stand it.
So she presses her mouth into Beca's, purposeful and warm, and Chloe breathes every ounce of her affection into that kiss; she steals Beca's surprise from the edges of her lips, and she replaces it with love and tenderness and every promise that Chloe can't find the words to make, because words obviously aren't enough, anyway.
And Beca– oh, she feels it.
Chloe knows she feels it, because her Queen's free palm rises to tangle into Chloe's hair, and Chloe abruptly feels desperation seep into their kiss like something from another world. Beca's small fingers bury themselves in red curls and clench, sporadically releasing only to tighten all over again, like she's trying to free Chloe but can't actually fathom how.
Beca's tongue is demanding, searing through Chloe's mouth like she might never have the chance to again, disregarding the malfunctioning state of Chloe's lungs just to reach for more of Chloe's love; just to remember the way that Chloe's mouth feels, pliantly curving beneath Beca's own, and Chloe mewls out a breathless kind of noise in reply, because never in her life – not once; not ever – has she felt a kiss fused with this kind of frantic, frightened want.
It's this emotion that Chloe hadn't been able to reach, before – which is actually a little funny, if the redhead thinks about it, because it's the same emotion that Beca has been giving away since the moment that Aubrey and Chloe had met her. Chloe just- hadn't been able to feel it, yet; not until this.
Because the desperation that Beca is pouring into Chloe's mouth, right now, makes Chloe's heart pulse radically in her chest – so hard that she can feel the echo of it stretching through her itching fingers, throbbing vicious heat between the redhead's thighs – and there is nothing Chloe can do to answer it but hum a throaty moan into Beca's mouth.
Still, it's too much.
All that emotion, swelling and swarming through Chloe's tender heart, is just too much for Chloe to bear, all at once, so she rips her mouth away and pants, forehead pressing into Beca's own as the redhead's blue eyes flutter apart to watch her, and Beca only stares back.
The brunette's fingers strum gently through Chloe's hair, and her eyes never stray from Chloe's face, even if they wander across it, and Chloe just- pants, and waits.
"Don't make promises, yet," Beca swallows thickly, eventually, and pleads.
"Why shouldn't we?" Aubrey scoffs instantly and frowns. "You make promises to us. Why should we not be allowed to offer you the same?"
Chloe is grateful for Aubrey; the redhead still can't catch her breath, and, even if she could, she thinks the look in Beca's eyes, right now, might deprive her of oxygen all over again.
Besides, words are Aubrey's specialty, and the blonde is right, anyway.
"Because I am three thousand years old and know better than to make promises that I can't keep," Beca snarls furiously, then takes her hands away from both of them to sweep them tiredly down the length of her cheeks.
"It doesn't take three thousand years to learn that lesson, Beca," Aubrey huffs. "Look, I'm not promising to stay with you; I honestly can't think of anything I'd want more in the world, for me and Chloe, but- I'm not promising that, Beca," Aubrey whispers softly, and warms her own palm against Beca's jean-clad thigh. "I don't know what you're going to tell us, and I admit that I'm eager for you to start, but I can see that it's important to you, and that it's something you're not proud of. That's okay," Aubrey swears earnestly. "I won't promise anything, if that's what you'd prefer, but you have to be fair, too, Beca.
"You don't get to challenge our feelings for you just because you're feeling insecure. I get it," Aubrey tells her quickly and nods, and Chloe watches her fingers pale as they tighten over Beca's leg. "I get it, Beca; shame is a feeling I'm very familiar with, and it doesn't shake easily, so that's fine. But Chloe and I love you, and you don't have the right to tell us what we do or do not feel, so get your head out of that aca-fine ass of yours and find some perspective, alright?" She demands pointedly.
Beca blinks, twice, and, just for a second, Chloe thinks she might explode with rage; the Vampire Queen is proud in ways that are sometimes reminiscent of Aubrey, and if anyone ever spoke to the blonde that way, Chloe knows that Aubrey would likely turn purple in the face and probably pop a blood vessel somewhere in her neck.
But Beca isn't Aubrey, and her wounded pride is apparently tempered by the brunette's amusement, because Beca lofts her brow and begins to chuckle, low and smooth and just- absolutely lovely, and, finally, Chloe finds a smile.
"You think my ass is fine?" The Vampire Queen smirks broadly.
"Seriously?" Aubrey huffs incredulously. "That's seriously what you're focusing on, right now?"
"Well, you know," Beca winks overtly and grins, "priorities, Posen."
Chloe giggles under her breath and can't even help it. She'd missed Beca and Aubrey's first interaction, but she remembers the story well, and she remembers the way that Aubrey's indignation had followed her all the way back home.
"You really need to sort those out, Your Majesty," Aubrey scoffs with a healthy roll of her eyes.
"Probably," Beca shrugs. "And you were right," Beca admits, warmly eyeing Aubrey, propped on the coffee table at the Queen's left side. "I shouldn't have devalued your emotions that way, and I apologize," Beca sighs, her smile slipping away at the corners, and Chloe feels her own working to do the same. "I'm just, like- afraid," Beca confesses quietly, and rests her eyes to a close. "It took a long time for me to become the person I am, and I wasn't always so- ethical. It isn't unreasonable to expect that your opinion of me might change."
"Why would it?" Aubrey shakes her head bemusedly.
"When I was young," Beca opens her eyes and looks to her knees, gathering courage before lifting her gaze to face them, once more, "the Villa didn't exist. A sire's role was more important then – or, it was more necessary, at least; everything a newborn Vampire learned about who and what they'd become came from their sire, and Lessa– she was wonderful, and kind, but she was also mated to Vasidius, and that confused me. I was so new," Beca tells them softly, "and it took a long time for me to understand that she could be mated to him, and that she could love him, but that she could still- hate him, too.
"I couldn't grasp it for the longest time. They fought, sure, but they always stayed together, so I thought that maybe he's not all bad, you know? If Lessa could love him, I must be allowed to do the same, right?" She laughs scornfully and shakes her head. "'Mates' was a concept I had no understanding for, and neither of them had thought to explain it to me, so early on; I didn't realize that they had to be together all the time, so I thought that it was done by choice. I thought that Lessa enjoyed his company, and, even if he was cruel, at times, it- made it easier for me to enjoy his company, too.
"I was afraid of him, for a long time," Beca admits with a sigh. "He'd meant to kill me, the night that I was turned, and I could remember every second of it; I could remember the evil that glimmered behind his eyes, and I could remember the way that his teeth ripped through my thigh, and I was afraid of him," she tells them gently. "I learned later that I was right to be, but it didn't really matter," she shrugs a little, and Chloe winces, because her tone is carefully neutral, but her eyes– they are so full of pain and regret and hatred that Chloe thinks Beca's heart must be burning, inside. "He was my sire, and I didn't have a choice; I had to be with him.
"But Lessa was Queen, too," Beca reminds them carefully, "and she was busy a lot of the time. She was never far," she rushes to include, "and, frankly, she and Vasidius were mates, anyway, so they literally can't be more than a few miles apart without losing their sanity, but- it meant that I spent considerably more time in Vasidius' company than hers. And, like I said," Beca shrugs weakly again and puffs out a tired breath of air, "young Vampires are very impressionable. Vasidius- definitely left an impression," she scowls fiercely.
"How?" Chloe frowns and wonders, and Beca turns to look at her with love, and such deep shame that Chloe finds herself thinking that Aubrey has never done a thing in her life to elicit that much self-disappointment, and that maybe the blonde doesn't understand it as much as she'd thought.
A brief flicker of her gaze in Aubrey's direction reveals that Aubrey is beginning to think the same, because the blonde's beautifully green eyes look apologetic and curious and sad, and her fingers are squeezing so tightly around Beca's thigh for comfort that Chloe thinks she can even hear the scratch of Aubrey's nails against the fabric of her jeans.
"As a child," Beca whispers painfully and grimaces, "it was- easier to follow Vasidius' example. I spent more time with him than Lessa could afford to spare for me, and it- it made a difference. I knew she wouldn't approve, but I was- I was bitter. I felt neglected – abandoned – and Vasidius was always just- there. And he- made sense. It was a cold kind of sense," Beca swallows and shakes her head, "but I was young and afraid, and he made it sound rational."
"Made what sound rational?" Aubrey inquires slowly, cautiously, like something is beginning to dawn on her that hasn't quite reached Chloe, yet.
"Killing," Beca murmurs, and flicks anxious, silver eyes to Aubrey's. "Killing humans," Beca hisses through her teeth and frowns, but never looks away, like she thinks it's her burden to bear their disappointment with her, because she deserves every bit of it, and the thought makes Chloe hurt. "He said that it's what we were made for. He said that we were at the very pinnacle of the food chain, and that we were just like every other animal in the world; humans were our natural prey, and he said it didn't make us bad – it's just the way that we were made. Vasidius told me that we have teeth crafted to deliver death, and that our venom makes us strong, and powerful, to make it easier for us to overcome them.
"Nothing made sense for me, then, but- that did. I was hungry all the time, and nothing seemed to sate it. Nothing made it better except feeding, and human blood was just so- filling. It's so much more," Beca breathes with a shake of her head. "It was terrible, and I felt nauseous every time, but the thirst went away. Until the next time, anyway. And the next, and the next," Beca whispers and rolls her shoulders. "And the thirst felt stronger, every time it returned; I felt ravenous, and starved, and, eventually, the thirst came on more quickly. I hunted daily, sometimes even twice, and on bad days I even hunted for a third time, too – but Vasidius never said it wasn't normal, and Lessa was usually too busy to notice.
"Of course, Vasidius never mentioned our hunts to Lessa, but I started to get worried. Vasidius told me that I would grow into it, but I spent years killing humans, and it never got easier. Every kill seemed harder than the last, and I'd remember the pain in their eyes, and all of that confusion, and I felt- disgusted, with myself. I was ashamed, and, when I couldn't bear it any longer on my own, I told my Lessa. And my Lessa– " Beca laughs softly in remembrance, but Chloe sees her eyes tear, and she wonders – wonders so, so hard, with every aching beat of her heart – how much Beca must miss the woman who sired her. "She lost her shit.
"She fumed for hours," Beca chuckles out, rumbling and familiar, in a way that makes Chloe heart feel just a little bit less constricted; just a little bit less hurt. "She told me that human blood is addictive, for us, in such large quantities, and that it only gets easier to take a human life after we've become so addicted to it that we just don't care that its source is a living being. The need for it becomes so strong that we become like the Vampires in stories, cruel and predatory and always hunting, like killing is some kind of sport instead of something required for us to survive.
"She helped me," Beca murmurs gently, with a small, fond smile. "She took me to a little hut, out in the woods and away from the humans, and Vasidius was furious. He said that I might be Lessa's sired, but that I was his, too, and that, Queen or not, she had no right to decide the way I was raised, all on her own. I spent most of the night away from them, hunting deer around the woods; I think I killed most of the forest's population, actually, but all I felt was hunger, and I was desperate for the feeling to fade.
"When I came back, Lessa asked me; she said that becoming a Vampire hadn't been my choice to begin with, and that she was sorry for that, but she said that it was my right to decide how I wanted to live. And I chose her," Beca laughs wetly and wipes her fingers just beneath her eyes. "I chose Lessa, because I didn't want to become like him; I didn't want to kill if I didn't need to, and I never wanted to be that cold about it, even if I did need to.
"And that- started the war," Beca sighs deeply and bows her head. "That was the very beginning of it all."
Chloe lowers her own head, too, warming her cheek against Beca's knee, and just- breathes; there is so much that Chloe wants to say, and so much that she wants to ask, but the very first thing that occurs to her is disbelief.
Beca claims she started a war, but Chloe still can't see how; Beca had been young and had done as she was told, and what she'd done had admittedly been horrible, but- it also hadn't entirely been Beca's fault. She'd been vulnerable and confused, and Vasidius had taken advantage of her, and the emotional connection that they had shared, together; the man had essentially tried to tether Beca to a drug that he hadn't even told her was a drug, and, even still, Beca had done the right thing.
She'd been given a choice, and Beca had chosen well.
Whatever resulted from that choice hadn't been Beca's fault, no matter what the Vampire Queen might believe, and, honestly, Chloe thinks she's somehow only more in awe of Beca's strength than she had been, in the first place.
Chloe's angel had fallen, once, but she'd risen up all over again, and Chloe thinks that just makes Beca even more incredible than Chloe had thought she'd been, before.
Author's Note: I think it's sort of obvious, but this conversation isn't quite finished, yet. Still, I hope you enjoyed it; Beca's past is always a fun thing to write about.
My review count has been falling, over the past couple of updates, so I have to assume that interest is slipping, but I'm grateful to everyone who's still sticking around! Thanks for the support, even if I forget to say it, sometimes. : )