Fuck it. It took an entire international pandemic, but you know what? hollyragsdale updated, so now I have no excuse. The best Webster's dictionary definition I found for this was "peer pressure."

Loosely based on the song The Man Who Can't Be Moved by The Script, title from Poison and Wine by The Civil Wars. Alternate title: "Beca has shit communication skills and a stupid amount of anxiety about her future for 5000 words straight and honestly same. also I originally wrote this back in 2014, so if it doesn't make any sense I did my BEST have mercy on me I am fragile"

Disclaimer: I own nothing. We knew this.

THURSDAY.

He hated how easily they could crumble.

Her cheeks were flushed crimson and her head was pounding. Her stare was hard, and if she wasn't so damn angry, she might have been paying attention to how roughly her fingernails were digging into her palms.

His brow was furrowed, and his throat was tight. His cheeks were sore from the scowl that had been twisting his face as they shouted back and forth. He was tired.

Their chests were heaving, and their voices were fading as they tried to find an out. She swallowed hard. He blinked sadly. The silence was deafening.

They were a mess.

He let his face become blank as she stormed out. He ran a hand down his face, wishing that all of the chaos circling in his head would just…stop. He sank down into his chair, trying to ignore the sting of her words before she slammed the door behind her.

I guess that's it.

It wasn't worth it in the first place, he assured himself. They weren't supposed to work out. They didn't make sense. She never had faith in them, and he was tired of having enough for the both of them. They were doomed from the start, and it was about time.

It was about time.

And maybe he was done too.

Well that lasted all of five seconds, he thought to himself. How dramatic. It was amazing to him how he missed her already. What had it been, twenty minutes since she left? Sad.

Whatever, he loved her.

FRIDAY.

Knock, knock, knock

"Beca?"

"Beca, I know you're in there. Fat Amy let me up."

Silence.

"Becs, I know you're upset, but I just want to talk. I want to fix this." Another weak knock sounded on the door.

"Come on Beca, please open up."

Beca ignored the knocks on the door and Jesse's muffled pleas as she burrowed deeper under the covers.

"Beca?"

"Please talk to me."

SATURDAY.

"Hey, Flatbutt."

Beca flinched and slid down her headphones as Amy jabbed at her side through the blankets.

"Why is lover boy sitting outside like a rejected koala?"

Beca blinked a couple of times in disbelief for a couple of things. Firstly, she had no idea how the fuck Amy broke into her room. No clue. There were standard locks on that thing and no one else had keys to her room in the Bella house so how on Earth—

Ugh. Another problem for another time. She'd call the locksmith tomorrow.

The second point of confusion was the real ringer, because there was no way that Jesse was still outside her door. He had come knocking around seven yesterday evening, and she had listened to him pleading for her to let him in for all of thirty seconds before she decided that she couldn't take it and put her headphones on.

Now as the sunlight streamed through her blinds, signaling that it was early Saturday morning, there was no way he was still there. Not after the way she left things the other night.

Right?

"It's like you're not even trying to fight for us." Jesse said exasperated, running his fingers through his hair, feeling the scratch at his roots. He was a step away from wanting to rip it out from looking at the drained brunette in front of him.

They'd been beating around the bush for weeks about their future. Jesse would keep bringing things up, plans and ideas that she wasn't ready to face yet. She was finally comfortable with her friends, her Bellas, her here and her now. She was normally the practical one, but it had taken her almost four years to learn to live in the moment. She just wasn't ready for this moment to pass yet.

She would quickly change the subject when Jesse asked if she'd heard back from the labels she's applied to, or her sentences would get shorter when he looked up AirB-N-B's or asked about taking road trips, hoping that her non-verbals would tell him what she was really trying to say.

I'm scared. I don't know how we're going to do this.

"Why are you always pushing me? Of course I'm trying, but I don't get how you can ask me to give up an opportunity like this, Jesse. It's everything I've ever wanted." She said instead, pacing to a different corner of the room. Sheshifted her focus away from him, her eyes landing on the scattered pictures on his wall. Some with the Trebles, some with his family, the rest with her smiling and accepting kisses on cheeks. She looked away again, swallowing something hard in her throat.

"I never asked you to do that! I would never ask you to do that. Why are you making me the bad guy in this for wanting a future with you, wherever that may be?" He asked moving so that she would look at him again. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

I'm so scared. I don't know how we're going to do this.

The weight of the phone call with Beca's offer at a small record label in San Diego hung heavy in the silence. The weight of Jesse's New York offer had been hanging over her head for the last three days.

"I want to be with you, and you want to be with me. Why does this have to be so hard?" he pleaded. She saw the openness in his eyes, the bravery and sincerity in his statement and in that moment she didn't know where to begin to comprehend how he was so sure about them, and about her.

I'm so, so scared. How are you not scared?

He took a step forward. She took one back. Her eyes shifted to the ground and his blinked back tears of exasperation.

"Well maybe if this is so hard, then…" she trailed off, bracing herself.

She could hear the little breath he took in from when she was standing.

One pin drop.

"Then what, Beca?" He asked. Daring her.

Another pin drop. Then another.

Her eyes finally shift up to meet his again.

"Then maybe we shouldn't do this anymore."

She saw the look on his face and felt it as if she had punched herself in the gut. She saw his eyes cloud in disbelief, and she wanted to take it back. She wanted so badly to find the words that she had been trying to say for weeks now, she wanted to fix this. But the only thing circling in her head was the chaos she created.

You can't even make up your mind about where you want to be or what you want to do. Are you really that selfish to drag him along with you?

"So that's it?" he croaked after an eternal silence.

You can't even make it here with him in his stupid bedroom at the Treble house. How are you ever going to make this work in the real world on opposite sides of the country?

She blinked back a few tears of her own.

Are you that selfish to break his heart in five years after he travelled across the country for you?

"Yeah. I guess that's it."

"Tell her that I'm not going anywhere until we talk about this!" a muffled voice shouted from the other side of the door.

"Pretty sure she can hear you, mate." Amy shouted back, Beca feeling her migraine build with every decibel.

"Oh cool, thanks! Beca, I'm not going anywhere until we talk about this!"

Amy blinked at her and flashed a slight 'what-can-you-do' smirk before turning to pull a pack of M&Ms from her bra.

"How is he even still there? That can't be sustainable." Beca mumbled, her eyes focused on the door.

"Eh, Stacie's been sneaking him food and he's sitting on Lilly's lawn chair, the one that she stole from that serial killer's house auction last month to prove a point. She really has a weird sense of justice. I would've just lit the grass on fire. Though she probably did that too, honestly. Anyways, he's fine."

Those traitors. What about girl code? Sisters before misters? Chick before dicks? Something else that rhymed and spoke to female empowerment?

She should've known, honestly. The Bellas were his friends too. He always came over to see her with a huge grin on his face and snacks that he stole from the Treble house, and everyone loved him. She loved him.

Beca stared quietly at her cuticles. She wasn't ready to talk to him. She was still reeling from their fight, and underneath all of her sadness, she was still pissed. Pissed at him for pushing her yeah, but mainly pissed at herself for being too much of a little bitch to be upfront with him. And also pissed at him for not understanding that she had to break up with him and hurt him so that she wouldn't hurt him because she was being too much of a little bitch to be upfront with him.

Ahem. Anyways.

If she talked to him now, she knew that they would just end up fighting again and if she had to see that look of sadness on his face again…

She just…couldn't talk to him. Not yet.

SUNDAY.

"You know, you're kind of being a dick."

Beca rolled over in her bed and whipped her head over to the lazy blonde camped in her desk chair.

"Amy!" She exclaimed. Okay, yeah, Beca knew the Bellas loved Jesse, but like what the fuck?

"What? You are." Amy mumbled nonchalantly as she played with her chopsticks slowly with wide eyes.

She knew that. She didn't need Amy to tell her that.

"I mean, you guys were gonna have to talk about this eventually. You've been dating for like three years, did you expect him to not want a future with you?"

"Of course I did, I just…"

She took a deep breath, rattling her thoughts around in her brain.

"I don't want to fuck this up. Fuck us up, you know? California is so far. From New York, and long distance is shit and I just…I don't want to ruin us because I don't even know what I'm doing."

"So like…what is it exactly that you think you're doing right now? Like I get that you're scared of fucking things up when you guys graduate and blah blah blah, but it seems like you're doing a pretty good job fucking it up from right here." Amy drawled carelessly with a shrug.

God damn Amy, okay. Okay. She gets it, she really does but…

Well, no maybe she doesn't. How is she supposed to guarantee a future with this boy that will literally camp out at her door for days and fly cross country for her when she can't even grow some balls and open her door?

"This is only gonna get worse the longer you put it off Shawshank, and honestly this is getting ridiculous. Can't I just let him in? It's sad to watch." Amy whined as she handed Beca her carton of Chinese takeout.

She'd been living through Amy for the last couple of days, sending her out to get food, and having her relay short and sweet "go away," messages to Jesse as he camped out on the creaky wood outside her bedroom door. Other than to take care of the necessities, and some clever antics to try and get her to open the door—

("This motherfucker did not go get a banjo."

"Camptown Ladies sing your song, doodah, doodah! Beca, open up your door, oh the doodah day."

"Does this count as harassment?" This has to count as harassment, it has to."

"I've got an entire discography babe, this is just the warmup!"

"Amy, call the police.")

They had stayed in their respective places all weekend, her in her bed, him by her door.

"Then don't watch," Beca mumbled around a mouthful of rice and chicken.

"Dude…"

Beca shook her head furiously as she stabbed her chopsticks into her orange chicken. She was a chicken, yeah, but she wouldn't make a promise that she couldn't keep. She couldn't promise him forever when she didn't even know what her tomorrow looked like.

"No. No way. He'll give up eventually. He has to. He has class tomorrow." She shrugged off Amy's concerned stare as she hiked her blanket up over her knees.

"He's been sitting out there for two days now. You gotta give him a little more credit. Plus that must be hell on his bladder…"

"I'm not giving up though, Becs!" A cheeky voice cut in from the hallway.

Beca rolled her eyes at the voice. He was totally going to give up.

"Hey. You should think about what I said. I'm not just a pretty face and sexy body and a phenomenal singer and Adele's biggest Australian competition and GQ's sexiest philanthropist alive. I'm also a scholar." Amy lamented, spinning in Beca's desk chair. Beca cracked one of her first smiles in days.

"Didn't you only go to your lecture class four times all semester?"

"The test answers were all online! It's called street-smarts my small ignorant friend."

"Since when did you become the one giving the good advice?" Beca laughed lightly, throwing one of her pillows in Amy's direction. Beca's brow furrowed as Amy reached to grab it a full seven seconds after it had already bounced off her body and hit the ground.

"Oh yeah, I just inhaled like three of Stacie's edibles and watched like four episodes of Days of Our Lives before coming up here. I barely know who you are right now, Bethany."

MONDAY.

"Hey, Beca?"

Beca stirred from her restless state at the sound of his voice. He'd been there all day, leaning against the wall, making one sided conversation. She had Amy crack the door and deliver a couple more messages to him, all of which were pretty basic.

("She said 'go away'."

"I'm not going away."

"Alright, cool.")

Other than that though, she hadn't said a word to him. Jesse had kind of figured that Beca wouldn't be talking to him by lunchtime that day, but he'd stayed anyway. Why? She didn't know.

Or.

Well yeah, maybe she did.

He'd always fought for her. She fought for him too of course. Beca would punch a grown man in the face for him in a heartbeat, but it was sometimes harder to fight her own reckless fight-or-flight tendencies for them. He never gave up on her though. She loved that about him. She would miss that about him.

"Becs?" he tried again. 12:32 A.M, the glowing clock on her nightstand read. She stayed silent.

She heard him sigh heavily from the hall. "Beca, you win. Okay? I'll go. But…"

Her ears perked up and she quietly crawled off her mattress and sat on the floor by the door. The wood floor chilled her toes to the touch, but she ignored it as she strained her ear to listen to his voice over Amy's snoring as she curled up in Beca's closet where she passed out an hour and a half ago. She heard his breathing hitch and she could practically see him running his fingertips through the unruly hair at the base of his scalp. She knew he did that when he was troubled.

"Beca, I just…" he breathed. "I want you to know that I'm still not…I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up on us."

She leaned her temple against the doorframe, just listening.

"I was an idiot back there in my room the other night, I shouldn't have pushed you. I know it's hard for you to…" he trailed off sullenly.

She leaned her head against the cool wood of the door, listening intently. You're always an idiot, she wanted to say. I guess we're just a pair of idiots, huh?

"And God, you're just—you're so infuriating. You know that?" She smiled as she heard him chuckle knowingly from the other side of the door. "But you make me so happy, too." She felt herself soften to the smooth tremors of his voice floating under her door.

"And we aren't perfect, I know that. And I know you know that too. But I like that about us, you know? And I'd rather have you, my annoying, infuriating lover than have perfect. Coast to coast. Because…well, you're better than perfect."

She wanted to open the door.

"So…yeah. I'm gonna go. Not because I'm walking away from you, because that's not our thing. You're kind of stuck with me, but also you're right. I have Music Theory at eight. That, plus Lily took her chair back when she went to protest at Coachella, and this floor hurts like a bitch. And I really kind of need a shower."

The handle was right there. All she had to do was reach, and God did she want to.

"So, I'll see you. I'll be back. You get it…because…the Terminator." She rolled her eyes at his poor Arnold Schwarzenegger impression as she heard him get up and dust himself off.

"I love you, Million Dollar Baby," she heard him mumble softly through the door as he started backtracking away.

I love you too.

She didn't open the door.

Instead, she leaned against her doorframe concentrating on his footsteps, counting the light steps on the wood as they faded away.

STILL MONDAY.

Beca really needed to stop caring about him as much as she did.

You know what she should have been doing at eleven o' clock on a Monday night? Sleeping. Or mixing. Or homework, but it sure as hell wasn't going to be that. She was a twenty-one-year-old. independent woman with responsibilities to ignore, damn it. What was she actually doing? Still ignoring her responsibilities, yes of course, but this time not in the comfort of her own home as she would prefer. Why? Because Jesse Swanson was a fucking lightweight, that's why.

By Monday night, she wasn't even upset about the fight anymore. She was just…confused. And a little bitter. Oh, and lonely. Really fucking lonely. Amy left her room shortly after Jesse went to class when she decided that recovering from her high on Beca's hardwoods was not ideal. Things had been quiet since she full-body barrel-rolled out of her door, shouting over her shoulder to quote, "get your head out of your ass and jump all over that fine piece of double-smoked prime rib." It was just Beca and her music all day, which was normally what she was longing for. But this time, it didn't feel all that hot.

Jesse had stopped by once later that day, when she ran out to her TA's office hours. She let out an audible laugh and a small sniffle when she came back and saw that he left his mark with a Pacific Cooler juice pouch waiting right outside her door when she came home. (He always saved the Pacific Coolers for her. He knew the Treble would decimate his inventory before she even got to them, so he always bought an extra box and hid them just for her.)

Her room was dark and she was hiding under her blankets a quarter to midnight, formulating her "I'm sorry, this is stupid I love you and I don't know what I'm doing and I'm sad and confused but I took it out on you and that was stupid, and this is stupid and I love you" text that she had been writing ever since he left her door early that morning, when her phone began ringing at an obnoxiously loud volume, breaking the silence and startling her. She saw Jesse's contact picture and smiled. It was like he read her mind, she thought, picking up the phone immediately.

"Hey, I'm glad you called. I just…listen I've been an asshole about this whole thing and I wanted to—Jesse?"

"Nope, not Jesse. Jesse's phone. We've got a situation."

She could just barely make out the slurred chorus of Endless Love being belted out by Jesse in the background as Kolio frantically insisted that she get him out of the bar that he and the rest of the Trebles were occupying. She rolled her eyes at the dicks on the other line who were apparently "too busy" to take Jesse home themselves. Something about "swimsuit models at the bar" who were quote "really into live music," and "what better live music than the Masters of the Mouth, the Treblemakers themselves," and ew. Ew. She was already gonna come and get Jesse, but now she just needed this conversation to end.

"And love, oh, love." She heard Jesse slur into the receiver after a brief struggle with Kolio for the phone. "I'll be a fool, for you." She sat back for a moment, just letting him sing and enjoying the sound of his voice as he drunkenly serenaded her. That is, until he broke out into 'ooh-wows' and 'boom, boom, booms.' God, she could listen to his stupid voice for the rest of her life. Fighting, indecision, miscommunication all aside, the one thing that she was absolutely sure of was that she wanted so badly to listen to his stupid voice for the rest of her life. Wherever in the world he was.

Oh. Okay, well then. It took her almost two melodramatic ass weeks to come to that conclusion, sweet Jesus.

She laughed to herself at the image in her head of his confused face once he heard the dial tone in his ear as she grabbed her keys and started for the door.

It must have been quite entertaining for the other bar patrons to see the drunken twenty-one-year-old that had been obnoxiously singing show tunes all night go flying across the bar to greet a four-eleven Grinch with her pajama pants stuffed into her Uggs. (The Uggs weren't her idea. They were a Christmas present from Sheila, and they were comfy and warm, and it was midnight, damn it. Chill.)

"Becaaaa!" he sing-songed as he crashed into her, throwing his arms around her shoulders and burying his face into her neck. Beca knew that she shouldn't be holding on to him like a lifeline because she'd kinda technically broken up with him, and it was impossibly unfair of her. But she wound her arms around his waist tightly anyways, partially to steady him, and partially because she knew that she without a doubt was just as happy to see him as he was to see her.

"How ya doing, weirdo?" she asked, rubbing his back soothingly with one hand.

"Better," she felt him mumble into her skin. "Better, now that you're here."

She hugged him tighter.

With the help of Kolio, she managed to half drag, half lure Jesse to her car and get him strapped into the front seat. She felt like a freshman again as she acted as his crutch, walking him to the Treble House door and patting him down for his keys. When she found nothing but a cell phone and a wallet, she put both her hands on Jesse's cheeks and lifted his face up so that they were eye-to-eye, in an attempt to get him to focus on her.

"Jesse, where are your keys?

He thought hard for a minute. She could tell because his brow furrowed, his breathing stalled, and his nose wrinkled ever so slightly. She loved his stupid face. It was so stupid, she just wanted to kiss it. Wait, no. Not the time. Time to focus. Keys.

His face relaxed eventually, and he brought his hands up to cover hers, squeezing them gently.

"Uh…Kolio took them. He didn't want me to give them away." He garbled, which with the combination of the pressure on his jaw and his inebriated state, came out more like "Kaaeaah haah heeh. Hah hiihihh wha hee hah hih hem hahay."

Beca groaned loudly at this news. The last thing she needed was to play hide and go seek with this grown man's keys. She was glad Kolio took them, because Jesse without a doubt would have auctioned them off in a game of bar pool even though he's never won a game of pool in his life. But she was really not trying to hear Unicycle's mouth after banging on the door of the Treble house at one in the morning. Something something, "beauty sleep", something something, "courtesy hours." So now what?

Jesse, sensing her discontent through his drunken haze moved to rest his chin on her head and wind his arms around her waist. "I'm sorry, Beca." He slurred into her hair. Beca ran her palms over the cotton sleeves of his Treble jacket and leaned into his touch. She didn't know if he was sorry about the fight or the keys, but knowing Jesse, it was probably a mix of both.

"I know." She mumbled.

I'm sorry too.

He snores so fucking loud, good lord.

It wasn't until later when his head was laying sloppily on her collarbone, back in the dark of her bedroom that she really stopped to look at him. His eyelashes, long and thick, left a winged pattern on his cheekbones, and his lips were pink and plump as he snored lightly against her skin. She carded her fingers blithely through the hair at the base of his neck, and she could feel him hug her just a little bit tighter in his sleep. She felt her eyes drifting closed as she counted his deep breaths, one after the other.

How did I ever sleep without him?

She pulled her comforter just a little bit higher over his shoulder before closing her eyes, succumbing to the darkness and the warmth that surrounded her.

She definitely needed to stop caring so much about him. For her own productivity's sake, of course.

(That didn't mean that she would though.)

She woke to the feeling of him absentmindedly tracing patterns on her arm with his fingertips. Beca opened her eyes briefly and she saw a flash of maroon. The arm around her waist was comforting and the arm holding her to his chest was light as his fingers danced across her skin. She closed her eyes again, and this time she kept them closed, sighing contently and allowing herself to enjoy the feeling of his free arm around her waist, and his cheek on her shoulder, almost as if the last week hadn't happened. Almost as if they hadn't broken up. Technically, kind of. She was just Beca and he was still her Jesse, and in the early hours of the morning, she couldn't begin to think of anything better than that.

She nuzzled her nose into the sleeve of his Treble hoodie, allowing herself to take in the light scent of tequila, Tide pods, and his cologne. Jesse always had the best smelling stuff. Whenever he knew he was staying the night with her, he always brought his softest hoodies and t-shirts because he knew that she loved stealing them when he wasn't—

Wait a minute.

"You knew that I'd come and get you, didn't you?" She asked, breaking the silence.

He sighed heavily, most of the alcohol having worn off by now. He pulled his arm closer to his chest, drawing Beca closer to him right along with it.

"I had a feeling." He mumbled nonchalantly with a raspy voice, pressing his nose into the side of her neck.

Oh, you little shit.

She rolled over so that they were face to face and ran her hand up his arm, stopping when it reached his shoulder blade. She pinched. His nose. With her free hand and smiled when he kissed the side of her palm.

"Are you mad?" she heard him whisper, his eyes trained on hers.

"I should be." She muttered without a trace of malice, playing with the seam on his sleeve. And she should've been. She should have been furious that this clever son-of-a-bitch took advantage of her feelings for him in order to worm his way back into her heart again (as if he left in the first place, but regardless, the trickery was appalling just the same). She couldn't be though, because he was exactly what she wanted and needed, and he was there with that stupid face and that stupid voice that made her fall head over heels for him in the first place, and he was keeping that promise that he had made from the other side of her door, and she just couldn't stay mad. It was impossible.

He knew this too.

"But you aren't," he said, pulling her even closer so that her body was flush against his and their noses were brushing. "Because you love me too much to be mad." He accentuated this statement with a kiss to her forehead, and Beca was all ready to level him for being so cocky. She tilted her chin up to lock eyes with him, and she saw…something different. Hope, probably. He was studying her face intently, and Beca could tell that he was waiting for her to confirm his statement. As if he didn't already know that he was one hundred percent right. Because he didn't.

He didn't know how he made her insides knot when he smiled or how she loved how careful with her she was or how she knew that when he pushed her, it was always somehow to the things she wanted but couldn't figure out how to voice. He didn't how much she loved him when her head didn't make sense but he would still wait until forever for her to figure it out. He didn't know that she would wait until forever for him too.

He didn't know how fast she would've given up that offer for him if he asked her to, and how terrifying that was for her. He'd always been the braver of the two of them, bringing her out of her shell from the first time they met with his reckless air guitar in his dad's backseat, his eyes never leaving her. She thinks, maybe, she fell a little bit in love with him that very second.

But she never wanted to be the person that gave her life up for a guy. Things change and people change, and she didn't know what she would do if she gave up everything for him and they didn't work. But he never asked her to, did he? He never really asked her to promise him forever. He just wanted to know that she saw him in her tomorrow.

He wanted her to meet him halfway. And halfway seemed way less far from him in the grand scheme of things.

So halfway it was.

She moved her hand up to his cheek and pressed her forehead against his. "I saw a great discount on a June flight to New York." She whispered just loud enough for him to hear.

A grin spread across his face in an instant.

"Good. Because I've already booked mine to Los Angeles in December."

She didn't say everything that she wanted to say in that moment, but that was alright. They had time.

She would make sure of it.

Wild, lmao. Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled inconsistency! Sorry if the formatting was a bit weird, the doc manager was not vibing with me today, so I'll have to go back and fix it in a bit.

Hope you're all staying safe and indoors if you can! Until next time-XO