A/N: I hadn't expected such an overwhelming response for this "short one-shot" and so hadn't planned on continuing past the 1k plus crumbs words, but I guess that changed cuz here we are… (Yep, I'm a total sucker for comments and popular demand ;))
Special thanks to Rejection-isn't-failure (ao3 and tumblr) for responding to my tumblr post and for the inspiration of this chapter, as well as Wolvezzz for thoughts and edits.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Pitch Perfect universe.
Chloe had never been so distracted over something so momentary.
She is generally a pretty focused and dedicated individual, always has been ever since she was a kid and told that distractions are not a good complement to passion and success, and have always shaken herself out of a daze before it got too overwhelming, have always tried to not be a subject of an "Oh, squirrel!" type of mindset.
A mindset that had only seemed to be more of a nuisance and threat the longer she stayed in medical school, and a mindset that had ultimately made the decision for her to drop out of becoming a vet.
Don't get her wrong, she loves animals (despite what Beca might say), and would love nothing more than to be a practitioner for the couple million of animal species out there, but not even a year into one of the top veterinary schools in the US (she still couldn't believe that she had actually got accepted into the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine), she had figured that the career involved too many distractions and "Aww, how cute!" moments for her to be impeccably successful to be an adequate vet in her standard of professional occupations, and had dropped out of the university—despite the protestations of most her family and friends ("You've dreamed of becoming a vet since you were four, Chlo, don't give up now") —to take a year off to study for the MCAT, before getting herself acquainted into medical school and the backup alternative of becoming a surgeon.
She found that as a much better option than the pothole of distractions and pulchritude that is becoming of a vet, and finds it much easier to stay focused on the tasks and studies required of her (there's not much cuteness in blood and brain scans), even though it is far more dangerous and risky for her success if she did give in to the smaller—yet still undoubtedly present—amount of diversions in her path.
So this proves to be a highly unusual—and highly inconvenient—case of her losing her concentration, and combined with the fact that it had been over something so momentary— something so fleeting— she is now positively thrumming with perplexity and interest by the time she's done trying to be a cool and unaffected block of dedication.
The exam paper stares up at her, and Chloe has to read it three times for the question to register.
Which of the following can be used to find complications in the bone structure of a patient?
She knows the answer is C, but it takes longer than usual for her to circle and flip the page.
Darn it, she can't stop thinking about her neighbor and the short conversation that they had had after she invited her into her house that morning. The whole thing hadn't even lasted twenty minutes—combined with the now amusing argument that acted as a catalyst—before they had to go their separate ways, and she can already tell that the entire ordeal is going to stick with her for the remainder of the day.
Chloe can still remember the soft smile Beca gave her as she moved around her small but remarkable kitchen, as she asked if she liked cream and sugar in her coffee ("Let me see the container...oh yeah, the rest of this please...What? I like my cream, sue me"), as she stood on her tiptoes to retrieve her a mug from the cabinet ("I can hear you making fun of my height, you know, you're not as subtle as you think"), and as she dramatically dumped her requested sweet additives in front of her into her mug on the kitchen counter ("I don't know how someone can get mad at you when she takes ten pounds of sugar in her coffee everyday, Guetta").
She can still taste the perfection of the eight ounces of caffeine sliding down her throat and can still feel the warmth enveloping every nook and cranny of her body as she set her mug down after the initial big gulp.
Beca had watched her through the whole thing, elbows on the island in the center of the room, hands cupping her own coffee, the light from the windows casting a faint glow on the right side of her face, and had asked her what medical school she goes to and when did she move in to the house next door.
Chloe remembers telling her the local one not fifteen minutes away and explaining the inheritance from her deceased grandparents of a month.
She had then been surprised when Beca reciprocated the gesture and told her that she is a music producer trying to make a name for herself in Residual Heat, and had been excited beyond belief when she found out that they have relatively the same taste in music.
Then, before they knew it, Beca's phone had went off ("No Diggity is my alarm because it is the only song that won't make me want to kill every newly self-proclaimed artist out there as soon as I walk out of this house") and Chloe had finished the remaining of her coffee and placed it in the sink and had bent down to press a kiss between Guetta's eyes and waved over her shoulder, before making her way out the sliding glass door and back towards her bedroom to get ready for her test.
She had never been so overwhelmed by the presence and company of a single person like this, had never replayed the reality of a blip of a moment so often in what could possibly be the most important hour of the next several years of her life, and had never had so much trouble—and if she's completely honest with herself, unwillingness—to shake herself out of it.
Chloe is both baffled and intrigued as to why that is.
"Five more minutes," the proctor at the front of the room says, looking bored as she checks the watch at the inside of her wrist.
Crap.
Chloe bites at her lip and skims through the rest of the seven pages of the test booklet as best as she can, circling B for the questions she no longer has the time and energy to think about, and checks for her name on the front one last time (thank god she had still been in the right state of mind to complete the most important part of the whole freaking exam) before standing up and handing it over, shouldering her bag higher up her arm as she walks out the big double doors.
She wishes the hours of studying she had poured over the night before makes up for the guesses she made, and that the initial of the answer choice she had picked as a last resort—and the person it stands for—makes up for the few that she had been too distracted to concentrate on.
Chloe steps out of her car and opens her left backseat door to grab at the bags inside, and uses her butt to close it as she starts towards her front door. She sets the bags on the mat at her feet and sticks a hand into her purse to look for her keys, locking her car once she had retrieved it before opening the door to her house, turning to the kitchen as soon as she stepped inside and dumping everything onto her kitchen counter.
Sighing, Chloe pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head and rubs a hand down her face, briefly considering calling Aubrey to see whether her friend would be available to spend the evening somewhere before deciding against it, knowing the blonde would likely ask about the test that she had to take to be considered as an intern/assistant in one of the most competitive opportunities that year for the local hospital, and knowing that she is not in the current mood to talk about her loss of concentration and object of distraction throughout the entirety of the test.
She loves her best friend to death—really, she does—and it's not like she's ashamed of her previous state of mind by any means, it's just...she would prefer to deal with her distraction by herself and get it out of the way—enough, at least— before going to Bree and spilling all the details about her new neighbor.
Speaking of which...
Chloe withdraws her hand from her face and reaches for one of the plastic bags, untying the knot and spreading it open, and grins at the container of dog treats inside. Holding on tight to the five pounds of bone shaped treats with both hands, she spares the rest of the bags a glance before shrugging them off to be dealt with later—there's only some sandwich bread and pancake mix, nothing that'll melt or sweat if not put immediately in the refrigerator—and walks back out of her house, clicking the door shut behind her with a well maneuvered foot.
She refrains from skipping down the steps and over the several feet of cement leading her to her destination—as much as she would like to think herself as usually coordinated, today seemed like a day for all the unusualities of her personality, and she would like to not take the chance to fall flat on her face in the middle of the sidewalk, thank you very much—while taking in the late afternoon sun, squinting against the flash of light that reflected off the mailbox from across the street and ignoring the fleeting twinge of regret in her chest at the negligence of her lowering the sunglasses from the apex of her forehead. Her shoes provide a faint rhythm to her gait, the beat growing more rapid—more stressed—the further she gets on the short pathway towards her neighbor's front door.
She knocks on the painted wood with an elbow.
Excited barking comes from within and Chloe can't help but chuckle at the sounds of paws bounding its way towards the other side of the door, her heart already fluttering with anticipation at the sight of the energetic beagle and its sarcastic owner, and she shifts her feet and leans slightly to the side so she won't lose her balance need the event arise that said beagle lunges for her legs.
"Chill out dude, no need to burst my eardrums. I know someone's at the door."
Chloe rolls her eyes to the underside of the porch overhang but can already feel a smile spreading across her face at the mix of exasperation and affection coating her neighbor's tone of voice.
She doesn't think she has ever met someone with such snark who can simultaneously pull it off as annoyance and affection.
She finds it utterly adorable.
The door cracks open to reveal a disgruntled brunette trying in vain to block her dog from bursting out the doorway with a foot. Chloe only barely manages to catch sight of the dark purple of Beca's flannel before Guetta jumps over her shin and surges for her, and an amused giggle escapes her lips as she watches the beagle paw at her calves, wanting to bend at her knees to deliver to him the pet that he's clearly begging for but knowing that once she does, the bag in her hands would be knocked onto the floor and its contents likely spilled.
"Glad to know that it's not even been a day since he had met you and you're already his favorite," Beca says dryly, opening the door wider now that the beagle has escaped.
"What can I say, I'm very likeable," Chloe replies with a wink, any last remnants of her dispirited mood vanishing from just that single sentence. She holds out the treats to the woman in front of her and notices how she goes out of her way to avoid touching her hand in her act of accepting it.
"Whatever, Beale," a scoff accompanies her words but it is filled with not even a whisper of a trace of malice.
Chloe had been in the process of scooping Guetta up into her arms and taking Beca's offer for her to step into her house when she paused, tilting her head both to accommodate the beagle's licks and express her confusion, "Hold on, how did you know that my last name is Beale? I'm pretty sure that we hadn't gotten that far in our short conversation this morning in your kitchen."
A horrified expression replaces the teasing one on the brunette's face. "Shit."
Chloe bites back a snicker, knowing the answer is going to be good, "Well?"
There is a blush creeping into Beca's cheeks and she shakes her head, taking the moment to place the bag of dog treats onto the small table just inside the entryway, but at Chloe's expectant eyebrow raise from behind Guetta's ears—who is still diligently raking his tongue all over the side of her neck—she finally relents, blurting her explanation out in one long breath, as if hoping that if she said it fast enough, the redhead would not have the time and opportunity to make out the words, "I may or may not have gone through your mail on the way back here from work."
Chloe thinks she might have just fallen in love. "What?"
Beca lets out an embarrassed groan and covers her face with her hands, peeking at her pleadingly from behind her fingertips, "Please don't make me say that again."
If she had not been sure before, she is pretty darn sure now. "Why would you go through my mail?"
The brunette whines and snaps the already limited space between her fingers closed, "I don't know, okay? I was just walking past your mailbox and noticed that the flag thing was up, and then before I knew it, your mail's in my hands and I'm staring down at your last name!"
Oh god, Aubrey is going to have a fit when she hears about this… Surely it's not healthy for her to fall in love with her neighbor not—she glances at the music note themed clock on the wall feet above Guetta's head—nine hours from their first meeting?
She's still practically a stranger, for God's sake.
Chloe's heart does a complicated acrobatic sequence in her chest and for the first time in a long long while, she has absolutely nothing to say. Suddenly needing to do something with her hands, she strokes gently—albeit shakily—at Guetta's back and buries her nose into his fur, the sunglasses on her head bumping into his face before sliding off and dropping to the floor.
She thinks the quiet clank that it makes as it establishes impact is fitting of everything that is once usual and general of her character tumbling to her feet.
"Chloe? Say something, please, I know that was a dick move but I—"
"It's fine," she blurts out, because it doesn't matter that she thinks that she's already in way too deep for a second meeting with a still practical stranger, because it's not Beca's fault for being infuriating and distracting and freaking adorable, and because they had barely crossed the line of acquaintances—which is nowhere near enough to where she thinks they have to be before she admits her recently acquired feelings, "It's fine, you were just curious. I would be too, don't worry."
Beca breathes a sigh of relief and drags her hands from her face up through the dark locks of her hair stemming from her hairline, the shorter uneven strands distinctive from the rest disappearing into a mass of brown as her fingers clutched into two tight fists, "Okay, good. Whew, I was starting to think I'm becoming a stalker or something."
Despite everything that had been going on—still going on—that day, Chloe still finds it in her to crack up, "You are totally a stalker, Becs, I'm just too nice to call you out on it."
Beca huffs and turns her nose dramatically into the air, her hands leaving her hair to grab at the bag she left on the small table, her cheeks still a light shade of pink as her feet swiftly whirls her body around, and then suddenly Chloe is staring after her as she makes her way towards an opening down the hall, presumably into the living room, "You're definitely not nice, Chlo. Nice people don't barge into their neighbor's backyards and yell at them for waking them up at six in the morning and then come knock on their front door to steal their dogs away right that very afternoon."
Chloe trails after her retreating back, lowering Guetta to the ground when he starts to bark and squirm in her arms, and her amused indignation is evident in her response, "At least I'm not the one snooping in her neighbor's mailbox!"
"You said you would've done the same!"
"Yeah well, I didn't need to. Your full name was splattered all over your coffee cup this morning. The one with the FA initialed on the bottom."
Beca's next words include an expletive and something along the lines of "Fat Amy."
Chloe laughs, following Guetta as he turns the corner into the entrance of the living room, "I think we're going to be really fast friends."
Beca looks up from her seat in the middle of the sofa, steely blue gaze dropping to her lips as Chloe's mouth falls open to gape at the breathtaking view before her, "Well, you've already stolen my dog, and I've already seen you half naked, so…"
A/N: Let me know what you think! (And if you want another part(s), such as one(s) involving Beca's pov, a love interest/friend **dog or cat or even a hamster lol** for our adorable Guetta, ...smut ;), or even something else entirely, just say the word! A fair warning though, if it's going to involve an upgrade of a G rating, I'm going to post separately and then add it to this in a series, because I'm not going to post something T or M or E in a G rated fic. That just...doesn't sit well with me.)