Authors Note: Well, I'm back. It's been a hot minute. I have no excuses, but thanks for those who remember that I exist, and welcome to the new readers!
Chloe had flown into LAX on a Sunday afternoon, on a one way ticket on the label's dime, after Beca had her assistant Gail Abernathy rat on her, when she had been overheard complaining to Jesse that Friday that, "LA is cool and all, but I'm like, stuck. I'm exhausted cuz I haven't slept well in 3 weeks, I have no friends here, I have a half finished house, and no inspiration." How they figured out that Chloe could fix all 4 of those problems, Beca didn't know, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if she did kind of want to punch her assistant for listening to her private phone call.
So, there Chloe was, in California to help Beca get adjusted to her new job and to her new place, not really having anything pressing to do in New York at the moment. Chloe admitted the first night as they laid together in Beca's king size bed, that she had absolutely no plans of leaving any time soon, and if Beca was being honest, she didn't want her to either. She enjoyed Chloe's company and had missed it when she had flown to LA by herself at the beginning of the month. Beca had offered her bedroom to the ginger, saying she could sleep somewhere else, when Chloe shut that down almost immediately.
"Don't be stupid. We can share yours. Besides, where else are you gonna sleep, Becs? You have no couch yet, and the guest room isn't done."
Beca couldn't argue with that logic, and for the first night since moving to LA, got a full night's sleep.
Everyone in the office noticed the next day that Beca had seemed much less moody and they all loved Chloe, who popped by the recording studio with some Maggiano's to spend Beca's lunch hour with her, after having explored the Grove in the morning. They all began to call Chloe Beca's 'wifey' and Beca strangely was okay with it, after all the teasing had subsided.
Chloe had been especially touchy-feely and flirty since arriving in California, which Beca just chalked up to Chloe making up for lost time from their month apart. But lately, Beca noticed, it was making her stomach do weird things. Even weirder than usual, which was slightly off-putting to the tiny brunette. It started to come back full force, when Chloe had arrived last week, but Beca just chalked it up to missing her best friend. There surely wasn't any other reason it could be.
"Oh my god Chlo. Why do we have to go pick out paint samples? Can't we just use that VR app that shows you what your house looks like, without having to go all the way across town to Lowes?"
"I'm surprised LA's hottest up and coming name in the music industry doesn't care more about what her new digs are going to look like," Chloe shot back at her best friend, as they finally arrived at the paint section, Chloe having taken a MASSIVE detour in the interiors section, spending a long time looking at lamps and rugs.
"Why does nobody tell you that rugs are the most expensive thing you're ever gonna buy?" Beca had muttered, "It's not like it does much anyway…"
"Can you at least please take this a bit more seriously?!" Chloe said, crossing her arms. "You're gonna be living in this gorgeous house for the foreseeable future!"
"I have people for most of that," Beca admitted honestly. "And whatever people I don't have, I'm sure the people I do could find someone to do it. Gail is pretty scary sometimes, but she gets shit done. As long as it's got a big comfy bed and my studio isn't fucked up, I really don't care."
"Always the modest one," Chloe teased, browsing the samples.
Beca's ears turned pink and she blushed furiously, still not quite used to the concept herself.
"You know I didn't-" the brunette started to protest.
"You're too easy Becs." Chloe turned and held up a shade called 'Showstopper' to Beca's cheek.
"Hey. This matches your face."
"Shut up," Beca grumbled, as she perused the thousands of paint gradients that looked like a gay pride parade threw up on the back wall.
"Your bed definitely is big and comfy so all we have to do is make sure you don't fuck up your studio," Chloe said, as she continued to pick the most obnoxious shades to purposefully annoy Beca with.
When Chloe's attention started to gravitate towards the shinier shades, Beca went the opposite direction, and picked up one of the different, more muted shades and handed it to the paint attendant to be mixed up.
5 minutes later, the paint can was done and Beca was more than done with the home improvement place in general.
"I'm ready, are you good to go?"
"Aca-awesome!" Chloe said happily, "Me too! What color didya pick out?" she inquired, craning her neck to try and read the label on the top of the paint can.
"That's for me to know and you to find out," Beca said, tilting her purchase away from her best friend.
Once the two had arrived back at Beca's new house, they quickly figured out what to get for lunch and then proceeded to sit on the middle of the floor in the mostly empty living room, since Beca's furniture movers were coming with the rest of the pieces over the next few days.
"Ya know," Beca began, as she stuffed a bite of food in her mouth. "The last time I painted a room I was like, 12. Hopefully this time goes better than the last."
Chloe paused with a fork full of food suspended midway in the air. Beca rarely volunteered stories or information about her childhood, although she had gotten better at it.
"How so?"
Beca shrugged and said, "The last time I painted anything was right after my dad left. I painted the walls in my bedroom grey and black because he said I couldn't but he wasn't around to tell me no."
Chloe listened and nodded her head that she was paying attention, as Beca paused, careful not to interrupt her friend, in case she wanted to continue.
"It was a huge mess, it took forever and it smelled," Beca scrunched up her nose, remembering the fumes. "AND I had to leave the last top third of the walls unpainted because even with the brush extender thingy I was too short to reach all the way to the ceiling and my mom wouldn't let me stand on a ladder," Beca finished, apparently still a bit salty about the ladder issue.
"Well, now you're an adult and can stand on a ladder if you want," Chloe said, nudging her best friend playfully as if reading Beca's mind. "Plus, back then you didn't have me, and I'm pretty good at painting, if I do say so myself."
The two finished their food as they talked about random things and planned what else they wanted to tackle on their own and what they wanted the professionals to do. Beca had said she wanted to do at least a little of the house on her own, so she chose to paint the main part of her home recording studio, hence the trip to Lowes in the first place.
"Alright Beale," Beca said, looking around the empty room. The main room had nothing in it yet but it was full of sunlight, streaming through the big bay window. In the corner was a recording booth, which had all of the top of the line industry standard equipment and instruments in it, in case Beca brought in an artist or wanted to record something of her own for a track.
"Over here is where the desk is going to be. My regular mixing deck is going over here, and since this is where the sound booth is, I only want to paint the far wall. It's that one, and it'll be an accent wall-" Beca trailed off as she indicated with her hands, where everything would go and which wall she wanted to paint.
"What are you looking at me like that for, weirdo?" Beca inquired.
Chloe was looking at her, with an amused expression as she responded with a bit of laughter in her tone.
"Oh, just that you know what an accent wall is," Chloe giggled.
"You're lucky you're pretty," Beca simply said, flushing a bit as she realized that she spoke the words out loud and not in her head as she originally had intended.
"Ugh. Why do I put up with you again?"
"Because you love me and I flew 2475 miles to be with you and help you start a new chapter in your life," Chloe retorted. "Where's the awards case going to go?" she asked as an afterthought.
"Nowhere, since I have none," Beca said bluntly.
"Yet," Chloe corrected. "You will. Just wait."
"Your faith in me being successful at this is insane," Beca admitted, and realizing she was sounding sappy again, added, "Now grab a brush and start earning your keep."
"Yes, ma'am!" Chloe saluted.
"Don't call me ma'am."
"Yes, SIR!" Chloe corrected, saluting again, winking at Beca and wiggling her butt as she went to find some painters tape and a few brushes.
Beca rolled her eyes at her friend's behavior and started to lay down a tarp.
She was finishing up with the plastic just as Chloe finished marking off the wall and taping over the electrical sockets and found two brushes.
"You realize this is going to take forever if we use these tiny brushes, right?"
"Yup," Chloe said. "Better get your rear in gear if you wanna be done any time soon."
"Ugh, I know. Why don't we start on opposite ends of the wall with rollers and meet in the middle?" Beca suggested, half pleading so it wouldn't take forever and a day.
"Ooooor we could just spend time together and enjoy each other's company," Chloe responded.
As if that exact exchange of words was a key, it unlocked another painting memory. A happier painting memory. But this memory was deep within the recesses of Beca's brain.
Flashback:
8 year old Beca sat in her living room watching her parents paint the walls a boring shade of white. They were standing right next to each other and painting the same wall, for reasons which Beca could not understand. Wouldn't it be faster if they each painted their own wall and used a roller instead of a brush? Beca had seen enough HGTV in the mornings when her mother made breakfast to know that they existed. But her parents seemed to be having the time of their lives, painting side by side, nudging each other playfully and laughing at jokes only they seemed to understand. No words were exchanged, but there was music playing softly in the background on the stereo and at that moment, nothing else seemed to matter to them. Having grown tired of her parents ignoring her, Beca retreated to her room, where she finally was able to listen to some GOOD music (Avril Lavigne's newest album had just come out) and waited til she was called for dinner.
Later that night, while Warren was in his study grading his student's comparative literature essays, and she was drying the dishes her mother was washing, Beca had asked her about it.
"Mama, why are adults so boring? You and daddy painted the living room in almost complete silence. And when you were laughing, nobody actually told any jokes."
"You'll understand when you're older," Beca's mother replied with a smile as she looked at her daughter.
"You always say that," Beca huffed, crossing her arms. "I am already eight, isn't that old enough?"
"In this case, sweetie, you need to have found your person. Then you'll get it."
"My person?" Beca was confused. "What do you mean?"
"Your person," her mom said, "is kind of like your true love, or your soulmate. It can be a best friend or a romantic partner. Your person is the one you can communicate without words with. Who makes you feel happy the minute you see them when you lock eyes across a room, or makes you smile when you think about them. The one who makes you want to be a better person. Sometimes, you don't even have to do anything, but it's better than doing it by yourself, because you have them."
"I don't believe in soulmates," Beca had stated. "That's only in the movies."
Beca's mother knew better than to argue with her daughter. "Hopefully you won't always think that."
"We'll see," Beca said, apparently done with the conversation. "Can I go now?"
Her mother nodded, and that was the end of that conversation, although from time to time, Beca did periodically wonder if she'd ever meet her prince, like all the older girls in her school were beginning to talk about.
Unfortunately, 4 years later when she was 12, her parents divorced and her father walked out on Beca and her mother. Beca vowed to never fall in love, if it ended like it did for her parents. She stopped dreaming of when her prince would come and instead focused on the facts. Music had never, and would never let her down, and therefore, it would replace any and all semblance of emotions. Her mother turned into a shell of a woman, and Beca traded her church dresses for hoodies and jeans and refused to watch anything related to the world of movies and especially Disney movies. Yes, sometimes she would binge watch tv episodes that would technically be longer than a movie would run, but it is not the same thing, and you know it. Ok? OK.
As a middle schooler and highschooler, she mostly kept to herself, and her music was her best friend, not people. She hated the world, and pushed away anyone who tried to get to know her. She also never watched another movie, until she went to college and met Chloe. If she really thought about it, Beca didn't do a lot of things until she met Chloe.
Chloe was the exception to pretty much all of her many proclaimed rules for self preservation. If she really thought about it, it's because of Chloe, that she was in this situation at all. Because, if the perky redhead of a best friend hadn't burst into Beca's shower and demanded her to sing the older girls' lady jam, she wouldn't have joined the Bellas. And she wouldn't have made 11 friends. And she definitely wouldn't have gotten noticed by DJ Khaled and ultimately got her record deal which transported her to Los Angeles. But that still didn't mean anything. Until all of a sudden, it clicked in Beca's brain.
It actually did mean something. It meant a lot of something. Something huge. She was in love with her best friend. Her best friend was her person. Her person was her soulmate. Her soulmate was Chloe. Chloe was her reason for everything. And strangely, Beca wasn't panicking about it.
Beca knew she wasn't completely straight, after meeting that German chick, and although she didn't necessarily ever come out, she quite happily took in the female form of the women that were in a music video with her that she did as a favor for her friend Justin Timberlake. They became friends shortly after she had moved to LA, when he messaged her about a mashed up remix she had done of his version of Senorita with the version of Senorita that Shawn Mendez and Camilla Cabello sang and posted it on YouTube.
Now that Beca had finally figured out this fact, she needed to decide what to do with this information.
However, with Beca being the awkward human she is, she didn't have any good ideas of how to randomly declare her love for her best friend of over 7 years. But, as they say, "When words fail, music speaks" and Beca had the perfect idea.
She grabbed Chloe's phone, and paused the music.
"Hey, why'd you pause the song?" Chloe asked, "I was enjoying that!"
"Can you… I just… Hold on, okay?" Beca asked, as she started up a familiar tune. Soon, Titanium was flowing out of the tiny bluetooth player that they hooked Chloe's phone up to.
Chloe's eyes widened and she whimpered a bit. "Beca, no! You KNOW what this song does to me."
"You know, you're right," Beca began, "this song really builds."
"Huh?" Now Chloe was confused.
"This song literally built the foundation of our friendship. It's why we're here today."
Chloe was still confused but stayed silent, sensing that Beca was trying to say something important.
"You were my first friend at Barden, even though I did think you were crazy for bursting into a strangers shower and pretty much holding them captive and demanding that they sing the song you like to masturbate to."
At that, Chloe opened her mouth to defend herself, but Beca plowed on.
"Which, by the way, how dare you?" Beca said, "Because I had it all planned out. I was gonna spend one year at Barden, and then move to LA and become a producer, and instead, now I have a non-stop group chat full of messages from a dozen of the weirdest, best people, and I love them all, even Aubrey. And it's great but you? I don't even know where to begin with you. You're just you. But that's honestly one of the things that I like most about you. You're not ashamed to be yourself. And because you're yourself, you have this habit of making everyone fall in love with you. Including me. And I just-"
"Mmffh" Beca's rant proclaiming her love for Chloe was cut short by a pair of lips on hers, tongue sweeping across hers, seeking entrance.
"Beca. You were rambling," Chloe said, after they finally broke apart for air.
"You kissed me," Beca said.
"Yes, I did," Chloe said breathlessly, leaning her forehead against Beca's.
"Should we? I mean, there's a discussion that we could have. If you wanted to have one…?
"Beca, I kissed you, with tongue, and I plan to do it again and again. Get used to it. End of discussion."
"Ok."
Chloe quickly kissed her one more time, and turned back to the wall to paint, as if nothing had happened and having your best friend proclaim her love for you was a natural occurrence in Chloe's life, which maybe it was for the redhead. Beca however, just stood there trying to process everything that had happened in the past 5 minutes.
As Beca continued to think about that memory from when she was 8, she also thought of all the ways that her life had changed since she was a preteen. If you would've told 12 year old Beca she would've been an up and coming figure in the music industry and have a girlfriend(?) partner (?) a Chloe, she would've laughed in your face. But she did. All because of the woman who was humming softly next to her, as they painted the wall in her home studio, a lovely shade of bright yellow, in honor of the yellow cup that Chloe kept stealing and Beca kept stealing back when they were in college. The yellow cup that an 18 year old Beca used to audition for the Bellas, that Chloe asked her to join. Chloe, the girl whose name she didn't even know at the time when she had met her at the activities fair, on her first day of her freshman year of college. The college where she first met Chloe. Chloe, who asked her to help turn dreams into reality, was… well... her person.
Maybe the Disney movies were right all along, and dreams do come true once in a while. And she didn't need a prince. Not when she was dating the epitome of a Disney princess. Chloe even had flaming red hair like Ariel, but thankfully knew what to do with a fork and hadn't sold her beautiful voice to an ugly sea witch.
"Hey," Chloe said, shaking Beca out of her thoughts. "Come on babe, let's finish painting this wall."
At 8, Beca didn't understand, but now? At 24 years old, Beca finally understood why her parents had chosen to paint the same wall, with tiny brushes, because she did it too.
Note: The paint color I had Beca pick is yellow daisy. According to the internet, yellow daisies are a symbol of friendship and happiness. Yellow daisies can be offered to anyone who is a good friend to you, and you can place them in your home to bring positive energy. Yellow flowers in general burst with happiness. They symbolize the bonds of friendship, the taste of success and pride. Joy is also one of the meanings of this flower, as that is one of the feelings the color is said to evoke.