Prompt: "Chloe fell hard for Beca's charm and confidence the very moment she was approached by her at the bar. They were inseparable but that later turned into the present dysfunctional and almost toxic flow of stubbornness, jealousy and accusations (mostly on Beca's side.) Chloe always tries to leave but always finds her way back to Beca; despite several advice and warning from her friends. – Inspired by Rita Ora's "Poison."
"I Tried to Stop but I Keep on Coming Back For More"
Beca had her hand in a fist as it hovered over Chloe's door.
"Please, just don't come over anymore – it'll make it easier for the both of us."
The redhead's words were quickly shoved to the back of her mind as her hand finally made contact with the wood. It was a light and hesitant knock and one that Beca had used one too many times on this very door.
"I told you not to come here anymore" was the muffled response from the other side, instantly causing the brunette to wince.
"Chloe, just let me in. We'll talk.
There was a pause.
"You know we never talk, we just have sex and backtrack. Go home, Beca."
It seemed from the moment they met, Beca and Chloe always found themselves attracted to each other; some had called it inseparable but Beca wasn't particularly fond of that observation. Chloe had a certain warmth the brunette had never experienced before - a kind of fiery touch that burned Beca's skin whenever they touched. It could be an innocent brush of arms or a graze of fingers when they exchanged a drink; perhaps it was a gentle caress of her cheek or a feather touch on the inside of her thigh; but either way Beca could feel it and she craved it the moment Chloe pulled it away.
"Babe, please. Let me in and we'll talk. No distraction, no deflection, I just need to see you."
Chloe was resting her forehead on the frame of the door with her eyes closed; resisting the urge to look through the peep hole. She knew if she saw a pleading Beca Mitchell outside her door, her resolve would quickly crumble and cause all of her previous efforts to come undone.
She let out a long sigh, her heart currently enduring a very heated debate with her head. Beca was someone special; Chloe knew that from the first minute of their conversation in a bar almost a year ago. There was something about her eyes that made the redhead's knees weak and her mind blank. She had a desperate need to meet the woman who had sat at the bar alone occasionally sneaking glances at Chloe from across the room.
She needed to know who she was and everything in between.
Chloe took a deep breath, her grip on the handle tightening. What before was once a tight hold to keep her out, was now a firm grip to let her in. She rolled her eyes.
God, that was almost poetic.
She pulled down on the handle, opening the door slowly before locking eyes with the cautious woman before her.
"We just talk" Chloe warned, stepping aside and gesturing her to come in.
Beca smiled a soft smile, "We just talk."
XXX
"You know she's damaged beyond repair, right?" Aubrey asked casually, reaching for her coffee and bringing it to her lips.
Chloe's face dropped as the smile on her face a mere four seconds ago completely vanished.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she rushed out, automatically sitting upright in her chair.
Aubrey matched her posture, placing the mug back on the table between them, "It means you have to be careful. I know what you're like when it comes to relationships and love…" she dragged out the word, adding air quotations "…You dive in heart first and I don't think this girl has good intentions."
Chloe sunk back into her chair with an unreadable expression on her face. In all honesty, Chloe was confused; Beca and Aubrey had met once and Chloe had told her best friend nothing but good things about her, why was she so against their relationship?
"Aubrey, I don't think you really have any evidence to support that."
"Chlo, she was fifty-seven minutes late to our dinner reservation last week."
"Because she was stuck in traffic" the redhead defended.
"She walked. The restaurant was right around the corner from her apartment" Aubrey stated flatly; an equal tone of annoyance and victory in her voice.
Chloe's fingers began to tap the side of her mug as her line of sight turned to the busy street through the coffee shop window.
"She's not damaged" she mumbled, her eyes fixed on the blue mailbox on the sidewalk across the street.
"She had her arm wrapped around you all night. It wasn't a loving gesture, it was possessive grip that said 'don't touch her, she's mine' and she asked where you were going every time you went to the restroom, does that not set those little alarms of in there?" Aubrey asked desperately, holding a finger to the side of her own temple.
Chloe fell silent again until she hesitantly dragged her eyes back to her best friend's; Aubrey's quiet appeal oozing from her stare.
"That doesn't make her damaged" her voice was barely a whisper.
"You can't see it yet, but you will."
That was the last they spoke about it that day, Aubrey quickly moving the conversation on and changing the subject.
Chloe never forget her discreet and implicated advice, but she tried her very best to shake the thought away whenever it passed through her mind.
XXX
Beca sat on her usual seat on the couch, a knee nervously bobbing up and down between them. Chloe couldn't help but reach a reassuring hand out to still it, despite every fibre of her being that told her not to.
"I don't know why I'm like this."
The brunette broke the silence with a quiet and timid voice, her eyes still trained on Chloe's hand. The gentle tap indicated Chloe was listening and she wanted her to continue, so Beca did.
"I've always been one to self-sabotage my relationships, but when I met you, I convinced myself not to. You're different, Chloe…" she met the redhead's gaze "…you don't force me to open up, I just do because I want to and that's new for me."
Chloe began to retract her hand but Beca was grabbing it.
"You make me feel a love I never knew I was capable of before and now it seems I'm subconsciously doing everything to destroy it" the brunette whispered out, bringing her eyes down to Chloe's hand in hers as she ran her thumb back and forth over it.
"Beca, I don't know what you want me to say" Chloe breathed out, edging further down the couch and shaking her hand out of Beca's grasp.
"You said we could talk? Well, I'm finally talking and you're not even going to acknowledge what I've just said?" she asked almost angrily, her voice slightly growing in volume.
"That's not fair and you know it. After all those times I've put up with the jealousy and your insecurities? You lost the chance of my acknowledgement a long time ago."
Chloe hurriedly got to her feet before continuing, "I think you should go now."
XXX
The chime of a phone caused Chloe to pull away far too quickly for Beca's liking. Before the redhead had a chance to reach for the bedside, Beca was flipping them over and swiftly changing their position. Chloe let out a giggle as the brunette pressed her body firmly against hers with a smirk and a series of open mouthed kisses pressed to her neck.
"No phones allowed" was ghosted over her skin as Chloe arched her back slightly and let out a quiet hum of pleasure.
"There are so many things I could do to you that I'm entirely confident will be better than checking your phone" Beca's lips were settling into a smirk as they continued their assault down Chloe's body and paused at her chest.
There was that confidence Chloe had first noticed the night they met. It seemed Beca had an informative answer or a witty retort for anything and it drove the redhead wild. The brunette would effortlessly flirt and charm her way through any topic and all the while make Chloe feel like the only person Beca ever wanted to speak to.
A month or two ago, Chloe had realised that Beca genuinely only ever wanted to speak to her, as long as she did the same. Whether it was someone working the checkout, the barman who took her drink order or Stacie at work, a fever of jealously would unexpectedly rush over Beca and suddenly Chloe was under constant fire of hurtful accusations and serious allegations.
"You were looking at him like you wanted to fuck him" Beca had once rushed out between gulps of her beer. "Is that what you want? Am I not good enough for you anymore? Does Mr Barman have something I don't?!" she spat out viciously at an upset and flustered Chloe turning nervously on a barstool.
"Babe, why do you get like this? He just made a joke about the weather and I laughed, why would you say something like that to me?" Chloe quietly asked, internally hoping Beca wouldn't make a scene, again.
The familiar sound of Chloe's phone brought her out of her thoughts. She sat up quickly, stretching out to retrieve it from the drawers beside the bed, as Beca's teeth lightly tugged at the skin beneath her breast.
The redhead was quickly dropping the device onto the sheets and pulling Beca's lips to hers and forcing Beca's hand further down her stomach.
The chime sounded again and she knew she had to answer it.
With a loud groan she gently pushed Beca away.
"Sorry, I just really need to answer this" she whined, the unlocking sound echoing in their ears.
"Seriously, you turn down this for a text?"
Chloe's heart sped up, unsure if Beca was about to have one of her moments. When Chloe's eyes rested on Beca's playful ones she let out a breath of relief.
"I promised Stacie I'd send her the number for this private school counsellor by the end of the day and I forget."
Beca became rigid at that, sitting up straight for a moment and quickly returning to her side of the bed. Chloe instantly felt the cold due to the sudden loss of contact and internally berated herself for mentioning anything.
"Stacie again then, huh?"
The laid back and playful Beca from a moment ago was completely lost and replaced with a hard stare and a foul mood.
"Yeah, because of something at work, Becs" Chloe reminded, quickly firing off the text and returning it to the bedside. She turned onto her side and shuffled closer to other woman, cautiously placing a soft kiss to her bare shoulder.
"C'mon, I'm sure we could easily pick back up where we left off" she dragged out slowly, her voice automatically lowering to a seductive tone.
Beca was quickly lunging forward, fusing their mouths together and dragging her hands down Chloe's arms and moving further down to her hips.
The sex was different.
It wasn't the spontaneous kind that it had initially started out with – it had turned rough and possessive all at once and Chloe was more than sure she knew the reason for it. Beca's kisses were sloppy and her touches rushed. Their motions weren't slow or passionate but desperate and needy in a way the redhead was more than familiar with. Beca was jealous again and this was her way of showing Chloe she was hers; not her lover or her significant other, but her possession.
The first time it happened, the redhead thought it was hot, now she thinks it's just quite sad.
"She's damaged beyond repair; you know?"
Aubrey's words running through her head as a cold and unfeeling "I told you so" chant.
Beca's kisses leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.
XXX
"I want to stay here with you."
Chloe suddenly stopped in her tracks with her back to Beca as she was staring at her own front door for the second time around.
"I love you, you know that don't you?"
Chloe prayed Beca didn't notice the way her shoulders slumped at that, as she felt the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
"You're toxic, Beca" she wavered out between an almost sob and a sigh.
Despite the other woman's dysfunctionalities and her very messed up ways of showing her affections, Chloe didn't need reassuring that the woman currently sat on her sofa loved her. Beca had been the first to voice those three words aloud a month and a half into their relationship. It made Chloe feel butterflies flutter in her stomach the first time she heard them leave Beca's lips and suddenly the redhead no longer felt foolish for diving into their relationship "heart first."
They spent four months in a sense of happy bliss before Beca began faltering. The jealousy and the accusations started up after then and Chloe couldn't help but feel Beca had undone all their happiness of four months in a mere thirty-one days.
She turned around to see a very vacant looking Beca fiddling with her thumbs. There was a hint of guilt etched into her features but Chloe tired her hardest not to think about that; the guilt was the thing that always kept her coming back for more.
"You can't keep projecting your insecurities into our relationship and expect us to work. When that wave of jealously hits you out of the blue, it crushes me, Beca. My chest tightens and my heart breaks every time because I can't believe you think that little of me" she paused taking a steadying breath, "Your words become venomous and hateful towards me and everything about you that makes me love you disappears because you become somebody else. I love you, Beca but you're damaged!"
And there it was. The words she had first heard from Aubrey's mouth now finally leaving hers. Chloe spent many late nights refusing to believe her best friend's opinion and pushing away all of the signs that supported them.
But it was no use.
Finally, Chloe was letting them tumble from her lips and the weight that lifted with them was unignorable.
Beca didn't even miss a beat.
"Well you know what they say, damaged always attracts those fixer-upers."
XXX
Chloe remembers when she first locked eyes with the mysterious woman with the thick black eyeliner at the bar.
She remembers their first week of dating. The late night phone calls that lasted until the early hours of the morning and the sunlight that shone on half of Beca's face after the first night they spent together.
Beca's touches, her soft kisses, the sweet nothings she would whisper in her ear and the tight grip she held on Chloe's heart were imprinted in her memory. The way Beca opened up completely and showed Chloe her naked soul and she remembers the burning love that felt so strong Chloe had to pinch the fair skin of her arm to remind herself all of this was real.
Then Chloe replays Beca's twisted face as she would accuse her of flirting with Stacie from work and the hurt she felt when the other woman refused to hear anything she was saying. The harsh words, the tight clutch on her shoulder whenever they were in public and the slight smirk on her face whenever Chloe crumbled into a tearful mess under her stare during yet another argument about the redhead's loyalist to their relationship.
Chloe wished she would have ended it sooner and tried to forget the six attempts it took her to finally break things off for good. Beca's plea, her tears, her guilt, her apology; Chloe wished she was stronger than all of that.
But she wasn't, Chloe was weak; a lightweight and she knew it. The way she overlooked all that was damaged with Beca Mitchell and how the older woman searched for anything and everything to fill her up.
When the chapter of her and Beca's relationship was closed for good, Chloe felt an emotional turmoil that she could never predict or comprehend. She was forty-three days clean of Beca and the toxic flow of stubbornness, jealousy and accusations of their time together and for a while, she wore that like a badge of honour.
But in the cell of her being, Chloe knew she already addicted to her poison.
She tapped lightly on Beca's door after a month and a half of no contact. When the younger woman opened the door, Chloe couldn't stop the words tumbling from her lips.
"I tried to stop but I keep on coming back for more."
And those lips were touching Beca's suddenly and almost instantly Chloe was hooked and entering back into their vicious cycle.
Chloe could try as hard as she wanted, but she'd always keep coming back for more.
XXX
A/N – So I had a really tough time writing this and I spent a lot of time stewing over it. The 'prompt' (basically an already thought out plot – which is awesome!) was such a good shout that I REALLY wanted to do it justice. I'm feeling very lukewarm about what I've written, but I spent so much time working on it, I couldn't bring myself to delete it all and start over, so this is what you got, sorry.
P.S Beca might be written too harshly and OOC but I'm literally fed up of staring at it now, aha! Sorry.