First and foremost: WOW, guys. I just want to thank everyone who reviewed, because I never expected so many reviews and so much feedback! (BTW, I did have to look up what the term 'nbc' actually meant, and I think it might describe me a little more than I'd like it to xD, just not to an Aubrey extent) I'd already been leaning toward Stacie, and your guys' opinions really helped cement that. Fat Amy was really only an option because other than Cynthia-Rose, she's the only…personality-having Bella there, and Cynthia-Rose is, no offense to anyone, so totally the opposite of my type that I can't imagine trying to write for her. That and I can't see Aubrey being submissive, no matter how downtrodden she is, nor can I see Cynthia-Rose as submissive, and therein lies the issue :P
ANYWAY, I love me a good Staubrey, and hopefully I'll live up to everyone's expectations!
Please don't expect such fast updates all the time—you guys are awesome, but I'm working ten hour days on externship and by the time I get home I'm pretty much physically and emotionally drained, so there's really no time for me to get into writing. But I'll update as often as I can, and thank you again for your support!
UnPerfect
Thefanshipdarkhorse
One: Crisis Averted
(Alternately: Aubrey Posen Gives Surprisingly Good Hugs)
It was a Friday afternoon, approximately halfway through Bellas rehearsal the week after the win at the ICCAs, when the impossible happened.
Aubrey Posen, fearless leader and stringent perfectionist, caught up in staring (read: glowering mutinously) in the general vicinity of her roommate and a certain alternative girl whose name shall not be uttered, missed a step. Now, this wouldn't normally have been such a big deal (of course, it would have been to Aubrey regardless, but chances are good the misstep would have gone entirely unnoticed by the rest of the Bellas, who were all more or less doing their own thing, which simultaneously relieved and deeply pained her), had the blonde's misstep not occurred at a pinnacle moment in which she was meant to step right and instead took a step to the left. A simple mistake, to any outsider's eye—however, two key factors turned what she could otherwise have easily brushed off into a major incident, the first being that Aubrey Posen may not be perfect, but she never made mistakes in singing, cardio or choreography. The second, decidedly more consequential factor was that she'd just happened to be teaching Lily at the moment, and, as fate would have it, the girl had finally got the move right just as Aubrey had got it wrong.
Simply put, the misstep caused Aubrey to slam right into Lily, who, already slight, had been completely unprepared for the sudden mess-up, sending the smaller girl flying right into Cynthia-Rose's conveniently outstretched arms (which, Aubrey noticed through her resulting mortification, had been outstretched suspiciously toward Stacie, who had been practicing spins up until the incident). Luckily, Chloe was so caught up in 'teaching' Beca that neither of the two had noticed anything, but that was where Aubrey's luck ran out.
Both Cynthia and Lily were staring up at her like Jesus Christ had just made his second coming, while Stacie spun to a stop, taking a step back to catch herself, her eyes sparking first with shock, then overwhelming amusement. Aubrey swallowed down hard, biting back her gag reflex, and cleared her throat, dusting invisible lint from her skirt as she straightened. "What are you ladies staring at?" she snapped, sounding decidedly more shrill than usual. "You won't keep the Bellas in the ICCAs by standing there with your mouths hanging open."
"Or crashing into each other cause we're too busy eye-fucking our fellow Bella sisters to concentrate," Fat Amy piped in helpfully, earning herself a lead-melting glare from the older blonde. "Or, you know…what you said, Aubrey," she muttered, lowering her eyes and returning her attention to the…was that an extra-large pizza box in her lap? Aubrey glowered at the younger girl, more indignant over her blatant disregard for the (protocol!) Bella diet than her crass comment.
A decidedly unladylike snort sounded from behind her, and Aubrey whirled back around to face the other three girls (she was starting to get whiplash…). Judging by the instant turn of her head and refusal to meet Aubrey's furious gaze, the tall blonde pegged Stacie as the culprit. "Is something funny, Stacie?" she asked sweetly, plastering on her time-perfected Stepford Smile.
The younger girl raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "Seriously?" she asked incredulously. "You heard what she just said, right? About you eye—"
"Yes, I heard what she said!" Aubrey snapped. "It was highly inappropriate, but I've come to expect nothing less. As for why you of all people would find it so funny—"
"Whoa there, cool your tits, Bree," Stacie interrupted the blonde mid-tirade, holding up one hand in surrender. Aubrey's eyes popped, her jaw working as she tried to unscramble her increasingly jumbled thoughts. Nobody called her Bree—or anything but Aubrey, really, except for Chloe, and she was…different. "Nobody's gonna think badly of you just because you've got a big, fat toner for—mmph!"
Aubrey had literally launched herself at the brunette, clapping her hand over Stacie's mouth while simultaneously dragging the girl off to the side. "What is wrong with you?" Aubrey hissed, shoving the girl back into one of the seats at the far end of the bleachers. "Just because you have all the complex thought processes of a teenage boy doesn't mean we're all constantly thinking about…about sex!"
Her voice lowered with every word, until she just hissed out the last bit of her speech, flushing fire-engine red as she did so, much to Stacie's amusement. The younger girl had simply allowed herself to be dragged and forced into the seat with only a small oomf as her lanky body collided with the thinly-cushioned chair. Even though she did resent the commentary on her sexual escapades, she couldn't deny that her incredibly hot blonde captain was even more incredibly hot when she got forceful and controlling. The fact that she found Aubrey attractive was of little to no consequence to the tall brunette—though she wasn't quite as slutty as Aubrey's snippy remark may have led one to believe, she was a highly sexual being, one who didn't necessarily draw the line at a silly little thing like gender. Hot was hot, after all. She was hot, Aubrey was really hot, fuck, even Beca was hot in a moody, Edward Cullen type way. Not that she'd ever go there, mind you—she had a sneaking suspicion that having sex with Beca would feel a lot like playing Doggie with her cousin (one experience that Stacie wasn't particularly proud of, although in her defense, she was only eight at the time). And getting back to the point, attraction was just that—attraction. Stacie could be attracted to some guy working at Aeropostle—it didn't mean she was going to go and marry the guy.
"Are you even listening to me?!"
Stacie snapped out of her increasingly smutty thought process, intense blue eyes snapping back to angry, moss green. "Um, yeah," she replied, reflexively. Aubrey pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. "Kind of."
The blonde let out a sound caught somewhere between a sigh and a growl of frustration as she threw her hands in the air. "Why do I even bother?" she asked, ripping a clammy, shaking hand through her blonde curls, which were beginning to fall out of her ponytail. Stacie instantly frowned, though not out of offense—Aubrey was starting to look really pale, and maybe even a little green…
Panicking, the taller girl leapt to rectify the situation. Literally. She jumped out of her seat and, without thinking, wrapped her arms around Aubrey's waist, noting that, much to her newly acquired guilt, the girl was, indeed, shaking. The older girl tensed instantly in Stacie's arms, and the brunette was fairly certain that if she didn't play this just right, the entire room might just end up drenched in puke.
"Listen, Bree, I'm sorry," she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "I was just messing around, I swear. I know you don't have a thing for Chloe," (and Stacie was now lying through her teeth, apparently) "We were just playing with you, okay? You're always so uptight and—"
"And controlling, right?" Aubrey snapped, cutting Stacie off and jerking out of her arms, bringing her own arms up protectively around her stomach. "I get it."
"Ugh!" Stacie groaned, raising her hands and jerking them back to her side in frustration. Apparently, today Aubrey wasn't just going to be controlling, but petulant as well. "No, you don't! Look, we know you're controlling and a perfectionist and kind of a bitch sometimes, but we love you, okay?"
The effect was immediate—Aubrey whirled around to face Stacie, her eyes wide with confusion and hurt (Stacie could only assume the blonde had taken it to be a lie) and maybe just a little shred of…was that hope?
"We do. And we just want you to relax a little, okay? We mess with each other because we love each other, right? It's the same with you."
Stacie took a deep breath once her piece had been said, and forced herself to meet Aubrey's tentative gaze with her own.
"You…you do?"
The question was so quiet, so cautious, so hopeful that it almost broke Stacie's heart. It was the look in the blonde's eyes, though, that really made Stacie want to just hug her and never let go—true, honest-to-God shock. It was as if she was honestly convinced that they all hated her. Sure, Aubrey was really controlling and got a little too caught up in winning, but did she really think they couldn't stand her? Rather, the brunette realized sadly, she probably assumed they only tolerated her, which, okay, maybe they had at first, but things had changed since then. Aubrey had changed, they'd all changed.
"Uh, yeah, duh," except this time it wasn't Stacie's voice, but Fat Amy's unmistakable Australian lilt. The girl had been (as she would later claim) practicing her horizontal running with her pizza a few rows back, and had apparently heard quite a bit of the exchange. "Like, yeah, you've got a stick lodged so far up your ass you've probably got splinters on your tongue, and that must really hurt," Aubrey glowered at this, and Stacie breathed an internal sigh of relief that the old Aubrey was still in there, "but we've all got our shit, right? I mean, Stacie here's a total slut—"
"First of all, the proper term is 'nymphomaniac', and secondly, I am not!"
Both girls shot her slightly disbelieving looks.
"Not totally," Stacie muttered, and she could have sworn Aubrey's lips twitched into what might have been a smile. She brightened, instantly forgetting the slight, a response which apparently shocked the tall blonde, whose eyes widened at Stacie's immediate reaction. Amy just rolled her eyes.
"ANYWAY. You're a boss, Stacie's a 'nymphosomething', Beca's reclusive, I'm—well, shit, you all call me Fat Amy, right? And Chloe's…" Amy caught herself right in the nick of time, having caught the slight narrowing of Aubrey's eyes. Stacie turned to catch the source of Amy's sudden pause, only to feel an uncomfortable stabbing sensation prickling at her chest at the sight of Aubrey's sudden protective behavior. Then, catching herself, she shook her head, hard. What was wrong with her today? God, she needed to get laid.
"Uh…the point is, we're all kinda fucked up in our own way, right?" Amy continued, expertly dodging the landmine. "But it doesn't make us any less awesome. I mean, you're controlling and shit and you get jealous kind of easy," another glare, though this one was complimented by a pretty blush, because they all knew it was true, just not the real target of said irrational jealousy, "which can actually be kind of a turn on for some people, I guess, but that's beside the point, but see you're also a really good singer and dancer and cardio…er, and come on, you're hot as shit."
Aubrey flushed, clearing her throat uncomfortably. "I…well…thank you, Amy," she finally settled on, though she was clearly debating the validity of the heavy blonde's words.
"That's Fat Amy to your scrawny ass," Amy retorted, reaching for her pizza box once more.
Aubrey rolled her eyes. "Alright, fine," she replied. "Get started on your cardio, Fat Amy." The younger blonde mumbled something incomprehensible under her breath as she dropped her precious pizza box. "Aca-scuse me?"
"Yes sir, captain, sir!" Amy made a show of saluting Aubrey before clambering off the bleachers, unwilling to face their captain's wrath despite the bonding moment they'd just shared.
Aubrey sighed, shaking her head with just the slightest hint of a smile as she turned to Stacie, who cocked an eyebrow in amusement. "And you," she said, nodding to Stacie, "let's get to work on that choreography—and try to keep your hands…well, not to yourself, okay?"
The taller girl grinned and, before Aubrey could back away or protest or even register the sudden move, wrapped her arms around the blonde, unable to stop herself. Once again, Aubrey tensed instantly, but after a long moment, Stacie felt a pair of hesitant arms wrap around her waist. Stacie's eyes widened for just a fraction of a second at how…protected she felt in the embrace, despite Aubrey's hesitance and the initial purpose of the hug. She'd expected Aubrey to feel…well, different. Stacie had a good two or three inches on the girl, but really, that only meant Aubrey's head came up to just above her eyes in flats, and the blonde was almost always wearing heels. Besides that, though, she'd expected the girl to feel…almost fragile, maybe, though maybe that was just the situation. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been farther from the truth. Aubrey's arms, while cautious, were surprisingly strong, and she was slender, yes, but not for lack of eating, but for all that damned cardio, and Stacie found herself not wanting the moment to end.
Of course, all this was said and done in the half-second Aubrey afforded the hug before clearing her throat and turning on her heel, stomping away, though the tall brunette was fairly sure the stomping was from embarrassment rather than anger.
Stacie just stood there for a moment longer, reveling in the feel of Aubrey's arms engulfing her. She could have sworn she felt the girl squeeze her just a little bit before she'd awkwardly pulled away. Grinning from ear to ear, Stacie sauntered back over to the center of the room, where Aubrey was once again barking orders. Who would've thought Aubrey Posen, of all people, would be such a damn good hugger?
Then again, who would have thought Stacie Conrad would wind up with a crush on her unattainable senior? The taller girl's shoulders slumped, a movement Aubrey's piercing blue eyes caught before flickering back to the rest of the Bellas.
Well, fuck. And not the good kind, either.
So there's chapter one, guys! I hope you all liked it—I hope it isn't moving too fast. Again, you guys are so awesome for giving me all the reviews and input! Maybe this fandom just isn't dead, like the majority of my other fandoms are…but whatever the case may be, I'm infinitely grateful to you guys for all the motivation! Please continue to review with your thoughts on chapters or your ideas, and I hope you all continue to enjoy!