Chloe's crazy, dude.

Beca really couldn't be sure what possessed her to text Aubrey when she got into bed the next night. She obviously shouldn't have. What was going on between her and Chloe was none of Aubrey's business. And with Chloe's apparent interest in the relationship Aubrey and Beca shared, which Chloe had vocalized in her own vague way last night, the brunette really should have thought better of it. In fact, she almost instantly regretted it, but it wasn't enough to stop her. She had to tell Aubrey. She'd gotten used to the pattern of it all. She couldn't properly describe the reasons why – not that anyone was likely to ask – but she felt compelled to do it, like it was some obligation she was incapable of shirking.

Oh? What happened?

And that is what was really crazy, not Chloe Beale. The fact that she felt any sort of devotion to the blonde woman – well, no, not devotion really. Beca had just come to rely on the conversations that followed her experiences with her redheaded friend. It wasn't really about Aubrey specifically, it was more about Aubrey's inherent dependability. Aubrey was a particular brand of person. A Type A control freak, to be sure, but also the kind of person who would make herself available. Chloe was a good friend. She'd always be there for emotional support, at the ready to provide an ear to listen, or a shoulder to cry on. But Aubrey was prompt. Aubrey was scheduled. Aubrey was consistent. Aubrey was, in so many ways, so very, very predictable. So, yes, maybe she only ever showed up on her own terms, but her terms were reasonable, and not lacking in kindness. And Beca had come to rely on the regularity of these talks, the constancy that was Aubrey Posen.

So it really wasn't so much about Aubrey as it was about the service she provided just by being herself. And yet – didn't that, by definition, make it absolutely about Aubrey? About who Aubrey was? Beca shook that thought from her mind almost instantly.

After Bellas movie night… Did she tell you already?

Beca felt certain that this information would have already been shared with Aubrey. After all, she had waited almost a full 24 hours to send that text.

No

The response was simple and begged no further question. Beca wasn't sure if the girl was lying, or if Chloe really hadn't reached out. If she hadn't, Beca wondered why not. It seemed to her that Aubrey and Chloe were in constant communication, that Chloe had shared the details of every single moment of this little experiment with Aubrey long before Beca ever got the chance. So it was strange, and a little unbelievable, that Chloe reportedly hadn't… but Beca chose to believe it anyway.

Well, some stuff went down

What sort of stuff?

Despite Beca's relatively bold move to text Aubrey in the first place, she found herself feeling pretty shy. She was hesitant to share the details. She didn't know what to say. And yet she couldn't let the existence of Commander Beale go unspoken. She was, again, unsure of why she felt the obligation to tell Aubrey, but there was something undoubtedly thrilling about it. There was a sharp tug in her stomach as she replayed the events of last night. She unconsciously held her breath as she tapped out her response.

Chloe can be… bossy.

She felt something in her chest constrict as she stared at the screen, waiting for Aubrey's response. Yes, this certainly was the crazy part of what had been going on with her of late. This relationship, strictly textual, that was forming with the former Bellas captain. It didn't make any sense. It was strikingly weird. She couldn't explain it, didn't even know where to begin, except to say there was something about it that she really enjoyed on both a physical and emotional level. There was something inexplicable about her recently developed attachment to, ultimately, words on a screen that were, yes, connected to a person she knew, a person she cared about, but somehow separated, for Beca, from genuine reality.

Bossy? How so?

Beca wanted to explain everything, in licentious detail, but her fingers froze above the glass. She didn't have the right words, didn't know what to say. She started to type a response, then deleted it. How was she supposed to explain the way Chloe had treated her last night? She knew it wasn't really an answer, but felt like too much time had passed, so she settled on something.

Like… commanding.

There was no response from Aubrey for a long several minutes. Beca's mind raced. She was trying to figure out what exactly to say to Aubrey and how she should say it. Why she wanted to, in the first place, once again crossed her mind, but the question quickly disappeared as she remembered Aubrey's name hot on Chloe's breath the night before. The thought made her feel so… so strange. She couldn't describe it any other way. It was pleasant, the feeling, more than pleasant… but somehow so, so twisted. Beca swallowed hard at the memory.

As if on cue, her phone buzzed on her chest, but then surprised her and buzzed a second time. Someone was calling her. She frantically picked up the device. Aubrey was calling her. Why was Aubrey calling her?

"Uh… hi?"

"I couldn't deal with your stupid texts. Figured maybe it'd be easier if we had an actual conversation. Can you talk?"

Beca was a bit caught off guard by the sound of the blonde's voice. She was, as always, articulate and direct. Her words carried that particular brand of Posen confidence with them. Beca was unsure she could hold her own alongside the woman with a conversation like this one, but she had never backed down from Aubrey before and she wasn't about to start now.

"Apparently not," Aubrey quipped after a long moment of silence.

"Yeah, I can talk."

"Good. So what happened last night? Are you freaking out?"

"No," Beca said, rolling onto her stomach. She pressed the palm of her left hand against her forehead, holding the phone to her ear with her right. "I'm just… I don't know, surprised? I guess?"

"Surprised by what?" Aubrey genuinely queried.

"By Chloe," Beca responded too quickly. She didn't yet have a complete thought formed. "B-by… the way she… acted."

"How did she act?" Aubrey's questions were simple and without implication. They were annoyingly sincere.

"Li-like I said," Beca swallowed hard. "She was… commanding."

"Commanding," Aubrey repeated back, as if she'd never before heard the word in her life, considering it, chewing on it. "What did she command you to do?" she asked finally, her tone shifting almost imperceptibly, but Beca could feel it. She knew something just changed, for Aubrey.

Although Beca recognized the shift, she didn't much dwell on what it meant, or what the consequences of it might be. No, her mouth was too busy drying up at the question. Her brain much too busy flicking through images from last night.

"Uhhh…" was the only sound she managed to make.

"Tell me, Beca." What was it about the way that Aubrey said her name? How was it that the simple utterance turned a switch on somewhere deep within her, made her stomach flip and her chest pound? Was it how she annunciated the hard 'c?' The way she dragged out the 'a' for a half second longer than necessary?

"Like, she told me that I couldn't touch her," she quickly stammered. "Or-or," she corrected, "told me when I could."

"I see," Aubrey said, her voice low but otherwise ambiguous. But the tug in Beca's stomach demanded more than just that. Somewhere in her, Beca knew what she was about to do, but it wasn't something she knew consciously. Sure, she was about to make a choice, a choice she could be held responsible for later, but she didn't make the choice with her brain. No, she made the choice with her gut, based solely on the warm churning she found there.

"She was… a little rough. Pressed me against the door, grabbed me by the throat, held my wrists against the bed."

Beca heard an indistinct noise, reminiscent of a whimper perhaps, through the phone and couldn't stop the smile that spread slowly across her face. She had wanted a reaction out of the girl, and a reaction she had got. This was strange, so strange, but all her thoughts about what exactly was happening, and why this was happening, were drowned out by the tightening of her chest and the heat racing through her.

"And… di-did you… like that?" It was unlike Aubrey to stutter, and Beca's smile grew just that much wider. She'd set a trap. Aubrey'd fallen into it. And the thrill of that was powerful. Sure, she didn't know why these conversations had such an effect on the blonde, but she didn't really need to. The fact of it remained, and for whatever reason, Beca was enjoying teasing her former captain about it.

"Yes," Beca responded definitively, confidently, a tone she was certainly proud to have pulled off.

"Well," Aubrey replied after a long moment, clearly a bit flustered, "that's…good…"

"Did you know?" Beca asked. "Know that Chloe was… or could be, you know… like that?"

Beca listened carefully to the silence that followed, listened for any hint or suggestion of what Aubrey was thinking, but to no avail. She couldn't even hear the other girl breathing and worriedly looked at her phone screen to make sure the call hadn't been dropped. Then she heard Aubrey swallow, and softly clear her throat.

"I, uh – had heard that, yes."

"Well I hadn't," Beca said, almost defensively. "So thanks for the heads up," she remarked sarcastically.

"It's not like she – I mean, it's not her normal thing," she started, then quickly added, "I don't think." She paused for a moment before continuing. "It's interesting… that she would want to… Or that she'd be able to-to… That you'd let her." Aubrey's words were hesitant, and vague at best, but Beca could feel there was some implication behind them, something Aubrey was trying to say with them, something that made Aubrey a little, well, nervous sounding… or maybe a little excited?

"I didn't let her, she just… she just—" Aubrey cut her off before she could finish her thought.

"Did you fight her on it?"

"Well," Beca faltered, "no… not really."

"And you enjoyed it?" Aubrey's usual self-assurance was back in full force, that tone of voice that, sure, Beca would never back down from, but also had a way of making her feel somehow inadequate, like she couldn't keep up.

"Yes," she insisted forcefully, and maybe a hair too loudly, "Aubrey, yes. I enjoyed it, okay? It's not a big deal. It was barely anything, really…"

"Okay. Calm down. I'm just… surprised, that's all. I wouldn't have pegged you as the submissive type…"

So that was Aubrey's earlier implication. Well, Beca surely had to nip that rumor in the bud. She couldn't have her tough guy image tainted. "I'm not!" she asserted.

"Right…" Aubrey replied, her disbelief evident.

"I'm really not, though! Chloe just… she just… I don't know. She makes me—"

"Wet?" Aubrey giggled.

"Stop that. No. Confused."

Noting the seriousness of Beca's tone, Aubrey's voice shifted into one of patient, caring concern. "Confused? How so?"

Beca sighed. "I don't know. Everything's different with her…"

She almost immediately regretted the words. They weren't untrue, but they were certainly significant and she had tossed them out rather nonchalantly to Chloe Beale's best friend. She knew it was a mistake. She shouldn't have said that. Aubrey shouldn't have heard that.

"I see," was all the blonde offered in response. It was pensive and nonjudgmental, but it halted the conversation. Beca tried not to be outraged by that, but couldn't help herself because now she was dwelling on this thing that she had accidentally said, this heavy, weighted thing. It was churning her stomach. It was making her sweat. It made her feel like crawling into a hole to die. But just as Beca was really beginning to panic, Aubrey continued, her voice downright perky, her words ineffably sincere. "Well I think that's just wonderful."

"You what?!" she incredulously cried.

"I think it's wonderful," Aubrey repeated.

Beca was still reeling. "You think what's wonderful?"

"You and Chloe," replied Aubrey, drawing the 'e' in Chloe's name across several pitches. It would have been adorable if it weren't so annoying. "It seems like she's really opening you up to some new experiences. And the way she makes you feel… I just… I think it's so great!"

Aubrey was unequivocally giddy. It was a little disturbing, if Beca was honest. She could remember very few times that Aubrey sounded this happy and all of those had to do with Bellas achievements. They were never about something so… personal. And this wasn't even personal to Aubrey. This was personal to Beca, and perhaps to Aubrey's best friend as a result.

But despite how odd it seemed, the words calmed Beca. They made her feel good, feel happy, feel content. This is, of course, what Beca had called Aubrey for in the first place: for affirmation, for acceptance. The blonde was a sort of barometer for Beca. She'd come to rely on the girl telling her everything was okay, or, in this case, better than okay.

"Thanks," Beca said quietly. "That, uh – that means a lot."

Ever formal and polite, Aubrey responded fittingly. "You are welcome."

Beca was always grateful for this aspect of Aubrey's personality as well. The woman was certainly more likely than she was to go to an honest, emotional place when the situation called for it, but she'd never dwell there any longer than necessary. Chloe, on the other hand, lived in a pool of emotional goo that Beca was pretty sure the redhead wouldn't be able to breathe without. Above all things, Aubrey was efficient and she saw no need to linger on sentiment. She said her part, and then moved on. She was confident enough to know her words carried the meaning they needed to, and there was no further need for questions or explanations.

It was her gratitude, Beca thought, which made her push the conversation further. It felt like she owed it to Aubrey, to be honest, to share everything she was thinking. And of course she didn't, really, but she still wanted, maybe even needed, to tell her.

Beca bit her bottom lip as her stomach knotted. She took a wavering breath. "Chloe, uh… she… mentioned you. Last night."

"She… what?" Aubrey sounded confused, but totally calm. She didn't seem alarmed, didn't seem afraid. Surprised, sure, but Beca couldn't know if that was surprise that Chloe did that, or surprise that Beca was telling her about it.

"She mentioned you," Beca confirmed. "Said your name. She… wanted to know what you had been texting me about."

"Oh… What… what did you tell her?"

Beca gently laughed. It was bizarre, how easy this conversation felt, despite the uncertainty gnawing away inside her. "Nothing. I… sort of freaked out?"

"You did?" Was there a twinge of pain in her voice?

"Well, I mean, yeah. It was fucking weird, dude."

"Right," Aubrey gave a sad chuckle, "I guess that is pretty weird."

Beca felt suddenly guilty. She wasn't sure why, but she was pretty sure that she had upset the blonde. That certainly wasn't her intent. She wasn't even sure how she'd done it, if she'd done it, but she felt the overwhelming need to apologize.

"Sorry. I just… it really… caught me off guard," she said calmly, before apprehension grabbed hold. "I mean, what? Right? Like… WHAT?" Beca gave a laugh, her voice becoming almost manic as she continued, not allowing Aubrey to get a word in. "Like we were… and then she just asked me that. Like, while she was… I mean, that's crazy, right?"

Beca listened to her own short breaths. She had worked herself into a bit of a tizzy, and Aubrey's next words certainly weren't about to make things any easier for her.

"Wait a minute. But then you… you slept with her anyway?" The blonde sounded composed, but still stunned and a little bit smug.

"No, no!" Beca was quick to defend. "I mean, yes, but—no!"

"But you did," insisted Aubrey. "So… so, then, how did that make you feel? When she said that?"

"No, it's not like that. It's not! I just—ugh, this is not why I brought this up. It's not… it's just, no, not that." Beca knew what an incoherent mess of language that was, but was simply too frustrated, and too freaked out, to be articulate. She hoped Aubrey would drop it, even though she knew she was unlikely to be that lucky.

There was a moment of silence before Beca let loose an exasperated sigh, then Aubrey pounced, her voice low. "You didn't answer my question."

Something hot and electric shot from Beca's brain all the way to her toes. Her jaw dropped open; her mouth felt instantly dry. Aubrey's voice… like that. It was just too much for Beca. She didn't understand the affect it had on her, couldn't understand the way it just… overpowered her.

"I'm sorry, what?" she stuttered.

"I said, you didn't answer my question. I asked how it made you feel."

Aubrey's sultry tone twisted Beca's stomach. She felt something rise in her throat and quickly swallowed it back down. "I, uh…" she started, but stopped as she suddenly recognized that she was no longer frantic. She was still uncomfortable, sure, and definitely weirded out, but she wasn't panicked. Aubrey had somehow calmed her. It was a startling realization, though not nearly as disturbing as the next one: Beca was actually going to answer her question.

"It-it… Uh, it didn't feel bad," she admitted.

"Did it feel good?" Aubrey asked.

Beca was silent as she took a long moment to consider the question. She wanted to be honest with Aubrey, as honest as possible, but she was really unsure of how exactly it made her feel. Everything was twisted last night. Chloe's actions were inextricably linked to her words. Beca couldn't separate them, couldn't separate how she felt about them. It had been shocking and weird and confusing last night, and it was still pretty much all of those things today. Beca hadn't thought to parse through how it made her feel until Aubrey's little inquisition.

"I… I don't know," she answered, as truthfully as she could muster.

"Okay," Aubrey said matter-of-factly, the sensual nature of her earlier tone completely forgotten. "It's okay."

That was it, what Beca always craved from this newly formed relationship with Aubrey: that odd sense of permission she always graciously bestowed upon Beca. It was okay to like being with Chloe. It was okay to like Chloe's more dominant side. And it was okay if the thought of Aubrey was...stimulating. Beca wasn't quite sure about that last one, but it was nice to know that she had Aubrey's express consent to think of her that way… in case she did decide that was the case.

"Thank you."

"Of course." Aubrey took an audible breath. "You know, I'm really proud of you, Beca. You've come a long way since I graduated. Chloe's always told me that, but it's another thing to see it firsthand."

The compliment warmed Beca's heart, but it made her feel sort of itchy. She couldn't simply accept it. So instead, in true Beca fashion, she deflected. "Yeah, yeah. Okay. Whatever, dude. Let's not make this a big deal."

To the brunette's surprise, Aubrey laughed. It was a beautiful sound that made Beca smile. "Alright, fine," Aubrey said pointedly before tacking on a mocking "dude."

A/N: As always, I absolutely love hearing from you guys! Leave a review or hit me up on tumblr at v3ronica-summ3rs.