A/N: Sorry for the delay, y'all. Hopefully this is satisfactory :)
Chloe thought their bonding night had gone well. Not too well: they weren't suddenly best friends after one night of talking, of course, but she felt like Beca had opened up to her a little more. Chloe tried not to admit to herself that most of that openness had resulted from the two of them sharing a whole bottle of vodka, per Beca's insistence. Chloe never drank, but just this one time, she'd thought, it wouldn't be that much of a crime.
She was headed to class now, which wasn't exciting enough to talk about. Beca was still asleep on top of her made bed, since she didn't have any classes today. Chloe released a big yawn and realized that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea only to drink on the nights when she didn't have a class the next day. Her 9am class was going to be pretty rough, considering Beca hadn't let her sleep until 4. Who would've thought she would be the one who wanted to keep talking all night long?
While Chloe was in class, Beca fell out of bed. She had never been a graceful sleeper, which was part of the reason she had always slept on a mattress on the floor. She awoke to searing pain in her shoulder, and cursed under her breath. Her vision was blurry and black in spots as she sat up, and she rubbed her head. She had a blaring headache, having forgotten that she was too tiny to efficiently break down all the alcohol she had ingested the previous night. Or was it this morning? She didn't even know anymore.
She looked around the room when her vision cleared. Chloe was gone. Beca pushed herself off the ground and spotted a hot pink Post-It note on her bedside table. She read it out loud to herself. "Went to Russian. Be back by 10:30. –C." Beca scoffed at Chloe's choice of Post-It color, and at the fact that she even had Post-It notes already. The only useful things Beca had right now were pillows, which were thankfully versatile for both dorm life and class.
Beca checked the time on her phone. It was already 10:15. She decided it would be a good refresher to spend the 15 minutes before her roommate's return taking a shower. So she gathered all her stuff into a little basket and headed for the showers, humming to herself.
Beca was admittedly a little apprehensive about this community showers. Although they had separate stalls, there were still a whole lot of strangers around. She wasn't particularly confident about her body, and she didn't know if she could deal with anyone seeing everything there was to see at this point. Luckily, there ended up being no walk-ins or anything. She was safe, and no one even made any snarky comments about her singing voice. The shower had gone off without a hitch, except for one thing, which Beca only realized once she turned off the water.
She had forgotten to bring a change of clothes.
Now, of course, this wouldn't normally have been a problem. Any person in their right mind would have simply pulled their pajamas back on and headed down the hallway like that. But Beca was not in her right mind. Although the shower had felt good, her head was still throbbing, and she couldn't think straight. Therefore, the conclusion she came to was that she should wrap herself in her towel and make her way back to her dorm that way.
So Beca clutched the knot in her towel with one hand and her shower basket with the other, and, shivering, started the trek all the way down to the end of the hallway. She heard a door open behind her, but she didn't look back, and they didn't say anything to her. Another door. Then the stairwell door. It was Chloe.
"Beca?" she said when she saw her. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going back to the dorm," Beca explained. "I didn't have any clothes."
Chloe looked confused. "You're literally carrying clothes right now."
Beca looked down at her basket, where her pajamas were crumpled up. "Fuck," she said. Chloe unlocked their door and let the dripping Beca go in first, rubbing her foot through the trail of water she left to dissipate it.
Chloe set down the two Starbucks cups she'd brought in. "Do you need any help?" she asked Beca.
"Nah, I'm good," Beca replied. She started looking through one of her boxes to find a t-shirt and jeans, which wasn't very hard, since those articles of clothing made up 90% of what she'd brought with her. "Okay, I'm gonna change now, don't look."
Chloe, not registering what Beca had said fast enough, turned to look at Beca right at that moment. She was faced with the back side of Beca's pale body. "Oh! Oh. Sorry," she stammered, averting her eyes.
"Dude!" Beca exclaimed. "Not cool." So much for her big plan of not being seen naked. But, she supposed, the back was better than the front.
Chloe winced. "I know, I know, my bad."
Beca pulled on her clothes as fast as possible to avoid any more shame. She threw her towel at the hook on the back of their door and hit it straight on. She then noticed the lovely smell filling up the room – or what normally would've been a lovely smell, had her head not been pulsing abnormally.
"I brought coffee," said Chloe. "I didn't know what you liked, so I got it black. But I also picked up a bunch of creams and sugars just in case." She handed Beca one of the cups and made sure it was securely in her hand before letting go.
"I actually do take it black," Beca said, sniffing at the coffee and going a little woozy. "But thanks. I'm sure we'll need those creams and sugars at some point. You can throw them in the fridge." Beca jerked her head towards the mini fridge she'd bought before coming here, and Chloe put the fixings neatly inside. "How about you?" Beca asked. "What did you get?"
"Cinnamon Dolce Latte," Chloe responded. "13 percent of the calories are from sugar and I no longer care. I'm living life!"
"Mmph, too loud for this early in the morning," Beca groaned, pressing the coffee cup to her forehead. It occurred to Beca how much Chloe reminded her of cinnamon. Sweet, but not so much that it was overbearing. Warm for sure. Kind of like cuddles. Beca would never admit it, but she always liked a good cuddle.
"Oops, sorry," said Chloe, only slightly quieter. "Russian class really encourages loudness, you know?"
"And also vodka, right?" Beca joked, forcing out a tiny laugh.
"I'm sure they wouldn't frown upon it," Chloe said with a smile. Again with the bright smile, Beca thought. Does she want me to go blind or something?
Beca took a sip of her black coffee and it hit her like a shot. She started blinking rapidly from the intake of caffeine – or maybe just from the first intake of something other than liquor in the past 12 hours. Chloe smiled fondly at the brunette's instinctive reaction, taking a sip of her own cozy drink.
"Are you sure I can't do anything for you?" Chloe asked Beca. She looked truly horrible, which was funny, since she was the one who had brought the vodka under the pretense that she was a regular social drinker. "Massage, cuddle, water…" she trailed off.
"I would ask for a massage, but I think you've seen enough of that part of my body for today," Beca joked.
Chloe shrugged. "You can keep your shirt on. It's pretty thin, so it won't be in the way."
Beca considered this. Her shoulder was now aching as much as her head, the shower's effects having worn off. "Yeah, okay then," she finally said. "Not for too long, though. I'm sure you have better things to do than give your hungover roommate a massage."
"Eh," said Chloe. Beca lied down flat on her stomach, head to the side, and Chloe moved in so she was on top of Beca. Beca couldn't help thinking that she never intended to get this close to anyone within so little time knowing them. But Chloe's hands kneading her upper back made the inhibitions float away.
A couple of days later – Beca didn't really have any idea how many – Chloe dragged Beca out of bed to go to full prod. Chloe had noticed that Beca wasn't really one to go out and do anything unless someone else pulled her alone. She remembered a law of physics she'd had a lecture about earlier in the week: an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Chloe supposed she was going to have to be the unbalanced force.
Once Beca was ready and awake, and had downed two of those little creamers Chloe had brought back the other day, she found she was kind of looking forward to going to theatre. After all, she had already met Aubrey, and Chloe had met Stacie, so it probably wouldn't be all that awkward. Beca had a tendency to make things awkward when they didn't need to be, though, so she was kind of apprehensive.
"It'll be fine!" Chloe said, bouncing along the brick path and pulling Beca along by the arm. "You love acting, right? So how bad could it be?"
Beca realized this was probably true. She'd been enrolled in a theatre class every year since the moving started. It had been the number one constant in her ever changing life. It had kept her from going crazy, in a way. That was a thing she probably ought to keep doing.
When the two of them arrived at the auditorium, which was bigger than any either of them had ever gotten to perform in, by the way, they were immediately greeted by Aubrey at the door. "Welcome to your first full production class!" she said cheerily. Beca figured she would be a good match for Chloe; they were both way too energetic for this time of day. "Oh, Beca, it's you."
Beca smiled at being acknowledged. "Hey, Bree," she replied.
To Chloe, Aubrey extended a hand, saying, "I'm Aubrey, and I'll be your TA this semester."
"Chloe," Chloe said, accepting the handshake. She nodded very coolly. Beca envied her coolness.
"Nice to meet you." Beca was once again entranced by Aubrey's charisma. She'd never really felt anything like it before, but her brain was trying to take in every single movement Aubrey made and store it in her memory. She knew Aubrey had just finished saying something or other, and she felt Chloe nudging her arm. Beca blinked herself back into reality and let Chloe lead her down to the front row of the house.
"What the hell was that?" Chloe asked. The word "hell" felt unnatural on her tongue, but it seemed fitting. She was going to learn to be more of an adult in college, and cursing was a natural place to start (after casual drinking, of course).
"What are you talking about?" Beca asked, wrinkling her eyebrows as if she was completely oblivious to her blank out back there.
Chloe sighed. "Never mind. It was nothing." The thing was, Chloe had been enjoying the single life for as long as she could remember. And by enjoying, she really meant enjoying. In high school, she'd had all she needed in her group of friends. The thing that bothered her, though, was that every time one of her best friends got a boyfriend, they would suddenly become way more distant. She'd even stopped hanging out with some of them altogether because of it.
Chloe suspected her gaydar was on point in this instance. It was a weird skill she'd developed, seeing as where she came from, maybe 7% of the gay people had dared to be out. She herself wasn't into girls, but she had no doubt in her mind that Beca was. And she wanted to make sure she didn't lose Beca so early on in their friendship. Chloe wanted to have single friends who would go out and party hard with her. Or something like that.
Beca brushed some hair over her face to cover up her blushing. Beca wanted to come off as badass and also still remarkably talented. She still had the talent, but it was so not badass to blush. Especially not about a girl.
"Hello, everyone!" a sharp voice rang out through the auditorium, stopping everyone in their tracks. Beca looked up to see who she supposed was their professor. "I am Professor Miranda Halen, and I will be guiding you through your production this semester. I want to get into the nitty gritty of the show as soon as possible, so today we will be singing. Everyone up on the stage."
Beca followed Chloe's footsteps up onto the humongous stage, realizing that she'd been trailing Chloe like a puppy all morning long. Beca was no puppy. She felt at home right away on this stage, but she noticed Chloe swaying uneasily from foot to foot when they stood in a line. No doubt Chloe's little private school drama department had never prepared her for this. To be fair, Beca's schools did little to prepare her either, but she felt as if she was born ready for this moment.
Halen paced back and forth in front of the group, assessing each one of them for looks, confidence…who knew what else? Beca stood up straight as she'd always been taught to do onstage. It made her look not so tiny.
Chloe noticed that it was about an even split between boys and girls, which was a pleasant change from the demography of high school shows. She wasn't nearly as self-assured as Beca was right then, which kind of threw her off her game. Chloe Beale wasn't afraid of anything, or at least not that she could think of off the top of her head. So why was she so nervous to sing in front of these people she didn't even know?
Halen's silver hair was tied up in a pristine twist on the back of her head that didn't move when she walked. It was a weird phenomenon, and kind of unnerving, for the people who weren't already scared out of their minds. It was like their professor wasn't even a real person, just a hologram gliding back and forth on the stage robotically. Finally, she extended a long, slender finger, and pointed at a girl with long brown hair. "You," she said. "Show us what you've got."
The girl stepped forward, and the rest of us sat down on the stage. She introduced herself. "Hi everybody, my name is Stacie. My hobbies include cuticle care and e-network." So this was the girl Chloe had told Beca about. She was definitely…tall.
Stacie graced everyone with a rendition of "Gimme Gimme" from some show from a few years ago, which was really, really good. She was singing, "Gimme gimme that thing called love," but to Beca at least it sure looked like she was after something else. Chloe was just thinking that she didn't know what she wanted to sing and Halen better not pick her soon. Except the more people they went through, the fewer songs she would have to choose from. When Stacie was done, she nodded her head graciously and sat down with the rest of us.
Halen was quick to pick her next victim. "You," she said, forming her word carefully with her mouth. She was pointing to Beca.
"Good luck," Chloe whispered, touching Beca's arm encouragingly as she stood up. Beca knew she didn't need luck.
"Hello, I'm Beca Mitchell, and I will be singing 'Still Hurting' from 'The Last Five Years.'" She'd seen that musical in…God, she didn't even know what year anymore. But this song had stuck with her ever since then.
Chloe leaned back on her hands as Beca took the stage. "Jamie is over and Jamie is gone / Jamie's decided it's time to move on / Jamie has new dreams he's building upon / And I'm still hurting," Beca began. Chloe raised her eyebrows in surprise. She hadn't even pegged Beca for being a theatre girl at all when they first met, and yet this? This was amazing. Beca completely transformed herself into a raw, vulnerable, exposed woman suffering through heartbreak. Chloe could tell all this purely from her voice and the way she moved. Singing in character was something she herself had never been great at, but Beca embodied her character. And Chloe hadn't even seen this show before!
When Beca sat back down beside her, Chloe leaned in and whispered, "Dude, that was awesome! That song was beautiful."
Beca half-smiled. "Thanks. Means a lot." She didn't have the heart to tell Chloe, smiley and perky as she was, that that song rang almost too close to home for her to explain.