Light snow fell around them as they walked back to the hotel.
They made their way in silence, Chloe with her hand tucked deep into her lover's jacket pocket. Beca's hand was in there too, her arm wrapped around Chloe's and squeezing, and when Chloe glanced askance she saw Beca staring up at the falling snow, wonder in her eyes.
She felt a million questions bubbling up in her chest.
Had Beca seen snow before?
Where had she lived, what had she done?
Did she like snow and the cold?
Judging by the way she clung to Chloe's arm like a baby koala held onto its momma, Chloe figured that the cold was probably something that Beca Mitchell could live without. But the other questions still echoed through her mind. She wanted to know everything about Beca - wanted to see every crack and patch in that foundation that made her the person she loved.
And yet, as she watched Beca blink wet snowflakes out of her eyes with a rough chuckle, Chloe kept quiet.
She wanted to stay in this magical, not-knowing space for a few more minutes. Just tonight, just while they walked. It was something like delayed gratification, a "why jump the gun?" feeling.
But some other part of her wondered if it was because of the way that their public night had ended.
Chloe hadn't meant to get all possessive like that, and she certainly hadn't expected to feel embarrassed about it now, as she wasn't the type to feel guilty about any of her emotions. But the way that Beca had comforted her, consoled her- really, how she had been able to make Chloe feel even more possessive somehow, by saying that she was hers- it now sat funny at the top of her throat.
Like, of course.
Like, why had she even been worried in the first place?
And she didn't like this awkward, forced silence she was imposing on herself, but she didn't know what to say. Her fears were allayed, sure, but that misstep feeling was still there.
They approached the hotel, and as Beca led them through to the lobby, Chloe shook herself out of her grip but stayed close. She wanted to get things back on track - back to footing that she knew.
She leaned in so her top lip grazed the shell of Beca's ear.
"We can still go upstairs, you know," she whispered, letting her lips curl around the words seductively.
"Well… yeah…"
Chloe leaned out to catch Beca's eye, and she saw confusion there. She tried to bring Beca into the sexy bit instead, but Beca held strong - head tilted, eyes narrowed, then wider as one brow quirked.
"We're clearly going upstairs," Beca said slowly as they reached the elevator. She leaned over to the button, and when she returned upright, she was still hovering away, watching Chloe with a curious expression.
"I guess I'm just not sure what we'll do when we get there."
The elevator sounded its arrival, and Chloe - desperate to get away from that all-knowing Beca stare - pushed forward, pulling Beca after her.
She was all in with Beca. She knew that.
She just…
She didn't know what this was like.
She didn't know how to have a partner - how to be a partner - in a relationship like this.
Usually it was quick passion, then pre-rehearsed answers. Maybe a quiet fight and loud make-up sex that made the tabloids wild.
Or, with her new friends - because she clearly had friends that meant a lot to her - she asked every question that she ever thought of, right off the top. She gorged herself on the details of their lives like it was sweet tea in the summertime.
But this?
Quiet devotions of love?
Possessiveness that was requited and encouraged, to a healthy extent?
Doubt continued to flutter through her mind, and embarrassment followed.
She knew what they meant to each other, so why couldn't she make that extra step into just letting herself have it?
Up the elevator, down the hall, and soon Chloe found herself watching Beca's retreating form as she stepped into the darkness of their hotel room.
She really needed to get out of this mindset.
And the best way to do that was to make sure she wasn't thinking at all.
Aloud, she sighed sarcastically as she followed Beca through the doorway.
"So are we really not going to-"
Beca didn't let her finish as she spun quickly. Chloe blindly reached for the door behind her, getting it closed just in time to be crowded against it, and Beca shoved one strong thigh between her own.
"Are we really not going to- what?" Beca hummed into her cheek as she flexed that thigh upward. Chloe could feel her lover's lips upturned into a smile, and she grinned in return, both because of and in spite of her rising libido. "You thought some serious conversation would make me forget how you teased me in the bar? Or the way you got all possessive and hot?"
Chloe leaned out, her eyes squinting slightly.
"Well, I wondered," she said flippantly.
She knew her taunt had hit its mark when Beca dove back in and let out a silly growl, biting at the meat of her jaw.
Chloe broke her falsely stern countenance and giggled - but then Beca pressed forward again, and it was more of a giggle-moan.
"Tell me what I told you. Repeat it back to me," Beca mumbled against her jaw, and Chloe felt her hands and wrists stiffen where she held Beca's forearms.
She tried to cover it - the mix of emotions that she knew that Beca could feel.
"That you were gonna show me how much you loved me?" Chloe joked, pulsing her hips forward suggestively, but it was a beat too late, and she knew it, and she knew that Beca knew it too.
"I'm yours, Chloe Beale," Beca said seriously, pulling away and forcing eye contact in a way that had Chloe blushing.
She didn't repeat any of those earlier thoughts to Beca - she didn't have to. She kissed her instead, and she poured all of her confusing yet loving emotions into that kiss. She let her fear come through, but she chased it away with relief, with the feeling that this was good, they were good, and they were good together.
That age-old insecurity of falling too hard, too fast crept into her mind for a moment, but Beca swept it away with a long, graceful pass of her tongue. Chloe let herself sink into Beca's dominating kiss, at once patient and demanding.
Chloe felt like they could kiss this way forever, and Beca wouldn't mind a bit.
And there would be time for that later, just like there would be time for more now, and Chloe freed the lower trim of Beca's turtleneck from the confines of her tight jeans in a hasty manner.
Beca seemed to understand as she stepped back, yanking the sweater over her own head, and Chloe moved to follow her into the bedroom.
But she found herself forced back against the door once more as Beca dropped to her knees.
Her hand stilled the wanton press of Chloe's hips.
They still didn't speak as Beca worked the fabric of her leggings and thong down. Chloe shed her oversized flannel, left only in her sleeveless, high-neck sweater, and she expected Beca to start working on her boots next as she leaned back against the door.
Chloe gasped as her expectations went unmet yet again. Instead of undressing her further, Beca pressed her face forward, her earlier quick pacing becoming a fast-fading memory as she slowed. Chloe's leggings were wrapped just above her knees, and she struggled against her pants as Beca pressed her nose, then her lips, then her tongue into the barely-there opening at the apex of her thighs.
The pants were stretchy, but not enough to grant her any freedom to increase the friction.
Chloe heard herself whine as she flexed against her bondage.
"Beca," she groaned, fingers twining through strands of dark hair that had slipped out of Beca's bun. One hand remained splayed against the door to keep her balance, but the other undulated through a crown of soft curls, tightening but not pulling, as Beca licked her clit lightly.
If Beca wanted to set the pace, Chloe would let her.
But God, if it didn't drive her mad first.
The modicum of relief that Beca was granting her disappeared when Beca turned her head slightly.
"What did I say to you earlier?" Beca hummed into her thigh, nose brushing where Chloe was most sensitive. "That I'm…"
"-mine, you said you're mine," Chloe gasped out.
She groaned with relief when Beca pressed her face forward more forcefully, feeling the sharp pulse of her arousal resonate through her trapped legs.
But then Beca pulled back again, and Chloe glanced down frantically.
"What does that mean?" Beca said as she breathed just to the right of where Chloe needed it. "To you, I mean. What does that mean to you, that I'm yours?"
"What?" Chloe blurted somewhat rhetorically. "I don't- Beca, I'm not-"
"I can stop if that would make this conversation easier," Beca replied quickly, making a move to stand, and Chloe tightened her hand in Beca's hair to keep her in place on the floor before her.
"Don't you dare," she warned, and Beca smirked up at her.
"So tell me," the producer teased, leaning barely forward, just enough, just to brush her nose over Chloe's clit.
"Okay, yeah," Chloe huffed out. She tightened her core so she could bring her hand up to her face to wipe some wispy hairs away, but her arousal was already so pronounced, and the muscle shift nearly buckled her knees. "You, you're mine. That's- yeah. That means…"
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes.
That extra step - that one that Chloe had hoped would make sense to her someday - taunted her in the foreground of her mind. She could barely string two thoughts together right now, let alone solve this frickin' complexity that had been following her all the way from the after-party.
But she had to try.
Beca had said that she was hers, had promised not to pursue anyone else. Had said she was committed to this, over anything that anyone else could offer.
What did that mean to her?
Love and doubt warred over lost ground in her thoughts as she struggled.
It meant-
Her whole body flushed with new arousal when Beca bit her inner thigh.
"I'm waiting."
"Gosh! Okay!" Chloe sighed.
No thinking.
Only talking.
"You're mine," she huffed out, avoiding the dark eyes of her lover below her. "You're only mine. You want to be here, and you're giving yourself to me as someone who, like, understands what that means. With the full intention of- of that. You love me. You want me to love you too, to be there for you. You're- you-"
Chloe stuttered to a halt as her head fell back against the door, and she took a deep breath.
No one had ever…
Chloe tried to dip into her well of knowledge to try to find some understanding - some movie she'd done, or better, some relationship in her life - of a time where someone had said that, had meant that, in a way that went beyond the superficial.
She came up short.
The fanfiction that she'd read was the only thing that came close - how the fictionalized version of Beca or Chicago sought something in Fictional Chloe that put her first.
Put her in charge, for once.
"Chloe," Beca said softly, and Chloe's reverie fractured as she blinked her eyes open.
Beca was gazing up at her with soft, crinkled eyes, like she was smiling. Still there, still in front of her, still resting her head against her thigh.
"Keep going," she said.
Something akin to panic surged through Chloe's chest as she began to speak again.
"It means you trust me," she whispered as she held Beca's gaze. "Like no one else. You trust me to take care of you. You're giving yourself to me - only me - because you... you…"
"Because I want to," Beca finished. "Because I know you, and knowing you just makes me like you more. I trust you, more than anyone else. More than I ever could with anyone else. More than I thought possible, because I'm not used to, like, letting people in."
She pressed another kiss into the skin of Chloe's thigh, and Chloe tried to force her breathing into a more reasonable rhythm.
"Beca…"
"I'm going to be around," Beca mumbled into her skin. "I… fuck, we're, like, a day into this-"
"Stop saying that," Chloe cut in sharply, and Beca glanced up. Chloe took in the faint shimmer in her wide eyes, and she shook her head as she spoke up again.
"We're not only a day in," she said, more resolutely this time. "Maybe on paper, but not really. We've both been important in each others' lives for much more than a day."
Beca dropped her eyes and nodded, and Chloe loosened her hand out of Beca's hair, putting it under her jaw instead, to force her eyes back up.
God, she was beautiful. Beca's chest was heaving as if she had just finished sprinting, and her hair was wild from the force of Chloe's hand.
And those eyes!
Dark, loving eyes peered up at her with so much hope in her expression - one that Chloe had never seen before, had only ever dreamed of seeing pointed at her without a camera rolling.
"I don't know what I did to earn your trust," Chloe said softly. "But I'm going to keep earning it. I'm always going to be around. I don't think I could ever let you go. How many siblings do you have?"
Beca inhaled sharply as she laughed, and Chloe felt the air move around her legs - cold now, with her arousal dampened to a simmer, at least for the moment.
"Uh, just the one brother that I've told you about. And me neither, about - you know - letting you go," she breathed out, and Chloe smiled. "You have two- a brother and a sister, right?"
She nudged forward, back towards her sex, and Chloe gasped out a chuckle as her hand fell away from her lover's face. She nodded, then realized that Beca couldn't see her, so she sighed out a quiet, "yes."
"I'm crazy about you, Chloe," Beca whispered into the fold of her skin, where her lip met her thigh, and she dipped her tongue out enough to make contact with her hot, swollen center.
"Fuck," Chloe moaned, struggling with her trapped legs again.
"What's-your-relationship-with-your-parents-like?"
She was out of her mind. Between the fact that she was held there helplessly and this conversation - these emotions - Chloe didn't know if she would be able to stand another second without some kind of release, and Beca was right there-
Beca surged forward, fully sucking her clit into her mouth, sucking hard.
Chloe thrust back into her mouth as much as her binding would allow, and thankfully, Beca didn't let up on the pressure. Chloe felt the coiling of her orgasm deep in her back, in her core, in her chest as Beca sucked, and it gently bloomed within her as her hips hovered off the door.
"Mm, don't talk to my dad, Mom passed before I moved out to LA," Beca mumbled against her clit.
Chloe barely heard it. She could barely hear anything. She'd come but only a little, it wasn't enough, and she was about to push Beca forward and take something more when Beca forced her leggings under her knees and brought a hand up to her sex.
She could feel her arousal where it coated her thighs, and as it met the cool air, Chloe shuddered.
Beca slipped two fingers into her and leaned out, and Chloe opened eyes to see Beca staring up at her.
"Come again, and then I'll tell you whatever you want to know," Beca muttered hurriedly, and before Chloe could even reply, Beca's tongue and lips were back on her, aided now by the fingers curling inside.
Chloe's high-pitched moan cut through the tense air. It didn't take much - barely even a moment, Beca's eyes meeting hers over the plane of her abdomen as she pressed, curled, pumped into her, and Chloe flailed out her hands as her core shuddered with her real release - stronger than before, as if she was trying to pull Beca's fingers into herself, deeper and tighter.
Beca pressed a kiss into her leg, but Chloe barely registered the kiss.
Her core was rolling and rolling as the sensation of orgasming continued to overpower her system. God, it was like a never-ending orgasm, and Beca's fingers stayed plunged deep within her as she continued to flex onto them.
Chloe continued to rut against her hand as that tightness unfurled, leaving something hot and sated and insistent and raw in her chest.
Beca had pushed herself off the floor, and when she cut off yet another of Chloe's moans with a kiss, Chloe opened her eyes again to see that Beca was smiling broadly.
And suddenly, she knew what the feeling in her chest was.
She wanted to show Beca what "yours" really meant.
"Me," Chloe gasped as she caught her breath, trying to push off the door. She wanted to be in the bed, now, with Beca under her fingers, her lips, her tongue, her weight.
"Let me- it's my-"
But Beca settled herself against her, holding her against the door as she brought her lips to her neck. She curled one leg around hers, the other between her still jelly-feeling legs, and Chloe felt herself slump into the warm, heavy press of the smaller woman's body.
"Not yet," Beca whispered into what Chloe knew was her sweat-slicked skin just above her collar. Chloe tried to writhe away, but she could feel Beca kissing that tacky skin between her words.
"Just, stay with me for a sec."
She didn't think that Beca knew how difficult it was to make herself relax, to let herself relish her post-orgasm comfort in this very specific, very emotional moment.
Every muscle in her body - even the ones that had just stretched with release - wanted to move, to repay her the kindness, to show her how much she loved her.
How much she possessed her.
It was like a compulsion- she couldn't just take and not give, it felt so-
Beca sighed and let more of her weight settle against Chloe, against the door.
Chloe breathed in deeply, indulging in the musky and familiar scent of Beca and her own arousal for a moment, and she wondered.
Wondered, at this wonderful woman.
This person who had been here for her before she even knew that that was a possibility.
This sister, to one brother.
This daughter, without a mother.
And this love, selfless and selfish and powerful.
She breathed deeply, once, then twice, and it came out all stuttered as she fought against the impulse to push. Her body followed slowly - her arms wrapped around Beca, chest still rising and falling with uneven breaths of three, four, and five until she slowed it further.
Until she finally relaxed.
And she stayed there, breathing until she wasn't sure how many breaths she'd taken, or how her skin had cooled, or her mind had stilled.
She stayed there until she let herself feel Beca's love.
And what should've shocked her - what should've been some big epiphany… it just… wasn't.
She was loved.
She was safe.
She was home.
"Babe."
Chloe watched the word float through Beca's consciousness- only acknowledged by a warm smile and a satisfied, happy hum.
But Beca's eyes stayed closed.
"Baby," she tried again, and Beca took a deep breath as she peeled her eyes open.
Beca blinked in the bluish hue of the barely-morning sun, and she stirred, cradled in her arms as Chloe held her from behind, where she had leaned up on the pillow to watch her girlfriend sleep. Beca turned in her arms so they were facing each other, their mouths nearly touching.
"Mmm," Beca hummed, and she pressed a kiss into the corner of Chloe's mouth as she closed her eyes again.
"I have to shower," Chloe whisper-laughed against her lips. "Let me up."
"No," Beca pouted, nuzzling further into Chloe's arms and tightening her grip.
Chloe exhaled out a laugh, then hummed softly as she took in the relaxed, sleepy features that she could see clearly.
A perfect brow.
The swell of her cheek.
"You can sleep for another twenty, and then you can shower yourself," she explained in a low voice. "I'd say we could shower together, but we don't have that much time."
Chloe saw Beca's brow furrow, and she felt Beca loosen her grip slightly. With the afforded space, Chloe leaned up to kiss her tensioned forehead.
"Tonight? Or tomorrow?" Beca asked as she opened her eyes again. The morning light had made those eyes lighter, with the grey and the blue flirting carelessly inside her irises as the pupils went from bigger to smaller, settling somewhere in between.
"We can shower together soon, right?" Beca clarified, and Chloe giggled teasingly.
"Of course, Becs," she replied as she kissed her brow again. "Go back to sleep."
Beca rolled out of her arms, and Chloe couldn't ignore the noise of displeasure that Beca whined out as she flipped to her other side.
Before she did something silly like wrap Beca back up and into her arms, she pushed off the bed, onto sore legs and a tight back. She stretched up as she watched the curled lump of Beca breathe deeply.
Every day, she thought sleepily. I want to wake up like this every single day.
"And who's in this again?"
"Would it matter if I told you?" Chloe laughed, and Beca narrowed her eyes.
"Don't call my bluff, Beale," she warned. "I'm making a real effort here."
Chloe rattled off a few names - documentarian and producer only, because this one didn't have any "star power" as a documentary, per se - and she watched Beca nod dutifully.
She bit back the corner of her smile so it wouldn't get too big, lest Beca think that she was mocking her again.
She couldn't explain that Beca was actually just the cutest, most enthusiastic (in her own way) girlfriend that she could imagine.
A real partner - something that she didn't even know was, like, a thing. And something that she didn't realize that she was missing, either, until Beca had put that into sharp focus last night.
Chloe truly believed in this moment that Beca was her favorite person ever, and she was so excited to get home and spend time with her - just her. She'd finally be able to see Beca's apartment and meet her other friends, her brother maybe.
It seemed like there was still so much about this woman that she didn't even know!
(She thought briefly about how her romantic relationships had become like this; she fell hard, she learned some details, but she never really got to dive in deep with someone, romantically. She did with her friends, which was romantic in its own way, she figured. She wondered if Beca was the same. She wondered if she was assimilating Beca to her style or if it was the other way around- or, perhaps most idealistically, she wondered if they were finding a new path together.)
One more day of work, and then she'd have weeks to get to know Beca better.
She couldn't wait to see how their relationship would blossom once they got to put some real attention to it, considering she was already the happiest that she'd ever been already.
And without the looming "next project" hanging over her head, Chloe was ready to commit herself to this.
There was still Beca's job to contend with, but that change was starting.
And then Beca would be working with A Capella, and Chloe could help her for a change.
And of course, Chloe was still nervous about the break between projects, but having Beca around made the whole thing feel doable. Not just doable, but worth it. Valuable. With Beca by her side, supporting her, she felt like this was the right thing to do, and not just "for them" or anything like that. It was more like she had earned it or something.
And she felt like that before they even got together!
Beca made her feel like that before the expressions of love and physical intimacy.
So.
One more day.
And what a silly, inconsequential day it felt like now, with some context. Before everything else wonderful and amazing happened - before Beca, but before the showing of Y too - this documentary was one that she had been most excited to see, and she'd already missed the first showing.
It was a deep dive into the collegiate a cappella world, tracking more than two years of competitions and then the lives of the singers after graduation, something that Chloe couldn't relate to at all.
Plus, singing!
But after everything, Chloe could barely even focus on the stage in front of the screen as the documentarian and a few key crew members started the Q&A.
She held her hand out for Beca to take it, and her girlfriend did, twisting their clasped hands so that they were resting on Beca's designer pant leg. Chloe took a deep, calming breath as she squeezed once before she turned her attention to the creative team in front of her.
Being around Beca was deliciously distracting. As she tried to focus, Chloe's mind fogged over with thoughts of them, tangled together, breathing in each others' breaths, feeling each others' skin as it pressed closer and closer… Her eyes nearly drifted closed from the heady sensation.
She inhaled sharply and forced them back open.
And then Beca stroked her thumb along Chloe's hand, and Chloe missed another sentence.
Chloe wanted to suck that thumb into her mouth.
She wanted Beca to beg for it.
She wanted-
Nope!
She wanted to watch a documentary!
Chloe readjusted her shoulders back purposefully, sighing quietly to herself. Even without all the crazy emotional notes, she knew that the beginnings of relationships were like this for her. She got obsessed with her partners… with their bodies… with the sharp moans and stuttering, breathless smiles… the way they curled themselves around to-
Tomorrow!
The way they curled themselves around tomorrow.
Because today is watch a documentary day!
And she was almost back on track again - at least, she was able to comprehend the lead sound technician's concerned tone when discussing on-the-street, NYC commentary - when Beca shifted her torso towards her, just slightly.
Against Chloe's intentions, the tech's voice became white noise as she unwittingly tracked Beca's breaths.
Gosh, she couldn't focus on anything right now, with the feel of Beca's strong thigh so tantalizingly close. Beca pulled their hands further into her lap, leaning up and onto the armrest, and Chloe held her breath as Beca crossed the barrier between them.
"It'll be really interesting to see if these women can adapt to the real world," she said, and Chloe turned to look at her incredulously.
"You're actually listening?" she whispered.
"I mean, yeah," Beca whispered back, brow furrowing. "Didn't you say you were excited about this one?"
Chloe let a full smile bloom across her face, her eyes softening to show the full extent of her love.
Beca was trying.
She was honestly, whole-heartedly, with no ill-will or selfish or manipulative intent, trying.
And Chloe was absolutely touched - tickled, even - that Beca would try to take an interest in something that she didn't even pretend to like sometimes. She knew what that meant, what Beca was putting herself through, just to make her happy.
But right now?
For the first time in her life, Chloe felt like Beca, because she didn't give a damn about the movie.
All she could think about was how their hands were pressed into the intimately strong, intimately familiar muscle at the top of Beca's thigh.
And that danged thumb of hers that kept stroking her hand.
And Chloe was not in the mood for a loving, caring girlfriend and a singing documentary.
"Beca," Chloe sighed, rolling her lips to hide her smile. "I haven't heard a single word they've said."
"What?"
Chloe nodded, smile peeking out slightly as she finally let herself feel what she was really feeling.
She wanted Beca.
Now.
"Wanna get out of here?"
Chloe watched as conflicting emotions passed across Beca's face. It was like watching someone argue with themselves, and she let the part of herself that was an observant actor study the shifting for a moment before her arousal took over again.
She leaned up, past Beca's expression, to whisper into her ear.
"I know of a very private, likely soundproofed bathroom not too far from here," she hummed. "If something like that would be of interest to you."
"Uh, yeah," she heard Beca exhale with a long breath. Chloe's chest shook with a little giggle as Beca hoisted her up by their joined hands, pulling her past her team and into the aisle.
She tossed a wink at Brad and whispered out a quick, "B-R-B," and the make-up artist rolled his eyes with a teasing but acknowledging sneer.
"This sounded lame as hell," Beca was whispering, and Chloe tried not to laugh again as she shot an apologetic look to the documentary crew. They had finished their intro, but they had to wait at the top of the aisle while Beca led their mad dash towards the exit.
"I love you, and I was going to - you know - I was going to watch and try to talk to you about it and everything, but this is way better," Beca went on. Her tone was creeping towards the other-people-can-hear us category, and so Chloe pushed forward to wrap an arm around her waist.
"Shh," she warned as they finally got to the lobby door, and Beca forced it open. There were still a few people milling around, but Chloe didn't even register their faces before she pulled Beca off to the side, around to the waiting area adjacent to the lobby.
Through a short, wide hallway, then turning down a longer one, towards the back of house, and Beca quickly fell into step with Chloe's fast pace.
"God, you're so hot," Beca laughed, and Chloe glanced over to find her smiling. "I never would've thought that you would, like, leave before they even- wait."
She stopped, pulling Chloe by the hand so that she had to stop too. Chloe let her, but she wouldn't let Beca stall her progress, so she quickly backed her lover into a wall, wrapping herself around Beca and beginning to kiss her jaw.
"Mm, what is it, babygirl?" Chloe hummed, and she felt Beca pull her tighter.
"You, uh…" Beca stuttered as she leaned into Chloe's touch. She let out a pretty, mewling sound, and Chloe bit a tendon gently.
"You know what? Nevermind. I don't care."
"You wanna know how I know about a secret bathroom?" Chloe hummed, letting her tongue trace ever-so-gently where she had just bit. "Or why I'm okay making a scene?"
"Did I?" Beca gasped over a laugh as Chloe found a particularly sensitive spot. "Maybe. Probably. That curious woman is gone now; kiss me."
Chloe hummed again as she claimed Beca's mouth, letting her hands frame the muscles of Beca's upper back, letting her tongue caress Beca's and causing her to groan and lean further in.
But she leaned back.
"The first one is easy - I spilled wine on myself last year, and this is where they brought me to change."
Chloe watched as recognition and then relief filled Beca's eyes.
"I mean, I wasn't-" Beca started to say, then sighed, leaning her head so their temples were pressed together. "I'm glad we're not going to bang in a place that you and somebody else banged. There, I said it. I'm awful."
"You're not," Chloe giggled.
"It just would've been this weird feeling where I felt like I needed to compete with them, or something?" Beca sighed again. "Which is, like, totally lame and also a little bit anti-feminist, but not, like- ugh. I'm gonna stop. I hate this mental image."
"And the second-" Chloe said pointedly, slowly, so she could communicate to Beca that that first thought could permanently end there. "The whole 'making a scene' thing."
She inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to decide if she should explain with a lot of words or just a few.
But then Beca placed a feather-light kiss in the hollow of her cheek, and that raging, horny monster reared back up in Chloe's chest.
"I wanted you," she nearly growled, her voice deeper and more textured than she had ever heard it. She held Beca's body more forcefully against the wall, and she felt Beca offer up a small noise from her chest.
"Still do," she added, almost as an afterthought. "Cool?"
"Cool," Beca breathed into her hair.
"Cool," Chloe mocked back. "Let's go."
They didn't have to go much further, and, though there were a few people back here, no one stopped them as Chloe forced Beca into the small personal bathroom. It was basically a closet with a toilet and a sink, but Beca didn't seem to mind the closeness as she immediately crowded Chloe against the sink.
"Oh, that's not going to work," Chloe whispered into Beca's lips before spinning them so that it was Beca's body against the porcelain.
Beca acquiesced with a tortured-tasting curl of her tongue, and Chloe wasted no time in turning up the heat. She brought a hand up over Beca's sweater, roughly palming her breast through the layers of thick material, and she felt Beca lean heavily into the touch.
She groaned, and Beca groaned with her, teeth glancing off each other as their open mouths met.
She could feel where her nipple was, even through the layers, and she let the heel of her hand press into its softness - hard, but not hard enough to hurt - and then she let her hand drift up past the low collar, to the base of Beca's neck.
She left it resting there, heavy on the pliant, bare skin where bone gave way, but she didn't raise it any higher.
Not like she wanted to.
Not like she would.
But this was supposed to be quicker than what Chloe had planned for days like that - and besides, they hadn't talked about limits and safe words, and what would aftercare even look like in a moment like this? - so she kept her hand low, telling Beca without telling her.
You'll beg, her thumb whispered as it pressed into Beca's tendons, and Chloe felt Beca gasp underneath her.
"Chloe," Beca whined hoarsely. "Please, just- just-"
She would've smirked if they had more time - if she wasn't so turned on, too - but that wasn't the case right now, so Chloe leaned back in and dropped her hand to the button of Beca's slacks. She was able to create enough space to fit her hand into the fabric, felt the warmth of her skin as she slid her hand down her pubic bone.
Past the breadth of her, to tease her soaked slit.
Beca bucked against her hand, but Chloe persisted, using her longest finger to press a single knuckle's length into her. She curled her finger to caress the sensitive nerves at her entrance and let the rest of her hand cup and press into her clit.
Hot breath washed over her ear and neck, and Chloe leaned back so that she could see Beca- and fuck.
Bright pink cheeks, heavy-lidded eyes, and her breaths were coming in short, gasping pants after the sustained exhale that had just been blown over Chloe's neck. She was saying something - words, or maybe just sounds - and Chloe realized quickly that she wasn't the only one that was nearly delirious with lust.
She immediately switched course. She brought drenched fingertips out of that damp heat and began pressing quick circles onto Beca's clit, ceasing the teasing and instead working adamantly on one sole purpose.
Her arm was burning with exertion, but she could feel Beca beginning to bow, pulling her sex away from Chloe's hand in a way that Chloe knew was a signal of her release.
She bobbed her head in quickly, pulling Beca's earlobe into her mouth and biting on it gently with her teeth.
Beca moaned loudly - loudly enough that Chloe worried briefly if the bathroom was actually soundproof - and Chloe felt her grasping her arm with the desperate, cloying tension of a clit-only come.
She matched Beca's groan as Beca held her close, somehow both pushing Chloe away and trying to grind onto her hand.
It was beyond hot to feel Beca breathing so hard, and to feel the blunt edges of trimmed nails as they attempted to find purchase on her bare forearm.
"More?" Chloe asked, shifting her fingers just slightly, and Beca recoiled with a stammered whine.
"Chloe Beale," she whispered exasperatedly. "Chloe fucking Beale. You're gonna kill me, stop."
Chloe giggled as she kissed the skin of Beca's neck, savoring the salty-sweet taste.
Beca smelled like her own shampoo - she had forgotten hers and had to use Chloe's hibiscus/argan oil travel set - and in her hazy state, Chloe marveled at what was familiar and somehow just the slightest bit off, the slightest bit Beca.
Like she was, in a way.
Like she was becoming.
She pressed another kiss into her neck, slower this time, as she smiled.
"Come on, baby," she whispered. "Give me one more."
The second half of the documentary was good!
Chloe didn't really get it, but it was uproariously funny.
Or, well, maybe it was.
She was definitely giggling the whole way through.
Beca was too.
"I seriously don't know how you do this all the time," Beca lamented as they finally crashed through the door of their hotel room at half past midnight.
Chloe wanted to get back earlier, but - as it was their last night at Sundance - her team had forced her to partake in shared camaraderie. Between the sparse moments when Chloe had to do some last-minute networking, they had taken more than a few shots together in celebration of the wonderful trip.
Beca had been there too; she stayed a conscious five feet away, which Chloe hated and appreciated a little bit.
Because she had definitely been ignoring her team during these last couple days, if their dramatics could be believed.
"I don't do it all the time," Chloe explained through a yawn. "If I did, I wouldn't be so tired right now."
She flung her jacket off her shoulders and onto the floor before falling backwards on the bed.
"And I typically don't share this many orgasms when I'm doing it, either," she tacked on as she closed her eyes. "I'm actually exhausted. I don't think I can do another round tonight."
"Thank god. I thought I was going to have to fend off your advances," Beca sighed, and Chloe craned her neck so she could see her girlfriend.
She watched Beca shrug off her own jacket, laying it over her closed suitcase and starting in on her Docs.
"We can shower together in the morning?" Beca asked, glancing up from over her shoelaces. Chloe watched as her lover quirked an eyebrow seductively, but the come-on fell a bit flat from the sheer exhaustion that Chloe could see in her eyes.
"Absolutely," she agreed, flipping her gaze back to the ceiling and closing her eyes.
She listened to Beca move around - more rustling of clothes, then to the bathroom. Time seemed to speed up and slow in the same moment, and within what felt like seconds, Chloe felt a warm kiss on her cheek.
She opened her eyes to see Beca hovering over her, wearing her pajamas from the first night.
"C'mon," she said. "Let's get you naked."
It was said in jest - clearly, Beca just wanted Chloe to get ready for bed - but that didn't stop a surge of arousal that shot through Chloe's body, and she quickly sat up halfway to pull her more-scantily-clad, fresh-faced lover into her arms.
"Uh-uh, no," Beca laughed, forcing Chloe back down as she began to shift her weight onto her. Beca leaned down and kissed her, and Chloe hummed into the kiss - but she couldn't keep her eyes open, and it wasn't even a conscious decision to let them fall closed again.
She could feel Beca working on her clothes - first, the top, and she leaned up to let Beca pull it over her head. She was chilly in her tank-top, but she got even colder when Beca's body moved from around her chest, and she was about to sit up and protest-
But she felt her move.
To her feet.
She felt Beca manipulate her ankle so that she could reach the laces, working her boot off one foot, then the other. Felt her do the same with her thick, warm socks. She kept her eyes closed as Beca moved back up her body, fiddling with the waistband of her slacks before finding the hook and eye fastener as well as the nearby zipper.
Chloe smiled to herself as Beca worked wordlessly, stripping her top and bra off until she was bare on the bed. For all their talk of not making love tonight, Chloe wondered if they'd follow through when Beca finally peeled her underwear away from her body too. She knew she was aroused - specifically caused by the way Beca was taking care of her - and she knew that Beca could tell.
But Beca just pulled Chloe up until she was standing again, and Chloe blinked her eyes open to see that Beca had found her red silk nightie in her bag and was bringing it over to her.
She smiled as widely as her relaxed cheeks would let her, and then she lifted lethargic arms over her head. Beca smiled with a little shake of her head and pulled the luxurious fabric over her curls, over her bare skin, adjusting it so it fell over her hips.
"Do you need me to wash your face for you too?" she teased, and Chloe just shook her head with a shy smile.
One expedited bathroom routine later, and Chloe was back in the main room. Beca had turned down the bed and turned off all the lights and lamps save one, which gave the room a warm, golden glow. She was there, sitting up against the pillows stacked against the headboard, looking at her phone, but when Chloe stepped into the room, she set it aside quickly.
"I think I'm going to have to hire a team of researchers to look into why you're so hot," Beca teased sleepily, rubbing one eye as the other hand reached for Chloe. Chloe went to her with an almost wistful enthusiasm, wondering to herself why this moment - of all things - stirred up emotion deep in her chest.
"Oh yeah?"
"Seriously, I think it's an anomaly," Beca jokingly confirmed as she pulled Chloe into the bed, into her chest, and under the covers. She reached over her to turn off the light, and as she got re-settled, Chloe put a good half of her weight on the smaller woman.
"You're a scientific marvel," Beca tacked on quietly, as the room and its occupants relaxed into still, warm darkness.
Chloe tried to match Beca's breathing, to fully give in to the sleepiness that had threatened to overtake her earlier, but that knot in her chest refused to move. She sucked in one big sigh and let it out in an attempt to dislodge it.
"What?" Beca asked, shifting a little, and Chloe leaned up to see that her girlfriend was watching her closely.
"Nothing," Chloe replied reflexively. She settled back down onto Beca's chest. "It's just been a long day."
Beca didn't say anything in response, but Chloe could feel her body still tensed underneath her.
"You know," Beca started to say, and she did that thing where she cleared her throat like she always did before she said something serious and emotional, that thing that Chloe loved, because it was so cute to see her clearly fighting her own instincts. "I always thought we'd get together."
"Really?" Chloe asked, leaning back and up again to catch the slight smirk on Beca's face.
"Absolutely not," Beca contradicted immediately with a quiet, incredulous whisper, and Chloe couldn't stop herself from smiling.
That block in her chest moved up to her throat.
"It's hard for me sometimes, to imagine, like, how I fit into your life," Beca admitted. Chloe watched as her eyes narrowed and her eyebrows scrunched. "You take up a lot of space, but you're also so authentic and generous with other people and everything, and none of those things really apply to me."
"But you-"
"No, wait," Beca cut off Chloe's cut in. "Hold on. Because I think I figured it out."
That lump in her throat was huge now, threatening to stop her air supply, but Chloe tried to swallow around it as her eyes welled up with tears.
She didn't even know what this emotion was- until Beca started talking again.
"I think it's right here," Beca went on, her voice never breaking the threshold of a whisper. "I think I can be that person that's there for you when the cameras stop and the music gets turned off. When everybody else stops paying attention and you're just you, I'm… yeah. I'm just going to be here. Especially when you have to take time for yourself or whatever. I think that's where I fit."
Chloe watched Beca until her vision blurred beyond comprehension, and then she wiped her tears and just kept on watching.
Beca broke out of her thought and resumed attention on Chloe, and she smiled softly as the actress's stare bore into her.
"If you'll have me, I guess," Beca joked self-deprecatingly.
And that lump in her throat shattered.
Chloe heaved a stuttering, suddenly wet sob as she threw all of her weight onto Beca's smaller form, burying her tears in the crook of Beca's neck.
"Oh, okay," she heard Beca exhale through a laugh beneath her. Chloe laughed too, and she tried to get her breathing under control as she breathed in that Beca-fied shampoo.
"I just- I can't-" Chloe stuttered, but that clearly wasn't helping the whole get-her-breathing-under-control situation, so she focused on breaths - in the nose, out the mouth - until a steady, uninterrupted stream of air could pass through her.
"So that's a yes?"
Chloe pushed off Beca's chest so she was sitting on her lap, knees on both sides of her stomach, and she flipped her hair up, brushing snot and tears and hair off her face before she looked down at Beca.
Her girlfriend was smiling up at her, her own tears in her eyes, and Chloe took one more full breath.
"Yeah," she let out on the exhale, laughing a little as she fanned newly-sprung tears from her eyes. "Beca, you're the most wonderful person I've ever met."
"Bullshit," Beca brushed it off.
Unwilling and unable to fight that point tonight, Chloe collapsed into Beca's chest again, wrapping her arms to loop under Beca's shoulders as her lover squeezed around her back. Chloe felt Beca sweeping her thumbs over the silky material at her sides, and she sighed happily.
"This is better than the orgasms," she whispered softly, and she heard Beca huff out a laugh.
"Then I must not be doing so good."
"No," Chloe gasped as she sniffed back a fresh flow of gunk from her face.
She knew that Beca wouldn't listen to her tonight - might not actually hear it for a long time, really - but Chloe finally understood what that knot in her chest was, and the lump in her throat, too.
This was something more than love. More than comfort, and definitely more than passion. This was safer and warmer and more comfortable than a hug from her momma on a cold day.
This was hers.
This was real.
Beca was probably the love of her life.
No, not probably. She was the love of her life. It wasn't even a contest. No one had ever made her feel the way Beca made her feel, just by being her sarcastic, loving, beautiful self.
"No," she repeated more softly. "You're doing great. Always have."
And while she wanted to keep talking, to stay up with this soft, quiet Beca until dawn, just so she wouldn't miss a moment, that knot that had stopped her before had vacated its home.
And before she knew it, their breaths had both evened out, and together, they were drifting off to sleep.
"Babe."
"Mm."
"Beca. Babe."
"Hmmuph."
"I'm going to go take a shower, if you want to-"
"Hm? I'm up."
Chloe giggled as Beca pushed herself half off the bed before her sleepy brain had caught up to the movement. Her hair was everywhere, her eyes were still blinking away at half-consciousness, and her sleep tank had been pulled low so Chloe could see the swell of her breast, just above the dusty rose of her nipple.
She leaned over the teetering top half of her girlfriend and pulled the tank the rest of the way, immediately laving the soft skin with her mouth.
"Oh now I'm really up," Beca exhaled with a laugh. She hoisted Chloe off of her, and Chloe yelped as the smaller woman pulled the both of them off the bed.
They kissed their way to the bathroom, with Chloe spinning and leading the way backwards. She pulled them through the empty space of the open shower door, and Chloe smiled against Beca's lips as she reached behind herself blindly. She found the tap and flipped it on.
Cold water poured down on both of them.
"Ahh!" Beca screeched playfully as she broke the kiss, leaning back to avoid the water's reach. "We're still clothed!"
"Not for long," Chloe shot back as she reached for Beca's hips. She resisted being pulled into the water - that is, until Chloe slipped her thumbs into her waistband and Beca seemed to realize her grip was less about getting her back into the shower and more about getting her pants-less.
After that, Chloe felt her muscles loosen.
Beca worked her own tank-top off as Chloe stripped off her bottom layers. She could feel the way her nightie and her curls were starting to cling to her, and she knew she should be thinking about the vintage silk and how it needed to be hung dry, and there was absolutely not going to be time for that before their flight.
But with Beca, now naked before her - hair starting to curl from the overspray, eyes hungrily taking in Chloe's soaked form - she didn't even stop herself before she kneeled on the black tile of the modern bathroom's shower.
"Chloe," Beca whispered, and Chloe took a second to look up.
She let herself see the love and adoration, behind the lust.
She thought it might scare her, but it didn't.
It all just made sense.
This was her person.
She reached for her lover with shaking hands - from anticipation, not fear - and she pulled her the half step forward, into the pouring water from the fixture above them. She felt Beca pulse forward, like her body was gasping for breath, and she slid her mouth over her.
Over and over again, in the now-hot water, Chloe tasted the mix of water sluicing down Beca's body as it joined the tangy musk of her arousal.
She could feel her nightie pull against her skin as she shifted to take more of her lover into her mouth, bringing her tongue to her entrance, flicking it inside her, then back to her clit. The angle wasn't ideal - for her, or for Beca - but she didn't care if it took hours for Beca to come, if it would be a slow, torturous unfurling that left her icing her jaw. She didn't care if her silk was ruined. She wanted Beca to feel her love.
But Beca seemed to have other plans, as - over the muffled noise of the shower - Chloe heard Beca's moans take on a more frustrated lilt as she hoisted Chloe off the floor.
"Bec-"
"Together," Beca said gruffly, pulling Chloe to the tile wall and forcing her hand between her legs. Chloe gasped - first, at the cold tile against her wet back, then at Beca's motivated fingers as they slipped through her wetness. She yanked on Chloe's wrist, hips flexing so Chloe's fingers brushed the curve of her pubic bone.
Chloe picked up the hint and pressed forward just as Beca slipped a finger into her, and Chloe groaned as she ground against her hand.
"Chloe, you're soaked," Beca moaned. "I mean I know we're in a shower but-"
Chloe gasped out a laugh as she leaned out, lips colliding lazily with Beca's. Everything was slick, and Chloe could barely get her bearings enough to make sure that Beca felt good when Beca shifted to use her arousal to rub her clit, causing Chloe to falter again.
"Just on my clit, babe," Beca mumbled against her lips - Chloe almost didn't hear it, definitely didn't process, as Beca pressed harder and faster - but she followed Beca's lead and brought her wet fingers to Beca's swollen clit as well.
Beca grunted as Chloe made contact, and Chloe exhaled into Beca's mouth.
God, she was so hot.
"You're so hot," Chloe whined aloud, and Beca let out a noise that was somewhere between a whimper and a sigh.
Beca's fingers worked faster, and Chloe felt her hand slip against Beca as her rhythm faltered.
"Close-" Beca stuttered. "Your fault."
Chloe wasn't sure the words were for her, because they didn't make sense, but with the way Beca's hips were pulsing forward, she knew that Beca meant at least one of them, so she took a steeling breath and tried to put her arousal aside for the smallest of moments to finish what she started.
But - in a delayed sort of acknowledgement, because she was distracted by that hot, sustained moan - Chloe realized dimly that Beca wouldn't be deterred.
As Chloe tasted Beca's stuttered breath, that sharp inhale that let her know that Beca was coming, she felt Beca redouble her efforts.
Against Chloe's intentions, her hips flexed just as insistently as Beca's had, and that sweet, desperate, pronounced pressure of her pleasure broke through her mental dam.
She came as Beca pressed her fingertips flat, only vaguely aware that Beca herself was still pressing herself into Chloe's fingers and leg too.
And for one tiny eternity, everything was still between them - even the water seemed to slow as they came together.
But then Chloe sighed teasingly.
"You ruined it," she whined with a pleased pout, and Beca's brow furrowed.
"Wha-"
Chloe didn't let her finish the question as she pulled down the straps of her silk nightie so her chest was bared and dropped back down to her knees.
"I wanted to taste it," she smiled, blinking water out of her eyes as she met Beca's eyes over the swell of her torso.
"Chlo- ohmyfuck."
She spread her wide, lips on her and tongue at her entrance before Beca even knew what hit her.
Immediately, there was a hand on her head, and Chloe felt Beca try to dictate the movement as Chloe set about licking every part of her folds, for every drop of her.
I wanted to taste it, she thought dreamily as she listened to Beca's muffled moans.
And, she added with perverse glee, I'm gonna make sure you can't walk.
Chloe watched Beca as she stared dazedly toward the cockpit.
"I thought it was good!" Jessica was saying across the aisle, and Chloe heard Brad scoff from behind her.
"'Good'?" he parroted back. "It was a triumph! Chloe, please tell me you agree!"
"I want to know what Beca thinks," she said, nudging her seatmate under their shared Snuggie.
The group quieted, and - breaking out of her stupor - Beca inhaled sharply and blinked, looking around to see Chloe first, then past her, to where Jessica was probably looking at her expectantly from across the plane's width.
"Hm? What?" she asked distractedly. "What are we- uhh-"
She stopped, letting out a quick laugh and shook her head.
"Sorry, I was completely ignoring all of you."
The group laughed, and only Tish said something about "those Chloe Beale daydreams" before going on to something else that Chloe tuned out.
Instead, she watched as Beca blushed gently, the prettiest of pinks just barely tinting her cheeks, and Chloe leaned up to kiss the warm skin.
"-I mean, Chloe's definitely in the mile high club, right?"
She scoffed and turned to glare at Tish, who was on Jessica's other side.
"I am not!"
"Oh god, don't give them any ideas," Brad groaned from behind them. "They'll literally disappear for hours."
Chloe felt Beca lean up behind her and press a kiss under her ear.
"That could be arranged," she hummed, and Chloe knew she was the one blushing now.
She was happy there was a Snuggie over them, because Beca was definitely thumbing her nipple through her thin t-shirt.
"This morning wasn't enough?" she half-laughed, half-huffed as she glanced back at her. Beca was smirking, but she ducked her head so Chloe couldn't meet her eye.
"It's literally the only thing I can think about," she grumbled, but Chloe knew that she wasn't actually mad- probably just horny again.
But she had other plans for that.
Plans for home.
Plans with silk neckties and some tasteful, fur-lined cuffs.
"Maybe next time," Chloe said seriously, and lovingly, and Beca popped up from behind her shoulder. They kissed, and a chorus of aww's made its way to Chloe's ears- she felt Beca shift beneath her and she opened her eyes to see Beca throwing her empty Coke can over the seat at Brad.
Cries and yelps of indignation arose, and - on the brink of a very silly civil war - Chloe took it upon herself to corral the group into some sort of normalcy. It took a minute or two, but finally the aggressive bickering subsided, and Chloe settled back into Beca's shoulder.
Beca, who was grinning like a mad woman.
Probably because she was the only one who got a good shot off during all the hullabaloo.
"Oh, I have something for you," Beca said, the goofy smile on her face at once becoming furrowed, then serious. Chloe felt her own expression become worried, and Beca's smile quickly returned.
"It's not bad," she said quickly. "It's just, uh- I'm gonna airdrop you some stuff."
A love for the dramatics kept her from peeking over at Beca's screen - well, that, and Beca's incredibly defensive posture - but a few minutes later, Chloe's phone gave her the notification. All four of the file titles started with wip and then different dates, and Chloe couldn't start the downloads quickly enough.
If this was what she thought it was…
"It's my demo tracks," Beca confirmed, her voice quiet. "They're super unpolished - basically, like, one step above voice memos. I-"
She paused, laughed, then started again.
"I had to figure out if I could actually, like, do this. Write and perform my own music, I mean," she said. Chloe watched her push her hair back in a self-effacing motion as she looked towards the cockpit again. "And I guess I still don't know if I can, really, because I haven't showed these to anyone. So you have to tell me if they suck and if I, like, shouldn't show them to Jesse or even take the job and maybe consider a total career change or-"
"Becs," Chloe cut in, and she watched Beca re-capture her diverted attention.
She took a deep breath and tried to keep herself from smiling.
"Why don't you let me listen to them first?" she said slowly as the tracks finished downloading. "And we can talk about it after?"
Beca nodded stiltedly and hummed out a quick, "cool" before burying herself back in her phone. Chloe tried to ignore her the way her girlfriend kept sneaking looks at her as she fished Beca's old headphones out of her bag, set everything up, and started to listen.
And of course - of course - they were absolutely perfect.
Beca knew her voice and the way it worked with different instruments in a way that had Chloe clenching her jaw to keep it from falling open in surprise. Had she called these glorified voice memos?! Because they were full compositions - much more production than the This Is How A Heart Unbreaks cover that she'd put together last year - with drum tracks and multiple synth-like sounds.
Halfway through the first song, Chloe had to start the song over, because she realized that she wasn't even listening to the lyrics; she was too distracted by Beca's sexy voice.
And then she had to do that two more times.
For each song.
And she knew she was taking too long, and she knew that Beca was waiting for her to give her her opinion, but ohmigosh. The lyrics were so loving and sexy - and maybe about me? - and Beca's voice was just perfect and the songs themselves, like- the tempo and the- well, Chloe didn't know anything about music but, like, the chords and the bridges, everything was amazing.
After her third time through what was almost certainly going to be her single - a club hit that sounded like Dua Lipa and Kyle Minogue had an insane collaboration session, but also the cutting emotional lyrics reminiscent of old Charlie Puth, and it was definitely about her, because she definitely said something about Party in The USA in the second verse - she pulled her headphones off her ears.
She could still hear the song over the dull roar of the plane engines, and she grinned as she brought the edge of one of the padded, big earpieces up to her mouth and bit the edge.
It still smelled like Beca's woodsy perfume.
It drove Chloe crazy.
"So," she said slowly, quietly, and Beca stopped pretending to be on her phone as she narrowed her eyes over the edge of her screen.
"You better be nice," Beca warned, and Chloe rolled her eyes.
"I seem to remember you being particularly honest about my choice in movie projects," she replied with narrowed eyes of her own, and she watched Beca open her mouth to argue, only to shut it again with a tight jaw.
"Becs- I loved them," Chloe cut in quickly, unable to keep the charade. "These are amazing. These are- they're basically flawless. They could be on the radio right now."
She watched Beca digest her words, grinding her teeth together before sucking in a deep breath.
"They're not radio ready," Beca sighed. "I didn't have access to any of my Residual stuff. And I'm not even sure if-"
"Beca," Chloe insisted, pulling her hands from under the Snuggie and putting them on Beca's, where they were still clasped around her phone. "Beca, listen to me. You have to quit your job. Like, yesterday. I don't want to be the only one who gets to enjoy this amazingness."
Her face changed, and Chloe stopped seeing the defensiveness and instead saw Beca's hesitation for what it truly was: nerves. Her brow was set in a low line, and her eyes darted around in their sockets like prisoners trapped in a cell. A hundred arguments happened behind those eyes, and Chloe had a few of her own that she wanted to throw in too, but she waited for Beca to come to some kind of conclusion instead of interrupting.
"If you like them, I'll quit," she said finally, and that air of tenuous confidence made Chloe feel sad and happy at the same time.
"-if you fire Gail."
That brought Chloe right back into the moment.
"What?"
"She's gotta go, Chlo," Beca went on, apparently unrestrained now. "I mean, she doesn't even respect you. With Y and Coriolis, like, it's just not going to be the same now. And Gail doesn't deserve credit for that. Because she won't give it back to you. And I don't know how any of this works, like maybe that isn't something that you can do, I don't know how contracts go, but- but Chloe, please. You deserve something different. You deserve something better."
Chloe let Beca finish her impassioned speech, half-whispered and quick, like a waterfall of words, and then she took stock of her reaction to it.
Her first instinct was love and- she wasn't proud of it- a little pity towards Beca, because she really didn't know what she was proposing, career-wise. Gail had done so much for Chloe over the years, and she was pretty high up in respect to Hollywood circles.
But then she realized that she had basically asked the same thing of Beca with her music, so she took a second to really consider the essence of Beca's proposal.
Because, yes, losing Gail would mean that Chloe would lose a lot of access to different studios. Gail's agency carried a lot of weight, so she may even be blacklisted for a while if she went about this kind of thing in the wrong way.
But Beca wasn't saying "drop her tomorrow."
She was saying "find someone who will treat you well."
No time frame, no expectation.
So, Chloe figured that she could go about it the right way.
But it wasn't just her that this affected - which meant she had to ask her team, too.
She knew what she thought; Beca was right, and it was probably time to move on. But that didn't mean that she was going to make that decision unilaterally. Jessica still technically worked for Gail, and Lilly-
Well.
Now wait.
Who did Lilly work for?
"Okay," she shook off her confusion and turned to Beca. "I'm going to ask the team."
Beca nodded, still looking serious, and Chloe couldn't help but think about how cute she was as she leaned forward to kiss those serious lips.
Then she turned to the rest of the plane.
"Squad?" she asked- but they were all doing normal plane things, and she had to recruit Jessica in rousing and de-Air-Pod-ding the crew. Once they were all able to hear her, she explained the situation.
"So what do we think?" she asked, glancing between them all. "Tish, Brad, you get your contracts through Gail-"
"And we'd follow you anywhere," Brad enthused, and over Jessica's shoulder, Tish nodded.
"Absolutely," she added. "You're the star, baby. We're here for you."
Chloe relished the warm feeling in her heart for a moment before turning to Jessica.
"I wouldn't go anywhere without you, Jess," she started to explain, but Jessica cut her off.
"Please let us leave," she pleaded. Her eyes betrayed the overwhelming amount of time she'd been thinking about it- but even then, Chloe was momentarily shocked by her tone.
She thought Jessica loved the agency.
"Gail's a terrible boss, and everyone there is such a suck-up. I would've left years ago if you did. But I stayed for you, because, well, duh. But I'd really, really, really like to leave," Jess explained exasperatedly, and Chloe's heart broke over her tone.
"Jessica! You should've told me!" Chloe couldn't help herself from sounding betrayed.
She wanted to believe that she would've stopped bad things from happening - that she wouldn't have let Jessica stay in a bad situation.
But she'd done the same to herself for years by staying with Gail, so maybe she wasn't the most impartial person to judge the scenario.
"I love you," Jessica said succinctly. "It was always about us, not about her."
Chloe reached across the aisle and squeezed her friend's hand.
Because that was the simple truth.
It was about them.
"And… well, Lilly…"
Lilly had stayed characteristically quiet during this discussion, but at the sound of her name, she leaned forward, fanning out what looked to be at least forty business cards.
"I was approached an exorbitant amount of times about you this weekend, specifically on the behalf of multiple agencies that asked me to bring you over to them," she said quietly, and Chloe had the instinctual reaction to feel impressed, embarrassed, and proud all at the same time.
"I've been collecting them like Yu-Gi-Oh cards," she added, equally quiet. "I wonder which is most powerful."
"So that's settled?" Brad cut in. "We bail on Gail?"
"I don't see why not," Tish replied. "Jess?"
Jessica glanced up to meet Chloe's eye, and Chloe saw resolution there.
"If Lilly thinks we have a chance to pair with someone else, I say we go for it," Jess added.
And then, suddenly, there was no reason not to.
Chloe looked over her shoulder at Beca, who smiled softly.
"What do you think, superstar?"
What did she think?
Was this smart? Was this something that she should be considering, at such a vulnerable transition of her career?
Was this the right time?
Or, maybe - was there ever going to be a better time?
"Let's do it," Chloe nodded to the group. "Lilly, Jess, plan to come over Monday, and we'll start reviewing potential groups."
"Do you want me to send Gail to the shadow realm?"
"… that won't be necessary, Lilly."
The group started chattering over industry gossip - who was immediately out, and who they should consider - but Chloe turned away.
Back to Beca.
"Okay, now that that's settled, let's talk music," she said quickly. "I need lyrics, and I need plans, and I need everything. Tell me absolutely everything."
And whatever she was hoping to see - a smile, crinkled eyes, maybe even an eye-roll - none of that happened.
Beca just grabbed her shoulder where the Snuggie had fallen and pulled in close into a tight hug.
"I'm so proud of you," Beca said. "You're so brave. You're so cool. Damn, why are you so cool?"
Chloe laughed as she hugged Beca back just as hard.
Years had happened where they didn't even know each other.
Months had passed with friendship and loyalty and the little tests of both measures.
And, yeah, they'd only technically been together for days.
But Chloe knew in her heart of hearts that there wouldn't be another day of hers that didn't have some Beca in it.
Not if she could help it.
And that little voice of fear - that worry of forcing herself too close, of scaring people away with her intensity - well…
It didn't even make a sound.
(She wondered if it ever would again.)