Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Summer in the City
Beca/Chloe
Rated T
Prompt: Bechloe's ways to stay cool.

Chapter 3: Surprise
Beca/Chloe
Rated G
Prompt/Summary: Beca and Chloe live across the hall from each other in the dorm. Chloe is always trying to befriend Beca and somehow finds out her birthday is coming up, so she surprises her with a private party.

Chapter 4: Marvin Gaye
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: I'd really like to ask for a one-shot with established Bechloe, but they are just starting the relationship and they have only kissed yet. After a few weeks, Chloe wants to heat things up between them but doesn't know how to tell Beca/or gets interrupted every time, so she sings a very sexy (maybe lapdance?) version of the song 'Marvin Gaye'(by Charlie Puth) to explain herself.
Rated T (A hard T)

Chapters 5-7: Wait, What?
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: Bechloe AU where Beca and Chloe aren’t dating but they’ve been living together for a while (and they basically sleep in the same bed every night because “cuddling is good for heat Becs”) and they are totally domestic and one day when Beca leaves for work she kisses Chloe on the lips and neither one of them registers it happens until after Beca is on her way to work because it felt so natural.
Rated T

Chapter 8: Fish Out of Water
Chloe/Aubrey
Prompt: Chaubrey experimentation, the aftermath, and Beca’s arrival to the Bellas.
Rated T

Chapter 9: Dry Spell
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: Just imagine Beca and Chloe casually watching a porno together and when I say “casually” I mean “getting horny and ending up doing it right there.”
Rated M

Chapter 10: The Rodfather
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: A Bechloe version of the hotel scene from the first Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates trailer when Alice is watching porn. Marijuana use.
Rated M (Just to be safe.)

Chapter 11: Just A Dream
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: Smut one-shot, non-established Bechloe, Beca and Chloe are cuddle buddies, Chloe is woken up by the sounds her bedmate is currently making, apparently Beca is having a (very vivid very vocal) sex dream, Chloe is in equal parts interested/amused/turned on. She is sweating just watching Beca without waking her until she hears her name being moaned and notices that her leg, the one that is currently entangled with Beca’s is soaking wet. And with that, she loses the little self-control she was having.
Rated M

Chapter 12: Seven Minutes
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: So, I've seen a few spin-the-bottle Bechloe fics, but no seven minutes in heaven? That just seems wrong, I mean, 7 minutes is time for a lot of story to happen.
Rated T

Chapter 13: The Lake
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: Beca gets frustrated with Chloe's lack of clothing at a Bellas’ lake trip.
Rated T

Chapter 14: Twister
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: For a friend who wanted Bechloe smut by way of a game of Twister.
Rated M

Chapter 15: Solitude
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: Each Tuesday afternoon, Beca is the only one in the Bella house for a solid three hours. She likes it because she gets to clean everything top to bottom and work out whatever’s going on in her head. It’s her personal therapy time. One day, Chloe comes home early and catches Beca in her cleaning outfit of basketball shorts, sports bra, and snapback, with earbuds firmly in place as she delivers a stunning one-woman duet of “Take Me or Leave Me” around the kitchen with a mop.
Rated T

Chapters 16-18: The Neighborly Thing to Do
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: Off an @rpfunstuff prompt of “imagine your OTP living across the street from each other and both can see into the other’s bedroom window.”
Rated M-E

Chapter 19: The One Where Everyone Finds Out
Beca/Chloe
Summary: The Friends AU my friend asked for.
Rated T

Chapter 20: Caramel Mocha Chloe
Beca/Chloe
Summary: A Coffee Shop AU based on this coffee shop sign.
Rated G

Chapter 21: Boris Pasternak
Beca/Chloe
Summary: I was watching "Stranger Things" and there was a scene and it inspired me to write a “Beca helps Chloe study” tease.
Rated T

Chapter 22: Sugar to My Heart
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for Bechloe Week (July 2016). Day One Theme: Candy
Rated G

Chapter 23: Scratch the Itch
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for Bechloe Week (July 2016). Day Two Theme: Sick
Rated T

Chapter 24: Amazing
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Pure and utter angst. Based on Idina Menzel’s song, “Extraordinary.”
Rated T

Chapter 25: I Do
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Pure and utter angst. Based on Idina Menzel’s song, “I Do.”
Rated T

Chapter 26: Tennessee
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: AU where Chloe flirts with everyone but Beca so she's super confused. Every bad pick-up line known to exist is used.
Rated T

Chapter 27: The Origin of Love
Beca/Chloe
Summary: That pesky soulmate AU when you're born with your soulmate's name tattooed on your wrist. With the added twist that your archenemy's name is on the other wrist. And you don't know which is which. Until you know.
Rated T

Chapter 28: New Year, New You
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Smut. Smut, smut, and smut. Happy New Year!
Rated E

Chapter 29: Prima Facie
Beca/Chloe, Beca & Stacie
Prompt: Steca brotp often mistaken as them dating. Besties Chloe and Aubrey stalking their lives to settle a bet on whether Steca is dating or "just really good friends." That's not 100% what this ended up being, but it was a jumping off point!
Rated T

Chapter 30: Entertain Me
Beca/Chloe
Summary: I had to utilize that TextingStory app for Bechloe, because, well, OBVIOUSLY. So first WATCH Beca's text conversation with Chloe. Then read. (Preferably.)
Rated E

Chapter 31: You're Perfect
Beca/Chloe
Summary: I had a dream about telling a girl she’s perfect and it went a little something like this.
Rated T

Chapter 32: Bet On It
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for one Ms. brittany-snodes who recently celebrated a birthday! Beca does like hitting on bridesmaids...
Rated T

Chapter 33: If I Could Tell Her
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: I've always wanted to see a Bechloe story based on the song “If I Could Tell Her” off of the Dear Evan Hansen cast recording. It’s a little angsty.
Rated G

Chapter 34: Dress
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Someone mentioned how TSwift’s new song “Dress” was a Bechloe song, and I AGREE. So here’s a fic.
Rated T

Chapter 35: Can I Be Him?
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Based on "Can I Be Him?" by James Arthur - a beautifully sad song. So yes, this is angst.
Rated G

Chapter 36: The Great Beca Bake-Off
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for tinyolsen and the 2017 Merry Pitchmas Gift Exchange who wanted some cute fluff!
Rated G

Chapter 37: The Sandwich Discourse
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: “You can’t banish me! This is my bed too!” - Chloe trying to banish Beca from their bed after she said something stupid.
Rated T

Chapters 38-40: Earned It, Worth It, Deserve It
Beca/Chloe
Prompt: Beca gets roped into giving Chloe a lapdance. Chloe's brain gets broken (like wtf) because surprisingly Beca is really good at the lapdance and not awkward. Not being able to stop thinking about it all evening, she later goes to Beca. The rest is up to you.
Rated M

Chapter 41: First Time for Everything
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Inspired by this amazing story; I read it and HAD to write it.
Rated M

Chapter 42: The One with All the Kissing
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for Bechloe Week 2018 - Day 1: Accidental Kiss. Who doesn't love a nice "Friends" homage?
Rated T

Chapter 43: Whats-His-Name
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for Bechloe Week 2018 - Day 2: Jealousy
Rated T

Chapter 44: Symrise
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for Bechloe Week 2018 - Day 3: Drunk Texting
Rated G

Chapter 45: Just Friends
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for Bechloe Week 2018 - Day 4: Why?
Rated T

Chapter 46: That's So Cliché
Beca/Chloe
Summary:
Written for Bechloe Week 2018 - Day 5: Road Trip
Rated T

Chapter 47: A Bubble
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Written for Bechloe Week 2018 - Day 6: Good Luck Charm
Rated G

Chapter 48: Body Shop
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Beca's car breaks down on the freeway. Luckily, a local mechanic can give her a ride. Inspired by Madonna’s song “Body Shop.”
Rated M

Chapter 49: Not A Serial Killer
Emily/Aubrey
Summary: Emily needs to ask Aubrey a question.
Rated G

Chapter 50: Silence Is Golden
Jessica/Ashley
Summary: It’s easy to sneak around.
Rated G

Chapter 51: Say Yes
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Chloe jokes about sleeping with Beca. Beca: *shrugs* "I mean...I'd be down if you asked..."
Rated T

Chapter 52: I Don't Care
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Basically, Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” came up on a playlist on my commute and by the time I got home from work, I had a story. Also, here’s your Pitch Perfect 3 fix-it.
Rated T

Chapter 53: In the Closet
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Coworkers AU for Bechloe Week 2019
Rated T

Chapter 54: Break Point
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Hard not to be inspired after our dreamlike reunion at the 2019 US Open. The B necklace is for Beca after all, right?
Rated M

Chapter 55: Taken By Surprise
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Smutpacalypse 2020 Prompt: "Chloe strapping up, sat on the couch, Beca straddling and riding like there’s no tomorrow."
Rated E

Chapter 56: All Through The Night
Beca/Chloe
Summary: Smutpacalypse 2020 Prompt: "Takes place in the PP3 world where they share a bed. They’ve been out drinking and clubbing, and when they get home they try to sleep but are way too turned on. It’s probably Chloe’s hand that makes the first move and it doesn’t take long for Beca to follow..."
Rated E

Chapter Text

 "There’s no possible way you can come any earlier than Thursday? But it’s Monday! Fine.“

Beca watched Chloe disconnect the call with a fervent touch of her phone’s screen and raise her arm as though to slam it down, but caught him herself at the last moment and let it drop with a clatter.

“So I guess we need to accept our fate that we are going to be boiled to death in our own house.”

“It seems that way.”

It was summer break, and Beca, Chloe, Stacie, and Amy were the only Bellas to choose to stay on campus in the Bellas house. Amy was rarely home to begin with, and with the air conditioning going out, she had earlier announced plans to move in with Bumper until it was repaired.

She didn’t know the last time she saw Stacie.

Beca groaned and fanned herself harder with the magazine. “This is bullshit! Isn’t it in the student code or something that says this is illegal?”

“No. I already checked.”

“Of course you did.”

She heard the scrape of the kitchen stool Chloe was on and watched her disappear up the stairs, followed by the muffled sound of censored cursing about how much hotter it was upstairs.

Chloe returned a few minutes later. “Get up. We’re getting out of here.”

“Can’t. I’ve fused to this couch.”

Chloe grabbed her hand and pulled. Beca noticed she had freshened up a little, hair freshly tied back.

“Come on. We’re going to a movie.”

“A movie? Which one?”

“They have air conditioning. Do you really care which one?”

Beca took note of the sweat behind her knees and shook her head. “Let’s get out of here.”

The air conditioning in Chloe’s car blasted in Beca’s face the entire drive and she thought perhaps it’s what heaven felt like.

When the box office worker asked what they would like, she almost blurted “Anything, I don’t care,” but Chloe answered for them, buying two tickets for the next showing of the latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation starring Rachel McAdams.

Beca couldn’t even be bothered to complain.

She bought the concessions - a large popcorn, a large Diet Coke, and the Twizzlers Chloe had to have at every movie without fail.

When they walked into the auditorium, Chloe leading the way, she heard a low whistle. “I don’t know, Beca, it’s pretty packed.”

Beca was still learning to like movies, and the prospect of having to sit in the front row made her frown. When she turned the corner to begin the scan for seats, she laughed.

The entire auditorium was empty, save for two other people.

It was the campus theater after all, and most students were home or working.

Beca followed Chloe up the steps to claim what Chloe explained were the optimum seats, visually and audibly, in the center of the theater.

“This was a great idea,” she said after they settled.

“Thanks!” Chloe said brightly, digging into the popcorn in Beca’s lap.

An hour into the movie, the predictable love scene started, McAdams rolling around with the man Beca knew would inevitably die and or break her heart in some way. The popcorn had been moved to the floor, and she noticed Chloe move their shared soda to her own cup holder and flip the armrest between them up.

“Whatcha up to?” she asked, heart racing a little at the possibilities.

Chloe simply smiled and pulled her into a kiss.

Beca inhaled sharply; PDA wasn’t really her thing. She pulled back and looked around. It was still just the four of them, and the other couple was several rows in front of them.

“No one’s going to see,” Chloe whispered and leaned in expectantly. “Besides, it’s way too hot to do this at home.”

Beca considered that. It was at least 80° in the house when they left, and it would only get worse.

“Good point.”

She leaned in to meet Chloe’s waiting lips. Apparently her agreement to make out in the theater was a green light to Chloe; it got intense, and quickly.

“Shh,” Beca whispered when a whimper escaped Chloe at the hand Beca was running up her thigh under the hem of her sundress. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but the theater WAS empty, basically, and it had been at least twelve hours since they got their hands on each other.

“Please,” Chloe breathed, pulling Beca’s hand higher.

A bright light caught Beca’s eye, and she half-turned to find the source, yelping when she saw a flashlight pointed right at them, manned by a theater employee, waving a glowing orange airplane guidance stick at them, beckoning them.

“Shit! Chloe!” Beca knew she was dead - dead! She was on her way back to jail, twice in two years. Stellar. And now for public lewdness and she’d probably be labeled a sex offender and…

“Hmm?” Chloe sat forward to see around Beca, and smiled. And waved.

The worker paused, and Beca saw him squint, and then smile and wave back and disappear down the stairs.

“What just happened?” Beca whispered, heart racing and adrenaline pumping.

“Oh that’s my boy Matty. He’s cool.”

Beca felt stunned. “He’s cool with you getting it on in his theater?”

“Well, he’s cool in general. We get each other’s back when we need to.”

“Oh,” Beca said, trying to return her attention to the movie, totally lost with the plot now.

She felt an arm snaking around her back, pulling her close.

“Now where were we?”

Chapter Text

It’s not that Beca is anti-social.

She’s simply not a big fan of socializing with strangers, and, to her, passing one another with semi-regularly in the hallway of Baker Hall coming and going from class and the dining hall hardly qualified as non-strangers.

So when she answered the knock at her door at nearly 11:00pm to see the pretty redhead who lived across the hall in Room 532, she frowned.

She didn’t frown because the girl was pretty - of course not. She was frowning at the unannounced interruption at a relatively late hour.

“Hi!” the girl chirped, wide smile dazzling.

Beca leaned against her door, swinging back and forth with it slightly. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I’m Chloe.” A hand jutted out for the shaking.

Beca stared at it a moment, and then grasped it to give it a light shake. “Beca.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

The girl - Chloe - tapped on the dry erase board hanging on Beca’s door, upon which she had scrawled her name at the beginning of the semester two months ago.

“Oh, right.”

“Are you busy?”

It’s not that Beca was busy per se. But she was moderately invested in the book she was reading, as the identity of the serial killer was about to be revealed. “Um…”

Chloe motioned with her hands, cutting her off before she could answer. “Totally cool, I shouldn’t have shown up so late and unannounced. Maybe I can come by tomorrow?”

“Uh…” Beca realized she probably looked a bit on the side of startled, half-gaping at the pretty girl who, for some reason, was trying to make her acquaintance. “Okay?”

“Awes! You get home around four, right? I can come over then?”

Beca shook her head a little, feeling like she missed an entire conversation at some point. “You know when I come home?”

Chloe laughed, and Beca felt herself blush. “You’re silly! We’re always coming and going at the same time. You never noticed?”

Now, it wasn’t that Beca never noticed Chloe. She wasn’t blind. She had eyes that worked quite well. 20/20 vision, thank you very much. And it was awfully hard to miss Chloe, all fire red hair and bright smiles and eyes so sparkling blue Beca had actually forgotten why she was in the hallway once when Chloe walked by, returning from the shower in a bathrobe. However, she had never paid attention to the day or time when such crossings of paths occurred to discover there was a pattern.

She would have to start paying more attention.

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

For reasons as yet unbeknownst to her (just kidding, she totally knew why, shh), Beca was disappointed when the girl now known as Chloe didn’t show up promptly at four o'clock that next day.

Whatever. Par for the course. Socializing sucks and friends are overrated. That’ll teach her to put herself out there (okay, all she did was answer the door) to try to meet new people. She tucked back into her serial killer book, having been shocked by the plot twist last night and needing to know more.

It was pushing seven o'clock when a quiet rap on her door sounded. She rolled her eyes and climbed out of bed, ready with dismissive shrugs and words of apathy as she opened the door.

“Beca!” Chloe nearly jumped on her, pushing her way in with a hug that almost literally knocked Beca off her feet. “I’m so sorry! I forgot I had to meet with my group after class today and I don’t have your number so I couldn’t text you and tell you I couldn’t make it!”

Beca’s arms will still flailing when she caught a glimpse in the mirror hanging on her closet door and realized she looked ridiculous. She returned the hug hesitantly, giving Chloe a few awkward pats on the back. “It’s okay. Shit happens.”

“I’m really sorry,” Chloe said, finally releasing her. “I feel so bad. Have you just been sitting here alone all evening?”

Beca shrugged dismissively. “It’s cool. I’m kinda into my book. So.”

“Ooh, what are you reading?” Chloe pushed past her, sitting on the bed on her knees as she grabbed the book and flipped it over to read its cover.

Beca made a grand gesture with her arm, sweeping from the door into the room before closing it. “Would you like to come in?”

Chloe giggled. “Sorry. I have a habit of making myself at home. This sounds like a good book.”

“Yeah, I like it.”

“I don’t bite.” The redhead patted the empty area of Beca’s bed, and Beca hoped the heat she felt in her cheeks wasn’t visible.

She sat down, awkward on her own bed, and watched Chloe turn and get comfortable, noticing her bare feet, and she wondered how long she planned to stay. She had a Kraft EasyMac to get back to, too. She changed her mind, not caring if it was maybe rude, and grabbed her bowl of macaroni and cheese off the shelf by her bed and resumed eating.

“So! Beca.”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“Oh, I definitely plan to try.”

Beca swallowed wrong and spent a good thirty seconds coughing up the elbow macaroni noodle that found its way down her windpipe. It made Chloe giggle again, once she was convinced Beca wasn’t dying.

“You okay?” she asked, grinning.

“Forgot how to eat,” Beca said, nodding.

“So Beca.”

Beca rolled her eyes and stabbed at her macaroni. “Yes?”

“What’s your major?”

Ah, the eternal opening question between any two new acquaintances between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. “Undeclared.”

“You’re a freshman?”

Beca nodded.

“I’m a senior,” Chloe said, pushing her shoulders back and flipping her hair over them.

“Congratulations. Why are you living in this dorm if you’re a senior?”

“Because I’ve spent every year here. I didn’t feel like moving to the upperclassmen dorms.”

“I didn’t think that was something students could control.”

“I might have convinced the Head of Housing to let me stay,” she said with a wink.

Of course she did. Beca was pretty sure this woman could convince anyone to do anything she wanted. She was a prime example herself, sitting on her bed talking to a total stranger. Well, mostly stranger. At least she knew her name.

And as quickly as she’d blown in, Chloe was climbing off the bed, excusing herself. “I need to work on my project, so I’ll let you get back to your book. Rain check for our date?”

“Date?” Beca asked through a mouthful of pasta.

“Can I have your number so we can work out the details?”

Beca was still mentally stumbling around the word ‘date’ when she felt herself nodding and accepting Chloe’s phone, held out for her to send a text to herself to capture the number.

She wasn’t surprised that the moment the door closed behind Chloe, her phone chimed with a selection of smiling and winking emojis indicating she would see her soon.

It was a little over a week later when this purported 'date’ occurred. Chloe wasn’t late this time, and Beca told herself she wasn’t nervous.

She was a liar.

And she didn’t even understand if Chloe meant it to be a date-date or just two girls hanging out on a Friday night alone in a dorm room in the dark on a bed under a shared blanket with a shared bowl of popcorn watching whatever movie Chloe brought with her.

“So, she’s going to break up with her husband to be with that woman, right?”

She felt Chloe’s eyes on her and she looked to see them glaring.

“What? It’s so predictable!” And also so totally gay.

“You just ruined the entire movie.”

“You’ve seen it before!”

Chloe huffed and crossed her arms, staring at the laptop, mouth set in a firm line.

Beca felt guilty. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m just not a movie person.” Why she put her hand on Chloe’s arm to tug them apart, she did not know. “Please don’t be mad.”

She saw a twitch of Chloe’s mouth, one side tugging up. “You gonna make it up to me?”

Beca was glad it was dark. She was definitely blushing. “Uh, how?”

“With a kiss.”

Beca’s voice skipped a good two octaves. “What!”

“Wow, chill,” Chloe said, laughing. “It was a joke. But good to know you so vehemently disagree with that option.”

Beca’s mind raced, but mostly she noticed the few inches Chloe seemed to move away from her under the guise of a stretch, and she didn’t like it.

“No, I was just -”

“Knock knock!” A hard knock on her door made them both jump and the door swung open before Beca could say anything. “Hide your wine coolers!”

“Ugh, Dad! God, what is with people just barging in here?”

"Heya, Beca! Oh, you have company. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You could have called first instead of showing up.”

"Sorry, I was about to leave campus but I realized I have no clue what to get you for your birthday.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“It’s your birthday?” Chloe asked, eyes lighting up in the darkness.

“On the fifth. Are you going to introduce your friend, Beca?”

Beca groaned, wishing for the encounter to end. “Dad, Chloe. Chloe, this is my dad.”

Chloe bounced up and shook his hand. “Hi, Dad.”

“Doctor Mitchell is fine.”

“Ooh, Doctor?”

“He’s a professor here. It’s not that impressive.”

“Wow, thanks Beca.”

“Okay, Dad? We were kind of in the middle of something, so…”

“Fine, fine. But let me know what you want, okay?”

“Right now, I want you to leave.”

Chloe’s giggle as she rejoined Beca on the bed made her ears ring in a not unpleasant way. She really needed her dad to leave so they could get back to whatever they were maybe getting to.

However, Beca finds herself disappointed, in that all they get back to is watching the movie and its cheesy, predictable ending. And then Chloe was bidding her farewell with suggestions and promises they would do this again.

Hi! Can I come over tonight? :-* xo

Beca actually smiled at her phone. Why do you always come here? Are you hiding dead bodies in your room?

Maybe. ;)

Is it? Is it dead bodies?

It’s a roommate that likes to study at home a lot. :p Ps why don’t u have one?

Professor dad. String puller.

Nice. :D
Well? :) :)

Beca caught herself biting her lip at the concept that Chloe didn’t want Beca over to her room because they couldn’t be alone there. Sorry. Yeah. Like 8?

It’s a date! ;) ;)

Beca actually spent time on her appearance for this 'date.’ Not that she didn’t on other days, but more so. If it really was a date, she didn’t want to look apathetic. For once.

Chloe’s signature knock came right on time -  four raps, not three like most people. “Hi!” Chloe said when Beca opened the door. “Oh, you look pretty.”

When she was finished stammering a thank you, she noticed Chloe’s hands were suspiciously hiding behind her back. “Whatcha got back there?”

“Can I come in?”

“Oh, you’re asking permission this time?” Beca asked pointedly as she stepped aside to let Chloe pass, which she did so awkwardly, spinning and angling her body so Beca couldn’t see whatever it was.

Chloe didn’t respond to the remark, but instead bounced on her feet, smiling so big Beca thought her face might crack. She seemed ready to burst when she finally thrust her hands out, revealing a cupcake with an unlit candle in it, and a lighter in her other hand, sparking it quickly. “Happy Birthday!”

Beca crossed her arms. “It’s not my birthday until Thursday.”

“If I waited until Thursday, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Beca felt herself smiling, genuinely moved by the gesture. “That’s true.”

Chloe held the pink cupcake out to her, and Beca struggled to not watch the way the candle flame danced in her eyes. “Make a wish.”

Beca didn’t have to think about it long. It felt like her wish - something a month ago she would never have considered - might just come true. She closed her eyes and blew a quick puff of air over the flame to extinguish it.

Before she could open her eyes, she felt warm lips against her cheek, almost at the corner of her mouth. A moment later they were gone and she fluttered her eyes open, surprised by how close Chloe was now standing.

Chloe leaned in again, whispering, “Did it come true?”

Chapter Text

Dating Beca Mitchell is a little like dating a cactus. 

No, not a cactus. 

A porcupine?

No. A hedgehog. 

Pet her the right way and it was fine. Pet her the wrong way and it was mildly uncomfortable for both parties. 

This isn't a discovery that surprised Chloe. Beca was happy and easygoing until she decided she was finished with that particular emotion or situation. It wasn’t that she was the grump she portrayed herself to be to the general public; she just liked things a certain way, and if they weren’t that certain way, she felt off her game, out of her element. Beca liked to succeed.

Which was why despite officially (and secretly) dating for three months, and having already exchanged 'I love yous,' and being young, horny twenty-somethings discovering a whole lot about what it was like to date another girl and all the fun things that came with it like expanded wardrobes and readily available cuddling and super-soft lips, Chloe hadn't figured out how to ‘seal the deal,’ as it were. 

It wasn't that Beca didn't want to. Sometimes the things she whispered in Chloe's ear when she had Chloe pinned on the bed were downright vulgar. They made Chloe blush and squirm and want, and then someone's alarm would go off signalling the morning, or a reminder for a class, or for work, or Amy would need to access her room, or when they'd hole up in Chloe's single, someone would come looking to clarify a dance step or need a one-on-one girl talk. It was easy to think there was plenty of time and opportunity in the long quiet hours of the night, but the reality was that they were really fucking busy every day between school, jobs, and rehearsal, and when they finally hit the sheets after midnight, they were both quick to pass out, even if they were sharing a bed. 

It was frustrating to say the least. 

And Chloe certainly tried. She'd taken to sneaking into the bathroom while Beca was in the shower, but if Beca was in the shower it meant she was rushing off somewhere and couldn't be waylaid no matter how convincingly Chloe's lips moved over her breast. 

She tried showing up at the radio station during a graveyard shift with intent to prop Beca up on the forbidden desk and take her then and there, but some vital piece of equipment decided to break down as soon as they got going, sending the station into deadly radio silence and sending Beca scrambling back into the booth to fix it, shirt unbuttoned and cheeks flushed. And while it didn't happen that time, it was fun to watch Beca scramble and repair and plop into her chair to talk to the listeners with her button-down hanging wide open, sharing her royal blue bra with the booth and with Chloe. 

Then there was the time Beca excused herself momentarily from rehearsal to use the bathroom, so Chloe called for a fifteen-minute break and followed Beca into the bathroom and had her up on the sink within a minute and hands on their way to places within two minutes. But the rehearsal break prompted half the Bellas to take to the restroom as well, their bursting in causing Beca to hop back and fall into the sink and get a sharp faucet to her lower back while Chloe sputtered about a fake conversation they were having even though no one asked or cared.

Chloe was frustrated. And she knew Beca was, too. And she was sick of waiting. She had needs. She wanted to make her girlfriend feel good. 

So she decided to take drastic measures. 

"This," she announced, with her hand held high wielding a yellow scarf, to the Bellas at the emergency meeting she called in the living room, "is a Bella scarf." Beca was the only member not at the meeting, having to cover Luke's shift at the station at the last minute. 

"Wow," Amy scoffed. "Thanks, Red. We had no idea."

Chloe used her free hand to puppet a closed mouth at Amy and continued. "I love you girls so much. I really do."

"Why I feel like a 'but' is coming?" Jessica asked, worrying her lip. 

"But, I really, really need a night to myself now and then. And so does Beca. Between choreography and arrangements she and I are at our limit, and then school and work? We need uninterrupted time to...to focus."

She heard Amy say something under her breath, shutting up the moment Chloe's eyes landed on her. 

"So if this scarf is on my doorknob, or Beca's  - please, please come back later. Don’t knock or ask if we’re busy, because yes. This means we're busy. With Bella business."

She tried really hard to ignore the grin Stacie was throwing her while she mouthed "Bella business" using air quotes. Stacie was the only one who knew about their relationship, and that was only because she seemed to have a sixth sense for detecting emotional and physical attraction like an infrared scanner and a lack of filter that only Chloe's could rival.

"So like a sock on the door then, yeah?" Amy ventured, still sporting her cocky smile. "Don't come a-knockin' if the bedroom's rockin'?"

Chloe smiled and grit her teeth. "Essentially, yes."

"Bow chicka wow wow," Amy said with a swivel of her hips, making the rest of the girls titter with laughter. 

"Right!" Chloe barked in her captain's voice. "So. Scarf means we're off-limits. Everyone got it?" A smattering of yeses and variations of yes came back to her and she clapped her hands, dismissing the girls.

Beca’s shift was scheduled to end at 9:00pm and Chloe spent the better part of the evening preparing. She tidied up her bedroom, and changed her sheets, and set up a playlist on her computer because she knew what the right song could do to both of them, and before she left to shower, she dragged her chair away from the desk and left it in the middle of the room facing the door. She paused, tying the scarf around the doorknob, leaving the door open before skipping down the hall to the bathroom.

Before she stepped into the shower, she tapped out a quick text.

Prob be in the shower when u get home. Wait 4 me in my room. ;)

Chloe was giddy by the time she was out of the shower, scrubbing a towel through her red curls before bending over and wrapping her hair up turban-style. She wrapped another fluffy white towel around her body, spritzed a touch of perfume on her neck, and padded down the hallway to her room, ears listening for signs of Beca talking to the other girls, or the other girls being upstairs. She could hear chatter and laughter downstairs, but Beca’s voice wasn’t a part of it.

That was because, Chloe realized happily, Beca was sitting in the chair Chloe had left in the middle of the room, hands folded in her lap as she twisted the chair back and forth.

“Hi,” Beca said with a smile. “Got your text. What’s up?”

Chloe bit her lip, feeling a little nervous all of a sudden, but she took a breath and stepped into her room, pushing the scarf-flagged door closed behind her. She flipped the lock on the knob for good measure and watched Beca’s smile melt away and be replaced with thinly veiled excitement.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, strolling casually through the room toward her laptop open on her desk to wake it from the screensaver as she adjusted her towel around her torso. She noticed Beca swiveling to track her. “We never have time to ourselves. So, tonight…” she tapped the first song on the playlist, “I’ve made sure no one is going to bother us.”

Let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on

You’ve got that healing that I want

“What song is this?” Beca asked, chuckling a little at the lyric.

Chloe turned and leaned against her desk for a moment before pushing off and taking a slow step forward. She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Basically, I’m implying that I want to get it on.”

Just like they say it in the song

Until the dawn, let's Marvin Gaye and get it on

She expected Beca to laugh, but instead she whimpered and lifted her left knee to cross it over the right, foot twitching nervously.

“I thought, maybe, you’d enjoy -”

“Yeah. Yes.”

We got this king size to ourselves

Don't have to share with no one else

Don't keep your secrets to yourself

It's kama sutra show and tell 

Chloe smiled at her eagerness. “I haven’t told you what it is yet.”

Beca swallowed. “Sorry.”

Chloe took another step forward, humming along to the song, letting her hips rock side to side a little to the beat. Beca’s foot stopped twitching and she saw her jaw loosen, eyes going wide. 

There's loving in your eyes

That pulls me closer

She paused her advance a foot or so in front of Beca and bent forward, unfurling the towel from her hair and flipping it back as she straightened. It wasn’t overtly sexual - she did the same thing every single day to get ready for class - but she heard Beca’s breath catch, and Chloe smiled down at her, letting her damp hair fall loosely over her shoulders. She tossed that towel aside and kept her fingers on the overlap of the towel around her body to keep it in place as she swayed a little more, inching forward until her knees touched Beca’s, and just as Beca’s hands reached for her, she turned, backing up until she felt Beca uncross her legs so she could sit on her lap.

It's so subtle

I'm in trouble

But I'd love to be in trouble with you

Which she did, rolling her hips with the music, holding her towel up with one hand, her other running through her hair.

“Shit…” she heard Beca exhale. She felt her squirm in her seat and the soft warmth of hands on her waist as she worked her hips, grinding down into Beca.

You got to give it up to me

I'm screaming mercy, mercy please

The hands at her waist started to wander, tracing down over her hips and forward until fingertips grazed Chloe’s bare thighs, and though she knew Beca felt her shiver, she ripped herself up and out of her lap, turning on her heel to face her.

She’d never seen Beca so...hot. Her face was flushed and her breathing was quick and her hands were trembling and Chloe couldn’t wait for those hands to be on her. But first…

She stepped closer again, knees against Beca’s, dancing until Beca reached for her. She caught her by the wrists, chancing letting go of her towel for a moment - thankfully she’d tucked it in enough to hold - and pressed her arms back. Beca groaned, and then rolled her eyes and neck as Chloe took a bold step forward and straddled her lap, towel pushing up around her thighs.

She let her own arms come to rest over Beca’s shoulders, smiling at her a little as she rolled her body slowly against Beca’s. And though she was pretty clear that Beca wasn’t supposed to be touching her, she didn’t stop it when those trembling hands reappeared on her upper thighs, fingertips crawling under the edge of the towel.

Just like they say it in the song

Until the dawn, let's Marvin Gaye and get it on

Chloe leaned closer, close enough to whisper in Beca’s ear. “I want you so much.”

She felt a shudder run through Beca beneath her, fingers clenching at her thighs.

She sat back, still rolling her hips forward to music, and brought her hands to the overlap of her towel, untucking it but holding it in place. She watched Beca’s eyes snap to the spot, and the way her tongue subconsciously flitted over her lips.

Deciding touching Beca was more pressing than holding one side of the towel, she let go of the right side, keeping her front covered with the left, and she reached for Beca, sliding her fingers into her hair to pull her in for a kiss. They both moaned, arousal ratched high thanks to Chloe’s little teasing, but Chloe pulled back after a moment and leaned away a bit, working her hips more firmly against Beca. And she saw Beca’s gaze fall right back to where it just was, drinking in the now-exposed right side of Chloe’s body, eyes dragging down from her shoulder to her ribcage to her waist to her hip.

And then Beca’s hand was over Chloe’s left, pulling at it.  “Please?”

I'm screaming mercy, mercy please

Just like they say it in the song

Until the dawn, let's Marvin Gaye and get it on

Chapter Text

“Hey Chlo, get a move on or the truck’s leaving without us!”

Beca waits in the doorway of the Bellas’ house, hollering for the redhead to pick up the pace.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming,” floats back down to her followed by the rapid thumping of feet on stairs, in the rhythm that Beca would know belongs to Chloe even if she didn’t know it was Chloe coming down because Chloe was the only one in the house. “Sorry,” Chloe says, a little breathless as she almost slides to a stop at the entrance, holding the corkboard that lived on Beca’s bedroom wall. “I was doing a final round and you forgot this!”

“Shit, thanks,” Beca says as she takes it from her, numerous pins still holding Polaroids and Post-Its and fortunes to it. “We gotta go. All the lights are off?”

“Check.”

“Everything unplugged except for the stuff that shouldn’t be unplugged?”

“Check.”

“You left everyone’s house keys in the drawer and told Emily where to find them?”

“Check, check, and double-check!” Chloe says with a smile.

“Okay, lock it up. Let’s go.” Beca steals one last look over Chloe’s shoulder at the house she’s called home for the last three years. She’s certain that she made more memories there than the rest of her life combined. She certainly made her best friends there. She was even moving in with one of them, something she never would have been able to see herself doing when she was younger. She watches Chloe lock the front door and offers a sympathetic smile when Chloe turns back with tears in her eyes.

The moving truck is idling alongside the curb, waiting to follow Chloe the two hundred and fifty miles to Nashville where Beca has a job waiting for her at a satellite Residual Heat studio and Chloe has a Master’s in Music Education program to begin in three months at Belmont University.

Beca carefully sets the corkboard in Chloe’s backseat and then plops into the passenger seat to buckle up. She watches Chloe talk to the truck driver, pointing down the street and then gesturing to her phone, and Beca laughs to herself.

“You know, they have our address. They can probably use that new-fangled GPS technology to find it if they lose us on the freeway.”

“I’m just trying to be helpful,” Chloe chirps as she eases onto the road to lead them off the Barden University campus.

“Hey, so, the cable guy is supposed to come tomorrow at 9 am, which means it’ll probably be like 2 pm. Can you be home for that?”

Chloe looks up from where she’s parked in front of her laptop at the kitchen counter going through photos. “Sure, no prob.”

They’re mostly unpacked, though Beca’s finding that they were so ingrained in their ways at the Bellas’ house that they’re both struggling to find and establish new habits. So far, Chloe’s “office” has been in the kitchen and Beca’s been walking around from room to room with her laptop trying to figure out where she feels most comfortable.

Her bedroom is okay, she finally decides. Chloe seems to whine a lot about hers, saying it’s too bright in the morning and too cold in the evening when the air conditioning is blasting to keep the rest of the house cool in the oppressive southern summer heat.

It's not really all that surprising when Beca wakes up a week later to see Chloe asleep next to her in her bed. Which is a habit that establishes itself immediately.

Somehow in their four years of friendship, Chloe convinced her that cuddling was not only okay for platonic friends but could actually be comforting. Apparently she’d been wrong all those years shunning human contact.

Or at least, it was comforting when it was Chloe.

So she curls into Chloe's side, slipping her arm through the triangle of space made by Chloe's hand resting on her own stomach as she sleeps to rest her fingertips against the side of her neck. And Beca doesn't really think about it; it just is. She stopped thinking about it two years ago.

“Hey, did you buy new K-cups on your way home?” Beca asks as she slides the drawer closed under the coffee maker that usually houses their collection.

“Shoot, no, I forgot. I'm sorry.” Chloe's still using the kitchen as an office area despite the house actually having an office, and the counter space is almost completely taken up by her textbooks and notes.

“I don't ask for much, you know,” Beca teases as she settles for a soda from the fridge instead.

Chloe raps her knuckles against her skull a few times, obviously frustrated with herself. “I know, I know.”

And Beca can't help but smile at her, because she is so frazzled and distracted and buried in her homework that it’s actually kind of adorable, so she finds it in her heart to forgive her. “It’s okay. I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Sorry. Thanks, babe.”

“Hey, did you know I work for a total jackass?” Beca says, pissed off as she slams the door behind her.

Chloe’s sitting at the kitchen counter and looks up from her computer screen where Beca knows she’s cramming for finals, pushing her glasses off her face to sit atop her head. She started wearing glasses for reading earlier in the year, the hours spent studying and reading all semester taking their toll on her vision. Beca kind of wishes she would put them back into their proper place; Chloe looks nice in them.

“What happened?”

“He just doesn’t get it.” She flops onto the couch, letting her head fall back to stare at the ceiling. “I’m working my fucking ass off and he’s acting like I’m not trying.” She feels a kink in her neck and rubs at it, rolling her head from side to side.

“Scootch.” Chloe’s suddenly climbing onto the couch, standing on it and nudging her foot under Beca’s backside to push her off the cushions and onto the floor so she can slide into place behind Beca.

Beca settles on the floor and feels Chloe sit down in her just-vacated spot, and a moment later Chloe’s legs frame her upper arms and feet take up residence in her lap as her warm hands make contact with her neck. How Chloe’s hands are always so warm Beca’s never been able to figure out, because Chloe’s spent the entirety of their friendship complaining of being cold and using Beca as her personal space heater. But she doesn’t mind and stops thinking about the ‘why’ because Chloe’s warm hands are prodding and massaging her neck and squeezing the tension out of her shoulders in the way that always makes Beca’s eyes slip closed.

“He’s a butthead,” Chloe says, making Beca smile, and then whimper as she works her thumb into the knot in Beca’s neck.

“Yeah,” Beca agrees weakly. She knows Chloe will keep up the massage for as long as Beca engages just enough to keep the conversation flowing.

“You have the best ear in that place. He’ll come around; you’ll see.”

Beca hums and moves her hands off her knees to rest them over Chloe’s ankles. Her fingers itch to move and she finally gives in, trailing them along the bottom of one of Chloe’s feet. She feels her foot twitch and tense up and the quiet huff of laughter behind her and she does it again but less tickly and she feels Chloe relax and resume her work along Beca’s shoulders. And she figures it’s really the least she can do, since Chloe already has her on Cloud 9, so she presses her thumbs into the arch of Chloe’s foot.

“Hey, Chloe, my meeting got canceled. Wanna go check out the new Star Wars finally?”

She smiles as Chloe bounces across the room to her, nearly jumping into her arms as she tackles Beca in a hug. “Can we?!”

Beca holds up her phone which is still displaying the movie times for the cinema in the nearby shopping complex. “I already bought the tickets, so, yes. Starts in 45. Let’s get going so we can stop at the store and get snacks to smuggle in.”

Chloe squeals again and presses a kiss to Beca’s cheek and then she’s scampering up the stairs to her bedroom where Beca can hear doors slamming and water running and then she’s floating back down the stairs having added an oversized cardigan to her person - since she was always cold at the movies, of course - and she’s in the car before Beca even has the door locked.

At the movie, they get situated. Chloe always sits to Beca’s right so Beca’s left hand is free for her snacks or drink or what have you, because her right inevitably, without fail, always ends up trapped in Chloe’s. “Trapped” is perhaps not the best word as it implies a desire to be set free, which is really quite the opposite. “Cradled” is perhaps a better descriptor. Halfway through the previews, Chloe drops her hand to flip the armrest between them up and out of the way so she can lean on Beca as she tugs her closer by the resumed grip on her hand.

“Chilly in here,” Chloe says when Beca nudges her with her elbow teasingly.

“Hey, Beca, you’re going to be late!”

“No, I’m not!” Beca yells from her room where she’s scrambling to change clothes one more time. Her boss set up an interview with a major artist’s representation, and despite having decided on her outfit days ago, she’s second-guessing everything from her shirt to her shoes.

She finally gives up and goes with what she’d originally put on and flies down the stairs, heart skipping a beat when she almost misses a step. 

“Tick tock!” Chloe says from her post at the front door that she’s holding open, Beca knows, to save a precious few extra seconds.

“I know, I know!” she says, grabbing her bag off the couch and her keys out of Chloe’s hand.

“Knock ‘em dead,” Chloe says.

“Thanks, babe,” Beca says, pressing a quick kiss to Chloe’s lips and flying out the door and into her car.

A squeaky “Love you!” follows her out the door.

Her mind is racing and her palms are sweating and she’s freaking out a tad about this interview and of course, she hits the first red light on their street after almost squealing the tires in the driveway.

She feels her stomach drop a moment later and her fingertips fly to her lips, eyes going wide. She looks at herself in her rearview mirror as though her reflection holds the answer to what the fuck did I just do?!

Her phone rings as the light turns green and she sees Chloe’s name pop up on the dashboard display, and her stomach jumps from her feet to her throat and then settles in its proper place, only to do a backflip. She presses the TALK button on her steering wheel and takes a breath.

“Chlo, I’m so sor—”

“It’s okay!” Chloe’s voice fills the entire space in the car. “We’ll talk about it when you get home. Just wanted to wish you luck. Not that you need it.”

“Thanks,” Beca says with a weak laugh, still a little in shock over realizing she literally just kissed her best friend. On the mouth. As she was running off to work.

“Oh, hey, Beca?”

“Yeah?”

“I hope that wasn’t an accident. Okay, bye!”

The line goes dead, leaving Beca in silence. She merges onto the freeway, thinking the whole drive to the studio until she’s finally pulling into the parking garage.

She looks at herself in the mirror again, smiling. “It wasn’t.”

To be continued...

Chapter Text

Beca desperately wishes she hadn’t just kissed her best friend.

Not because she regrets it; not at all.

But rather, because it’s literally ALL she can think about in this interview which could literally make or break her future career, and she keeps saying things like, “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” and “Yes, that sounds wonderful,” without having any idea to what she’s agreeing. Instead, she wants to rush home and talk to Chloe.

She also wants to rush home and kiss Chloe, which is definitely not an emotion she’s ever felt before today. It’s not unwelcome, but it’s different.

It’s also why she gets pulled over for speeding on her way home. She’d never gotten a speeding ticket in her life, but of course, today’s the day. She keeps to the speed limit the rest of the drive after that, but actually runs, she runs from her car to the house, but her hand freezes on the doorknob.

Because she realizes that everything in her life is about to change. For better or worse, she has no way of knowing. She also realizes that she doesn’t actually know what it is she’s going to say. She hopes Chloe will do most of the talking like she always does, but something tells her this is not a conversation she can, or should, stay silent for.

She fully expects Chloe to be waiting for her, sitting in the armchair in the living room like a therapist and invite her in to take a seat on the couch to have a serious discussion.

Instead, when she opens the door, Chloe’s in her usual spot in the kitchen, hunched over a textbook with her computer next to her. Her glasses are on, which Beca always likes, and she’s wiggling a pink highlighter between her fingers as she reads. The motion stops when Beca closes the door behind her, and Beca thinks maybe her heart stops a little, too.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Chloe asks, smiling as she looks up from her book.

“I got a speeding ticket.” She knows that’s not what Chloe’s really referring to, but it’s a good way to delay the inevitable.

“What! Beca.” Chloe pauses, and Beca can see the mischief sweep through her face clear as day, but instead of a teasing comment, she clarifies. “I meant the interview.”

“Uh, fine, I think?” is her proffered answer.

“That well, huh?” Chloe says with a little smirk, and Beca has a sudden, blinding visualization of kissing the smirk right off her face. She watches Chloe take her glasses off and set them on her textbook and has to physically bite her tongue to ask her to leave them on. “Are you going to come in, or are you just going to stand in the entryway all night?”

Beca shakes her head, trying to snap out of it. “Oh, right.” She takes a few quick steps through the living room to the kitchen and yanks the refrigerator open, taking a second to appreciate the blast of cool air as she pulls a bottle of water off the pyramid of them on the bottom shelf. She lets the fridge close and leans back against it, having to work to hold Chloe’s gaze, which feels particularly more intense this afternoon than usual, as she cracks open the bottle. “Studying?” she asks, gesturing at Chloe with her bottle.

“How’d ya know?”

“Wild guess.”

“Smart cookie.”

Just as Beca thinks she’s getting her druthers back in line, Chloe decides to stretch her arms over her head and then behind her back, and it’s not that Beca was looking - she wasn’t - but she suddenly has to fight to tear her eyes away from the vee of bare skin that shows up when the stretch pulls Chloe’s shirt open further where it’s unbuttoned.

And Beca thinks it’s all so weird. She’s seen Chloe stretch a thousand times. She’s seen her in far more revealing clothing. She’s seen her in no clothing - a memory that suddenly makes her throat dry up. She takes another swig of water, using the action to pull her eyes off Chloe as nonchalantly as possible. And yeah, it’s all so weird because literally nothing about Chloe has changed in the last four hours, but Beca feels like she’s the one wearing glasses. Like someone strolled by and shoved a pair of novelty X-ray vision glasses onto her face and Chloe went from Chloe to Chloe: In Technicolor.

“Hungry?”

Beca notices Chloe’s directing the question at her, and tries to blink away the X-Ray vision. “Kind of.”

“Good. I ordered pizza.”

Beca forces a tight-lipped smile across the table. She knows she’s being weird, but she doesn’t know what else to do.

“Beca,” Chloe starts, and then she’s standing, and oh, God she’s walking toward her. Right at her. Into her personal space. And pauses right in front of her, and she’s close enough that Beca can smell her moisturizer. But all she does is pat Beca’s cheek and smile. “Relax.” She keeps walking until she spins and falls backward onto the couch, taking up the entire thing. “Are you a magnet?”

The question catches her off guard, sure she misheard. “What?”

“I said, are you a magnet?”

Beca knows it as a terrible pick-up line, the obvious follow-up being, ‘Because I’m attracted to you.’ But she can’t imagine Chloe being so unsophisticated, at least not at this particular time. “I don’t get it.”

“You’ve been stuck to that fridge for like five minutes.”

“Oh,” she says, and begrudgingly parts ways with the cool stainless steel that was doing wonders to keep her body temperature down.

“Come out here.”

Beca’s heart feels like it might pop right out of her chest any moment, but she forces herself into motion anyway, shuffling to the other room. She blinks hard, trying and failing to get rid of her new, weird non-beer beer goggles, especially with the way Chloe’s sprawling on the couch in a way that is completely casual and yet somehow extremely attractive. Beca’s unsure where to go, hesitating at the arm of the couch by Chloe’s feet, and she finally decides to make for the chair in the corner when Chloe’s leg swings out and a foot catches her at the knee.

“Sit.” Chloe points at the floor in front of the couch.

Her first instinct is to protest a command to sit on the floor, but suddenly she’s sitting cross-legged on the carpet, facing Chloe, with her bottle of water in her lap, which kind of feels like her lifeline at the moment - something to hold on to.

Chloe wiggles until she’s on her side and they’re face to face, and Beca has to lean back a little, feeling like the air between them is too thick to breathe.

“Well?” Chloe asks, and Beca can see the excitement and interest in her crystal blue eyes, and she wonders how exactly it’s even humanly possible for someone to have eyes that beautiful.

“Well what?” she asks dumbly.

“We said we’d talk about it when you got home.” Chloe waves her hand at her. “You’re home.”

“Oh, right,” she says like she totally forgot about it. She didn’t. Obviously. She scratches the back of her neck and leaves her hand there for a few seconds, gripping it. Her palms are sweating. “So, um…”

“Bec, relax,” Chloe repeats and adds a warm smile.

She nods and takes a deep breath, returning a tight smile as she exhales. “Okay. So...that happened.” All Chloe does is raise her eyebrows at her, and Beca realizes her earlier prediction was coming true: she was actually going to have to speak. She takes another breath and drops her hand from her neck back to her lap, where she has to consciously stop herself from wringing her hands together. “I didn’t mean to.” She sees Chloe’s excitement fade a little, and the thought that Chloe could maybe be disappointed was...interesting. But she doesn’t want Chloe to be disappointed. “No, no I don’t mean it that way.” She starts to reach out to touch Chloe’s arm out of habit but she stops herself, and Chloe seems to notice but doesn’t say anything.

“What I mean is...I didn’t do it on purpose. I...I wasn’t thinking.” It’s hard to tell, but it seems like maybe a bit of mirth is returning to Chloe’s eyes, which she finds encouraging. “It just...happened. I guess it...felt...normal? To do?” Chloe’s smiling at her now, and Beca’s seriously considering figuring out a way to crawl out of her own skin. “Okaaaaay, you go.”

“Well,” Chloe starts, and she’s positively grinning now. “It certainly surprised me.”

“Sorry,” Beca says while scratching the side of her nose.

Chloe dismisses the apology with a quick shake of her head and continues. “But...okay, I’m going to be honest with you. Okay?”

Something (everything) about that makes Beca’s stomach drop, and suddenly she doesn’t feel so encouraged or positive. She nods sharply.

“Bec…” Her face has softened, her brilliant grin settling into a small, quiet smile. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time.”

Beca chokes on her own breath, sending herself into a spectacularly well-timed and mood-disrupting coughing fit that has Chloe half-sitting up, asking if she can breathe and has Beca’s eyes watering. “Sorry,” she finally gasps.

Chloe starts to lie down again, face still a little wary. “You’re okay now?”

She nods, feeling like an idiot for ruining what felt like was going to be a really nice moment. Damn her awkwardness; damn it all to hell. “Sorry,” she repeats. “You were saying?”

Chloe’s jaw slides to the side, pulling a face that Beca knows is one of Chloe’s few I-feel-awkward faces.

“I’m sorry, please. Just start over.”

It’s Chloe’s turn to nod, and she tries it again. “Okay. I’ve...wanted to kiss you for a really long time.”

Beca manages to not choke this time. “You have?”

“Yes. Is that weird? Are you weirded out?”

“Well, if you’d told me that yesterday, out of the blue….maybe. Now? No.” She sees Chloe relaxing again, and it’s a welcome sight.

“Why not now?”

“Because…” Beca stops herself to take a breath as she uncrosses her legs stretch out her right and fold the other so her left foot presses into her right thigh to create enough room to push herself forward, until her shin presses against the bottom of the couch. It’s only a few inches, but she’s close enough to smell Chloe’s moisturizer again, and she struggles to keep her voice steady. “Because...I’ve wanted to, too.” She sees Chloe’s eyes light up. “I just didn’t realize it. I guess. Or...I was willfully ignoring it. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“It’s okay if you don’t know,” Chloe offers, and Beca smiles, because of course, Chloe’s comforting her along every step down this new road. “So, it wasn’t an accident,” Chloe adds, the corner of her mouth threatening another smirk.

Beca grimaces playfully, feeling her anxiety start peeling away to be replaced with bubbly nerves. “Nooooo, not really.”

“Do you still want to?”

“Want to what?”

“You said you’ve wanted to kiss me. And now you have. Do you still want to?”

Beca’s gaze slips to Chloe’s lips and when she pulls it back up to Chloe’s eyes, she knows she’s busted because Chloe winks at her—the audacity! —and she feels her heart race because she’s pretty sure if she says ‘yes,’ she’ll get exactly what she wants. And she’s still scared of what this means for them, that everything is about to change. They’re at a fork in the road, about to take the one less traveled by, and it will make all the difference. She licks her lips nervously and Chloe seems to shift a little forward at the action, making her heart pound that much harder.

“What does it mean if I say yes?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

“Well…” Chloe starts, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair away from Beca’s eyes to tuck it behind her ear. “It means that you want to kiss me. And I want to kiss you. So, we’ll probably kiss.”

Somehow, Beca manages to roll her eyes at the super obvious answer. Despite her internal snark, her body reacts to the looming probability, and she suddenly feels tingly all over. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Chloe’s shifted further forward, she notices, and she’s slowly propping herself up on her elbow so she’s not looking at Beca sideways anymore. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

She’s suddenly offended. “It doesn’t mean anything?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Chloe says, parroting Beca’s recent tone quite accurately. It makes Beca relax. “It means that we can wait and see what happens. We don’t have to have everything figured out this very second.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I have twice as much college education as you.”

Beca laughs and is surprised to notice that her nerves have joined her anxiety somewhere behind her, and she’s been left with a warm glowy feeling everywhere. She’s suddenly struck with the thought that there’s literally no reason to not be kissing Chloe right now. She wants to kiss Beca. Beca wants to kiss her. And yet, they’re just staring at each other, cracking wise.

“I’m going to kiss you,” she says, feeling a little weird about announcing it, but it was out before she had a chance to stop it. But Chloe seems to like it, eyes getting somehow even brighter, and Beca can see a touch of pink start to invade her cheeks.

Chloe doesn’t move; she just waits, looking at Beca as she starts to lean forward. Her eyes flicker to Beca’s lips, and it stirs up the butterflies that live within the warm glowy feeling which use their wings to lift Beca’s hand out of her lap and reach out until her fingers skate over Chloe’s cheek and past her ear and into her hair.

She hears Chloe’s breath catch the moment before their lips touch, and then she can’t hear anything over the roar of her pulse.

When she had quite literally stolen a kiss earlier that day, it had been quick, and chaste, and a little off-target. A kiss, but not really.

This was a kiss. She feels Chloe start to lean into it, pressing a little more firmly, and Beca has the distinct impression that no other set of lips she’s kissed are as soft or as perfect as Chloe’s. The roar finally starts to die down and she can hear Chloe now, and the shaky breaths she’s taking, and Beca pulls back for the briefest of moments so they can each take a proper breath before she moves in again, this time with more purpose. More ardor. She feels Chloe’s hand on her shoulder, and then it’s sliding up until fingertips skitter along her neck where they’re taking hold at the nape and she can’t stop the breathy sigh that forces her lips apart.

The action isn’t lost on Chloe, and Beca feels the warm, wet softness of a tongue graze the edge of her upper lip. It makes her whimper, which Chloe thankfully interprets as permission because Beca isn’t sure she could speak if posed with an actual, verbal question.

She feels the softness seek out her own, and she lifts her tongue to meet it. She’s also not sure if she’s ever felt heat shoot through her quite as quickly as it is now. But the way Chloe’s tongue is dancing with hers is not something she’s ever experienced. When it reaches particularly deeply, a moan escapes her and she hears Chloe respond a second later and feels the hand tighten on the back of her neck.

She’s moving before she even comprehends she was being pulled, and suddenly she’s climbing onto the couch, one knee wedged along Chloe’s hip, the other dangerously close to the edge to be completely trustworthy in its stability. Her left hand is still tangled in Chloe’s hair, but her right is pressing against the arm of the couch to support herself.

And it’s the moment she feels Chloe’s hands run down her back and around her waist until she gets tugged by her belt loops to stop supporting herself and lie against the redhead completely that Beca registers they’re absolutely devouring each other’s kiss.

Sounds are escaping Chloe between and through their kisses, and they tell her that Chloe is quite fine with it.

A hand finds her backside and pulls, making her hips roll against Chloe’s, and Beca finally pulls away from Chloe’s mouth long enough to make Chloe’s eyes flutter open in confusion.

Beca has enough time to take in her features—the flush in her cheeks that spreads all the way to the tips of her ears, the way her ever-bright eyes are almost black, the way her pink lips are red and well-used, the way her hair is messy.

“What?” Chloe finally asks, and her voice is so husky and low that it almost makes Beca moan.

“I…” she starts, but she’s interrupted by the doorbell. They both jump at the sudden intrusion that, to Beca, is as loud as a gunshot. “I...am going to answer the door.” She steals another quick kiss, taking a great deal of pleasure not only in the kiss itself, but that she has the freedom to do so, and carefully crawls off Chloe to accept the pizza delivery. She takes it to the kitchen, and sees Chloe still on the couch, still looking every bit like she’s been properly kissed.

“You what?” Chloe finally asks, starting to push herself to her feet.

Beca shakes her head. She knows what she was going to say, but the moment is gone, and saying it over a ham and pineapple pizza is not the place she wants to revisit it.

“I’ll tell you tonight. It got warm in here; will you turn up the A/C?”

Chloe frowns a little but crosses the room to the thermostat to punch a few buttons. “My room is going to be an icebox.”

“I know. But mine won’t be.”

To be continued...

Chapter Text

“Whaddya say, Goldilocks?”

“Goldilocks?” Chloe says around the electric toothbrush presently shoved in her mouth.

Beca’s in the doorway behind her, and they look at each other via the mirror. “Your room’s too cold. The rest of the house is too hot. Mine should be just right.”

Chloe smiles and they both laugh at the toothpaste froth that drips from her lip as a result, and the laughing only makes it worse until she has to stop brushing and wipe off her face and start over.

“Tone down the sex appeal, Chlo. We’ll never make it out of the bathroom.”

Chloe shoos her away with her hand. “Get out!”

The door closes in Beca’s face, and she can still hear laughter on the other side, accompanied by the buzz of Chloe’s toothbrush. She returns to her bedroom where she’d just changed into shorts and a tank top.

And maybe her cutest pair of underwear.

She’s not trying to be presumptuous - she’s not - but at the very least, she’s sure Chloe will be in her bed tonight as she is most nights, and she’d most certainly like to visit second base. Maybe third.

She’s not opposed to a home run.

Not that she's being presumptuous.

She spares a thought toward wishing she had decided to shave her legs that morning. But it's too late for that now. And it's not like Chloe's never witnessed her in worse states of care.

She’s filled with the urge to clean her room, but there’s no time for that because she hears the toilet flushing, so she settles for scooping up the three days’ worth of clothes from the floor and tossing them toward her closet. So they’re in a different place on the floor. Consolidated.

“Be there in a sec!” drifts in from the hallway and she sees the light in Chloe’s room turn on, followed by a comment about how chilly it is. Drawers open and close and Chloe’s closet door screeches, and Beca realizes she’s just standing in the middle of her room staring at the doorway.

Which is not at all awkward.

So she turns on her reading lamp and turns off the overhead light and crawls into bed, telling the part of her brain responsible for anxiety, whatever it’s called, to calm the fuck down and that this is a night like any other night.

Right.

“Hey, sorry.” Chloe shows up in a teal camisole and teal and gray plaid shorts that may or may not have been matched intentionally (Beca thinks they probably were). She wonders how many different pieces of clothing Chloe owns that are a shade of blue because her supply seems endless. Every single one brings out her already stunning eyes in a way Beca is sure must be illegal in at least fourteen states. “Ooh, yeah, your room is way better,” Chloe says with a shimmy of her shoulders.

And just like that, the anxiety shuts up and the warm glowy returns, and Beca scoots over in an invitation that Chloe accepts. She slides under Beca’s sheet and settles on her side to face Beca, like she does every night, for their pre-sleep chat.

“Did you really get a speeding ticket today?” Chloe asks.

Beca groans. “I did. I can’t believe it.”

“On the way there or back?”

“On my way home.”

“Why were you speeding?” She sees Chloe start to smile.

Beca gives a nonchalant shake of her head. “No reason.” She can see Chloe's hand moving in her periphery until it disappears into the sheets, but Beca keeps her eyes trained on Chloe's face.

The hand shows up a few seconds later resting on the bare skin of her thigh, just below the hem of her shorts, and she swallows thickly.

“No reason?” Chloe repeats, clearly not fooled.

“Nope.”

The resting hand starts to move, just slightly, not much more than shifting from a palm flat against her to individual fingers drawing small circles.

“Maybe you were excited to get home?”

Beca scrunches her nose, making a face. “Why would I be excited to get home?”

Chloe hums thoughtfully and swirling fingertips drift lower, to the back of Beca's knee, and she has to fight to not jerk herself away from the tickling sensation. Thankfully it passes quickly and instead, it feels nice. Really nice.

“Maybe because,” Chloe pauses to wet her lips, and Beca can't tear her eyes away from them after that. “You couldn't wait to kiss me again.”

She tries and fails pretty spectacularly to meet Chloe's eyes. “Conspiracy theorist.” She also fails to stop her hips from pulling her closer to Chloe when the swirling fingers work their way higher until they're dancing along the waistband of her shorts and slipping under the edge of her tank.

“Maybe,” Chloe says thoughtfully, and Beca still can't get her eyes off her mouth. “But it's so...satisfying when I'm right.”

Beca is starting to lose the will to keep up the banter. She needs those lips on hers again. Pronto. “Hit the light?” she manages to ask. It’s always Chloe’s job to turn off the lamp.

“Room still just right, Goldilocks?”

Beca runs her fingers through distinctly non-golden locks and feels the tickling patterns against her stomach pause. She can’t see Chloe, not her face, anyway, because she's using Beca's chest as a pillow. What she can see are the messy but somehow still perfect waves of red that create a striking contrast where it rests against both their bodies. She can see Chloe’s perfectly smooth back and the way the muscles rest and move with her quiet breaths, and her eyes follow the line of her spine down until it starts to curve, where it disappears under the sheet they’re sharing. If she lifts her head a little, she can see the hand that’s idly caressing her. But it’s more fun to not know where its journey will lead next. It’s taken her to some pretty spectacular places recently.

She can feel the side of Chloe’s face that’s pressed against her ribs move, and she knows she’s smiling.

“Oh. Yes. It’s perfect. Thanks for having me.”

Beca smiles at the formality of the statement. It's not untrue, however; Beca had very much had Chloe tonight. More than once, in fact. “My pleasure.”

Chloe lifts her head at that and scoots back enough to be able to look at Beca. “Oh, the pleasure was all mine,” she says with a waggle of eyebrows.

“I beg to differ.” Beca bites her lip as soon as the words are out because she knows she lobbed that to Chloe. Slowpitch. Underhand.

“Well, you certainly know how to beg.” And she knocks it out of the park. Home run.

Beca jostles her with the arm that's still around her shoulders. “You. Shut up.”

“Shutting up? Now that's something you’re no good at. In certain situations.”

“Oh my God,” Beca says, laughing and feeling her face warm a bit. “As if you were so quiet.”

Chloe grins down at her, and Beca's confident she never wants to take off her X-Ray/Technicolor vision glasses. “It wasn't a criticism. I'm taking a great deal of pride in it.”

Beca feels herself blush harder and she rolls to her right, into Chloe, until her face is hiding in her shoulder and their legs are tangled (again). “Shh.”

Chloe laughs and reels her in closer, rocking back and forth playfully.

And Beca wonders how it's possible for something like this to feel so natural, so right. It was unlike everything she knew about herself to be able to strip off her barriers, figurative and otherwise, without any hesitation. She hadn't even thought about it. They ate their pizza. They washed up for bed. They changed into pajamas. Chloe came to Beca's room like basically every night prior. They talked and Chloe turned off the lamp and they said, ‘goodnight.’

But instead of turning to face the wall to sleep like usual, Beca moved to settle over Chloe and bring their lips back together, picking up exactly where they had left off on the couch.

It was like any other step of their routine. Not that there was anything routine about it. But that's how natural and easy it felt.

It just was.

In a perfect metaphor for this recap of events, one second Chloe is snuggling Beca and rocking her, and the next Beca finds herself pinned on her back, staring up at brilliant blue eyes that seem to be hinting that it's still not quite bedtime, even though her last glance at the clock told her it was well past two o’clock in the morning and Chloe has class at nine o’clock.

“Insatiable,” Beca teases. She'd have liked to accompany the comment with a tickle to Chloe's stomach or something akin, but her arms are very much incapacitated, pressed into the bed on either side of her head, and held down with a fair amount of pressure. She hears herself squeak when lips connect with her neck, and she feels like maybe she should be embarrassed about it, but she can't redirect the necessary energy to do it. And she has no desire to try.

“You do realize,” rumbles against her neck, “I’ve been waiting for this for years.”

Beca pushes her shoulders back and gives a jerk of her chin, preening best she can in her current position. “Oh really? Years?”

She feels her wrists set free and warm hands drag down her arms as Chloe slips lower. “One or two,” Chloe says between the wet kisses she’s pressing down Beca’s chest. “Or four.”

“You flatter me.” She drops her freed hands to Chloe’s back, arching her fingers so her nails drag up her back as she moves backward.

“Don’t act like you haven’t felt the same way,” tickles her stomach.

Beca sucks in her tummy, away from the tickles that keep coming from breath and lips and that gorgeous red hair, and she has a flash of a memory of their interruption earlier in the night. That she was very much intending to tell Chloe something before the doorbell rang. She catches Chloe under her arms before she’s out of reach and gives a tug to get her to return.

“But…” Chloe says as she crawls up, pouting a little.

“I wanna tell you something.”

“Oh!” Chloe smiles brilliantly at first, but it quickly fades to a soft, gentle smile. “Okay.”

Beca looks up at her, words on the tip of her tongue. She thinks back to the previous times she’s said it. It was always a grand to-do, with worry about whether or not they’ll say it back, or she’s been the one trying to decide if she can say it back. It’s always been nervous and shaky and worrisome. But it’s not now.

Something about this time is special. She knows it. Feels it. She reaches up and brushes the curtain of hair away from the right side of Chloe’s face so she can see her better, hovering above. She holds it there, fingers combed in, thumb brushing back and forth against Chloe’s cheek.

“I love you.”

What’s interesting about this particular instance, she notes, is that she’s told Chloe she loves her innumerable times. Over text message. In passing as they come and go from the house. Before leaving for winter or summer breaks. After winning competitions.

It’s different now. It’s the same, but different. They’re different. They’re on their new path, the one they’ve never taken. The language is different along this one.

Chloe’s eyes slip closed and she turns her head to press her lips to the soft skin of Beca’s forearm. She holds her lips there, and Beca can see the fluttering of her eyelashes and the way the corner of her eye crinkles a little. When she turns back and opens her eyes, Beca can see that they’re wet, shining with unshed tears.

“I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say that,” she says, and Beca can hear a tremble in Chloe’s voice. A teardrop finally makes its way past her long eyelashes and Beca catches it with her thumb to brush it away from her face. She knows Chloe knows it’s different now, too. She’s heard Beca say it a thousand times. But never like this.

Beca trails her free hand down Chloe’s arm. “Sorry it took me a while. Better late than never, right?”

Chloe sniffles and laughs, and nods furiously as she drops down to kiss Beca. They simply kiss, nothing more. The image of an envelope with a lipstick imprint zips through Beca’s mind, and she smiles internally. Chloe pulls back but stays close. She nudges Beca’s nose with her own to get Beca to open her eyes, and when she does, Beca sees that the tears are gone.

“I love you, too.”

Sealed with a kiss indeed.

The End

Chapter Text

Aubrey Posen is out of her element.

She’d spent four years as the Queen Bee of the Andrean High School in Gary, Indiana’s Class of 2010. And three years as Lake Ridge Middle School’s. And most of her five years at Daniel Hale Williams Elementary School.

But at Barden University, she is a big fish in an even bigger pond. Here, she is surrounded by sharks. Tigers. Bulls. Great Whites.

She clings to the one thing she loves more than anything - singing. And despite the mega attitude the brunette known as Alice gave her at a booth at the activities fair, she took a flyer containing audition information for the Barden Bellas to add to the other two she’d picked up from other groups.

Which is how she finds herself standing on a stage in a tiny auditorium with a group of eerily similar girls glowering up at her from their seats as she sings sixteen bars from her favorite song, Alicia Keys’ solo version of “Empire State of Mind.” They scowl at her the entire time, whispering harshly when she finishes, but not quite loud enough for her to hear. She’s dismissed with a wave of a hand and returns to Baker Hall to give herself time to sulk before settling in to come up with a plan to establish her dominance within this new society.

It’s after her Composition 101 class that she’s accosted in the hallway, a bag thrown over her head and arms held behind her back as she’s forced to walk. She screams, knowing there were hundreds of people around, but no one helps her.

It is, without a doubt, the most terrifying moment of her life.

She eventually gives up trying to get anyone’s attention, resigned to her kidnapping fate, and after walking what feels like miles she is finally released and made to stand in place, and her shoulder bumps something next to her. It bumps her back a second later, and she realizes it’s a person. Just standing next to her. And she finds solace in that, that in that terrifying moment, she isn’t alone. Even if that person is her captor.

Without warning, the bag is whipped off her head, and it takes a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, confused by the dark room filled with...candles?

“Aubrey. Soprano.”

Her vision clears and she sees the army of clones from the audition standing in a line in front of her, every one of them appraising her.

“Chloe. Soprano.”

She sees a quick movement to her left and she turns to see a redhead looking as startled and scared as she feels.

It’s only then that she realizes what is actually happening.

She hasn’t been kidnapped. She isn’t about to be tortured and murdered.

She’s being initiated into the Barden Bellas.

“Hi, I’m Chloe,” the redhead says with a brilliant smile on the walk to the outdoor amphitheater for a party, after they’ve sworn their loyalty and drunk ‘the blood of the sisters.’

“Aubrey.”

“Are you a Freshman?”

“I am.”

“Awes. Me, too! Looks like we’re the new kids. Come on, let’s go get a beer.”

For some reason, she lets this Chloe take her hand and run her down the stone steps toward a keg and spends most of the night talking to her and avoiding the looks that Alice continues to throw her way.

Her second year at Barden is better.

She has friends. Friends that, for the most part, let her assume her natural position as the dominant leader.

One of those friends is Chloe.

As the only two initiates their Freshman year, they’ve grown close, suffering through the insanity of Alice’s cardio which was more like Army boot camp. Chloe’s there for her when she loses her voice in the middle of the year, the result of the three straight hours of scales Alice demanded she sing after she missed a note at regionals. She speaks for Aubrey, able to easily translate her gestures, looks, and mood.

“You don’t have to yell,” Chloe says to the waitress at the diner they’re at after practice, after explaining that Aubrey can’t speak. “She’s not deaf. She lost her voice.”

Aubrey laughs, best she can. She points at the menu and Chloe orders the Caesar salad for her. She’d really rather have a bacon cheeseburger, but Alice would have her throat for it. More so than she already does, anyway.

Dinner turns into a movie night in Chloe’s dorm room, because her roommate is crashing at her boyfriend’s and Aubrey’s roommate is a homebody. Chloe lets her pick the movie, citing her temporary disability as being worthy of having the choice, and despite the frustratingly overwhelming lack of desirable options on Netflix, she decides to go with Bridesmaids, because there’s really no way you can see that movie too many times.

It’s during the uproarious food poisoning scene that she and Chloe are laughing so hysterically - she’s actually wheezing more than laughing - that Chloe’s tipped sideways, across Aubrey’s lap as she laughs hard enough to cry. When the scene finally passes, Chloe rights herself, her hand on Aubrey’s thigh for leverage, and they end up face to face, frozen for a moment. Aubrey can feel it, a weird shift in the mood of the room and in her stomach when Chloe’s eyes drop to her lips for a fraction of a second.

And then Chloe’s laughing again and settling back into her spot next to Aubrey, leaving Aubrey’s heart pounding and mind spinning, trying to make heads or tails out of what that was.

It happens again a week later when Chloe’s just being Chloe and ends up sitting in Aubrey’s lap during a Bellas meeting. She feels Alice’s eyes on them like daggers, and it seems kind of awkward to have her friend in her lap, but it’s also kind of nice. Comforting. She keeps her arm around Chloe’s waist and decides she kind of likes it.

Chloe looks flushed when she hops off her lap at the end of the meeting, and Aubrey feels like she might look the same way, and wonders what it means. But then Chloe’s grabbing her hands and dragging her out of the meeting and through the quad for ice cream.

Their third year at Barden is pretty decent.

Aubrey has the respect of the younger Bellas, and a few of the Seniors, but Alice continues to despise her for reasons she cannot for the life of her figure out. Chloe always has her back though, almost literally, showing up behind her every time Alice lays into her about something. And Chloe defends her on her tiptoes over Aubrey’s shoulder, brave but not quite brave enough to not use Aubrey as a human shield.

“You really don’t have to do that,” Aubrey says to her after a particularly brutal day that earned Chloe an earful of her own as well.

“You’re my bestie, of course, I do!” Chloe replies like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I’d do anything for you.”

Aubrey smiles at that. “I’d do anything for you, too.”

That seems to make Chloe happy, because suddenly she’s in Aubrey’s lap again, this time on Chloe’s bed, and something about it makes Aubrey’s heart pound.

“You know,” Chloe starts, draping an arm around Aubrey’s neck to pull herself close enough to whisper in Aubrey’s ear. “I’m really glad we met.”

Aubrey has to clear her throat to reply. “Me, too.”

She feels Chloe kiss her cheek, and her lips seem to linger longer than they really should for a friend.

And then Chloe’s off and flitting around chattering incessantly about something one of her professors said in class that morning, leaving Aubrey to wrestle with the butterflies Chloe seems to have a habit of stirring up in her.

It's at a Bellas slumber party that it happens.

It's less a slumber party and more like Chloe and Aubrey sharing a New York hotel room the night before the ICCAs.

It's your typical college girl sleepover, with whatever movies they can find on the shitty hotel TV and a pizza, the exception being a distinct lack of alcohol to preserve their vocal cords. Chloe's sitting behind her on the bed, practicing the Bellas’ traditional up ‘do mindlessly when Aubrey feels her fingers slow and come to rest along her shoulders, mostly bare under the straps of her camisole.

“Hey, Bree?” she hears Chloe say quietly, and her tone makes her stomach drop.

“Hmm?” she answers, not trusting her voice.

“This is pretty cool, being in New York City. I've never been here before.”

She relaxes a little at the line of conversation. “Me neither.”

“And our first ICCAs.”

“Yeah! I can't believe we made it.”

“I can.” She feels Chloe squeeze her shoulders and then her fingers are moving, almost imperceptibly, drifting along the column of her neck. And it feels good. Really good. She shivers. “Maybe there's another first that we could experience. Here.”

Aubrey can make out their reflection on the TV when it goes black for a commercial, and it makes her stomach flip even more, because Chloe's right behind her, and in the second of blackness she can see Chloe lean and turn to look at her from the side. She can feel it, whatever it is, coming.

“Bree, have you ever kissed another girl?”

Her mind races, because no, she definitely has not kissed a girl. And the way Chloe is asking it, is presenting it as a successor in a trio of firsts, suggests Chloe might want to change that.

She swallows hard, chancing a look to her left to see the edge of Chloe's profile. “Uh, no. Have...have you?”

Chloe's response is a two-tone hum to the negative. She keeps talking. “We’re friends, right?”

“Of course,” she says feeling a little lightheaded.

“Best friends?”

“The best.”

“Can I tell you something?”

Aubrey nods, having a pretty good idea of what it is Chloe wants to share.

“I've always wanted to. Kiss a girl, I mean.”

She tries to keep her voice steady, but it comes out high pitched. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I mean, girls are so pretty. And soft.”

She feels Chloe's hands move again, the slightest bit, like she wants to brush them over Aubrey’s shoulders but stops herself.

“Don't you think?”

“I…” Aubrey doesn't know how to answer. Sure, she's a tiny bit curious if she's honest. Girls are pretty and girls are soft. But Chloe is her best friend.

“Can we maybe…”

Aubrey's stomach drops before Chloe's even finished the sentence, and she doesn't really know how or why she does it, but she turns her head and lifts her hand to guide Chloe toward her until their lips meet. The motion is quick, the kiss brief. And when they part, Chloe's eyes are wide and her cheeks are pink.

“Oh…” Chloe says and doesn't say anything else. Her eyes slip to Aubrey’s lips and it’s like a match to gasoline. Aubrey pulls her in again, and they're moving, an uncoordinated locomotion until Chloe's on her back and Aubrey is above her, on her hands and knees, elbows bent to keep kissing Chloe. The only parts of them that touched. Just their lips. And tongues. And occasionally teeth.

But then something in her brain clicks, waking up after being lulled to sleep by Chloe’s breathy sighs: she’s making out with her best friend. In bed.

She pulls back abruptly, scrambling backward, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth. “I...I’m sorry.” She literally has no idea what just happened.

Chloe reacts on a delay, finally blinking and saying, “It’s okay,” while she stares up at the ceiling. “It’s totally okay,” she says again, slowly sitting up, smoothing her hair that’s gotten tousled in the sudden frenzy. And then she’s smiling. “Come on, let’s go find ice cream.”

Aubrey can’t really put her finger on what it is that’s happening between her and her best friend.

They’re closer than ever, and boundary lines are starting to be smudged. When Chloe’s bored or lonely, she seeks her out and they inevitably end up making out in a corner or in a chair or, most dangerously, in a bed.

It’s the evening that Aubrey’s bored, and lonely, and, admittedly, horny, that she’s the one that goes looking for Chloe. And she finds her in her room like always, and they’ve gotten to a point where they don’t actually talk about it anymore. It’s just a thing they do sometimes.

And it’s that evening that Chloe’s hand drifts lower than it has before to tug on the button of Aubrey’s jeans that the line snaps back into focus and yanks Aubrey onto the original side of it.

“I can’t,” she says as she pulls away from Chloe abruptly to kneel on the opposite side of the bed.

They stare at each other, both still breathing hard, a reminder of what they were just doing - what they were about to do.

“It’s okay,” Chloe says because Chloe always says whatever Aubrey is feeling is okay. Because that’s how Chloe is. The nicest and most understanding person Aubrey has ever met.

Aubrey Posen is in her element.

Three years of suffering in Alice’s clutches paid off; Aubrey is the captain of her Bellas.

There’s one catch - eight of them graduated and the Bellas presently consists of 1) Aubrey Posen and 2) Chloe Beale.

Recruitment sucks, and thanks to her “special moment” at the ICCAs, anyone who would be interested in joining the Bellas now laughs at them.

“This is a travesty!” Chloe sings, and Aubrey feels her frustration, on top of the pile of guilt that comes with it.

Crazily, she considers straying from tradition - out of desperation. At least the girl who self-identifies as Fat Amy can match pitch and has a good personality.

“Oh, what about her?”

Aubrey looks to see who Chloe’s pointing to, to see a petite brunette with entirely too many ear piercings.

“I don’t know, she looks a little too ‘alternative’ for us.”

The thing is...it’s not the ear piercings. Aubrey knows it in her gut. She knows the tone of Chloe’s voice. She knows that sparkle in her eye that is only getting brighter by the second as this little gnome keeps talking smack about a cappella. Chloe likes the girl. It’s not like Aubrey is blind. The girl is pretty, and even if every word out of her mouth is offending every one of Aubrey’s sensibilities, she respects her tenacity. Which only makes the fact that she’s….weirdly jealous that much worse.

Because Chloe carries on about this girl for a week after divulging that she literally showered with her because she overheard her singing and she was definitely Bellas material. But she doesn’t just carry on about her voice - she carries on about her eyes, too, and after auditions and begrudgingly accepting this ‘Beca’ as a Bella because the girl can sing and she does fall on the higher end of the attractiveness scale, Chloe starts carrying on about her personality and her kindness and how no one understands Beca like she does.

It might be why, maybe, Aubrey can’t stand the girl.

She respects her, but she can’t stand her and her antics and her ideas that are really good ideas and no.

“Aubrey, you’re too controlling! It’s going to ruin all of us!”

She doesn’t know how she got to this point. To the point of literally wrestling with her best friend for control that she knows, she knows, she should concede for the greater good. And she hates herself for it, for feeling that repeated sucker punch to the gut every time Chloe has defended Beca to her. Because it was she who put a stop to whatever “it” was that was happening with Chloe last year.

And she can see it happening again. She can recognize the bond that’s growing between Chloe and Beca because it was the same bond she had. Has. But she can see it. This one is different. She can see it in the way Chloe looks at Beca, in a way that suggests Beca’s turned her whole world inside out and upside down.

And maybe, just maybe, she wishes Chloe would look at her that way.

But Chloe is her best friend. And Chloe doesn’t look at her that way. Because she looks at Beca that way now. And Aubrey knows Beca is worthy of it.

“Beca? What do we do?”

The End

Chapter Text

“They can’t be serious. They’re shutting down transit at four o’clock. We’re literally going to be trapped.”

“Chloe, we’re not going to be trapped. We can still go out and walk.”

“To where?” Chloe whines. “Everything’s closed.”

“I’m just pointing out that we aren’t trapped.”

Beca can’t help but smile at Chloe’s sudden and apparent claustrophobic desperation as she dramatically throws herself onto her bed—onto Beca’s bed.

It’s been nice, living in New York with Chloe. It had been random, and literally the opposite direction than she had planned, but Residual Heat had hooked her up with a decent job at a partner studio where she gets to actually do more than get coffee and burritos. Sometimes she even gets to work the board. It might be for shit projects like television commercial jingles and demos for people who want to be singers but should never be singers, but it’s a job, and she knows she has to pay her dues. It would be ridiculous to expect overnight success, a huge paycheck, and an all-star client list. It’s not like it was realistic to expect to be working with Katy Perry right out of the gate.

And she was fine with that.

She had Chloe with her, too, which was really nothing but positive. Chloe was a coin tossed into the air upon graduation, and she decided to land with Beca in New York, because why not? Plus, Beca needed a roommate to afford to live.

Chloe groans and kicks her feet, not unlike a petulant child. “I’m so bored!”

“It’s literally been two minutes and nothing has changed except we can’t go anywhere. And we weren’t going anywhere anyway. That’s why we got groceries yesterday.”

“I know,” Chloe says with a sigh.

“What do you want to do? I’ll let you pick since you’re really working the dramatics.” She watches Chloe’s feet rock back and forth as she thinks, and then she sits up.

“Movie time!”

“I’m so shocked. Truly,” Beca says, voice dripping with sarcasm. It earns her a smiling glare.

Chloe bounces off the bed and swipes Beca’s laptop off her dresser with a snapping and pointing of her fingers. “To the couch!”

Their couch is less a couch and more a miniature futon, and their living room is less a living room and more a living room/kitchen/dining/pantry/closet. But Beca had gotten over Chloe being a personal space invader years prior, and she actually kind of likes having someone around.

Chloe plops on the futon and Beca watches her log into her computer from the area that qualified as a kitchen where she popped a bag of popcorn. Never in a thousand years did she think she’d allow someone else to touch that machine, let alone use it, let alone know the password to it.

But Chloe has become an exception to pretty much every rule in her life.

“Okay nerd, what movie are we watching?” she asks as she shakes the bag of popcorn into a big plastic bowl and joins Chloe on the futon.

“I feel like I’ve seen every single movie on Netflix, I swear,” Chloe says as she scrolls through the New Releases and then navigates to Comedies, Dramas, and Action. “Nothing. Literally nothing.” Chloe shakes her fists at  Beca’s screen and lets her hands plop down onto the keyboard and trackpad, the combination landing just right to highlight the URL in Beca’s browser while hitting the P key.

Beca watches it happen in slow motion, and how the convenience of her browser’s auto-fill feature is suddenly her worst enemy as pornhub.com now glares at her from the address bar. She moves fast, aiming to hit the delete key but Chloe’s quicker and moving on instinct at the hand that’s flying into her space and she blocks it, looking at Beca with confusion. Beca knows she hasn’t seen it yet, and she tries to erase the fear from her face, but it’s too late. She can’t. She’s blushing.

“Beca, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just—”

Chloe’s line of sight is already moving back toward her screen, and Beca knows it’s over. Her life as she knows it is over.

A smile starts creeping over Chloe’s features. “Beca...well, well well.”

Beca makes one more fruitless attempt to get her hand on that delete key, but Chloe easily brushes her aside. “Shut up.”

“What do we have here?”

She watches Chloe’s hand move in slow motion to tap the enter key with purpose. “My, my, my,” Chloe tuts as the website loads, covering the computer screen with lewd still frames of adult videos. “What shall we watch, hmm?”

“Chloe, just close it.”

Chloe doesn’t close it. Instead, she’s scrolling and smiling. “Recommended for you? Look, Bec, they have recommendations for you. Based on your viewing history.”

“Oh my God. Chloe. For the love of God.” She groans lets her head fall until her face is hidden against Chloe’s shoulder. But she watches the screen out of the corner of her eye.

“There’s a lot of girl-on-girl stuff coming up in your recommendations here, Bec. Anything you want to tell me?”

Beca flicks Chloe’s thigh with her finger as hard as she can, which is, admittedly, not hard at all. No, Beca has nothing to tell Chloe. Chloe knows, even if she’s playing coy, that Beca likes girls as much as she likes guys. It had been truthed out of her after too many beers at a college party long ago.

“Ooh, he’s cute. Thick college bro fu—”

“I can read,” Beca rushes, cutting her off before she finishes reading the unnecessarily descriptive title. “Oh, no, Chloe, come on!”

But Chloe’s already clicked it, and Beca’s eyes are assaulted instantly by a video that didn’t even bother to have a lame and pointless introduction of how the two participants happened to meet.

“You said I got to pick the movie. I picked,” Chloe says with such innocence that she might as well be talking about having chosen a Disney movie. She sits forward and sets the laptop on the tiny coffee table in front of them, and has the audacity to make the video full screen. And she turns up the volume. “Besides,” she says as she stretches her arms above her head and lets the right one fall along the back of the futon behind Beca, “I haven’t gotten laid in like three months. I might as well appreciate someone else getting it. Bec, you’re missing it.”

Beca’s stomach twists a little and she finally forces herself to lift her head and turn to face the screen, doing her best to act like it’s a Disney movie and not a graphic porno. It’s not that she doesn’t watch porn—she hasn’t gotten laid in six months (and she feels like Chloe has no place to complain about her three), and she has needs. But watching a porno with her best friend was really one of the personal spaces she never dreamt of Chloe managing to invade.

“He reminds me of a guy from my high school,” Chloe says, cocking her head a little.

Beca just ignores her and crosses her legs, because honestly this is ridiculous but it’s turning her on because she’s a human being.

“Oh, she’s pretty, now that we can see her face.”

Beca snorts a laugh at that because it’s really quite ridiculous and unfair that it’s taken at least four minutes of this video before we even see the girl properly. They can see her because the guy is actually taking thirty seconds to kiss her, and it’s excessive and sloppy and six months feels so long right about now.

She feels Chloe shift next to her a little, left leg crossing over her right just like Beca, and Beca knows. She knows, because she’s trying to both curtail and relieve the heat that’s trying to take hold. And they’re close, they’re much too close, so close that she can feel the warmth from her arm behind her and from the fingertips that are trailing up and down her triceps.

Her palms instantly sweat, a thousand red flags shooting up in her brain, but it feels really nice, and she feels guilty that she’s taking physical pleasure in Chloe touching her when they’re sitting there watching pornography, but Chloe’s the one that chose to watch it, and Chloe’s the one that’s touching her, so who’s she to say anything?

“I miss it,” Chloe says absently, her quiet voice a stark contrast to the volume the girl in the video is using. “The intimacy. Connecting with someone.”

Beca nods, mouth too dry to speak because Chloe’s fingertips aren’t trailing along her arm anymore; they’re tickling along the back of Beca’s neck and slipping, just barely, under the collar of her shirt to scratch lightly along her collarbone. She doesn’t know why she does it; she doesn’t recall making a conscious decision to do so, but her own hand moves across the inches that separate them to rest atop Chloe’s knee.

She can hear Chloe’s breathing change, the rhythm disrupted slightly at the contact, and the fingers grazing along Beca’s collarbone become more bold, sweeping lower, and Beca hears her own breath catch when fingertips graze the swell of her breast. The contact makes her hand clench, squeezing Chloe’s thigh but it’s suddenly out of reach, because Chloe’s uncrossed her legs, and Beca’s hand falls somewhere between them along her thigh.

She feels like they’re caught in suspended time, hypnotized, maybe, because they’re both staring at the video and though not talking, they’re definitely communicating. With every millimeter lower Chloe’s hand creeps, starting to lean into Beca to reach, Beca’s hand creeps up a millimeter along her thigh, squeezing it, scratching at it through the denim of Chloe’s jeans.

Chloe’s breath is so quick now, it sounds like she’s panting. Or maybe it’s Beca that’s panting. She can’t even tell. Someone is. Or they both are. And Chloe’s worked her way so far down Beca’s shirt that her entire hand is resting over the satin cup of Beca’s bra, but she hasn’t moved in at least a minute. Beca wonders if she’s thinking. Debating. Weighing the significance of this in the same way she is. If she’s deciding if she wants this. Like Beca has decided she wants this.

It’s lightning quick. She hears Chloe take a quick breath and then her hand cups Beca’s breast, holding it, squeezing it gently. It makes Beca gasp and makes her hand move the last inch until it’s wedged against Chloe, warm between her thighs.

They still haven’t looked at one another, but there’s enough glare on the screen that she can see their reflection and the way Chloe’s eyes are only open part of the time, and it strikes a chord, emboldens Beca to press harder, to twist her hand just-so so it’s not her weak little finger against Chloe but three strong fingers, pressing against her through the denim that is as hot as Beca feels.

A sound escapes Chloe, a tiny whimper that screams relief and agony, and her wrist twists under Beca’s shirt and it’s Beca’s turn to whimper as her hand dips into the cup of her bra to cradle Beca’s breast, thumb dragging over the nipple Beca knows is hardened and straining for contact.

Beca doesn’t know what to do with her right hand, and it feels useless lying in her own lap, but something motivates her to slip it under her own shirt, pushing the cup of her bra up and away to cover Chloe’s hand with her own, squeezing and holding.

Chloe whimpers again and Beca starts moving her fingers with rhythm, a slow, firm up and down over the thick seam in Chloe’s jeans. Chloe shifts, legs parting a little as her hips tilt briefly, and the movement makes Beca’s hips tilt, too, seeking and finding no relief.

It’s like Chloe knows, or maybe she saw or felt it but suddenly her hand is withdrawing from Beca’s shirt and shows back up on her knee to give it a shove and make Beca uncross her legs.

“Fuck…” Beca breathes when Chloe doesn’t hesitate to fit her hand between her legs, just as Beca’s doing for her.

The sound seems to spur Chloe on, and her free hand flits over Beca’s, pressing it tighter against her body, and Beca can feel it moving behind her hand, the distinct tugging and wiggle of a one-handed unbuttoning of jeans. She doesn’t do anything else, doesn’t ask for anything or push Beca anywhere.

She doesn’t have to, because Beca moves her hand up and slips it into her loosened jeans and right back into place over warm, wet lace. It makes Chloe moan, quietly, like she’s trying to hold it back but can’t, and her hips are starting to match the pace of Beca’s fingers.

Not that Beca has a pace in mind. She can barely process coherent thoughts because Chloe’s hand is pulling at the front of her jeans to unbutton them and push its way in.

It makes her push the lace beneath her fingers out of the way until there’s nothing under them but Chloe, and a second later, Chloe’s doing the same and Beca lets her knees fall open, fingers grazing over the most sensitive spot.

She doesn’t even...whatever. She can’t think. Doesn’t know what this is. But the actors in the video are very obviously nearing their end so she works her fingers more quickly, tight circles that seem to make Chloe forget how to breathe and make her rhythm against Beca falter. But Beca doesn’t need her rhythm, because her hips are making up the difference, rocking against Chloe’s hand.

They’re both gasping, and whimpering, and Chloe’s starting to moan with less restraint, and Beca has to finally turn her head and look at her.

And when she does, it’s the hottest thing she’s ever seen.

Chloe’s completely flushed, her chest is heaving with her breaths, eyes closed and brow furrowed as she nears her end, too.

“Chlo…” she manages through a moan of her own, and Chloe’s eyes pop open and her head falls back against the couch, staring at the ceiling for a second before it lolls to the side to look at Beca.

Beca feels Chloe pause like she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar, like she’s going to stop, but Beca doesn’t want—can’t allow her—to stop, so she holds her gaze and moves her fingers quicker, pressing harder, until Chloe’s hips lift off the couch with a shuddering gasp that pulls Beca right along with her, heat and euphoria pouring through her.

Chloe’s hand clamps down around Beca’s wrist, holding her there until her body relaxes. When Beca opens her eyes, Chloe’s looking at her again, still winded, still flushed, a hint of a smile resting on her lips.

It should feel weird, but it doesn’t. Not at all. So Beca quirks a smile back at her and Chloe launches herself at Beca, capturing her lips in a messy, fierce kiss that does nothing to allow Beca to catch her breath.

When Chloe pulls back a few seconds later, she’s smiling, and still just as breathless. “That was so hot.”

All Beca can do is nod, because of course, it was. That is a factual statement.

“Can we do it again?” Chloe’s eyes are bright, and she’s less flushed but just as warm.

“What, like, now?” Beca manages.

Chloe bites her lip and nods. “Yeah. But maybe like...a little more proper.”

“You mean to say this wasn’t proper?” Beca mentally high fives herself for getting her snark back in order.

“Not at all,” she says with a shake of her head. “I need to kiss you more.” She makes her point by dropping to kiss Beca again. “I need to undress you.” She makes that point by letting her hand drift under the edge of Beca’s shirt. “And end this dry spell.”

Beca raises her eyebrows at that. “Dry spell? There’s definitely nothing dry about you at the moment.”

Chloe giggles and kisses her again before bouncing off the couch to grab Beca’s hands and pull her up, too. “Let’s keep it that way.”

The End

Chapter Text

“Beca Mitchell! What do you think you’re doing?”

Beca waggles her eyebrows at Chloe as she pinches a hand-rolled joint between her lips, lighter poised in her hand. “They call it the wacky tobacky.”

“We are in a non-smoking hotel room.”

“Good point.” Beca crosses the room and cranks open the window, doing her best to tuck the curtains back and out of the way. She nods proudly and brings the lighter up, sparking it over the end of the joint until it's glowing, pulling a long drag to hold it until she exhales in the general direction of the window.

“We have a wedding to be in in less than three hours and you're getting stoned?”

“All the more reason,” Beca says through the strained breath she's holding in as she extends her hand toward Chloe, offering it to her. “And so are you.”

She watches Chloe hesitate for a second before accepting it, making sure she's as close to the open window as possible, blowing smoke out in a neat stream through the screen.

“I can't believe I'm doing this.”

“Live a little, babe.”

“Hey, I live.”

“Uh huh.”

Beca says as she swipes the remote control off the bedside table and mashes barely working buttons to get the television to come to life. She leaves it on some dumb episode of ‘Tosh.0,’ hoping something better is coming on next.

“I totally live! Remember that time I broke the chandelier at Gamma Phi Beta because I was dancing on the table?”

“I don’t know how you remember that.”

“Exactly,” Chloe says, straightening proudly as she pulls a second drag, cut short by Beca snagging it straight out of her lips to take it with her to the bed.

“Dancing on a table is hardly ‘living.’”

“There was that time I broke into the Science building with Stacie.”

“And why did you break into the Science building with Stacie?”

Chloe looks at her feet for a second and then sighs. “To steal potassium something so Stacie could make Elephant Toothpaste.”

“Elephant Toothpaste,” Beca says, laughing at the memory of the crazy colored foam chemistry fountain Stacie set off, with Chloe’s assistance, in the Bellas’ kitchen, as much as the name. “You’re such a badass, Beale. Tell me the last time you did anything remotely,” Beca crooks the fingers of her right hand around the word, “dangerous” as she extends her left, and the joint, toward Chloe at the window.

She accepts it, but her eyes widen at the word despite lifting it to her lips. She holds her breath and then exhales, “This is dangerous?”

Beca chuckles at Chloe's sudden fear, knowing the THC is already taking effect. She can feel it too, that delightful pulling feeling at the base of her skull. “No. Not unless you count the potential missing of aforementioned wedding.”

“We are not missing Amy and Bumper’s wedding.”

“I said potential. Pass it.” Beca holds out her hand, fingers curling expectantly. “Chlo, pass it.”

“You're supposed to be doing this by the window,” Chloe says as she crosses to the bed to hand it to Beca, and then she's crawling up to plop down next to her. Suddenly, she's giggling.

“What? What'd I miss?”

Chloe points at the TV. “He was walking, and then…” She mimics an explosion with her hands, with a decent sound effect, and then she's laughing again.

“What?” Beca repeats, already laughing at Chloe before catching the slow motion replay of a man walking along a sidewalk and getting jump attacked by a giant fake snowman. Followed by a dozen other similar incidents that has them both rolling.

“I really wish I was in that thing where I was, you know, inside? Like in a house?”

Beca looks at Chloe, thoroughly amused. “You mean a room?”

“Yes, a room. Shit,” Chloe says, shaking her head at herself until Beca’s laughter pulls hers out, too.

“You are in a room, babe.”

“But...but wait,” Chloe continues, sitting up a little and looking at Beca seriously. “Why don’t we all just eat grass like cows? That would really help solve the global hunger problem.”

Beca doesn’t even know what to say to that, and instead wishes she had thought to order room service before they started this.

“Oh my gosh,” Chloe says suddenly, grabbing Beca's knee. “Beca.”

“What now?”

“This is bad. We’re bad.”

“I like you when you're a little naughty.”

“Noo, Bec. What if we get caught?”

“We won't.”

“But what if we do?”

“We won't.”

“What if someone smells it and calls the hotel and then they call the cops? What if we get arrested and spend the night in jail and ruin the wedding? Oh no, Beca, I'm a horrible person!”

“You aren't a horrible person. God, this show sucks, give me that clicker.” She fumbles for the remote and finds it under her knee. “I bet this place has pay-per-view. Let's watch a porno.”

“They're expensive and we have somewhere we need to be.”

“In like, hours. Come on, help me pick. They’ve got Cockbusters. That must be like, a Ghostbusters thing.”

“Seriously, Beca, what are we doing? Give me that,” Chloe says, swiping the joint from between Beca's lips where it had been resting mostly unused to snuff it out on a magazine next to the bed.

“Chlo!” she barks, startling the redhead.

“What? What's wrong?”

Beca smiles at her. “Chillax. It's all good in the hood, babe.”

Chloe giggles in response and crawls to end up over Beca, pulling her face up and into a kiss that finishes with Chloe's bottom lip being tugged by Beca's teeth. “Okay, how ‘bout that movie?” she asks, and Beca smiles at the new blush on Chloe's cheeks.

“You got it.”

Chloe rolls off Beca to settle next to her, half watching what Beca's doing on the screen and half nibbling along her neck.

“Tiger’s Wood,” Beca reads. “Inda-” She cracks up halfway through, already hearing how it’s going to sound. “Indarearance Day. Oh my God.”

She’s laughing again, and so is Chloe, until they’re both crying.

“Ooh, The Rodfather. I don’t know if I’m gonna get it though, if I haven’t seen The Godfather.”

“You'll get it, baby.”

“Oh, okay, I think you’re right. Let me...fuck, this thing wants our room number. Doesn't it know? It's literally in the room.”

“So put it in.”

“What is it?”

“Three...thirty-two?”

“I thought we were on the fifth floor,” Beca says, giggling at the confusion.

“But I remember pushing six on the elevator.”

“Then why the fuck would you say we’re 332?”

“I don't know, I thought that’s what our door says. Doesn't it?” Chloe moves to get off the bed. “I'll check!”

“No, come back here,” Beca says, catching Chloe's forearm to pull her back into bed and on top of her. “Screw the porno. Screw me instead.”

Chloe pauses, smiling but thinking. “We have to be in the shower by 2:00.”

Beca glances at the clock by the bed. “Plenty of time.” She pulls Chloe down by the back of her neck and into a kiss. Chloe sighs into it and settles between Beca's legs where she's fit so perfectly for the better part of four months.

Kissing Chloe has always been toe-curling for Beca. What she didn't expect was the experience to be heightened by the drug, and when Chloe's tongue slides over hers, her hips jerk, immediately desperate. Like she's gone from 0-100 in less than a minute.

But as much as she suddenly needs Chloe to just be everywhere, she can't, she refuses to surrender hold on her mouth, keeping her rooted above her with hands fisted in Chloe's hair and ankles crossed and pressed into the backs of Chloe's thighs so she can't slide backwards.

She's never felt this way, like her entire body is alight with heat, being stoked by the tongue that's starting to do absolutely filthy things with hers and the hips that rock forward, making her body crackle every time they hit just right. And really, filthy is an understatement, because what’s happening doesn’t so much qualify as kissing as opposed to...licking. Or consuming.

“Oh my God. I don't...oh my God, Chloe, get off her!”

It's not the voice that gets Beca's attention, but the fact that Chloe abruptly rips away not only from their ‘kiss’ but from her body altogether, and then the bed. “What the hell?” she gasps, sitting up to follow when she's met with a face that's as angry as it is horrified. “Aubrey? What the fuck are you doing in our room?”

“Saving you both from imminent death due to asphyxiation, by the look of it. Which, gross. I've been calling you guys for an hour to make sure you're on schedule and had to lie about losing my key to get one to your room. What the hell?”

“Bree,” Chloe says with a pout. “We were going to get ready soon. I promise.”

“Right,” Beca adds with a snicker.

“When you were finished eating each other’s faces?”

“Ha! She's right, babe. We were kinda doing that.”

“Beca, shh,” Chloe throws over her shoulder in her direction, but a giggle makes it past her lips with it.

“It reeks like pot in here. Chloe, are you stoned right now?”

“What? No! Oh my gosh, that's...that’s illegal,” Chloe says with a harsh whisper.

Beca snorts at that and rolls off the bed to stand next to Chloe, having to get her tank top and what it conceals back in everything’s proper place once upright. 

“I would expect this kind of behavior from Beca -”

“Excuse you?” Beca interrupts, offended.

“- but not from you. You're supposed to be the nice, innocent one in this bunch and keep the rest of the girls in line.”

“Innocent?” Beca repeats, grinning and twisting to look at Chloe.

Chloe pouts again, and Beca can see her trying to work Aubrey over with her patented puppy eyes. “I'm sorry, I really do know what time it is. I was going to get us moving soon.”

“Innocent,” Beca says again, laughing to herself. She can't stop her hand from reaching out and walking her fingers up Chloe's back under her tee, making her giggle. She leans in to whisper, “She thinks you're innocent.”

Chloe shushes her but it comes out shakily as she tries not to laugh.

“Beca!” Aubrey snaps, making Beca jump to attention. “Please. Go shower. I will not let you delay this wedding on my watch.”

“Okay, okay,” Beca surrenders, departing to the bathroom. She can hear them talking through the closed door, and a moment later, the doorknob is rattling and she starts to reach for her tank on the floor in case it's Aubrey coming in to lecture her again.

The door opens part way and she can see it’s Chloe, red hair and a shoulder pressing into the gap.

“You want me to shower. I'm showering,” Chloe says, and Beca can hear the pout in her voice that's laced with humor, and then Chloe's backing into the bathroom and Beca side steps behind the door since she's currently topless and she knows Aubrey is right there glowering at Chloe.

“I didn't mean with...Chloe, I am coming back in an hour and if you two aren't out of there and actually getting ready, I swear…”

At that, Beca leans just enough, hiding herself behind Chloe to see Aubrey, hands angrily on her hips. “You hear that, babe? We have an hour. Get in here.”

She grabs Chloe by the elbow and yanks her backwards, slamming the bathroom door before Aubrey can push her way in and pushes the button lock to be safe. Aubrey’s indignant squawk dies against the door as Beca pushes Chloe against it, picking up their kiss from where they left off after the rude interruption.

“I will be back in an hour! You hear me? One hour.”

“Okay, Bree, see you in an hour!” Chloe calls out, voice bright as day and not at all sounding like it normally does when her breast is in Beca's mouth. “One hour,” she repeats to Beca, voice much more in line with how it should in that moment. “Make it count.”

Chapter Text

Chloe was used to getting kicked in the middle of the night. It came part and parcel with sharing a twin-sized bed with Beca, a routine they’d fallen into somewhere in the middle of Beca’s third year at Barden. In addition to getting kicked, she’s also been punched, slapped, and kneed, all by accident and always forgiven. Beca was a vivid dreamer, she’d discovered. If she dreamt she was falling, she’d almost jolt out of bed. If she dreamt she was being chased, that’s when Chloe would get kicked as she tried to run in her sleep.

And, apparently, if she dreams she’s having sex...that earns Chloe a kick, too.

She chuckles to herself, after the shock of being woken so abruptly passes. Beca’s drooling, like usual, not that she really minds. Her breathing is a little uneven and Chloe wonders what exactly is happening in her dream.

It’s funny, really, because it’s not that she considers Beca to be a prude, but she never confesses much during drunken games of Truth or Dare, Beca’s the only member of the group that hasn’t been caught having sex whether in the house or at a party (yet), and of the innumerable times she’s been dared by her aca-sisters to kiss Chloe, Beca’s escaped the kiss before Chloe had a chance to turn up the heat as she would have liked. Because, maybe, just maybe, she had a little, teeny, tiny, massive, suffocating crush on her friend. And maybe, just maybe, she loved to torture herself by getting herself into situations like this, half-naked in their tank tops and underwear and in bed with Beca, who was very obviously having an X-rated dream next to her.

On her was really more accurate, because the bed wasn’t designed for two people. They’d fallen asleep talking, face to face, and the kick that startled Chloe out of her own slumber had effectively entangled their legs in a way that made Chloe think inappropriate thoughts. Beca’s thigh was dangerously close to intimate territory, as was her own, and Beca’s dream was showing no signs of slowing down, because now her hips were shifting a little.

Chloe tries to ignore it, to ignore the arousal forcing its way through her. This was her friend and it was just a dream and hell, she’s had her share of sex dreams and really, she should just let Beca be, let her enjoy her dream that hopefully would end in getting to hear what Beca sounds like when she climaxes.

Chloe gasps at herself, for letting the thought even enter her brain, and presses her hand over her ear to try to ignore the sounds. But she can feel Beca moving steadily, and her hand can’t block out the whimpers, and in a moment of embarrassing weakness, Chloe “accidentally” lets her knee bend until her thigh touches...she exhales hard, turning her head at the last second so she’s not blowing in Beca’s face, because she can feel Beca and there’s absolutely no questioning that it’s a wet dream.

She pretends she didn’t just do that, that she one hundred percent didn’t consciously do something to try to sexually stimulate her friend. But then Beca moans, a real moan, not a whimper or a sigh, and rocks hard against Chloe’s thigh, like she’s truly grateful for the friction, and Chloe physically bites on the back of her index finger to keep her hands to herself and stop her own moan from escaping, because she’s now painfully turned on.

She needs Beca to hurry up and finish so she can get back to sleep and try to forget this ever happening.

“Please…” It’s mumbled, yet clear as a bell, and prefaces another broken moan from Beca as she shifts herself more firmly against Chloe.

Chloe whimpers and tries to look away, but she can’t. Even in the dark of the room her eyes have adjusted enough to see that Beca’s breathing hard, and starting to break a sweat, her hand that’s resting between them twitching dangerously close to Chloe’s breast which just makes her even more desperate for something, anything to happen or stop happening.

“Chlo…”

Chloe’s heart stops and stomach drops because there’s no way Beca just said what she thinks she said. It could have been anything, it could have been Bo, or Joe, or Moe, or even ‘no.’ Or maybe it was Chloe’s name but it was completely irrelevant to the rest of the dream, because dreams are crazy like that, right?? One second you’re having coffee and the next you’re talking to a penguin; that’s just how dreams work.

She’s so lost in analyzing what Beca might have said that she doesn’t realize Beca’s gone quiet, or that she’s stopped moving, until a light touch grazes her throat and she blinks back into the moment.

Beca’s looking at her, still a little out of breath, eyes sleepy but curious, and Chloe notices to her horror that her thigh is very much wedged between Beca’s legs and she suddenly feels absolutely horrible and -

“Hey,” Beca says quietly.

“Um...hi.” She doesn’t know what to do. Should she pull a Joey Tribbiani?? Hug for her, roll for you?? Stretch and reclaim her leg and pretend that she can’t feel how wet it is? How wet Beca is?

She feels the touch on her throat drift down to the neckline of her tank, tracing under the edge a little, and her heart leaps. She doesn’t know what to do, if Beca’s thinking clearly, if she’s even truly awake. She feels fingers curl into her tank top and tug a little as hips shift over her thigh again.

There’s a moan cut off somewhere in Beca’s throat; Chloe can hear it start and die. She doesn’t know what’s happening or what she’s supposed to do, or what she’s allowed to do. She decides to ignore what’s happening and try light-hearted humor.

“Sounded like you were having a good dream.” She quirks her eyebrow to reinforce her intentions. All platonic here.

Beca nods and Chloe feels herself being pulled with the tension from the grip on her shirt and Beca rolls her hips again, eyes fluttering a little. “Tell you a secret?” she whispers.

“Sure!” Chloe chirps, because nope, definitely nothing funny is happening below the sheets right now.

“It was you. In my dream.”

Those...those are words, words that tell Chloe her ears weren’t deceiving her, that it was her name Beca mumbled in her sleep. “Oh?”

Beca nods again. “I...I want…fuck, Chloe, I want…”

Chloe squeaks because she’s tugged forward and Beca’s kissing her - Beca. Mitchell. Is. Kissing. Her. She’s slow to respond, too shocked to process that this is real. This isn’t a dream, or her imagination. Beca is kissing her and threading fingers into Chloe’s hair to hold as she kisses and...oh God, her hips are moving and Chloe finally reacts, reaching for Beca and snagging her hip, tugging her as she pushes her thigh forward with purpose.

Beca’s moan makes Chloe shiver, realization setting in that this is happening, that her tongue is in Beca’s mouth, that Beca’s grinding against her, that...her mind freezes for a second because Beca’s shifted enough to press her own thigh up and against Chloe.

Then Chloe’s falling, or more accurately, rolling Beca onto her back to settle on top of her. She rocks her hips, feeling the way Beca presses up into her, the way she’s bent her knee to give Chloe something to bear down on.

She feels like she should say something, ask Beca what’s happening, but it’s pretty clear what’s happening already, made even clearer by the hands that have made their way under her tanktop and are presently covering her breasts. The hand are touching, squeezing, fingertips pulling at sensitive flesh until Chloe has to break their kiss to breathe, gasping for air from her incessant grinding against Beca, the diminished oxygen from their kissing, the friction between her legs, the hands on her body, and in general the fact that this is really happening.

“Beca…”

“Shh, talk less, kiss more,” Beca says, removing a hand from under Chloe’s shirt to pull her back down into a kiss. “I’m so close,” she whispers after a moment, rocking against Chloe faster.

The thought that this is really happening and I’m going to make her come made her groan and kiss Beca harder, ignoring her own arousal’s demands to focus on getting Beca there, because she wants, needs to see her, hear her fall apart under her. Her hands have been supporting her, keeping most of her weight off Beca, but she drops down onto one elbow to free up a hand to push it under Beca’s shirt, cupping her breast, dragging her thumb over the nipple pressing into her palm.

Beca’s nodding quickly, high-pitched moans echoing in Chloe’s ears as they get muffled against her lips, and then Beca freezes, tense beneath her, until she jerks and a broken cry escapes her lips and then she sags into the bed, panting, eyes closed.

Chloe watches her, shocked that what just happened, happened. She’s suddenly fearful that when Beca opens her eyes, she’s going to freak, or stammer an excuse about sleepwalking, and that she’s far, far too close to her right now, and Chloe’s mentally preparing herself for the worst when Beca finally looks up at her.

“Wow,” Beca breathes. And she’s smiling - smiling.

Chloe giggles a little, surprised by the response. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. So...I guess now’s a good time to tell you I have a crush on you?”

Chloe’s almost forgotten Beca’s hands are still up her shirt and she jolts in surprise when they squeeze again. “You have a crush on me?” Chloe says, looking down at Beca with wide eyes. “But I have a crush on you!”

“What a predicament,” Beca says, tilting her head a little as though she’s thinking, but really she’s pushing her thigh firmly up against Chloe. “What are we going to do about this...situation?”

“I can’t...think very clearly right now,” she admits, biting her lip to mute the groan that tries to spill out.

Beca’s hands are moving again, too, and one of them’s dragging down Chloe’s stomach to trace the thin band of elastic resting around Chloe’s hips. “Is that my fault?” Her wandering fingers pause. “Should I stop?”

“Whatever you do, please. Don’t stop.”

“Talk after?”

Chloe nods, feeling fingertips slip beneath the elastic. “Talk after.”

Chapter Text

If there is one thing Beca prides herself on - other than her ear for matching up downbeats, arranging five-part harmonies, and scaring off overly ambitious boys with a well-practiced sneer - it was her almost untarnished record of getting sucked into the ridiculous middle school party games her Bellas busted out around the fifth bottle of wine shared amongst the group, or the third round of Amy’s Jungle Juice as is the case tonight.

“Truth or Dare!” Stacie declares.

“Aaaand that’s my cue,” Beca says as she picks up her red Solo cup and heads for the stairs.

“Oh no you don’t.” Cynthia-Rose blocks her exit at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed.

“Let me go.”

“No can do, Cap. I’m on Beca-wrangling duty.”

“That...shouldn’t be a thing.” She crosses her arms, too. “And I am not playing Truth or Dare. Last time I did that, Stace made made me straddle Chloe's lap for an hour.”

“Ixnay on the Ruthtay or Areday!” Cynthia-Rose hollers past Beca.

“No problemo! Spin the Bottle!”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, what are we, twelve? And there aren't even guys here.”

“Strike Two, Conrad!”

“Then Seven Minutes in Heaven!”

Beca hears a chorus of oohs and makes for the stairs again, getting strong-armed by her friend. “I'm still not twelve, and there are still no guys here.”

“My kinda heaven,” Cynthia-Rose says with a wink, and then she's all but picking up Beca to turn her around and herd her to the living room until she's back in her still-vacant spot on the couch. And make no mistake, it's her spot, much like Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory,” Beca has her spot on the couch and everyone knows not to sit there if she's in the house. The couch is positioned such that she doesn't have to look at the TV unless she wants to, she can easily talk to whomever is sitting in the other couch, which is at a right angle to hers, and it's close enough to the stairs to her room, the kitchen, and the downstairs bathroom to make it the ideal place to sit.

“Yay, Beca!” Chloe greets her with a cheer and a one-armed hug from her own spot on the couch, which is immediately next to Beca's. Everyone knows not to sit in Chloe's spot if Beca is on the couch. Beca's pretended not to notice this for the last two years.

“Yay,” she deadpans, taking a long sip from her cup and settling back onto the couch to scowl appropriately. “We aren't actually playing Seven Minutes in Heaven, right? Like, we’re all friends. Most of us are straight. And in our twenties.”

“Of course we are. Duh.” The response comes from gamemaker Stacie, who's standing in front of a decorative mirror applying lip gloss. “And being straight -”

“Or not straight,” Cynthia-Rose chimes in from her spot on a corner beanbag chair.

“- is irrelevant,” Stacie finishes. “Kissing’s fun regardless.”

“Yeah, well,” Beca says, trying to not be a total downer for the sake of the group but also wanting to be a total downer. “I don't know about you guys, but I don't make it a habit to kiss my friends.”

A sound of thoughtful consideration comes from her left, and she glances at Chloe, who's looking at her over the rim of her own cup. “You should consider changing that,” she says.

Beca gulps her drink, feeling hot under the collar. “I'm good, thanks.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” Chloe winks and turns her attention back to the room at large. “Who has the bowl?”

“Right here,” Amy announces, dramatically entering the room with a punch bowl that alternately serves as an actual punch bowl and a bowl from which they draw names for everything from weekly chore assignments to ridiculous games like this. “Ladies first,” she says with a bow as she offers the it to Cynthia-Rose.

“Nice,” she says, clapping and rubbing her hands together conspiratorially before reaching in to pluck out a well-worn and floppy folded piece of paper. “Jess, it's your lucky day.”

To Beca's surprise, Jessica actually whoops and slams the rest of her drink before popping up from the arm of the second couch.

“The pantry shall serve as our lady loving lovenest this evening,” Stacie says with a bit of game show host flair. “You both know the rules?”

Cynthia-Rose tsks a wink and follows Jessica into the pantry, which Beca can see the door to if she leans back a little.

“Seven minutes starts…” Stacie pulls her phone out of the rear pocket of her shorts and thumbs the screen. “Now.”

The whole event is, Beca realizes, kind of anticlimactic. Not being witness to a dare kills most of the fun associated with it, and she almost forgets that two of her friends are, supposedly, making out in the pantry because she’s graciously been allowed to play DJ of their little party and her focus is on making a playlist on her laptop (which Flo was sent to fetch, as Beca couldn’t be trusted to return from her room if she was allowed to leave).

An obnoxious alarm blares from Stacie’s pocket and she skips her way to the pantry. Beca leans back and watches Stacie knock and wait for the door to open. Cynthia-Rose emerges first, brushing the corner of her mouth with her thumb and smirking. Jessica follows, blushing but laughing. The entire room erupts in applause and Beca just kind of stares over her laptop screen, surprised that they, apparently, went through with it.

“Okay, bitches, who’s up next?” Amy says, spinning in a slow circle, punch bowl of names in hand. “Eenie, meenie, miney, Flo! Time to pick your new amor, señorita.”

“We never played games like this in Guatemala,” Flo says as she jumps up with, Beca notes, an annoying amount of spring in her step. She reaches into the bowl and pulls out a slip of paper that Beca already knows belongs to Stacie, because Stacie’s name slip has had a lipstick imprint on it since they remade them last year. “And I never would have been allowed to play it with girls. Anastasia, ven y bésame.”

“God bless America,” Stacie says with an easy grin. “Don’t bother timing us; I need to appreciate my Latina lover.”

“Seven minutes is the rule,” Amy reminds. She’s taken over for Stacie as gamemaker, and holds the door open for the tallest and shortest members of the group. “Take it upstairs later if you need to.”

Beca catches herself giggling at the thought of Stacie and Flo making out. There’s a good eight inches of height difference between them. Maybe Flo would find a case of water to stand on.

“Who do you think Amy’s going to call next?”

Beca jumps a little, almost forgetting Chloe was next to her. “Who knows. But something tells me I’m not going to get out of being locked in that pantry tonight.”

Chloe hums and shakes her head. “Doubtful. It’ll be okay though. Do you want another drink?” She’s off the couch with Beca’s empty cup in hand before she can respond, asking Amy to help her in the kitchen.

By the time Chloe’s made a couple trips to refill everyone’s drinks, Amy’s pounding on the pantry door once, and again, and a third time before it finally opens with Stacie almost falling backwards out of it, laughing. Beca can’t determine whether or not they actually did anything; Stacie’s lip gloss would be a dead giveaway, but Flo’s lips don’t seem to be wearing any of Stacie’s color. A second glance at the same moment Flo tilts her head reveals a smudge on her neck, though, and Beca feels herself blush. These girls are really fooling around in there; she wasn’t at all sure she wanted, or even could, do something like that with one of her friends.

“Here ya go!” Chloe chirps, handing Beca her refilled cup and floating back down into her seat.

“Okay, Red, you poured us a round, so it’s your turn to get some action.”

“Ooh!” Chloe says excitedly, rocking herself back off the couch before she’s even settled onto it completely.

Beca watches her, suddenly nervous, because with Jessica and Stacie’s names out of the bowl, and Chloe can’t kiss herself, and there are only nine of them to begin with, that gives her a one-in-six chance of being plucked out of that bowl. If there was anyone in the room she’d choose to kiss if she absolutely had to, it would probably be Chloe. Chloe was the nicest person Beca’s ever met, and so caring and kind, and she certainly was easy on the eyes. She catches herself actually hoping for a millisecond that she is the name drawn, and then she shakes her head, watching Chloe swirl her hand around in the bowl of papers that Beca thinks looks different? Maybe? It’s hard to tell through the etched exterior of the bowl, but the papers don’t seem like the same worn out ones they usually use.

“Beca!” Chloe announces, holding up the paper she’s drawn to show the room, and then she stuffs it in her pocket.

Beca feels her stomach fall to her feet.

“Aww, yeah,” Amy says, nodding. “Gonna have some Strawberry Shortcake tonight.”

“Strawberry Shortcake?” Chloe asks, giggling.

Amy points at Chloe’s head. “Strawberry.” And at Beca. “Shortcake.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s adorable!” Chloe says with a clap, and then she’s holding out her hand for Beca to take. “Come on, Becs!”

Beca feels like everything’s moving in slow motion. Somehow she’s moving despite not telling herself to move, and she’s setting her laptop in Chloe’s spot and reaching to take her hand and she’s following her into the pantry.

“Ah ah ah, no phones,” Stacie says, having resumed her role. “I’m the timer.” She holds out her hand, waiting.

“Fine,” Beca grumps, pulling her phone out of her pocket and flopping it into Stacie’s hand. “What about Chloe’s?”

“I already know the rules. My phone’s on the table,” she says, pointing, and Beca believes her.

Somehow Beca’s feet carry her into the pantry behind Chloe and the door closes behind her and it’s almost completely dark, light filtering in through the slats of the door.

“Seven minutes!”

Beca hears her playlist move to the next song, and it immediately skips to the next song, and the volume increases significantly and she realizes someone’s fucking with it and she almost turns to go give the offender a piece of her mind, when -

“Hey.”

It’s quiet, and Beca had nearly forgotten where she was, and why, and with whom. She can see Chloe, kind of, her outline at least, and depending on how Beca stands, more or less of her is illuminated. She decides to go with less.

“Hi,” she manages, and she knows it sounds painfully awkward.

“We don’t have to do anything, you know,” Chloe says. Of course Chloe’s being courteous. Beca should have known better than to be nervous about being put in this situation with her. Of all her options, Chloe would be the absolute last one to make Beca feel pressured to do something.

“I know.”

She sees Chloe move, backwards, it seems, and then she sits. Beca wonders what she found, in the dark, to sit on in the pantry.

“Stacie put a chair in here,” Chloe explains, apparently reading Beca’s mind. “There should really be two. I guess she thought it’d be more fun with one. So someone has to sit on someone’s lap. If they want to sit.”

“Oh. How...thoughtful?” Beca frowns at herself. She and Chloe talk all the time, almost literally. There’s no reason to feel so awkward talking to her now. It’s not like being locked in a dark room with her with public expectations of shenanigans should change that.

“Remember that time you had to sit in my lap for an hour?”

Beca laughs, finally feeling a little at ease. “I was just thinking about that. It’s why I shot down Truth or Dare tonight.”

“You didn’t like my lap?”

Beca can hear the adorable pout in Chloe’s voice, and she knows she’s teasing, but she really didn’t hate it, and she doesn’t want Chloe to feel bad. “No, it was fine,” she admits.

“Seven minutes is a long time to stand.”

Beca can hear the distinct sound of a hand patting a jean-clad thigh, and her stomach swims a little. “It’s not that long.”

“Becs, just come here. I’m not going to bite.”

She rolls her eyes, and she’s grateful that the darkness is likely hiding the fact that she’s blushing, and shuffles the couple steps between them until she bumps into Chloe’s knees. “How…?”

Chloe’s hands find her hips and tug her straight forward, and Beca has no choice but to straddle her lap, and they’re suddenly painfully close. “Ahh, memories,” Chloe says, voice light and teasing.

They’re close enough that Beca can see Chloe’s features pretty well, and she knows that means Chloe can tell she’s blushing, but if she can, she doesn’t mention it. Beca clears her throat. “Yeah.”

She feels Chloe loop her arms around her waist, and suddenly her arms feel like foreign appendages, dangling uselessly. She lifts them for a second, unsure what to do.

“It's okay to touch me, you know.”

“No, I know, I just…” She stops talking when hands find her elbows and lift them to rest over Chloe's shoulders, and she knows she's being weird, and stiff, and she takes a purposeful breath, releasing it up into her own face and forces herself to relax.

“That's better.” Chloe's smiling and her arms are around Beca's waist again, but they feel a little different, and it's because, Beca realizes, her hands are resting on her lower back, which they definitely weren't before she chose to relax. As much as it wanted to make her tense up again, it really was better. It was actually kind of...nice.

She's just about worked up the courage to make a snide comment when the opening strains to “Titanium” infiltrate their room, followed by numerous whistles and indistinct words, and she knows she did not include that song on the playlist.

“Oh my God,” she says with a groan. “I didn't put that on there. I swear.”

Chloe's giggling and shaking her head, and her hands, Beca notices, are running up and down her back now, slowly, but deliberately. “Are you sure about that?” She winks.

“I would never…!” She feels exasperated and annoyed that someone on the outside is fucking with them, because Chloe's Beca-recruitment technique is legendary amongst Barden’s a cappella circles. The song is regularly rolled out whenever someone wants to make Beca squirm. And it’s effective, making her squirm in Chloe's lap.

“Whoa,” Chloe says with a slight catch in her voice. She grips Beca's hips to keep her still, and Beca wonders for a second why she's doing that and then she realizes.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, embarrassed. She's blushing again, this time because the concept that Chloe's getting turned on thanks to the Pavlovian Effect the song has on her, and that Beca moving in her lap had perhaps...accentuated it.

“It's okay.” Chloe's voice is light, but it sounds airy, and her hands resume their lazy tracks up and down Beca’s back.

They're quiet for a minute, and Beca feels like this has been the longest seven minutes in history, but the four-minute song isn't over yet so she knows they're only halfway through this awkward torture.

“I've never played this before,” she blurts, instantly regretting it.

“What?” Chloe asks with another giggle. “Really?”

“Make out parties...not really my thing, growing up.” She doesn't know why she's sharing that information with Chloe, but she physically can't stand (well, sit) in silence.

“Then I'm honored to give you your first Seven Minutes,” Chloe says, straightening her posture with a shimmy of her shoulders and toss of her hair. “How is it for you so far?”

Beca wiggles in her “seat,” trying to make herself lighten up. “Very comfy.”

“Becs…” Chloe says with a gasp, the hands on her back dropping to her hips to grab them again.

Beca’s apologizing again, feeling like an idiot for repeating what she just apologized for not a minute earlier. She also feels like Chloe’s effort to make her stop wiggling has pulled her closer, because her arms used to lay across Chloe’s shoulders mid-forearm and suddenly they’re looped around her neck. And if Chloe were to glance down, she would get an eyeful down the front of Beca’s v-neck.

“Titanium” is fading out and Beca finds herself not wanting the seven minutes to end. She knows there’s probably less than two, now, and she feels kind of dizzy, and Chloe’s looking up with her with a soft smile and Chloe’s hands are still gripping her hips with a little more pressure than is necessary, and Beca swallows, breaking eye contact by looking up at the dark ceiling.

“Maybe we should…”

“Should what?” Chloe asks quickly when she pauses, second-guessing herself.

“Play the game. The right way.” She wishes she hadn’t said it; she feels and sounds like an inexperienced teenager making her fool out of herself in front of the hot girl at the party. She blinks at her thought, because she’s never thought of Chloe as hot before. Beautiful, pretty, gorgeous, stunning...sure. But never hot. Never...sexy.

She hears Chloe hum and a hand is sliding from its spot on her hip, up her back, through her loose waves, to the back of her neck, and she forces her eyes down again to meet Chloe’s. But she can’t. Chloe’s eyes are on her mouth, and Beca licks her lips self-consciously, a move that prompts Chloe to pull the corner of her lower lip between her teeth. Something inside Beca makes her want to reach up and press her thumb to Chloe’s lip and tell her not to bite it; that she should be the one biting it.

Instead, she stares at Chloe staring at her mouth, and instinct is starting to creep through Beca, causing her to drop her chin a little, lean forward a little.

Chloe looks up at her then, releasing her lip and studying Beca for a moment until Beca closes her eyes, unable to bear Chloe’s scrutiny.

“Kiss me.”

Beca hears it and she knows it was she who said it, but it sounded like it came from outside herself. She hears a noise from Chloe, one that sounds surprised, perhaps, or excited.

There’s pressure at the back of her neck and then there’s pressure against her lips and she realizes with a start that Chloe’s kissing her. Chloe’s lips are warm and pliant against hers and she thinks...this is kind of nice. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a kiss, really. She relaxes a little and she feels the hand at her neck shifting, down to her shoulder and then in a move that actually makes Beca gasp, it slides up into her hair, fingernails against her scalp, at the same time she feels a tongue brush over her lower lip and it feels like someone lit a fuse.

She parts her lips and inhales in surprise when Chloe’s tongue slips past them and glides over her own and then retreats, mouth disappearing altogether, and then it’s back at a different, better angle and Beca realizes her hands are buried in Chloe’s hair and she hears what she can only categorize as a moan and it makes her entire body roll against Chloe.

They’re not just kissing - they’re full-on making out, Beca realizes, and the next moan she hears is her own when Chloe coaxes Beca’s tongue into her mouth and the hand at her hip slides down to palm her backside and pull her closer. She doesn’t really understand what’s happening, beyond the obvious. She feels desperate, like she’ll die if she doesn’t get to touch every inch of Chloe and feel Chloe’s lips on every inch of her body, and that is an extremely new development and it’s as terrifying as it is exhilarating, and it spurs her to pull a hand out of Chloe’s hair with every intention to drag her nails down her neck and end up somewhere in the vicinity of her chest, and she feels Chloe shiver at the touch along her throat, and -

“TIME’S UP!”

Three loud knocks startle them both and Beca nearly falls backwards off Chloe but she catches herself and Chloe catches her, too, and they’re just staring at each other, breathing hard.

“Come on, break it up in there!” Stacie shouts, pounding on the door again.

Beca swallows hard, clueless what to do or say now that the spell’s been broken.

“What’s going on? Come out, come out, you two!” Amy’s distinctive accent yells, getting louder as she talks, indicating her proximity is increasing, and Beca scrambles backwards off Chloe’s lap, fight or flight instinct kicking in and apparently her body is choosing flight. She’s panicking too much to realize she has to put her feet down if she’s going to push herself off Chloe and she ends up on her ass on the floor, Chloe’s grip on her right arm catching her just enough to have it not be painful.

“Final warning!” Stacie calls as she rattles the doorknob noisily. “Come out, or we’re coming in!”

Beca watches Chloe stand up and step over her to push the door open. “Give a girl a minute to catch her breath,” she says cheerfully. She glances back at Beca and winks before disappearing back to the living room.

“Damn, Shortcake. Strawberry really worked you over,” Amy says, thrusting a hand down to pull Beca to her feet with alarming ease.

Beca has no idea what state she’s in; she assumes she’s flushed, and her hair might be a mess, and she doesn’t think Chloe was wearing lipstick, but if she was, it’s definitely smeared on her now. She doesn’t know what to say to Amy, because it’s pretty true, so she ignores it and forces herself forward to face the music of the rest of the Bellas.

The moment she emerges, the room erupts into cheers and catcalls, and she wants to crawl under a rock and die. Instead she tries her best to play it cool and makes her way back to her spot on the couch. Chloe’s already there, having moved - or someone moved - Beca’s laptop to a nearby table. She sinks into her spot, and Chloe immediately shifts to put her arm around Beca’s shoulders and pull her to lean against her.

She feels Chloe’s breath on her ear before she speaks, and it makes her stomach quiver. “I really liked that,” she whispers.

Beca glances around the room, still feeling highly scrutinized but everyone’s attention has shifted back to Amy, who’s having Ashley draw a name, followed by the hoopla that comes with her getting locked away with Lilly.

“Yeah?” she manages, mouth painfully dry. It also tastes like Chloe.

“Mhmm.” What feel like lips graze the shell of her ear and she shivers. “Can’t believe I got lucky enough to pick your name.”

Beca’s eyes narrow at the tone, because she knew something was up. She twists herself out of Chloe’s embrace to glare at her. “What did you do?” she says accusingly.

Chloe shrugs and hops off the couch to breeze into the kitchen, and Beca follows, struggling to keep her eyes above Chloe’s waistline, which is another recent development. Chloe’s stopped at the paper recycling bin, foot on the pedal to open its lid, arms crossed, proud smile on her face.

Beca glares again and steps up to see what she’s revealing, and there amidst junk mail and magazines are a dozen or so crisp white slips of folded paper. She doesn’t have to pick one out to know that every single one of them has her name written on it. She grabs one anyway to confirm her guess, and then crumples it to toss it back.

“You rigged it.”

“I rigged it,” Chloe says proudly, letting the lid close.

“You wanted to do Seven Minutes with me.”

“Bingo.”

Beca feels hot all over. “You wanted to kiss me?”

“Right again.”

Beca huffs, uncertain. She’s flattered, and a little irritated that Chloe cheated, and she’s still flustered from the feeling of Chloe palming her to pull her closer. “Okay,” she starts, not sure what’s going to come out of her mouth next. “So.”

“So…” Chloe says, smiling as she takes a step closer.

“So...now what?” Beca finishes.

“Well,” Chloe says with a shrug. “The rule is seven minutes in the room. And to take it upstairs later, if we need to.”

Beca knows she’s blushing. Hard. “Do we…” She clears her throat and tries again. She wants to say it, but it’s scary. “Do we...need to?”

Chloe’s biting her lip again, and Beca again wants to tell her to stop and let her do it instead. So when Chloe reaches out and takes her hand and leads her out of the kitchen, through the living room, where they both ignore the questions and whistles from the group as they climb the stairs, she knows the answer is yes.

Yes, they need to take it upstairs.

Chapter Text

“Seriously?”

“What?”

Beca gestures at Chloe’s just-revealed bikini, this one she swears is even tinier than yesterday’s. “Why do you even bother?”

Chloe pouts. “You don’t like it?”

“That’s not…no. Just…you’re killing me.”

Chloe flashes a brilliant smile at the compliment. “Thanks!” She spins from where she’s dropped her towel on the dock to take a few quick steps and leap off the edge and into the lake.

Beca eases herself in by way of wading in from the shoreline, paddling her way to the end of the dock where Chloe’s bobbing around with Stacie and Jessica. She hovers, or rather, treads water, close but not too close to Chloe. It’s fun, their game. How close can they get without raising eyebrows. How quiet they can be without drawing a curious ear. How long they can go without touching until someone breaks spectacularly.

She keeps herself outside arms’ reach from Chloe, but she doesn’t factor Chloe’s arms being longer and one of them snakes through the water to find Beca’s hand as it weaves through the water and reel her in closer until she’s floating in front of Chloe, whose hands are wandering a fair amount.

“What are we doing tonight?” Chloe asks the group, as if her right hand isn’t wiggling its way under the edge of Beca’s bikini top.

Beca opts not to answer, because she can’t trust her voice at the moment, and she lets herself sink a little lower in the water, just in case the murkiness of the lake isn’t doing its job to mask what’s happening just below the surface. Chloe’s legs kick into hers as they keep themselves afloat, and it’s the oddest teasing sensation. Grazing touches replaced by cold water. But Chloe’s fingers are warm where they’re pulling on pebbled flesh and Beca’s left hand flails, causing a splash that barely draws more than a protective glance, lest she be about to start a splash war.

“I’m thinking we go to that bar we passed on the way here and find some eye candy to bring back with us,” Stacie answers.

“You think?” Chloe’s fingers pinch and Beca sinks deeper, forgetting for a moment she has to work to keep herself afloat. “I kind of like it being a girls’ weekend.”

Beca’s grateful for the water for more than its camouflage. Her body’s quickly overheating and it’s doing wonders to help keep her temperature in check. But Chloe trades off, switching hands and thus switching the breast she’s teasing, and Beca has to fight the same battle all over again. A straight face, a pretend interest in whatever the plans for tonight are going to be.

Stacie shakes her head. “I don’t know about you, Red, but I need some nookie.”

Beca feels Chloe’s laugh against her wet shoulder. “I’m with you on that one,” is Chloe’s teasing response as she slips her hand back out of Beca’s top and runs it down her bare stomach. It catches on the edge of her bottoms, and it’s too much. Beca loves the game, but her friends are literally inches away and while the thrill of being caught made it fun, they were a little too close. She breaks out of Chloe’s hold, paddling a few feet away so she can adjust her top under the water and make sure everything’s in its proper place.

“The website said this cabin was supposed to come with floaty things for the lake. Inner tubes or whatever. Chloe, come help me look, hmm?”

She thinks it’s a pretty convincing request. There are supposed to be inflatables in the shed by the lake, and she would need help carrying them back.

She’s already swimming back to shore when she hears a “Sure!” behind her, followed by the splashing that tells her Chloe’s full-out swimming.

Beca doesn’t look back, she’s absolutely sure she’ll never make it into the shed if she does, as she trudges through the grass to yank the rickety wooden door open and step into the warm, muggy darkness. She doesn’t bother with looking for a light switch, and neither does Chloe, who has her arms around Beca the moment she’s through the door.

“You’re going to fucking kill me,” Beca says as she spins in Chloe’s embrace to pull her into a kiss.

“Sorry, not sorry,” Chloe breathes against her before kissing Beca again.

Beca’s hands are busy, pushing the absolutely pointless bikini top away from Chloe’s chest to be replaced with her hands. But they only work in tandem for a moment before her left drops, dipping into Chloe’s bottoms.

Chloe whimpers and leans into Beca, and Beca relinquishes her hold on Chloe’s breast to feel around for a surface of some kind, shuffling them awkwardly backwards until she finds something that might be a big tool chest or an air conditioning unit or whatever is big and squarish and metal, and she pushes Chloe onto it to sit.

“Thanks,” Chloe whispers, parting her knees easily now that she’s no longer standing.

“You’re welcome.” Beca kisses her to shut her up and get back to business, hand working Chloe to the brink.

It’s over as quickly as it starts, Chloe coming undone with a moan that’s loud enough for Beca to appreciate but not loud enough to be heard beyond the walls of their temporary sanctuary.

“So good,” Chloe says with a sigh as she pulls Beca in for another kiss.

Beca nods, and then starts detangling herself. “You were pretty bold out there.”

Chloe giggles. “Couldn’t help it.”

She waits until Chloe has her bathing suit back into its proper place before throwing the door open again for light. “Okay, help me carry this shit down there. We’ve been gone too long.”

“Okay, okay.”

“And Chlo?”

“Hmm?”

“Turnabout’s fair play.”

Chapter Text

Beca doesn’t understand how she’s even awake right now.

It’s well past three o’clock in the morning, she’s been awake since seven thanks to her internship, she’s she’s been drinking since nine. Nine in the evening; she’s not an animal!

She’s half-awake sprawling on her back on the couch, watching Chloe dance to the Throwback Jamz music channel on TV. She’s presently in the middle of some classic 80’s moves thanks to Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” and Beca wonders how the fuck Chloe has the energy to dance basically non-stop for four hours.

“Come on Beca - I wanna dance with somebody!”

Beca shakes her head and bats Chloe’s hands away as they try to grab her to make her join the the dance party of one. “This dancing machine is out of gas.” She makes a face for referring to herself as a ‘dancing machine,’ but Chloe just laughs and spins away to keep dancing.

“We should do something we both want to do.”

“Like what?” Beca can’t imagine doing anything but sleeping right now.

“Play a game or something.”

“What, like Cards Against Humanity? It’s just the two of us.”

“No. Ooh, like Twister!”

Beca’s sure she misheard, so she asks Chloe to repeat herself and...no, she actually just suggested they play Twister. As if they’re eight-year-olds. “What? No, Chlo -”

“It’ll be fun!” Chloe disappears and returns while Beca’s still trying to make a break for it, only having made it off the couch and onto the floor on her hands and knees, underestimating the combination of exhaustion and alcohol had on her body. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” Chloe asks, walking over to help her up.

“I’m fine. I should just...stay down here.”

“No, you have to start standing up.”

Beca groans and her head swims as Chloe pulls her upright. “You’re fucking insane, you know that?”

Chloe just smiles at her and shrugs as she unboxes the game, unfurling the vinyl mat and setting the spinner next to it. “It’ll be extra fun being drunk.”

“Right.” Beca takes a breath and wishes she could make her feet move toward the stairs and the serenity of her bed. Instead, her feet are moving her toward the mat to stand next to Chloe. And part of her wonders if maybe her hesitancy to engaging in this ridiculous game that “ties you up in knots!” is that it’s Chloe she’s engaging in it with. Because she knows Twister. Who doesn’t know Twister? You end up on top of each other. Arms and legs and hands and feet and faces all in...weird places.

And maybe it was kind of...terrifyingly exciting to be faced with the prospect of being tied in a knot with Chloe. (So? Shut up.)

“I think I’ll be the spinner. Though you’re built better for it,” Chloe adds with an elbow to Beca’s side, and she groans because she has no fucking idea what Chloe means by being a spinner, but if Chloe’s literally ribbing her about it, it’s probably dirty so she reacts appropriately. She watches Chloe bend over, ahem, and flick the black plastic arrow with her finger to send it spinning round and round. “Right foot yellow.”

Beca sighs, because she knows by setting foot on that polka dotted mat, she’s in the game for the long haul. And she might be drunk, and she might be nervous about being on top of Chloe, but she’s still a competitor through and through. So she stomps her right foot on the closest yellow circle, making Chloe have to stretch a little for the second dot. There. That wasn’t so hard.

Chloe leans down awkwardly, flicking the spinner again. “Left hand blue. Ooh, it’s getting interesting,” she adds with a giggle as she promptly bends over to slap her hand on a blue dot in a move not that far detached from twerking.

Beca opts to crouch to accomplish it; she’s pretty sure hanging her head upside down right now is a bad idea. She hears the flick and whoosh of the spinner again. “Can you get our other foot on here? I think I’m cramping.”

“It’s all up to the arrow, Bec! Right foot green.”

“Dammit,” Beca grumbles as she shifts her foot two rows over to land on green. It’s not easy, even crouching, to be stuck with one foot awkwardly behind her off the mat.

Chloe’s making it look way too easy of course. “Okay, here you go, babe. Left foot yellow.”

“Thank God,” Beca says with a sigh, easily able to line herself up across three rows of dots. Chloe’s back is to her, and she’s still opting for her twerk-like stance, and Beca tries not to stare at her ass. But, it’s, like, right there. She blames it on the alcohol.

“Right hand blue. Oh no, okay, time out, I just realized I can’t spin if I’m all on the dots.”

“There’s no time out, you called spinner, you have to deal,” Beca huffs, but it’s too late.

Chloe has her phone in her hand, thumbing around on it, until a decently creepy robotic voice calls out Left foot yellow. “Right hand blue first, then left foot yellow,” Chloe commands and sets her phone on the floor before making the moves, finally opting to drop her ass out of Beca’s face.

Right hand green.

“Are you kidding me?” Beca has to twist her whole self and basically do a sun salutation to get her hand on the total opposite side of the mat.

Of course, Chloe’s just giggling.

Right foot blue.

The shift is easy for Beca to make, sliding her foot over one row from yellow, but Chloe’s somehow managed to already have herself tangled up nicely and she has to reach for a vacant dot behind her, one away from Beca’s.

Left hand red.

“Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…” Beca says, unsure how to untwist herself to bring her hand all the way back to almost where it started. Chloe is one hundred percent in the way, and her only option is to reach, well, through Chloe’s legs to get to it. Which she does.

And Chloe laughs. “You doing okay back there?”

“Just peachy.” Beca feels like she might be breaking a sweat, especially when the next three moves have managed to get Chloe rotated to face her, and have Beca in some sort of weird crab walk position thing.

Left hand yellow.

Chloe’s giggling before she even moves, and when she does, Beca realizes why - because Chloe’s decided to take the yellow dot next to Beca’s head, and Beca has absolutely no way to get her left hand to that side of the mat, and Chloe’s basically hovering over her in an awkward push up, smiling triumphantly.

But Beca isn’t a quitter. She can’t just throw in the towel. She knows she’s lost, but her ass hasn’t hit the mat yet, so she technically is still in the game.

“Want a free pass?” Chloe asks, grinning.

Beca has to blow red hair out of her face before it makes her sneeze. “What free pass?”

“You can skip this move if you pay the toll.”

“Now there’s a toll associated with the free pass?”

“Do you want it or not?”

Chloe’s phone calls out the next move, but they both ignore it.

“Fine. What do I have to do?”

“Kiss me.”

Beca’s right arm gives out at that and she’s on her ass in half a second, with Chloe following another half-second later, landing fully on top of Beca, laughing hysterically.

“You’re a real jokester, Beale,” Beca says, trying to play off the way her entire body seemed to go numb at Chloe’s suggestion.

“You should have seen your face,” Chloe laughs, pushing herself up a little, but still lying, Beca notes, right between her legs. Where she fits quite nicely. And if she were to move, like, at all, it would definitely count as getting to second base with her co-captain.

“What did you expect?” she grumbles, trying to avoid eye contact.

“For you to kiss me,” Chloe answers simply, and her laughter’s gone and Beca can feel eyes on her, so she forces her eyes back to Chloe’s face.

“Why would I…”

“Do you want to?” Chloe’s question is innocent and simple. It’s not heavy and she doesn’t sound nervous. She might as well be asking if Beca wants to go for ice cream. “Because I want to kiss you.”

Beca feels her face ignite, embarrassed and trapped and maybe a little excited. She blames that on the alcohol, too. “Oh?” Her voice cracks and she flinches.

“Mhm,” Chloe hums cheerfully as she wiggles a little, and now they’re definitely at second base before even getting to first. “Can I?”

Beca literally has no clue what the fuck is going on. She went to work. She came home. She had dinner with her Bellas. They had an impromptu party to celebrate it being Friday. She watched Chloe have a solo dance party. She got her arm twisted into playing, well, Twister.

And now Chloe’s on top of her asking to kiss her? What the fuck?

“Um...o...kay?”

And she’s agreeing to it?!

“Awes!” is Chloe’s response, and then she’s dropping down and suddenly they’re kissing and Beca’s staring at Chloe from a distance of approximately one inch, not much more than a colorful blur, and she really has no fucking idea what’s going on, but it’s giving her a headache to have her eyes open so she closes them and, for whatever reason, Chloe keeps kissing her.

And maybe, okay...it’s kind of nice. And maybe she’s kind of...been wondering for awhile what it would be like to kiss Chloe. Awhile being...approximately eleven months. Give or take a week. And here she is, with Chloe on top of her, kissing her.

She realizes maybe she could, and should, and wants to kiss her back. So she does, and Chloe’s response is immediate, sighing as she settles further on Beca, and Beca feels the warm, wet touch of a tongue on her lower lip, and she knows it’s not her own tongue, and the thought makes her eyes roll in the non-sarcastic way and she parts her lips for it.

Though she is expecting it, had granted permission for it, she still gasps when Chloe’s tongue slides into her mouth like it owns the place, like it belongs there as much as Beca’s own, and it’s certainly introducing itself and exchanging pleasantries with Beca’s. Beca hears herself moan and she instantly blushes, because Chloe kind of chuckles at it, and for a second Beca thinks she’s mocking her but her worry is cut short by Chloe rolling her hips with extremely notable purpose against Beca, making her moan again, and what is happening??

Her hands have been lying uselessly by her sides since she collapsed and lost, but she needs them to be, like, everywhere. Quickly. She starts by wrapping her arms around Chloe and pulling her down closer, a move that pulls a happy sigh from Chloe. It’s a sound that makes Beca want to figure out what other sounds her friend makes.

But, it seems, Chloe has the same idea and before Beca can figure out what to do next, Chloe’s hand is working its way under Beca’s shirt and Beca hears herself...squeak? Did she just fucking squeak? Whatever she did, it was warranted because fuck Chloe didn’t even bother to tease, she just pushed the cup of her bra up and away so her hand could take its place, but no bra Beca’s ever worn has teased and massaged her breast like what’s happening right now.

And certainly no jeans she’s ever worn have ever felt as hot or uncomfortable as the ones she’s wearing now do. Her attempt to move, to find relief from the heat, only makes it worse when it connects her even more directly with Chloe’s rolling hips, making both of them moan, and she wonders how the hell this is a thing that’s happening right now??

But her mind has to stutter to a halt because her breast is now cup-less, bra or handwise, and she realizes two seconds later it’s because the same hand is between her legs, pressing against her through those fucking jeans that just need to be off. “Fuck…” she hears herself exhale when Chloe’s lips “finally” disappear from her own to, apparently, start sucking on her neck. She still hasn’t done a damn thing with her own hands, and at this point, she’s too out of it to try, so she just holds on, clinging to her friend that has her hand between her legs, pushing harder and faster into her with every roll of her hips. Her own hips, Beca notices, are rolling right along with Chloe’s now.

“What...oh…” She wants to ask, but she doesn’t need to ask what’s happening, because she knows, she knows what’s happening because Chloe’s yanking Beca’s belt, struggling one-handed, and Beca finally figures out what to do with her hands, letting go of Chloe to reach down and unbuckle it. Her hands bump into Chloe’s and it catches one of Beca’s, holding it, making her pause.

She opens her eyes, and Chloe’s looking down at her, flushed. “Do you want to stop?” Chloe asks.

Beca feels like she’s going nuts - like why would she want to stop?? She’s pretty sure she’s just going to internally combust if she doesn’t get some type of relief, so either Chloe needs to not stop, or she needs to let her up so she can run upstairs and take care of it herself.

“No,” she manages, much preferring Chloe to be the one to get her out of this mess, because it’s all her fault anyway. Chloe’s hand is still over hers, but Beca has two hands where Chloe only has one, so Beca tugs the button of her jeans and pulls the denim to part the zipper, and somehow she’s guiding Chloe’s hand down the front of them.

“God, Beca…” Chloe breathes, and Beca’s still looking up at her, and she doesn’t miss the way Chloe’s moment of calm control falters, eyelashes fluttering when her fingers move over the soaked lace.

She thinks she’s going to say something, too, but all that comes out is a rough groan and she sinks somehow further into the floor, closing her eyes to wait for Chloe to do...well, anything.

And then she does, sliding down and back up and Beca, for at least ten seconds, forgets how to breathe.

When she remembers, it comes as a gasp that sends them off to the proverbial races, because Chloe isn’t being slow, or particularly gentle, and Beca really doesn’t care because the relief is so, so sweet and Chloe feels so, so good and she’s kissing her again and Beca finally figures out something to do with her hands and pushes one through Chloe’s hair to fist in it and hold onto her, the other under her shirt, because two can play that game, to push her bra up and away, too and...and wow, there are a lot of firsts happening right now, Beca realizes.

She’s never had another girl’s breast in her hand. A girl’s hand had never been on hers either. And there was definitely, definitely a major first time happening in her pants, because she’s never gotten so close, so quickly which is a first in itself, and then you layer the fact that it’s a girl, that it’s her friend, that it’s Chloe and she’s lost count of how many firsts there are now because holy shit…

“Chlo…” she whines against Chloe’s lips. She doesn’t know what else to say, or do, so she just grips Chloe’s hair harder.

“Yes, Beca, yes,” Chloe breathes in response, her touch moving faster, pressing harder against the lace that’s completely pointless, she might as well be skin-on-skin and then...fuck she is and Beca...Beca…

“Oh my God,” she says after a minute, staring at the ceiling, feeling Chloe breathing hard against her neck. “Oh my God.”

“Are you freaking out?” Chloe asks, voice muffled where her mouth still presses against Beca.

“Not...not yet?” she stutters, in disbelief that anything that just took place over the past fifteen minutes actually happened. But Chloe’s still on top of her, her hand still wedged in Beca’s jeans, and her breast is definitely still in Beca’s hand. “I can’t believe we just did that -”

“I know.” Chloe’s lifting her head, and she’s smiling.

“- on a fucking Twister mat.”

Chloe laughs and drops her head again, easing her body off Beca’s and slowly detangling everything until she’s able to roll off her onto her back to lay side by side. “I’m declaring myself the winner, FYI.”

Beca manages to reach over and swat her hip. “I can say without a doubt that I won.”

“What! You fell!”

“No. No no,” Beca says, finally lolling her head to look at Chloe, who’s smiling back at her. She points up and down at herself. “This. Just won. The lottery.”

“Am I the lottery?” Chloe says with a giggle.

Beca shrugs and struggles until she’s sitting up. “I guess. And I have got to get off this fucking vinyl mat. So gross.”

Chloe’s back on her feet already and helps Beca up onto hers, catching her when she wobbles from the booze and the ridiculous orgasm her friend just gave her. “Would you rather it have been somewhere else?”

“Literally anywhere. But…” she hesitates, enjoying how close she is to Chloe, and how Chloe’s arms feel around her waist, and how her own arms look around Chloe’s neck, and she decides she can kiss her if she wants to. And she wants to. So she does. Kissing Chloe vertically is just as enjoyable as horizontally.

“But?” Chloe asks with a smile when she pulls back.

“But...I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She rolls her eyes at herself, because wow. Corny.

Chloe laughs and starts walking backwards, pulling Beca with her. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind trying it in a bed? My bed, maybe?”

Beca feels herself grinning, and nodding, and she lets Chloe slip out of her embrace to turn and walk up the stairs.

“Bed would be good, yes.”

Chapter Text

Solitude.

Beca absolutely cherishes it.

Living with nine other college girls equates 24/7 socialization. She’s surrounded by people in class. She’s surrounded by people in the library, despite its peacefulness. She’s surrounded by people at rehearsal. She comes home and no matter the time of day, she’s surrounded by those same people, in varying quantities - sometimes more if the girls have friends or S.O.’s over, sometimes fewer when they have class, work, or a social life outside of the house.

Beca is always surrounded.

Except for the precious, and she means precious, three hours she gets on Tuesdays from 1:00pm-4:00pm when the other nine girls are all in class or working or interning or whatever.

She covets the time. She anticipates it for the other 165 hours of the week. She prepares for the mental break by saving her most stressful whatever for Monday night and Tuesday morning: Accounting homework (Why is she taking Accounting? Oh right, because her father insisted she do so before she graduated.), ICCA bureaucracy, and figuring out the various shared expenses of the household and delivering weekly invoices to the girls (maybe that Accounting course wasn’t such a terrible idea).

So when 12:50pm rolls around and she hears the door slam downstairs, she knows Jessica’s just run out of the house to class and that she’s free, that it’s time to reset her brain and mood for the week. She’s ready, she’s dressed for it in her black basketball shorts that hang to her knee because who cares and her violet sports bra that will both keep her girls in place and allow her to feel comfortable being otherwise topless and cool, and her favorite black snapback in place to keep her hair out of her face.

She swaps out her expensive over-ears for cheaper in-ear buds and swipes Chloe’s iPhone arm band like she does every week to tuck her phone into it, start up this week’s playlist, and strap it on to float down the stairs into her blissfully empty, silent-save-for-the-music-in-her-ears house. She learned weeks ago to not use her DT-770s for this - the cord got caught on a doorknob once, ripped the headphones off her head to send them crashing to the floor. Not okay.

It’s hard keeping a house of ten college girls clean. None of them is particularly slobby - Amy might be the least organized, but she keeps her disorganization to her half of their shared room which Beca’s learned to ignore over the last two years. But when you put ten girls under one roof, there’s always loose hair and makeup dust and forgotten napkins and empty Starbucks cups and it’s a rare day when there’s not at least one bra lying or hanging in a room, shed in relief after a long day.

Now, Beca wasn’t a neat freak. She really wasn’t. But she could appreciate organization and general tidiness. And cleaning the Bellas’ house was her escape, her weekly mental reset. She had music in her ears and a house to herself and it was her personal haven.

Step One:  start her laundry. “I want to love you, P.Y.T. Pretty young thing…” she sings as she drops an armload of clothes into the basement washing machine.

Step Two:  a lap around the house, basement to third floor, with a trash bag, picking up, well, trash. “Streetlights, people. Living just to find emotion. Hiding somewhere in the niiiiiiiiight!” she sings as she uses her arm to clear Stacie’s desk of at least half a dozen Starbucks cups, corralling them into the waiting garbage bag.

Step Three:  sort the trash for recycling and haul it all to the trash bins outside. “We're not gonna take it. No, we ain't gonna take it. We're not gonna take it anymore!” she sings as she she picks out the plastic Starbucks cups from the paper ones to toss them into the blue and green bins.

Step Four:  another lap with a clothes basket to pick up...you guessed it - clothes that are anywhere but a bedroom. “Don't stop cookin' 'Cause I feel all right now. Don't stop now come on Mony. Come on yeah, I said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” She sings her yeahs in time with tossing socks and bras and tees into the basket.

Step Five:  deliver the laundry to its known owners to the best of her ability; articles she can not identify remain in the basket and every girl who walks through the door today will be required to go through and and take what’s hers back to her room. “Now I gotta cut loose, footloose. Kick off your Sunday shoes,” she sings, and then laughs as she throws a pair of high-tops toward Cynthia-Rose’s bed.

From Step Five forward, the girls are on their own for room upkeep.

Step Six:  run the Swiffer duster over everything she can reach. “Pop. Six. Squish. Uh-uh. Cicero. Lipshitz.”

Step Seven:  vacuum. “Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me? When will my own reflection show who I am insiiiiiide?”

Step Eight:  clean out the refrigerator. “One way or another I’m gonna find ya, I’m gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha,” as she dumps spoiled leftovers and old takeout into a new trash bag.

Step Nine:  load and run the dishwasher and hand wash what doesn’t fit or is too delicate, including the numerous wine glasses. “I dreamed a dream of time gone byyyyyyy…”

Step Ten:  mop the kitchen floor. It was arguably her favorite step, something about the visible progress made by both the wet floor and the increasingly dirty water. It also gives her a duet partner to sing to. “Take me for what I am. Who I was meant to be. And if you give a damn, take me baby or leave me.”

She dunks her Miracle Mop in the bucket again and wrings it, getting back to it as she shimmies left to right across the kitchen. “No waaaaay, can I be what I'm not. But hey, don't you want your girl hot? Don't fight, don't lose your head. ‘Cause every night, who's in your bed?”

Her right earbud pops out suddenly, getting caught on something, and she reaches to replace it. “Who! Whoooooo’s in your bed?”

“Kiss pookie.”

Beca leaps, stumbles, and spins, gaping at a grinning Chloe. “What the fuck dude?!”

“I don’t know, Bec - who is in your bed every night?”

And then Beca is swearing and shoving at a laughing Chloe who’s on her heels being pushed out of the kitchen. “Get out!”

“Oh my gosh, no, please, let me stay,” Chloe laughs, tears already in her eyes as she works on defending herself from Beca’s pushes and shoves.

“No! Why are you home? You aren’t supposed to be home until 6:00! Get out!” This was bad. Her haven has been violated. She’s been caught singing a show tune, of all possible things. And it was Chloe, who would keep it to herself but never let her live it down.

“Let me stay, let me stay! I’ll be your Joanne, let me be your Joanne!” Chloe’s laughing and Beca’s basically upright wrestling with her and has managed to back her up to the entrance to the kitchen and Beca wants to kick her out and run away and hide and pout. “No, no no no, wait, wait, uncle, uncle!” Chloe pants, going limp in Beca’s arms.

“What?” Beca asks, immediately regretting not ignoring the cry of surrender to finish her eviction.

“I’ll kiss your Doc Martens, let me kiss your Doc Martens!” Chloe laugh-sings in her face.

“Fuck you, dude!” Beca yells, and she knows she’s red-faced and overreacting but it’s becoming playfighting now. “And you know I’m the Joanne,” she adds.

Chloe squeals a laugh and gets herself turned around and bends over and suddenly Beca’s on Chloe’s back about three seconds from getting a piggyback ride and Beca lets go to keep her bare feet on the floor. “So I can be your Maureen?” Chloe’s face is pink with exertion and mirth when she turns around and Beca’s suddenly blushing for a different reason.

“O-Only if you never tell anyone about this. Never.” She spins away from her stutter and speeds back to where she dropped her mop in the middle of the floor and retrieves it.

“Well?”

“Well what?” She’s back to mopping.

“I can’t be your Maureen without the song!”

She sighs and unplugs her earbuds to unstrap her phone from her arm to set it on the nearby counter and taps the PLAY icon to start the song over. At least as the Joanne, she won’t have to sing much now. Not that she doesn’t want to sing - obviously she likes singing, and she certainly likes singing with Chloe. It’s just that...this is her time, and as much as she likes Chloe, she likes her time...well, maybe not more because she does like Chloe a great deal...but it’s her time, dammit!

“Every single day I walk down the street I hear people say baaaaby, so sweet.” Her back’s to Chloe, but she can track her movement through the kitchen by her voice. She makes her way around, hopping over the still-damp area Beca was mopping before she arrived to strut through Beca’s line of vision, still singing, “Ever since puberty, everybody stares at me, boys, girls, I can’t help it, baaaaby.”

Beca keeps mopping, trying to not stare at Chloe’s hips as they swivel and sway along to the song with the choreography she’s improvising. Beca’s grateful she’s the Joanne now; she doesn’t have to sing a word for at least another minute and she channels the weird rush of energy she has into her mopping, swinging it back and forth as she puts more space between her and Chloe.

Chloe ignores the wet floor and dances her way across it, utilizing the slickness to her advantage.

“Dude!” Beca says over Chloe’s singing, gesturing at the footprints she’s leaving behind.

But then Chloe’s on her knees with puppy eyes crawling towards her and singing where Beca had been interrupted. “‘Cause every night, who's in your bed? Who! Whoooooo’s in your bed? Kiss, pookie.”

Chloe’s looking up at her through her eyelashes and her lips are pursed and Joanne is supposed to be singing and she’s supposed to be mopping but instead she’s just kind of standing there, staring down at Chloe who’s literally up on her knees with her hands in front of her like she’s begging and fully expecting Beca to make good on her request and, and...and Beca leans down and kisses her.

It’s lightning fast and she’s mopping again as soon as she does it, heart racing and and she knows her voice is tight but she picks up the song. “Never quit, I follow through. I hate mess, but I love you. What to do with my impromptu baby?”

Her arms are met with resistance and she looks to see Chloe’s hand on the mop handle, and she’s pulling herself back to her feet and taking one long step and suddenly her hands are on Beca’s bare waist and she’s looking at her and Beca stops singing and stares back.

“You’re adorable.”

“I - what? Ha - no - um, what?” She grips the handle of her mop harder, thankful that it’s between them. It will give her leverage when she decides to push Chloe backwards.

“Can I kiss you?” Chloe says, smiling, and Beca can see her eyes flicking up and down.

Beca feels her stomach fall to her feet and her heart jump into her throat, because all she wanted to do today was have three hours to herself to clean and reset her mind and suddenly everything’s gone to shit and her day’s been ruined and, and… “What?”

Chloe’s biting her lower lip like she’s nervous while trying to hide a smile and her fingers are cool against Beca’s warm skin. “Unless you don’t want to?”

“No, I -” The coolness disappears from her waist and Beca’s reaching out with her free hand to catch one of Chloe’s. She did it without thinking and suddenly she’s holding Chloe’s hand and a mop and Chloe’s just asked if she can kiss her and what is happening?! “What?” she tries again.

Chloe shrugs and swings their joined hands a little. “I don’t want to make anything weird. You just look really cute right now and it’s just us here right now and I’ve thought about it for awhile, and -”

Beca feels her heart lurch. “You’ve thought about it?”

Chloe laughs and she actually sounds a little embarrassed, the rosy shade invading her cheeks confirming it. “Well...yeah.”

“Oh.” Beca struggles to meet her eyes, because she’s pretty sure if she does, Chloe will read SO HAVE I in them as plainly as a blinking neon sign. “Uh -”

“It’s totes okay, Bec, don’t worry about it.” Chloe’s smile’s changed and in the three seconds Beca chances looking into her eyes, she can read disappointment in them like that neon sign and -

“Okay.” Beca feels her eyes go wide, not expecting her thought to take audible form.

“What?” It’s Chloe’s turn to look surprised, and Beca gives up on not meeting the eyes that are, quite frankly, the prettiest damned eyes she’s ever seen.

“If you uh…” She has to swallow and clear her throat. “If you want to. I’d be...um, I’d be...cool. With that.” She tries not to look away, feeling like this is important. Whatever is happening - about to happen - between them is significant, like she should suck it up and not be so scared of human connection.

Chloe’s smile is bright enough to lighten the entire kitchen and it seems as though Beca’s agreement was all she needed because suddenly she’s leaning in and Chloe’s lips are on hers and it only lasts four Mississippis but it’s long enough to make Beca’s heart race even faster than it already was, and then Chloe’s retreating and smiling again.

“How’s that for being an impromptu baby?” she asks with a giggle.

It takes Beca a good five Mississippis to realize she’s quoting song lyrics. “Oh. Yeah,” she says with an awkward laugh, totally lost on how to respond.

And then Chloe’s kissing her again, more than the brief two they previously shared, and the mop is being wrestled out of her grip and she’s thankful for it because it lets her wrap her arms around Chloe and kiss her back and, and....

“Oh my God,” she says with a gasp as she breaks the kiss, brain sparking to life. “What are we doing?”

“Making out in the kitchen,” Chloe says with a smile as she leans in again but Beca leans back to look at her.

“Chlo - what are we doing?”

“I’m your Maureen,” Chloe says, looking confused. “And you’re my Joanne.”

“But I didn’t mean...I wasn’t…I wasn’t...” she’s regretting every single word that’s falling out of her lips right now, because the light in Chloe’s eyes is diminishing with each one and why is she doing that to Chloe, Chloe is the sun in her life and the stars in her sky and holy shit where have all these thoughts been hiding all this time?? And why are they showing up now what happened this all came out of left field and - “Go out with me?” She gasps at herself for saying it.

But Chloe lights up again. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“Yeah.” She tries not to gasp again, shocked again by these words coming out without her command.

And Chloe’s nodding fast and they’re kissing again and Beca thinks maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to have her Tuesday haven interrupted.

Chapter Text

Beca likes her new house.

No, that’s not accurate.

She loves it.

It’s hers. She’s worked her ass off for a decade and she’s a homeowner at twenty-eight. It’s not the mansion some of her producing peers have, but it’s respectable for a single twenty-something first-time homeowner, and she knows she’ll get up into those Hollywood Hills eventually.

The neighborhood is nice, too. It’s lined with other single-family homes similar in size and design to her own white house with its gray roof and black shutters. Green boulevards and oak trees that arched from both sides of the street to meet in the middle and it was super domestic and “adult,” but she couldn’t splash down the bachelorette pad cash yet.

She’s standing in her yard - she has a yard now, that she’s going to have to mow (or pay someone to mow) - supervising the movers unloading the truck that toted her entire life across Los Angeles from her studio apartment to her two-bedroom house when she sees her presumed new neighbor bounce down the front steps and down the walkway to the sidewalk where they wait for the movers to cross with Beca’s couch. Beca can’t help but watch, wondering what type of people live in the area and this particular neighbor is...well Beca’s not blind; she has eyes. Her neighbor is pretty, at least from a distance, with wavy cinnamon-colored hair and a nice little figure that’s being shown off with white short-shorts and a sleeveless teal blouse and flip-flops and -

“Hi!”

Beca blinks, not realizing this neighbor has walked right up to her until she’s spoken. “Oh, hey.”

“I’m Chloe,” the woman says, flashing a brilliant smile as she offers her hand for shaking.

Beca shakes it and she has to look away because those eyes are going to bore a hole into her soul if she looks at them too long. “Beca.”

“Moving in?”

She bites her tongue to stop the answer that probably would include the words ‘Captain Obvious.’ “Yep!”

“Awes! And your husband’s unpacking?”

Beca’s head nods with an internal laugh. “It’s just me.” She sees the other girl bite her lip for a second and she has to look away again, taking the moment to shout instructions to the movers with the boxes they’re carrying labeled VINYLS.

“You have this whole big house to yourself?”

This Chloe sure likes to ask a lot of questions… “Yeah. I mean, it’s not that big.” She’s two seconds from sharing too much personal information with this stranger and stops herself to redirect. “What about you? You got a husband over there?”

Chloe’s laugh is high-pitched and delightful. “Oh my gosh, definitely not. I live with my roommate, Jessica.”

Beca quirks a smile at that. She knows the cautionary lingo. She’s had ‘roommates’ before. “Jessica?”

“Yeah! Been friends for years. I’d invite you over to meet her but she’s at her boyfriend’s this weekend.”

Oh. Actual roommates. “That’s cool. I’m busy with all this anyway.” She gestures at the moving truck which looks to be nearly empty.

Chloe fidgeted for a few seconds and then bounced a little. This girl seemed very bouncy. “Well, I was just on my way to pick up a few things at the grocery store down the street. Nice day, so I’m walking. I’d be happy to show you around the neighborhood, or tell you where things are and how to avoid the school zones.”

Beca finally offers a genuine smile. It’s hard to play it stand-offish with this chick. “That’d be cool.”

“Yay! Well, I’ll let you get back to it. Welcome to the neighborhood!” Chloe’s hand touches her forearm for the briefest second and then she’s gone and Beca turns to watch her walk away.

“Nice,” she says, smiling to herself.

After a dinner consisting of pizza from the first place she can find on Yelp! that delivers, she’s in her second-floor bedroom with a beer that successfully traveled from her old place without breaking, for which she’s grateful. It’s the only room that is a major priority for her to unpack since it contains most of her life, which will be redistributed to her new extra rooms when she gets around to it. So far, she’s emptied three boxes and filled one with the stuff to be relocated and she has the entire weekend to work so she calls it quits for the night.

She gets comfortable in bed, leaning against the headboard with the lights off, her headphones on, and her computer in her lap to spin through the track she’s been tinkering with all week when a light catches her eye.

She looks up to see the source is one of the windows on Chloe and Jessica’s house. Her own window lacks any covering, and probably will for a while as hanging curtains or blinds is not something she feels very skilled in doing. But the window directly across from hers is covered, a thin, light-colored fabric that’s letting plenty of light out but doing its job to maintain privacy, as Beca can’t see anything but a square of yellow light.

Something compels her to watch anyway - maybe it’s the fact that her neighbor is smokin’ hot and who knows what she could see? She sees a shadow move through the room a moment later, in and out of the frame, and then in again to stop almost in the center of the window, and she must be standing kind of close to the curtain as her form is fairly clear and Beca can definitely make out the fact that Chloe’s going through the motions of tying her hair into a ponytail.

It’s followed by the very distinct motion of a shirt being lifted up and off and she gasps and drops down to lay flat in her bed so she can’t see, because wow that was like...not okay.

She snaps her laptop closed and stares at the ceiling, heart racing and arguing with herself to sit up and see what else that silhouette is doing, but instead she sets her computer on the floor and forces herself to sleep.

Beca wishes she could say she was surprised when her doorbell rang the next afternoon and she opened the door to find Chloe on her step, a plate of brownies in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

“Sorry for just showing up,” she says as Beca steps aside to let her in. “We didn’t exchange numbers or I would have texted you. Kind of old school just dropping by with a housewarming gift like this.” She holds up her offerings and Beca realizes she should relieve her of them.

“It’s cool,” she says, accepting her gifts. She’s not knowledgeable enough about wine to know whether or not the bottle of red is considered ‘good,’ but wine is wine. “Should I open this now?”

“If you want.” Chloe smiles and makes herself at home on the couch.

“Okay, I just have to find a corkscrew. And I think I packed my silverware...umm…” She looks around her kitchen and the half-dozen boxes waiting to be sliced open.

“I have one!” Chloe was up off the couch again and with her in the kitchen, tool in hand.

“You always carry a corkscrew?” She watches Chloe slice the foil off the bottle and work the coiled metal down through the cork with expert swiftness.

“No, but you just moved in and I brought it in case you weren’t unpacked yet.” She smiles as she pulls the cork free with a satisfying pop. “And I was right. Do you have glasses, or should I have brought those, too?”

“I have plastic cups,” she answers, opening the box she remembers intentionally tossing in a partial sleeve of Solo cups into for when she would need a cup but not have her regular glasses unpacked yet. Like now.

“To new neighbors,” Chloe prompts as they sit on the couch, turned to face one another. “I think we're going to be really fast friends.”

Beca tilts her head a little at that added comment. It feels laced with something more than casual and she savors the anticipatory feeling it gives her. “Cheers.”

Three weeks pass and Beca is mostly unpacked. Her walls are still bare, but she's finished living out of boxes.

She hasn't got around to buying blinds or curtains or something and while she's been hyper-aware of the potential to witness something next door, she hasn't seen more than a shadow now and then. She goes about her business getting ready for bed every night without thinking much of anything.

That is, until tonight when she notices that the curtain to that mystery room is drawn for the first time that she's seen, and she can't help but stop and look because the light is on and it's dark out and it's made obvious that the room is a bedroom, a bed in plain sight which has clearly been slept in and hastily made, a few items of what she assumes are clothing strewn about it.

She sees Chloe a moment later, plopping down on the bed. She's dressed, thank God, but she's looking up talking to someone obscured by the curtain that impedes her line of sight just enough. Chloe's talking, that much she knows, but she's not a lip reader.

And then Chloe's crossing her arms at her waist and pulling her shirt up and off and Beca gasps loud enough that she covers her mouth as if Chloe can hear her.

Chloe has company.

Beca cracks her knuckles one by one with her thumb, debating doing the polite thing and ignoring it or...maybe watching.

It makes her feel like a perv but she can't look away, because Chloe's smiling up at someone and she's reaching behind her back and unhooking her bra and...and now she's seen her neighbor’s breasts. And yeah, she knew Chloe was hot from Day One, but wow.

Chloe's arms are out, reaching for the shadow, and Beca holds her breath, waiting to see who the dude is. She immediately had a hundred questions - who is he, did they just meet, what's his name, what does he do, what does she see in him - and she sees hands lock with Chloe's and Chloe's lying back and her partner leans into view and the curtain of straight blonde hair and curves on the person who is definitely lacking all manner of clothing clue her in to the fact that it is very much not a dude that is lying on top of her neighbor right now. She's flooded with a multitude of emotions, the most notable being shock, relief, and arousal.

Because, obviously, Chloe's straight. Or, was. Or she thought she was.

“Hot damn,” she says to herself and immediately feels like an idiot, but she feels like maybe she has a chance with this for now and it feels even more wrong to be standing here watching...well she can't really see anything now that that chick’s made herself at home on top of Chloe, but it feels even more wrong to watch because fast forward a day or a week or a month and if maybe they're dating, how weird will this moment have been??

Or maybe they would laugh about it.

“Okay, walk away. Just walk away.” Her feet don't immediately comply with her command but when Chloe and her blonde hook-up roll and Chloe is straddling the girl with her back to the window she flees.

The thing about bearing witness to the events of Chloe’s boudoir is that the visuals have lodged themselves in Beca’s brain. She keeps replaying it.

The way Chloe sat down on the foot of her bed and how her assuredly silky red hair flowed over her shoulders, bouncing with the impact. How she smiled - not the bright smile Beca was used to, but something a little different. The way she looked removing her own shirt, and more so the way she looked removing her own bra, and more so than both of those, the way her breasts...were there. And the way she reached for her lover and pulled the woman down only to roll her over and take control and…

Chloe’s light is off tonight, and her curtain is mostly closed, though Beca had seen the light on earlier when she wandered through her room to get ready for bed. Her own light is off now, too, and she lay in bed staring at the shadows the streetlights cast on her ceiling of tree branches. She’s warm. Tingly. She shifts her legs a little, remembering what she’s seen flooding back to her and refusing to leave her alone. It heats her up and despite the fact that her hand’s already on its way, her conscience is waging a battle with itself because she knows it’s going to be Chloe she thinks about while she does this, which is maybe kind of weird because she’s Beca’s neighbor...but she’s Beca’s hot neighbor who very clearly enjoys sleeping with women and she hasn’t gotten laid since she moved and maybe it’d be fun to fantasize about the hot redheaded neighbor and...whoops she already is.

Weeks pass. No, they aren't dating. She's seen Chloe twice since she gained insight into Chloe's personal life, one encounter included meeting roommate Jessica who was a blonde but not the same blonde she had witnessed in Chloe's bedroom after Chloe invites her to join them for a movie and Chinese take-out.

The curtain has been closed most of the time, and part of Beca feels like Chloe somehow knows what Beca saw, which she knows is ridiculous and impossible.

Beca's own window has blinds now, and they didn't come easily. She had to ask the guy at Home Depot that sold them to her how to install them, read the instructions, and watch three instructional videos on YouTube and she still managed to get them crooked the first two tries, but she finally got them mostly level. The blinds help her forget that she can see her hot redheaded neighbor who may or may not be a lesbian but is at the very least not completely straight.

That weekend she reunites with a “roommate” of her own at a bar and brings her home.

She admittedly forgets about closing her blinds until there's a head between her legs and then she just doesn't give a fuck. Maybe enjoys it a little, the thought that Chloe might look over and witness her heels digging into this girl’s back.

Beca has to do a double-take the next night when she’s at her window, ready to lower her blinds.

Chloe’s curtain is completely drawn open, and Chloe’s blonde friend is back. Beca knows this because the blonde friend’s naked back is pressed up against the window. Hands pop in and out of view over the blonde’s shoulders and around her back, once or twice dropping all the way down to squeeze the girl’s ass and then they disappear. There are flashes of red that accompany the tilting of the blonde’s head and then there are hands tangled in blonde hair to pull the girl down and Chloe’s face is revealed, eyes closed as the girl sucks on her neck, and Beca can tell Chloe is, at the very least, topless.

Beca’s fingers twist and untwist the cord that’s been frozen in her hand for several minutes now. She’s just standing and watching this happen in front of her, in the indoor version of broad daylight, both of their rooms lit up like Christmas. But Chloe is definitely distracted and Beca is growing increasingly distracted and she maybe allows her free hand to wander a little, rubbing back and forth across her stomach as it decides whether to move up or down in its journey.

It decides to move north and she’s only half-conscious of the fact that her hand is under her shirt to feel herself up as she watches the scene play out in front of her.

She’s jolted out of her peep show viewing when she realizes Chloe’s eyes are open.

And she’s looking right at Beca.

To be continued...

Chapter Text

Chloe likes her new neighbor.

She’s kind of mysterious and a little awkward while still maintaining a decent but not excessive level of confidence, and she’s either independently successful or a trust fund baby to be moving into this neighborhood all by herself. She thinks they would make good friends. Plus, that streak of standoffishness that underlies everything she says in their first encounter in front of her new house only makes Chloe want to befriend her even more.

And she likes that this Beca girl isn’t married.

She invites herself to Beca’s house the next afternoon after her freshly baked brownies have cooled and are arranged on a plate she won’t mind not getting back. She feels kind of like Bree Van de Kamp on “Desperate Housewives,” strolling to her new neighbor’s house with baked goods and booze.

Beca’s house is similar in layout to her own, obviously built around the same time by the same contractor as this particular area of Los Angeles was developed. The stairs are in the same place, and she assumes the bedrooms are up there like they are in her own home.

Her theory is confirmed that evening. She’s reading in bed on her Kindle when a square of light catches her eye. The window on Beca’s house opposite her own is lit up. She looks for a few seconds, curious but not wanting to be invasive. The room is quite obviously in a state of just-moved-in. From her angle, she can see the tops of a few boxes, some large items that are still wrapped in moving blankets propped up against a wall, and, when curiosity gets the best of her and she sits up a little straighter, a bed that is still bare from its relocation.

Beca crosses the room holding what looks to be a beer and Chloe forces her eyes back to her book, stealing glances now and then when motion catches her eye. Beca’s busy, moving things here and there.

The room falls dark a bit later, Beca never reappearing, but Chloe knows she’s there, having turned off the light before climbing into bed. She watches the darkness for a few more seconds before switching off her e-reader to turn in for the night.

Chloe quickly grows to enjoy the fact that she has a private (not so private?) window into Beca’s life. It’s become part of her routine, like red wine and popcorn to watch TGIT on ABC. She needs to be in bed early enough that she can watch Beca do whatever she’s going to do that evening in her bedroom.

She spares a thought to wondering if, since she can see into Beca’s house, if Beca’s ever seen into her house and, if so, what she’s seen. Chloe’s been so used to the house being empty, she stopped thinking about the need for discretion like that.

Chloe’s watched her unpack, moving things out of one box into another. The boxes eventually disappeared. The walls were still undecorated, but she could see things waiting to be hung—an abstract painting that Chloe pondered every time she saw it, some framed photos, and one of those gold records she sees pop stars get and she wonders if it’s real or one of those souvenir ones.

Beca hadn’t been particularly forthcoming about her personal life over their wine and brownies that day, redirecting most of the conversation back to Chloe, which she didn’t mind because she loves talking, but now she wishes she knew more about the girl. Maybe if she hadn’t talked so much she would know what Beca does for a living. She can’t even Google her; she doesn’t know her last name.

The mystery makes her all the more fascinating.

It also makes Chloe...needy. She’s starting to want what she can’t have, or at least doesn’t have—yet.

It’s what’s brought her and Jessica to one of their usual haunts, an LGBT-friendly club that offers her multiple options. Jessica’s a good wingman, not that Chloe needs one, but they always have a good time dancing and ogling Chloe’s possible conquests.

Tonight, the girl with the silky straight blonde hair who she’s repeatedly caught staring at her all night is her chosen prize.

She takes the girl home, Jessica opting to meet up with her boyfriend, and Chloe has the house to herself. She’s elated when the girl lets her leave the lights on; Chloe likes to see what she’s doing to better appreciate the physical beauty of whomever she’s with. She undresses the girl and sits on the bed expectantly but she's just as much of a flirt as Chloe, teasing her by staying just out of reach.

Chloe finally convinces the girl to come to her, pulling her down into bed only to take matters into her own hands and roll them so she can be on top.

Chloe’s up in the middle of the night. Her phone says it’s 3:07 am when she’s woken up by the need to pee. She moves somewhat blindly, knowing the route to and from the bathroom and how to not run into things like the dresser or doorways or the shoes she remembers leaving by her closet instead of putting them in her closet.

She’s crawling back into bed when curiosity gets the best of her. She wonders if Beca happens to be awake at this ungodly hour, and if she is, what is she doing?

She’s peeking around the curtain, trying to be inconspicuous, but Beca’s light is off. Apparently she still hasn’t gotten around to installing blinds or a shade or a curtain, and Chloe’s not totally sure how she can stand to sleep in a bedroom that is lit up with so much morning light. And it’s while she’s considering this, and whether or not Beca wears a sleep mask to combat the issue, that her eyes start to adjust to the darkness and she can make out the outline of her bed, and the wrinkled bedding that covers it, and the lump beneath it that would be Beca. She looks, telling herself just ten more seconds when she notices the lump is moving.

Slowly.

Rhythmically.

A car drives down their street and the headlights catch Beca’s window. It’s so, so brief, but it lights her up in a spotlight long enough that Chloe can see exactly what Beca was doing in bed, eyes closed, bedding pushed almost to her knees; she’s nude and very alone.

It makes heat rush through her and she tries to press closer to the window to get a better look at her cute, mysterious neighbor who is loving herself quite intimately at the moment. Now that she knows what is happening, it’s easier to make out the movements in the darkness, and what she can’t see, her mind fills in the blanks to.

She watches, something in the back of her mind trying to tell her this is wrong, but she can’t help but ignore that voice in favor of the vision that’s pieced itself together in her brain. She watches until Beca’s still, and she slips back into her own bed, pulse throbbing everywhere but nowhere is it stronger than between her legs and she doesn’t let herself feel guilty about reaching down to relieve the pressure.

Chloe bumps into Beca a few days later, both of them wheeling their trash cans to the curb at the same time. “Hi!” she says, with a wave.

“Oh, hey.”

Beca seems like she’s trying to pretend Chloe isn’t there, but that doesn’t stop her. “If you’re not busy later, do you want to come over? Jessica and I are going to find something to watch on Netflix. Order Chinese, just generally be lazy.”

She watches Beca’s fingers tap the lid of her trash can a few times before the girl turns and fully regards her. “Yeah, okay, sure. Why not?”

She seems nervous and Chloe smiles, finding it adorable. But a memory from what she witnessed the other night slides into place and she bites her lip and for a second she considers playing bashful and looking away, but that rarely got her anywhere with shy girls like this one who usually need her to be the one to make the first move. So instead she makes eye contact with the girl, letting herself remember what Beca doesn't know she saw until Beca suddenly blushes scarlet and stutters something about needing to go.

Their movie night is fun. Beca’s a pretty chill person, if guarded, and Chloe finds it easy to sink into conversation with her. Beca’s also easily flustered, but she recovers quickly, usually with a comment that does a decent job at flustering Chloe in return.

Beca has an air of confidence about her; it’s a different type of confidence than Chloe’s used to. It’s one that says she’s sure of who she is, and has nothing to prove to anyone. But she’s a touch shy, not a lot, just enough to be cute, and she doesn’t recoil when Chloe decides to curl up against her on the couch while they watch the movie with Jessica.

Beca even lifts her arm to let it drape around Chloe’s shoulders.

Chloe finds herself disappointed when she notices Beca has blinds on her window. She enjoyed her secret insight into Beca’s life.

It’s a Saturday night. Chloe’s sitting in bed with a glass of red wine determined to finish her book when the square of light across the way illuminates. She looks up out of habit but by this point, she knows that the blinds are down and closed.

Only this time, they aren’t.

It had been a gorgeous spring day, and it seems Beca’s left her window open and blinds raised. Chloe’s own window is open to let in the breeze.

It’s just like old times.

Only Beca’s not alone.

There’s a girl with her, with short brown hair, and Chloe can see they’re talking. The sound of their laughter carries her way in the wind and Chloe reaches over to turn off her bedside lamp to watch in the relative safety of the darkness.

She’s never seen Beca have company, whether through this intrusive method of observation or simply seeing a car other than Beca’s parked in front of her house, nor anyone coming or going. It’s only then that Chloe realizes it’s well past the hour for the casual visitor, and it’s the moment the thought registers that Beca’s pulled the girl close to kiss her.

Chloe sucks in a breath, the pleasant surprise that Beca likes girls, and that she’s about to watch it happen like her own private X-rated website.

She watches Beca strip the girl, and she watches the girl return the favor,  and she whimpers at the sight of Beca’s nude form on display, and she watches Beca get pushed onto the bed to lay down, and she watches the girl kiss her way down Beca’s body and lift Beca’s legs over her shoulders.

She watches it happen, and she hears it happening when the breeze is just right. It’s almost inaudible but Chloe’s listening for it, knowing when to expect it because she sees Beca’s mouth open and she waits for the sound to reach her ears and when it does, her own hand pushes between her legs. She watches it happen, and she happens with it.

Chloe’s consumed with thoughts. She wants. She’s been stupid horny since last night despite relieving herself (twice) while watching Beca’s encounter. Part of her wants to simply knock on Beca’s front door, grab her, kiss her, and drag her up to her room and fuck her senseless.

She is, however, fairly sure that isn’t the best idea.

To deal with her hormones, she does what she almost never does—makes a booty call, to her friend from the bar a few weeks ago. Thankfully, the girl’s down and she’s the one Chloe grabs at the front door, kisses, and drags her up to her room to fuck her senseless.

She has her pressed up against her bedroom window, and Chloe knows her curtain is open, and her light is on, and it’s dark outside, and she’s not going to lie to herself: she wants Beca to see. She doesn’t know exactly why, but she doesn’t question her desire.

But Beca’s light is on, which means she is, was, or will be in her bedroom, and Chloe’s purposely left her light on, and she lets her lover strip her of her blouse and then Chloe guides her head down to demand attention to her neck so she can see past her to Beca’s house.

When she opens her eyes, her moan is taken as appreciation by her lover, but it has nothing to do with the blonde.

Beca’s at the window.

Beca’s watching.

Beca’s touching herself.

To Chloe’s immense surprise, she receives a text from Beca the next day, early in the afternoon. It’s the first text she’s sent beyond the one she sent when she gave Chloe her number at Netflix night.

This is crazy awkward and idk how to say it so I’m just gonna say it
And I prob could have said something earlier...
But we both know what I saw last nite. And good for you, man!
But maybe like...just heads up that I can see into your room sometimes.

Chloe smiles at her phone.

I know. ;)

She knows it might be a risky reply, but she likes Beca. Wants Beca to like her. Wants Beca. She can’t play platonic neighbor forever if she’s going to get what she wants.

Oh. Ok. Yeah...just letting you know.
As a courtesy.

To be continued...

Chapter Text

Beca’s spent the better part of the afternoon kicking herself. She didn’t want to bring up The Incident with Chloe, but there was no way they weren’t both aware of what had happened last night. She knew she could never face her neighbor again if they didn’t acknowledge it and move on.

She didn’t expect Chloe to be almost flippant about the situation. Almost like she enjoyed knowing Beca saw.

She regrets shining the light on the matter, though. It means her voyeurism is going to end.

It’s past midnight when Beca makes her way upstairs. She’s not worried about what she’ll see tonight, because they texted, albeit briefly, about the matter, and she knows Chloe will heed her warning and keep that curtain closed.

Only before Beca’s even reached for her light switch she sees that she’s completely wrong.

Chloe’s curtain is wide open.

Her big overhead light is off, though her bedside lamp is on, Chloe’s nowhere to be seen. Beca rushes across the room to yank her blinds down, but the piece of shit cord won’t cooperate and only one side is coming down and she’s still fighting with them when she sees movement, and she glances to see Chloe wandering around her bedroom putting away laundry.

Beca tries to keep her focus on fixing her blinds as efficiently as possible but she sees Chloe slow to a stop and Beca knows she’s standing in front of her window. She only hopes her back is to it, but when Beca steals a glance, she can see that Chloe’s looking right at her, hands on the windowsill as she leans forward a little. Smiling. Smiling at Beca.

Beca forgets what her hands are trying to do when she sees Chloe start unbuttoning her shirt, and her blinds choose that moment, for better or worse, to finally respond and they crash down into place.

The next night, Beca waits until it’s after 1:00 am to venture to her room. She’s starting to feel like it’s a war zone, and she debates doing an Army crawl to enter unnoticed. Until she remembers she never reopened her blinds that morning for this exact reason.

She enters her room with confidence but something tugs at her wrist. Pushes at her back. Nudges at her feet. Until she’s spreading two slats of her blinds apart to look.

Chloe’s awake. She’s in bed, reading. Wearing glasses, Beca notes. She doesn’t seem to be wearing a shirt, a sheet pulled up and tucked under her arms. Beca swallows hard, unable to ignore the definition in the woman’s arms.

Chloe lifts her head and Beca yanks her hand away to let the blinds snap back together, and her heart races. It was one thing to happen upon something; it was a horse of a different color to be actively spying and get busted.

When her phone chimes in her pocket, she knows who it is before she even looks at it.

Chloe Next Door: Nighty night!

Beca’s started dreading going to bed. It’s near impossible to ignore the impulse to peek through the blinds. Her curiosity is killing her, and despite wanting this girl, her brazen [presumed] flirtation is almost too much for Beca to handle.

Almost.

She gives in on a Thursday night after staring at the ceiling for an hour. She knows Chloe’s up—the ambient light is visible despite her blinds because Chloe seems to refuse to ever have her curtain closed now, like she has a point to make.

So she rolls out of bed and considers crawling to the window, but she walks like an adult. She debates how to do it, how to see through her blinds without giving herself away. The distance between them and the window doesn’t work because the angle from either side is too steep to see straight across. But there’s a natural gap near the bottom that’s been there since they slammed down so she crouches to bring herself level with it.

She was right—Chloe’s still awake. She’s not in bed, though it looks like she was because her bedding is pushed back, though Chloe’s nowhere to be seen.

She reappears just when Beca feels disappointment sneaking in, but it’s replaced with a different type of disappointment when Chloe isn’t topless like she was the other night.

But the disappointment doesn’t last long, because despite being clothed, all she’s clothed in are a tiny pair of shorts and a matching tank that were obviously purchased as a set, and it lets Beca appreciate those toned arms again.

She watches Chloe crawl into bed and turn off her lamp, and she returns to her own bed, mind buzzing.

Beca blames her hormone cycle. In the morning she twists her blinds open—not up, just open to let the light through—with full intention to “forget” to close them later.

She leaves her own reading lamp on as she lays on her stomach in bed, reversed so her head’s at the foot where she can easily see into Chloe’s room, which, thus far, has been dark since Beca laid down at 10:33 pm. She has her laptop in front of her to avoid boredom as she waits, and it’s nearing midnight when the light comes on and Chloe appears.

Beca lifts her eyes just enough to watch through her blinds, and though her line of sight is repeatedly broken up by the slats, she can track Chloe’s movement, and she sees it slow to a stop in front of the window. Beca knows she’s looking her way; she kind of wants Chloe to know she’s there. That it’s possible that she can see Chloe.

She wants to know what would happen. If what Chloe seemed to tease the night she started unbuttoning her shirt at the window would happen again.

She can see Chloe at the window, closer, clearer. She’s rocking back and forth a little, and then Beca sees her arms cross at her waist and she lifts her shirt up and off in a move so smooth and confident it makes Beca’s jaw drop. Her bra is black. Maybe blue or purple. Her shorts are gray. Potentially lavender.

Chloe turns around and walks back to her bed, her back to the window, and Beca’s iMessage notification on her computer makes her jump.

Like what you see?

Beca reads it three times to make sure she’s reading it right, and that the sender is actually ‘Chloe Next Door.’

She is, and it is.

Her hands hover over her keyboard. Her palms are sweating and she glances up to see Chloe back at her window. She’s just standing there. Waiting. There’s a square of light in her hand that Beca knows is her phone.

Beca chews on her lip, heart pounding. Chloe’s opened the proverbial door, and it’s up to Beca whether or not to enter.

Maybe

It’s noncommittal and a little safe just in case she needs to backpedal for any reason, in the unlikely but still possible event that she’s completely misread the situation and Chloe’s text is actually her way of telling Beca she’s a creeper. She’s still rereading the short text when another one pops up.

How bout now?

She lifts her eyes and, “Shit…”

Chloe’s topless, and still standing in the window.

Not bad.

She tries to play it cool and confident; she’s grateful she’s all but anonymous right now because she’s dying inside and could never carry on this type of communication if it had to be verbal and face to face. Not with this girl, who, in these short months of being neighbors, has managed to thoroughly ruffle her feathers.

I can feel you staring. Don’t lie to me.

Something in the tone of the text makes Beca’s heart pound.

OK.

Her fingers type it before she was ready to and she curses at herself for it because now she has to follow it up with something relevant.

Yeah. I like what I see.

She counts to three and then hits the Enter key with more force than necessary to send it.

I wish I could see you too.

Beca’s heart is in her throat. She didn’t expect this, any of this. And now Chloe’s, well she’s about three texts from turning this conversation into sexting and Beca’s pretty sure she wouldn’t care if she did. This is quickly becoming a YOLO situation, as much as she detests the phrase she respects its core meaning, and if Chloe’s into it…

Oh yeah?

Mhmm

I’ve seen you before

With your friend

Beca inhales at the response. The “Mhmm” is suggestive and the fact that Chloe had indeed ended up seeing her reunion weeks ago makes her head spin.

Wouldn’t mind seeing you again tho

Like right now

The texts come in fast succession and Beca’s hands are trembling and her body’s on fire and the back of her neck is sweating and she can still see Chloe standing in the frame of the window, still topless, still rocking back and forth, face lit up brighter than the rest of her by her phone.

It’s only fair.

She doesn’t register that she’s even moving until she’s standing in front of her window, her fingers curled around the cord to her blinds. She hears her computer chime again and she has to turn back, opting to grab her phone instead to read it.

Open them

Beca looks down at herself. She’s not wearing a single sexy thing—her T-shirt is too big and her sleep shorts have Spongebob on them. “One, two, three,” she says to herself and yanks the string on the blinds to lift them. It’s not as smooth as she would have liked, having to fight with them for a few seconds to get them to stay up, but when they do and she remembers the reason why she’s doing that at all, she drops her eyes and there’s Chloe, naked save for a pair of shorts.

And she waves at Beca, the same cute wave she does when they see each other outside or passing on the street. But then she’s gesturing at her, miming pulling off the shirt she removed from herself five minutes ago, and Beca realizes what she’s asking for.

Her phone dings.

Please?

She cracks her knuckles with her thumb and then counts to three again and whips her shirt off before she can second-guess herself.

Chloe’s reaction is immediate; she hops a little and claps best she can with a phone in her hand, and the motion transfers to two specific areas of her body that Beca can’t help but stare at until she’s still and her phone chimes.

Oh my…

No bra?

Beca takes pride in the response—like Chloe wasn’t expecting her to go for it, or go for it to that degree. She hasn’t decided how to respond yet when more messages come through.

Your hot

*You’re

Beca sniffs a laugh at Chloe’s need to correct a typo in this particular contextual situation, and she finds it endearing.

So are you

It’s a weak response, and she recognizes she’s really letting Chloe carry this conversation, but she seems content in that role.

I think about you sometimes

Beca looks up from her phone. Chloe’s innocent giddiness is gone again, and she’s staring at Beca like she was waiting for her to look at her, and the moment their eyes meet, Chloe’s hand is moving to her breast. It covers it and Beca nearly falls forward, her crazy pulse making her dizzy.

Chloe’s eyes drop and she’s texting one-handed.

Do you think about me too?

Touching yourself when you saw me with Tara

Beca blushes hard at being called out for it. Chloe hadn’t mentioned it when Beca had done the considerate thing and notified Chloe of her visibility. Obviously Chloe had offered her own consideration in not mentioning to Beca what she saw.

Until now.

She’s glancing back and forth between her phone and Chloe, not sure what to do or say and Chloe’s still looking at her phone, typing, her left hand still idly caressing her breast.

You were wearing a shirt tho

I couldn’t see you

Like I can now

Beca knows what she’s implying; what she’s requesting. She looks up to see Chloe’s finished texting, at least for now, and she’s watching Beca expectantly. The moment their eyes reconnect Chloe gives a particularly obvious tug to the nipple she’s been toying with for however many minutes and Beca’s hand is on her own without conscious thought.

She sees Chloe react, eyes wide, lips pursed, and then eyes closed and mouth open and Beca imagines the sound that she just made and makes one of her own.

When Chloe opens her eyes again, she looks different. Hotter. Determined. It makes Beca feel weak in the knees and she watches Chloe toss her phone behind her onto her bed so she does the same. Chloe takes a step forward and she lifts her arm to lean against the window frame and her hand drifts from her left breast to her right and Beca toys with her own almost absentmindedly. It feels good, but watching Chloe is more pleasurable.

Her brain keeps trying to interrupt what’s happening, telling her she should be embarrassed, that for some reason this is wrong. But she shoves the thoughts away, burying them under the sound rationale that they are both consenting to this mutual voyeurism and Chloe’s appreciative and intense gaze spurs her to make the bold move to let her other hand sweep down over her stomach. Her thumb catches in the waistband of her shorts and she gives it the tiniest tug. She’s watched Chloe track her hand’s motion and as soon as it hooks in the elastic to pull it down one suggestive inch, Chloe turns away and is hurrying out of the room and Beca’s stomach drops.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.” She feels like an idiot. She didn’t know she even could take what was happening too far, but clearly she had. Her shirt is missing; she can’t remember where she dropped it because she wasn’t thinking when she took it off and it’s nowhere on the floor and her hands are rooting through her bedding for it and it’s nowhere and she feels like she’s going to cry in humiliation and her doorbell rings.

She freezes. She imagined that.

It rings again and it’s followed by knocking.

She knows it’s Chloe. It has to be. Furious, probably.

Or maybe not, the other half of her brain battles back, the one that was in charge just a minute ago in front of the window.

The doorbell rings for a third and fourth time in quick succession and Beca finally finds her shirt under the edge of her bed and she runs down the stairs.

Her heart’s pounding and her body is still throbbing and she’s preparing herself for whatever is going to be there, good or bad, and she hesitates, knowing Chloe is on the other side of the door she’s staring at. She has yet to put on her shirt; she’s just holding it and the part of her that’s scared thinks she should put it on, but the part of her that’s turned on thinks she should leave it off, so she compromises and just holds it against her chest.

At this point, what does it matter anyway?

“One, two, three,” she counts aloud quickly and then flips the deadbolt and jerks the door open.

Chloe’s standing barefoot on her welcome mat wearing a blue track jacket that’s only half-zipped and there’s clearly nothing underneath it, and they stare at each other for what both feels like an eternity and a nanosecond.

And then Chloe takes the step forward and pulls Beca right into a kiss that immediately steals her breath. She feels the shirt get yanked out of her grip and hears her front door close and she leans forward, conscious enough to reach and lock it and the motion gets Chloe pinned against the door and the realization of what’s happening finally hits home and Beca groans and presses her body up against Chloe’s.

She reaches for the zipper on the jacket and whips it down. She doesn’t even bother hesitating. Her hands run up Chloe to cover the breasts that, until this moment, she’s only seen from afar.

“Fuck…”

She’s never heard Chloe curse before, but it’s sexy as hell mumbled against her lips.

It’s her turn to swear when Chloe’s hands knock Beca’s out of the way and her breasts are in Chloe’s hands and Chloe capitalizes on her distraction. She pushes off the door and walks to force Beca backward and they’re heading for the stairs and Beca finds it awfully convenient that their floorplans are similar enough that Chloe knows where she’s going despite only ever seeing half of the lower level.

Lips are sucking on her neck hard enough that Beca barely notices the sharp pain that comes with her back getting slammed against the banister at the foot of the stairs. Her hands shove at the jacket, needing it off Chloe and Chloe finally gets the point and releases Beca long enough to let her yank it down her arms and throw it aside. Her arms are around Beca’s waist immediately to pull their bodies flush as she reconnects their mouths.

Beca’s had her share of hot and heavy hook-ups in her time, but none of them have been as intense as this, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the build-up tonight or the build-up since she moved in or something else entirely but she feels like she’s simultaneously drowning, burning alive, and being resuscitated every time Chloe’s tongue twists around hers.

She feels hands on her ass and she’s being guided to take a step to her right to actually climb the stairs, and she’s never climbed stairs backward but it seems like she’s going to have to learn.

She makes it up four steps and is trying to find the fifth when Chloe’s hands hook into the waistband of Beca’s shorts to pull them down to her knees, making it impossible for her to lift her leg to climb that stair.

Hands run up her legs and one is back on her ass and Chloe’s lips are sliding down her neck very obviously heading for her breast and her other hand pushes between Beca’s thighs—

“Jesus, Beca,” Chloe says.

Beca knows what she’s referring to. She’s insanely turned on and she just moans and nods and pushes Chloe’s mouth the rest of the way to to her breast.

She’s never going to make it up the stairs now, not backward, not with her shorts around her knees, and definitely not with a hand between her legs. She tries to sit but Chloe wraps her arm around her waist and keeps her upright, instead turning her to press her into the banister again.

The movement is quick and it throws off Beca’s balance and other than the wooden beam pressing across her back there’s nothing behind her and she gets the distinct panic sensation that she’s going to fall at the same time that fingers press into her, but Chloe’s arm moves to hold her around her shoulders and she’s completely at the mercy of her neighbor. The precarious position sends adrenaline shooting through her and heightens everything she was already feeling.

Chloe isn’t being gentle. It’s not painful, but it’s rough, and her hips are adding force to what her hand is doing and Beca finally manages to get one of her feet out of her shorts and Chloe capitalizes on it immediately. She pushes Beca’s thigh with her hip and Beca gets the hint, moving her free foot up a step, creating more room for Chloe to work.

Beca’s restless; she moves with Chloe and her hands drag up her back to tangle into her hair and yank her up from where she’s been sucking at the swell of her breast to crash their mouths together again. She keeps Chloe occupied long enough to work her arm between them, which is no small feat because there’s really no space to be had until she gets the palm of her hand on Chloe’s stomach and Beca rolls her eyes because of course, this chick has rock hard abs.

She marvels at them for a second before twisting her wrist to send her hand down into Chloe’s lavender shorts and the moan that hits her ears nearly makes Beca come apart. Chloe’s soaked and she bites Beca’s lip when she breaks the kiss to moan. Chloe didn’t hesitate and Chloe isn’t gentle, so neither is Beca and Chloe leans heavier into her.

The arm at Beca’s back, the one that’s saving her from potentially flipping right over the handrail, disappears and Beca sees it move instead to grip onto the polished mahogany.

Beca has to do the same to cut the fear that she’s going to fall, and for a second she can see herself like an out-of-body experience. Their positions mirroring each other, arms outstretched and hanging onto the balustrade for dear life. She’s naked. Chloe might as well be. Hands are between thighs and hips are thrusting and they’re staring at each other like they’re watching each other from their windows.

“I watched you fuck that girl.”

The voice reaches Beca’s ears and pulls her back into her body. “You did?”

Chloe nods. “Turned me on so much. I got myself off watching you. Twice.”

Beca doesn’t know how her body is even capable of generating more heat, but it does. “Fuck,” she says with a groan and Chloe shifts her angle a little and really starts hitting it right. “Fuck, that’s fucking hot.”

Beca’s rhythm falters and Chloe reaches for Beca’s hand to yank it out of her shorts. “Let me,” Chloe husks in her ear and drops her mouth to Beca’s neck, working it over as her hand moves furiously between Beca’s legs, and Beca’s grip on Chloe’s upper arms lets her feel how strong she is and how hard she’s working.

“Oh God,” Beca groans. She feels it, the coil tightening deep inside, threatening to break any moment. She’s teetering on the edge waging a battle with herself to fall over it or keep the reins tight to live in this heightened state of consciousness as long as possible.

“I listened to you come for that girl. I want to hear what you sound like when you come for me.” Chloe’s lips pull at her ear before teeth nip at it and Beca moans. “God, you sound so good.”

Beca feels her eyes rolling. She’s losing it, and Chloe’s filthy mouth is going to be her undoing. Beca’s not one to be quiet, but she’s not usually particularly loud either, but Chloe’s trying to make a point. Chloe wants to be better than someone else, and fuck Chloe is better than anyone Beca can think of so she lets her know with an appreciative groan and then she’s throwing her head back, trusting Chloe to keep her upright, letting every possible sound that makes its way to her lips escape and Chloe’s echoing them like she’s getting just as much pleasure out of it.

But Chloe goes silent when Beca tenses in her arms, the spring finally snapping and Beca’s falling forward into her when she sees stars.

She’s vaguely aware that she’s being kissed and when the hand that’s been helping her come down from her high disappears, she’s able to return the kiss, and then she pulls back and opens her eyes.

Chloe’s looking at her with such lust that it makes her knees almost give out—or maybe it’s the lingering effects of her orgasm. Regardless.

“I’m going to take you upstairs and you’re going fuck me like I know you want to.” Chloe says it so hotly that all Beca can do is groan when a wet hand grabs her own and nearly drags her up the rest of the stairs to her room. “Yours is bigger than mine,” Chloe says observantly when they enter like they weren’t just and aren’t about to be fucking each other’s brains out.

“Is it?” Beca responds, and she considers laughing at the absurdity of this sudden friendly conversation as she finally kicks her shorts off her other foot. Instead of laughing she stalks forward and simply shoves Chloe into her bed and climbs up to follow her. The surprised little sound Chloe makes does things to Beca and she drops to capture her lips.

She can feel Chloe squirming beneath her but Beca’s hovering on her hands and knees and no matter how high Chloe lifts her hips she comes up short and Beca savors the power she’s wielding after being stripped of it on the staircase. She rips her mouth away and lets a smile play at her lips as she looks down at Chloe, who seems to be beyond frazzled. “Fuck you like you know I want to?”

Chloe nods quickly, adding a frustrated groan when another thrust of her hips comes up empty.

“And how do you think I want to fuck you?” She’s not usually quite this bold in bed the first time she’s with someone, at least not without several glasses of alcohol. But something about Chloe makes her feel like all bets are off. She waits until Chloe’s looking up at her again and Beca licks her lips.

“Christ. Just fucking go down on me.” Chloe’s pushing at Beca’s shoulders and her strength and Beca’s lack of desire to resist are a winning combination and Beca drops low enough to run her tongue down Chloe’s body as she’s pushed as far as Chloe can reach.

She moves the rest of the way of her own volition, her short fingernails dragging across Chloe’s skin that feels like it’s on fire until Beca’s kneeling on her bedroom floor. She hooks her fingers into Chloe’s shorts and slips them down her legs to run her hands up thighs that are so toned it should be illegal. She curls her hands under them and yanks to pull the girl closer, and the sudden jerk makes Chloe squeal in a way that’s so sexy it makes Beca groan and she doesn’t even bother to tease.

She just leans down and drags her tongue between Chloe’s legs. Chloe’s hips surge up to her with a moan and she pushes her back down to the bed. She’s still working on getting Chloe’s legs over her shoulders but she already has her flesh caught between her lips to grind her flattened tongue into it and it makes Chloe’s back arch.

Fingers twist into her hair and pull Beca in closer and she lets her own hands roam over Chloe’s legs and stomach and ribs and reach until her fingertips find Chloe’s breasts to squeeze and twist and it makes Chloe sit up a little.

Beca looks at her; she’s propping herself up on her elbows to look down and watch Beca, and Beca isn’t even surprised that Chloe wants to watch. Everything about their association thus far has been about watching each other and there’s something thrilling and even flattering about it.

It boosts her confidence and she sends a wink up at Chloe before reclaiming one of her hands to utilize it in a more intimate way. It’s satisfying when Chloe throws her head back at the press of Beca’s fingers, but she’s watching Beca again soon, and she’s chewing on her lower lip in a way that makes Beca’s stomach flutter and she twists her tongue to make Chloe’s jaw drop so instead of biting her lip she’s moaning.

Chloe’s legs shift, an absentminded twisting and spreading and squeezing and Beca feels her heels dragging up and down her back in a way that serves as an unnecessary but fully welcome reminder of what’s happening right now.

“Fuck, Beca, that’s so good,” Chloe says through a groan, and then there’s a loud catch in her breath and Beca knows she has her. She doesn’t falter in her rhythm or pressure; she just holds steady and looks up at Chloe and waits. Chloe’s moans have shifted to broken cries, and she’s barely looking at Beca now, and with a gasp, Chloe’s body freezes and Beca just keeps hold on her, knowing she’s going to snap.

And she does with a cry that makes Beca hum proudly. Chloe finally stops watching and falls back onto the bed again, hips lifting and twisting as it subsides.

Beca straightens and sits back on her heels, fingers easing Chloe down while Beca takes her turn at watching the way Chloe’s chest heaves as she fights for oxygen, how one hand is twisted in the quilt and the other is over her own forehead, eyes staring at the ceiling. Beca turns and presses a kiss to the side of Chloe’s knee that’s still over her shoulder and waits until she recovers.

“Get up here,” Chloe finally says. She still sounds winded and her voice doesn’t have the same chipper, clear tone it usually does. It’s rough and lower and Beca finds it incredibly sexy.

She eases out of the frame of Chloe’s legs and watches as Chloe drags herself higher on the bed so her legs aren’t hanging off it anymore, and then Beca follows. She keeps a cautious distance between them because while suspecting Chloe’s a cuddler in all scenarios, this entire situation blew up into some crazy porno encounter and Beca’s not about to assume anything about what happens next. She lays down, and a moment later Chloe’s on her side to tuck herself along Beca’s body, feet tangled, arm over her waist, and face sharing the pillow close enough that her breath tickles Beca’s ear. She recoils from it and scrunches her shoulder up to rub her ear against it and it makes Chloe laugh and tickle it all over again.

“So,” Chloe says once she’s finished laughing.

“So.”

“You okay with this?” Chloe squeezes her around the middle to indicate what she’s referencing. Beca lays her hand over Chloe’s forearm. “Not everyone’s a cuddler after.”

“I don’t know that I am.” Beca feels Chloe’s eyes on her and smiles. “But this is okay.”

Chloe sighs and it sounds happy and content. “Good.” There’s a beat. “So.”

Beca chuckles. “So. Yeah.”

“That was kind of amazing.”

Beca coughs and bites the inside of her cheek. She wants to not make some pompous comment right now because it’s a nice moment. She swallows it back and runs her hand down Chloe’s forearm and she slots her fingers between Chloe’s. Something about all this seems so right despite the admittedly crazy way things have happened. “Yeah, it was.”

She feels lips on her shoulder, a kiss, followed by another kiss, and another, slowly working their way along the curve of her neck until Chloe’s propped up and looking down at her. “I know we haven’t spent a lot of time together,” Chloe starts, still playing with Beca’s fingers. “But I really like you.”

“Yeah? I couldn’t tell.” The sass is out of her mouth too fast to censor and she cringes but Chloe throws her head back and laughs.

“Was it that obvious?” She’s biting her lip again and Beca stares at it.

“It got pretty obvious with the window striptease. But that business on my stairs kind of erased any lingering doubts.”

Chloe jostles her playfully and Beca looks at up her, feeling utterly at peace and at home, and it’s unlike anything she’s ever felt after a hook-up. There’s no tension or awkwardness and she has no desire to make up an excuse that will get the girl out of her bed. “I like you, too,” she finally adds.

The comment makes Chloe light up and they’re kissing again, but not the rough, biting kiss of before. It’s slow and soft and Chloe’s tongue only grazes hers rather than the filthy things it was doing earlier.

“So what’s your last name, Beca?” she asks when they part. She’s still propped up to talk easily, and their fingers are still playing together.

“Mitchell. And you’re listed as Chloe Next Door in my phone.”

Chloe laughs. “It’s Beale. Beca Mitchell? I like that.”

“Well I’m kind of stuck with it, so,” Beca shrugs.

“So, Beca Mitchell.”

“That’s my name; don’t wear it out.”

Chloe rolls her eyes but keeps smiling. “Can I take you out to dinner sometime? It’d be the neighborly thing to do.”

Beca feels her stomach flutter in the same way it does when she sees Chloe bite her lip. “Like on a date?” Chloe nods. “You do realize you already got into my pants and don’t have to buy your way into them with dinner.” Chloe’s face falls and Beca realizes she’s made a horrible mistake. “No, no! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I wasn’t saying no. Poor attempt at humor. I’m sorry. I do that sometimes.”

Chloe’s smile returns, though it’s a little tentative around the edges, and Beca feels terrible. “So is that a yes?”

Beca nods. “Yeah. That’s a yes.” Chloe’s smile is confident again and Beca reaches up to slide her fingers through that gorgeous hair and pull her down into a kiss.

Beca loves her new house.

Her new neighbor is pretty great, too.

The End

Chapter Text

It’s hard to maintain any level of privacy when you share a house with nine other girls; ten, when the young one is allowed out of her Freshman dormitory.

Beca and Chloe managed to keep their blossoming romantic relationship under wraps for upwards of three months.

However, through a series of unfortunate events (for all parties involved), the fact that Beca and Chloe are engaging in certain ‘activities’ is known only by 1) Fat “Amy” Patricia and 2) Emily “Legacy” Junk.

Emily was sworn to secrecy by Beca and Chloe when she walked in on them making out before rehearsal, having shown up thirty minutes before the scheduled start time because her class let out early. Seven days and counting since that event, and the secret has remained just that: a secret.

The couple, however, still has no idea that Amy walked in - and right back out - on them together in Beca’s bed, oblivious to the world, weeks prior. To her credit, of which Amy is proud, she has kept her knowledge of it to herself and her suggestive comments and innuendos at the same level they have always been when it came to the sexually tense co-captains: medium-to-high.

Stacie’s checking the time on the phone she’s just unstrapped from her arm after her run. It’s not quite 8:00 am, and she’s stretching her arms over her head and looking to the sky when she sees Chloe in her second floor bedroom window. She’s awake unusually early for a Tuesday when she doesn’t have class until 1:00 pm.

Beca’s there, too. She doesn’t even have class today, and for her to be up this early is basically unheard of. But Stacie shrugs it off and lifts her hand to wave and try to get their attention when-

“Oh! Oh God, oh my God!” She spins away from the scene in window to see Amy tip-toeing up the walkway like a cat burglar. “Amy!” She points at the window that currently reveals both Beca and Chloe in various states of undress.

Amy freezes. “Huh? What? I’m not doing anything! Been here all night!”

“Beca and Chloe! Beca and Chloe!!” Stacie points emphatically, hopping up and down.

“Oh my God!” Amy gasps dramatically and runs to join Stacie.

“Beca and Chloe!” Stacie grabs Amy to make her jump in elation with her. “Oh my God!”

“Stacie! Stacie! It's okay! It's okay!”

“No! They’re doing it! Finally!”

“I know! I know they’re doing it, I know!”

“You know?!”

“Yes, I know! And Legacy knows!” Amy clamps her hand over Stacie’s mouth. “But no one else knows so you have to stop screaming!”

Stacie hands Amy a cup of coffee and the sugar and sits down with her own bottle of water to cool off. “You mean whenever Chloe and Beca were doing laundry or going to the library to study or...oh my God, all that time Chloe spent on the phone with sad Katie from camp when Beca had to go home for a funeral!”

Amy nods smugly. “Uh-huh, doing it. Doing it. Phone-doing it.’

“Oh! Oh, I can't believe it! I mean, I think it's great!”

Emily strides in, immediately heading to the fridge to raid it for breakfast before class. “Hey guys! What do you think is great?”

“Giraffe legs! Get over here, hurry up.”

Emily rushes over to slide under Amy’s lifted arm as if she’s stepping into a huddle. “What? What is it?”

“Stacie just found out about Chloe and Beca.”

Emily straightened. “You mean how they're friends and nothing more?” She shoots a pointed look at Amy.

“No, you idiot,” Amy groans. “Legacy, she knows! We were sneaking back in - I mean returning from our morning jog and we saw them going at it through the window. Actually, we saw them doing it up against the window.”

“Okay, so they know that you know and they don't know that Amy knows?” Stacie asks Emily, looking confused.

“Yes, but you know what? It doesn't matter who knows what,” Emily says, taking a step back. “Now enough of us know that we can just tell them that we know! Then all the lying and the secrets will finally be over and we can all stop living a lie and they can live happily ever after!”

A grin slides onto Stacie’s face and she clicks her fingernails a few times on the counter conspiratorially. “Or...we could not tell them we know and have a little fun of our own.”

Amy sits forward. “I’m listening.”

“So like, every time they say that they're ‘doing laundry’ we'll just give them a bunch of laundry to do.”

“Ohhh, I would enjoy that! I like the way your mind works, Boobs.”

“No, no, no!” Emily says, pulling on her hair in frustration. “No, no, wait, Amy, you know what would even be more fun?” Emily claps and holds her arms out into jazz hands. “Telling them!”

“Ehhh, no, I wanna do Stacie's thing.”

“I can't take any-”

“Chill, Legacy!” Stacie says, holding her hands up to placate the younger girl. “You don't have to do anything. Just don't tell them that we know.”

“No! I can't take any more secrets! Amy, I've got your secrets about Bumper. I've got Beca and Chloe’s secrets. I have secrets of my own, too, you know!”

Amy rolls her eyes. “You don't have any secrets, Legacy. Okay, Dr. Evil. How are we going to mess with them?” She ignores Emily’s groan of protest.

“Well, you could use your position as Beca’s roommate and never let her have the room to herself. Reduce their options, though Chloe having her own offsets that...”

“Keep thinking.”

“I would use the strongest tool at my disposal. The Hunter. Obvi.”

“Hey, kids,” Beca says popping around the corner into the kitchen, shutting them all up. She’s dressed in the same pajamas Stacie had witnessed Chloe rip off her not an hour earlier.

Stacie leans into their circle. “Okay, watch and learn.” She slides off her stool to saunter up behind Beca, who’s rifling through the cereal cabinet options. “Morning, B.”

“Hey, Stace.”

“Ooh, those shorts look really good on you.”

Beca glances down at herself and then turns to face Stacie. “What?”

Stacie cranes her neck to pointedly check out Beca’s ass. “I see you’ve been doing those lunges Chloe recommended.”

“In her dreams.”

“In my dreams,” Stacie says under her breath and then laughs airily.

“Stace, what’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing.” Stacie flips her hair over her shoulder. “I just...was noticing your assets. You know, I’ve kind of had a goal for the last three years.”

“And what is that?”

Stacie leans in close. “To add a Beca notch to my bedpost.” She watches Beca’s jaw drop in shock, and then adds a wink for good measure. “Anyway, I need to take a shower. I’m all hot and sweaty. Just something for you to think about.” She turns to leave and then glances back. “I know I will.”

Beca and Chloe are curled up in Chloe’s bed that afternoon after Chloe’s class, the one place in the house they can almost guarantee themselves privacy. Beca had tried to kick Amy out of their room, but the girl had refused, citing the need to study (which was fairly laughable), but Chloe’s room was the better option anyway. They could lock the door, and there was no reason to have to let anyone else in; it was Chloe’s domain, period.

“You are so cute!” Chloe says, nuzzling into Beca’s neck. “How did you get to be so cute?”

“Oh my God, Chloe,” Beca grumps. “Do not call me cute.”

“Okay, now you're even cuter!”

Beca smiles and kisses Chloe and wraps her arm around her shoulders. “Well, you might not be the only one who thinks so.”

Chloe scoots back a little to regard her. “What?”

“I think...I think Stacie was hitting on me this morning.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She was checking out my ass.”

“What! Why would she check you out?

“Hey!”

“I'm sorry it's just, Stacie has her conquest list but last I saw it, you weren’t on it.”

“Well, that’s flattering.”

“Aww, babe, it’s okay! You’ve always been on my conquest list. But I think that you just misunderstood her.”

“I didn't misunderstand, okay? She literally said she wanted to, quote, ‘add a Beca notch’ to her bedpost. What is there to misunderstand about that?”

It’s Wednesday night, and half the Bellas are lounging in the TV room.

“Yo, Ginger. What are you doing now? Wanna come catch a flick with me and Stace?” Amy watches Chloe stroll across the room to hover suspiciously near Beca, who has her nose in her computer. “Or who are you doing now?” she adds under her breath to Stacie, who snorts.

“Actually, Amy, I was going to do some laundry tonight.”

Amy and Stacie exchange knowing looks, ready to start their fun.

“Hey Bec, wanna do it with me?” Chloe continues.

Beca looks up and snaps her laptop closed with a smile. “Sure, I'll do it with you.”

“Bitchin’. Hold on a hot sec!” Amy runs out of the room and upstairs, returning a minute later with her laundry bag stuffed full. “Here you go! You don’t mind? It would really help me out a lot. You chicks are the best.”

“Oh, Amy…” Chloe starts, shifting. “I don’t think I have enough Tide Pods left for all of mine plus yours.”

“You can use my detergent; it’s cool!” Stacie says helpfully from her chair and smiles to herself when Beca and Chloe’s faces fall.

“Okay, Stace, we’d better make like a bread truck and haul buns if we’re going to make that movie. Thanks again for the wash and fold.”

“Bye…” Chloe says with a wave.

“Bye, Beca!” Stacie says and then slides up next to her to whisper in her ear. “I’ll be thinking about what we could be doing in the theater.” She pinches Beca’s ass for good measure, making her yelp.

“Oh my God, did you see that??” Beca says, spinning to Chloe once the girls leave.

“Actually, I did!”

“Now do you believe she’s hitting on me?”

Chloe stares at her for a moment and then gasps. “Ohhh, oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! She knows about us!”

“Are you serious?”

“Stacie knows and she's just trying to freak us out! That's the only explanation for it!”

Beca tries not to be offended. “Okay, but what about her wanting me as a notch on her bed post...SHE KNOWS!”

Beca leaves for class early to stop by Emily’s dorm room, Chloe in tow. Or more accurately, so they can burst into it uninvited and interrogate her. “Legacy!”

Emily jumps, tossing down her homework like it’s on fire. “Huh, what? I don’t know!”

“Stacie knows about us!”

“I didn't tell them!”

Chloe interjects and leans in intimidatingly. “Them? Who's them?”

“Uh, Stacie aaaaaand Emily!” Emily smiles awkwardly, pointing at herself.

Chloe straightens and crosses her arms. “Emily.”

Emily groans and throws her hands in the air in defeat. “And Amy. I would've told you but they made me promise not to tell!”

“Jesus Christ,” Beca says, running her hand through her hair.

“I'm sorry! But hey, it's over now, right? Because you can tell them that you know they know and I can go back to knowing absolutely nothing!”

Chloe’s eyes narrow. “Unless…”

“No! Not unless!” Emily cuts her off. She knows that look. “This has to stop!

“They think they are so smooth messing with us.” Chloe says, immediately turning to pace in Emily’s room. “But they don't know that we know that they know! So…”

“Ahh yes, the messers become the messies!” Beca says emphatically, and then immediately frowns. “What the fuck did I just say? Your freaky competitiveness is rubbing off on me, Beale.”

“Ooh, Beca’s calling me,” Stacie shares with Amy and Emily as they sit in Amy and Beca’s room the next day. Beca hasn’t been seen all day. Neither has Chloe. Stacie swipes to answer the call. “Hey, babe.”

“Hey, Stace. I, um...I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you said. About us at the movies.” Beca covers the bottom of her phone when Chloe starts giggling, listening in. They’ve been holed up in a campus coffee shop most of the day.

Stacie’s composure falters at the tone of Beca’s voice. “What?”

“I mean, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued. After all, The Hunter is legendary around here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, listen, Cynthia-Rose works tonight, so why don't I come down and we’ll put that notch on your bedpost.”

Stacie spins to face the girls, mouthing Oh my God! and receiving confused and wild gestures of question in return. “I uh, I have a standing date tonight so let me get back to you on that. Gotta go, bye!”

“What, what happened?!” Amy says, launching off her bed.

“Oh my God, she wants to put a notch on my bedpost!”

“Are you kidding? I can’t believe she would do that to Chlo - waaaaait.” Amy rounds on Emily, pointing. “Legacy, do they know that we know?”

Emily shrinks. “No.”

Amy advances. “Legacy...”

Emily nods meekly. “They know you know.”

Amy spins in disgust. “I knew it! Oh, I can’t believe those bitches!”

“God, they thought they can mess with us! They're trying to mess with us?!” Stacie paces the room and then stops, turning back around. “They don't know that we know they know we know. Legacy, you can't say anything.”

“Guys, at this point, I couldn't even if I wanted to.”

Beca and Chloe are standing by the media wall in the TV room, as far away as possible from Amy and Stacie despite all being in the same room. Emily’s in the absolute center on a beanbag chair, in neutral territory.

Chloe looks over Beca’s shoulder at Stacie and Amy whispering. “Look at them, they're panicked.”

“Oh yeah, we got ‘em,” Beca says, lifting her chin.

Chloe nods surely. “Oh yeah.”

“All right. All right!” Stacie says to Amy as she fluffs her hair a little and adjusts her cleavage. “If she wants a date, she’s going to get a date. I'm going in.”

Amy nods. “Be sexy.”

Stacie scoffs. “Please.” She crosses the room wearing her best bedroom eyes and watches Beca shoo Chloe away and try to strike a casual pose against the shelf. “So Beca, I'd love for you to come by tonight.”

She watches Beca’s face fall and feels a moment of victory before Beca regains her composure to respond with, “Oh. Really.”

“Absolutely. Let’s say 7:00?”

Beca stiffens again and bites out a “Yes.”

“Good. I'm really looking forward letting you get to know The Hunter.” Stacie winks and returns to her seat with Amy.

Beca whirls to gesture an Oh my God! at Chloe who gives her a silent It’s okay, it’s okay!

“Okay, Stace. Show time!” Amy, Stacie, and Emily are in Stacie’s room, where Stacie’s putting the finishing touches on her hair.

“Legacy, go grab me a bottle of red and a couple of glasses.”

“All right, it'll be great,” Chloe says, psyching Beca up as she fixes the collar on Beca’s flannel and fusses a little with her hair. “You just make her think you want to have sex with her. It'll totally freak her out.”

“Okay, listen, how far am I going to have to go with her?” Beca’s shifting from foot to foot, repeatedly shaking out her arms nervously.

“Relax; she's going to give in way before you do.”

“How do you know?!”

“Because you're on my team! And my team always wins! Hello, Bellas!”

“But at this?! And they’re Bellas, too!”

“But we’re the captains. Just go try to nail Stacie!” Chloe kisses Beca quickly and swats her ass to shoo her down to Stacie’s room. “Go!”

Amy and Emily barely make it out of Stacie’s room before Beca shows up, knocking.

“Beca,” Stacie says seductively when she opens the door.

“Stacie.”

“Come on in.”

“I was going to,” Beca says awkwardly as she turns sideways to slip past Stacie, who’s taking up most of the doorway.

“I brought up a bottle of wine,” Stacie said, already uncorking it at her desk. “Thought it might set the mood. Relax you a little. I understand if you’re nervous. Would you like a glass?”

Beca nods and stands opposite Stacie, the desk a safe barrier between them. “Sure.”

“So, here we are,” Stacie says as she pours wine for both for them. “Are you? Nervous?”

“Me? No,” Beca laughs. “You?”

“I don’t get nervous,” Stacie says, flashing a smirk at Beca. “I want this to happen.”

“Oh, yeah. So do I,” Beca says with a nod as she sweeps her glass off the desk. She drains it in one go. “I uh, I made a playlist for tonight,” Beca says after slamming her glass down. She pulls a thumb drive out of her pocket.

“Ooh. I can dance for you.” Stacie turns and swivels her hips a little against Beca’s front as she snags the stick out Beca’s fingers, pointedly letting their fingers graze. “Would you like that?”

“I uh,” Beca clears her throat. “Yeah. Yes. You uh...that’d be...hot.”

“I know. You know, Beca, when you say things like that, it makes me want to rip that flannel right off you.”

“Well, why don't we move this to…” Beca points behind Stacie at her bed.

Stacie tries to mask her double-take. “Really?”

“Oh, do you not want to?”

“No. No! I do! It's just, you know, first, I want to get naked and have you give me a massage,” Stacie tosses out, trying to recover from her shock. Beca suggesting they just jump into bed really shook her up. She covers by rolling her neck and shrugging her shoulders dramatically. “I had a really long day.”

“Well, that would...be nice…” Beca says, voice shaking. “I...I have some really good lotion I got for my birthday. Let me...just go get it.” Beca backs out of Stacie’s room and sprints up the stairs to find Chloe.

“What? What’s happening?” Chloe says, jumping off Beca’s bed when she barges in.

“This is totally getting out of hand! Okay? She wants me to give her a naked massage!”

“She's bluffing!”

“Look, she's not backing down!” Beca says, hopping up and down nervously. “She started giving me a lap dance! I can’t do this!”

Stacie jerks her door open again and looks for Amy, who peeks out around the corner, having just dove for cover from Beca’s sudden exit. “She's not backing down. She went to get lotion!”

Emily passes through and groans. “Aren’t you guys finished with this game yet? I don’t even know why I have to be here for this. I want to leave.”

“Look, Legacy,” Amy says, taking the girl by the shoulders. “Just look at it this way: the sooner Stacie breaks Beca, the sooner this is all over and out in the open.”

“Ooh! I like that.”

“I got it!” Amy says, turning back to Stacie. “Show her your boobs! She’ll freak out! They’re too big for her tiny hands!” Amy reaches for the front of Stacie’s shirt and whips it open well past her bra.

“Amy!” Stacie says, worried about her shirt, not her bra’s reveal. “Wow, you didn’t rip off any buttons.”

“Not my first time,” Amy says with a wink that makes Stacie and Emily exchange looks.

“You go back down there and you seduce her ‘til she cracks!” Chloe says, shoving a bottle of lotion into Beca’s hands.

“Okay, give me a second.” Beca takes a breath and rolls her shoulders. “Come back down with me? Hide in the hall. I’ll feel better if you’re listening. Less like...less like I’m cheating on you.”

“Aww, babe!” Chloe kisses her and nods. “Go, I’ll follow you in a few seconds.”

Beca pauses when she sees Stacie in the hall outside her bedroom. “Oh, you’re...you’re leaving?”

“Not without you, lover,” Stacie says with a wink and reaches to grab Beca’s hand and pull her back into her room. “So, this is my bra. What do you think of my goodies?”

“They’re uh…” Beca swallows, trying hard to look at Stacie’s cleavage. “They’re very, very nice.” She swallows again and looks up. “Well then...let’s...let’s do this. I’m...excited we’re going to finally do this.”

“You should be. I'm very bendy,” Stacie adds and watches as the comment slides over to Beca and makes her wriggle in her own skin. “I'm gonna kiss you now.”

“Not if I kiss you first,” Beca counters, taking a resolute step forward.

Stacie reaches out casually, letting her hand rest on Beca’s hip. She smiles to herself as Beca awkwardly lifts her arm to do the same and then quickly switches hands. Stacie’s having fun now and slides up closer to reach down and grab a handful of Beca’s ass which does, she can admit, look good. Beca’s other hand comes up and hesitates over Stacie’s chest before jerking up to settle on her shoulder.

“Well, I guess there's nothing left for us to do but kiss,” Beca says, trying to maintain eye contact with Stacie.

“Mhmm. Our first kiss,” Stacie says with a wink and leans in halfway. She closes her eyes to wait it out and is shocked when she feels lips against hers, firm and awkward.

Beca launches herself backward away from Stacie with a gasp after a few seconds. “Okay! Okay! Okay! You win!”

“Ha!” Stacie says with a fist pump.

“I can't have sex with you!” Beca yells, still stumbling back a few steps until she has to take a seat on Cynthia-Rose’s bed.

“And why not?!”

“Because I'm in love with Chloe!”

Stacie gasps. “You're-you're what?!”

Chloe tumbles through Stacie’s door, dumbfounded, followed by Amy and Emily who look both amused and shocked.

“That's right, I...love...her!” Beca points at Chloe. “I love her!” Chloe rushes to her and hesitates, but Beca pulls her down into her lap with arms around her waist. “I love you, Chlo.”

Chloe grins and nods emphatically, on the verge of tears. “I love you too, Bec.” She pulls Beca into a kiss, in front of everyone.

Stacie bounces, smiling into her hands. “I thought you guys were just doing it; I didn't know you were in love!”

“You guys!” Emily says, full-on crying.

“Hats off to Stacie,” Beca says, offering her hand to Stacie to shake. “Quite a competitor. You continue to prove yourself to be Bellas material. And might I say, your breasts are still showing.”

“And?”

“All right! So that's it! It's over! Everybody knows!” Emily says, psyched.

“Well actually, Aubrey doesn't,” Chloe says, still snuggling with Beca.

“Yeah, we'd appreciate it if no one told her yet. She’s going to freak out either way, and if she knows she’s the last to know, it’ll only make it worse.”

“I hate you,” Emily huffs. “I hate you all.”

“The Eagle has landed,” Amy whispers to Stacie. She’s been evicted from her room by Beca and Chloe, which everyone knows means one thing.

Stacie nods and checks her phone. “Right on time, too. Aubrey should be here any minute, and those two should have their tongues down each other’s throats by now.”

“Oh yeah, they were sucking face before I was even out of the room.”

“Okay, good. I’m going to call her. You go up to Chloe’s room and open the window. You know what to do.”

Amy salutes and takes the stairs a lumbering two at a time and Stacie checks her phone once more before calling.

“Stacie? I’m around the corner,” Aubrey says from her car on her way to the ‘emergency alumni meeting’ Amy called by ‘borrowing’ Beca’s computer. Except Aubrey was the only alumni that was on that email distribution list. “Have they started yet?”

Stacie covers her mouth to not laugh. “I uh...they might have started. I’m not sure. I haven’t gone downstairs yet. I’m helping Amy look for her kite.”

“Her kite? Okay, I’m here. I don’t...where’s everyone else? The only cars here are yours…”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, if you’re outside, can you help us look?” Stacie waits, knowing Amy’s been watching Aubrey’s arrival from above.

“Heya Aubrey! I lost my kite!” Amy shouts from the window, getting Aubrey’s attention. “Is it in the tree up there?” She points at the massive birch tree in the front yard.

“What? Amy?” Aubrey looks to the tree, seeing nothing. “No, there’s no - I’m late Amy.” She starts walking but Amy shouts again.

“I bet it’s on the roof! I was flying it out the window and it went up. What about up there?” Amy points up, right at her own attic bedroom window.

Aubrey looks up, shaking her head, knowing there’s no kite on the roof. “Amy, I don’t have time, for this I...what? No! Wh…What are you doing?! Beca, get off her!!”

Chapter Text

“Grande caramel mocha for Chloe.”

It wasn't that Beca hated her job.

It was just that Beca hated her job.

Slinging lattes wasn't exactly part of her career plan, but a drunken mistake had landed her in jail and her father, who had pledged to fund her relocation from Portland to Los Angeles, revoked his gift as punishment. Instead, he dragged her with him to Atlanta where he had secured a professorship at Barden University.

It wasn't that Beca hated her dad.

It was just that Beca hated her dad…’s insistence that she act like a responsible adult before gifting her several thousand dollars.

She also hated herself a little for that mistake. I mean, who knew trying to camp overnight in the camping goods store by hiding in a display tent until it closed was a crime? It hadn't been her idea, but she had been down to do it, fueled by the whisky in her cup when her friend Jesse had suggested it.

“Um...excuse me, hi?”

Beca blinked out of her thoughts. She was still holding the beverage and its owner was waiting at the pickup counter, smiling a little teasingly at her. She set the cup down. “Sorry.”

“I get lost in my thoughts sometimes, too. No worries.” The girl, a redhead with eyes that Beca learned weeks ago to avoid, was a regular. Tuesdays and Thursdays, usually the afternoon, sometimes the morning. Always a caramel mocha - sometimes grande, sometimes venti. On the warmest days, it turned into a frappuccino. Always extra whip.

She didn't even ask for it anymore. Beca knew to add it.

“Yeah, sorry,” she repeated. “Have a nice day.”

Chloe hovered for a second before waving with the pinky on her cup-holding hand. “You, too!”

Beca waited until the girl was a few steps away before turning to watch her leave.

“Oh my God, Beca. Wipe your chin.”

Beca turned back to the stacks of cups to check the next order on the screen. “What?”

“You're drooling over Caramel Mocha Chloe again.”

Beca shook her head and busied herself at the espresso machine. “I don't know what you mean.”

Stacie was working the register this Tuesday afternoon. They made a good team - Stacie loved to talk to the customers and Beca hated it. And while she hated the espresso machine, too, she hated it less than working the register. Her customer communication was limited to calling out names and what they ordered. She didn’t have to assign the register to Stacie, but she could if she needed to. For some ridiculous reason, she’d been promoted to Assistant Manager.

“Please. You want that girl.”

“Shut it, Stace.” Beca flipped the handle on the machine and focused on her task.

“And she totally thinks you’re hot, too. Hi! Welcome to Rise and Grind, what can I brew for you?”

“If you’re not going to hit on that girl, I’m going to do it for you.”

“Stacie!” Beca barked, flinging a plastic lid at her head like a Frisbee. It was a Thursday afternoon and the place was dead aside from the college student leaching WiFi at the corner table. Chloe had taken her mocha to-go, per usual.

“Fine, fine!” the girl said, holding up her hands placatingly. “If not her, someone else. I’ve known you for four months and not once have you gotten laid.”

“Just because I don’t tell you about my sex life…”

“So you have been getting some?”

Beca was quiet too long, a little embarrassed because no, she hasn’t gotten any and at most she’s kissed one girl and two guys in that time frame, and she’s still a little distracted by Chloe’s recent visit.

A damp towel whipped her hip. “You have! You dog, you haven’t told me! Who was it? Was it more than one? I don’t mean at the same time - but that, too, did you have a threesome? Oh my God, tell me everything!”

“I didn’t have a threesome!” Beca said, a little too loud and she blushed when the customer in the corner lifted his head at the outburst. “Or any...some.”

“Oh ho ho…” Stacie laughed, and Beca knew she was already doomed. “Yes. Yes, we are doing something about that. You are going out with my friend Luke this weekend.”

“No...Stacie…”

Stacie was already texting. “Done!”

“Great.”

“Well??”

“Well what?” Beca dumped ice into a cup for the iced coffee she was pouring.

“How was your date with Luke?”

“Oh. Fine. I liked his accent.”

“Isn’t it sexy?” Stacie gushed as she worked on another drink next to Beca since the one customer had ordered four beverages.

“Yeah. He was really condescending though. I kind of feel like he’s one of those guys who would want to mansplain everything to me.”

“Oh he’s not like that; he’s just really confident.”

Beca shrugged and slid the plastic cup across the counter to join the other two waiting. “I don’t think I’ll see him again.”

“No?” Stacie set her cup down and called out the name before turning to cross her arms at Beca. “Fair enough.” She seemed to be thinking, and Beca didn’t trust it. She glanced at the door and smiled. “I’m taking five. Cover me.”

“Stace…” Beca started, ready to protest having to handle everything, but it was a Tuesday afternoon and was, unsurprisingly, quiet. When she turned back to the register, she knew why Stacie had peaced out so quickly.

“Hi!”

“Hey, welcome to Rise and Grind. What can I brew for you?” She was already ringing up the grande caramel mocha, and changed it to a frap when she remembered it was pushing 80º today. She only glanced up long enough to be polite and deliver the required greeting, and to notice that she was wearing white denim shorts and a loose-fitting gray tank top that seemed to purposely reveal the light pink bra straps underneath it.

“You know what I want.”

Beca looked up again quickly; the tone that came with the words was...less than innocent. “Sorry?”

“You always know what I want!” Chloe repeated, chipper. “You’re so good at your job.”

Beca shrugged a shoulder. “Well, you do come here a lot.”

“I like what you have to offer. Can you blame me?”

Beca almost took a step backwards. Either she was nuts or Caramel Mocha Chloe was hitting on her. She dropped her eyes to the register and finished ringing up the order. “Four…” she hesitated, remembering what Stacie had said last week about how she thought Chloe thinks she’s hot. What she based that opinion on, Beca hasn’t the slightest clue. And she also sucked at flirting. But maybe she could handle… “It’s on the house.”

Chloe looked surprised when Beca glanced up after voiding the transaction. “What? Why?”

“Why?” Beca tapped her fingers against her thigh. Why? “Uh…”

“Do you get to do that because you’re Assistant Manager?”

“What?”

Chloe pointed at Beca’s tan apron where her name and position were written inside a rectangle with permanent marker. “It’s on your nametag.”

“Oh. Yeah. Yes.”

“Well, thanks!”

“You’re welcome. I’ll just…” She jerked her thumb to the side toward the drink stations before setting to work, dumping ice and syrup and espresso into a blender.

“I’m Chloe, by the way,” the girl said from where she had relocated to wait for her drink at the other counter.

Beca held up the plastic cup she’d already written her name on. “I know.”

Chloe smiled and bit her lip and Beca had to look away.

She watched the girl out the corner of her eye as she worked. Standing there, waiting, twisting back and forth, tapping out some rhythm on the counter in front of her like it was physically impossible for her to be still for more than five seconds at a time. Beca snapped the domed lid on and grabbed the can of whipped cream out of the cooler, shaking it as she walked toward the counter to flip it over and top off, filling it beyond the hole at the top by another careful inch or two since Caramel Mocha Chloe always wants extra whip.

“Ooh, thanks!” Chloe said as she plucked the cup out of Beca’s hand. She immediately licked the dollop of whipped cream off the top of the cup that was threatening to fall off and Beca felt herself blush at the way Chloe insisted on looking her right in the eye as she did it.

Beca sagged with relief when the bell on the door jingled, signaling another customer entering who would require her attention and give her an excuse to escape. “Have a nice day,” she said quickly and then rushed back to the register where the newcomer was staring up at the menu.

“You, too!”

She watched Chloe leave as she blindly rang up the next order, and like magic, Stacie reappeared.

“So? How’d it go?”

“How’d what go? That’ll be $5.79.”

“With Caramel Mocha Chloe, duh!”

“She got a caramel mocha,” Beca said, keeping her head down to avoid the look she knew Stacie was giving her. She busied herself making the man’s latte.

“And?!”

“And what?”

“Did you talk about anything? Did you get her number?”

“What? No,” she said, shaking her head. “I...comped her drink.”

Stacie gasped and swatted her shoulder. “That was smooth, Bec! Good job.”

She grumbled a response.

Stacie just laughed. “This isn’t over, little one.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see.”

It was Thursday morning, and it was already hot as balls. Beca and Stacie had the morning shift which Beca was dreading because it would naturally be crazy busy, but at least it helped the time pass quickly.

“I’m going to go do the board.” Stacie said while Beca started the blonde and dark roasts brewing. “You wanna run a special today?”

“Uh, yeah, let’s do anything iced for $3.00 or less.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Don’t call me that!” Beca yelled as Stacie picked up the sandwich board and box of chalk to sit at the table by the entrance and set to drawing.

“Hey, Bec, I need a favor.”

“What’s up?” Beca asked as she used both hands to fill two coffee cups.

“Can we trade? I know you hate the front but you’re slammed and we both know I’m faster.”

Beca frowned, but Stacie was right. It might be that Stacie could cover in two steps what took Beca four, or that her arms were longer so she could reach more things without moving, or that she was straight-up more efficient. “Fine, just until the rush ends.” She slid the coffees across the counter and called out the owner’s name and swapped places with Stacie.

“Welcome to Rise and Grind, what can I brew for you?”

“I’ll take a venti latte.”

“Name?”

“Erica.”

Beca swiped the credit card and passed the receipt to be signed. When the girl handed it back, she winked and Beca glanced at it; it was upside down and a phone number was written on the back of it. “Uh...thanks…” she said, stuffing the receipt into the register’s drawer as the girl walked away. “Welcome to Rise and Grind, what can I brew for you?”

“Give me a tall dark roast.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I usually prefer blonde, but I think I want to make an exception today.”

Beca blinked, and blinked again. “...Can I have your name?”

“Olivia.” This Olivia paid cash with a five dollar bill and a business card and told Beca to keep the change. “You can have my number, too.”

Grace, Natalie, and Violet all did similar things. Though none of the male customers were doing anything out of the ordinary, though a couple of them did seem to smile at her a little...ickily.

Beca was so flustered she had to void out two transactions because she made mistakes. Plus, no one was mentioning the daily special.

“Stace, you put the special on the board right?”

“Yep!”

She watched Stacie working for a second and then turned back. “Welcome to Rise and Grind, what can I brew for you? Oh...hey.”

“Hi!” Chloe said, bouncing a little.

Beca couldn’t help but smile back. Also, Chloe was really pretty this morning in her polka dot sundress and her white sunglasses pushed up into her hair. “Everything iced is on sale today. Or do you want your frapp?”

“I’ll let you pick for me.”

“Okay…” Beca rang up a venti iced coffee. “It’s an even $3.00.”

“It’s not on the house today?” Chloe said with a crooked smile as she handed Beca a credit card.

That smile made Beca’s pulse quicken. “Yeah...I mean...I can only do that so often or like...I’d never charge you.”

“You’d never charge me? That’s one way to make me come more often.”

“There’s more than one way?” Beca swiped the card and waited for it to process, trying to keep her cool. She handed Chloe the receipt to sign.

“Well, I’m sure you know lots of ways to do that.”

Beca shook her head, feeling like she missed something. “Sorry?”

Chloe picked up a pen and scribbled her name on the paper, and Beca watched her flip the receipt over to keep writing and then passed it back to Beca with a wink. “You can start by calling me later. Or texting - you seem more like a texter.”

“I...what?” Beca looked down at the receipt in her hand - yet another girl’s phone number, this time from Caramel Mocha Chloe.

“Unless you’re seeing someone?”

“I...no? No.”

“No, you’re not seeing someone? Or no, you aren’t going to text me?”

Beca felt herself panicking. Caramel Mocha Chloe literally gave Beca her number. With expectation she use it. For...a date?

“Some of us have jobs to get to,” a loud man in line declared.

“Oh! I’m so sorry,” Chloe said, eyes wide as she turned to apologize to the man complaining behind her. “I’m going, I’m going.” She stepped out of line and Beca tried her best to watch her while not being completely dismissive of the man who was already in a bad mood.

“Welcome to Rise and Grind, what can I brew for you?”

She felt hands on her waist pulling her to the right as Stacie swapped places with her. “I need a break, my hands are getting tired,” she said when Beca looked up at her in confusion. “What can I brew for you?”

Stacie had worked quickly enough that next up on the screen was Chloe’s iced coffee, and her nerves were showing as she almost dropped the cup and spilled three ice cubes on the floor. Chloe was watching, and smiling, and tapping her fingers on the counter, and Beca was going to have to talk to her in approximately eight seconds…

“Iced coffee,” she said, setting it on the counter.

“Thanks!” Chloe said, grabbing it and popping off the lid. “Ooh, you left room for cream.”

“You seem like a light and sweet girl.” There, good. That was kind of flirty.

Chloe kind of dipped in a half-curtsy. “You think I’m sweet?”

Beca scratched the back of her neck. “Uhh…”

“Does anyone here actually work?” Mr. Impatient wanted his coffee.

“I’m sorry,” she said more to Chloe than the man as she spun back to do her job.

“It’s okay, you’re busy,” Chloe said, still hovering by the counter despite having already stirred in her cream and sugar. “Text me later though? I’m totes free tomorrow.”

“Okay, yeah,” Beca said with a dismissive wave, distracted with what she was doing thanks to Mr. Impatient huffing loudly.

It wasn’t until the man left that she looked up and realized Chloe was gone.

“That was equal parts smooth and hard-to-get. I’m impressed, Bec.”

“Shit...that...I was totally rude to her.”

“Not really. Well, maybe a little. But she was smiling when she left, and I know you didn’t see it because you were making sure you didn’t scald that jerk’s milk, but she totally checked out your ass when you turned around.”

Beca felt her face go hot. “Shut up. Give me back my register.”

By the end of the rush, Beca had more than a dozen girls’ phone numbers by way of receipts, business cards, and one written on her palm by a girl who insisted. And literally no one wanted the iced special.

“Okay, I give up. What’s going on?” she asked Stacie when there was finally no one in line.

“I don’t know. I guess you look super hot today.”

“I don’t look super hot any day. And these are literally all from girls,” she said, picking up and dropping the little stack of business cards. “Not one guy.”

“I guess you look super gay today?” Stacie said with a laugh that raised all kinds of suspicions.

“That doesn’t even make sense! You know what?” She untied her apron and stuffed it under the counter. “I’m going to lunch.”

“Bring me a Caesar salad!”

Beca flung her middle finger at her in response, though of course she’d bring Stacie her Caesar salad. She shoved the glass door open, exiting to the jingling bell. She turned left, but their sandwich board caught her eye and she turned to read it.

TODAY YOUR BARISTA IS

1. BECA, AND I’M HELLA INTO WOMEN.
2. DESPERATELY SINGLE.

FOR YOUR DRINK TODAY I RECOMMEND:

YOU GIVE ME YOUR NUMBER.

“Oh my God…” If she thought her face was hot before, she was wrong. She threw the door open. “Stacie, what the hell is this!”

The way Stacie burst out laughing was telling that she’d been waiting hours for Beca to discover her message. She could barely get her response out, she was laughing so hard. All Beca could make out was, “Chloe...someone...make a move...so obvious...painful…not gay...but had to...so she would...”

“You’re literally the worst. I’m taking an hour and a half, not an hour.” She tried to slam the door, but the hinge was designed to prevent it and it closed with a very unsatisfying jingle.

She stood on the sidewalk, staring at the sign. Mad. Embarrassed. Though she wasn’t totally lacking of a sense of humor and it was maybe a little funny.

And she did finally get Chloe’s number.

She turned and walked back in, ignoring Stacie’s laughs as she popped open the register and dug through the credit card receipts until she found Chloe’s to save the number into her phone before leaving again.

“You’re welcome!” followed her out the non-slamming door.

She took a picture of the sign and popped open a new text message window - the first message she would send to Caramel Mocha Chloe.

“I’m not desperately single,” she typed, attaching the photo and sending it. She didn’t bother identifying herself. She was pretty sure the girl would know.

The response was almost immediate. “But you ARE single?”

Beca hemmed and hawed her response. It needed to be good. Flirty, but not, well, desperate.

“Yes.”

Nailed it. (Not.)

“Me, too.”

“That’s nice.” Beca literally facepalmed herself. What a dumb thing to say. “I’m sorry. That...was a dumb thing to say.”

“You’re cute when you’re nervous.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. ;) So...did you want to ask me something ooooor…”

Beca tapped her nails on the back of her phone. She’d been crushing on the girl for months. Apparently Chloe liked her, too. She’s literally expecting Beca to ask her out… “Drinks tomorrow?”

“Are they going to be on the house?”

Beca rolled her eyes. “I mean drinks-drinks. At a bar. 9:00 at Mary’s?”

“It’s a date!”

Beca let out a deep breath to get rid of the nerves that had built up during that conversation. It was good. Things were good. She had a date with Caramel Mocha Chloe tomorrow night.

Though she still wanted to strangle Stacie for her little prank.

Though turnabout was fair play…

She felt the backside of the board for the “emergency chalk” they kept taped there to save unnecessary trips back inside to fetch it and used her fist to erase the line with her name and being into women and simply replaced it with STACIE.

Granted, Stacie could more than handle an unexpected onslaught of people hitting on her. She would probably love it. She’d have dates for weeks. The move was hardly a form of revenge.

But whatever. She didn’t really need revenge.

She had a date with Caramel Mocha Chloe.

Chapter Text

“You made flashcards?” Beca thumbed the multi-pastel-colored stack of index cards Chloe shoved into her hands as she dropped onto her co-captain’s bed.

“If I’m going to graduate with you, I need to pass Russian Lit.”

Beca scooted back until she could lean against the wall, sitting the short ways on the small twin bed so her feet stuck out over the edge. “I thought you were failing on purpose; you actually need to study?”

“I failed intentionally, yes - and to do that, I basically never paid attention. So, study. Go, ask me one.” Chloe sat down and propped herself up with a pillow against her headboard, unceremoniously shoving her feet under Beca’s arms and into her lap.

Beca let her get comfortable and lowered her arms again, resting them over Chloe’s ankles as she pulled a random card from the deck. “This poet and her husband, Dmitry...Dmitry...Merez...kovsky, were exiled themselves to Italy and France due to their criticisms of the Tsarist government.”

“Zinaida Gippius.”

Beca flipped the card over. “Uh...yeah, I think that’s what this says?” She faced the answer to Chloe, who laughed and nodded. “Okay. Let’s see...the author and original publishing year of The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin.”

“Voinovich. And...umm…” Chloe squinted, as though that would bring the answer into focus. “‘69.”

Beca sniffed at her answer to the year and flipped the card over to check it. “Bingo.” She tossed the card aside and paused at the ridiculously complicated name she was going to have to try to pronounce. “How many of those did you make?”

“You said you’d help. Next.”

“Name three writers from the Golden Age.”

Chloe squinted again, before, “Gogol, Pushkin, and...and…”

Beca tsked her hesitation and got a nudge in return as she checked Chloe’s first two answers against the list.

“And Ostrovsky.”

“Correctomundo.” She set the card aside and was about to read the next question when Chloe’s foot nudged her to make her look up. “What?”

“I have an idea.” Chloe was biting her lip in that conspiratorial way Beca had grown to know and love and blush at.

Beca hoped she wasn’t blushing too hard. But she could feel it, ears warm already. “And what would that be?”

“For every question I get right, you have to take off an item of clothing. And for every question I get wrong, I -”

“Pass.” Beca pushed herself harder into the wall, knowing she was full-on blushing now. “Hard pass.”

“But it will motivate me to think really hard. There are some really hard questions in there, Bec.”

“Since when is Strip Flashcards a thing?”

“Since now. What, are you shy?” Chloe’s eyes were sparkling with mischief.

Beca squirmed, Chloe’s legs feeling heavy across her lap. This was new. Sure, they’d flirted insufferably for going on four years, had the random and brief make-out session as the result of a dare, or to get rid of a guy at a bar that wouldn’t take no for an answer, but this was alone. In Chloe’s bedroom. In Chloe’s bed. And Chloe was suggesting they strip down. Together. In bed. Alone. “Yeah, I’m shy,” she finally answered, feeling like she’d been sitting in silence far too long.

Chloe threw her head back and laughed, that adorable tinkling laugh that never failed to make Beca weak. “You shouldn’t be,” she said when her giggles faded. “You’re hot, Beca.”

Beca heard herself squeak, a type of indignant sound of disagreement that got caught in her vocal cords and shoved up an octave from her original intent. “Oh my God,” she said when her voice felt stable again. “Shut up.”

“I’ll shut up if you play.”

“Why do you want to play that?”

Chloe shrugged. “Like I said: you’re hot. We’re going to graduate, we might not see each other much after that - I don’t want to feel like I missed out on something.”

Beca had to be red from head to toe by now. Apparently Chloe “didn’t want to miss out” on seeing her naked. Again. Even the soles of her feet were sweating. She took a quick mental stock of what she had chosen to wear that night. She was in a pair of black sweatpants and a too-big white T-shirt from a concert she’d gone to where all the merch stand had left were size large when she needed a small. She wished she’d brought a hoodie with her, given herself an extra layer. She wasn’t even wearing socks.

At least she had her underwear and bra, and she remembered they definitely did not match, and her bra was one of her old comfortable ones that she would never wear with intent for someone else to see it. Her underwear had the ghosts from Pac-Man on them and she was sure Chloe would tease her about them.

She blushed all over again at the concept that she might be in her underwear in Chloe’s bed soon. Very soon. One correct answer and she’d be topless. Two, pantsless. Three and four…??? She swallowed hard. She glanced at Chloe, who was in shorts and a tank top and what looked to be a sports bra. Her heart raced at the concept that Chloe might actually get something wrong and have to be the one to remove something.

“I’ll play, but we stop when I say we stop.”

“Deal,” Chloe said with a grin and a nod.

“I need to find some hard fucking questions,” she muttered to herself, shuffling through the deck and flipping cards over to look at the answers. She knew jack shit about Russian Literature and had no idea what was easy or what was hard, so she went with things with the craziest names.

“Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin was editor of what well-known magazine?”

“Oh that’s easy -  ‘Otechestvenniye Zapiski.’”

Beca looked at the answer, deciding that the letters there matched whatever Chloe had said. “Dammit.”

Chloe squealed like a kid who was just told she could pick out one and only one candy in the grocery check-out line.

Beca set the cards aside. “We’re really doing this?”

“Only if you’re okay with it.” She knew Chloe was earnest, despite her giddiness. The giddiness was flattering. And the earnesty was endearing.

She hesitated for a second, trying to decide what would go first. She opted for her sweats; her shirt was long enough that she could easily cover Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde on her undies with it. She shoved them down, Chloe lifting her feet out of the way with another giggle and Beca used her feet to push them the rest of the way. She immediately tugged her shirt down, blushing hard, and picked up the flashcards again, pretending like nothing was different.

“It’s a quote - what’s it from? ‘If this proves true, then of a surety is the God of the Christians great.’”

Chloe took a second too long to answer and Beca realized she was excited, hopeful even, that she’d miss it. But, “Vladimir Christianizes Russia.”

“Come on, seriously?” she said with a groan, throwing the cards down again. “You need to get something wrong.”

“Are you saying you want me to fail?” Chloe asked, a smile slinking over her face not unlike a Cheshire cat.

“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean...fuck,” she huffed. “Fine.” She savored the final seconds of modesty she had and then lifted her shirt over her head and set it aside, blushing all over again. Without the shirt, or the pants for that matter, Chloe’s feet were resting dangerously close to intimate territory. As in, if she slid an inch to her right, they’d be right on top of second base.

“Are those the Pac-Man ghosts?” Chloe said, eyes wide.

“Shut up.”

“They are! Oh my gosh, they totally are, that is adorable Beca!”

“I said shut up! Who wrote Anna Karenina? Oh, Jesus,” she said immediately, full of regret. In her haste, she simply read the next flashcard instead of digging for something that might actually be challenging. Instead she was asking Chloe for the author of the book Beca’s seen her read three times and has read part of it herself. She even knew the answer.

“Chekhov.”

She had to bail. She couldn’t - “What?”

Chloe was looking at her, eyes wide and hopeful. “Anton Chekhov?”

Beca snapped her jaw closed, noticing it had fallen open. “...Tolstoy…” she corrected.

Chloe rolled her eyes and groaned, throwing her hands in the air dramatically. “Tolstoy! I should have known that. Well, rules are rules.” Before Beca could comment, Chloe’s tank was gone, somewhere on the floor. “My eyes are up here, Mitchell.”

Beca looked up quickly, not having noticed she was staring at....well, she was definitely staring at Chloe’s turquoise sports bra. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Chloe chirped, preening a little. “But we have studying to do. Chop chop!”

“Right, yeah.” Beca shuffled through the cards again. “Who wrote The Brothers Karamazov?”

“SpongeBob.”

Beca laughed. “What?”

“SpongeBob.”

“Chloe…”

“That’s my final answer.”

Beca shook her head and flipped over the card. “Sologub.”

“Ooh, so close!” Chloe said, fists held up in dramatic frustration. “I guess that means these go,” she said breezily as she pulled her feet from Beca’s lap to slip her shorts down her legs. Her feet returned a half-inch higher than they had been, and Beca had to fight not to squirm to move them that extra half-inch. She was on fire, and this was just plain ridiculous. They were friends.

She grabbed a card. “At the end of Mikhail Lermontov's ‘A Hero of Our Time,’ Pechorin holds a loaded gun against his head and pulls the trigger. What happens?”

“He dies.”

Beca flipped it over to check. “No, he -” She looked up to give her the correct answer, but Chloe was already tugging her sports bra over her head. She flipped it toward her feet, landing a few inches from Beca. “Wow, okay.” She looked away quickly. Her eyes had been drawn immediately toward the newly exposed areas.

“You’re winning,” Chloe said with a sigh. “And I’m losing.”

Beca needed her pulse to slow down; she felt like she might faint. She focused on the cards in her hand. She didn’t completely know what she was doing, or why, but she didn’t want Chloe to lose. She wanted Chloe to win. “Who wrote Doctor Zhivago?” She looked up and waited for her answer.

Chloe was quiet, eyes on Beca in thought. She was quiet, squinting as she searched her memory bank and shifted a little. But what Beca thought was Chloe just reclaiming her legs to pull her knees up to her chest and sit was Chloe getting on her knees to work her way closer to Beca.

Beca held her breath, watching her get closer until she was twisting and lifting a knee over Beca’s thighs until she was sitting in her lap. Beca’s breath rushed out of her and she jerked her head up from the faceful of breasts.

Chloe was still looking at her, eyes flitting here and there, from her eyes to her nose to some point above her, to her lips, to her cleavage - Beca had to take another deep breath at that - and she brought her hands up to frame Beca’s face without quite touching. And then her hands moved higher, fingers sliding into Beca’s hair along both sides, nails scraping in a way that made her shiver. A gentle tug brought the back of her head in contact with the wall, and Chloe started to lean down.

Beca’s brain felt like someone had dumped a cup of steel ball bearings into her Ferrari engine. It was going a mile a minute but tripping and falling and stuttering and banging at what was apparently about to happen. She at least had enough sense to wet her lips, and she knew Chloe saw her do it from the little sound of contentment she made.

“Boris Pasternak,” Chloe whispered against her lips.

Beca nodded quickly and the hands in her hair loosened and fell to her shoulders where they hesitated for a second and then moved down and under her arms to unhook her bra. She let Chloe pull it down her arms, keeping her eyes locked on Chloe’s.

“I think I’m going to win,” Chloe whispered again, her fingertips trailing up Beca’s ribs.

“I think we’re both going to win.” Beca didn’t know where the short burst of confidence came from, but she was grateful for it with the way Chloe bit her lip and shifted a little in her lap.

Chloe was close enough that if Beca were to take a particularly deep breath, they would be kissing. Close enough that she could smell the cherry blossoms of her lotion. Close enough that she could feel Chloe’s bare chest grazing hers if they both inhaled at the same time.“Thanks for helping me study.” Chloe’s nose bumped hers a little and Beca tilted her head a touch in response.

Beca nodded, and the motion made her upper lip graze Chloe’s lower, and they both inhaled. “Anytime,” she breathed before Chloe’s lips pressed into hers.

She might have failed three times, but Beca was pretty confident Chloe was going to ace it tonight.

Chapter Text

“Give it.”

“Get your own, Chlo.”

“Beca, give iiiiiit!” Chloe’s whining shamelessly from Amy’s bed. It’s been five minutes and she has yet to get what she wants. Which is unacceptable.

Beca keeps her eyes on her laptop screen as she reaches for another M&M, rattling the bag far more than necessary, and makes a show of popping it into her mouth. “I said, get your own.”

Chloe’s grinning at her, because she knows Beca can see her despite her supposed focus on her computer. “You are not going to eat all of those M&M’s. You can share.”

“Am too.”

“That is the three-pound party-size bag from the kitchen. It’s not even yours! It’s everyone’s.”

She watches Beca pointedly scoop up a handful and drop them into her mouth. “I bought them; I can eat them all if I want to,” she says as she chews.

“And you put them in the communal pantry, immediately surrendering ownership. Now come on, toss one over here. I bet I can catch it in my mouth.” She shifts to the edge of the bed and opens her mouth, waiting.

“With my luck, you’ll catch it and choke.” She watches Beca pluck a blue one out of the bag and contemplate the distance.

“I won’t choke. Come on.”

With a roll of her eyes and half a smile, Beca sets aside her laptop and straightens. She aims a few times like she’s about to throw a dart and tosses the candy across the short expanse between the beds. Even with Chloe leaning as far she can to the right, it’s at least a foot off target.

“Really?” Chloe laughs, fishing the M&M from where it landed on Amy’s quilt to pop it into her mouth.

“Shut up. I’m just getting warmed up.”

“Uh huh,” Chloe says with a smile and readies herself again, watching Beca focus harder this time before flicking a red one toward her. It was too high, sailing right over Chloe’s head to ping off the wall and fall somewhere behind the bed.

“Dammit,” Beca mutters and Chloe watches her reset herself, intensity growing as Beca’s innate competitive streak starts nudging its way to the surface.

“Should I move closer?”

“No, I can do it.”

Chloe nods and waits, and watches the green M&M bounce off her chest and hit the floor.

“Okay, move closer. NOT THAT CLOSE!” Beca amends when Chloe slides off the bed to kneel in the middle of the empty space on the floor, forcing her to back up a step. “Now don’t move.”

“Because me moving is the problem,” she teases and has to duck when an M&M of indeterminate color zings at her head with no intention of being caught. “Hey! You could have blinded me.”

“Sorry,” Beca apologizes, eyes wide and sincere.

“It’s okay.” Chloe tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Try again. I trust you. I think,” she adds with a wink.

It successfully flusters Beca - not a lot, but enough for Chloe to notice. She loves the effect she has on her fellow Bella, and while nothing sexual has transpired between them in their two-and-a-half years of friendship, Chloe feels like she’s just biding her time.

Beca wrenches her shoulders a little to cover her fluster, like a pitcher at the mound at the bottom of the ninth inning, as though she means business. She leans forward a little, aims carefully, squinting her left eye a little in a way that makes Chloe want to giggle but she can’t with her mouth open like a frog, and tosses it.

The yellow one actually bounces off Chloe’s front teeth when she moves to catch it, both of them letting out shouts of anguish in being so close.

“I almost had it! I can do it, come on,” Beca says, grabbing a handful, excited as she waves Chloe to move closer.

Chloe claps excitedly, inching forward a bit to try to guarantee success. “Totes! I know you can.”

Beca tries again and this time Chloe catches it. They both cheer, Beca demanding a high five, but when she leans forward her bed dips too much and the giant bag of M&M’s tips and spills, pouring three pounds of multi-colored candies onto the bed and the floor.

“Oh, shit!”

“Oh no, Beca!” Chloe laughs and dives forward to try to catch what she can with her hands as Beca scrambles to right the bag. She reaches up and dumps what she’s caught back into the bag, keeping a handful for herself as she remains kneeling, now right in front of Beca who’s still trying to scoop up the mess she made.

“I can’t even believe…” Beca grumbles.

Chloe smiles and leans forward to cross her arms and rest them atop Beca’s thighs to look up at her. It gets Beca’s attention and the girl instantly blushes from the proximity. She unfolds her arms and rests her hands on Beca’s knees, sliding them up her thighs slowly. “You know what they say about M&M’s?”

“Hmm?” Beca’s ears are pink, back stiff.

She licks her lips. “They melt in your mouth, not in your hand.”

“Chloe!” Beca recoils like Chloe’s hands have burned her, scrambling backward through the river of M&M’s that are rolling and following the dipping of the mattress.

And Chloe just throws her head back and laughs. Tonight’s not the night, and she knows that.

But she can bide her time.

Chapter Text

Beca presses forward, pinning Chloe to the closed bedroom door. They’ve been making out for...she’s lost track of time. Long enough to miss most of the movie they were watching in Beca’s room, long enough to have to stop for a water break, long enough to scramble out of there when they heard Amy get home to dash into Chloe’s room.

She runs her hands down Chloe’s back, intent on ridding her of her shirt. Chloe’s warm under her hands, writhing under her touch, hips bucking up to betray her impatience. She slips her fingers under the edge of Chloe’s gray Henley; Chloe’s so warm Beca can’t even keep her hands on her.

“You’re hot,” she mumbles through their kiss and Chloe bucks up into her, hands running down Beca’s chest to cup her breasts, making her moan and grind back against her.

“You’re hot, too.”

Beca grabs for her waist again but the heat is overwhelming; they’ve been hot and heavy before, but Chloe’s never felt so hot. It’s actually concerning and Beca reaches to run her hands through Chloe’s hair but when her palm touches her cheek, she’s almost startled. “No, you’re hot-hot,” she says, trying to disengage from the make out.

Chloe giggles and pulls her back, “Thanks, baby.”

Beca rests her palm against Chloe’s forehead for a second and then jerks it away. “No, you’re hot. You have a fever.”

“Yeah I do,” Chloe says seductively and starts to tug at Beca’s jeans.

“No, babe.” Beca takes a step back, letting her hand run down Chloe’s neck when she feels something. Two little bumps. “What is that?” she asks worriedly, taking another step back to tug at Chloe’s shirt collar to reveal a collection of red dots.

“What is what?” Chloe’s still coming out of her lust-induced haze.

“Oh my God.” Beca jerks up the front of Chloe’s shirt. Her abdomen is dotted with angry red marks. “You have Chickenpox!”

“How is it you’ve never had Chickenpox? I thought every kid got them in elementary school. Don’t!” She catches Chloe scratching her forearm and admonishes her.

“But they itch!” Chloe whines. She’s sitting on her bed, knees pulled to her chest.

“I know, I know. Don’t worry.” Beca’s pacing; Chloe’s sick. Beca hates when Chloe’s sick. Chloe is a perfect ray of sunshine and germs have no right tainting her with their ickiness. “I’m going to take care of you.”

“You are?” Chloe’s looking at her like a sad puppy and it damn near breaks Beca’s heart.

“Yeah, of course. I mean, I’ve had it before so I can’t get it again,” she shrugs. “And you’re my girlfriend. So.”

Chloe beams at that. “I still love how that sounds.”

They had defined their relationship as such less than a month ago, and they were, admittedly, very much in the honeymoon period of it. “Me, too.” She rushes back to her and presses a kiss to her lips which are, thankfully, free of the rash. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Chloe sounds sad again and it tears at Beca.

“To get supplies. I’ll be fast.” She watches Chloe lie down and curl up, obviously in discomfort as she nods.

Beca’s barely out of the bedroom before she’s on her phone googling Chickenpox and how to treat it. She remembers something about oatmeal from when she had it in second grade, but beyond that, she’s clueless.

She has to be quick - she promised Chloe she’d be fast - and she swipes the box of Benadryl from Ashley’s drawer in the bathroom, along with Tylenol from her own.

When she returns, Chloe’s texting with one hand, scratching her neck with the other. “No scratching!” she barks, making Chloe jump and nearly drop her phone. “They can get infected, or scar. Here.” She sits down next to Chloe’s feet which instantly press under her shirt against her back. They’re as warm as the rest of Chloe. She pries open the bottle of Tylenol and hands Chloe two capsules. “For the fever.” She pops a pink tablet out of its foil packaging and passes that to her, too. “For the itching.”

“Thanks, baby.” Chloe swallows the pills with the water Beca hands her and leans back. “You’re right; I’m really hot.” She smiles a little and then frowns. “I feel like poop.”

“Yeah, I bet you do,” Beca says with a laugh as she stands. “Try to get some rest, okay?”

“You’re leaving me?” Chloe’s voice is nearly a whimper and when Beca turns back, she actually almost wants to cry at how sad Chloe looks.

“I can’t sleep with you; I’ll touch you too much.”

Chloe giggles a little and Beca realizes what she’s said.

“I mean, your bed is small.” She gestures at it, laughing, too. “If we share it we’ll end up touching, on purpose or not, and it’ll be no different than you scratching.”

“Oh.” Chloe’s voice is sad again, and Beca sees her gaze fall to the floor, and linger there, and then flick back to Beca and back to the floor.

“I’ll sleep on the floor, hm?” she says, a little surprised with how readily she’s willing to give up her own comfort in exchange for Chloe’s.

“Okay!” Chloe’s back to being happy, but it’s still muted by her fever.

“I’m going to go upstairs and get changed and bring my pillow and stuff down. You can handle getting yourself ready for bed?”

Chloe nods and sits up, and moves to scratch her neck but stops herself. “See you in a few.”

It only takes ten minutes for Beca to get changed and strip her bed of its quilt and pillow, but it takes her twenty minutes to return because she spends the other half of her time sitting on her half-naked bed with her computer in her lap reading about all the terrible things that can go wrong with Chickenpox on webMD.

Chloe wasn’t elderly, or a baby, or in any kind of immunodeficiency, so complications were highly unlikely, but it was all unsettling. She’d gone there for more ways to treat the symptoms, not find out Chloe could get a life-threatening infection.

Stupid webMD.

She found the thing about oatmeal baths and ran downstairs to raid the pantry to see what they had, relieved to find a box of Quaker Oats, the same box Chloe had bought so she could bake oatmeal raisin cookies. She stashed it in the bathroom Chloe shared just in case someone else in the house got a wild hair to bake tonight. She’d save the bath for tomorrow - apparently this was going to get worse before it got better. Chloe should sleep while she can, before she becomes too uncomfortable.

What she can’t find in anyone’s bathroom drawer is calamine lotion. Briefly, she considers waiting for Chloe to fall asleep and then making a run to the pharmacy down the street.

But when she returns, arms full of blanket and pillow, to see Chloe in bed - or rather, on her bed - rid of her make-up, hair tied back, in nothing but a T-shirt, with bright red polka dots decorating her otherwise flawless skin, she realizes she cannot leave this girl’s side. Not for more than a few minutes, anyway.

“How are you doing?” she asks as she sets up camp on the floor alongside Chloe’s bed.

“It’s a thousand million degrees in here.”

“Your fever should come down soon, but I’ll be right back.” Beca was quick this time, rushing to the nearest bathroom to grab a washcloth and soak it in the coldest water she could get from the tap, wring it out, and fold it into a neat rectangle. She sat down on the edge of Chloe’s bed, careful not to bump her, and laid it across her forehead. “This should help.”

“Doctor Mitchell,” Chloe says with a smile and a sigh as she fiddles with the cloth’s positioning until she’s still. “How’s your bedside manner?”

Chloe’s teasing her, even now when she’s being attacked by a virus. “I’ve never been a doctor before. I don’t know.”

Chloe grasps Beca’s shirt in the middle and gives it a tug. “Let’s find out.”

“Chlo,” Beca says with a laugh but she follows the pull, careful to not to touch Chloe’s body save for her lips, which she captures. The heat from their makeout is still lingering despite the situation and it only takes a few seconds before Chloe’s tongue is in her mouth, tempting Beca to climb on top of her and finish what they started earlier that evening. But that was literally a terrible idea, and she eased back before they got too carried away with it.

Chloe hums as she brushes her thumb across her own lower lip. “A-plus bedside manner.”

“Good to know,” Beca says with a smile. Though it pains her to do it, she slides down to sit in her makeshift bed. “How’s the itching? Benadryl helped at all?”

“It’s a little better I think.” Chloe’s response is interrupted by a yawn.

“Maybe it’ll just knock you out for the night; that’s even better.”

“Mm, we’ll see.” Chloe yawns again and shifts in bed cautiously until she’s on her side facing Beca, washcloth flopped over the side of her head so it stays draped in the right place. “I’m sorry you’re on the floor.”

“I’m sorry you have a child’s disease,” Beca says with a smirk, but then she softens. Chloe doesn’t need sarcasm and sass now. “Really, I’m sorry, this is shitty.”

“I’ll be okay, as long as I have Doctor Mitchell.”

Beca smiles. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She’s woken by Chloe frantically saying her name and she sits up too fast, seeing stars. “What? What’s wrong?”

“They’re everywhere, Beca!”

Beca’s vision finally clears and she sees Chloe in front of her full-length mirror, holding her T-shirt up to examine herself. And Beca tries not to sexualize the moment, but it’s Chloe, and Chloe’s her new girlfriend, and Chloe’s hot, and presently basically naked...and absolutely covered in chickenpox. The sexualization fizzles.

“Oh my God,” she says, seeing how it’s exploded, and she’s on her feet. She doesn’t know what time it is, it feels early but it’s light outside. She stumbles over to Chloe, having to remind herself not to touch her. “Don’t touch them, don’t touch them!” she says quickly when Chloe starts shifting uncomfortably.

“I’m dying, Beca, I feel like one giant mosquito bite.”

“Okay, come on.” She turns and hustles out of the bedroom to beat Chloe into the bathroom - she’s grateful no one else has claimed it yet, which reinforces her assumption that it was early. She cranks on the faucets in the bathtub and pulls the stopper, Chloe showing up as she’s prying the lid off the canister of oatmeal.

“What’s this?”

“Oatmeal bath. Helps with the itching.”

“You don’t just pour oatmeal into the tub, honey.”

Beca stops what she was about to do. “You...don’t?”

“You need to do it like tea. Hang on.” She disappears and returns a moment later, a nylon stocking in hand. “Put it in here.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, I knew that,” Beca says with a forced laugh. “It’s early. I forgot.”

Chloe smiles. “Mhm.” But she’s clearly uncomfortable so Beca moves quickly, pouring and tying and tossing it into the bath to steep as the tub fills.

“Do you still have a fever?” Beca’s groggy, and her cognitive skills are still catching up with the sudden call-to-action. She should be taking inventory of Chloe’s condition.

“I basically sweat through my shirt overnight.” Chloe plucks at the shirt and Beca notices now that it is indeed damp. “I don’t think it broke though. I’m still hot.”

“Yeah you are,” Beca says with a smirk and then remembers. “Sorry, I mean I’ll go get the Tylenol.” She makes to leave but Chloe stops her in the doorway with a finger to her chest and a sly smile.

“I’m sick. I didn’t turn into a virgin.”

Heat floods Beca at Chloe’s suggestive tone. “I- I know,” she stutters. “It’s just -”

“Just what?” Chloe takes a step forward, closer.

“It’s just that we can’t do anything until you’re better and I don’t want to be frustrated for however long this lasts.”

Chloe considers the excuse with a tilt of her head, and then she nods. “Good point. We did get rudely interrupted last night.”

Beca chuckles. “I’ll say. Okay, let me grab the Tylenol. I’ll be right back.”

When she returns, Chloe’s already in the tub. The way she’s sitting, upright and legs straight out in front of her so they can be fully submerged, makes her look like a big kid and Beca has to smile at the sight. The innumerable red dots covering her really completes the look.

“Water’s not very hot,” Chloe says, wiggling her feet back and forth.

“I know.” Beca flips the lid of the toilet down and sits on it sideways, feet propped on the edge of the tub. “It’s not good for it to be hot. Sorry. Here, take these.” She shoves the fever reducers into Chloe’s hand and with a cup of water from the sink.

“Doctor Mitchell knows best!” Chloe says melodically and finally relaxes to bend her knees and lay back. She catches Beca staring and smiles. “Wish you were in here with me.”

Beca blows out a breath. They’ve yet to revisit a communal bathing situation since consummating their relationship. “Fuck, me, too.”

Chloe laughs at her statement and closes her eyes. Beca takes advantage of it, staring unapologetically. Even covered in a rash, Chloe’s stunning.

They sit in relative silence until the water is too cool and Beca helps Chloe up and out of the tub. Chloe lets Beca dry her off, a semi-awkward and giggle-inducing head-to-toe pat down and Beca’s ushering Chloe back to her room.

She lets Chloe get dressed and busies herself stripping her girlfriend’s bed. If she sweat through her shirt, she sweat through her sheets. And maybe she was a little paranoid about the sores getting infected.

“You don’t have to do that,” Chloe says from the other side of the room once she’s noticed what Beca’s doing.

“It’s fine. I’ll go throw them in the laundry. Where do you keep your clean sheets?” She balls up the bedding and stuffs it under her arm.

“They’re in my closet here.” Chloe moves to reach for them.

“No! Stop. I’ll get them when I come back. You get dressed. If you want. You might be more comfortable naked. I wouldn’t mind,” she adds with a wink and a bounce and she leaves, hearing Chloe laughing behind her.

Chloe does [sadly] decide to get dressed, at least a little. She’s leaning against her desk messing with her phone and Beca covers her mouth at the sight.

Because Chloe is wearing a nightgown - an oversized T-shirt, really - with a sleepy-eyed cartoon horse on it captioned ‘Pasture Bedtime.’ Because of course Chloe has something like that.

“What?” Chloe asks, looking up when she notices Beca hovering.

“That…is the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” she says, pointing.

“What, this?” Chloe looks down, plucking at the garment. “Got it on a family vacation. It’s so ridiculous. I couldn’t not.”

“Well, I love it.” Beca remembers she has a project and fetches sheets from Chloe’s closet shelf and sets to remaking her bed, and then folds up her own bedding on the floor. “Are you hungry? I can make breakfast.”

“Not really, no. Not much of an appetite.”

Beca remembers seeing that as one of the symptoms and nods. “Okay. Well, you still need to eat something. I’m going to get something for me. Does anything sound remotely appealing?”

“Cereal, I guess. It’s good when you make it.”

“I make good cereal?”

“You always get the cereal-to-milk ratio perfect.”

Beca grins at the compliment. “Cereal it is. Any preference?”

“Chef’s choice,” Chloe says with a wave of her hand.

Beca scampers downstairs, almost colliding with Stacie in the kitchen doorway.

“Whoa! Where’s the fire?”

“Sorry! Sorry,” Beca says as she pulls out bowls and spoons and the jug of milk and opens the pantry to decide on cereal.

“What’s going on with you?” Stacie asks, watching Beca.

“Oh! Oh my God, Stace. Chloe has the Chickenpox! I’m making us breakfast.”

“She has the - she never had them as a kid?”

“Nope. I don’t know who else here hasn’t had it so we’re trying to self-quarantine or whatever. Can you do me a favor?”

“Yeah, of course, what’s up?”

“She’s going nuts with the itching. Can you run out and pick up that calamine lotion stuff?”

“No prob. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Stacie leaves and she hears the jingle of car keys and the front door open and close and she goes back to her cereal decision, opting for Fruit Loops for herself and Frosted Mini-Wheats for Chloe. She adds what is apparently the perfect amount of milk and climbs the stairs, bowls in hand.

Chloe’s back in bed when she enters, this time with her computer instead of her phone. “Netflix and chill?”

Beca passes her her bowl and climbs up to join her, careful not to touch. “Sure. What are we watching?”

“‘Kimmy Schmidt.’”

“We just watched an entire season of that last week!” Beca isn’t opposed - the show is pretty funny. Not that she can admit that aloud.

“And now we have the second season!” Chloe shifts next to her and pats at herself, trying to scratch without scratching.

Beca’s about to text Stacie asking for an ETA when there’s a knock on Chloe’s door.

“Come in!”

“Don’t come in!” Beca immediately corrects. “Quarantine,” she explains to Chloe, who comments on the fact that they’ve been in Beca’s shared room and a communal bathroom so what’s the point?

But Beca ignores her and bolts to the door. “Thanks, Stace. Lifesaver.” She shuts the door before Stacie can peek in, cutting off her questioning of Chloe’s wellbeing. Was it rude? Maybe. But Beca kind of enjoys having Chloe all to herself and taking care of her.

Not that she’d readily admit that.

“Ta-da!” she says proudly when she returns with the bottle of lotion, climbing back into bed.

“Oh my gosh, you’re amazing.” She holds her hand out expectantly.

“Nope, let me. Front or back first?”

“Back! It’s killing me.”

“Okay, scoot up.” Beca lets Chloe wiggle her way away from the headboard far enough that Beca can fit behind her.

“And let’s just go ahead and get rid of this.” Beca lifts Chloe’s sleepshirt up and away and making Chloe giggle. “Even though it’s adorable.” She shakes the bottle and cracks it open, setting to work dotting pink lotion on the angry red spots covering Chloe.

“Hey Bec?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

Beca smiles and leans forward, careful not to let herself touch Chloe’s back, and presses a kiss to her hair. “You’re welcome.”

“Doctor Mitchell.”

Chapter Text

She’s a full bottle in - and she’s petite, it didn’t take much to give her a buzz. But she needs it tonight.

Every so often, an average of once per month, it hits her.

She remembers it, clear as day.

The day she hugged Chloe on the steps of the Bellas’ house post-graduation when they were the last two to finish moving out.

Their friendship had always been special. Intense. Chloe was the only person with whom Beca felt like she could truly share anything without judgment. It seemed Chloe felt the same about Beca, the sleepless nights they would sometimes spend talking about fears and dreams and desires.

There had been the night Chloe kissed her, sober, alone, sitting on Chloe’s bed watching Netflix, and Beca had pushed her away, too stunned and too scared to know what to do with that influx of information. It never happened again, and Chloe never brought it up. Neither did Beca.

And they stood there on the steps talking for what had to have been hours, delaying the inevitable. Laughing, crying, talking about their futures, and that they would definitely see each other again, and they would totally see each other at least once a year, and always call on birthdays.

For the first year or so, they held true to their word. It was harder than she had anticipated - she was busy, busier than she thought she would be, the music industry doing its best to chew her up and spit her out, unfriendly to new talent, especially female talent, unless her talent was gyrating on stage. Which it wasn’t. She could do it, but that’s not why she was there.

And Chloe got busy. She traveled a lot, working with Habitat for Humanity. Half the time she wasn’t even in the country. Beca only knew where she was when she checked her Facebook profile to look at the photos Chloe would post from her projects in places Beca never dreamed of visiting - Kenya, Sri Lanka, India, Romania.

The first time Chloe didn’t call Beca on her birthday was her 25th, three years after graduation and two years since they’d seen each other. She still remembers it, despite being totally hammered on tequila shots. But she had her phone on vibrate and in her hand the entire night, waiting for the call that never came.

There was a text three days later apologizing. Chloe was in Zambia and the time difference was confusing, there was a rainstorm that flooded the work site - excuses. Valid, but excuses nonetheless.

The feeling that night, and then three days later, Beca didn’t understand. It felt like she’d been slapped. Forgotten.

Abandoned.

Holiday greetings were exchanged in a group text. Nothing personal. Just a generic ‘Merry Christmas.’

She made it a point to remember to call Chloe on her birthday.

But she missed it the next year. She was on tour, the DJ that kept the crowd mildly entertained until the actual opening act started.

Chloe sent her a random ‘Happy St. Patrick’s Day!’ text the next year. Drunk, surely. It was riddled with typos, and no other texts followed.

It’s now been two years since they communicated in anything more than a Like on a Facebook post, and it was the requisite night where it all came crumbling down on top of Beca - the regrets, the what-ifs, the wondering where they went wrong. They’d been inseparable the better part of four years. They promised to always be friends, to be the other’s person. Two years since actual communication. Eight since seeing each other.

She was crying. Wine drunk. Lonely in her big stupid house that meant nothing to her. She knew she shouldn’t do it - it was such a bad night.

But she tapped the call button anyway.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Beca?”

“Yeah. Hi.”

“Wow. Hi. How are you?”

“I...I’m drunk. God, it’s after midnight, you were probably asleep. Where are you? What time is it there?”

“I’m in Puerto Rico for a few days. Beca, are you okay?”

“Bet you’re surprised to hear from me, hmm?”

“Of course I am. It’s been so long...Bec, what’s wrong?”

The nickname squeezed Beca’s heart. “It’s been eight years.”

“Has it?” Chloe was quiet, and Beca listened to her breathe. Even that simple sound was a comfort.

“This is crazy.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know if there’s anyone in your life, or if you moved on…”

“What are you talking about?”

“I gotta ask, Chlo. I always wondered...if we could have been...something, you know? Or if what we had...if I was just imagining it, that it was more than it was. Or if we...if we left something behind. Do you...do you ever think about me?”

“Bec...I think about you all the time. But I don’t under-”

“You ever wondered if maybe we could be something amazing?”

“You’re not making any sense. Let me -”

“I remember...I remember how you looked at me that night in your room. You made me feel...so beautiful and you kissed me, and I really made...I made a mistake that night, Chlo. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I wanted to kiss you and I was just scared, you know? But I was a kid, we were kids. But...every day, every fucking day I think about that kiss and that if I’d have let it happen, I could be yours right now. I never forgot that. And, and I’m pretty sure, one night, you thought I was asleep but I wasn’t and I think you told me you loved me. And I wish I would have opened my eyes and told you I love you, too, because I do, Chlo, I love you and I miss you so much and you’re the only thing I’ve held onto all these years. Do you? Ever think about it?”

She was crying, choking on her tears. She wouldn’t let herself regret finally saying what she’d held in for so long. Her biggest regret in life was never telling Chloe how she felt. And it was messy and embarrassing and sloppy now but she had finally done it.

“Beca?”

“I love you, Chloe. I love you so much.”

“Beca...I’m on my honeymoon.”

Chapter Text

The front door slams.

Chloe doesn’t flinch.

Doors slamming in their house has become commonplace. She can pinpoint the first time it happened:  there was a fight, a stupid disagreement about whether or not they were going to go out to dinner. That’s all it was - she wanted to go out to dinner, dress up, feel special. Beca was tired, she’d had a long day, she just wanted to order pizza and have a beer and go to bed. Chloe had ended up storming out, declaring she would take herself to dinner alone.

She hadn’t gone to dinner. She’d driven aimlessly for two hours, tears blurring her vision until she went through a drive-thru burger joint and ate in its parking lot.

That was three years ago, just six months into their marriage. At the time, she brushed it off - all couples fight, it’s unhealthy not to fight.

Now, some nights one or the other doesn't even come home for the night. Doesn't call to let the other know where they were. Whoever is home doesn’t bother to wait up.

Tonight is not that different from the countless other nights. Other than that they both had come home - it has been days since they’ve even slept in the same bed.

“Where do you go when you don’t come home?” she asks, not wanting to start a fight. Maybe secretly wanting to.

Beca sighs and stands to leave the couch and pace. Chloe recognizes it as a need to establish dominance, to seem bigger, to stalk the room like the alpha. “Where do you go?”

“I stay with Jeff from school.”

“Oh, there’s a Jeff!” Beca’s itching for a fight, too.

Chloe can feel it. It’s going to be a banger. “You met Jeff at the holiday party two years ago.”

Beca stops and turns to face her. “Was he the guy that kept bringing you drinks? Or the one who wouldn’t stop hitting on you? Or maybe he was the one who wouldn’t stop looking at your tits.”

“He was all three,” Chloe says with a smile. “He’s really sweet.”

She sees jealousy in Beca’s eyes. It’s been awhile since there was emotion directed toward her other than indifference or anger. “Yeah, I bet he is.”

“We usually go to dinner or grab a few drinks. He doesn’t make me sleep on the couch.” Those are all facts; Jeff lets her sleep in his bed every night. He takes the couch, but Beca doesn’t need to know that.

The jealousy is gone. Even the indifference is gone. Her face is empty. “You fucking him?”

“You still haven’t told me where you go.” She avoids the question. She wants a fight, she doesn’t want to destroy everything. Not yet. She knows they’re on that road, someday soon, but she doesn’t want to strike the match.

“What do you care?”

“Why do you care if I’m sleeping with Jeff?”

“Because you’re my fucking wife!” There it is.

“Yeah? When’s the last time you treated me like it? We never go anywhere, we never do anything. You don’t even kiss me anymore unless you’re drunk!”

“You’re never home! You’re always busy. Fucking Jeff, apparently!”

She swallows the need to scream that she’s not sleeping with Jeff. But it’s too good, knowing it’s pissing off Beca. She keeps coming back to it. Beca doesn’t like the thought of someone else touching her. “At least he pays attention to me! You never ask how I am, how my day was. You don’t give a shit. He does.”

Beca looks taken aback for the briefest of moments before she’s advancing, pointing, roaring. “When’s the last time you gave a shit about my life?”

“I would give a shit about it if it wasn’t the only thing we talk about.” She puts on a mocking tone. “I met another celebrity today. They think I’m the shit and we got wasted together and I made another million dollars.”

“I don’t see you bitching about the money. I see what’s in your closet. Don’t think I don’t look at the credit card statements.”

“You’re right,” Chloe says with a bitter laugh. “The money’s the only good part about this marriage because your miserable ass sure as hell isn’t.”

Beca’s fuming, feet rooted in place like a statue instead of pacing. She’s winding up like a spring.

“Where do you go, Beca? Where do you go when you don’t come home? Are you sleeping with your assistant? Again?”

“That was one time two years ago and you know it was a mistake and you forgave me. You can’t keep using it against me!” Beca looks taken aback by her own outburst of self-defense. Like she didn’t mean to try to fix it.

Chloe smiles calmly, standing, ready to steal the position of power from Beca. “Forgive, but not forget. There’s no expiration date on using your wife’s infidelity against her.”

“Infidelity...you’re fucking your coworker!” The idea’s firmly rooted in Beca’s brain now. True or not, it was true to Beca.

“And how does that feel? Are you thinking about it?” She takes a step forward, watching Beca shrink, twisting into herself. “Thinking about me kissing him? Riding him?”

It happens so quickly, she didn’t even see it, but her cheek is stinging and when she turns her head back, Beca’s eyes are tearing, face red. Anger or heartbreak? It’s impossible to know.

“Get out,” Beca spits out at her. “Get out of my house.”

“This is our house, baby.” There’s no warmth in the pet name. All vitriol. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re free to leave. I won’t stop you.” It’s only when she sees the look in Beca’s eyes shift that she regrets her words. It’s too late. She’s struck the match.

“I want a divorce.” Beca says it so calmly that it’s bone-chilling. The tension that had been winding up in her seems to have disappeared. She’s moving through the room gathering things, her computer, her phone. She’s down the hall to their bedroom and back a moment later with a duffel bag over her shoulder.

Her exit is calm.

But she slams the door.

Chloe doesn’t flinch.

Chapter Text

“You must be from Tennessee, because you’re the only ten I see.”

Beca rolled her eyes so hard, she was pretty sure she injured something.

She let her assistant drag her out to this bar after work, and it barely exceeded the qualifications of being a dive. She’d passed it every day on her way to the office, a nondescript building on the corner with no windows and a solid door that had made her wonder if it was actually a strip club. Even the rear patio was completely boarded up so no one could see in or out. It opened at 7:00am, and there were always cars parked in its lot.

“Lots of doctors come here after working the night shift,” Jesse had explained when she asked him about it. “Or any shift, since there’s a hospital down the street.”

And it was one of those doctors - or medical staff of some kind, given the green scrubs - that was sidled up to Jesse at the bar, hitting on him hard and terribly. Beca was pretty sure the woman was using the worst pick-up lines in history.

When she finished her massive eye roll, she noticed the redhead’s eyes on her, piercing blue that made Beca blink and shake her head, not quite believing what she was seeing. For being so beautiful, the woman - nurse? doctor? - was trying really hard.

“So whaddya say?” the woman asked, focusing on Jesse again, rolling her body up against him.

But he only smiled and placed his hand on her elbow, easing her back. “I’m flattered, but I don’t think my boyfriend would appreciate it.”

“Aw, boo,” she pouted, peeling herself away to drift through the room, glass half-full of some kind of dark liquid in hand.

Beca watched her; she couldn’t take her eyes off her, really, as she approached a pretty blonde at the next high-top table.

“I seem to have lost my phone number. Can I borrow yours?”

Beca actually laughed aloud at that. Her game was just so...so bad. But her eyes were gorgeous and her smile was to die for and her hair screamed to be pulled and her body…

“Hey tiger, you maybe wanna keep it in your pants?”

Beca jumped and Jesse laughed. “Shut up,” she muttered.

“I didn’t know you were into the ladies.”

“I’m...not. Usually.”

The redhead had moved on, earning another hard ‘no’ from the blonde. She seemed unfazed, though, sliding into the next booth with two men and dropping what Beca assumed to be another terrible pick-up line. She watched their interaction, surprised that it was the woman who excused herself this time despite the men grinning and nodding. She certainly hadn’t been rejected that time. And oh shit, she was looking at her again. Beca looked at her drink quickly, trying to play it cool.

She really needed that woman to come back over to them. Maybe sidle up to her and drop a terrible line. She was pretty sure she would fall for it. She was also pretty sure she would like to invite the woman back to her place.

More than an hour later, she’d seen the woman talk to literally every person in the bar but her, laughing and flirting, flipping her hair, running a hand up an arm or down a back, whispering in ears.

Now she was just plain annoyed. It’s not that Beca was egotistical, but she knew she was pretty - certainly pretty enough to be approached by that woman, based upon her apparent total lack of standards and taste. She knew that her navy pencil skirt and fitted white blouse (which she’d unbuttoned a bit, hoping to gain someone’s attention, so what?) accentuated her curves in all the right ways. She knew she was having a good hair day. She was as good as, or better than, the other people there.

Frankly, she was offended. In what world did she get ignored in a bar by the one person she took interest in? She’d already rebuffed two men that evening; she knew she wasn’t unapproachable.

She turned to Jesse, frowning and muttering, “This is bullshit.”

“Aw aww, someone has a crush.”

“Shut up, I do not. I just…” She glanced over at the woman, sitting on the knee of a man who was laughing at whatever it was she was saying. “I just feel a little...left out.”

“You’ll get your turn eventually.”

“She looked right at me and walked away, I hardly think -”

“Are you tired?”

Beca jumped at the voice behind her, quiet and sweet, and suddenly Jesse was excusing himself. She took another sip of her drink before turning, knowing who it would be. She hoped she wasn’t blushing; she definitely felt like she was. She needed to be cool.

“I’m sorry?” she asked, offering a small smile at the redhead leaning against the bar, a scant few inches between them.

“Because you’ve been running through my mind all night.”

“Are those lines actually working?” she asked, trying not to stare at any one aspect of the woman too long, even though it’s all she wanted to do.

And then the woman stepped closer, resting her hand on Beca’s waist. “You tell me.”

Beca eyed the hand, eyebrow quirked high as she fought to keep her cool. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” The woman laughed, high and loud, and Beca was sure it was the cutest laugh known to mankind.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Real smooth, Mitchell. Real smooth. The hand at her waist dropped away and Beca panicked, knowing she was blowing it. She grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled it back, stepping further into her personal space. She could smell the alcohol on her breath - whiskey, it seemed - and she couldn’t help but stare, her brain turning over possible follow-ups. “Um...do you have a map?”

The woman tilted her head, eyes narrowing a bit. “A map?”

A smile crept over Beca’s lips. “I keep getting lost in your eyes.”

The look on the redhead’s face - if Beca could have photographed it, she would. For someone who’d spent the entire evening dropping the cheesiest lines known to mankind, she was awfully flustered by Beca’s. Her jaw worked as though unsure what to say, and Beca tried not to stare at the full, soft lips that she was dying to kiss.

“I’m Beca,” she offered when the woman was still speechless.

“Um, Chloe.” The redhead fidgeted, but didn’t try to back up when Beca stepped closer, feeling bold, having knocked down her shields of confidence.

“Do you maybe wanna get out of here?” Beca had never invited a stranger home from a bar before. She was not a one-night-stand kind of woman. But she was fairly certain she would spend the rest of her life regretting not taking the chance tonight.

Chloe blushed, hard, and Beca really liked that the woman who seemed so confident could be unraveled so easily by her. “Are you...are you drunk?” Chloe asked, eyes starting to waver between Beca’s eyes and lips.

“I’m not drunk; I’m intoxicated by you.”

Chapter Text

Beca Mitchell doesn’t believe in soulmates.

She does, however, believe in archenemies.

She’s had her share of them - enemies, that is.

Alex, who stole her diary in third grade, read it, and told the whole class how she still slept with a stuffed rabbit named Binx, and that she had cried because Binx had gone missing one night.

Cheyenne, the girl who lied to the vice principal in eighth grade and got Beca suspended for two days, accused of vandalizing the girls’ bathroom, which she did not do.

Then there was Mr. Taylor, her high school Chemistry teacher who seemed fixated on making her life hell by way of thermodynamics. She’d kept count and he called on her more times than anyone else in the class - by almost half.

There’s the barista that perpetually gets her order incorrect despite never changing her drink, and the cop who gave her not just her first but first three speeding tickets, and the guy who didn’t hold the elevator when he saw her running for it and subsequently arrived two minutes late for her first internship interview - which she was not awarded.

None of them, however, are her archenemy, a fact she was forced to accept because none of their names were Chloe, the name that’s been inscribed on the underside of Beca’s left wrist from the day she was born.

She’s watched it change and grow with her; it was in neat Courier typeface when she was born - she doesn’t remember that of course, but she’s seen the baby photos. It changed when she started learning to write, matching her heavy, uneven, scratchy letters, evolving as her skill improved through elementary school until it regressed a bit into its current state - a slanted half-print, half-cursive combination.

Soulmates, on the other hand...supposedly she has one of those, too. Everyone does. Supposedly. She’d heard and read plenty of stories of people never finding theirs, or finding them too late, already married to someone else. She isn’t on board with that concept - it seems like a recipe for disaster: you spend your entire life waiting to meet the right person, and maybe you do or maybe you don’t but either way, you spend your entire life waiting to meet the right person. Which just sounds like a waste of energy.

The name inscribed on her other wrist has gone through the same evolution as she grew up into the confident-but-secretly-not eighteen-year-old she is today. She’s never met someone with that name, either, which she figures is par for the course. No archenemy. No soulmate. She prefers being alone, anyway.

Solitude is nice.

“I’m going to the activities fair.”

Beca groans from where she’s flopped onto what has just become her bed for the next nine months. She’d feel so much more vindicated if either name on her wrists read “Kimmy Jin.” Or even her dad’s name, for making her enroll in his godforsaken Barden University. But nope.

Her dad’s been hovering awkwardly for five minutes, which is five minutes too long so she heaves herself up and follows her cold roommate out the door. “I’m going to the activities fair with my super good friend, Kimmy Jin.”

The fair is, as she expected it to be, stereotypical in every way: sororities and fraternities, clubs for all sorts of student subgroups from ethnicity to orientation to athletics to hobbies. Her fourteen-year-old self pauses at the Quidditch Club booth, heart leaping with excitement until she realizes she’s an adult now and moves on.

She’s stopped by a redhead presenting her with a flyer with the flair of a Girl Scout selling cookies, except this Girl Scout is trying to sell her on an a cappella group, which pretty much sounds like Beca’s worst nightmare.

And the girl’s blonde friend...Beca’s positive if she were to look up the word “bitch” in the dictionary, her picture would be there. Aubrey is her name.

She's not Beca's archenemy. She seems like she could be, though.

But it's not that Beca hates music - it’s the absolute contrary: music is her life . She doesn't even hate singing. She's actually pretty good at it. She just doesn't sing for others. In a group. With choreography. For an audience.

She sings in the shower, though, and she's barely through the first verse of “Titanium” by David Guetta, not even properly wet when her back is hit with a blast of cold air.

“You can sing!”

Beca doesn't know how it happens, but one second she's mortified by the girl from the activities fair barging into her shower, equally nude, and the next she's [mostly] voluntarily singing a duet with her. She clutches her arms to her bare chest and she sees the girl’s eyes roam her, pausing over her breasts; they actually most likely paused at her wrists, curious about her names as is normal for everyone to do. Beca hates it; it reminds her of dogs sniffing one another’s butts. She makes a concerted effort to not look at others' tattoos. She rarely lets people see hers, hiding them with bracelets, bangles, and watches. She's sure to keep them turned against her body, away from this boundaryless girl.

Beca feels like a spider in a sink, scrambling away from the redhead who keeps pushing herself closer than is socially acceptable for two naked strangers to be. But there's something oddly...intriguing about the whole encounter that makes Beca, just for a second and at the very end of their duet, crack a smile and lower her guard.

She doesn't miss that those startlingly blue eyes drop from hers again. To her breasts? To her wrists? She quickly curls inward again, the girl seeming distracted until an equally boundaryless guy prompts her exit.

Beca surprises herself by going to the dumb audition. She likes that the redhead is clearly excited that she showed up. She kind of likes that the blonde - Aubrey, she remembers - seems irritated that she can, in fact, sing.

She learns the shower invader’s name at the “aca-initiation,” a formal introduction coming after she’s signed away her first-born child or something.

“I’m Chloe,” the girl says, going in for a hug when Beca has her hand out for a shake.

Beca feels her blood turn cold. The name has haunted her her entire eighteen years. Soulmate? Archenemy? She hasn’t met a Chloe until this moment, and the girl seems so impossibly sweet and nice she can’t imagine her being an enemy. Or a soulmate, for that matter.

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence; this happens a lot. You might only have one soulmate named Jennifer, but there are a million Jennifers in the world, so...good luck with that.

“I’m so glad that I met you,” Chloe says later at a party full of nerds Beca’s been forced to attend. Chloe’s about two inches from her face and Beca wonders if this girl is going to kiss her. “I think that we’re going to be really fast friends.” She wonders if she’d let her do it.

It makes her shiver and call upon her handy dandy snark to end the conversation and get back to her efforts in not socializing.

The whole a cappella thing isn’t the worst thing in the world, Beca decides. At least she’s doing something involving music.

She’s able to pinpoint the turning point of her opinion on the matter to the so-called “riff off” in an inexplicably empty and abandoned yet publicly accessible swimming pool. She likes improvising music, playing one song off the other. Chloe explains to her how it works and somehow she drums up the courage - probably driven by the need to show up the cocky guy group they’re up against - to jump in with “No Diggity.”

It brings the whole event to a screeching halt. It’s weird and awkward and has no one ever rapped at this thing before? She’s about to give up when the Bellas figure out how to join in, and suddenly the song works and the whole place is into it. It’s kind of awesome.

But they lose. Because of a fucking contraction. It's fun, though, and she's psyched because the group actually sounded good . And then her excitement is squashed.

“Before everybody goes to bed tonight, I need you to list everything you did wrong.”

Beca questions how neither of her tattoos read “Aubrey.”

She surprises herself again that she actually cares about these girls. They're all beautiful in their own ways, how Stacie loves unconditionally and how Cynthia-Rose can give the best pep talks, how Fat Amy can lift anyone's spirits with humor but knows when to dial it back, how Lily keeps them on their toes and Ashley and Jessica are a one-two positivity punch, Denise is the best listener and Aubrey...Aubrey is still on her shit list.

And then there's Chloe.

Beca can't quite figure her out.

She's a ball of bubbling energy, sure. She will listen to anyone talk for an hour and hang on their every word and equally talk their ear off for the next hour.

Beca finds herself seeking Chloe out when she has bad days or bombs a pop quiz, going out of her way to find her at the Bellas' house.

“I like this,” Chloe says one evening.

Beca's in her bed - Chloe's, that is. Somewhere along the way, they became cuddle buddies, and Beca does not cuddle. But Chloe likes to, and it feels nice and makes her feel safe and she got a C on her Calculus exam and she feels like shit about it and getting a good snuggle from Chloe does wonders for her mood.

She doesn't really admit this, though, acting standoffish despite being the one to initiate it by texting Chloe and asking if she's busy.

“Me, too,” she admits, feeling goosebumps rise when Chloe drags a fingernail along the soft skin of the underside of her forearm. She feels her trace the bands of the black leather bracelet there.

“What are your names?”

Beca stiffens and she feels Chloe's touch pause. They've known each other for six months now and she's managed thus far to keep them private - no easy task with a friend who is as physically affectionate as Chloe, always hugging and tickling and wrestling and picking Beca up just because she can and she knows Beca hates it.

“What are yours?” she counters. She's intentionally never looked at Chloe's, though they've rarely been hidden by clothing or accessories. Because of that whole dog metaphor thing.

“I asked you first.” Chloe's tone is teasing but peaceful.

Beca shakes her head and sits up, hands out of reach of Chloe's curious fingers. “I don't tell people.”

“Not even me?”  

Something about the question, still teasing but tainted with poorly masked hurt, makes Beca's chest tighten.

She feels Chloe sit up next to her and can see her out the corner of her eye, staring at Beca's profile. The fingers that had been tracing Beca's arm lift to trace the angle of her cheek until they're tucking a lock of hair behind Beca's ear. It makes Beca feel nauseous and giddy at the same time. She doesn't know what to do or how to react, so she does nothing, still as a statue as she feels Chloe's eyes on her.

“You don't know what mine are?” Chloe asks quietly. “After all this time?”

Beca doesn't dare speak, her eyes on her own folded hands in her lap when Chloe’s forearm extends across her own. She doesn’t want to look, but she can’t not, and her eyes follow the line from Chloe’s elbow to her wrist and she feels nauseated all over again.

Because there, in the neat script that mirrors the dozens of notes Chloe has written for her - grocery lists, reminders, requests - is “Beca.”

She hears her own breath catch and she has the urge to flee but feels frozen, Chloe’s arm as heavy as stone keeping her from moving.

“I’ve met a Beca before,” Chloe says quietly. “Well, Rebecca. She went by Becca. With two C’s. In high school. I thought she was my soulmate, that maybe you know...it was just a spelling preference or whatever which is why it wasn’t quite right. But…”

“But?” Beca heard herself prompt when Chloe fell quiet.

“But she broke my heart.”

Beca glanced at the name again. It was definitely spelled the way she spelled it. She looked at her own tattoos, still hidden from Chloe’s view. “Beca’s your archenemy?” Her own voice sounds foreign in her ears.

Chloe’s hand moves to curl around Beca’s forearm, not pulling, just touching, but a way that Beca knows is a request. To part her hands. To show Chloe what’s there.

“She didn’t have my name,” is Chloe’s answer. “She wasn’t the right Beca.”

Beca holds her breath again; it suddenly feels like they’re on a precipice and the energy in the room has shifted from calm to buzzing to chaotic.

Because Chloe is implying she’s her soulmate. Her name is imprinted on Chloe. Chloe’s is imprinted on her. Not that Chloe knows that.

It’s the moment she’s read about her entire life, a meet-cute where two people discover they’ve been The One for each other all along. Their meet-cute was arguably that day in the shower when Chloe proceeded to upheave her entire life.

It isn’t that Chloe is a bad person; Beca can’t think of someone purer. But Beca had a plan. A goal. She’d adjusted when her father forced her to enroll here, insisting she needed a backup plan which was as insulting as it was motivating. She met his terms - enrolling, joining a group, making friends. She’d had every intention to finish out the year, drop out, and move to Los Angeles.

Along the way, she began second-guessing that plan. She didn’t want to leave. She hadn’t wanted to leave for quite awhile. Perhaps as long ago as that late night in the empty swimming pool.

It’s why she’s thought for five months that perhaps archenemies weren’t always malicious evildoers. It’s why she’s been working on accepting that Chloe is her archenemy - someone who came into her life solely to disrupt it, make her question everything she thought she knew, and throw her irrevocably off-course.

And now Chloe is suggesting they’re soulmates.

But she is going to be another Beca to break Chloe’s heart.

They’re the archenemies.

“What names do you have?” Chloe sounds nervous now, and she tugs at Beca’s arm.

Beca swallows bile and lets Chloe pull her right hand away from where it’s been curled around her own waist. Watches Chloe wiggle the bracelet out of the way. Watches her reaction - the confusion is evident, sliding over her features until her brow is furrowed.

“Beca?”

“I have to go.” Beca doesn’t remember deciding to say the words, but she hears them and she’s moving, pulling away from Chloe’s embrace and out the door.

Chloe doesn’t bring up their small but life-altering revelation the next day at rehearsal. Part of Beca is grateful. A bigger part of her is screaming for it to happen, which is a new emotion for her - the desire to talk about feelings and secrets. But Chloe isn’t offering her the opportunity, acting like nothing has changed.

Which, Beca figures, is another tick mark in the Beca-Chloe archenemy tally.

She isn’t surprised when Chloe plops down next to her on the bleachers where they pack up their bags side by side, as though nothing is amiss.

“Wanna grab dinner tonight?” Chloe asks.

“I...don’t know.”

“Oh, do you have other plans?”

“No, I -”

“Great!” Chloe drops her character shoes into her duffel bag, having changed into flip flops. “I’ll pick you up at your dorm at 7:00.” She leaves before Beca can muster what she needs to in order to reject Chloe.

Instead, she goes to her Music in Contemporary Pop Culture class, partly because she loves it, but mostly because she needs the distraction because it feels like Chloe just asked her on a date, despite that exact scenario happening innumerable times in the past.

It doesn’t do much to distract her, and her knee bounces nervously through the entire lecture. She showers and spends entirely too much time on her hair and makeup because, again, this still feels like a date. And she’s nervous. And excited, though she wishes she wasn’t. She knows she’s going to hurt Chloe, which is arguably the worst fate she could ever foresee.

She’s waiting for Chloe’s usual text to let her know she’s outside when there’s a knock on her door. She rolls her eyes, not wanting to deal with some stupid check-in from her RA. She pulls the door open, ready to prove that no, she does not have candles or a hot plate, and is surprised to see Chloe.

With flowers.

“Hi!” Chloe says, eyes bright. “Ooh, you look nice.” Chloe’s eyes roam over the black skinny jeans, white v-neck, black unbuttoned vest, and black heels, an outfit which Beca spent an embarrassingly long time putting together. But the attention and compliment make her feel vindicated.

“You didn’t say where we were going. I hope this is okay? I’m not, like, underdressed?”

Chloe giggles at that. “It’s not that fancy. These are for you,” she adds, extending the bouquet of wildflowers toward Beca.

“Oh. You...didn’t have to…” She stops herself. “Thank you.” She accepts them with what she hopes is minimal awkwardness, only to realize she has no vases in her tiny dorm room. “I…”

“Here you go,” Chloe says with as smile, holding up a brown paper gift bag. Beca doesn’t have to look in it to know it contains a vase because, of course, Chloe would do that.

“You look really nice, too. By the way.” Beca says as they walk along the pathway from Beca’s dorm to the parking lot. It’s an understatement really. Chloe is... astonishing. It makes Beca feel underdressed anyway, despite Chloe’s insistence that she wasn’t. Despite Chloe wearing what would qualify as a Little Black Dress if it was black instead of cobalt blue.

Chloe takes Beca’s elbow as they walk, not that Beca had offered it. (She realizes maybe she should have.) “Thank you.”

She does offer it for the walk from Chloe’s car to the restaurant Chloe’s driven them to. Beca relaxes the moment she realizes where they are and now feels silly for worrying about her wardrobe.

“Pizza Planet?” she asks with a crooked smile before opening the restaurant’s door for Chloe to enter first.

“It’s your favorite, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but...oh, Chlo they don’t take reservations here,” she adds when Chloe approaches the host and offers her name.

But contrary to Beca’s knowledge, the high school student in the red polo shirt and khaki pants nods eagerly and gestures for them to follow until he’s deposited them in one of the private party rooms, which has already been set up for two.

Beca’s blushing at the very sentiment that Chloe put in the effort to arrange such a thing because there’s not really any denying now that this is, in fact, intended to be a romantic date. It’s just casual enough, however, to keep Beca from wanting to flee.

Which, she figures, is exactly what Chloe was aiming to accomplish.

“Want a beer? We can share a pitcher,” Chloe asks before Beca’s even fully settled into her seat at the square table. "They won't card you if I order it."

She had expected Chloe to take the seat across from her, but at the last second, she stepped around the corner of the table to sit to Beca’s right. Chloe sounds a little anxious with her question, eager to get alcohol into her system, and the concept that Chloe is maybe a little nervous about all this is calming. “Definitely. What do they have on tap?”

After three beers and two slices of pepperoni and mushroom (ham and pineapple for Chloe, which had prompted a lengthy debate regarding the appropriateness of pineapple on pizza), Beca has almost forgotten this was probably a date until a particular boisterous moment of laughter results in Chloe’s hand landing on top of Beca’s thigh. They both acknowledge it with a glance, and for a second it’s clear Chloe is waiting for Beca to reject it.

But she doesn’t.

It makes her heart pound, but she likes how Chloe’s hand looks and feels there, and she hates it because she knows this can only end badly. She’s about to start overthinking when their waiter returns with prepaid gameplay cards for the restaurant’s arcade and she imagines herself swooning because honestly Chloe knows her so well to orchestrate such a perfect first date.

“I’m about to kick your butt at air hockey,” Chloe says with a sly smile as she leans close and then pops backward and out of her chair, holding out her hand for Beca to take.

Chloe does kick her ass at air hockey. But Beca wins at the basketball game which is a fair trade.

It’s when they’re in a two-seater game requiring teamwork as they steer and man the cannons of a pirate ship, a game that really is going for an aesthetic and has them fully encapsulated aside from the open sides through which they entered, that they’re laughing hysterically about dealing with their ship going over a waterfall and Beca’s shrieking about Chloe not holding onto the ship’s wheel when Chloe uses her free hands to turn Beca’s face away from the game to kiss her.

It takes Beca’s brain a few seconds to catch up to the action and when it finally does, she freezes. Her eyes are open but Chloe’s are closed and they’re kissing and she knows now without a doubt that this is a date.

She sees Chloe’s eyes start to flutter open and that’s when she unfreezes, with the realization that she should close her eyes and maybe kiss Chloe back before Chloe interprets her lack of response as rejection rather than the surprise it was. Because she doesn’t want to reject Chloe, even though her conscience is telling her to stop it now before anyone gets hurt.

So she responds, letting her eyes close to actually kiss Chloe back and the sound of contentment that escapes Chloe does things to Beca. Twists her up inside. Sends electricity through her. She drops the firearm controls in favor of reaching for Chloe, hands framing her face as Chloe readily grants her curious tongue access to her mouth.

Beca’s had her share of first kisses, but none of them have made her feel like this one is, all warm and tingly and buzzy, like she’s...like she’s been waiting her entire life for it. The reminder makes her pull back, and the way a flushed Chloe chases the broken kiss for a second gives her another rush.

“Wow,” Chloe says, eyes still closed as a smile starts to appear as her fingernails scratch lightly at the back of Beca’s neck. “You’re really good at that.”

Chloe was good at it, too, and Beca wants to do it again - which seems like a terrible idea because this is never going to work out with them.

“Is this a date?” Beca suddenly blurts. It’s been the elephant in the room of her mind all night. She needs Chloe to address it.

The question gets Chloe to open her eyes, and though her smile remains, it diminishes a tad which makes Beca feel bad. “Do you want it to be?”

Beca hesitates. Does she want it to be a date? Clearly, it is. But Chloe’s just offered her a Get Out Of Jail Free card. “We’re friends, right?”

She immediately knows this was not the right way to respond to Chloe’s open door because her smile disappears and she removes her hands from Beca’s body. “Yeah, of course.”

Beca shakes her head, more at herself than at Chloe. She’s going to hate herself for this, more than Chloe will hate her. “Will you take me home?”

She sees the hurt and disappointment in Chloe’s eyes as she turns to exit the arcade game and Beca realizes what she just said. She panics because Chloe completely misinterpreted her terrible choice of words so she reaches for her arm and pulls her back into the game and back into another kiss.

“Take me home?” she tries again, this time breathless and clinging to Chloe to convey her meaning.

Chloe utters a quiet, “Ohh,” and Beca nods.

“That’s what I meant. Not...not that I just wanted to go home.”

“Yeah.” Chloe smiles. “Yes. Okay.” She’s bouncy and twirly as she climbs out of the game and Beca follows. She lets Chloe lead the way back to their private room to gather their purses and settle the bill - something Chloe refuses to let Beca contribute to.

Beca knows this is a terrible idea. This is going to ruin their friendship and hurt them both, but the effect Chloe’s had on her body is impossible to ignore and archenemy or not, apparently they have amazing sexual chemistry.

Maybe once this all blows up in her face she won’t want to stay at Barden anymore and she’ll get her life back on its original track. Silver linings.

This time, she offers her arm to Chloe who takes it with a giggle of gratitude. She completes the circle of politeness by opening the driver’s side door for her.

The car is running by the time she circles it and gets in and she isn’t one iota surprised that the moment she sits down, Chloe’s leaning across the console to pull her into another kiss, this one much less restrained than the first two in the arcade.

“My place?” Chloe asks breathlessly when they part.

Beca nods; it’s not the best possible option, but between her dorm room with a probably-home roommate or the Bellas’ house which is only home to Chloe and Aubrey as Freshmen are required to live in the dorms and they’re the only non-Freshmen Bellas. She doesn’t want to have to face Aubrey tonight; she’s confident that if Aubrey were to know what they were about to do, Beca would be rejected from the group.

The drive seems endless, and it’s quiet save for the 90s playlist filtering through Chloe’s sound system. Beca’s knee is bouncing and Chloe reaches over and rests her hand on it and it stills immediately. Something about the way Chloe is able to calm her nerves so easily is, well, unnerving, but it works nonetheless. She wants to return the gesture, but she doesn’t trust that if she puts her hand on Chloe’s bare knee that they’ll make it to the house without an accident caused by distracted driving.

So she keeps her hands to herself and her eyes on the hand on her knee and the way it’s almost petting her. It’s the same hand that has her name - well, some Beca’s name - inscribed just above it and there’s a sad irony with that.

Their walk from the car to the house is quick, and the looks Chloe throws over her shoulder more than once make Beca’s feet move more quickly until she collides with Chloe’s back when she stops to unlock the door, the momentum pressing Chloe against the wooden barrier and Beca has her accidentally pinned to a door.

Custom dictates that Beca should immediately step back and apologize, but she’s close enough that she heard the whimper that escaped Chloe when the impact occurred and Chloe’s body feels like a magnet. Her hands are on Chloe’s waist where they’d moved instinctively upon impact and she lifts one to pull Chloe’s hair back and over her shoulder to lean close. It’s clear Chloe’s anticipating something by the way she tilts her head, and for a second Beca considers biting the curve of her neck but instead she just leans in to say, “Open the door.”

“I’m trying,” Chloe said with a breathy laugh and Beca looks down to see her fighting with her keys with a shaky hand until she succeeds and only the threat of Aubrey being on the other side of the door is a strong enough force to repel Beca from where she’d molded herself to Chloe.

They half-stumble into the house with a laugh and Chloe immediately heads for the stairs. “Bree, you home?”

Beca holds her breath, ears straining for a response. She doesn’t hear anything but their footfalls on the stairs as they climb and Chloe repeats her question more loudly and Beca sees her retrieve her phone from her purse to check it.

Chloe stops at the top of the stairs and spins around, smiling down at Beca who is two steps from the top. “She’s spending the night at her boyfriend’s.”

“Aubrey has a boyfriend?” The concept is as weird as a dog walking on its hind legs and Beca can’t fathom what kind of guy would want to date her.

Chloe doesn’t answer her but instead reaches her hand down to pull Beca up the rest of the way and almost into a kiss, but she spins away, still hand in hand, to lead Beca to her bedroom.

“Tease,” Beca mutters and she hears Chloe chuckle.

Beca doesn’t realize they’re standing in Chloe’s bedroom until Chloe’s going through the ‘just got home’ motions of hanging her purse on the back of a chair and stepping out of her heels and drawing the curtains and lighting the trio of candles on her nightstand.

“Nervous?” Chloe asks, looking up from where she’s lighting the third candle, the light from the match in her fingers reflecting in her eyes.

Beca notices she hasn’t moved from where she’d stopped three steps into Chloe’s room, feet still rooted in place. It gives the impression that she’s nervous, but it was just that she got distracted watching Chloe and didn’t bother to move.

“Not really,” she admits. “I feel like I should be. Shouldn’t I be? Are you?”

Chloe shrugs and flicks her wrist to extinguish the match and drops it in the small dish that serves that purpose. “No. Well, excited nervous, but not scared nervous.”

“Yeah, same,” Beca says as she pushes her fingers through her hair and finally takes what feels like an awkward step forward, unsure of what her destination is. Other than the obvious.

Chloe sees the hesitation and takes a seat on her bed, scooting until she’s in the middle of it, reclining against the pillows, ankles crossed like she’s settling in for a movie. “Come.” She pats her thigh in invitation and Beca wonders if that is as direct an invitation it seems - to actually...just go be in Chloe’s lap.

She steps out of her own heels and climbs to kneel on the bed, still unsure where she’s going to end up until she’s crawled all the way up and is indeed straddling Chloe’s lap.

“Hello,” she says, letting her hands rest on Chloe’s shoulders. She notices Chloe’s eyes slipping to try to read the name on her wrist not yet revealed to her and Beca makes a point of withdrawing her arm to hide it behind her back with a raised eyebrow.

Chloe bites her lip sheepishly and then smiles. “Hello to you, too.” Her fingers trace the buttons and eyelets of Beca’s open vest and then they grip it to give it a tug. And then another when Beca doesn’t react. “Come kiss me.”

There’s something so innocent but sexual about the tone of her request that it makes Beca’s hips roll and she lets the motion carry her right into Chloe’s kiss. This one is slower than the first three, but it’s immediately deeper, the hesitation of being unsure already evaporated from both of them. It’s slow, and searing, and Beca’s confident she’s never felt a tongue as skilled as the one that’s visiting hers in her mouth. She tries to stop the moan forming when she thinks about all the other places that tongue could visit, but Chloe pushes the vest off her shoulders to slip down her arms and she fails, moaning into Chloe’s mouth.

She feels Chloe start to smile. “Shut up,” she mutters before using her own tongue to make her comply.

She’s rewarded with a moan from Chloe and it emboldens her to kiss Chloe harder, to touch her in places other than her shoulders, like her arms and hair and neck and along her décolletage.

Chloe’s hands don’t really roam. They move from discarding Beca’s vest to holding her waist to grabbing her ass to pull her closer.

The fact that such a move doesn’t shock Beca, barely even makes her take pause other than to enjoy it, makes her think it should be a red flag. Nothing should feel so easy and natural as this moment unfolding in front of and beneath her. She knows it was going to be terrible to recover from. That’s what makes her start to panic and pull back, but Chloe just chases her and draws her back in like the magnet she is and manages to calm her down again.

And then they’re moving and Beca finds herself on her back with Chloe’s hips between her legs and they’ve barely missed a beat with their kissing; in fact, it’s only growing more intense and Chloe’s rocking into Beca with a clear purpose. She’s hitting the seam of Beca’s jeans just right and it’s driving Beca crazy. Crazy enough to reach to pull Chloe in harder, and to do that, her hands have ended up under Chloe’s blue dress and on round, smooth flesh, hints of lace at her fingertips.

She wonders if it’s blue or black or maybe red and she releases her grip long enough to reach up and find the zipper at the base of Chloe’s neck to pull it down to where it ends at her lower back. It loosens the bodice enough and the lace she sees there is red and she knows it'll match and it makes her drop away from Chloe’s kiss with a groan.

“What?” Chloe asks, hips still rolling into Beca.

“Red lace? Seriously?”

“What about it?”

“You planned this?”

“I asked you on a date, Bec.”

“So this is a date?”

“Your hand’s on my butt and you have my dress unzipped and I have you, like, three minutes from coming and you’re still questioning whether or not this is a date?”

Beca gasps in indignation at the proclamation that she is already close, but then both the acknowledgment of what’s happening and the fact that Chloe said what she said hits her like a bolt of lightning right as Chloe pushes into her again and the gasp comes out as a groan because holy shit she is suddenly so close that there’s no way she’ll make it three whole minutes.

Chloe moans in response and finds Beca’s hands one at a time to press them into the pillows next to her head and pin them there as she grinds into Beca, who gives in and closes her eyes.

She doesn’t want to - she wants her pants off for this because it feels so juvenile that on their first date she’s going to come in her jeans from this but Chloe’s evidently determined.

She hears a sound from Chloe, one of surprise, or shock, or maybe it’s a whimper of mutual pleasure and it’s followed by a whispering of her name and then Beca’s body is rolling with Chloe’s thrusts, the pleasure overwhelming her, setting stars exploding in her mind.

She returns to herself to find Chloe kissing her, over and over, and the blue dress off Chloe’s torso and bunched against Beca’s stomach between them. She kisses back half-heartedly, not because she doesn’t want to but because she’s still recovering, and she feels Chloe’s thumbs brushing back and forth over her wrists.

That’s what lurches her back to full consciousness, because where Chloe’s holding her should be where her bracelets are and she panics, trying to pull her arms away but Chloe holds firm and keeps peppering her with kisses.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Chloe murmurs against her ear before she kisses it.

“Don’t. You’re not...stop.”

Chloe does stop at that. She pulls away completely until she’s kneeling between Beca’s thighs. “Beca? What’s wrong?”

Beca’s already recoiled, hiding her tattoos by crossing her arms over her bare stomach where her shirt’s ridden up during their activities, despite knowing it’s too late and Chloe’s seen both of them. “I know what you’re thinking. And you’re wrong.”

Chloe’s face falls, and then she looks confused. “But…” she holds out her arm with Beca’s name on it and grabs for the arm with her name.

“You’re not my soulmate, Chloe,” she bites out. She knew this would happen. She thought she would at least have a few weeks of amazing sex before it did, but she let herself lose focus and Chloe took advantage of it to learn the other half of her fates. And now it’s ruined.

“Yes, I am. I felt it the first time I saw you. You didn’t feel it?”

Beca did feel something that very first day, but she knows it wasn’t that of two soulmates finding each other.

“We’re not soulmates,” she repeats. She feels trapped even though Chloe isn’t holding her in any way. She could get up and run out. She wants to. “We’re...we’re…”

“Beca Mitchell, we are not archenemies.” Chloe’s voice wavers and Beca realizes she’s crying.

And that just figures. “Only an archenemy could make someone like you cry,” she says, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole.

“And only a soulmate would stay here and argue with me instead of just leaving.”

Beca doesn’t mean to yell, but it comes out that way. “I’m not your -”

“Shut up!” Chloe yells back and it actually scares Beca; she’s never heard Chloe yell. Chloe grabs at her arms again and finally Beca just lets her. They’re jerked away from her waist and turned over to reveal the names there. Chloe points to the other name. Beca’s right arm. “What do you think this is?”

“Chloe, stop,” she says weakly but doesn’t try to pull away.

“You’re trying to ruin us before we’ve even had a chance.”

Beca just bites her lip and tries not to look at Chloe, because she knows if she does, she’ll break and start crying.

“You’re your own archenemy, Beca. For trying to sabotage this.”

Beca’s psyche seizes up until it cracks, a thick layer falling away in shambles.

She’s spent her entire life anticipating, though not looking for, another Beca who would either be her soulmate or archenemy and the Chloe who would fulfill the alternate role. She was certain she’d found the archenemy in this Chloe.

But the fact that she doesn’t want to leave Chloe’s presence despite her emotions never being ripped so raw, the fact that Chloe makes her feel more at home than anyone ever has, the fact that as angry and upset as she is right now, all she really wants to do is flip Chloe over, rip the dress the rest of the way off, and push her thighs apart makes Beca start to reconsider.

It’s not Chloe upheaving her life that makes her an archenemy.

It’s Chloe upheaving her life that makes her Beca’s soulmate. It’s Chloe refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer at this exact moment that will again alter their lives permanently that makes her Beca’s soulmate. It’s Beca knowing Chloe better than Chloe knows herself that makes her Chloe’s soulmate. It’s Beca wanting to always do everything she can to make Chloe happy that makes her Chloe’s soulmate.

It’s Beca trying to deny what was so screamingly obvious that makes her her own archenemy.

Chloe gives Beca’s arms a shake to make Beca look up at her and when she does, Beca finally breaks down crying and Chloe’s on top of her again, this time just holding her.

It feels amazing, and amazing is an understatement. It feels like every single puzzle piece of her life just miraculously locked into place with not a single one missing. Arms around each other like they were trying to sew themselves back together, having been split apart at some point before they were even born. Later, when this epiphany passes, she’ll hate herself for the myriad cliches spinning through her mind but negativity is absent now.

Now it’s only Chloe, Chloe, and nothing but Chloe and Beca doesn’t think she can possibly pull her any closer so instead she bursts, shoving Chloe off her in a fit of desperation. Chloe moves back but seems confused until Beca just grabs her by the waist and flips her onto her back. She pulls the dress the rest of the way off and pauses to whip her own tee over her head and toss it aside and unbutton and unzip her jeans and wipe the tears off her face and then she’s falling into and onto Chloe to kiss her hungrily. Her nails drag down over Chloe’s ribs and Chloe arches beneath her with a moan, and Beca thinks...yes.

Soulmates do exist. 

And she’s finally found hers.

Chapter Text

It’s hot in the club. And loud. Her feet are killing her. And she’s just buzzed enough to not care about all those things.

“This is amazing!” she yells into the ear of her dance partner.

“I’m so glad you decided to come!” Chloe wraps an arm around her waist and yanks her closer, which Beca thought couldn’t be possible with how they were dancing. And yet. “You deserve to blow off some steam!”

Beca just smiles because it’s almost impossible to converse over the music blasting.

It’s New Year’s Eve and Chloe had begged and pleaded with her, quite literally on her knees, to come to this party, some VIP thing that required being on a list at the door. She still doesn’t know how Chloe got on the list, and part of her doesn’t want to know, because it probably has to do with flirting with some guy and frankly, she’s not a fan of that.

What she is a fan of is the way Chloe’s hips are working against her own and how Chloe’s breath feels against her ear and how it’s hot enough on the dance floor that what would otherwise be a telltale sign that she’s completely and totally turned on - her cheeks being flushed bright pink - can be attributed to the heat and exertion of dancing and not the fact that she is wet enough to feel it every time she shifts her feet.

Which is often, given the fact that they’re dancing.

Because Chloe Beale has been all over her all night, and generally speaking, it’s not that much different than other nights. But this mood settled into place the moment Chloe dropped to her knees in front of her and grabbed her hips, and then hands, and looked up at her and said, “Please, Bec?”

Because Beca’s imagination took that scenario in a decidedly different continuation - one that had Chloe’s hands tugging at the button of her jeans and asking permission to pull them down so she could slide her tongue between her legs, Beca’s fingers tangled in her hair.

Instead, Beca had grit her teeth and let her hand rest on Chloe’s head for half a second to indulge in the fantasy before pushing her away with a grumble and roll of her eyes as she not-so-begrudgingly agreed to go.

Now they’re on the dance floor with Beca’s buzzed, dirty imagination running scenarios through her mind that include everything from fucking Chloe in the middle of the dance floor to being pulled into the bathroom and lifted onto a sink to dragging her fellow Bella into a cab where they grope one another until they stumble through their front door and tumble onto the first soft, flat surface they find.

She shivers at the thought and she’s just drunk enough to let her arms drape over Chloe’s shoulders and lean in a bit; they’re so close that they aren’t even face to face, but cheek to cheek. She’s still thinking about what it sounded like to hear Chloe say she was excited for Beca to come despite the different context and she’s not really thinking about what she’s doing until her arms aren’t just draped over Chloe’s shoulders but are looped around her neck.

Chloe’s hair tickles her cheek and Beca uses it as an easy excuse to thread her fingers through it and pull it back. She misjudges distance, though, and keeps pulling longer than she needs to and she feels the jerk of resistance followed by Chloe’s voice in her ear. It’s quiet, or seems quiet, compared to the volume around them, but it sounds a lot like happy surprise.

It sounds a lot like Chloe really enjoyed Beca pulling her hair.

Even if that isn’t what it was - maybe it was just surprise, not happy surprise - it makes Beca press herself closer to Chloe, fingers grasping just a bit tighter, hips rolling into Chloe’s with enough force to make her own sound of happy surprise.

She has a fleeting thought that what she’s doing is wrong and inappropriate. She’s sexualizing her best friend and not in the privacy of her bedroom behind closed doors and in the secrecy of her mind. She’s doing it right now, when her arms are wrapped around her and her fingers are in her hair and their hips are rocking in sync and Chloe’s hands are on her waist and...and one of them drifts down over the curve of Beca’s ass.

It’s brief, as though it was unintentional, but it’s enough to make her reach to do the same, only she stops short and presses her hand to the small of Chloe’s back. Her shirt, already barely reaching the waist of her skirt, has ridden up with her dancing and Beca’s hand is on her bare skin. It’s warm and slick with sweat and feels exactly like Beca imagined it to feel when she would grab Chloe, writhing in desperation against her, tongues in each other’s mouths, hot and sweaty with passion.

She lets her fingers curl, lets her nails scratch at Chloe whose own fingers pull at her waist. Chloe’s breath is hot against her ear and it’s quick with the exertion of dancing and it lets Beca imagine what it would sound like if Chloe was breathing hard, on the verge of a climax that Beca was driving her to. She blows out a breath, trying to get a handle on her libido but Chloe’s hand drifts down again and this time it stays there, right over the square back pocket of Beca’s jeans.

And squeezes.

Her controlled breath ends with what probably qualifies as a squeak and she’s embarrassed for a second before she realizes what’s happening.

Chloe’s hand is on her ass. And it isn’t leaving.

She can feel Chloe’s head moving, what seems to be a slow rolling side to side, away until the tension from Beca’s hold in her hair pulls her back in, as though testing Beca’s grip or how far she can move it until there’s tension. Her breath comes and goes with the distance until it’s cut off abruptly and something warm and soft and wet grazes Beca’s ear.

Lips.

Beca shivers, confident it’s another accident, but the hand on her ass squeezes again when the lips return, and she twists her neck a little to lean into the contact that doesn’t disappear. Whatever is happening, she doesn’t want it to stop, doesn’t want to wake up from this dream.

The song changes, Beca can’t put a name to it, but the pace slows and Chloe shifts. Beca thinks she’s about to break away and end the dance but instead she only adjusts her stance and Beca gasps.

Chloe’s thigh moves between her own and it presses up with every slow beat of the song.

She can’t help it; she moans in Chloe’s ear and drops her head to rest it against Chloe’s shoulder. She’s dying to roll her hips, grind them against Chloe. Her entire body is thrumming with arousal and she busies herself with detangling her fingers from Chloe’s hair...and sliding them back in from a better angle.

“Bec…”

It’s whispered in her ear a moment before the hand on her ass squeezes hard and pulls her deliberately over the length of Chloe’s thigh.

Beca’s knees weaken but Chloe’s leg is there to stop her from collapsing to the floor, and it only makes it worse, much of her body weight pushing her right into Chloe’s thigh. Or rather, it makes it a thousand times better. She tightens her hold around Chloe and shivers, completely overheated. Chloe’s shoulder is warm against her, the thin strip of fabric of her sleeveless top allowing for ample skin to be exposed and it’s crazy and Beca doesn’t know why she’s doing it, but she tilts her head just right to bite her shoulder.

All she knows is that she needs her mouth on Chloe, wherever she can put it.

Chloe’s hand turns into claws on her ass and jerks Beca forward again and she has to fight to stop the sudden orgasm that rushes her. She manages to block it but it leaves her gasping for oxygen anyway.

Someone bumps into them and it’s not gentle and Chloe grabs her protectively and Beca’s reminded that they are in the middle of a crowded dance floor and not alone. She jerks back but Chloe’s hold is firm and she only succeeds in lifting her head.

Chloe’s flushed, lips parted. Her chest is heaving and her eyes keep skipping back and forth between Beca’s eyes and mouth. Her thigh is still firmly wedged between Beca’s legs, and Beca knows that by this point, she’s soaked through her jeans and there’s no way Chloe can’t feel it against her bare thigh, which is probably getting a rug burn from the incessant friction of Beca’s jeans. She’s almost worried, but Chloe looks her squarely in the eye as she presses her thigh closer and drops her protective arm down so both hands are on Beca’s ass and pulls.

Beca doesn’t know what her own face looks like, but she imagines it’s something between shock, madness, and bliss because she’s on a dance floor riding Chloe’s thigh. The fact that Chloe’s staring at her while Beca grinds against her is enough to chip away at the resolve she’d mustered to block her climax seconds ago.

She runs her hands along Chloe’s arms and back to her shoulders to support herself as she gives a particularly long roll of her hips. It makes her jaw drop and Chloe bites her lip and helps Beca through the motion with her hands. Beca holds her stare as long as she can, and then she’s sliding forward to press their bodies close like before their interruption, her head turned to rest her cheek on Chloe’s shoulder.

The curve of her neck is irresistible and she doesn’t think. Just presses her lips to it. Sucks. She feels a hand slide up the back of her neck and into her hair and she hears her name at her ear again. Chloe’s voice is unsteady and sexy, and Beca licks. Tastes. Chloe tastes amazing, how she always thought Chloe would taste, but better.

They’re not even moving to the music anymore. Beca’s hips have set their own rhythm, one that’s becoming increasingly frantic. She’s nearing the point of no return and isn’t sure she’ll be able to stop it in its tracks again.

She runs her tongue up Chloe’s neck so she can hear Beca’s desperate warning, a broken, “Chlo,” that she whines in her ear. “I - I’m…”

She feels Chloe nod and press her thigh impossibly harder against Beca and Beca can sense it, the tendrils of pleasure weaving their way along her back and arms and legs, through her chest and down into her stomach. On instinct, her mouth is on Chloe’s neck again, teeth and tongue and lips and her fingers are tangled in Chloe’s hair and Chloe keeps whispering, “It’s okay,” and meeting each of Beca’s desperate thrusts with one of her own until Beca can’t stop it. Can’t find the end of the rope to grab and hold on to to stop herself from slipping over the edge and she tenses in Chloe’s embrace until her hips jerk wildly and she’s coming against her best friend who guided her right to the peak and is moaning in her ear and running her hands up and down Beca’s back as though she fears not touching enough of her body.

“Shit,” Beca whispers. Her brain is trying to panic but her body can’t move; she feels like she weighs a thousand pounds and she’s pretty sure she’s fused herself to Chloe’s thigh and she clings to the redhead for support. She just got off on her friend in a crowded club and it’s the Chloe part she feels guilty about, not that they could get thrown out or even arrested for indecency.

It’s Chloe who retracts first, reclaiming her leg to stand up straight for the first time since their dirty dancing started. Beca looks up, prompted into motion by the loss of heat. Chloe looks delirious and for a moment, Beca knows she’s smiling like a dope.

Then everything rushes back through her memory like a freight train and she finally has the wherewithal to turn and bolt but it’s as though Chloe senses it, is prepared for it, is sitting on a hair trigger because the moment Beca flinches to move Chloe’s hands are on hers to prevent her from leaving.

“Don’t.”

Beca doesn’t hear it over the music but she could make out the word on her lips, lips that she has yet to kiss despite not only leaving a hickey on the girl’s neck but grinding herself to an orgasm on her.

Delirious. Beca realizes why Chloe looks that way and that’s a different kind of freight train that pitches her forward, almost into Chloe’s arms and she can tell Chloe was expecting a kiss but instead Beca just pushes forward, through Chloe, hand in hand, to weave across the dance floor. She’s unsure where she’s leading them - to an exit? To a bathroom? To an alley?

They end up at the bathroom but there are at least twenty girls in line. Beca feels desperate but knows it’s nothing compared to whatever Chloe is probably feeling. The girl has molded herself to Beca’s body from behind, hands wandering without subtlety. She’s still unsure what’s happening, or how this even began, but she’s somehow living in her fantasy.

She turns to lead them toward the exit for the ‘dragging her fellow Bella into a cab’ portion of her fantasy but she slows, remembering it’s New Year’s Eve and the clock has yet to strike midnight. Her phone is in her pocket but she can’t be bothered to retrieve it, though the fact that waitresses are passing out glasses of champagne tell her it’s close.

She is close.

So close to getting her hands on Chloe.

She’s almost to the point of deciding to just press her against the first surface she can find and reach under her skirt, but she wants better than that for Chloe. She wants to remove each piece of clothing with the reverence that is deserved of revealing Chloe’s body. She wants Chloe to be comfortable in a bed, the only tension or discomfort coming from extreme pleasure and not that of a hard wall or precarious position. She wants to taste every inch of Chloe, a few inches particularly so, and she can’t do that against a wall in a club, even if Chloe’s skirt would allow for it with minimal effort.

The thought makes her shiver, or maybe it’s Chloe’s hands that are almost to her breasts that do it, but regardless she keeps them moving toward the exit. Either the countdown will happen before they escape or it won’t and either way, she knows Chloe is going to be screaming. Her lips curl into a devilish smile and she feels far more buzzed now than she did an hour ago despite not having consumed a single beverage in that time, and she knows it’s Chloe that she’s drunk on. She feels dirty. Naughty. She wants to do unspeakable things to the girl who’s glued to her back, rocking her hips side to side against Beca’s ass because they’re in a human traffic jam with no choice but to wait and die a slow, maddening death of impatience.

Somehow, plastic flutes of champagne appear in their hands and Beca hears the DJ announce there’s one minute left of the year and every ten seconds marked sounds like a countdown to something bigger than a new year.

Chloe’s hand tugs at her elbow long enough that Beca finally turns around to face her. She looks less delirious, now more excited and bubbly and for the next thirty seconds, Beca forgets about the suffocating sexual arousal as she and Chloe burst out laughing until they’re counting down the final ten seconds of the year.

They both yell, “Happy New Year!” along with the other hundreds of people around them, and “Auld Lang Syne” starts blasting and Chloe’s grinning at her with those sparkling blue eyes, and Beca’s not quite prepared for it, despite having waited so long, when Chloe grabs her by the collar and yanks her forward to kiss her.

It’s not brief.

It’s instantly hot and deep and Beca spills most of her champagne on Chloe and the floor because Chloe’s tongue is flicking over her own and Beca hears herself groan.

Chloe pulls away a few seconds later, grin back in place as she wipes the edge of her lip with her thumb before clicking her glass against Beca’s and finishing her champagne in one long drink.

Beca’s frozen for a second before following suit.

And then she’s spinning because Chloe’s taken her hand is leading her through the crowd, pushing her way through with all the grace and poise that Beca lacks until they’re suddenly standing on the sidewalk outside the club, hand-in-hand and side-by-side.

Beca looks over at Chloe who looks back at her, still grinning. Beca doesn’t know what they’re doing outside or where they’re going, but she just smiles back and then Chloe’s leaning in and kissing her again, this time slower and far more steamy and needy.

“Home,” Chloe says when they part.

Beca’s ears feel like they’re filled with cotton; Chloe’s voice is muffled and everything sounds hyper-quiet after escaping the blasting music.

She realizes that Chloe isn’t asking if Beca would like to go home - she’s telling Beca that’s where they’re going. Beca is about to comment on it, with what, she’s not even sure, but Chloe’s already stepping to the curb to hail one of the many cabs waiting nearby. It pulls up and it’s she who is being dragged into the cab and nearly into Chloe’s lap.

She hears Chloe give their address to the driver and then Chloe’s turning to face her and Beca takes a breath in anticipation of whatever conversation she doesn’t want to have is going to happen but instead Chloe kisses her. And kisses her. And kisses her.

Chloe’s hands are everywhere, and they’re amazing but distracting and Beca’s already turned on again and losing the focus to get her own hands where she wants them.

She does succeed in getting her hand on Chloe’s knee which leads to her thigh and Beca’s hand is under Chloe’s skirt, high enough to make her heart race and Chloe sigh into her mouth, though not touching more than the warm, impossibly smooth skin of her inner thigh. She can’t wait to reach higher, but she wants to wait and do it properly.

She wonders for a second if their male driver is getting off on this, two girls all over each other in his back seat. But then Chloe’s hand presses right between her legs, without hesitation and without apology, and Beca forgets about everything else in the world but Chloe.

Chloe breaks their kiss and moves to Beca’s ear, giving it a tug with her teeth and then tracing the edge with her tongue before she whispers, “You’re so wet.”

Beca feels her stomach fall through her feet and all she can do is nod dumbly as Chloe scrapes her nails over the soaked denim. “Fuck,” she finally manages to say as her legs fall open without thought.

Her grip on Chloe’s leg might be leaving bruises, but Chloe doesn’t seem to care as she dips her head to kiss Beca’s neck, a sloppy yet somehow precise assault of tongue and lips that has Beca breaking out in goosebumps and grinding - again - against Chloe. And of course Chloe is skilled at this; Beca would expect nothing less. Heat floods her when the thought of Chloe’s skill being applied to lower regions of her body.

She’s on the edge embarrassingly fast and that’s when she finds the strength to reach down with her free hand and grab Chloe’s wrist to push it away from her.

“Wait,” she says, breathing hard, when Chloe looks at her in concern. “I just...I want...you.”

She says it with a long exhale and she hears Chloe moan and reach for Beca’s hand and Beca almost fails to register in time what is happening because Chloe's guiding her higher and she stops just in time.

She has to take a steadying breath before she can speak. “Not like this.”

“‘Kay!” Chloe's voice is chipper and not at all like the sultry vixen who'd whispered in her ear seconds earlier and it helps Beca snap out of her lust-induced trance.

“Jesus,” she says with a gasp like she's come up from air after a deep sea dive.

Chloe giggles and its innocence shouldn't do to Beca what it does, and it's like Chloe reads her mind because suddenly she's in her lap - Chloe Beale is straddling her lap in the back of a taxi.

Her next exclamation is cut off by Chloe combing her fingers through Beca's hair to pull until Beca's head hits the back of the seat and she's forced to stare up at Chloe who is staring back with all the excitement of a cat who caught the canary.

Which is funny, Beca thinks, given the fact that she is pretty sure she’s the one who caught the canary.

With a surge forward Chloe's mouth is on hers again and her tongue is so deep that for a second Beca can't breathe, and it's not in a gross, excessive way. It's a hot, nasty way and she feels Chloe's hands press into the seat on either side of her and grinds herself down on Beca's lap with a groan.

Beca echoes it and her resolve to wait is cracking, hands flying to grab Chloe's knees. They're sliding north without thought and her left middle finger encounters wetness long before she's reached her destination and she exhales hard against Chloe's incessant assault on her mouth. It's shocking and enthralling and beyond arousing and reassuring that Chloe is as wet as she is.

She pulls her fingers through the wet streak again and Chloe just nods like she knows what Beca is thinking, but then Chloe’s moving away before she’s reached her destination.

“We’re here,” Chloe says with a wicked grin before twisting her way off Beca's lap to swipe her credit card through the machine to pay the fare.

“Have a lovely evening, ladies!” the driver says as Beca somewhat blindly slides out of the cab, and she can’t stop herself from turning back to say something smart.

Only to get beaten to it by Chloe ducking her head around the door with a quick, “Oh, we will!” before grabbing Beca’s hand to scamper up the path to the Bellas’ house, keys already in hand to unlock the door with ease.

Beca fully expects to get slammed against the door, and is a little disappointed when instead Chloe heads for the stairs.

Then she remembers that their bedrooms are upstairs and she doesn’t give a fuck about the front door anymore.

At the doorway to Chloe’s room, Chloe turns and pulls Beca right into her and back into a smiling kiss as she kicks the door closed and keeps shuffling backward until they’re tumbling onto the first soft, flat surface they can find, Chloe squealing with laughter as she falls blindly.

Beca’s laughing, too, as she fixes her clumsy position over Chloe to straddle her waist and sit back to push her hair out of her face. She feels warm fingers creeping under her shirt, tickling her stomach and tugging playfully at the waist of her jeans and she looks down.

Choe’s smiling up at her, a little softer this time, maybe a little thoughtful and Beca feels the mood in the room shift. She returns the smile.

“Happy New Year,” Chloe says, her hands traveling higher until they’re tracing the edge of the cups of Beca’s bra.

All Beca can do is smile and then Chloe’s urging her shirt up and off and she’s straddling Chloe in her jeans and bra and then her bra is gone and Chloe’s hands are on her breasts, and Beca nearly forgets, again, the whole reason she hasn’t already given Chloe what Chloe gave her in the club.

So she lets herself indulge in it for a few more seconds, looking down to watch the way Chloe’s fingers trace the curves of her breasts and then she’s reaching for Chloe, making quick, nervous work of the buttons on her blouse. She leans down and captures Chloe’s lips, trying her best to make it clear that this is her turn, that she is the one in control, and the way Chloe melts into the bed beneath her only makes her more confident.

So she does what Chloe had done in the back of the taxi: copied that hot, nasty, tongue-filled kiss and she feels Chloe’s entire body roll beneath her followed by a throaty moan. She finally ends it when she can’t breathe and they’re both gasping as she moves on to Chloe’s neck, giving it more thorough attention than she had on the dance floor. She sees the bruise she left there and she descends on it again.

She knows Chloe has no idea it existed already, but the way she keens when Beca pulls at the skin tells her she knows it’ll be there now. Big. Dark. Possessive. She doesn’t seem to care. And Beca wants people to see it. To know she left it. She releases it with a pop and has to lick her lips before continuing south over Chloe’s collarbone, tracing her right bra strap until she’s leaving another mark on the swell of her breast.

Chloe’s hands are in her hair and her back is starting to arch and Beca needs the piece of black lingerie gone, despite its sexiness. She works her hands behind Chloe’s back to wrench the pair of hooks apart and then it’s gone and she’s face to face with Chloe’s bare breasts for the first time since the fateful day in the shower.

Only this time, she doesn’t have to try not to stare. She stares for a solid minute until Chloe’s grip in her hair forces her to stop by pulling her down, demanding Beca’s mouth on her skin.

It’s Beca who groans despite it being Chloe’s nipple being bathed by a tongue. But Chloe isn’t quiet, and her sound of satisfaction comes as a high-pitched exhale. Her flesh is firm in Beca’s mouth and Beca has to reach for the other one, needing to feel it in her palm and between her fingers.

When she finally removes her mouth, Chloe falls back to the bed as though Beca had been holding her up like a magnet. And when Beca moves to the right to taste the other, it happens again, Chloe somehow pressing herself closer as her tongue slides over and over, fingers playing with the other, left wet and straining for more.

Chloe’s hands disappear and she looks up in curiosity and sees them tangled in her own red hair, a look of pained desperation on her face. It’s with a burst of activity that Beca pushes herself backward to fumble with the hook and zipper on the side of Chloe’s skirt. She’d had every intention of licking every part of Chloe’s body, but she could do that later.

Right now she just needs to lick one thing, and the way Chloe helps push and shove her skirt down until Beca throws it aside told her it’s all Chloe needs, too. She gets rid of her jeans in the process and decides to ditch her underwear with them.

With the skirt gone, all that’s left is the black lace that matches the bra she already removed and she can’t help but lay down between Chloe’s legs, a semi-controlled collapse that has her face to face with what she’d felt in the taxi: slick wetness streaking across Chloe’s thighs. The thong serves absolutely no purpose now, other than to tease Beca, and though she could rip it off or pull it down, she leaves it on for now and instead drops her head to trace a smudge of wetness with her tongue.

It’s her first taste and her hips grind into the mattress on instinct. She hears Chloe whimper above her and she looks up to see Chloe’s eyes on her, a pained look of excitement on her face.

A whispered, “Fuck,” makes it past Chloe’s lips and that’s the last straw.

Beca reaches for the thong and yanks it down, having to twist out of the way while Chloe helps wrestle it off and it doesn’t even make it off both legs before hands are in Beca’s hair and heels are on her back, and hips are rocking expectantly, setting a pace before Beca’s even touched her.

Beca just looks for another few seconds because there will never be this again, this first time of discovery, witnessing the effect she’s having on her friend, her friend whom she has been fantasizing about for so long, who is now writhing in front of her, wordlessly begging for her mouth.

So she gives Chloe what they both want and leans in.

She doesn’t graze. Or tease. She just presses her tongue flat against Chloe and drags it north through the sea of arousal that has gathered there and they both moan.

Chloe is louder.

But Beca is a close second. She laps at her; she has to, Chloe’s a mess and it’s the sexiest fucking thing Beca has ever experienced and then they’re rocking together, Chloe’s grip on her hair pulling her in again and again and Beca’s supposed to be in control here, but she doesn’t give a shit anymore as she licks at and sucks on Chloe, her own hips grinding into the bed for relief.

It’s all so much that she forgets for a few minutes that she has hands. When she finally remembers, she drags them up Chloe’s legs and over her toned stomach, then down again until she can slip them under her thighs to hold her hips and keep Chloe’s writhing from letting her get too far away.

She hears Chloe swearing; she’s heard her swear more tonight than her entire life, and it’s sexy and flattering and exciting and Chloe’s pace is faltering, frantic thrusts that stop abruptly followed by another curse, followed by frantic wildness, again and again, until Beca’s pulled in so close that she can’t breathe and Chloe’s thighs are pressed against her ears so those gorgeous sounds are muffled, but she doesn’t care because she can hear and feel Chloe falling apart around her and it’s with a cry that she comes.

She doesn’t move; if she were to die right here, she would consider it having died in heaven.

She feels Chloe relaxing limb by limb, knees falling open abruptly to bathe Beca’s heated face with the crisp, cool air of the room. Her hands go next, sliding out of Beca’s hair to flop onto her abdomen.

Beca can see her now. She’s flushed. Sweaty. Hair a mess. Chest heaving. Love bites dark and proud at her breast and neck.

“You’re so goddamn sexy,” Beca mutters before tilting her head to slide her tongue over Chloe again.

Chloe’s entire body jumps and her gasp is nearly a squeal followed by a jumble of unclear syllables that makes Beca laugh and do it again, only lighter, and this time Chloe’s reaction is a shiver.

She does it a third time and Chloe swears and lifts her hips to Beca’s mouth and they’re off again. Beca’s more gentle this time, but no less thorough, as she suckles on the sensitive flesh swollen from arousal and climax and Chloe’s on the brink again in a matter of a few minutes.

“Beca!” she calls right before collapsing in on herself again and hearing her name that way almost makes her come, too. Instead, she moans into Chloe and licks her down from her second high.

She’s about to take her to a third when a pitiful excuse for a laugh meets her ears and her hair is getting tugged. She glances up and Chloe just beckons her with a crook of a finger and Beca’s extracting herself to crawl over her and right into the kiss Chloe pulls her down into.

It’s wet, all thanks to Chloe, and when Beca eases back to catch her breath, Chloe chases the kiss to lick her lips before falling back to her pillow. She watches Chloe reach up to drag a thumb across her chin, and Beca can feel it gliding across her skin, and then Chloe’s sucking on her thumb and the whole thing is almost too much for Beca to handle.

She watches Chloe for a second and then drags her hand away from her mouth to drop down and kiss her again, her different tastes flooding Beca’s senses - and other areas. She moans at it and without any build-up or warning, Chloe’s fingers are inside her.

Her elbow gives out and the kiss breaks, her forehead landing on the pillow next to Chloe’s head as she groans embarrassingly loud, right in Chloe’s ear.

“Oh my God, Beca,” she hears, and then there are two hands between her legs. Chloe isn’t teasing either, but she’s petting Beca, fingers from one hand already pumping into her, the other tracing and rubbing and pulling at everything that’s been drenched and on fire for so, so long, and Beca’s hips just grind in an endless circle. She’s immediately close but fights it; she never wants Chloe to stop worshipping her the way she is right now, but then there’s a third finger and Chloe’s all-out fucking her and she comes with a desperate sob.

When she opens her eyes, she’s looking up at Chloe, which is the opposite of when she had closed them, and Chloe is grinning at her, still flushed, still sweaty, hair still a mess. “You alive?” her friend asks with a giggle.

She tries to respond, but all that comes out is a deep sigh and a nod.

“Me, too,” Chloe replies before dipping down to peck her lips and then she disappears from Beca’s line of sight.

She’s not gone, though; Beca feels the bed jostle and then there’s warmth all along her right side and she knows Chloe’s there. A hand finds hers to hold.

“So…” Chloe starts, and Beca wants to tell her to stop, to wait for any ‘talks’ until she can feel her toes again, but she can’t make her mouth work. “Where did all that come from?”

Beca’s mind stutters over the question, and her brain interprets it as a literal question referring to how wet she was - is - and she grunts in a form of embarrassment.

Chloe seems to understand and somehow has the energy to cackle with laughter, shaking the whole bed. “I didn’t mean that, Bec! But I suppose the answer could be the same?”

The second half of the question is quieter, a little hesitant, nervous. Chloe’s nervous for Beca to tell her where the explosion of sexual...well, everything had come from.

Beca’s mouth is dry, and she manages to chuckle to herself at the dirty thought that there’s no reason for it to be dry after everything that just happened, and she sees Chloe move back into her periphery, head propped on a fist, gazing down at her.

“You’re really so surprised?” is the answer that Beca’s tongue forms.

It must be acceptable because Chloe’s smile breaks into a blindingly bright grin.

“How long?”

Beca just shrugs. She doesn’t really know how long - how long what, how long she’s had a crush on Chloe? How long she’s fantasized about her? How long she’s loved her?

Chloe shrugs back. “Doesn’t matter I suppose.” She disappears and Beca feels a tongue at her neck and then teeth at her ear as a hand covers her left breast. “But if it’s been as long as me, we could have been doing this for the last two years.”

Beca closes her eyes and shudders, whether from the words or the touch she can’t decipher. All she knows is that she’s on fire again, and really, really needs to experience Chloe’s tongue elsewhere.

She seems to read Beca’s mind again because Beca can feel her shifting, skin brushing over skin, bed dipping and lifting.

“Hey, Bec.”

Beca opens her eyes and has to search for her and Chloe’s looking at her from between her legs.

Chloe grins up at her. “They say the way you spend New Year’s Eve is the way you’ll spend the rest of the year.” A bigger smile, and Beca watches in slow motion as Chloe drifts lower and then there’s warm softness gliding between her legs.

She nods down at Chloe and finds it easy to smile and respond. “Happy New Year.”

Chapter Text

“Bree, c’mere.”

“What’s up, Chloe?”

“I need your opinion.” Chloe leans against the piano in the rehearsal room. Aubrey has begrudgingly allowed a ten-minute break from dance rehearsal, forced to when the eight new Bellas staged a sit-in at hour three. Chloe nods at two of the new recruits sitting by each other in the auditorium seats. “Do you think anything’s going on with them?”

“Stacie and Beca?” Aubrey says with a near laugh. “Stacie the sex fiend and Beca the human porcupine?”

“Yeah. I mean...look at them.” Chloe doesn’t nod again; she just watches the two brunettes across the room. They’re laughing, engaged in some type of hand game - like a thumb war, but not. They’re using both hands and whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish is starting to get their arms tied into knots until Beca’s basically in a headlock face-first in Stacie’s cleavage, hands flailing until they wrapped around the taller girl’s neck, who has her head thrown back in laughter.

When she glances at her friend, Aubrey’s cheeks are tinted pink. “I highly doubt someone like Stacie would be interested in a Beca.”

Chloe tilts her head but keeps her smile to herself and chooses not to delve into the part of Aubrey’s statement that is quite interesting. “What’s wrong with Beca?” she asks instead.

“I mean, just look at her,” Aubrey says with a wave of her hand before whistling sharply to declare the end of their break.

Chloe does look at her and the way she’s red-faced and laughing when she gets herself out of the headlock. Her ponytail is mussed and she’s pulling it down to retie it as she talks to Stacie with a smile. Before Stacie turns to move out of the row of seats, she leans down to peck Beca’s lips. The other girl laughs and blushes and shoves her away and toward the aisle so they can return to the floor.

It makes something zing up Chloe’s spine and she whips her head to look at Aubrey who appears to have caught the moment as well - because she’s just staring at them, mouth open.

Chloe’s managed to forget about seeing Stacie kiss Beca at rehearsals...sort of. She doesn’t think about it at all, literally never, and definitely not when she’s talking to Beca. Or talking to Stacie. Or when she’s in the same room with either of them. Or when she’s sitting by herself in the quad. And least of all when she’s alone in bed at night.

She buries the memory again when she sees Beca approaching her and plasters a grin on her face. “Hey!”

“Hey,” Beca replies as she tugs at the strap of the duffel bag hanging on her shoulder. “I was wondering if, uh…” she pauses and fidgets and looks everywhere but at Chloe’s face. “I mean, Kimmy Jin is going to some video game tournament in Nashville this weekend so I was wondering if you wanted to come over tonight and hang?”

Chloe’s sure she’s hearing things because it sounded like Beca just asked her on a date - a date to her empty dorm room. She must have been quiet too long because she hears Beca start to stutter a retraction. “No! I mean, yes! Yeah, I’d love to come hang.”

Beca’s reaction is a grin. “Awesome. I mean, cool. Stacie’s bringing tequila, so…bring something you like to drink. Or if you want to bring like, chips or something? She’s coming over at 9:00, but if you want to come earlier than that, that’s cool.” She’s still smiling as she starts walking backward. “Okay, I gotta talk to Jessica before she leaves.” She hesitates, and then says in a stage whisper as she subtly points over her left shoulder, “Or is that Ashley?”

“Jessica,” Chloe mouths silently and receives a thumbs up in return.

Chloe feels like she just got off the Acrophobia drop tower at Six Flags. Her date isn’t a date at all. It’s just Beca inviting some of the girls over for a party. Stacie will be there. And now apparently Jessica. And who knows who else - maybe everyone.

“Okay, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Chloe grumbles as she flips through the hangers in her closet with more force than is necessary to accomplish the task.

“You’re going to rip the rod off the wall if you keep that up.”

Chloe eases back but still jerks them with annoyance.

“Well?” Aubrey’s voice is right behind her and she jumps in surprise, too focused to have noticed her approach. “What’s going on with you?”

“I’m going to Beca’s,” she bites.

She can almost hear Aubrey roll her eyes. “And you’re mad about that why?”

“I thought she was asking me on a date.” Chloe grabs a gray shirt off a hanger and turns. “But Stacie’s going to be there, too.” She hears Aubrey’s quiet noise of understanding. “And Jessica. And whomever else she invited; I don’t know.”

“I didn’t get invited.”

Chloe turns to strip and change, taking no offense to Aubrey averting her eyes and leaving her immediate personal space. “Oh. Well, you know...it’s Beca’s party I guess, so. I didn’t mean to make you feel left out.”

“It’s fine,” Aubrey says with a dismissive wave as she picks up her chiming phone. “Oh. Nevermind.”

Chloe finishes buttoning her jeans and fixes the drape of her shirt, tucking one corner of it into her waistband. “Nevermind what?”

Aubrey’s staring at her phone, chewing her lip. “Stacie just invited me to Beca’s party.”

“She’s inviting people to her party! Who invites people to other people’s parties?”

“I don’t know, friends?” Aubrey says as she taps out a stop-and-start text.

“Girlfriends. Girlfriends invite people to their girlfriend’s party.”

“If they’re inviting all of us, doesn’t that negate the implication you are making? Beca has the empty dorm room so she’s hosting. It was probably Stacie’s idea to begin with.”

Chloe isn’t sure if that explanation helps more than it hurts. “Well, whatever. I’m gonna go.”

“Already?” Aubrey’s in the process of gathering her shower caddy and robe. “Stacie said 9:00.”

“Beca said I could show up earlier. And I need to stop at the liquor store first.”

“Uh huh.” Aubrey’s giving her a smiling side-eye and Chloe isn’t sure why. “I’ll be sure to knock really loudly when I get there.”

“What? You know what, nevermind, I gotta go.” With that, Chloe slips into her low-top black Converse and grabs her phone and keys and leaves.

“You’re here,” Beca says when she swings open her dorm room door. “It’s 7:30.” It’s obvious she’s in the middle of getting ready, wearing gym shorts and a sports bra, hair tied up in a messy bun. She looks like she’s been exercising, but Chloe knows that’s not possibly the case.

“You said I could come over early; did I interrupt your private time?” Chloe teases, not being shy about staring at Beca’s relative state of undress. She almost laughs when she hears Rihanna’s “Birthday Cake” playing in the background. “Is that your lady jam?”

“Oh my God, shut up,” Beca says with a groan as she spins to run through the room and tap a key on her computer keyboard to skip the song. “I was cleaning.” She grunts again when the next song is David Guetta’s “Titanium” and Chloe just giggles and takes Beca abandoning her at the door as her invitation to enter.

“You could let that one play, you know,” she teases. “I could use the release. It’s been a long week.”

Beca spins on her, pointing. “You. Shut up. And as much as I hate to say what I’m about to say because I know you are going to turn it into something dirty, I do have to go take a shower. I didn’t think you would be here so early.”

Chloe bites her tongue, opting to be sympathetic instead. “Sorry. I should have checked first. I can come back at 9:00?”

“No, it’s fine. Just like, don’t snoop through all my shit when I’m gone.”

“I won’t.” She watches Beca grab her toiletries and depart and has a fleeting thought of jealousy that Aubrey is down in the showers, too, where Beca is about to be. The door closes behind Beca and Chloe surveys Beca’s room to see what’s ripe for snooping.

It’s a decent room, not the shoebox Chloe had been stuck with her freshman year. She knows Beca’s dad is a professor at the university and figures that might have offered her some type of upgrade. She climbs onto Beca’s bed on her knees to survey the shelves alongside it. Sure, she’s been in Beca’s room a handful of times, but never alone, and never with the freedom to spend as much time as she wanted to, looking at the things that make up Beca’s life.

The shelves are dominated by Beca’s vinyl record collection. She doesn’t bother going through those - that was one of the first and only things Beca had allowed her to dig through during a visit, so there was no mystery there. Instead, she takes the time to browse the photos clipped and tacked everywhere: photos of Beca with friends Chloe has never met in places she’s never been, photos of Beca with who she assumes are her grandparents, photos of Beca with the Bellas.

There weren’t many of those, but there also haven’t been that many photo ops so far this year. Their rehearsals have been long and grueling and not conducive to fun photo sessions. But there are a few that Chloe doesn’t remember seeing when she and the other girls waited for Beca to get home from her evening spent in jail.

What there are plenty of, however, are photos of Beca and Stacie:  photos of them making faces at the camera on Beca’s bed, in crowds at what look like concerts, Beca driving Stacie’s convertible with its top down and...yep, with Stacie’s top down, too.

Jealousy boils inside her because Beca always shies away from her when she tries to take a photo of or with her. There’s also that little detail that it’s quite clear Beca is totally at home and comfortable around Stacie, and that the feeling is mutual. And, you know...apparently being topless is a part of that.

“I thought I said no snooping?”

Chloe jumps so hard that she actually topples from balancing on her knees to sitting on her hip. She glances sheepishly over her shoulder at Beca to apologize, but her tongue gets twisted by the fact that Beca’s standing there in a bathrobe which is tied a little too loosely, wet hair combed but tousled and hanging over her shoulders, and smirking knowingly at Chloe.

“I wasn’t snooping!” she finally says. “Your pictures are readily on display.” She gestures at them to make her point and then turns to sit more comfortably on Beca’s bed and face her instead of the wall of photos featuring Stacie’s boobs.

“Uh huh,” Beca says, still smirking, as she pulls open her closet door. It creates a barrier between them, but Chloe knows Beca’s changing behind it, can see the robe slip lower down her legs and then disappear, probably being hung up, can see underwear being stepped into - patterned briefs of some kind - followed by jeans. “So what’d you bring?”

“Hmm?”

Beca’s head pokes out from behind the closet door; Chloe can tell her shoulders are still naked and she busies herself picking at non-existent lint on Beca’s quilt. “Booze.” She points at the tote bag on the floor by Chloe’s feet, which Chloe had forgotten about until now.

“Oh! Yeah! Well,” she says, waggling her eyebrows as she works to find her chill again, “IIIIII brought vodka.” She pulls the bottle from the bag to hold it up with a smile.

“Grey Goose? Okay, big spender.” Beca disappears for a few more seconds and when the closet door closes she’s wearing a silky looking red tank top with a row of three buttons trailing down from the neckline, two of which are unbuttoned.

“You said to bring what I like, and I have good taste.” She smiles and decides to get off Beca’s bed to work on making the bottle fit in Beca’s mini-fridge. “Oh, you have mixers already!”

“If you guys are bringing the booze, I figure it’s the least I could do. Other than, you know, offering my room.”

Beca’s comment reminds Chloe that this is not a party of two and she hopes her smile doesn’t look too fake when she turns to face Beca again and reclaim her spot on the bed. If it does, Beca doesn’t comment on it. “Aubrey said Stacie invited her to come over, too.”

Beca laughs at this. “Did she? Good. I didn’t want it to be like...third-wheely.”

Chloe laughs, too, as though she’s in on the joke. “Oh, totes! No one likes to be the third wheel.” Especially Chloe Beale.

“So,” Beca says as she crawls onto her bed and plops down next to Chloe, not quite closely enough to be touching, but close enough that Chloe can feel her. “What do you wanna do ‘til they get here? We have like 45 minutes.”

Chloe lets her eyes fall to the open buttons of Beca’s shirt where plenty of cleavage is visible and lets her gaze linger long enough for Beca to notice.

“Dude!” she says when she does, covering herself with her hands, but she doesn’t actually do up the buttons. “Keep it in your pants, maybe.”

Chloe throws her head back to laugh because while Beca does look startled, she doesn’t actually seem to be that uncomfortable and Chloe isn’t quite sure what to do with that yet, so she laughs and covers with more humor. “You’re right. We only have 45 minutes and I’d definitely want more time than that.”

“Oh my God,” Beca mutters. She feels at her pockets, looking for her phone obviously, but Chloe knows she’s not going to find it.

“You left it on your desk,” she offers as she retrieves and passes it to Beca.

“I suppose you snooped through it, too?”

“Don’t be silly, Bec.”

“You’re right, sorry,” Beca says with an honest look of apology.

“I couldn’t figure out your passcode.”

The remark earns Chloe a scoff, a scowl, and a shove, and she laughs. “Kidding. I wouldn’t do that. Besides, I was too busy checking out Stacie’s rack.”

Beca looks up from her phone sharply at the comment. “What?”

Chloe points above their heads. “Was snooping through your readily-on-display pictures and couldn’t help but notice the boobs of our lead mezzo.”

“Ohh,” Beca says after a second. “Yeah, that day was fun.” She goes back to texting and Chloe’s eyes can’t help but catch the name at the top of the chat window is that of the topic of their conversation.

“Seems like there’s probably a story that comes with that picture?”

Beca nods, finishes her text, and sets her phone aside, face-down. “Yeah, we cut our Friday classes that weekend Aubrey had food poisoning and actually canceled rehearsal, and drove out to Stone Mountain Lake. And she let me drive, which was cool. Because, you know - Camero.”

“And she’s topless because…” she prompts, trying to sound teasing and not jealous.

“Oh, because we went skinny dipping and she decided to let the wind dry her off,” Beca says with a laugh at the memory.

Chloe blinks at this. “You went skinny dipping?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Not really something I’d expect from you, that’s all.”

Beca just shrugs. “Stacie can get me to do a lot of things I wouldn’t do otherwise.”

Chloe feels herself deflate a little at this. Obviously, Beca trusts Stacie, has something special with her. She allows Stacie into her personal bubble, lets her talk her into things outside her comfort zone. All good things to have with your girlfriend. All things Chloe wishes Beca had with her instead. She’s slow to come up with a cheeky response to keep up the banter, but Beca’s looking at her phone again, which buys her some time that she needs even more of once she sees the way Beca blushes and smiles at whatever Stacie just sent her.

“Like what?” Chloe finally settles on when Beca sets down her phone again.

“Like this.”

There’s a brief flurry of movement, too quick for Chloe to register, but what she does register is the fact that Beca is kissing her.

She’s frozen in shock, eyes still open in surprise, and she can see in the furrow of Beca’s brow the sheer amount of focus and determination going into the action and Chloe finally realizes that Beca is kissing her and she stops analyzing and closes her eyes and reaches to frame Beca’s face with her hands and kiss her back.

There’s a hint of a whimper from Beca and it stirs something inside her and she’s about to try to deepen the kiss when Beca pulls back, holding Chloe at arm’s length with a hand pressed to her shoulder.

The moment broken, reality snaps back like an elastic band. “What about Stacie?” Chloe asks, lips still burning.

Beca’s face is redder than Chloe’s ever seen it, and she’s seen her after being forced to angrily run a mile. “What about her?”

“Aren’t you dating?”

At this, Beca bursts out laughing and falls further away from Chloe, face lightening from red to pink. “Me and Stacie?!”

“Well, yeah!” Chloe feels indignant. “I mean, you kiss her, you cut class with her to go skinny dipping, you let her invite your mortal enemy to your party, she’s texting you dirty things while I’m right here...”

“Oh my God,” Beca says, still laughing as she rights herself and turns to sit on her knees facing Chloe. “I need you to stop.”

Chloe presses her lips together and waits.

Beca holds up her hand, fingers splayed, and starts counting things off on them. “Number One, we’re not dating. Number Two, that’s just how Stacie is with the kissing and I feel like you are the same way with your good friends.”

Chloe just shrugs at that, because that’s true. She’s totally a huggy, kissy, touchy friend with anyone who allows her to be.

“Number Three, I wanted her here because I didn’t know if I could handle being alone with you all night. Number Four, she invited Aubrey so she wouldn’t be the third wheel, and Number Five she wasn’t texting me dirty things. Well, she was, but not like that. She texted me to say she and Aubrey were going do their own thing tonight and that I should suck it up and just kiss you.”

“I...what?” Chloe feels like she’s having an out of body experience. And then Beca’s phone is in front of her face, open to the text conversation with Stacie, where sure enough, in less than G-rated commentary, Stacie is saying she’s kidnapping Aubrey to help her get her panties untwisted and that Chloe obviously has a crush on Beca so she should just go for it.

“So...yeah. I...was she right? You have a...a crush on me?”

Chloe’s finally finding mental clarity, though the fog is quickly being replaced with heat. “You could say that,” she manages to say with a smile. She notices that Beca’s gaze has slipped to her mouth and Chloe bites her lip as a test and sees Beca’s eyes flash. “Do you have a crush on me, too?”

Beca just nods at this, kind of dumbly, and Chloe relishes the effect she’s having on the girl that, not five minutes ago, she was so sure had zero interest in her. She reaches a hand to Beca, catching her at the elbow to give her a tug forward. “Can we try that kiss again? I’m a lot better at it when I’m expecting it.”

“Okay,” Beca says thickly before swallowing and wetting her lips.

Chloe halts her progress forward for a second to tilt her head. “Wait. Stacie and Bree?”

“She’s had a thing for that monster from Day One. Don’t ask me why.”

Chloe giggles at this and stops urging Beca forward; she’s doing that well enough on her own now, and instead reaches to slide her fingers into the still-damp hair at the base of Beca’s neck. “Good. They’ll be good for each other. So...they aren’t coming over tonight?”

Beca just shakes her head and Chloe notices the girl is nearly in her lap, knees wedged against the side of Chloe’s thigh, so Chloe decides to go for it the way Beca was brave enough to and uses her free hand to sweep Beca’s knees out from underneath herself to lay her down and settle next to her. She’s smooth, she knows she’s smooth when she’s prepared for something, and Beca’s looking up at her with a mix of surprise and excitement on her face.

Chloe lets her hand rest at Beca’s waist, feeling the softness of the fabric of her shirt and the warmth of the skin beneath it, and just watches Beca and the way she’s clearly impatient and a little uncomfortable with the scrutiny, yet is repeatedly steeling herself to not interrupt the moment.

“Now, about that kiss…” Chloe whispers, and Beca’s eyes are closed before she even reaches her lips.

Chapter Text

Beca stares at her bedroom door in fear. Or anticipation. She isn’t sure which, nor is she sure if Chloe was serious. Maybe she’s just messing with her, amplifying the fantasy they were both so readily, and surprisingly, indulging in. But Chloe isn’t typing anything and four seconds later Beca hears the creak of the third and fifth stairs that lead to the room she shares with Amy who is, for better or potentially worse, absent.

She can see the shadow of two feet in front of her door impeding the light at the top of the stairs from filtering through the half-inch gap into her darkened bedroom.

She’d shut the light off several minutes ago. Around the same time she slipped off her shorts and left them somewhere under her covers bunched by her feet. She’s still clutching her phone in her right hand, heart racing more now than before, left hand no longer tucked into the front of her underwear as it had been for the past several minutes. Instead, it holds the sheet to her naked chest, both in effort to both dry off her fingers and shield herself.

Her phone vibrates in her hand and she glances at it, having to unlock it with a shaky thumb to read Chloe’s new message.

Knock knock

Beca stares at it and then at the feet shifting outside her door. Chloe wasn’t barging in. Wasn’t even actually knocking. Just standing there, waiting, offering Beca every opportunity to ignore her altogether and pretend that none of this had happened.

Was happening.

She sits up and in doing so accidentally bumps a letter on the on-screen keyboard and now she knows Chloe knows she’s seen the message, thinks Beca is typing a reply, and Beca isn’t actually sure what that reply would be since she wasn’t ready to type one quite yet. She erases the errant letter K and tries to make a decision.

A Decision.

One decision that will change her life. Their lives. She knows she and Chloe have been dancing around something for years, something that’s become more and more difficult to ignore with the passage of time. She can choose to ignore Chloe, tell her she didn’t mean for it to go this far, ask her to never speak of it again.

She can choose to say, “Come in.”

She opens her mouth to say it but can’t seem to produce sound. She clears her throat and tries again, confidence in her decision fading by the second until she gives up trying to speak and instead types it on her phone and presses Send before she can erase it.

There’s a sound on the other side of the door; she can’t really identify what it is other than some kind of thud that sounded a lot like a head hitting a wall.

The door opens a moment later and Beca has to squint at the brightness of the light in the open doorway but she can make out Chloe’s silhouette and then it’s dark again and she can see better. Can see Chloe in the pink running shorts she’d told Beca she was wearing, and the white tank top that she’d told Beca she’d removed so she could take off her bra.

Chloe’s wearing the tank top again, but not the bra.

Beca just stares at her, leaning against the door, one arm hugging herself around her waist, the other limp at her side holding her phone, the screen of which is now dark. Beca notices her own screen turn off a second later.

She doesn’t want to say anything. She feels like they’re somehow existing in that purgatory that is texting, that if she speaks, if she had succeeded in calling for her to enter, that this, whatever this is, will end and she will wake up.

She wants to tell Chloe it’s okay. That she’s decided she wants this, to see this through. She wants to ask Chloe to join her in bed, to feel the effect that Chloe’s words have had on her. But she can’t speak.

So she reaches to set her phone on the nightstand and in doing so lets the sheet she’s clutched to her chest these eternal minutes fall, just on one side, just enough to prove that she had, indeed, taken off her shirt when she said she had. Just enough to silently invite Chloe to come closer.

She does, with measured steps that stop short at the side of Beca’s bed. She’s close enough that her knees touch it. Close enough that Beca can tell she’s blushing, or maybe just flushed.

With a breath, Beca releases the sheet and lets it fall to her waist. She keeps her eyes up and on Chloe, whose breath catches so audibly Beca worries for a second if she’s choking. But then Chloe exhales and sets her own phone down next to Beca’s and places one tentative knee on the edge of the mattress.

Beca doesn’t recall deciding to reach out and place her hand on the length of bare skin above that knee, but there’s her hand, thumb resting above Chloe’s kneecap, other fingers wrapped around the side. She can feel the muscle there, flexing and relaxing under her touch and the way Chloe’s balancing herself.

Chloe’s eyes are on Beca’s as much as Beca’s are on hers, which is to say most of the time, but not all the time and Beca grows warm - warmer - at the frequency with which Chloe’s gaze drops to her bared chest, but with every shift of Beca’s hand, which are small and unassuming and little more than moving from one spot to a cooler spot an inch higher when it gets too hot under her hand, Chloe’s eyes snap back to hers. After the third relocation, which Beca is acutely aware has her hand quite high on Chloe’s thigh, high enough that her index finger is brushing the hem of Chloe’s shorts, she notices Chloe’s hand is over hers. Warm fingers are resting against her wrist and there’s the slightest pulling sensation, barely palpable yet screamingly obvious as Beca’s eyes fall to watch her hand get pulled millimeter by millimeter higher, disappearing under the pink fabric where it feels so much warmer, higher until her thumb encounters something slick on Chloe’s skin.

It’s her own breath that sounds like choking this time as she realizes what it is. Where her hand is. Where she has allowed it to be led.

She can’t see her hand at all anymore. It’s fully concealed within the leg of Chloe’s shorts and her fingers seem to have a mind of their own as they reach to feel the crease at the top of the back of Chloe’s thigh, right where it changes from thigh to something else, where a line of elastic belonging to the black boyshorts Chloe claimed to have been wearing should have been, but it was just skin.

Because she’d removed them. Just as she’d told Beca she had.

Her hand slips higher and she’s watching this happen, not watching Chloe, but rather watching what it looks like to have her hand up the leg of the pink running shorts she’s seen Chloe wear countless times. Watching the way her abdomen expands and contracts with breaths that are quick and audible. Watching the way her hips tip forward when Beca’s thumb traces the crease along her inner thigh. It’s warm there, and smooth, and wet, and she can hear Chloe swallow and Beca wants to turn her hand and press against her, feel all of her.

She finally manages to look up at Chloe again and she’s rewarded with Chloe looking...well, a way Beca’s never quite seen her before. She’s more than flushed now, and her eyes are almost closed, and Beca had been so focused on what she was doing that she hadn’t noticed Chloe’s right hand disappear to be where it is now, holding the back of her own neck.

It makes Beca feel bolder and she shifts. It’s slow and she can feel Chloe tracking her every move. It’s not much, but she uses her free hand to flip the sheet off her and she’s definitely aware that the only thing covering her now are her underwear. But she needs the sheet out of the way so she can sit up straighter and twist herself, just a little, to square herself to Chloe a little more, and then she reaches for the hand still by Chloe’s side.

She pulls it forward until she’s holding Chloe’s hand against her naked breast. She sees Chloe bite her lip, feels her fingers contract under her own, and Beca releases it to let her do as she pleases with it because Beca has something else to think about.

Like how she’s about to turn her wrist and pull her fingers in to move them all between Chloe’s thighs and press her hand against her.

She doesn’t have to watch this happen, not in the way she had to watch her hand disappear under the shorts. She watches this happen on Chloe’s face and the way her mouth falls open to make the first real sound since her arrival in Beca’s bedroom, a semi-restrained whimper as Beca’s fingers press up against wet heat.

“God.” It’s her own voice that reaches her ears and she sees Chloe give a sharp nod.

“That’s what you do to me.” Chloe offers the first complete spoken sentence and it’s paired with a sweeping of fingers over Beca’s breast until it’s cupped in Chloe’s hand, a thumb brushing back and forth across the firm tip.

Beca can’t seem to keep her hand still. It’s tracing and gliding back and forth in a slow patternless pattern. She can’t believe it, any of it. That they’re doing this, that she’s feeling how much she managed to turn Chloe on with a few clumsily written words, that she’s nearly naked in bed with her hand up her best friend’s shorts, that her nipple’s being teased in a way that she knows is going to make it hard.

It isn’t until a quiet moan reaches her ears that she notices she’s slipped inside Chloe. Her hips tip forward again and Beca’s close enough to see the definition of the muscles beneath the tank top even in the darkness of the room to which her eyes have adjusted so well. She lets herself lean in, her forehead resting at the apex of Chloe’s ribs.

She feels fingers in her hair, then, first brushing it back, then messing it up as nails scratch at her scalp and Beca uses her free hand to push the edge of the tank top up to reveal the skin there, a thin strip that draws her lips in like gravity and she’s kissing Chloe’s stomach. Once. Twice. Again and again along the waistband of the shorts that sit low on her hips. Higher until she’s tempted to trace her tongue around her navel. She gives in to the temptation.

Repeatedly her nose nudges at the knit fabric that keeps getting in her way. Everywhere she wants to go, she has to move it to access it, and then suddenly the whole thing is gone and she looks up in surprise to see that Chloe’s removed it herself.

Beca is no longer the only one with her chest bare, and she tries not to stare and instead moves again, closer still and straightening her back to make herself taller until she can kiss the lower curve of Chloe’s right breast.

There are two hands in her hair now. They seem to be working together, and then against each other, as they comb and pull and grip and pet and Beca lets them encourage her to move higher until the tip of Chloe’s breast is in her mouth.

That’s when Chloe finally breaks the stillness of moment, falling forward in a controlled collapse until Beca’s on her back with Chloe hovering over her. Beca’s hand hasn’t left its spot, in fact, it finds more comfort there as Chloe’s stance has her knees on either side of Beca and there’s suddenly a lot more room to work. So she pulls her hand back for a second and returns it this time with two fingers and she sucks on the warm flesh that her mouth finds again.

A moan breaks the silence and Beca echoes it as she feels Chloe rocking herself with Beca’s hand until they’re both in a steady rhythm.

Beca’s free hand is at liberty to wander, and it does, testing different things. The way Chloe’s back arches when she drags her fingernails down it. The way her hips swivel when it pushes under the waistband of pink shorts to encourage the rocking. The way she holds her breath when there’s a tongue on one breast and fingers on the other.

It’s hard to see now, from this new vantage point. She’s had her eyes closed and they’re less adjusted to the darkness than before, and she’s so close to Chloe that if she opens them all she can really see are the perfect pair of breasts that she can’t believe she’s spent more than several minutes kissing. If she tilts her head back she can see Chloe’s chin and closed eyes and the way her head is hanging listlessly as she grinds herself against Beca’s hand.

She can feel the slightest tremors around her fingers. She knows what it is, has felt it before, but only from within herself, not someone else. She moves them more quickly and it seems as though Chloe gives up on trying to preserve the silence of this experience as a string of moans spill from her lips. They sound so exquisite that they make Beca’s own hips roll with need.

And she can feel the way Chloe is fighting to hold herself up, that her arms are trying to give out, so Beca uses her free arm to wrap it around Chloe’s back and pull until they do give out and she falls against Beca. Chloe slides herself backward and suddenly they’re face to face. Nose to nose.

They’d be eye to eye if Chloe’s were open.

Chloe’s breath is warm against Beca’s lips, quick puffs of air as she pants and gasps and moans. Her whole body rolls with every thrust but her face never moves away, it just stays, nose to nose. They brush sometimes, like when Beca shifted her hand a little and it made Chloe jump and then release a lip-bitten moan.

Her moans are quick now, and higher pitched. Beca knows she’s close, can’t believe she knows she’s close, can’t believe this is happening. Is about to happen.

But it does happen. She feels it, the quivering around her fingers. The rush of heat. She sees Chloe’s lips part, hears her take a breath, but before the moan comes, Beca lifts her head to capture Chloe’s lips with her own.

She kisses her.

And Chloe comes.

She’s still kissing her when it’s passed, and Chloe is kissing her back and the whimpering she’s hearing, Beca realizes, is her own and seems to be happening every time Chloe’s tongue touches hers, which is, at this moment, almost constantly.

It’s Chloe who finally lifts her head to break the kiss.

Beca can’t bring herself to open her eyes. She doesn’t want the moment to end. If she opens them right now, it will be over and the magic will break and they will have to talk about what just happened.

So she keeps them closed.

And feels Chloe move, and then feels lips on her neck.

On her collarbone.

On her left breast. And her right.

On her stomach.

There are fingernails trailing along her ribs.

There are fingers tugging at the underwear she hadn’t quite gotten around to taking off when they were texting, what...thirty? minutes ago and she’s lifting her hips to let them be removed and then…

“Fuck…”

There’s a tongue between her legs and Beca feels like she’s having an out-of-body experience. There’s what sounds like an, “Uh huh,” in response and arms slip under and curl over her thighs so hands can hold her hips and pull at her flesh to expose more of her to the tongue that feels like it’s been blessed by a higher power.

She lifts her knees. Spreads them. Reaches to slide her fingers into the hair of the head that’s moving in a slow pattern between her legs. Presses her heels into Chloe’s back.

She finally risks opening her eyes and just stares at the ceiling for a minute, at the empty air above her that just seconds ago was occupied by her best friend, to let them adjust to the darkness once again.

And then she finally glances down.

Chloe is there, her red hair tangled in Beca’s fingers. Her eyes are closed. She doesn’t know Beca’s looking at her, watching her do what she’s doing. She can see the way the muscles in Chloe’s biceps move as she adjusts her angle and the way she keeps her eyes closed when she pauses to take a deep breath before Beca feels her tongue again. She can see the way she puts her whole body into it, from how she’s holding Beca to how she’s caressing her, sometimes gently, sometimes roughly like right now and Beca gives in and moans.

Chloe opens her eyes at the sound and it’s clear she wasn’t expecting to have an audience. There’s a moment of surprise, and then Beca can see the slight crinkling at the corners of her eyes, a smile that she can’t see because Chloe’s mouth is out of sight making Beca believe in every God to ever be conceived by humans.

Chloe’s left hand reaches up, first moving over Beca’s stomach and then off her body until Beca feels it find her forearm and then lower until she’s holding Chloe’s hand.

It makes Beca’s chest feel warm and tight and then the tongue between her legs makes something else feel warm and tight and she squeezes Chloe’s hand as her hips twitch.

She hears another sound of agreement, or maybe approval, and she closes her eyes and grips Chloe’s hand and lets the ecstasy rise around her until it crests and crashes over her in wave after wave of pleasure.

Once it recedes she feels fingertips grazing her forehead. They trace her hairline from her right ear to the middle, and then the touch moves down the bridge of her nose, off the tip, to land on her lips and then work its way back up the other side of her face until it’s brushing down her nose again to her lips. The third time, she purses them just as the finger lands on them and finally opens her eyes.

She’s unsurprised to see Chloe watching her, head propped up on a fist as she lays on her side.

“Hello,” Chloe says with a soft smile.

Beca has to take a breath before she can manage to get the word, “Hi,” past her lips. She holds Chloe’s gaze as long as she can, her touch still moving, visible in Beca’s periphery. It drifts a little further now that her eyes are open, down the side of her neck and across her chest and up the other side to her ear. It makes her shiver and break out in goosebumps and she hears Chloe giggle.

“Ticklish?”

Beca shakes her head. “J’sfeelsnice,” she slurs, and she’d be embarrassed by her continued state of being rendered mostly incoherent if she hadn’t just been made to feel better than she’d ever felt her entire life.

“Good.” Chloe smiles at her and she lets her eyes fall closed again to enjoy the way she’s being touched.

“Gonna make us talk about this?” She finally says after extended silence.

“What is there to talk about?”

The quiet comment is punctuated with an unexpected kiss to her lips and Beca smiles into it, lifting a still-heavy hand to hold the back of her head and keep her there to deepen the kiss. She isn’t shy to do it. She feels like maybe she should be, that some version of her would be, but not this version.

When they part she isn’t afraid to keep her eyes open. On Chloe’s face. On her eyes.

She isn’t afraid to smile.

Chapter Text

“What are you talking about?! You know Taylor Swift is better than Katy Perry!” Chloe’s flabbergasted; she cannot even believe that Beca is fighting her on this very obvious point; Taylor Swift is better. Hands down.

“No, she isn’t! She’s fake, and contrived, and -”

They’re in Chloe’s room with the original intent to keep each other company while studying for finals, but somewhere around the 30-minute mark Beca spoke up about the Spotify station Chloe had chosen for background music. Chloe’d been at her desk, and Beca had camped out on Chloe’s bed, but now they were both on their feet to vehemently defend their points-of-view.

“And Katy Perry isn’t?!”

“Well, I just...don’t see why that even matters!”

“So it doesn’t matter when it’s your fave, but it matters when it’s mine?” Chloe says with tears in her eyes, laughing as hard as she is right now. Beca’s red in the face annoyed, but her eyes betray the perceived anger and Chloe can tell she’s fighting a losing battle, both in laughter and in this point of contention. “Okay, everyone’s fake and contrived,” she adds on to concede a single point to Beca. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“You are,” Beca blurts, and it’s clear she didn’t mean to say it aloud. Her eyes go wide and her cheeks turn pink and she starts backing away.

Chloe’s natural reaction is to giggle because Beca is so cute, but then Chloe remembers Beca reserves her compliments for the most important moments and doesn’t pass them out lightly. It makes her heart pound a little and she stops giggling and sees the panic in Beca’s eyes and the tears welling within them and Chloe's feet are moving, carrying her forward in concern.

“Beca? What's wrong?” She reaches her just as Beca starts shaking her head. She looks like a deer caught in the headlights and she's not even looking at Chloe, is instead looking right through her with fear in her eyes.

Chloe's as scared as Beca looks and she reaches for Beca on instinct, trying to pull her into a hug with a hand to the small of Beca's back just as Beca's shoulders connect with the wall, cornering herself. Beca flinches and gives another sharp shake of her head when Chloe steps into her space and Chloe tries not to be offended by the way Beca's entire being tries to recoil from her presence, but something is definitely wrong with Beca and that outweighs her feelings being hurt.

“I -” Beca's eyes flit around the room, looking everywhere but at Chloe, and while Chloe's trying to catch her gaze she’s startled by the fact that Beca's lips are on hers.

She freezes, unsure what is happening. She knows what is happening, but not necessarily why or why now, or even how but Beca is kissing her, her eyes closed so tightly like it's taking every ounce of her might to either make herself do it or to stop herself from doing it in the first place, and tears are starting to escape and slip down her cheeks.

Chloe has imagined this moment a hundred times. A thousand, probably. It isn't happening like any of the times she imagined but it is happening and she isn't sure what to do. Should she grab Beca and pull her closer and kiss her back like she's dreamed and show her how much she's wanted this? Should she back off and ask Beca what is happening and risk her running away thinking she made a terrible mistake?

It's hard to think but she decides to let her eyes close and kiss Beca back ever so gently, just enough to hopefully erase her surprise and convey to Beca that it's okay and this is okay and she is okay.

The two stay like that long enough that she can feel the tension start to dissipate from Beca’s lips. They start to feel less like those of unwilling child kissing their grandma at the request of her mother and more like a woman kissing another woman. Chloe relaxes a little at Beca's hint of comfort and she isn't thinking when she brings her free left hand up to frame Beca's face and tilt it just so to have a better angle and she smiles a little when she feels Beca gasp like she does when she's been woken from sleep and she wraps her arms around Beca's waist to pull her close and then they're kissing for real.

She feels Beca's arms ease around her neck, tentative and unsure, so Chloe lets go of her waist to reach up and grab her elbows to hurry it up and then she's holding Beca again, pulling her close as they kiss and kiss and then one of them changes the angle again and they kiss more and while Chloe's still thinking about daring to do it, Beca's tongue grazes the edge of her lip.

She welcomes her in, encouraging her with every sigh and stroke and touch and around the time Chloe has to fight her hands from sliding down from her waist to feel Beca's curves, Beca slows their kiss down to an easy, mutual end.

Her eyes are still closed when her head falls back to hit the wall with a thud and Chloe watches Beca processing everything that just happened, everything from more fear to confusion to a smile breaking out in a way that she seemed embarrassed by. She finally opens her eyes with a sheepish smile and manages to hold Chloe's gaze for all of half a second before her eyes are on the ceiling.

“Um…”

Chloe eases her hold on Beca's waist to instead rub her back. “Mhmm,” is all Chloe replies.

“I, uh…”

She watches Beca struggle to get herself together and Chloe takes pride in the fact that she's as frazzled as she herself feels.

“That sure was something,” Chloe offers to try to break the ice.

Beca huffs a laugh of relief. “Yeah. Um. Oops?”

“Oops?” Chloe says with a quiet laugh as she lets herself reach up and trace a finger along Beca's hairline until she's tucking her hair behind her ear for her.

“I, uh,” Beca swallows thickly and blinks a few times before finally meeting Chloe's eyes again. “Not exactly how I expected tonight to go?”

Chloe smiles coyly and wiggles her own hips. “I'll say. Are you okay? Because I am totes cool with what just happened.”

“If, uh...yeah, dude, I mean...if you’re cool, I'm cool. With that. Happening.” Beca’s still fighting with herself, her posture looking a lot like she's trying and failing to be “cool.”

But Chloe ignores her discomfort, instead just maintaining their connection without venturing anywhere she hasn't already been. “I'd be cool with that happening again. For the record,” she says with a flirty bite of her lower lip.

“Okay.”  Beca exhales hard again, this time her posture slackening into something more like her usual self and Chloe feels hands rest lightly on her hips. “Cool.”

“Yeah.” Chloe smiles at her and lets her arms slip around Beca's waist again. “Cool.”

Chapter Text

Beca had always loved weddings.

Not that she let on that she did; it was in direct opposition to the personality she chose to convey to the outside world.

But she loved weddings.

Everyone was happy and celebrating love, and at the reception, she had plenty of opportunities to judge the music, whether it was a live band or a DJ. She particularly liked challenging them - DJ and band alike - with obscure requests to see how deep their knowledge ran.

There was drama. There was always drama at weddings. A girl would break up with her boyfriend - a groomsman - because he got too drunk and made out with someone else on the dance floor. At least one child would throw a tantrum or vomit. Or both. Someone’s aunt or grandmother would pass out drunk slouched on a chair in a corner and embarrass her family. A pair of teens would get caught making out behind an oversized piece of decor. It was especially entertaining if that discovery was paired with a reveal that the teenager was something other than heterosexual; the drama was scrumptious when that happened.

Maybe her taste for it developed when she was one of the teenagers busted kissing the groom’s niece at her cousin’s wedding when she was 14.

Being in weddings, however - she’d do it if she was asked (it was always nice to be asked), out of obligation, but she wasn’t keen on it. Which is why this afternoon as her lone responsibility is to man the guest book, she’s in a good mood.

She’s not bothered that she wasn’t asked to be a bridesmaid this time. Aubrey has a big family and a lot of old friends - two facts that surprised Beca when she learned them - and her wedding party was made up of her two sisters, a cousin, her childhood best friend, and Chloe, the lone Barden Bella who’d been asked.

The rest of the girls were there, too, of course, all involved in one way or another. Chloe had tasked Beca weeks ago with arranging a song for not just her Bellas, but also the Treblemakers to perform at the reception as a surprise for Aubrey and her new husband, Jesse.

And there’s a part of Beca that thinks that’s kind of weird, that she’s participating in her ex’s wedding, but she and Jesse called it quits not long after graduation and that had been nearly five years ago.

So, it’s fine, and she’s scored the sweetest deal of being part of the wedding; she gets a decent table at the reception and didn’t have to drop cash on a bridesmaid dress or plan the bridal shower and bachelorette party she attended.

She’s wearing a brand new dress, a light mauve number with a softly pleated skirt and matching heels she never thought she could pull off but was pleasantly surprised when she looked in the mirror at the store. It made her feel soft and pretty and playful.

Winning all around, really.

She watches their first dance from her decent table and dinner is amazing, and of course it is because it’s not like Aubrey would dare fall short on any aspect of this day. She sits through Aubrey’s sister’s toast which is as prim and proper as Beca expected, but she’s thrown for a pleasant loop when her sister tosses out a story about a drunken college-student-Aubrey, before Beca knew her, screwing a frat boy at a party.

Did she mention she loved weddings?

Benji’s toast is sweet and funny and a touch awkward and it makes her tear up a little, because Jesse really is a great guy, and she knows he and Aubrey will make one another happy.

She watches Aubrey dance with her military uniformed father and Jesse dance with the woman Beca once thought could be her mother-in-law. The rest of the wedding party filters onto the floor and she watches Chloe dance with one of Jesse’s high school friends, and she watches Benji dance with Aubrey’s sister, though he’s constantly looking past her at Emily as though he’s apologizing over and over for dancing with another woman.

Beca makes her way out eventually when the lead singer of the band calls for everyone to hit the dance floor. She’s dateless tonight, which isn’t new for her; sometimes she brings a date, sometimes not. She has a good time either way. Without a date, there’s always someone else who’s without a date because they couldn’t find one in time, or they just went through a breakup. And in the very rare instances that she can’t find someone to dance with, there’s always a shy teenage boy whose mother is thrilled when Beca asks if he’d like to dance with her.

She kind of likes trying to pull the shy ones out of their shells; probably because she had to be pulled out of her own.

There’s also the fact that there are so many pretty girls at weddings, and they’re all in pretty dresses with their pretty hair and pretty eyes and those who aren’t married are automatically in the mood for love, and hitting on bridesmaids is one of Beca’s favorite things because girls like when other girls compliment them, and once in awhile, one of those girls ends up in Beca’s bed at the end of the night.

She’s four cocktails in, having made a few rounds through the reception - talking to Aubrey and Jesse, grabbing a drink, talking to Chloe, grabbing a drink, talking to Amy and slamming back the shot of mystery liquor she was handed, talking to Emily and reassuring her that the demo she’d sent Beca to listen to was good despite the fact that Beca has already told her it was good no fewer than three times in the last week, and grabbing a drink.

It’s when she’s four cocktails in that she and the rest of the women - the unmarried ones, anyway - are prompted to cram into one spot on the dance floor and jostle one another to catch the bouquet that she’s elbowing and shouldering Chloe for position and making each other laugh.

Beca’s scrappy; she’s caught her fair share of bouquets no thanks to her height and all thanks to determination. She’s never been the next to get married in any of the scenarios despite the omen associated with the success, but she doesn’t care about that; she just wants to win.

Only this time she loses to Chloe who’s whooping and smiling and holding the caught bouquet high above her head like a trophy. There’s a chorus of ooh s and the comments about how now she has to get married and Chloe just laughs and rolls her eyes and Beca walks her back to the head table so she can set down the flowers.

“Well, you know what they say…” she teases as they walk.

Chloe laughs. “I doubt I’ll be getting married anytime soon.”

“No? Don’t have your eye on anyone?” She knows Chloe’s in a rare period of singledom, and if she hadn’t repeatedly declared that it was empowering and that it was by choice, Beca would never tease her about it. They don’t see each other as often as they once did; Beca moved to New York after graduation following her internship to a real job, and Chloe ended up in Nashville. Beca’s work took her there with some frequency, and Chloe made it a point to take at least one trip to New York every year, but Beca missed her. It was kind of impossible not to miss someone like Chloe Beale after she infiltrates your life the way she did Beca’s.

“No more than usual, I guess,” Chloe answers with a shake of her head as she sets the bouquet on the table at her place.

Beca doesn’t quite understand that answer, her brain starting to be a little fuzzy, but she thinks the implication is that Chloe’s had her eye on someone for a long time, but has grown weary of it. Maybe it’s the four drinks or the offense she takes at someone having the audacity to turn down Chloe, but Beca feels a little saucy. She hasn’t hit on a bridesmaid yet tonight.

Yet.

“What about you?” Chloe continues when she turns and leans against the table. She’s gorgeous; that’s old news to Beca. But Aubrey’s put her in a grayish lavender dress that reminds Beca of something a garden nymph might wear. Her stunningly red hair is longer than Beca’s ever seen it and it’s all pulled to hang over Chloe’s right shoulder, guided and held there by a trio of braids.

“What about me?” she says, wondering if it was obvious she was staring and maybe not really caring if it was.

“Do you have your eye on anyone?”

She hesitates for the briefest of moments as she runs a thousand scenarios through her buzzed mind, and then nods. “Yeah, I have my eye on someone.”

“Really?” Chloe pushes away from the table, surprised. “Who?”

“You.” She winks when she says it and part of her can’t believe that of all the bridesmaids in the world, and of the five options she has tonight, it’s Chloe who’s become the unwitting target of Beca’s fun. But another part of her kind of thinks maybe she’s known all along it would be Chloe tonight.

Chloe throws her head back in her usual style of wild laughter as she gives Beca’s shoulder a shove and tells her she’s a dork, and then takes Beca’s hand and walks them toward the bar which Beca bumps into when she forgets to stop walking. She was kind of distracted by Chloe holding her hand; it’s not as though it was the first time - it’s probably the 4,791st time. But it’s been awhile since the last time, and Chloe’s so pretty tonight, and Beca’s just really happy, and her hand feels nice in Chloe’s.

“Easy there, tiger,” Chloe says with her other hand moving to Beca’s hip to first pull her back a half step from the bar and then rub where it had collided with the bar. “How many have you had?”

“Either too many or not enough,” she says with a confident nod. She still feels saucy, and now a little silly, and her skin is on fire where Chloe’s hand had rubbed away the pain and that’s a new thing. Chloe’s touches always leave her a little fluttery, but the actual heat was a recent development. Like, a tonight development.

Chloe eyes her for a moment and Beca knows she’s evaluating Beca’s inebriation; they’d both become experts at judging one another over the years - a requirement to surviving college with the astounding number of parties they found themselves at. Beca holds her stare and then Chloe turns to the bartender and orders a pair of vodka cranberries.

They make small talk as they meander around the room - small talk with Chloe is never really small talk, but since they do talk in some way every day, there isn’t a massive catch-up conversation needed. They talk about the wedding and how pretty Aubrey’s dress is and their surprise performance that is mere minutes away which has them both slamming their drinks quicker than they'd have liked because Amy is on the stage stealing the mic from the band, which means it's showtime.

Beca's missed performing with Chloe. They'd only run through tonight's performance twice last night when everyone had been able to escape their pre-wedding responsibilities, all other rehearsals taking place via Skype and FaceTime and singing along to voice memos of one another and everyone else.

Chloe had asked Beca to put together an arrangement of “Jessie’s Girl,” and “I’ll Make Love To You,” which Beca found odd on a few levels - mainly that they were going to sing a song about wanting to steal their best friend from her husband of less than a day and the boys were going to sing about sleeping with her. But it was also meant to be funny and a way to acknowledge that the couple was moving on to the next chapter of their life and that they would miss them both.

It was somewhere around the time Beca was listening to Chloe singing a harmony on Skype that she realized it wasn't the first time she'd heard Chloe singing the girls’ song. She'd caught snippets of her humming it many times, over many years, and Beca knew the song was an earworm but right now as they warm up by singing the chorus quietly to one another, their backs to Aubrey, that she wonders if there was a reason other than it being a catchy tune.

Chloe smiles at her when their harmony resonates; Chloe was always a sucker for a perfect harmony. Not that Beca isn’t, but Chloe's eyes always lit up when they found it, and Beca kind of lived for those moments.

Maybe, she thinks as they mingle by the stage trying to not be super obvious as the rest of the Bellas and Treblemakers she graduated with were also suspiciously near the stage, she kind of wants to see Chloe’s eyes light up like that every day.

She doesn’t have a chance to get caught up in the thought because the moment Amy thumps the microphone on her chest to send feedback screeching through the room, Aubrey shrieks at an equal volume in a different key because she’s figured out what’s about to happen. Instead, Beca leads their now-co-ed group through the performance that is as silly as it is heartfelt, and Beca knows it’s going to end up on YouTube in 30 seconds and it’s going on Snapchat in real time, but she doesn’t care.

She doesn’t care that an imperfect, under-rehearsed performance is going to go viral, because she’s singing with Chloe and Aubrey is crying and Jesse is misty-eyed, and the fact that the two long-rivaled groups have called a truce for tonight in honor of their former captains tying the knot makes her feel like there’s hope in this fucked up world.

Trite as the impetus might be, she feels it.

Her hand is in Chloe’s, as is required for the final steps of the performance, when it’s over and they take their bows and Aubrey rushes them both, nearly knocking them off their feet hugging them both at the same time.

“Thank you,” Aubrey says, crying into both their shoulders. “That was amazing.”

They hug her back, and then Aubrey swaps places with Jesse and he’s hugging both of them and Beca takes a second to glance at Chloe when it happens and she can see the tiniest hint of tension in the corner of her mouth, a smile that’s not quite as genuine as it could be.

When the excitement of the performance has finally passed, Beca decides to grab Chloe’s hand again and pull her away from their old classmates so they can actually hear one another.

“You look really beautiful tonight,” she tells Chloe when they sit down at an empty table toward the back of the reception hall. She doesn’t let go of Chloe’s hand, instead scooting her own chair close enough so it’s comfortable enough to maintain that connection.

“Oh.” Chloe looks down for a moment, at their hands, and then looks up again. Beca thinks she might be blushing, but it’s hard to tell with the dim mood lighting that’s descended upon the party as the hour creeps later. “Thank you.” She smiles, and then in what seems like an unplanned of rush of words, adds, “So do you. Really pretty.”

It makes Beca smile. “Thanks. So...when are you flying out? Tomorrow?”

“Monday night,” Chloe answers with a shake of her head. “You?”

“Me, too. What are you, um...what are you going to do while you’re here?” She feels a little weird, itchy like internally, but she likes it.

“I don’t know; figured I’d ask the hotel concierge for some recommendations in the morning. You know how I don’t like to plan everything when I travel.”

“No, I know.” They both laugh because Chloe’s definitely referring to the last time she visited New York and refused to tell Beca anything she wanted to do while there, resulting in Beca going nuts trying to figure out how to plan anything whatsoever and breaking down in tears when Chloe said she wanted to go somewhere on the west side of Manhattan when they were on the east side, and it was a weekend, and the transit system was super fucked up. “Maybe we can hang out?”

“Totes!” Chloe says as she takes a sip of the drink a waiter’s brought for them. She keeps her eyes on Beca, though, and it makes her feel a little like she’s in a fishbowl.

But she kind of likes Chloe’s eyes on her. They are the prettiest eyes she’s ever seen, so what is there to complain about?

“Your eyes are like...fucking blue, dude,” she says, and the line doesn’t form quite as smoothly as it had in her head, but it was an okay start.

Chloe’s brows go high in surprise but she smiles. “I’ve been told.”

“Like the ocean.”

“The ocean is blue, yes,” Chloe says with a wider smile.

“And baby, I’m lost at sea.” That one came out exactly as she’d planned it and she watches the amused confusion slide over Chloe’s face.

“What?” Chloe asks with a laugh.

“What I’m trying to say is,” Beca says, winding her free hand like she’s trying to move time forward, “you’re so beautiful that you made me forget my pickup line.”

“Beca…” Chloe’s smile fades a little, “are you...are you hitting on me?”

“Why, is it working?” She squeezes the hand she’s still holding. She’s kind of swinging for the fences right now and thinks it might actually be working.

Chloe’s confusion seems to grow and she shifts in her seat and starts to reclaim her hand but Beca holds tight to it. “Are you being serious right now? Because -”

“Completely.” Beca drops whatever cocky or smug look she knew she had on her face because this is suddenly very serious.

“What...I don’t...huh?” Chloe seems lost and looks a little like she might pass out as she fans her face and then holds her hand to her forehead.

Beca feels lightheaded, too, not expecting her day to go this route, but something about the wedding and the singing and the reconnection had tripped a wire. “Go on a date with me tomorrow?”

Chloe seems to deflate at that. “You’re asking me on a date?” Her voice is meek and Beca’s not quite sure how to read her reactions to all this and she’s about to start worrying when Chloe perks up with the suddenness of toast from a toaster. “You’re asking me on a date?!” she repeats, all the enthusiasm typical of Chloe now back in her voice.

“Yeah, dude,” Beca says with a laugh, relieved that the embarrassment she felt looming seconds away got shooed away with Chloe’s adjusted reaction.

Chloe’s sitting ramrod straight in her chair. “Like, a date-date. A romantic date?”

Beca nods. “A romantic date. Maybe even with a kiss goodnight.” She knows she blushes when she says it, but she’s just drunk enough to be holding this conversation she wants to have and doesn’t care if she blushes because she’s being honest.

She hears a squeal and doesn’t have time to prepare for Chloe flinging herself into her lap, arms around her neck and lips on hers.

It’s a sound, firm kiss, one they’ve shared innumerable times over the years but Chloe hovers when it ends, and she’s grinning at Beca from her perch in her lap and Beca feels warm and tingly and every place their bodies are connected is on fire, especially her lips that desperately want to feel Chloe’s again.

“Or...we could...move that kiss goodnight up a few hours…?” Beca edges.

“To tonight?” Chloe whispers, and though the room is loud they’re close enough that Beca hears her and she nods. “Okay.”

This time when Chloe’s lips touch hers it’s different. It’s soft and cautious and exploratory and Beca can feel Chloe’s fingernails tickling the back of her neck along her hairline to make her shiver and it prompts her to wrap her arms around Chloe’s waist and hug her close.

When Chloe’s other hand makes an appearance, it’s at Beca’s cheek to tilt her head just a touch so their mouths meet at a better angle. It’s a true, real kiss, and their first of such, and Beca can feel it all the way to her toes. She sighs and that’s when she feels the tip of Chloe’s tongue graze her lip and so much anticipation rushes through her she almost forgets to do more than just open her mouth for it and actually keep kissing her.

But only almost, because she could never forget to kiss Chloe, not after this moment and the way Chloe’s tongue teases over hers before retreating and instead offering featherlight kisses until it’s back with a vengeance and Beca actually groans at how good she is.

A shout of, “Bhloe’s real!” startles both of them and though her vision is slow to focus she knows it’s Amy who yelled it, is still yelling it, and is accentuating her yelling by pounding her fists on the table.

“Oh my God,” she groans, letting her head fall forward to rest against the hollow of Chloe’s throat, and because she thinks it’s probably totally allowed now, presses a kiss to her chest a few short inches away from the line of cleavage that’s been teasing her most of the night. “Why? Why does she do this?”

“She wouldn’t be Amy if she didn’t.” She feels Chloe kiss the top of her head and then she’s moving off Beca’s lap to stand. “Fine! Yes. Okay? Amy, are you happy?” Chloe’s shouting right back but she’s not mad, just joining in Amy’s fun.

“All you pitches owe me so much cash! With interest! ” Amy’s already gone to make the rounds and shake down their friends to pay up on the bet Beca knows was made on her fate with Chloe.

Chloe’s hands are on her hips watching their friends talk, point, gasp, laugh, nod, and dig through their purses and wallets and she says over their shoulder, “They had a bet on whether or not we’d hook up?”

“Looks like it.”

“For how long?”

“Since Beca’s audition,” Cynthia Rose says as she passes by, also collecting her winnings. She’d bet in their favor as well, apparently.

Chloe laughs at her response and then she’s turning with a sigh and dropping back onto Beca’s lap but Beca catches her before she’s settled.

“Let me up.”

“What? Why?” Chloe asks with a pout.

“Because I have to collect on the bet I just won so I can take someone out on a killer date tomorrow.” She slides out from under Chloe with a smirk that she kisses Chloe with once they’re both standing.

Chloe catches her hand before she gets far. “You bet on us?”

She smiles easily, feeling every bit like she’s hit the jackpot tonight. “Always bet on a sure thing, babe.”

Beca had always loved weddings.

Chapter Text

There was nothing like Beca’s smile.

It was perfect. And awkward. And real.

Chloe remembers the first time she saw it - a sarcastic snarky smirk at learning of the concept of a cappella being “a thing.” Beca thought it absurd that music could or should be made without, well, music.

And Chloe understands once she finds out that Beca’s true love in life is music.

Beca smiles a lot once they get to know one another. There are a few weeks, at the beginning of their friendship, when Beca holds back. Chloe can tell she’s being cautious, keeping Chloe at arm’s length, being reserved with her emotions lest she is perceived as vulnerable. Or a nerd.

But once she does smile - one so pure and real and free - it made Chloe feel so wonderful she nearly cried. Because she’d been the one to make Beca smile.

And for a long time, Beca only smiles at Chloe.

They spend a lot of time together; they have to, now that Chloe’s managed to get her into her rag-tag group. Beca understands why Chloe loves a cappella and adjusts her viewpoint that music is better with instruments.

And Beca’s always the first to tune out while Aubrey’s lecturing the group about proper breathing techniques, usually doodling on the soles of her shoes and cuffs of her jeans. Though she never doodles when Chloe’s the one lecturing.

No one seems to notice. Except Chloe.

Chloe notices everything about Beca. Her smile, her laugh, her preference for one bracelet over the other, how almost every Friday she wears worn-out Converse instead of boots like she does Monday through Thursday, as though it’s her own version of Casual Friday. She sees the way Beca struggles to open up to people and can tell she wants a good relationship with her father but is afraid to try.

There was one day - December 4th - that Beca slumped into the desk next to Chloe in the one class they had together (an intro Accounting course) and Beca had changed her hair. Not just changed it, but had bleached highlights into her hair and then dyed them blue. It was probably done as some type of rebellion - against her father, against Aubrey’s strict dress code - but Chloe found it stunning. It brought out the color of her eyes in a way she’d never seen.

“You look really pre - I mean, that looks pretty cool, Bec.”

“What? Oh, thanks,” she replied, pushing her hands through the brunette and blue hair that Chloe longed to touch.

But they were friends. Not that Chloe couldn’t just tell her she was pretty - she tells all her friends they’re pretty.

But telling Beca that she’s pretty feels different. So she keeps it to herself.

It’s at the end of the year, at a party celebrating their ICCA win, that they’re at a club in New York - most of them underage but Chloe (against Aubrey’s wishes) bought them liquor to pregame - and Beca’s almost a different person.

Not in a bad way.

But for the first time in the seven months she’s known her, Beca’s let her figurative hair down and is dancing in public like she usually only does with Chloe in the privacy of her bedroom when they needed to blow off steam.

She still remembers Beca’s smile the first time Chloe finally goaded her into jumping around her room to Kris Kross’s “Jump” when Beca had been on the verge of a breakdown over a Psychology essay she’d procrastinated.

She wonders if it’s those private dance parties in her bedroom with Beca that helped her be able to let loose now.

She tries not to think about the fact that in her elation of winning, Beca ran into the audience and kissed Jesse when Chloe had wanted to turn and jump into Beca’s arms and kiss her . She pretends that he’s not in that club on the receiving end of Beca’s release. She tries not to look, but it’s hard not to when Beca keeps grabbing her and pulling her over to join them.

Because Beca wants to dance with Chloe, too.

She tries not to analyze the fact that Beca alters her life plan to stay with Chloe - or rather, with the Bellas - after that first year.

She also doesn’t think about why she “forgets” to show up for her Russian Literature final exam.

She tries not to hold Beca too close when they fall asleep together in Chloe’s bed night after night.

She tries not to think about the fact that Beca comes to her first when she is upset or stressed out or needs advice.

She tries not to think about what it means that Beca confides in her and no one else about her father.

She tries not to think about how Chloe’s never known someone she felt more connected to, more understood by, more completed by than Beca.

She tries not to let herself fall, but she fails. She fails miserably and she knows she will only have her heart broken because Beca will never be hers.

She tries not to think about the fact that Beca is her everything.

So she does her best to keep a safe distance - Beca’s friend but at an arm’s distance. Just like Beca used to keep her.

Because how could she tell her now? It’s been four years.

How could she even begin to tell Beca she loves her?

Chapter Text

Pining.

Chloe was good at pining.

In fact, she considered herself an expert at it. She was so good at it she barely had to try to do it. It was effortless to hide it, easy to mask it behind her sunny persona that invaded everyone’s personal space, not only those at the center of her pining.

Though maybe she invaded Beca Mitchell’s a little bit more frequently than others…

She started pining for Beca roughly 23 minutes after meeting her for the first time. Their encounter had been brief and laced with animosity and when she and Aubrey sat down to have lunch 23 minutes later, she realized how much she wanted to be sitting down to have lunch with the girl who mocked her choice in extracurricular activity.

The fact that it was pure chance that the angelic voice Chloe heard singing in the showers a week later belonged to that same girl felt like it meant something.

She’d never been able to let go of that. It felt too planned by The Fates.

She was attracted to Beca; she’d realized that in those first 23 minutes at the Activities Fair, but seeing her in the shower... singing with her in the shower...she’d been so turned on after that encounter that she’d let Tom do whatever he wanted to her.

She was grateful she didn’t know her name yet; she didn’t have to be careful to not moan it instead of his.

Beca Mitchell.

She learned her name when she filled out her registration form after her audition.

Chloe was genuinely surprised that she showed up to it. She thought maybe she wasn’t the only one who’d felt the connection and fire as they found their harmony together in the shower.

Nonetheless, Beca had to be pulled into most things kicking and screaming. She was a ball of grumpiness and sarcasm who didn’t take anyone’s bullshit and would rather sit on a couch with a beer than run laps around a gym to increase her vocal support.

Chloe fell in love with her at their first rehearsal.

She asked Beca out for a drink a week later.

To her surprise, Beca agreed, and added, “You’re buyin’! Let’s go. I know a place that won’t card me.”

It was packed and the music was loud and they had to crowd together to hear one another, and Chloe was in heaven.

She learned that night that when Beca has more than a couple beers, she gets friendly. There were boring college boys that hit on her (well, both of them), and sometimes Beca entertained them for a minute or two which was longer than when they hit on her before the three beers.

But it was Beca’s hand that kept finding a reason to rest on Chloe’s lower back or Beca’s arm that would slip around her waist to pull her out of someone’s way (and closer to Beca) that made it clear Beca got friendlier when she drank.

Chloe wasn’t sure if it was even a date - they’d never discussed it being one, and she didn’t know if Beca even liked girls, and she didn’t know if Beca knew that Chloe did. But it kind of felt like one while they were at the bar.

When they left, stepping into the cool autumn air, the closeness was gone. Beca was still drunk, and so was she, and though they held hands to keep from weaving into traffic as they walked toward campus, it wasn’t the same as it had been.

Because it wasn’t a date.

After that, they do a lot of things together that aren’t dates.

Beca takes her to a concert. Chloe takes her to Six Flags. When Beca gets invited to some indie record release party, she asks Chloe to be her plus-one, and while Chloe’s never heard of the artist, they’re important to Beca and it feels like it’s a big deal that she’s the one Beca wants to bring with her.

Beca shyly calls Chloe her best friend when Chloe asks her who her best friend is.

Chloe says she’s her best friend, too, but she doesn’t want her like a best friend.

They go out again.

They go out often, in fact.

Always the same bar, because Beca can get in, and every night it’s the same.

They drink.

They get close.

They leave.

The spell’s broken.

They go out for Chloe’s birthday - they have their own outing, separate from the rest of the Bellas - and shots are involved. Tequila shots.

It’s how it always is - they step across the threshold of the bar and now they don’t even have to be drunk before they get close. It’s like the bar is their little secret. Their safe space. Within its dingy, grimy walls, Chloe’s hands can roam a little while they dance, or while they wait at the bar, and Beca doesn’t have to say anything about it.

It’s just a thing that happens between them.

It’s her birthday and Beca yells that she’s buying them tequila shots and Chloe’s laughter is cut off when Beca announces they are, “Doing them the right way,” and holds up a salt shaker.

“The right way?”

“Yep!” Beca says with a grin and before Chloe can even react, she’s leaning in to draw a line from Chloe’s cleavage to the base of her throat with her tongue, sprinkling salt on it and retracing it. She’s shoving a slice of lime into Chloe’s hand while she throws back her shot and Chloe hears someone tell her she better be ready so she pops the lime to her mouth to hold it with her teeth and then Beca’s kissing her.

It’s brief, and probably not meant to be a kiss because when she steps back she’s grinning with the lime between her own teeth before she sucks on it and tosses it onto the bar.

“Your turn,” she thinks she hears Beca say - she sees her say it more than hears it - and a salt shaker finds its way to her hand. “It’s your birthday.”

Beca just keeps smiling at her and tosses her hair back and off her shoulders almost like she’s offering herself up to Chloe’s whim.

So she smiles back and steps closer to reach up and push Beca’s chin up and to the side. “Stay.”

She thinks the action makes Beca breathe a little quicker; she glances at her chest since she can get away with it with Beca looking at the ceiling. For a moment, she considers taking her salt off the curve of a breast; after all, Beca nearly did.

Instead, she leans in and draws a thin line up the curve of Beca’s neck with the tip of her tongue.

She feels Beca swallow and it emboldens Chloe for a second and she backtracks to do it again, this time flat-tongued and lips sucking as she makes her way back to her jaw. When she leans back to sprinkle the salt, Beca’s eyes are closed and her lips are parted and her fists are clenched. Chloe wants to spend hours doing it - tasting Beca’s skin - but that can’t happen in the middle of a bar so she sprinkles the salt, laps it up in a far more innocent manner than she’d started, and watches Beca come-to and fumble with shaking hands to get a lime in her own mouth while Chloe downs her alcohol.

Chloe wants to grab her by the back of the neck and throw away the lime and kiss her breathless.

Instead, she’s quick and dainty about it and only lets their lips graze.

They seem to go out more often after that. It’s unclear which of them is suggesting it more but they end up in their bubble almost every weekend. There’s silent anticipation every time; it’s like it’s an exciting game to see how far they’ll go each time. It’s kind of like they dare one another to cross a line, and little ones get crossed.

Chloe’s fingers seem to like tracing the soft skin just under the hem of whatever dress Beca happens to be wearing that night.

Beca’s hands seem to like to play with Chloe’s hair and they like to follow its entire length even when it means her hands graze over Chloe’s chest as they do.

They’re dancing together tonight and Chloe’s daring to be a little dirtier than usual; her back is to Beca but their hips are joined, Chloe’s ass grinding against Beca as they move together to some slow, sexy song.

It hasn’t helped that Beca’s wearing some tight black dress and stilettos that about knocked Chloe off her feet when she opened the door and saw her. And her make-up and her hair...Beca looks like a sex bomb and Chloe’s never seen her like that before.

Beca’s hands are the ones roaming tonight and Chloe feels them at her waist and up her back until they’re in her hair. They gather it into a low ponytail and pull it and it draws her head back until she feels warm breath on her ear.

“Chloe…”

It’s the only thing Beca says but Chloe feels everything stop. The music disappears. The other revelers on the dance floor, gone. The laser lights and the smoke effects and the bartenders vanish.

She must have stopped, too, because something breaks the spell and her back is cold and she turns to see Beca disappearing through the crowd.

She follows, still breathless, and shoves her way past sweaty people and men who think her bumping into them means she wants to sleep with them until she spills out the other side. There’s panic for a minute as she searches the dark club and she worries she did something wrong and Beca’s left, but she spots her at the bar.

Beca has one foot perched on the small ledge that runs around the base of the bar and her stiletto is tapping to the beat of the music and she watches her lean into the bar to yell something to the bartender. She watches a guy stride up to Beca and lean against the bar next to her like he owns it and he blocks her from Chloe’s view.

Less than a minute later he’s walking away looking embarrassed and Beca’s looking for something.

Her eyes, so dark and smoky tonight, land on Chloe and she lifts the shot glass that showed up when Chloe couldn’t see and downs it, slams it down on the bar, and then she’s striding toward Chloe with such purpose that Chloe actually stumbles backward a step.

Because Beca doesn’t stop walking when she reaches Chloe. She walks right into her and pulls Chloe into a kiss.

It’s not a lime-kiss this time.

It’s a real kiss and Beca’s hands are in her hair and Beca’s tongue is at her lips and Chloe almost bursts into tears. Instead, she grounds herself by wrapping her arms around Beca’s waist to pull her even closer and kiss her back.

Beca’s hips press forward into hers and Chloe lets her in. Her tongue tastes like the tequila she just swallowed but she tasted like tequila the first time they kissed, too, so now it just tastes like Beca.

They part because someone drunkenly bumps into them hard enough to make them stumble but they don’t let go of one another. They just stare and Beca’s so warm in her arms and Chloe doesn’t know what she should say, so she says, “I can’t believe you’re wearing that dress. You should be arrested for it.”

Beca bites her lip and it’s such an innocent move that Chloe feels like a perv for the comment because they are best friends who happen to be having a little too much drunken fun and none of it means anything.

But Beca responds with, “I only bought it so you could take it off.”

And everything stops.

Chapter Text

Chloe’s heart was stolen the moment Beca walked into that auditorium and onto that stage.

It had been so long since she experienced that feeling - that buzz of electricity and hum of butterflies; she’d had her heart ripped out a year ago walking in on her now-ex with another woman. Seeing Beca will herself onto that stage with an awkward wave took her back in time before she’d had her heart broken.

Or maybe it just healed her heart.

She felt it mending all year, months of Beca’s laughter and smile and voice and eyes that perpetually held a glint of mischief and Chloe knew she was falling.

The thing was...she knew there was someone else. She knew Jesse was chasing her those same months, and she knew Beca’s resistance was starting to crack, whether from the exhaustion of his pursuit or actual interest in the guy. Chloe saw it happening, she saw the moment Beca let him in, and she saw the moment he didn’t understand Beca and how much it hurt her for Jesse to think she needed saving.

Beca was never a damsel and she didn’t need the white knight that he kept trying to be.

And yet Chloe yearned to be that white knight for her; as Beca stormed off after their performance at Regionals, all she could think was that if Beca was hers, she’d never let anyone hurt her.

He didn’t deserve her.

She’d wondered if Beca would show up; they hadn’t spoken since Regionals.

Then the Bellas got their ticket to Nationals and Chloe texted her to tell her and ask her to come to their rehearsal. Beca hadn’t responded.

Yet she showed up, strolling into the gym when she and Aubrey were at one another’s throats in anger over missed chances and Aubrey’s refusal to trust Beca.

But Beca was there begging them to stop fighting and managed to get them all to sit down and talk and share, things Beca was never very good at, and even got Aubrey to give her another chance.

So in the empty swimming pool where, earlier that year, Beca had swept her off her feet for roughly the third time, they gathered, all nine girls placing their trust and fate in Beca, Aubrey chose a song that Chloe listened to on repeat all year, not because she loved Bruno Mars, but because it made her think of Beca.

And when Beca jumped in to mash it with “Just A Dream,” she swore it was like every word she sang, she sang just for Chloe.

Chloe didn’t know why Beca insisted they work “Don’t You Forget About Me” into their set list; she thought maybe it was a compromise with Aubrey to keep something from the last century in there.

But then she saw it - the moment that Beca connected with Jesse at the climax of the song, their fists raised in acknowledgment of one another, some version of an apology that Chloe knew would come.

She clung to Beca as long as she could after the performance; she’d known immediately that they would win, and she was happy, but as she let Beca slip from her embrace to run off the stage and into the seats to yank Jesse into a passionate first kiss…

All Chloe wanted was to be him.

Chapter Text

“Do you have everything you need?”

Beca surveys the stock of supplies Chloe and she picked up at the store earlier in the week in preparation for her Christmas baking marathon.

Beca knows she’s not a whiz in the kitchen. It’s no secret that she can barely boil water to make macaroni and cheese without burning it.

However, there’s something about baking that clicks for her. Her mom taught her when she was a kid; they baked cookies together every Christmas for 11 years until Beca’s teen attitude brought it to an end.

She hadn’t set foot in a kitchen for purposes of baking since. It never felt right doing it without her mom, and when she was ready to go back to it…it was too late.

Her mother was gone.

Then last year, something happened.

She was watching “The Great British Bake-Off” in what she thought was the privacy of her room and was too busy yelling at her laptop screen about a choice a contestant had made to use vinegar instead of cream of tartar (though it was an acceptable substitute in a pinch, Beca knew it was available if they would have taken three more seconds to look for it) to notice Chloe watching her from the doorway in disbelief.

“You know what cream of tartar is?” Chloe had asked.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of like baking soda or whatever,” Beca had answered with an embarrassed shrug.

“But you can’t even make toast. How do you know that?”

Two hours later, Beca was in the kitchen with Chloe by her side making her first batch of chocolate chip cookies since she was a kid.

She had offered to make gingersnaps and Chloe had giggled excitedly, but they lacked 75% of the ingredients to make them and settled on a different classic instead.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Beca said as she cracked an egg one-handed and dropped it into the bowl.

“I feel like I’m looking at a different person,” Chloe said quietly from her spot at the counter a respectful distance from the action.

Beca asked why she was sitting abnormally far away and Chloe had almost whispered that she didn’t want to get in the way.

But it felt weird. Chloe was always stuck to her like glue. “Can you hand me the vanilla? It’s in the spice cabinet.” That would get her closer again.

“We have a spice cabinet?”

“Where the salt is, babe,” Beca said with a nod toward the cupboard next to the fridge.

If she’d kept watching, she’d have noticed Chloe blushing. “This?” Chloe asked with a smile when she returned with a little brown bottle.

“Yep.” She caught it when Chloe slid it across the counter to her. “Now stop being weird and come over here.”

“I’m not being weird.” Chloe’s voice pitched up and her head twitched. Liar. “Over where?”

Beca knocked the mixing bowl against the counter a couple times. “Here. You’re supposed to be my helper, remember?”

Beca had cried twice that evening. The first time it snuck up on her, a sudden wave of emotion that made her burst into tears over a bowl of cookie dough. Chloe had gathered her up and let her cry and didn’t ask her what was wrong or insist everything would be okay. It wasn’t until her hiccuping sobs subsided that Chloe cautiously asked what was wrong and Beca, without even second-guessing herself, told Chloe about her Christmas baking tradition with her mother who had passed away three years ago and how she hadn’t baked a single cookie since her stupid younger self thought she was too cool to bake with her mom.

The second time hadn’t overwhelmed her like the first. The second was a slow, quiet welling of tears once the whole batch of treats was cooling on the countertop and Chloe had sidled up beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tilted her head to rest against Beca’s, and said, “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

It grew within her until she turned and pressed her face to Chloe’s shoulder and all but asked to be held as she quietly cried.

She’d slept with Chloe that night.

(Not like that.)

They’d gone their separate ways for bed and after 30 minutes of tossing and turning Beca rolled out of bed, went downstairs, and tiptoed into Chloe’s room to try not to wake her.