Chapter Text
If Beca’s senses weren’t on high alert, she wouldn’t have recognized Chloe creeping up behind her, one breath pressed forward in anticipation of what was supposed to be a surprise attack.
But, while Beca’s senses were on high alert, the adrenaline coursing through her veins also, somehow, slowed down her reflexes just enough so that when Chloe jumped, grabbing Beca’s hips and letting out a “boo!”, Beca lept and cursed her way through the fumbling interaction until she was turned around and facing a Chloe whose forehead was now pressed against hers.
“Scared ya,” she breathed out excitedly. In the tent behind the stage, there was hardly a moment for silence. Groups around them were rehearsing their own parts or warming up, and the booming bass from the stage acted like a leftover background noise. Not to mention the fact that Amy and Aubrey were back at their pre-performance ritual of hopping down each other’s throats for over-stepping “personal space”. Amy, as always, needed it to practice her mermaid dancing. “It soothes me,” she would always say. Aubrey needed it for…well, whatever Aubrey did prior to a performance. Beca always thought she drank the blood of young and talented youth or something as intense to prepare for going on stage, but Chloe had assured her time and time again that that wasn’t true (probably). Still, when Chloe whispered, Beca could hear every syllable with such clarity she thought the redhead had acquired some supernatural ability to turn the volume of her surroundings to mute.
She then realized that it was less a superpower and more just Chloe’s eyes, which were boring into Beca’s. She was getting used to it, admittedly, but the intensity behind the gaze still made her tumble backwards for a few seconds. Chloe claimed it was cute when Beca, flustered and still, after weeks of this, uncertain, stuttered her way through these interactions.
Beca, personally, didn’t know how much more her heart could handle.
Chloe’d been putting it to the test in more ways than one as of late.
“You did not,” Beca breathed uneasily, her hands reaching for Chloe’s hips. Chloe ran a finger over the collar of Beca’s vest, humming thoughtfully. Nudging her cheek with her nose, Beca pulled Chloe’s attention back. “Can I help you?”
“I think now’s the best time to tell you the only reason I wanted you in the Bellas was for the costumes,” Chloe said with a grin. “They accentuate your best features.”
Beca rolled her eyes. “We’re about to go on stage in front of the entire world to stabilize our position in the acapella universe, and all you can think about is my Barbaras.” She stopped when she saw Chloe biting her lip to keep from laughing. “God, that’s the worst thing I’ll ever say.”
“I can probably make you say worse,” Chloe said offhandedly.
If there was one thing Beca wasn’t sure she was used to, it was the way Chloe managed to make her blush profusely without even considering it. She knew the power the was held inside her suggestive words - it was how they got here in the first place, after all - but now, because Beca knew somewhere in the recesses of her brain that she was allowed to be flustered by them, her subconscious seemed bent on giving Chloe exactly the satisfaction she expected from such side comments.
“Acapella nerd,” Beca said, “Flabbergastie enthusiast….Who knows what else you’ll make me into, Beale.”
“I’m going with wife, one day,” Chloe hummed jokingly, pulling Beca closer by the collar she was fondling. “But I’ll settle for champion of Worlds, too.”
“Here I was hoping you’d say ‘I’m not making you into anything, you’re perfect the way you are’.”
“I’m corny, Becs, but I’m not that corny,” Chloe said, smiling. Beca reached up, touching the corner of the redhead’s lip. She hated how clammy her hands were - how every part of her body was trying it’s very best to fight those backstage nerves, except for the parts that Chloe was touching. She wanted to ask Chloe to talk all the way through to their performance, because it was only when she was talking that the rest of the world - and Beca’s thoughts - seemed to quiet down.
But even she knew not to give that kind of power to the redhead.
“I like your smile,” Beca said quietly, watching the way Chloe’s grin spread at her comment. “No euphemisms needed.”
Chloe’s hand brushed up her collar now, over to her shoulder, where she rested her arm and drew lazy circles on the girl’s neck. “I kinda like your everything,” she said in return. “But I will say that, for your sake, you shouldn’t wear those jeans again. Because if you thought my euphemisms for flabbergastes and lady gardens were bad, you should hear the ones I have for the junk in your trunk.”
Beca winced, backing up slightly. “I really thought you’d be better at dirty talk.”
“Oh, you don’t think I’m good?” Chloe grinned, and Beca realized immediately the mistake she made. She detached herself from the redhead with a sigh, feeling the anxiety making it’s way back into her blood.
“We’re not doing this here,” she said, more to herself than to her, “And now. We have…a thing…”
“Worlds,” Chloe said with a reassuring nod. She still had a sparkle in her eye, though, and Beca tried her best to pretend like it wasn’t there.
“Yeah, that.”
“I’m telling you,” Chloe said, closing the distance between them again. “It’s your fault.”
“You’re objectifying me,” Beca commented under her breath, relishing in the feeling of Chloe chuckling next to her.
“Oi! Gal pals, get your eyes away from each other’s bosoms long enough to sing, eh?”
Beca backed up at the sound of Amy behind them, walking quickly to the stage. Behind her, Stacie came, slapping Beca’s ass once with a wink and a wave towards Chloe without saying much more. Emily brought up the end of the line, muttering to Beca as if in explanation, “We’re up. Like…now.”
“Right,” Beca said. There was a magnet pulling her to Chloe that she didn’t want to break apart from - a spell that kept her voice from trembling and her body from shaking too much. But Chloe broke away first, with a clap of her hands and a nod towards the Bellas standing near the stage.
“Okay, aca-bitches, let’s show them how it’s done!”
The rest of the Bellas cheered, arms around encircling each other for their last-minute pre-performance ritual. Emily stood next to her mom, grinning, while Aubrey took helm between Amy and Stacie, her smile wider than Beca had ever seen it through the year she worked with her. Chloe, of course, was tucked into Beca’s side, swaying with the wave of the other women her arm keeping Beca as grounded as she could manage throughout the cheer. When they broke apart, clapping and whooping, Chloe held the hem of Beca’s shirt, pulling her towards her for an extra moment.
Beca spun around to face Chloe, hands immediately finding purchase on the redhead’s cheeks. “Is it super cheesy if I say I already won?” Chloe asked, her eyes flitting momentarily to Beca’s lips.
“You first hit on me by calling my boobs flabbergasties, Chlo,” Beca said.
“Okay, that was so not the first time, but okay,” Chloe conceded. She leaned in, pressing her lips against Beca’s and pulling her closer by tugging lightly at her hair. When they pulled away, Beca was smiling.
“Shit,” she said, and Chloe, who was shooting a hurried look at the Bellas who were filing onto the stage, looked quickly at Beca with furrowed eyebrows of concern. “I just kinda realized we missed a great opportunity.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bellas,” Beca said, as if that explained everything. Her hand was in Chloe’s, and they were already headed up the few steps that led to the stage. The audience’s applause was really more of a roar at this point, and with the sun having already set, the lights were hot against their faces. Chloe stopped just long enough to address Beca.
“Is now the best time to be cryptic?”
“Bellas,” Beca said again, her smile wide. “For a euphemism! We can call them Bellas!”
“Oh my God,” Chloe whined. She took her place beside Beca for the opening, refusing to let go of the other girl’s hand until the first hand motions were made. “You are such a nerd.”
She leaned towards Beca, then, just as the lights turned on on Beca’s face, one singular spotlight to signal the beginning of their song. “And I kinda sorta love it a lot.”
Beca breathed out a smile, shaking her head in response before lifting her hand from Chloe’s, wiping it on the side of her jeans, and starting with a singular clap, knowing that when she looked up to the crowd, or when she started to sing, or when the choreography picked up, she’d still know where exactly Chloe was on stage.
Next to her. Without a doubt.
And, yeah, while now wasn’t the right time to be thinking this, she did realize she forgot to say something to Chloe as the hand motions picked up and she had to face the redhead to high five her.
The costumes were, very clearly, not just flattering on Beca. Because Chloe’s flabbergasties were out of this world, too.
(Some might say life-changing, actually. “Some” being a Ms. Beca Mitchell, a very much no longer sexually confused, very much no longer single lady who was standing in front of the entire world singing acapella because one very naked pair of flabbergasties - with a face, of course, and a very nice voice, and a lot of other redeeming feautres - crashed into her shower one night.)