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Red. Red was all Beca could see, soft lips pressed against hers was all she felt, a faint scent of pomegranates surrounded her.
Holy shit, she was kissing Chloe.
It was surreal; it made Beca feel like listening to good music did, Fizzing Whizzbees, sunny afternoons by the lake, flying and sips of firewhiskey all at once.
She didn't know why it took her so long to do it. All she knew was that she didn't want to stop.
And they probably wouldn't have stopped hadn't Stacie bumped on Beca's back as she landed, successfully dislodging them.
“Captain Smalls!” she yelled. “We won!”
“Yeah,” Beca was still too dazed to say anything else, making Chloe giggle.
That girl and her fucking giggles were going to kill Beca one of these days.
Stacie eyed them suspiciously as the rest of the team made their way to where they were. Beca just blushed and let her team embrace her as they celebrated their victory.
She would have plenty of time to talk to Chloe afterward.
Right?
//
Beca managed to get away from her team long enough to go to the prefect's bathroom for a nice, hot shower. Perhaps the only perk of being captain she readily accepted.
They had carried her over their shoulders to the locker room, the Cup firmly in her grasp, yelling and cheering about this being the greatest moment of their lives.
Stacie said she was going to make a quick pit stop by the girls’ dorm to grab a package of Exploding Whizzpoppers for the party. Jessica and Ashley were in charge of charming the kitchen elves to bring some food up to the Ravenclaw tower.
The rest of the team was in charge of getting people ready for the party, Ravenclaws or not. But Beca's mind was elsewhere, so she had managed to escape by playing the captain card and making a beeline for the prefect’s bathroom.
She needed time to think.
Beca couldn't believe she had done it. She really couldn't believe she had actually kissed her best friend.
It felt like something out of a dream as if coming out from under a spell.
Wait… what if it had been a spell? A heat of the moment thing? What if Chloe just went along to make Beca happy?
Oh Merlin, what if she had drunk a love potion and was under its influence?
By the time she finished her shower, Beca had worked herself into a loophole of alternatives that only made her sad and anxious. She wanted to go back to the stadium and fly her bad mood off, but she was too exhausted. Going to bed and not think about Chloe would have to do.
Except nothing in her life could be that easy.
“Whoomp!”
There was a flash of red as Beca was exiting the bathroom and the next thing she knew she and Chloe were a heaped mess on the floor.
“Dude!”
“I'm so sorry!” Chloe exclaimed, bright blue eyes wide from beneath her.
Gulping nervously at this sight of those eyes and the strong smell of pomegranate surrounding them — mixed with the soft smell from Beca's mint shampoo — Beca got up and helped her best friend up too.
“What are you doing here?” Beca asked after an awkward moment of silence.
She hated this feeling. It made her feel like eleven-year-old Beca all over again and that wasn't something she was proud of.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Chloe said shyly, shrugging. “About what happened.”
“Do we have to?” Beca grimaced. “Can’t we pretend it never happened?”
Avoidance. Avoidance was good, right?
“Is that really what you want?”
Beca would have stuck with it, she really would have, if Chloe hadn’t been using that soft tone that surely performed some wandless magic on her cold heart, softening it away.
She also made the mistake of making direct eye contact with the redhead and seeing those soulful blue eyes with the unmistakable clearness brought on by tears made her back down.
“Uh… no?” Beca cringed because her awkwardness was hitting a whole new level here. “Look, I suck at this, okay, Chlo? I know that, you know that, so just put me out of my misery.”
Oh, so now angry, defensive Beca was making an appearance. Maybe this really was her first year all over again.
“What misery?” Chloe asked indignantly. “You didn't look miserable when we were kissing!”
“And that was clearly a mistake —”
“Stop saying kissing me was a mistake and that you want to forget it!” Chloe exclaimed angrily, making a jerking motion with her wand and sending red sparks flying all over the place. Beca was shocked, she didn't think she had ever seen Chloe this angry before.
She opened her mouth to retort, but Chloe seemed to be on a mission now and wouldn't let her.
“No! You had your chance and you blew it, now it's my turn!”
Beca would have been hurt if the fiery look on Chloe's face wasn't so mesmerizing.
She watched as Chloe took several deep, calming breaths before speaking again, which was probably a good thing.
“You were jealous of Tom, weren't you?” she spoke lowly as if measuring her words.
Beca grimaced, stuffing her hands in her robe’s pockets and avoiding eye contact.
She could go a lot of ways about this line of questioning — one, she could deny it and fake it until she made it, pretending that kissing Chloe was just a lapse in her actions and that it surely wouldn't happen again because friends didn't go around making out with each other.
Yeah, right. Like that was believable.
Or, two, she could put on her big girl robes and face Chloe and tell her yes, she was fucking jealous of Tom and no, she didn't regret kissing her because it made her feel like every single good feeling she had ever experienced and it wasn't something she ever wanted to stop now that she knew how it felt.
Which one was it going to be?
In a split second, she knew, after gathering up all of her courage and looking up into Chloe's soulful blue eyes. As usual, they made her do things she normally wouldn't have. Like talking truthfully about her feelings.
“I… yes,” she said mournful, sulking. “How could I not? He's always around, asking you out, making you laugh and — and, you're you! You're too nice, so easy to… to…”
“Yeah?” the hopeful lit on Chloe's voice was enough to tug at Beca's heart and make her keep going.
“You're so easy to fall for, Chlo,” Beca admitted softly, blushing. “And if he fell for you, I never stood a chance in hell now, did I?”
She waited for the awkwardness that ensued whenever someone shared something deep and emotional, but it never came.
“Becs…” Chloe exhaled, invading Beca's personal space as was her costume. “Do you know why I went down to the locker room before the game today?”
“To wish me good luck?” as it had become her costume, Beca gravitated towards Chloe's touch whenever they were close together like this.
“That too,” Chloe smiled, that same fond smile she always had whenever her tiny best friend was being particularly obtuse. “But also, and mainly so, to try and tell you that it was never a competition. There was never a choice for me, Beca.”
“There wasn't it?” Beca was so lost on Chloe's eyes that she didn't notice her traitor hands were settling on the other girl's hips, pulling her impossibly closer.
“It never mattered if Tom fell for me or not because I could never reciprocate his feelings,” she said with a tiny smile, as if preparing to say what she wanted all along. “How could I have fallen for him when I was already head over heels for you?”
If Beca could see the look on her face, she would have probably laughed because her stunned expression was hilarious.
“You… you're falling for me?” she asked dumbly.
“You’re not listening to me, you tiny idiot. I already did. For quite a while now,” Chloe said easily, her usual bright smile in place. “It just took you a while to catch up.”
There was a pause in which Beca's brain and her mouth finally caught up with each other.
“Oh, shut up,” Beca blushed, twitching her hands and that was when she noticed how tightly she was holding Chloe's waist.
Before she could move them away, though, Chloe looped her arms through the brunette’s shoulders to keep her in place.
“Mind if we kiss again now? We have a lot of catching up to do, thanks to you.”
And if this time she shut Chloe up with a kiss, well, she didn't hear the redhead complaining.
//
Beca also didn't hear a complaint when later that day, at the party, after a couple of sips of firewhiskey from the bottle that was surreptitiously being passed around and feeling more than a little brave — maybe it had something to do with the alcohol, maybe it was the way Chloe kept looking at her, pulling her closer every time and making Beca feel like she could do whatever she wanted so as long as Chloe stayed by her side — she whispered in Chloe's ear about being her girlfriend.
She only received a giggled yes and some more kisses. She could really get used to this.