Work Text:
Filming a music video is everything Emily had dreamed of and also absolutely nothing like she’d imagined.
The jam-packed filming schedule, the pretentious director, the overworked AD, and the polite but largely indifferent tech crew are all things she’d expected. It’s a small but well-oiled team and Emily feels like she lucked out with this group.
But the late nights, early mornings, and short breaks are more intense than what she would consider necessary for something as low-scale as a music video. They have five sets in four different locations, one of them a 2-hour drive to some tiny town in the suburbs, and less than four days to film it all — it’s no wonder their AD looks so stressed out.
Emily rolls with it, though, because this is all for her. No matter how exhausting it is to do multiple takes of completely dialogue-less scenes because the director didn’t think they “had the right vibe” or whatever, that one thought powers Emily through the day: it’s her music video.
And it’s definitely got some perks. The beautifully constructed sets. The fun and cheesy script. Dramatically lip synching to her own song in front of the cameras. The fun props. The craft services table. Joking around with her co-star.
Her hot co-star.
Jake Arlen is another solo artist at the label, a tall, lean, and handsome guy with nice eyes and a laid-back personality. They’re in similar boats; he’d only just kicked off his career a year ago, still as green as Emily when it comes to all of this production shenanigans.
Emily likes Jake a lot more than she thought she would. He’s her pretend lover after all, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t already have a preference for someone else — someone much less male and much shorter. But he’s friendly and courteous and kind of goofy but not in an overly immature way. More like he doesn’t let anything affect his permanently good mood. He’s easy to fake a romance with on set and easy to talk to off the set during their breaks.
Because they have one common thread tying them together.
“I work with Beca and Theo, too,” he tells her during their introductions.
“Oh!” Emily breaks into a smile. Which is a pretty lame and childish reaction, but she’s too excited to care. “That’s awesome! We’re actually friends. Me and Beca. Beca and I. Since college. And now roommates. And co-workers. Wow, that’s a lot of things she is…is to m-me,” Emily stumbles, losing all coherence and sentence structure.
Jake smiles and continues on like Emily didn’t just make a total fool of herself. So yeah, she likes him.
And it’s a good thing too, considering how insane their schedule is for the next few days.
The video itself is lighthearted and cutesy, a montage of Emily’s and Jake’s fictional relationship culminating in an impromptu city hall elopement. They’d kicked off the first day with the diner scene, their over-the-top love drunk act serving as a fantastic ice breaker for two people who’ve never done any sort of acting in their lives. Focusing on Jake’s charming smile, Emily finds it easy to pretend she’s smitten.
Behind the scenes, though, is a very different, very unromantic story: largely just chaos and frazzlement and a general sense of trying to meet a midnight deadline. Emily follows along to any direction she’s given by the crew without question, eager to avoid adding to the stress or being labeled “difficult to work with” in any way whatsoever.
“Honestly? This is kind of like working with Beca,” Jake says during one of their breaks. “You make one mistake and suddenly you’re the worst person I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with.”
“She did not say that,” Emily gasps.
“Not to me.” He shrugs. “It might’ve been to Theo. Might’ve been about her lunch order. Generally, I try to stay out of her way, but she always finds some thing to criticize,” he says, smiling to himself even though what he’s saying isn’t humorous. “What, she’s never made you feel like an incompetent dumbass?” he jokes.
“I told you, we’re friends,” Emily says. “We actually sang together in an a cappella group in college.”
Jake laughs himself hoarse. “Wait, Beca? The Beca Mitchell was part of an a cappella group?”
“The Barden Bellas. Hey! We won national championships like, a bunch of times!” Emily shoves at his arm. “Stop laughing!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “You, I can see in an a cappella group. But her?”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” she shoots back, laughing along.
It’s like bantering with a sibling, the way they can comfortably tease and make fun of each other. With Beca stuck back in the city for the first few days of filming and no one else from the label accompanying her, Emily could use a friendly presence.
As the days flash by and they race through two more locations, she finds herself relying more and more on Jake’s unwavering upbeat attitude. Their second day is filled with outdoor takes, a lot of which is affected by the position of the sun and the shadows it casts. Their third day brings them to a quaint city hall in the middle of the suburbs, the scene where their characters spontaneously elope.
By the time their final day rolls around and they arrive at the beautiful private beach with picturesque waves rolling onto the sand, Emily feels like she’s on the last dregs of her consciousness. And somehow Jake is still the same, positive, pleasant, polite man they’d started this journey with, making Emily look like a disheveled and ornery hag in comparison.
Beca’s supposed to visit the set today. And Emily’s supposed to be excited; after their shoot wraps, they have plans to grab a late lunch on the boardwalk and hang out before heading back to the city. A date. It’s basically a date.
But god, Emily doesn’t have the energy to even be excited about that.
They flop down on the sand and look out towards the ocean as the tech crew sets up their equipment. Their breaks have been a lot more quiet recently, both of them too exhausted to make conversation.
“Okay, but she’s actually really nice,” Emily says tiredly out of the blue, her third or fourth attempt at trying to convince him that Beca’s just Like That. They both somehow always circle back to this topic; she knows Jake understands without clarification. “Just, you know, maybe not to everyone. It might take a while, but she warms up to you.”
“Does she?” he asks, grinning. “I don’t think she ‘warms up’ to anyone.” Jake leans back to lie down on the sand, a picture of pure relaxation. “She just has a soft spot for you, Em.”
Emily opens her mouth. Then closes it.
For some reason, she’s never thought of that way. She knows Beca’s nicer to her, always patient and always kind even when she’s teasing or — especially lately — flirting and sending mixed signals. But Emily’s never considered it in the context of all the other people in Beca’s life, like her coworkers, her clients…even the other Bellas.
She knows Beca can be soft; that’s precisely what Emily’s been trying to convince Jake to see. She knows Beca can be soft, but has she been anything else with Emily? Upset? Indifferent? Annoyed?
They’ve been roommates and coworkers for almost a year now and Emily can’t recall a single argument.
And this is coming from Jake, someone she’d met only a few days ago, someone who’s only ever known the no-nonsense Beca with the brutal honesty and the short temper. There are so many more sides to her that Emily’s gotten to know, so many other versions of Beca she’s been drowning in.
The bustling domestic side of Beca, humming along to Emily’s newest single, chopping up vegetables with unexpected skill to whip up dinner for them both.
The dedicated workaholic side of Beca, headphones clamped firmly over her ears, hunched over a laptop, eyes either glazed over to focus on the music or sharpened onto her screen to fix it.
The achingly sweet side of Beca, smiling over her morning coffee as she settles down on the couch and shoves her cold toes under Emily’s thigh for warmth.
Emily looks out at the thunderous waves, finally connecting a visual to how Beca’s been making her feel these past few months. The delirious part of her brain urges her to get up, to walk to the water, to swim out to the middle of the ocean, to get a firsthand feel for the way she’s been emotionally tossed around whenever she thinks about Beca.
“Mad respect, though, in any case,” Jake concludes. “She’s super talented and doesn’t take shit from anyone.”
“I think I’m in love with her,” Emily blurts out completely unprompted.
Jake chuckles, mostly to himself, but then catches the shell-shocked look on Emily’s face. His smile drops. “Oh, like. For real?”
“Y-…Yeah,” she chokes out. “For real.”
“Oh,” he says again, blinking rapidly. “Hm. Wow.”
Her mouth goes dry with regret. Why did she just say that? Why!
It has to be the sleep deprivation loopiness. She’d never admit to something like that to a virtual stranger in any other circumstance. This is just as bad as the time she’d thoughtlessly asked Beca to record a freaking love song duet with her.
Emily needs a manual on how to come out like a normal person.
She’s panicking and scrambling to come up with some kind of damage control when Jake lets out a long hum of contemplation. “Huh. Okay.” He elbows her arm. “You like ‘em bossy, huh?”
“Wh-what!” Emily squeaks. “She’s not bossy!”
“You’re leading a one-woman campaign, you know that? Admirable. Pointless, but admirable.” He brushes the sand off of his hands and shoots her a smile. “‘In love,’ huh?”
“Ugh. I need a ‘recall’ button for all the dumb things I say,” Emily groans. “Like when you hit send on an email too soon and you don’t want anyone to see your half-written message.”
“That button never works on emails anyway,” Jake points out.
“Fair point.” She glances at him. He really is a genuinely good person. “Thanks for not being weird about this. And sorry that I have like, no filter right now.”
“All cool, you don’t have to apologize,” he laughs. “It kind of explains a lot. Not that I didn’t enjoy our debates about Beca Mitchell’s personality, but I was starting to wonder why she’s all we ever talk about.”
“God,” Emily whispers, burying her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about her. Ahh, no! That was bad too, recall, recall!”
“Aw, you’re soft for her! Truly a match made in heaven.”
“Stop,” Emily begs.
They’re playfully shoving at each other when Pam, their AD, a harried-looking young woman with approximately 500 lanyards around her neck, approaches them. Emily assumes the setup is ready and moves to get up, but Pam holds up a hand to stop her.
“So...We have a problem,” she starts off.
Emily silently prays that it’s an equipment malfunction or a broken set piece. She’s tired and still reeling from her unplanned confession. She’s willing to take anything that’ll delay their start time by just a few more minutes.
“Remember that marriage license you guys signed for the city hall scene yesterday?” Pam asks.
Emily exchanges a look with Jake, confused. “Yes?”
Pam takes a deep breath and rubs at her temples. She looks as tired as Emily feels, except she doesn’t have a thick layer of makeup to cover it all up. “Okay. Well, it was…real. As in, uh. Not fake.” She makes direct eye contact with Emily. “It was a real license and a real county clerk filed and approved it.”
They stare at Pam. She stares back at them.
“Wait, what?” Emily and Jake exclaim simultaneously. Jake adds a “oh, jinx” and Emily slaps his arm. “Filed and approved as in…? As in we’re…” she trails off, gesturing violently between her and Jake.
“Legally, yes. You two are married.”
“Oh,” Emily says.
“Shit,” Jake adds helpfully.
So it’s not an equipment malfunction, but it sure does a lot to short-circuit Emily’s brain into a malfunction of her own.
Dread pulls Emily in a dozen different directions as they start filming. Beca’s supposed to be here any minute now, and Emily has successfully 1. realized she might actually be in love with Beca, 2. confessed said realization to her co-star, and 3. discovered she’s legally married to said co-star.
And it’s not even 10am.
There’s really no better timing for a meltdown, but apparently the cameras don’t wait for anyone. All Emily can hope for as she runs barefoot along water with Jake is that her smile doesn’t look too forced, that the anticipation bubbling in her stomach isn’t showing on her face, that Beca won’t arrive until after they finish filming.
She doesn’t know how she’ll broach the topic, but at the very least, Emily wants to be the one to break the whole Accidentally-Married-My-Co-Star news to her. Maybe it’ll put a damper on their boardwalk lunch (date?), but maybe not! Maybe Beca’ll be able to treat it as a mild inconvenience like Emily and Jake had. Maybe she’ll laugh it off.
It was just an accident. It’s just paperwork. Right? Something to joke about in a few days once they straighten out the annulment. Hopefully. Yet another thing for Emily to hope for.
But all of those hopes are swiftly crushed because Beca arrives before they finish filming and Emily’s not the one to break the news to her.
Panic hits her full force when they finally pause for a break and she sees Beca by the craft services table, deep in conversation with Pam, looking confused and worried and half-skeptic. They’re too far away for Emily to hear what they’re talking about, but judging by Beca’s expressions and Pam’s defeated body language, she can kind of guess it’s about her.
As if sensing Emily’s anxiety, Beca suddenly looks over. Her face is unreadable as she nods to Pam and starts heading over; Emily tampers down the chaotic turmoil of emotions raging around her half-dead brain and forces a smile.
Beca doesn’t return it.
“Um,” she says as she approaches. Just from that one syllable, Emily can tell that she definitely does not find any of this remotely funny. “Am I getting punked? Did you really sign a license and get married?”
“Y-yeah. But it was an accident!”
Beca reels back, mouth falling open with disbelief like Emily insulted her. “Uh. Accident? How the fuck do you sign a license on accident?”
Emily tries to find the words to explain without sounding like a total idiot. But she’s tired and thoughts aren’t stringing together in her brain so she comes out with, “I just thought it was a very convincing prop.”
“Why would you sign something like that with your real signature?”
“I don’t know! We were just told to, so I did! It was supposed to be this fun social media teaser and an easter egg or something,” Emily groans. She’s so tired. “There’s like, a 2-second shot of it in the video and if you pause at the right moment, you’d be able to see our actual names on it. It was supposed to create speculation!”
“And, what, an actual judge signed that thing too?”
“Well, no. Our set producer is ordained, so…” Emily shrugs helplessly. “Honestly it’s kind of amazing how so many coincidences lined up to make this happen.”
“Dude, how are you being so cavalier about this? This is serious shit!” Beca says harshly. Her tone bites at Emily and it takes considerable effort not to flinch. Wryly, she thinks back to Jake teasing her about never having been snapped at by Beca Mitchell.
What, she’s never made you feel like an incompetent dumbass?
“I didn’t know! I really didn’t! None of us did, okay?”
She’s so, so, so tired. It’s reaching a point where Emily doesn’t know what’s happening or why Beca’s yelling at her and she feels tears of frustration and exhaustion burning at her eyes. Everything went so wrong so fast. How? She was just doing what she was told. Just. Blindly following instructions.
Okay, so Beca makes a fair point: Emily was an idiot to sign that thing. In her defense, she wasn’t thinking clearly! She just needs a nap. A five minute nap. And all of this will magically go away.
“We’re getting it annulled tomorrow,” Emily says warily. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should’ve been more careful.”
The tension visibly leaves Beca’s shoulders at Emily’s apology. Her expression softens a bit, gaze flickering over Emily’s exhausted face; she figures not even makeup can hide the bags under her eyes at this point. Beca opens her mouth, maybe for an apology or a reassurance that everything’ll be okay.
Jake picks the worst time to make his entrance.
There’s a slight tug on Emily’s arm from behind and she doesn’t have an ounce of energy left in her body to resist it. She lets Jake pull her in, his arms circling around her waist to lift her easily off her feet. “Hello, my darling wife,” he gushes.
At the mention of wife, Emily’s sleep-addled brain snaps to attention and realizes just how many things are going wrong right now. Jake, leaning into the marriage mishap and pretending to act in love off the set. Emily, letting him do so without any hint of resistance. Beca, watching this unfold right in front of her.
And Emily glances over just in time to see it, sees the switch in Beca’s head flip from Annoyed Concern to Outright Rage.
She taps frantically at Jake’s arm, mentally screaming at him to put her down, that this is not the time to be joking about this, that he needs to see who he’d snatched her away from. Taking her cue but certainly not fast enough, Jake turns to lock eyes with Beca.
He drops Emily so fast and so abruptly that he might as well have thrown her to the ground.
“Ah,” he says, voice cracking. “Beca. Hi.”
Emily stumbles drunkenly to regain her balance, the loose sand under her feet not helping. Beca glares at Jake with enough ferocity to burn holes through his wavering smile. Tension settles in the air, heavy and thick and, on Beca’s end, laced with animosity.
“Uh…I-I believe you guys have met,” Emily says, as if anything she says at this point will patch up the immense awkwardness of the situation. “You guys…work? Together? R-right?”
Neither of them acknowledge her pathetic attempt at neutrality.
“Nice of you to drop by,” Jake says, forcing a light and casual tone while throwing a friendly arm around Emily’s shoulders. “This one’s been trying to convince me —”
Beca doesn’t even wait for him to finish. “Back off, Arlen,” she snaps, throwing off Jake’s arm and putting herself firmly between him and Emily. His hands immediately go up in a gesture of unashamed surrender. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”
“Ohhhkay. Okay. Let’s just.” Emily hesitates on the phrase chill out, knowing that it’ll rile Beca up even more. “Let’s…take a step back?”
Jake, his hands still raised, takes a gigantic step backwards. Beca doesn’t move an inch.
“Beca,” Emily pleads, touching a hand to her shoulder. It’s as rigid as stone. “Come on, this isn’t Jake’s fault either.”
Beca whirls on her with a surprising amount of fire in her eyes. “Well, great. Great! That’s great. We’re all just — we’re all just blameless here, aren’t we? Awesome.”
It’s a look Emily’s only seen once before, back when Beca was having a stress-induced meltdown at Aubrey’s teambuilding camp all those years ago. Her eyes sharp and unforgiving. Her face twisted with anger. Her tone cold and bitterly sarcastic.
She’d never dreamed of being on the receiving end of this kind of fury.
To think that it was only this morning that she’d sat with Jake not fifty feet away, blurting out her feelings for the girl now housing so much negative energy that Emily can practically see thunder and lightning going off above her head.
Emily flinches as her and Jake’s names are suddenly called through the megaphone, their short break drawing to an end.
“Fine,” Beca says, as if ending an argument. “That’s…yeah. Fine.” Then, to Emily, “I’ll see you back home.”
“Wh-…wait, what about…”
But Beca’s already storming off, the angry cloud around her so impermeable and intense that Emily doesn’t dare try to follow her and make it any worse.
“…lunch,” she finishes with a sigh, guilt and exhaustion suffocating her in a completely new and uninvited way.