Work Text:
Chloe pushed into the apartment with bags over both arms and an enthusiastic pep to her step. She’d gone to pick up some things for the apartment while Beca worked, and it was easier to rest her throat if she wasn’t tempted to join her.
They needed a bath mat. Desperately. It didn’t seem like an issue considering they were used to communal baths until Chloe stepped out of the shower right into a puddle of cold, wet, Beca drippings. It wasn’t enough to unnerve her in a way that mattered, but she did cringe and kick the water off of her feet like a disturbed cat.
They needed more than a bath mat, actually. They needed a toothbrush holder with separate holes. They needed a hanging shelf for their soaps and shampoos. They needed magnets for the refrigerator. They needed a salt shaker.
Living with someone, not in a dorm, required a lot more preparation than either of them expected, and yet still, every time she walked into this apartment, she couldn’t wipe the smile from her face.
She couldn’t believe she said yes. (To moving in with her, of course). There were other questions, sure, but Chloe hadn’t asked them yet. Probably wouldn’t anyway. She’d thought about it, sure, during late nights with Beca humming in her ear as she rested on her shoulder. When it was just the two of them and Chloe could finally let her face relax from all the constant smiling. When they sang together and Chloe’s deep, unusual tones mixed sweetly with Beca’s tinnier notes.
But then they moved in together, and suddenly Chloe was no longer Beca’s friend, but her roommate, and asking… would have made things too complicated, especially if she said no. Chloe shook her head out of her thoughts and continued through the apartment.
“Beca,” she called out to no answer. She probably had her headphones on and wouldn’t know if someone came in and robbed the place, but Chloe was starving, and considering that they hadn’t had a chance to go grocery shopping yet, she needed Beca to give her her half of the order before she could eat.
She set the bags down on the kitchen table to sort through later and made her way to Beca’s room. She knocked, although she wasn’t surprised that she didn’t get an answer. She pushed the door open, prepared to get her attention the hard way, but she was surprised to find that the lights were off and Beca wasn’t folded over her laptop for once.
The blinds that came with the apartment were too flimsy to block out the sunlight, so Chloe could still see well enough into the room to know that Beca was inside it.
“Beca?” Chloe said quietly as she approached the lump of blankets on the bed. She’d almost successfully burrowed herself beneath them, but her hair stubbornly draped itself over her pillow. It looked like it’d been raked through with her fingers and not kindly.
Beca didn’t answer until she sat next to her, the dip in the bed earning a low, unpleasant groan.
“You okay?”
Beca groaned again, pulling the blanket tighter around her head. Chloe gently brushed her fingers over her hair. “Migraine.”
Chloe grimaced sympathetically. “Did you take something?”
Another groan in response, but nothing else. Chloe frowned. She knew first hand that there were consequences for not properly taking care of yourself, and she also knew first hand that Beca was stubborn enough to push herself until she couldn’t stand looking at her screen anymore.
“It’ll go away eventually.” She could practically hear the argument coming from Beca’s silent bed lump, and her skin prickled just the same. Chloe opened her mouth to argue or insist, but nothing came out. She knew better than to bother. Sometimes a person just had to take matters into their own hands, and she wouldn’t let Beca put off taking care of herself for any reason.
She ran her fingers through Beca’s hair once more before getting up and leaving the bedroom to find what she needed. They hadn’t stocked the medicine cabinet yet, but Chloe kept some over the counter painkillers in her purse and by some insane stroke of luck, she found a bottle of Excedrin long forgotten at the bottom. It may be Beca’s actually, bought at a convenience store the night of one of their performances and stashed in Chloe’s bag in a rush to get ready to go on stage.
Chloe grabbed the bottle and went into the kitchen and found a cup to fill with water and a few cubes of ice because in her opinion it made it taste better and not just like something to help the medicine go down. Maybe it didn’t matter, but not putting in a little effort felt… wrong. Not even lazy, just wrong.
She found her exactly where she left her, just a sad tangle of hair sticking out from beneath her blankets, and Chloe sat on the bed next to her as gently as she could.
“Beca,” she said softly so she wouldn’t make her headache worse. Beca groaned again. “Take this.”
Beca surprisingly didn’t argue against it. She sat up on her own, keeping her blanket around her shoulders, and Chloe tried very hard not to laugh at the sight of her suddenly disheveled appearance, like Beca had fought a war with her own pillow and the winner was still undecided.
She took the medicine almost distantly and accepted the water with a slight hum in lieu of a thanks. It reminded Chloe of the painfully frustrating amount of time she spent not being allowed to talk, but she didn’t mention it.
Beca leaned over her to put the glass of water onto the table, but when she dropped back down, she surprised Chloe by folding over her lap instead of onto the bed. Chloe sat speechless for a moment (longer than that, technically, since she didn’t make a noise after either) before letting her hand rest on Beca’s head.
She smoothed out the tangles carefully so they wouldn’t snag, and when Beca’s hair was smooth again, she carefully tugged it off her scalp at the root, something she always did to herself when her own head hurt. Beca hummed softly, not the miserable groan from before, so Chloe continued. They had been good friends since the day in the showers when Chloe confronted her about her beautiful voice, but they weren’t close like this. Beca never shoved Chloe away, but she wasn’t into small touches like this, and any gesture of affection would’ve been accepted with a painful strained smile, so Chloe did her best to keep to herself.
But what if it was like this? If she could touch her whenever Beca needed, if she could help take the pain away, that would mean a lot to her. It would be something, at least, as selfish as that was to think, but if she’d already accepted that more wasn’t an option, was it so bad in the end?
Beca blew out a hot breath on her thigh as her arms circled around her, and Chloe petted her again.
“Thanks,” she said. “You make everything better.”
Chloe’s chest tightened, and she was grateful that from this point of view, Beca couldn’t see her.
“No problem,” she said, keeping her voice steady.
Her fingers webbed through Beca’s hair again, and to her surprise, she felt a soft, cold hand slip into her other, gently enough to be called an accident, except then their fingers locked and Beca drew herself in as if Chloe could, in fact, make this or anything better.
She felt herself grow very warm. She wondered if Beca could feel that and then wondered if that would be okay, if Beca wouldn’t mind that she had that effect on her, and if so, if she would keep doing it.
She let herself fall back until her back rested against the headboard, and Beca inched her way over until she was comfortably resting in her lap.
She thought then, no, she knew, that in a very small and growing way, it must have been wanted.
She stayed still for a very long time with Beca asleep with her hair twirled around Chloe’s fingers.
A very long time indeed.