Work Text:
So, this is love.
It took Chloe exactly 16 years of life, a death-defying mission or two through time, and a friendship with the most daring, determined, and good-hearted girl she ever met to understand why her parents liked rubbing how in love they were in everyone’s faces. Because now she loved someone too, and she kinda wanted to make it everyone’s business.
She just had to make it Red’s business too, first.
Chloe tilted her head to the side, and there she was, laying down right across from her. They were on the roof of the tallest spire in Auradon Prep. Once everything had settled back to normal, Red decided that she missed scaling castle walls and hopping around ledges that shouldn’t be hopped around. And Chloe decided that she didn’t wanna miss out on anything that Red liked to do, so she ignored her gut instinct of ‘it’s against the rules!’ and followed her across every rooftop until they found the perfect star-gazing outpost.
Red’s eyes were tracing every constellation in the sky, and Chloe’s eyes were tracing every feature of her face, wondering if Red would mind if she kissed each and every one of them.
It was kinda funny how easily she let these thoughts come to her now. When they first started invading her mind, like some unwanted intruders, Chloe would feel her whole body wash over with horrible guilt. She’d tear her eyes away from Red’s lips to stare down at her mom’s glass shoes instead and force herself to think about anything else— to consider her future .
Because Chloe was destined for love, just like her mom and dad’s. It’s the thing that, well, ‘made life divine’. Her parents’s love is what changed their entire lives for the better, that’s the sort of thing Chloe was waiting for. A single person that she’d chase down throughout an entire kingdom just to see again, or sacrifice her one night of freedom to talk to, someone who was… a boy.
But then Red wanted to steal the cookbook, and then Chloe spoke to her mother— the younger version of her— and it was almost like Ella was telling her that choosing Red was the right choice. Almost . And then staving off those overwhelming feelings that Red was everything she ever wanted was basically impossible, because when she stared down at her shoes to think hard about what they represented, they weren’t those glass shoes anymore. They were the ones that Red gave her instead— and it was almost like the universe was telling her that choosing Red was the only choice.
Chloe sighed, and Red’s gaze snapped towards her, catching her right in the act of her open staring.
“What?”
“Just… looking.” She muttered lamely. Yeah, that wasn’t very convincing. The moon was hanging directly over them, bathing Red in a light blue glow, and Chloe smirked. “Hey, you’re wearing my color now!”
“Huh?” Red looked down at her outfit in panic.
“I meant cuz of the moon,” she snickered, pointing up to it. “It’s making you look blue.”
Red sighed in relief, clutching her chest. “Holy hearts, I thought I got cursed or something! Can you even imagine? Me in blue? ” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.
Chloe frowned. “I like blue!”
“Clearly.” Red snorted, rolling her eyes and tucking her arms under her head. “Red’s way better!”
“You don’t have to like it just because it’s your name, you know.”
“Right, can you imagine how we’d look then? A ‘Red’ who doesn’t like red and a ‘Charming’ who isn’t charming.” She grinned at her mischievously.
“I— I can be charming!” Chloe said defiantly, snapping straight upright.
“Nahhh, you’re too…” Red trailed off, waving her hand around vaguely. “You. But I like that, you don’t need to be charming, you’d end up with too many friends and then I won’t get to keep you all to myself.”
Chloe’s face flushed as she crossed her arms. “You seriously have to work on your compliments… Was that even a compliment?”
Red shrugged. “Not really, it’s just how I feel. If I were to compliment you, I’d say something about, like, how pretty you look right now, or how cool it is that you can keep up with me when we’re hopping across roofs, or if I said that even if I could go back in time and pick someone to go with me on that whole adventure, I would’ve still picked you…” She trailed off, her eyes slowly coming down to look at Chloe's hand, resting in the space between them. Chloe followed her gaze, sucking in a quick breath when Red reached forward, agonizingly slow, to lace their fingers together. “Or… if I said that, maybe, I could kinda grow to like blue on me.”
Chloe's heart beat impossibly loud in her ear. “Red, I—”
“Hold up, wait, me first.” She cut her off, leaning up and pressing a finger to Chloe's lips to silence her. “You should know that I don't mean any of that in a friend way.”
Chloe frowned.
“I mean… we are friends.” Red huffed, “but I'm saying all this cuz I like you.”
Chloe blinked.
“Like like you. In a kissing way.”
Chloe gasped, reaching up to snatch Red’s finger away from her mouth and grasping both her hands tightly.
“I LOVE YOU TOO!” She declared.
“Woah… ‘L’ word already?” Red laughed nervously.
“YES! Oh, gosh, you have no idea how long I've been wanting to say it!” Chloe gushed, throwing her arms around Red and tackling her back to the ground. “Ow.”
“Oof!”
“Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just— I'm so happy I could—!”
“Don't sing about it,” Red snickered, grabbing Chloe's face in her hands and tilting it towards her own. “But, you could kiss me about it.”
Chloe smashed their faces together in an instant, not wanting to wait a second past the permission that was given her. She was doing a terrible job at the whole kissing thing, she knew it too, but she couldn’t help it! Every moment that their lips were pressed together made her break out into a smile too wide to contain and had her giggling happily so that each kiss never lasted for longer than a single touch.
“Geez, princess, can you let me enjoy this for a second? Feels like I’m trying to kiss the White Rabbit…” Red snickered, holding her face firmly in place.
“I’m sorry! I’m just…” Chloe’s brows suddenly furrowed and she bumped Red’s shoulder with her fist. “Actually, I’m kind of mad at you! I was going to confess first before you cut me off— which is rude, by the way!”
Red rolled her eyes. “Too bad! You snooze, you lose. Should’ve just cut me off back, but you’re too much of a goody-goody for that, right?”
Chloe glared at her, and Red threw her head back and laughed.
“You’re, like, the meanest girlfriend ever. You’re supposed to be nicer to me now!” She pouted.
“Woah, am I your girlfriend already?” Red replied, tucking a strand of Chloe’s hair away from her face.
“Duh, we just confessed, what else would we be?”
Red shrugged, looking past Chloe’s shoulder and towards the night sky. “I dunno… friends who are also in love with each other?”
Chloe scoffed. “We were already that before we confessed.”
“Right…” Red huffed out a laugh. “Well, if I’m the meanest girlfriend ever then you’re the know-it-all-iest girlfriend ever.”
“That’s not even a word!” Chloe protested.
“See? Know-it-all.”
Chloe’s head dropped into Red’s chest. “Oh my fairy godmother….”
“Okay! Okay, stop moping, kisses make everything better for princesses right? Let me kiss you, without you breaking it off every second this time.” Red tugged her head up, and Chloe complied, her grumbling significantly less effective considering she was struggling not to break out into a smile again.
Red kissed her, and it was perfect. It was like a thousand of the little heart-confetti explosives she liked to throw had been set off in Chloe’s chest, propelling her into the sky until she was up among those stars Red had climbed up so high to look at. But, in her own way, Red made Chloe feel prettier, bigger, and brighter than all of those stars combined. That’s what true love was all about, Chloe just knew it, Red was the one she was meant to be with all along, there hadn’t been a reason to hold back at all!
Except…
Red pulled out of the kiss with a satisfied smile, her eyes opening slowly to meet Chloe’s devastated expression.
“What the spades… Was it that bad?!”
“This is TERRIBLE!” Chloe exclaimed.
Red frowned, her hands falling away from Chloe’s face to cross over each other. “Well, you’re not exactly great at it either! It’s not like I had a lot of options back in Wonderland, y’know!"
“N- no! Oh my gosh, that’s not what I meant at all!” Chloe stammered out in panic, suddenly remembering that Red didn’t, actually, live in her mind just because she thought about her all the time and that she seriously needed to explain herself instead of just shouting out things like that. “The kissing was— that was amazing, I get why Snow White and Aurora woke up from something like that, it was great!”
Red stifled a self-satisfied smirk, pushing herself up into a better-seated position. “But…?”
“But… I just realized I have to tell my mom and dad about this.” Chloe groaned, burying her face in her hands and falling against Red’s shoulder. “Ugh, this is the worst.”
“Oh…” Red gave her a flat look. “Is that it?”
“What?! What do you mean ‘is that it’?” She exclaimed. “That’s a huge deal! I’m, like, the first princess in history to be a lesbian!”
Red glanced at her sideways. “Wasn’t Elsa supposed to be a lesbian?”
“Y’know the details aren’t really clear on that…” Chloe muttered. “But— but regardless, she gave up the crown to her sister , who likes boys! This is different!”
“Well…” Red huffed. “Your parents are Cinderella and Prince Charming, it’s not like they’re gonna kill you or anything, just tell them.”
“It’s not that easy.” Chloe laughed incredulously.
“I mean, my mom chops people’s heads off when she gets mad. I think you and the Charmings are gonna be alright,” she said dismissively.
The air between them was tense with silence for a moment. A thousand excuses were on the tip of Chloe’s tongue. Just because her parents were nice, it didn’t mean that telling them about this wasn’t going to be scary! They expected certain things from her, they gave her those shoes because she was the perfect daughter. She never did anything outside of their approval in her entire life!
Well, except for the time travel adventure, but that started off as an accident, and she did everything right through the entire thing, so that didn’t count!
Telling them that she wasn’t going to be the sort of queen that had a king at her side… the idea of disappointing them sent chills up and down her spine and made hot tears burn in the back of her eyes. How could she do that to them? After all the times they expressed how much it meant to them that she was perfect?
Red cleared her throat, breaking Chloe out of her thoughts.
“Emphasis on ‘I’ think you’re gonna be alright. But, even if not…” She trailed off, her hand coming to rest on Chloe’s as she gave her a tight, reassuring smile. “I’m here for you, Chloe. And I lo… I like you. A lot.
Chloe smiled back, sniffling back her tears and lacing their fingers together.
“Thanks. I love you too.”