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Beca Mitchell was miserable.
Since starting at Barden University, she hadn’t wanted to be there, she’d made that perfectly clear from the beginning, only sticking it out to spite her dad and prove him wrong. But then she went and met redhead made of sunshine and hypnotically blue eyes, and all of a sudden she was part of an acapella group, performing alongside them and winning the ICCA championships, dating a semi-decent guy, and all in all actually enjoying life at Barden. To be honest it kind of pissed her off to prove her dad right, but the Bellas even made that sting a little less.
Especially Chloe.
God damn Chloe Beale making Beca have big feelings about her life. About her. She felt bad for Jesse in all honesty, she really did think she had romantic feelings for him at first, that she loved him, and she did. Just, like a brother and not as a romantic partner. He’d been hurt when she broke up with him, but he’d also been cool about it when she told him it was because she was pretty sure she was gay, telling her if she ever needed someone to back up her up against a homophobe to just call him.
She’d been single for months now, spending the summer figuring herself out and taking the time to make sure she was actually comfortable with where her life was going right now. She was; she was happy to stay at Barden, happy to keep performing with the Bellas, and more than happy to be living in this former sorority house with all of them. What she wasn’t happy about was Chloe’s parade of boyfriends and one-night stands.
She wasn’t slut shaming, absolutely not, she fully supported Chloe’s right to sleep with whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted, however many times that she wanted to. Stacie did the same thing, hell so did Amy and they even shared a room and it didn’t bother her nearly as much as it did when Chloe would come out of her room in a morning with dishevelled hair and some douchebag junior in tow.
For a long time, Beca chalked it up to the fact that she just happened to not like the particular men that Chloe picked; Tom was boring, Jack picked his ass crack in the kitchen, Hunter kept calling her ‘Bertha’, and Felix would just straight up grope Chloe in front of everyone. But Stacie, then Amy, then Cynthia-Rose, and then either Jessica or Ashley (Beca still couldn’t tell the difference) pointed out that she was maybe more than a little infatuated with Chloe, given that she was practically drooling over her on a regular basis and seeking out every opportunity she could to spend time with her.
So now Beca was mad again, because they were right and she was crushing hard on Chloe, and now she didn’t know what to do with herself. She was too much of a coward to say it outright, especially as Chloe seemed to not have any interest in girls, not like Beca did at least, so why blow up a friendship over stupid crush? She resolved, eventually, to settle for just pining in silence, to enjoy as much of Chloe’s time as she could. Honestly, Beca knew that she spent more time with Chloe than just about anyone else, so it was essentially the same thing as dating. Right?
It worked for her, this denial, this blinkered approach to her relationship with Chloe that meant she could convince herself that those moments just the two of them in the Bella’s kitchen, her sat at the kitchen island, Chloe making dinner, were as close to a date she would get, dates that only she was on. It worked because Chloe just wasn’t into girls, it worked because one morning Chloe would wake up and realise that it had always been Beca, and maybe she should try kissing girls for a change.
It worked for Beca.
Until the day it didn’t.
Until the day that Chloe walked into the lounge where the Bellas were all watching a movie, with Aubrey. That itself wasn’t weird, Aubrey was always invited to any of their get-togethers, she was the captain that had led them to their first ever ICCA title after all. What was weird, what made Beca’s stomach twist and her heart shatter was the fact that Chloe and Aubrey were holding hands. That Chloe was looking at Aubrey with so much love and affection that went way beyond the bind Beca thought they had.
Chloe confirmed it, with an excitement in her voice that made her basically sound like she was singing it: she and Aubrey were dating. Beca thought her world was going to stop there and then. For months she’d been telling herself that the reason that Chloe didn’t see her as anything more than a friend was because she was a girl. It turns out, the reason was because she wasn’t the right girl, and that? Well that fucking sucked.
It felt like a slap in the face. Beca knew, rationally, that Chloe hadn’t done this to hurt her, that no-one could help who they fell for, she couldn’t help her feelings for Aubrey anymore than Beca could help her feelings for Chloe. But the butt-hurt, irrational part of her wanted to yell at Chloe for breaking her heart, for making her feel like this about her, for letting her hope that one day she might have a chance, for picking Aubrey Posen. Beca couldn’t even begin to compete with her, next to Aubrey she looked like something that lived under a bridge. It wasn’t fair, which was a ridiculously petulant and childish way to think about her best friend’s happiness, but it was the way she felt all the same.
The worst part about it all though wasn’t that Beca had to sit on the sidelines and watch Chloe and Aubrey date, giggle softly with each other at some private joke or watched a movie together all cuddled up. It wasn’t that every time Chloe kissed Aubrey, Beca’s stomach twisted into knots. It was that Chloe’s behaviour with her never changed.
Chloe had always been the physically affectionate type, but she’d always seemed more so with Beca, always seeming to find an excuse to hug her, to squeeze her hand, to bump her hip against hers. Beca had been convincing herself for the last few months that perhaps it meant more when Chloe touched her than when she touched anyone else. So for nothing to have changed, for Chloe to still be so tactile with her while she was in a relationship with someone else wasn’t helping Beca feel any better about the situation.
She wasn’t going to say anything though. Even if it confused the hell out of her, it was still somehow better than Chloe ignoring her completely now she was dating Aubrey. But that just seemed to complicate everything for her, especially when Chloe’s hand would brush against hers as they both reached for the ranch over dinner, when Chloe’s hands rested on her hips just a little longer than felt necessary when she was helping her with Bellas choreography, or that one time Beca had perhaps been jealously watching Chloe and Aubrey making out from the corner of her eye and she could have sworn that Chloe’s eyes opened briefly and met hers and she grinned at her.
Okay, so Beca was half convinced that last one was a hallucination, there was no way that Chloe had actually grinned at her while making out with Aubrey. Right? That was insane, even by Chloe Beale standards. So why was Beca so hung up on that image of the two of them? Was she really that pathetically hung up on Chloe?
“Hey Becs?”
Beca had shut herself in her room today, in no mood to have a front row set to the Aubrey/Chloe lovefest currently going on in the kitchen while they cooked dinner for the Bellas. So when Chloe’s head poked around her door she was ready to scream, but she swallowed it anyway, knowing that the way she was feeling right now wasn’t actually Chloe’s fault.
“Can we talk?”
“Sure.” Beca shrugged, taking off her headphones and spinning in her desk chair to face Chloe, “What’s up Beale?”
Chloe opened the door all the way, coming into the room with Aubrey in tow. Beca had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. Great. The show that she’d come upstairs to avoid had come to give Beca her own private viewing.
Chloe settled on the edge of Beca’s bed, grinning at her as Aubrey went to sit on Amy’s but seeming to change her mind as she saw the half-eaten Pop Tart sticking out of the sheets, her lip curling just a fraction as she sat next to Chloe instead.
Suddenly Beca felt like she had whenever she got sent to the Principle’s office in middle school, with both Aubrey and Chloe looking at her like they expected her to say something first, like this was some kind of intervention or something. Oh god, was it?
“Uh… did I do something wrong?”
“No!” Chloe shook her head quickly, “Oh god no, sorry did we freak you out?”
“I mean, a little…” Beca mumbled, but she couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at her lips as she sat forward, “Am I being fired as co-captain then? Or is Bree coming back to help us cinch another ICCA victory because she doesn’t trust us?”
“It’s not that either.” Aubrey rolled her eyes good-naturedly, “How about we tell you what it is before you go all Mitchell about it?”
“Wow, using me as an adjective? Bit rude.” Beca huffed, but there was no malice to it.
She might be even more confused than her usual baseline at the moment, but she could also tell that they’d not come into the room to rub her face in anything or to try and get her to move out. Something else was going on here. Something that she was finding quite intriguing if she was honest.
“Bree and I have been talking.” Chloe started, all business like as if this was just another captain’s meeting and not… whatever this was.
“I know. About your crush on me, that you have feelings for me.”
Beca immediately went beet red, running a hand through her hair as she swallowed the lump that had sprung into her throat. Way to go Mitchell, way to be an absolute fool and not at all subtle about it either. Chloe knew she was pining after her? Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Becs it’s okay! I promise.” Chloe giggled a little, reaching out to take Beca’s hand, gently, “You’re not the only one with feelings.”
Beca’s gaze snapped up from where she had been very intensely studying the Dr Pepper stain on the carpet, her jaw dropping. She looked like an idiot but she couldn’t help it. Chloe Beale had feelings for her. Chloe freaking Beale had a crush on her too. But…
“Uh, dude, your girlfriend is right there.” Beca managed to mumble out, mentally slapping herself for the stupid comment.
“I know dummy.” Chloe rolled her eyes, “She knows how I feel about you too. Beca, I’m poly. Do you know what that is? Not because you’re dumb, but a lot of people get the wrong idea about it.”
“Um…” Beca swallowed thickly, trying to get her brain to focus as it fired in a million different directions at once, refusing to let her accept what Chloe was starting to get at, “It means you’re into multiple people at the same time right? Like you have multiple partners and stuff?”
“Right.” Chloe nodded, “Yeah exactly! It doesn’t mean how I feel about Aubrey is any less valid than how I feel about you, or anything like that, it just means that I care about both of you at the same time. Which is what Aubrey and I have been talking about.”
“O-oh?”
“I want to date you as well. I really like you Beca, I have for a long time now, and I want to see what we can be. But you’d have to be okay with me being with Aubrey as well.”
Beca opened and closed her mouth a few times, no sound coming out. She wasn’t sure if her brain was even working right now. Chloe wanted to date her. Hold hands, kiss her, maybe even have sex kind of date her. It was everything she’d been day dreaming about in the last few months. Oh who the hell was she kidding? This was what she’d been dreaming of since she’d met Chloe at the Activities Fair. But just like at the Activities Fair, Aubrey was here too. Aubrey was a factor she had to consider here.
“Would I have to date Aubrey too?”
The question was out of Beca’s mouth before she could find a more tactful way to put it, cringing a little at the delivery.
“Not that you’re not hot Bree, you are, I just haven’t got those feelings about you. I don’t want to fuck you or anything. Shit, that’s mean, I mean-”
“Beca, breathe.” Aubrey chuckled, “I love you. But like a sister. I don’t have those feelings for you either. I’m okay with you just dating Chloe and not me. If things change about how we feel about each other later down the line, we’ll talk about it then, but for right now? This is about you and Chloe, not you and me.”
“Exactly!” Chloe beamed, “We can work out the specifics if this is something you want Beca.”
Beca nodded slowly, her mind racing a little. Chloe wanted to date her. Chloe also wanted to date Aubrey and was making no secret about it. The question was, could Beca deal with dating someone who was dating someone else too, in a completely consensual way?
“You don’t have to decide right now.” Chloe reassured her, giving Beca’s knee a gentle squeeze, “If you need time that’s okay, I know this is a lot to process all at once. Take some time, there’s no–”
Chloe didn’t get to finish her sentence as Beca’s lips collided with hers. She grinned into the kiss, hand rising to rest on the back off Beca’s neck, pulling her closer. Beca sank into the kiss, realising that every time she’d imagined kissing Chloe didn’t come even close to the real thing. Her lips tasted like the cherry lip gloss she always wore and a little bit of cinnamon too, so expertly warm and gentle that Beca would have quite happily never taken another breath just to die kissing them.
Of course, she eventually did have to take another breath, and when she pulled back she realised where she was again. She blushed furiously as she caught Aubrey’s eye, but couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off her face even so.
“Sorry.” She shrugged a little, “Is it weird if I kiss your girlfriend in front of you?”
“No.” Aubrey seemed as mildly confused as Beca did, “No it was kind of hot actually.”
Beca blushed even redder, if such a thing was possible, but her grin also got bigger.
“Noted.”
“So is that a yes then?” Chloe giggled, watching the way Aubrey and Beca kept glancing back to each other.
“Yeah.” Beca nodded, “Yeah I want to give this a shot. I know we have things to talk about and figure out, but… yeah I want to be with you. And I’m cool with you being with Aubrey too.”
Chloe’s smile was so big it could have split her face in half, leaning forward and kissing Beca again.
“Okay, okay.” Aubrey laughed softly, “Before you two disappear into a making-out rabbit hole, can we talk logistics?”
“Ugh, boner killer.” Beca mumbled as she pulled back, forehead resting against Chloe’s as she flashed Aubrey a smirk, “Sure Posen, let’s figure this out. Because I do actually want to do this in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“Good. Me too.” Aubrey nodded, reaching into the bag by her feet and pulling out a notebook and pen, thumbing it open to a new page, “So. Let’s figure out a schedule.”
Beca rolled her eyes, Chloe giggling as se encouraged Aubrey to scoot down the bed, following her and then patting the now vacant spot next to her for Beca to sit. Beca moved immediately, resting her head on Chloe’s shoulder as Aubrey started to talk about logistics. It was probably the least romantic way Beca could think of to kick things off, but there was a weird amount comfort in that, that Aubrey wasn’t suddenly weird with her because they were both dating Chloe.
Beca had a really good feeling about this.
It had been about four months since Beca had agreed to date Chloe while she was also dating Aubrey, and honestly? It had been kinda perfect. Beca got to see Chloe during the week and most evenings just the two of them, as Aubrey had a job that kept her off campus, and at the weekends she went off and did her own thing while Aubrey and Chloe had time to themselves. Holidays and school breaks meant things shifted a bit, they spent more time together all three of them, which wasn’t as weird as Beca had thought it would be.
Gradually, things had evolved. Aubrey still spent time at the Bellas House even when it wasn’t her night with Chloe, just hanging out with Stacie and Amy, sure to give Chloe and Beca their space. It was Beca that had invited her along for dinner one night, shrugging it off when Aubrey asked if she was sure and telling her that it was a place that she thought Aubrey would like too. Suddenly their schedule became less fixed, less stringent, with far more time spent with the three of them together than with Chloe on their own.
“Hey baby.”
Beca grinned as a pair of arms slipped around her waist, Chloe’s body heat sending that tingle up her spine that it always did, leaning back into her while Chloe kissed her neck.
“It smells great in here, what’re you making?”
“Chicken Parm. Ma sent me her recipe after it went over so well last week.”
“She must have sent it with an NDA, Beca hasn’t let me anywhere near the stove.”
Beca rolled her eyes at Aubrey, stirring the pot in front of her as Aubrey leaned in to peer at the contents. She swotted at her hand as it tried to lower a spoon into the sauce to taste it, earning her a small pout.
“God I had no idea you were so impatient Posen.” She grumbled good-naturedly, “You get all loved up and suddenly you’re a whole different person.”
“What can I say?” Aubrey shrugged, grin mischievous as she sidled closer to Beca, hip pressed to hers, “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me Mitchell.”
“Oh yeah?” Beca raised her eyebrow, “Trust me, after you at this, I won’t be the one doing the rubbing.”
“Idiot.” Aubrey scoffed, closing the gap between them to kiss Beca, but not before asking, “How’d I end up falling for you?”
“You guys are so hot.” Chloe purred, watching her girlfriends exchange a kiss, “But don’t burn the sauce, it’s the best part.”
“Alright, alright.” Beca mumbled, pulling back from Aubrey reluctantly and going back to making their meal, “But if you guys want me to concentrate on this, you’re gonna have to stop distracting me.”
“Fine.” Aubrey shrugged, moving to grab wine glasses and opening a bottle, pouring them each a glass, “Just make it up to us later.”
“Don’t I always?”