And so it began.
And so it began. They slipped into it slowly and quietly at first. Legs pressed just slightly together as they sat next to each other on the sofa. Chloe’s warm fingers slipping through Beca’s cold ones as they shared a blanket on movie night. A light hand on Chloe’s waist and a chin on her shoulder as she cooked for the pair of them. A goodnight kiss on the cheek that lingered for just a second one night, and a goodnight kiss on the cheek that was just at the corner of Beca’s lips the next night. Then the first week in March, two weeks after returning from the Sectional’s win, there was a cold snap. There was frost on the ground in the morning and Chloe’s breath blew like cigarette smoke as she trudged up the road toward the Bellas house. She had been out to her late lecture, the lecture that started at 5 and didn’t finish til 6, which she had always loathed but never more so than now, when it was almost dark and the cold was biting at her nose. Al she wanted to do was get home, to make something hot for dinner, and snuggle on the sofa with her – her friend? her maybe girlfriend to be? Her Beca, she decided on – and watch Buffy with hot chocolate in her hands and Beca’s head on her shoulder.
She fumbled with her keys, fingers stiff in the cold air, and the metal cold to the touch. Eventually she made her way inside to find the house was quiet, the lights off. This wasn’t necessarily unusual; sometimes a person settled down to do something (read: Netflix) and it got dark around them, and it wasn’t until that judgemental message from Netflix (Are you still watching?) that startled them into realising that the world had got dark around them. It often happened to Chloe herself, if she was honest.
Having first noticed that it was dark, Chloe now noticed that it was cold. She frowned; since Beca had got ill, the heating came on for 6 hours a day, and four of those hours were 5.30pm-9.30pm. Walking through the hall however, she reached out for the radiator and jerked her hand back at the icy metal beneath her fingers.
“Beca?” she called, knowing she was the only one likely to be in; Stacie was staying at Aubrey’s after date night, and Amy, who had finally “revealed” her relationship the day after Sectionals’, spent most nights of the week holed up somewhere with him.
“In here Chlo,” Beca replied, her voice coming from her bedroom, a little muffled, a little shaky, and Chloe rushed to the door at the end of the corridor without stopping to take off her coat, shoes, hat, only concerned with making sure that Beca was ok.
Opening the door, it took her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness, and she didn’t see Beca at first. Then the great pile of blankets on the bed moved, slightly, and Beca’s pale forehead poked out from the nest she had made herself.
“Hey,” the brunette said between chattering teeth, “good day?”
“Beca! What the hell are you doing?! Why haven’t you put the heating on? Do you have a hot water bottle? Do you have a fever? Where’s the thermometer?”
“Chill out Chlo,” Beca said, smirking at her own (pathetic) pun, “I’ve checked my temperature and it’s fine. I’m just cold.” She nodded towards the digital thermometer discarded on her desk.
“Why didn’t you turn the heating on?!” Chloe almost yelled, incredulous that her ridiculous Beca would sit here and shiver without bothering to turn the heating on, “Or make a hot water bottle, or do anything to make yourself warmer?!”
“It’s too cold outside of my cocoon!” Beca whined, and Chloe rolled her eyes at the girl’s short-term thinking.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t be if you turned the heating on, would it now Becs?”
The brunette pouted, but didn’t disagree. Then her face morphed into full on puppydog eyes as she said, “make me a new hot water bottle?”, wriggling a little to get her arm out from under the covers and pass Chloe the offending object, stone cold and heavy in her arms.
Chloe just refrained from rolling her eyes again before sighing, taking the hot water bottle from Beca’s outstretched arm and pouring the contents into the kettle. While she waited for the kettle to boil, she went out to the hall, manually turned the heating on, and before trudging downstairs to make the pair of them hot chocolate.
15 (long, if you asked Beca) minutes later, Chloe and Beca were snuggled up under Beca’s duvet, steaming mugs of hot chocolate in hands, and a toasty hot water bottle settled on Beca’s stomach.
“Better?” Chloe asked.
“Much,” Beca agreed, taking a deep sniff of her hot chocolate.
(Incidentally, Beca loved hot chocolate, but only when made by somebody else. That way, they could put in the outrageous amounts of hot chocolate powder necessary to make the drink truly delicious, and as Beca didn’t see it, she didn’t have to feel guilty. It was for this reason that any time one of the girls had a sore throat or a cold, Beca made a point to make them flasks of honey and lemon. No one really needed to know just how much honey was involved, and Beca didn’t care as it was good for them anyway. We digress.)
A couple of hours later, after watching Buffy (“Nooooo, not this episode Chlo, his eyes are too scary!) and a hot bowl of one-put-tomatoey-rice-beans-and-vegetables (one of Chloe’s specialities) Beca’s eyelids were dropping and her yawns were becoming longer and more frequent.
“I should go to bed,” Chloe mumbled reluctantly into the top of Beca’s head. The last couple of hours had been so nice. They had started just sitting next to each other, before Beca boldly slipped her hand into Chloe’s. Chloe managed to refrain from the classic yawn-and-stretch, but did eventually summon the courage to put her arm around Beca, who immediately snuggled further into Chloe’s side. By the time the yawning and eyelid dropping was getting too much, Beca’s head was resting on Chloe’s chest, and Chloe’s head was turned slightly into the top of Beca’s hair. The pair had always had a physically close relationship before, but with the idea of A Date looming in the future, somehow everything was that bit more charged and cautious these days.
Beca’s stomach twisted at the thought of Chloe leaving. She pretended it was the prospect of the cold that clenched her tummy, but really it was the hand that was round Chloe’s waist and the feeling of Chloe’s breath on the top of her head, and the comforting warmth of Chloe’s chest beneath her, and the deep down desire to kiss her best friend that was the real motivator. It felt so close, if she could only keep them going.
“You could always… stay in here, with me?” she suggested, and then, hurrying on, “I mean you don’t have if you don’t want to but it’s cold and the heating’s gone off now but I know you have to get up to go to lectures in the morning so I completely understand if you-“
“Bec. I’ll stay,” Chloe cut the other girl off mid-frantic-ramble, and swiftly kissed the top of her head before getting up and stretching.
“Beca Mitchell, would you do the honour of brushing your teeth with me?”.
Not long later, teeth clean and pajamas on, the two girls lay in bed, facing each other. Neither of them spoke, both somehow worried that speaking aloud would cause something to break, to snap, something to be lost. Hand shaking, and breath coming just slightly short, Chloe slowly moved her hand to rest on Beca’s cheek, pulling herself slightly closer. She stroked her lip with her thumb, finding it in the dark, not soft under her lips but dry, and chapped. And then Beca’s face was coming towards her, and Beca’ hands were on her waist, and just before their lips met both girls closed their eyes.
It was a slightly clumsy kiss. Their eyes were closed, and they bumped slightly as they came together slightly off centre. They were at the wrong angle, lying down on their sides, and just slightly craning their necks. Beca’s lips were dry and Chloe thought she tasted blood but somehow, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that it was dark, and warm, and their lips were connected, and they were happy.
They didn’t go any further than kissing that night. Eventually, their kisses softened, from desperately exploring each others mouths with their tongues, to sweet, chaste pulls. Eventually they just rested their foreheads together (Beca vaguely recalled being surprised, that something that happened in movies and books really did feel so natural) puffs of hot breath mingling, and the warmth of one another presence, eased them to sleep.