#i feel awful. im stuck on front with all the newbies so not only am i trying to do more than just my own workload as usual

[nerdie-faerie]

We're understaffed as usual cause our new general manager is useless but then like 5 people also called in sick 😭 I shoulda called in sick when I had the chance

The temptation to call in sick rather than dealing with customers when I'm a little under the weather vs not wanting to deal with the stress of making a call to work about being sick

[acabloe]

Soon Goodbye, Now Love: Chapter 2

chapter one

A/N wow I got way bigger a response than I thought I was going to and its pretty small ngl but I’m really glad you guys are liking this small baby I am creating. Thank u !! Also I’m kind of a newbie to the bechloe fandom n im rly curious if there’s a sort of home-base for all bechloe fics? sort of like how the phandom has @phanfic ? tyy thats all hope u enjoy :))

tw’s: abuse, swearing, depression, mentions of death, anxiety, trauma (motor accident, near death)

Chapter Two: Soon A Painting

Very slowly Beca began to gain more and more consciousness, beginning with a sharp tingling in her feet, fingers, and face. She became aware of the thick and muddy grass beneath her stomach that stuck uncomfortably and dampened her clothes. Her ribs ached from where she guessed she’d fallen on them. She took a breath in and coughed as she accidentally inhaled dirt. Attempting to push herself onto her knees, she brought her palms to her side and pressed upwards firmly, elbows and wrists smarting under her weight. Her head throbbed as she parted her eyelids but she forced herself to leave them open to adjust to the light and observe her surroundings. As she scanned the empty field, she struggled to remember why she was there. Unsure of how much time had passed while she had been unconscious, she reached reached into her pocket for her phone. When it wasn’t there her movements became more frantic, running her palms over the wet terf and blinking rapidly to attempt to clear her fuzzed vision in the dark. Then suddenly she realized that she didn’t even own a phone, and everything came back to her. Memories flooded her brain like rain after weeks of humid days and packed overcast skies.

She had died Beca had died and she had gone to heaven…sort of. In place of Chloe. Beca had pleaded with...someone, she didn’t know who, and had taken Chloe’s place. She’d woken in front of a giant grey building and ascended the stairs, and she had walked down the alpine-ceilinged hall lined with black and white marble-tiled flooring and flanking dark wooden desks. She remembered chuckling softly to herself thinking of how it had looked like the magical bank from Harry Potter, only without the goblins or flying papers. Pelen, her later Guardian-trainer, had been at the end of the hall, sat at the tallest desk, and he’d explained everything about her trade for Chloe’s life and about the payment for her actions by becoming a guardian angel for an infinitude and the necessity for the erasure of Chloe’s memories of their friendship and lives together. Then had come the months and months of guardian training, the pining and the anguish for endless, horrible nights on end. Oh, those nights, when she had been unable to sleep, distracting herself from the grief by plotting any conceivable way she could see Chloe for one last time. Whoever had agreed to let her trade places had clearly not anticipated Beca’s determination to reunite herself with Chloe by any means considerably possible.              When came the end of training and everyone’s human assignment, she had been stationed in Siberia to guard a local scientologist...Geoffrey? Jack? (She felt awful for not remembering his name.) But Beca obdurately broke into the human-assignment database (with ease; the process had oddly reminded her of using Garage Band, only with thin hovering bronze bars and colored beads, still sound waves though,) and changed, by hand, her human assignment to guard Chloe. While everyone had been in place to be dropped to earth, she had escaped unseen to the edge of the city to the closest region she could find in Chloe’s vicinity. And now she was here. In this field. This freezing, wet, scary-ass field.

She wasn’t even sure if she was in the right state. She didn’t recognize anything about her location and surroundings and her plans had only gone this far. She had simply assumed that somehow Chloe would find her shortly after Beca’s fall, welcome her into her home to nurture her back to health, and everything would return to the state it had been before all of this mess. Cursing herself for not planning ahead more, her anxiety began to spike and she forced herself to count as she breathed. Why had she thought that simply jumping out of heaven would be the best idea? She had no belongings, no clothes, nowhere to sleep, and worst of all, no money. 

She shakily stood and decided that the best thing to do right now would be to walk off the pins and needles in her legs and to scout out the area. She had also read somewhere that exercise stimulated the brain. Small steps Beca, small steps, She chanted to herself while she stretched her fingers and cracked her neck and back. As she checked her body for more serious injuries or broken bones, she realized that the clothes she was wearing were her own from the night she died and she groaned in annoyance at her past-self. Why didn’t you at least go out with style, moron? You planned your retirement to the most ridiculous detail but you couldn’t even die in a flow-y white dress or something? She was still damp from the grass and she was only wearing socks, no shoes. Her outfit from training had been simple white overalls and a grey, soft knit sort-of sweater. Everyone wore a variation of the same outfit, plus one pair of shoes of their choice (Beca had picked red sweade pumas because she had seen Blake Lively wearing a pair once) now she was beginning to miss those shoes. The only reason, she thought, that would have made simply following the rules a better choice of actions. As she trudged gradually around the perimeter of the field, she searched for any signs of life. She heard far-off cars and airplanes overhead and the path she had been walking was well-trodden and relatively flat. She spotted the glimmer of some distant lights, and decided that once she had relaxed her muscles and figured out some mode of transportation to get there, she would make her way in that direction. And then she thought better of it and realized that sleeping in one of the bushes would probably be safest. And easiest. With the least walking. And effort. 

As she trudged her way around the perimeter of the field, she searched for signs of life. She heard far-off cars and airplanes overhead and the path she had been walking was well-trodden and relatively flat. She spotted the glimmer of some distant lights, and decided that once she had relaxed her muscles and figured out some mode of transportation to get there, she would make her way in that direction. And then she thought better of it and realized that sleeping in one of the bushes would probably be safest. And easiest. With the least walking. And effort.

Beca and Chloe’s relationship had probably been the at the forefront of both of their existences before Chloe’s accident. They had often teased that Beca’s sophomore (Chloe’s senior) year of high school was the year they both properly became people. That statement was, for a plethora of reasons, relatively metaphorically true; It was the year when Beca’s mother passed away, and Beca’s father had left her because the grief had been to much to handle. Her mental health had spiraled, and she became closed off and for the most part unresponsive. Chloe had relocated all the way across the country from her home in Seattle, and had never really shared solid friendship with anyone. She also suffered abuse from her parents for being openly bisexual. As Beca and Chloe grew closer, their relationship became the most fundamental part of their lives. Wherever Chloe went, Beca followed. After a lot of convincing on Chloe’s part, together they joined an all girls a capella group at their university, where they became properly close with other people for the first time in their lives besides each other. Chloe had stayed two extra years in college, telling everyone the reason was that she could not bare to leave the group, but really the majority of her motivation came from the wish to see Beca through her junior and senior year, and then graduate with her. Beca had often come to family gatherings and holidays with Chloe, and vice versa with to visit Beca’s removed family, often in other parts of the world. Friends joked that they were so close anyone would guess they were married, and they would laugh it off or play along, jesting to boast engagement rings, or play fake surprise proposals.

But the matter of it was that Beca secretly abhorred these fake shows of romance and marriage. Because ever since her first year of college, she’d been madly in love with Chloe.

There was no need for her to ask or talk about the subject. Beca had known since the beginning of her feelings for her that Chloe would never feel the same way, and so absolved to ride it out until she simply did not feel anything other than close platonic intimacy for her. In spite of all her efforts, five years later she felt exactly the same, if not stronger than before, and it was miserable.

When Chloe was found eight miles from their home, unconscious on an embankment by the highway after her car had been hit by a drunk driver, Beca went into extreme shock. Chloe was rushed to the hospital but by the time they had arrived at the ER, it was too late. She had been hanging on by an already worn thread, and Beca had prayed for the first time in her life that night. She pleaded with all the higher powers she could think of to take Chloe’s place, and curiously enough, her requests were immediately taken into effect. Apparently, Beca Mitchel was an exception to the laws of prayer in most religions.

Eventually Beca neared the halfway mark of her third lap. Her anxiety had dwindled little, though her legs were mostly returned to a more natural and pin-free state. The deep and rather eerie quiet of the place was what she’d been strongly accustomed to since she’d woken up, so when someone behind her shouted loudly in her direction, she nearly sprinted into the bushes to her right. When she glanced behind her and saw the form of a woman waving and walking idly, she was set at a tiny bit more ease and waved back apprehensively. Shit, Becs what’re you gonna do now, you look like a maniac. Dude, you're not even wearing shoes. Just play it cool, act hostile and moody, the regular. It’s probably too dark to even see my clothes anyway right? She made a brief attempt to brush off some of the dirt and grass still on her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair a few times.

Rapid footsteps approached from behind her and suddenly the girl had caught up to walk alongside her. Beca sighed quietly in annoyance and scanned her mind for an explanation as to why she was out this late and wearing the bare minimum and no shoes in a 30°(F) field.

Beca turned to look at the girls face and had to promptly hold herself back from  shouting or even remotely outwardly responding. Even in the gloomy darkness, the shiny doe-eyed look of the girl next to her was painfully unmistakable. Beca had not planned or expected herself to react so violently as she did when she saw this face again.

“Hi.” She controlled her voice to the best of her ability, but the lack of recognition in Chloe's next statements and the sudden realization of her stupidity in mistakenly romanticizing and simplifying the entire situation around only her own desires was so painful that Beca doubted she could hold back tears. The sight of Chloe after months, years, of grieving was just too much. She did try, but they simply came, silently streaming down her cheeks, one after the other.

“It’s so chilly for this time of year, I don’t usually even come here while on walks. The mist is so spooky!”

Beca realized it was her turn to speak. She saw Chloe turn to look at her from her peripheral view and realized it was to late to do anything about her tears so she struggled to keep her voice even as she replied.

“yeah. Super spooky.”