Author's Note: I've been sitting and poking at this for months now and haven't made any real progress. Here's to hoping that putting it up here will give me the kick in the ass I need to finish it...

Of course. Of course you want to know how I got these scars. I will tell you. I got these scars the day I fell in love with you. You see, that day, I landed face first. (Rudy Francisco)

The first time they sleep together, it's an accident. It's Chloe's 25th birthday and Aubrey throws her an extravagant party, as much to celebrate the fact that she just snatched up a huge promotion as it is to celebrate Chloe's birthday. The New York air is chilly and damp, but the club that Aubrey practically rented out is just warm enough, and Chloe is teetering happily between drunk and wasted.

Beca, on the other hand, is drunk, because she's roughly the size of a ninth grader and has the tolerance of one, two drinks sending her careening into intoxication. In true Beca form, she's quiet and awkward and separating herself from everyone, watching the party with vague interest through the haze of alcohol. It isn't until Chloe plops down and wraps herself around Beca that Beca moves at all.

"Hi there," she says mildly.

"Hi!" Chloe chirps. "Why are you over here alone?"

"It's quieter." Beca grunts, shifting as Chloe rests more of her weight against Beca's side. Her arm goes around Chloe's waist to avoid being crushed, and Chloe pulls herself even closer.

"Come dance with me," she says. It's probably supposed to be said softly, given that her lips brush against Beca's ear in the process and make her shiver, but the words are loud enough to make Beca wince.

"Definitely not."

"Beca," Chloe whines, drawing it out. "Come on, it's my birthday."

"I'm not dancing. I hate dancing."

"Please?" She's pouting now, but even if a drunk Chloe is more charming than a sober one, a drunk Beca is even more stubborn than a sober one, and she shakes her head.

"Nope." She shifts again, sliding out from under Chloe and depositing her more modestly into the booth. "I'm going to go to the bathroom. Try not to pass out until I get back, okay?"

She uncaps the bottle of water she'd been picking at and hands it to Chloe before disappearing into the crowd. The bathroom is empty, miraculously, and she takes a slow breath, counting to ten. Right as she clicks over from seven to eight, though, the door opens behind her and Chloe bursts into the room. Beca's mouth is open to comment on the fact that Chloe really needs to stop barging in on her in bathrooms, but before she can say a word, Chloe's locked the door behind them and yanking Beca forward by the belt to kiss her heatedly.

They're drunk, and Chloe's hands are warm and sure and far too deft as they bypass her clothes, and even if Beca had wanted to stop there's no way she could have. It's Chloe, after all, and everyone was just a little bit in love with Chloe and her boundless cheer, so when Chloe is suddenly on her knees and doing something with her tongue that Beca couldn't even begin to describe as heat uncoils inside her and creeps up her spine with every swipe of Chloe's tongue, she just lets her head fall back and her fingers grip even tighter at Chloe's hair.

Sometime just after Beca's fingers have fumbled along under Chloe's dress to return the favor, there's a pounding on the door and Aubrey's unmistakable screech on the other side. Beca scrambles to look like she didn't just get blown away, like she doesn't have the unmistakable scent of her best friend on her fingers, but Chloe just tugs her dress and straightens her hair and winks at Beca before yanking the door open.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" Aubrey slurs, eyes wide and smiling and drunk. "It's time for the cake!"

"Girl talk," Chloe says flippantly. She hooks an arm around Aubrey's waist and kisses her cheek, pausing in her strides out the door only to wrap her fingers around Beca's wrist and tug her along.

Beca slips out after abandoning her cake and her third attempt to speak to Chloe. When she leaves, Chloe is on the dance floor, backed up against a guy Beca's never seen before, eyes shut carelessly as she dances.

The next day, Beca calls Chloe four times and texts her three. The day after that, she does the same. The day after that, she hikes over to Chloe's place and waits outside her door until she gets home from work.

"We need to talk," she says firmly. Chloe just smiles brightly and lets her in, setting her purse on the counter and kicking her shoes off.

"It doesn't mean anything," Chloe says. "Sex is just sex, Becs, it only means what you want it to. It's just fun, and sex with your best friend is even more fun." She's smiling and carefree and beautiful, just like she was when she exploded into Beca's shower years ago, and rather abruptly her tongue is in Beca's mouth, swallowing half-hearted protests even as Beca's traitorous hands are scrambling at her skirt as she guides Chloe down onto the couch.

Two weeks and eight times later, Chloe still hasn't said a word about the fact that on the surface their friendship hasn't changed—they still go out with the friends they have in common, meeting for drinks and talking about music until late into the night—but that when they're alone it's usually less than five minutes before one of them is making a play for second.

Two weeks and eight times later, Chloe meets Micah at the gym and accepts his offer for a coffee date. They have coffee, and then they have drinks, and then she brings him to one of the clubs Beca is playing at and when he kisses her on the dance floor, she doesn't stop him.

Beca catches the tail end of it from her spot in the booth, her fingers tripping over dials and knobs, breath tangling in the coiled cord of her headphones somewhere halfway between her chest and her throat.

"Okay, seriously." It's Jessie who calls her out on it. He's in New York for the weekend to visit, crashing on Beca's couch, because they failed miserably at their four-month attempt at dating but fit scarily well as friends. "You're even more sulky than normal. What's up?"

"I'm not sulky," Beca says, kicking at his knee. He's sprawled on her couch, as at home as he always is ,and she's flat on her back on the floor, headphones plugged in.

"You are so sulky," he says mildly. He nudges at her hip with his toe. "Seriously, what's up?"

"I'm fine," Beca mutters.

"Bullshit," he sings out. "Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit." He's halfway to dancing in his seat, and she chucks an empty CD case at him.

"You done?"

"Only if you're going to start talking. I can sing about your bullshit all day and all night."

"Oh my God," Beca mutters. She jerks the headphones off, glaring at the ceiling. "Fine, just—shut it, okay. Stop."

"Stopping." He slides off the couch to the floor and stretches out next to her.

"I've been—I'm—" she pauses, taking a deep breath. "I've been sleeping with Chloe."

"You what with who and—you what?" His voice jerks up half an octave; she glances over at him and his ears are flushing red.

"Oh my God, stop being such a guy." She punches at his arm half-heartedly, grumbling, and glares even harder at the ceiling. There's a crack spreading and she's pretty sure it's from her upstairs neighbors having kangaroos for children.

"I'm sorry," he squeaks out. "I just—I'm okay. I'm normal."

"You sure?" she says crossly.

"Positive. Best bro mode."

"Sure," she mutters.

"So you're—hooking up with Chloe," he says after a few moments. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Yes? No? I don't know."

"Are you," he starts slowly. "I mean, I don't want to be a jerk or anything, but do you think you're gay?"

"Maybe?" She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. "Yeah, I think so."

"Oh." Long seconds tick past before he speaks again. "Is that why you broke up with me? Because I mean, that would make me feel so much better about myself."

She punches his arm again. "I broke up with you because you're like this obnoxious cousin I can't get rid of, and incest is gross."

"Stop hitting me."

"Stop being a jerk!"

"I'm not being a—look, okay, I'm just trying to understand, okay? My best friend just came out as a lesbian and I'm pretty sure I remember you perving on our radio boss and his abs at least once."

"I—I don't know, okay?" She turns onto her side, curling her knees up to her chest protectively, and stares at his profile. "I don't know much of anything that's going on right now."

"But you know you're sleeping with Chloe," he says quietly. He shifts to face her, eyes wide and serious. "Do you want her to be your girlfriend?"

"It doesn't matter what I want," she murmurs. "She doesn't want me to be hers. She said sex is just fun."

"That doesn't mean—"

"She started dating someone," Beca says. Her voice cracks in the middle, pathetic and sad, and her forehead creases at the sound. "A guy."

"Oh."

"Yeah," she mutters. She doesn't protest like she normally would when he scoots closer, pulling her into his side until her head is pillowed on his chest.

Beca has never in her life played a sport. She's never been even remotely athletically inclined, neither of her parents ever cared to try and make her so, and she managed to stubborn her way out of ever even running a mile in gym class.

Chloe and Micah start coming to her gigs, though, because Chloe loves Beca and loves music and especially loves Beca's music, and Micah actually loves her music too. They start showing up to every Friday show, and Beca can always smell Chloe on her sheets, so Beca starts running. She doesn't have the shoes for it—she wasn't even sure she had an actual sports bra until she found one buried somewhere in her drawers—but she goes anyways, pounding out undisciplined strides into the pavement, iPod clutched tightly in one hand.

It becomes a regular thing. Chloe waltzes out of Beca's bed, or Beca slips out of Chloe's apartment at two in the morning with finger-shaped bruises on her hips and faint scratches up and down her back, lips swollen and hair a disaster, and within two hours she's off running.

By the time Chloe has been dating Micah for three months, Beca's worked her way up to two miles.