#52fics

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Slow Horses (TV), Slough House - Mick Herron Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jackson Lamb/Catherine Standish, Jackson Lamb & Catherine Standish, Charles Partner & Catherine Standish Characters: Jackson Lamb (Slow Horses), Catherine Standish Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Angst, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism Series: Part 145 of 1000 Songs Summary:

As requested, lovely anon.

“I need three more hours, Theo, and then it’s good to send, alright?” Beca says through speakerphone, fingers moving dials across her mixing board, one earphone off her ear just enough for her to make out what the guy’s saying.

“Beca, the deadline is in thirty minutes and you’re supposed to be here to present it to the artist!”

Beca pushes one of her equalizer bars half an inch too far, curses under her breath, and then fixes it. “Theo, just tell the client the truth – I’ve been sick and things are taking me a little longer than usual, but it’ll be there. Once they know I might be contagious, they won’t want to see me anyway,” she says confidently, adjusting a lever to correct the timbre.

“Beca,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at his exasperated tone.

“I’ve never let Timberlake down before, he’ll understand.”

“But–”

“Theo, do we have to go over this every time? Who. Is. Your. Boss?”

She can hear grumbles in the background as she hits pause on the song and slips her earphones down to her neck. “I couldn’t hear that?” she prompts.

“You are,” he finally says, begrudgingly.

“Right, so you’re going to do what?” she can’t help a small smirk from crossing her face envisioning his pained turtle expression.

He audibly sighs. “I’m going to tell Justin Timberlake that we need to postpone our meeting by two and a half hours and that you’re too sick to come in. I will also say that we are sorry, but you’ve been sick and haven’t been able to work quite as quickly as usual.”

“Good.” Beca’s finger moves to hover over the “end call” button on her phone. “Bye.” It slams onto the screen.

She puts the phone off to the side, gives herself a little shake, and then stops because it sounds weirdly like someone is knocking on her front door.

Why is this weird? Because she has a small red indicator light on her porch so her friends and family know when she’s busy and they can either leave her alone or enter the house using the passcode they’ve been assigned. She’s given a different one to each person and a message telling her who’s here flashes across the bottom righthand corner of her computer screen.

Everyone who could possibly visit her knows not to bug her. So who’s at the door?

She pulls her blanket tighter around her red panda onesie and walks over to the little CCTV display in the corner of her recording studio. It’s not someone super familiar to Beca; it takes almost ten seconds of staring for her to recognize the redheaded woman as one of her neighbours. Beca shrugs and goes back to her booth.

Two hours and fifty-two minutes later, she drops the song file onto the record label’s secure server and slips her earphones off.

“Riot,” she says, and her phone flickers to life. “Text Turtle.”

“Texting Turtle.”

“Boom! It’s uploaded.”

“Texting Turtle, ‘Boom! It’s uploaded.’ Do you wish to send?”

“Send.”

“Message sent.”

She smiles triumphantly and pulls off her headphones. She stretches her limbs out and gets up, fixing her blanket as she goes. At the door she flicks off the studio light and exits into her hallway.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Bloody hell,” Beca mutters as someone continues to tap on her door. She’d been hoping to boil some water, make some tea, and then crawl into bed for another week. She smiles wistfully at the thought of having Theo cancel her week’s appointments.

Instead of curling up in bed and texting him her plan, she veers toward her front door instead. The camera display in her entrance hall shows the same redheaded neighbour. Beca grumbles, unlocks the door, and pulls it open.

The woman stares at her in shock.

Self-consciously, Beca wraps the blanket more securely around herself.

“Oh my,” the woman says. “Are you alright?”

“No,” Beca says. “This crazy lady’s been banging on my door for the past, like, three hours.”

Blushing furiously, the woman says, “In my defense, after I knocked the first time I went home for a bit and only just now came back.”

“Okay, but no offence, why are you here?”

The blush only deepens.

“Okay, so I know this is going to sound, like, totes stalkery, but I haven’t seen you in like two weeks. Usually I see you every afternoon holding a takeout cup of coffee from Swan’s Beans because I teach piano lessons and my piano is in front of my living room window. And, well, I haven’t seen you for a long, long time so I thought maybe something had happened to you and I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

Beca blinks a couple of times in rapid succession at the spiel the woman before her has churned out. “Right, so I’m Beca… What’s your name again?”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, it’s Chloe,” she says and it seems like maybe she’ll leave it there, but instead she continues, “and now that I know you’re alive, I will totally get out of your hair.”

Beca opens her mouth to say goodbye, but all that comes out is a violent series of coughs that she barely manages to direct into her elbow before doubling over to wheeze.

A hand rubs the middle of Beca’s back and Beca’s coughing subsides. She straightens up only to face an inquisitorial squad, population Chloe.

“Do you have enough tea? Have you been consuming enough liquids? What have you been eating? Have you been getting groceries if you haven’t been leaving your house?” the questions come rapid-fire, making Beca’s head spin.

“What?” Beca asks, dumbfounded.

“Okay, I can whip you up a soup in no time, my mom passed down a great recipe, let’s just get you some tea and then I’ll go home and fix it up and bring you some.” Chloe steps into the house, gently pushing Beca back into her home.

“Dude, I’m fine!” Beca protests, catching her blanket once again as it tries to fall off of her.

All Chloe says is, “Cute onesie,” but her step never falters. “Where’s your kitchen?”

On auto-pilot, Beca gestures to the right, and Chloe keeps shepherding them both there. She makes Beca sit at one of the island chairs and then looks around for a kettle. A box of lemon ginseng green tea is open on the counter beside a bowl of lemons, half a lemon on a juicer, a tub of honey with a spoon sticking out of it, and the kettle.

“Perfect, this stuff should really help your throat,” Chloe comments as she starts making Beca tea.

“Dude, what is happening right now? I’m fine, you can just go home.”

A brief flash of hurt crosses Chloe’s face, and Beca almost feels guilty, but almost as quickly as it appeared, it vanishes. “You’re sick, you’ve been sick for, what, two weeks? You need some help.”

“I do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not!”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Well, you’re getting some anyway, sweet cheeks, so deal with it.”

Beca mumbles under her breath.

“What was that?” Chloe asks as she opens various cabinets. Finally, she pulls a mug from the cabinet beside the fridge.

“I could get my security team here in ten minutes and you wouldn’t be able to escape the law.”

“That’s cute, sweetie, but I’m not going anywhere until I make you a nice pot of tea. And then I’m coming back with soup so that you actually eat something.”

“I’ve been eating!” Beca says defensively.

“Oh yeah?” Chloe challenges, raising an eyebrow. Like she has a sixth sense, she heads straight for the trash bin. “And you think eating a dozen packages of instant cheese ramen is going to cure you, do you?”

Beca blushes. “I – they’re easy to make and the freeze-dried vegetables inside don’t suck like most other instant ramens I’ve tried. So I won’t die of scurvy which is at the top of my to-do list, and it has a nice little spice kick at the end to help my sinuses.”

Before Beca’s even done trying to justify her major cheese ramen kick, Chloe’s shaking her head. “You need fresh veggies and vitamins, some protein wouldn’t hurt, and some people find dairy – if we can call this dairy – worsens cold and flu symptoms.”

Blinking widely, Beca says, “Okay…?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it. You should go up to bed and try to sleep or at least rest. I’ll bring your tea up, head home and make some soup, then bring you some dinner in a couple of hours.” Then she turns around, expecting Beca to just acquiesce. A rookie mistake.

“Dude, I don’t even know you!”

Chloe turns back around, “My name’s Chloe Beale, I live across the street, we’ve been neighbours for like two years, I went to Barden University and co-captained the all-female a cappella group The Barden Bellas, I had a 3.7 GPA in education, and then moved here and became a piano teacher. My favourite colour is orange, “Titanium” is my jam, and I love to give toasts at group events.” She smiles. “Now we’re friends and you know all about me, so please go upstairs!”

“You know ‘Titanium’?” Beca asks, totally distracted.

“Have I been living under a rock? It’s great. The song really builds.”

“Yeah, he’s really good at incorporating those rises and falls,” Beca comments, almost absently.

“Go!” Chloe demands again as the kettle clicks off. “I’ll bring this to you, just go rest; you look kind of awful.”

“Thanks, you forgot to mention you’re really nice in your elevator pitch,” Beca grumbles, but starts walking upstairs anyway.

“I’m making you soup and tea – it’s implied, Beca!”

When she gets upstairs, Beca pulls open her thick duvet and climbs in, still wrapped up in her onesie and extra blanket. She burritos under all her layers as best as she can. It takes a few minutes of turning and adjusting, but she eventually discovers that if she props herself up on a couple of pillows and rotates slightly so her head is on an angle to allow sinus drainage, she can almost breathe normally without triggering her cough too much.

Chloe appears in the doorway a few moments later, carrying a mug which she sets down on the coaster on Beca’s bedside table after picking up an old mug.

“Oh, thanks,” Beca says quietly.

“You look pretty snuggly,” Chloe comments, surveying the very large pile of blankets. “Are you warm in there?”

“Not really.”

“Alright, I can help with that,” Chloe says as she walks around to the other side of the bed.

“Wait, what?” Beca says as her eyes follow Chloe’s movements. It takes much longer than it should for Beca to put two and two together, and Chloe is already sliding under the covers towards Beca when Beca says, “Dude, what are you doing?”

Chloe just smiles in what Beca assumes Chloe thinks is a reassuring way. “You’re never going to get warm, even with all these blankets, if you’re cold. The blankets just insulate the temperature. Yes, they can help trap heat, but you need heat to get that started. I, as a healthy normal person, am quite warm in this pseudo-tropic you’ve designed for yourself, so if I can help warm you and your little cocoon, you might actually feel warm for once since nothing else is helping.”

An arm wraps around Beca’s waist, on top of the blanket she’s wrapped up in under her duvet. And, as much as it might pain Beca to admit, even to herself, it’s kind of nice. And that spot actually does feel a little warmer. Her eyelids start drooping a little.

“Okay, fine, but no copping any feels, ginger,” Beca says, her words already blurring at the edges with sleep.

“Scout’s honour!” Chloe promises.

It’s mumbled and very quiet, but Beca manages to get out, “I doubt you were ever a scout,” before drifting off. Chloe laughs softly and inches forward to cuddle Beca better.

An ending, @sketchywave

Whatever Chloe had expected Beca to pick her up in, that lean silhouette on the back of a Honda Shadow motorcycle was not even on the list of possibilities. She watches as Beca parks the bike and whips off her helmet, giving one of those sexy hair tosses that only seem to happen in commercials.

“Hey Chloe,” Beca greets, tucking her helmet under one arm. “It’s no problem if you don’t want to ride on this thing, we can Uber or something instead.”

Chloe shakes her head and starts walking towards Beca, “No, it’s totes fine. As long as you have another helmet for me.”

Beca breaks out into a grin and goes for a saddlebag, pulling out another helmet, just like her own, only in a dark metallic grey. “Of course,” Beca says, holding it out to her. And then she winks, “After all, safety first.” Chloe fights a swoon as Beca helps do up the strap on her helmet, staring intently into Chloe’s eyes as her fingers work beneath Chloe’s chin. Then she pulls on her own helmet, slides a leg across the bike, and holds out her hand to help Chloe up behind her, pointing out the rests where Chloe can place her boots.

“Don’t worry,” Beca assures her, voice slightly muffled with the helmet on. “I’m not taking you too far. I don’t want your butt to get numb.”

A dozen different, filthy thoughts flicker through Chloe’s mind, but she doesn’t say a single one. She just feels her cheeks warm inside the helmet as she smiles into the padding under her lips.

True to her word, Beca doesn’t take them far. It’s maybe ten minutes before Beca pulls over to the side of the road, and parks in one of those small edge spots reserved for motorcycles. She helps Chloe off the back seat, and then gets off herself. Chloe tries to take off her helmet by herself, but however Beca had done it up eludes her nimble fingers until Beca’s laughing in front of her and reaching up to push Chloe’s fingers out of the way.

When Chloe pulls the helmet off, she notices that Beca swallows noticeably, and can’t help feeling pleased at the reaction she elicited. She waits impatiently for Beca to tuck the helmet away before looping her arm through Beca’s, “So where are you taking me this evening?”

Beca pulls Chloe a littler closer. “Now I hope you won’t be mad,” Beca begins, leading Chloe along the sidewalk. Chloe stops abruptly.

“Why would I be mad, Beca Mitchell?”

Beca winces comically at the falsely unhappy voice Chloe uses. “Well, you mentioned being a famous author, so, naturally, I Googled you.”

This doesn’t sound that bad, so Chloe resumes walking and lets Beca continue to lead. As far as she knows, there’s nothing particularly bad about her online.

After looking around, Beca darts down a sidewalk between buildings, pulling Chloe along. “And I couldn’t help but go down a bit of a rabbit hole when I saw that one of your early author bios spoke about your time in university...” Beca stops in the middle of the sidewalk and gestures to the building fairly hidden behind some fake palm trees. “As part of the a cappella sensational group, the Barden Bellas.” She sweeps some of the fronds out of the way to reveal a sign that makes Chloe burst out laughing so hard that tears almost make it to the corners of her eyes.

Steve’s Karaoke Bar.

“Oh my God, Beca, I can’t do karaoke here with a literal music genius,” Chloe says, gesturing at all of Beca.

“Hey, we can go somewhere else if you don’t like it, but I thought it might be fun for you to relive those sing-along glory days,” Beca smiles, tucking her hands into her pockets. Chloe can’t see a shred of malice in her face, and it kind of really warms her heart that Beca put in this much effort despite being a very big deal who probably could have had someone else organize this excursion for her.

“If it helps,” Beca offers, “I wasn’t going to sing. So no need to feel threatened.” With this, Beca smirks and pulls open the door, holding it for Chloe to walk through.

Of course, that only serves to ignite the competitive streak in Chloe, so she marches right up to Beca, leans in close to whisper into her ear, “Oh, I’ll get you to sing, Becs,” and then walks right into the place, heading straight for a table for two pointed out to her by the guy behind the bar.

“Jesus,” Beca whispers, her mind short-circuiting briefly at how attractive Chloe sounds, before following her date into the bar.

Things Chloe’s learned after three hours which included forcing Beca into two duets and two solo songs each:

1. Her eyes are more gorgeous in dim lighting than the light of day. The flames kind of dance along the edges of the irises.

2. Beca does a version of R. Kelly’s “Ignition” remix that could drop Chloe’s underwear, and probably every other woman’s in this bar.

3. She’s a responsible driver, only sharing one drink with Chloe at the beginning, and then indulging in a couple of Coke Zeros - not, apparently, because Beca counts calories (she doesn’t) but because she actually likes the flavour.

4. She’s witty, and not just with the mildly seductive one-liners. There are those, for sure, and boy are they great to be on the receiving end of, but she listens to Chloe’s stories and throws in a few clever comments, too.

5. Yeah, that’s right, she listens.

6. She’s adorably started calling Chloe “Chlo” and it makes Chloe’s insides all warm and fuzzy.

7. They sound really good when they turn “Titanium” by David Guetta and Sia into a duet.

8. Beca asks good questions. She asks about what Chloe likes and dislikes about her life, the whys, the details. She doesn’t let a conversation die with monosyllables.

9. It’s safe to say Chloe is more than a little in love at this point.

When they step back outside into the crisp night air, Chloe’s still laughing about a comment Beca made, as Beca digs into the saddlebags to draw out their helmets. Again, she helps tighten the strap beneath Chloe’s chin, and maybe it’s the three drinks Chloe indulged in over the course of the evening, or maybe it’s the way the buzzing neon reflects off Beca’s irises - but as Beca’s fingers brush against her neck, Chloe says, “Wait.”

Immediately, Beca’s fingers drop away from Chloe and she takes a half-step back, “I’m sorry, did I do something?” but Chloe’s fighting to loosen the straps and finally, finally takes off the helmet. She steps forward towards Beca who’s still looking confused, even a little worried, and she puts left hand on Beca’s cheek.

“You did everything,” Chloe says, and then she’s pressing forward, closing her eyes, and they’re kissing.

The street isn’t busy, if anything, it’s deserted, despite the occasional rowdy echoes from Steve’s. So they kiss, the helmet falls from Chloe’s fingertips as she brings her right hand up to cup Beca’s other cheek, and trail her fingers into Beca’s hair. Beca’s still holding onto her helmet, but her free hand has come around to press lightly against the small of Chloe’s back.

It’s not a fervent kiss, they’re not winding up for a home-run adventure - it’s soft, gentle, exploratory. Chloe learns that Beca likes to have her lip tugged carefully by Chloe’s teeth. When they finally pull away, they’re both wearing smiles, and even in the low lighting, they can tell that the other is flushed.

“What did I do to deserve that?” Beca asks. Chloe doesn’t think she’s flattering herself to think that her voice might even be a little breathless.

“Like I said,” Chloe wraps her arms around Beca’s neck. “Everything.”

Beca laughs. “That’s pretty cryptic, Chlo.”

Chloe shrugs, and bends down to bury her head in Beca’s neck.

“Luckily for you, I wouldn’t mind spending a lot more time to figure you out,”  Beca adds.

“Good,” Chloe murmurs. “I won’t lie - I could pretty easily see myself falling for you.”

Unknown number: Did you get home okay?

Chloe: New phone who dis?

Beca: Come on, Zip, let’s not make this weird.

Chloe: Ok, y u gotta b rude w/ Zippo?

Beca: Oh my God, is that seriously how you text?

Chloe: mayb. Y? bother u?

Beca: Yes.

Chloe: Fine, I can text like it’s going to be included in an honours thesis. It’s more boring, but whatever. Your loss.

Beca: Thank you.

Beca: You never answered my question.