Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Sweaty hands shaking around Chloe Valentine's no longer mint condition collector's edition photo, Brooke peeks ahead in line to see that there are only two more people in front of her before she gets to meet her celebrity crush. She feels like she's been waiting years to meet the actress, even though she's only had a crush on her for a few months, but who could blame her? Chloe's the most popular teenage actress in the States right now with tons of admirers all over the Internet. Even Brooke's best friend Jenna has a bit of a crush on her, and that's after having found an actress girlfriend of her own, albeit not a world-renowned one.

What'll it be like meeting Chloe? Brooke wonders as the next person gets called up to Chloe's booth. People have said she's kind of egotistical and rude, but what if she's nice to me? Maybe she'll see that I have a crush on her and that'll boost her ego so she'll be nice to me? The person at the booth walks away, leaving only one person left before Brooke gets to meet Chloe. Either way, I hope I don't mess up. Brooke's phone buzzes, and she looks at it to see a text from Jenna: gl! From their designated meeting spot, Jenna flashes Brooke an encouraging thumbs up, and Brooke waves in response.

"Next!" Chloe calls. Brooke rushes up to Chloe's booth, laying her coveted photo on the desk.

"Hi!" Brooke says. "I loved you in Henry Danger , and that lipstick you always wear is iconic."

"Thank you, I get that a lot." Chloe smirks up at Brooke, and despite Chloe's slight egotism, Brooke is ready to faint at the gentle curve of her painted lips.

"You're welcome, I guess." With a whoosh of silver Sharpie, Chloe signs Brooke's photo… and gives it a big, puckered kiss just above her signature.

"Here you go." Brooke practically tears the photo from Chloe's hands. "P.S., I wrote down the shade for you."

"Oh, wow, you really didn't ha-"

"Next!" Chloe shouts, smiling at Brooke even as the next person comes to meet her. Thank you, Brooke mouths, rushing over to Jenna.

"Oh my God!" Brooke shrieks. "Did you see that?! She kissed my picture! Well, her picture, but still!"

"I did! That's awesome!" Jenna grabs Brooke's hand- the one that's not holding the picture- and starts leading her to her car. "You look like you're about to faint."

"Yeah…" Brooke responds, too lost in the haze of meeting Chloe Valentine to say anything else.

Late at night, after her parents have fallen asleep and all the lights have been turned off, Brooke lifts Chloe's portrait from her night table. Looking around to make sure that nobody's secretly watching her, Brooke closes her eyes and gently kisses the lipstick mark that Chloe left. An indirect kiss from my celebrity crush… Brooke smiles as she flicks off her lamp. It's all I could've hoped for.

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"Brookie," Chloe whines, "when are we gonna find a pet that likes me? They all keep looking at you instead!"

"I told you, it's because of my piercings. Animals like shiny things." Brooke reassures her best friend and roommate. "I also told you not to call me that."

"Sorry…" The warm weight of Chloe's head drops on top of Brooke's shaved head, making the punk girl freeze up. A lightning bolt of affection shocks her system at the cute action. Don't say anything, Brooke, she reminds herself. You've got a reputation to uphold.

"Hey, you like cats, right? There's one up ahead." Brooke points to a cage with a small white kitten resting on a cat bed in it. Grabbing Brooke's hand, Chloe walks over to the cage and waves at the kitten.

"Hi, cutie!" Chloe coos. The kitten immediately uncurls itself and mewls at her. "We might adopt you soon. I'm Chloe, and this is Brooke. We'll be like your moms!"

"You make it sound like we're together."

"Shhh." Chloe hushes Brooke. "What do you think of her? She looked at me first, and she's really cute!"

"Hmmm…" Brooke taps her finger to her chin, pretending to consider Chloe's offer. In reality, she adores cats, so much so that she almost shoved Chloe out of the way to talk to the kitten first, but she pretends to deliberate to not seem too emotional about finally adopting a kitten. "I do like cats. Let's go for it."

"Oh, thank you!" Grabbing Brooke's hands, Chloe squeals, jumping up and down. "I promise you won't regret it."

"I know I won't, Chloe."

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Chloe, seeing that her next interrogation subject is coming in, smooths out the wrinkles in her signature catsuit. The man who steps through the threshold is polished in his suit and tie, but he's not above giving her a clear once-over before sitting down.

"Hello, Ms. Valentine." Mrs., Chloe wants to correct him, but that would make her femme fatale act moot.

"Hello, Mr. K. Nice to see you. I just have a few painless questions for you before I let you go. First off, I'd like to know where you and your team are headed next."

"I'm afraid that's confidential information, Ms. Valentine. My lips are sealed."

"Oh, really?" Making sure to show off the way her impeccable knee-high boots cup her calves, Chloe perches on her desk.

"Yes. It's not up for negotiation."

"Maybe," Chloe says, leaning back across her desk, "you could tell me just this once."

"I assure you that your act won't work on me."

"Aww." Sticking out her bottom lip emphatically, Chloe rolls over, puts a hand on Mr. K's chest, and leans in close to his blushing face. "That's a shame."

"M-Morocco."

"What was that?"

"Morocco, Ms. Valentine."

"Thank you very much, Mr. K." Chloe slides back into her desk chair and jots down the information. "You may go now."

"I thought you said you had a few questions-"

"You. May. Go." With that, the man steps out the door, and Chloe prepares to go home.

When Chloe gets home, her wife Brooke is waiting for her on the couch. She locks the door and promptly collapses into Brooke's arms.

"Hey, baby. Rough day?" Brooke comfortingly rubs Chloe's back, and she relaxes into the warm touch.

"You can say that again. My last appointment was another guy that I had to flirt with to get information. I'm a married lesbian, Brooke, why do I have to deal with this?"

"I mean, you're the one who chose the job." Small hands grab Chloe's face and pull her closer so that Brooke can kiss her nose.

"Still. Can't I just have one normal day?"

"As long as we're married, every day with you is an adventure." Feeling Brooke's hands entwined in her hair, Chloe leans in for a kiss, and instantly forgets about the stresses of her day.

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The bell ringing above Pinkberry's door immediately draws Chloe up from her slumped over position at the register, like a minimum wage working marionette activated as soon as it hears a customer come through the door.

"Hello, welcome to Pinkberry- oh, hi, Brooke."

"What's cookin', good lookin'?" Brooke winks at Chloe with a toss of her long blonde hair.

"Frozen yogurt." Chloe deadpans, even though she wants to smile back at Brooke.

"Well, yeah, but I mean more like 'what's up with you?'" Grabbing her usual small cup, Brooke fills it up with her favorite flavors, vanilla and (ugh) strawberry. Chloe takes the opportunity to stare at her placid expression without being seen.

"Since it's summer, we've gotten a lot of customers each day; mostly adults, some other teenagers… None as regular as you, though. How do you keep off all that weight? Our stuff doesn't have much fat in the first place, but still."

"It's all about portion control and what I put on it." Moving to the toppings, Brooke gets a scoop of chopped strawberries and sprinkles it on her yogurt to demonstrate. "Plus yoga. I have a class next week; do you wanna come?"

"I'll think about it." The thought of getting to see Brooke mid-workout fills Chloe's imagination, and in her mind I'll think about it changes to Is that even a question? Brooke places her coveted frozen yogurt on the scale and Chloe tells her the price. "$9.99 as usual." Swiping her card, Brooke takes her yogurt back, and Chloe waits for the receipt to print. On it, she scribbles something impulsive- her number, with a note saying "Call me sometime."

Brooke takes her yogurt to a table, switches her phone on, and doesn't notice Chloe's note. Chloe does the same as she waits for more customers, but occasionally peeks up at Brooke to see if she's looked at her receipt. Eventually, Brooke puts down her phone to take another bite of her yogurt, and her eyes wander to the receipt, skimming over the short note. She smiles at Chloe, the brightest smile that Chloe's ever seen, and Chloe finally smiles back at her.

"I'll call you." Brooke says. She finishes her yogurt and walks out the door, receipt clutched closely between two fingers. "Talk to you later, Chloe."

"You too."

At 3 PM on the dot, right as Chloe clocks out, her phone chimes with a call from an unknown number. She has a feeling she knows who it is.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's Brooke."

Chloe's never been happier to be right about something.

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"Okay, girls," Chloe says, arms folded, "you know the drill by now. Biggest game of the season. Cheer until your balls fall off, and don't fuck it up. Got it?"

"Got it!" Everyone else on the cheer team says in unison, and Chloe's heart fills with a rare streak of pride in her squad.

"Good. Let's go out there and kick some eagle tail!"

With a practiced smile, Chloe strides onto the Middleborough football field, waving her pom-poms idly as she walks. When she started as cheer captain, others questioned whether she would be able to boost morale, what with her menacing attitude, easy temper, and penchant for being overly controlling. Fuck them, though, because Chloe Valentine can do whatever she wants.

Then she sees the cute blonde girl present at every game sitting in the front row of the bleachers, and her vexing heart starts beating in her ears.

Anything except, apparently, be straight.

Why does she always have to be here? Chloe thinks as she goes through the well-rehearsed motions of cheering. She's not even with anyone when she comes, so how much fun could she be having?

"You okay?" One of the pyramid middles asks, and Chloe nods.

"Yeah, just saw someone in the crowd."

"Ooh, who?"

"...No one." If Chloe were straight like she wishes she is, there would be an easy answer. She just can't get that girl out of her goddamn head.

I should just get a football player to be my beard. That's what the cheer captain is supposed to do, right? Date the head of the football team and be the power couple of the school? Maybe I could even like him if I tried.

Chloe and her squad give their last shout before standing in front of the bleachers, where she has to make an effort to not look at the girl. Come on, you know that's not an option. The girl waves at Chloe with the brightest smile she's ever seen, and she waves back as casually as possible. It's settled; she'll never get that girl out of her head. C'est la vie, I guess.

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A couple months after her first post-SQUIP mall trip with Chloe , Brooke is in the middle of she and Chloe’s first post-SQUIP sleepover. At first, she was bristly and anxious at seeing Chloe's house for the first time in forever, but now she's accustomed to the atmosphere, and Brooke and Chloe’s sleepover routine is almost back in the groove of how it was before everything happened. Right now, the two are playing Truth or Dare on the floor in Chloe’s room, a bowl of Nacho Cheese Doritos between them.

“Okay, Brooke, truth or dare?” Chloe asks.

“Um, truth, I guess," Brooke responds, reaching for another chip. She’s been picking truth the whole game, partly because she doesn’t want Chloe to have blackmail material on her and partly because she wants to be closer to her best friend after all the discord in the recent months.

“Who do you like?” The suddenness of the question makes Brooke almost choke on her chip, but she manages to swallow it, taking a sip of water before responding.

“Huh?”

“I know you like someone, Brooke. You always get this dreamy look and zone out when you have a crush. Like when you liked—” Chloe’s mouth snaps shut, and she turns her head. Brooke does the same once she realizes who Chloe’s talking about. They haven’t touched on the topic of Jeremy yet, and Brooke doesn’t want to ruin the mood by interrogating Chloe like she’s daydreamed about. “Anyway, we’ve known each other for long enough that I can see when you have a crush on someone. So who is it?”

“You’ll be mad.” Did she really have to ask that when my crush is her ? Oh, God, what if she doesn’t like gay people after all? I know she’s been homophobic in the past, but I hope the play and the SQUIPs have taught her something.

“I still want to know.”

“You,” Brooke squeaks.

“Oh, thank God.”

“Huh?”

“I like you too, Brooke. Jeez, you had me worried it was Madeline or something.” Chloe rolls her eyes.

“Hey, just because you don’t like her doesn’t mean she’s not nice! What would you do if I did like her?” Brooke pouts.

“Okay, not important. What is important is that you like me back, and what’s most important is deciding what we should do about this.” Chloe gestures between the two of them.

“We could kiss about it?”

“Sure.” Both girls push themselves up into a sitting position, Brooke’s elbows hurting slightly from being pushed against the carpet for so long. Chloe pats her thighs in invitation, prompting Brooke to sit on her lap, pressing her forehead against Chloe’s as she settles down to kiss her.

It’s not the best kiss, probably due to Brooke not having kissed a girl in a while and this probably being Chloe’s first kiss with a girl, but it is precisely the naivety and yearning to give each other more expressed in the kiss that makes Brooke dive in for another one. She runs her hand through the back of Chloe’s enviably silky hair as she kisses her again and thanks whatever got her here that she’s managed to capture her heart. Brooke and Chloe’s third and final kiss is a more formal but still loving press, as is the protocol for a proper final kiss.

“Now what do we do about us?” Brooke asks when she pulls away.

“Girlfriends?”

“Well, I don’t think that either of us are ready for a relationship. I think that the best thing to do is, like, be friends who like each other and are aware of that and maybe sometimes kiss or something? ‘Friends with benefits’ is the wrong term for that, ugh.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean. I think I could do that.”

“So…” Brooke reaches into the bowl and pulls out a Dorito to hold out to Chloe, “to whatever we are?” Chloe smiles warmly back at Brooke, pulls out a Dorito, and clinks it against Brooke’s.

“To whatever we are.”

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“Ready, Chloe?” Brooke grabs her silver stand mic with both hands and spins it into a dip. “This is my first video assignment for my pop choir class, so… not that I doubt you, but it has to be perfect.”

“I think the better question is if you’re ready,” Chloe responds from her position behind her tripod. Being the one behind the camera lens around other people doesn’t suit her, but this way Chloe’s stray pining eyes won’t be seen by anyone unwanted. “You’ve been moving non-stop since I came over this afternoon.”

“I’m—yeah, I’m nervous. I guess school gets worse as you start caring about your grades. Now I understand how Rich feels.”

“Okay, let’s get you singing before you faint.” After pressing record on her camera, Chloe swivels to Brooke’s laptop, looking to her best friend for affirmation to play the instrumental background to her chosen song, their mutual favorite song.

“I’m ready,” Brooke says, and Chloe clicks play before swiveling back to her camera. The only way to see Brooke is through the viewfinder, but, as cliche as it is, the miniscule image is enough to send Chloe’s heart into a frenzy.

“ I’m a Barbie girl

In the Barbie world ”

God, Chloe always forgets how silky and melodic Brooke’s singing voice is until the worst times, like now when her brain is melting into sentimentality rather than focusing on filming a good video. Thoughts of Brooke singing love songs naturally mutate from Chloe’s train of thought, and she about breaks her camera with how hard she grips it trying to stave them off. It doesn’t work, and though Chloe is ordinarily nothing if not persistent, she decides to let her thoughts flow this time, because trying to ignore them is another mental barrier to her focus on Brooke’s video.

“ Life in plastic

It’s fantastic

You can brush my hair

Undress me everywhere ”

Okay, not there, Chloe snaps at her thoughts, seeing a blush rise on Brooke’s cheeks as Chloe’s own face warms. Back to the video, not there!

“ Imagination

Life is your creation

...Okay, that’s it.”

“Wait, really?” Brow furrowed, Chloe hits stop on her camera and pauses the music. “I thought this was some huge project from how frazzled you were.”

“Oh, no. Because my pop choir class is only online, we have to sing a bit of a song that fits certain rules every week. This was just my first ever video assignment.”

“...Oh.” Chloe sets to work on disassembling her camera, her chest hollow at not getting to hear Brooke keep singing.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get to hear much more of this voice in the next few months. That is, um, if you’ll keep helping me with my video projects?” Brooke fake-chuckles. “Only if you’re available and stuff.”

“Yes.” Without thinking about her own obligations, Chloe agrees. It’s a win-win situation: Chloe gets to hear more of Brooke’s singing voice and Brooke can reliably get quality videos for her assignments. “Your voice is too nice for me to just help out once.”

“Aww, Chloe…” Something thumps against Chloe’s shoulder, and when Chloe whips around, the object is Brooke’s head. “Hey, do you wanna sing the song for real? You look down.”

“Hmm, sure. I’ll be Ken.”

“Then I shall be Barbie .” Brooke reaches over to her laptop to click restart on the instrumental video and resumes her position of resting her head on Chloe’s shoulder.

“Hiya, Barbie,” Chloe says, wiggling her eyebrows at Brooke with a smile.

“Hi, Ken,” Brooke coos, batting her eyelashes up at Chloe. Cute, cute, cute, Chloe thinks, thanking whoever is listening that she manages to resist kissing Brooke in that moment.

“Do you wanna ride?”

“Sure, Ken.”

“Jump in.”

By the near-end of she and Brooke’s real singing session, Chloe is pressed up against her hot, sweaty best friend. In any other situation, her mind might start wandering, but right now she’s exhausted from dancing and singing.

“Oh, I’m having, ah, so much fun,” Brooke pants.

“Well, Barbie, we are just getting started,” Chloe breathes.

“Oh, I love you, Ken.” At that, Brooke lays her head onto Chloe’s lap. I love you too, Brooke, Chloe thinks, petting her best friend’s silky blonde hair. Someday I’ll tell you.