FIC : 'Nothing But Treble' (Pitch Perfect)
Title: Nothing But Treble
Fandom: Pitch Perfect
Characters: Beca/Jesse, Luke
Word Count: 1409
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: The movie!
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: No one mentioned belongs to me.
Summary: Jesse gets it in his head to do the one thing Luke told them not to do.
Nothing But Treble
“We should have sex on the desk,” said Jesse, shelving a Zeppelin vinyl with too much force.
Beca gave him the side-eye. “Didn’t Luke warn us against that on, like, the first day?”
“I forgot you’re such a rule-follower.”
“That’s right, because you’re such a rule breaker.” Beca rolled her eyes. “Does the mid-afternoon seventies rock block turn you on?”
He considered this. “Sometimes. But I was staring at your ass.”
Beca cocked her arm as though to throw her CD like a shuriken at his face. “Am I being objectified?”
Jesse shrugged, apparently not afraid of her ninja skills. “What can I say? Listening to Styx with girls in plaid shirts really gets me hot. Gets me thinking crazy things.”
“Weirdo.”
“Just once?” On the whole, this was very un-Jesse-like behavior. If he’d been aggressive about it, she might’ve been concerned. But he didn’t seem particularly invested in the outcome. If she’d flat-out said yes (not that she was going to), she wondered how he’d respond. It seemed off somehow. She studied him suspiciously.
“You just want to get back at Luke,” she guessed. She didn’t mean for it to sound quite as accusatory.
“So wanting to have sex with my, incidentally, super-hot girlfriend has to be revenge-motivated? And has nothing to do with the fact that she’s super hot and I’ve been trying to date her since September?”
Beca smiled despite herself. “Flatterer.” But her focus was laser-like. “You do hate him.”
“Hate is such a strong word. I just think he belittles us, abuses his power, and has bad taste in music.”
“You also hate his abs,” guess number two.
“I do not,” he said instantly.
Beca managed to swallow her laughter, but could not hide her grin. He was being terribly transparent. “You do.”
Jesse looked a little hurt, which made her feel bad for smiling. “Okay, one, I have abs, so it’s a non-issue. Two, hating them indicates I’ve spent any time thinking about them whatsoever.” Oh, clearly. “Three, he stares at your ass. I don’t like him.”
“You just admitted to staring at my ass yourself.”
Lucky for Jesse, he was cute when he was flustered. “I spent all year chasing you. I like to think I’ve earned the right.” Beca raised an eyebrow, daring him to continue that train of thought. “I mean, the privilege,” he corrected himself. “The supreme honor. Anyway, I’m pretty sure he still thinks your name is Becky. And aren’t you mad that he’s only played one of your tracks?”
That really pissed her off, actually. But still, “Not mad enough for desk sex.”
“Damn.”
“You think he stares at my ass?”
“You didn’t notice?”
All of Beca’s interactions with Luke prior to this moment had been listening to his instructions, foisting her mixes on him, and trying not to roll her eyes at his general obliviousness. Except maybe she was the oblivious one. “I guess not.” Chloe had been trying to convince Beca for months that she (Beca) was attractive and a great person, and that people noticed, but Beca was so not into that sort of thing that she’d been brushing it off.
“That probably has something to do with your stark refusal to acknowledge when anyone gives you positive attention.” Well, that sounded a little too much like everything she’d ever heard.
“Is this your seduction attempt?” she said, going for levity instead of facing uncomfortable truths. “It’s awful.”
“Did I mention that part about you being super-hot?” Jesse gave her one of his hopeless-devoted-to-you faces. Beca smiled in spite of herself. She did that a lot when he was involved.
“I stand corrected. I’m all a-fluster. Get on over here, soldier. Show me those so-called abs.”
Jesse’s goofy expression faded, replaced with something more nervous. He remained staunchly rooted on his side of the table. “I thought...”
“Maybe I changed my mind,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t call her bluff. Well, not ‘hope.’ She did want to have sex with him. But not here. Probably. That desk looked splintery. And PDAs were the exact opposite of her thing. “He said he’d listen to my tracks and he didn’t. Screw him. By which I mean, I’m gonna screw you.” Okay, so maybe flirty wordplay was not her thing, either.
Beca patted the desktop. Yeah, no way she was putting her naked anything on it. “Come on,” she challenged him.
Jesse stared.
Beca undid the top button of the plaid shirt that had him so hot and bothered. Jesse’s neck got red. She was starting to genuinely have fun with this. “Well?”
Jesse glanced to the booth door, then the front door. “I mean...”
“Unless, of course, you weren’t really serious.”
“Well, I...”
“Performance anxiety?” she teased.
“Okay, fine, you win,” he sighed. “You have officially called my bluff, Matt Damon in Rounders. Anyway, I changed my mind. This place isn’t safe. I don’t want to risk letting that asshat seeing you naked,” he said, which was one of the more chivalrous ways he could concede defeat. He crossed the room, dramatically laying the flat of his palm over that two inches or so of exposed skin, as though she was some kind of Victorian harlot or something. “Cover up quick, before he looks over here.”
Beca rolled her eyes. “That guy routinely shows off his stomach like he’s auditioning for the Jersey Shore. Heaven forfend he see my clavicle.”
“The fact that you just used the word clavicle is really hot.”
“I thought it was the plaid.” She pointed above them to indicate the radio’s current selection. “Or ‘Baba O’Riley’.”
“‘Baba O’Riley’ gets everyone excited,” said Jesse dismissively.
Before she had the chance to call him weird again, the booth door opened and Luke stuck his head out. Jesse dropped his hand. There went her theory about him not paying attention to them ever. “Are you two working or chatting?”
“We’re advanced homosapiens, Luke, I think we can manage both,” said Beca.
Luke gave her a once-over then turned his gaze to Jesse. “Jesse, could you run and get me lunch?”
Jesse cast her a small, subtle, ‘can you believe this?’ look, and really, Beca couldn’t. Luke had never ever once sent her for lunch. It was unbalanced. Maybe he was trying to prove he wasn’t sexist by making Jesse do slightly more demeaning scutwork. Or maybe he was trying to get Jesse out of there so he and Beca would be alone? He had never overtly hit on her, true, but she wasn’t that great at picking up on subtleties (or, at the very least, she made sure she remained willfully ignorant to those subtleties).
Maybe it wasn’t a trying-to-get-in-her-pants thing. Maybe Luke just disliked Jesse that much more than he disliked Beca.
Whatever his reasoning, though, Beca knew that Luke had been being kind of a dick to Jesse, always sending him on errands. He’d been kind of a dick to her, too. She might not have cared before, but now she was a little more sympathetic to Jesse getting treated like crap. Especially since she’d done a lot of it herself.
Well, maybe it was time she started making amends.
“You know, Luke, you are totally right,” said Beca. Both men looked at her in surprise. “I am starving. Jesse, let’s go get lunch. Luke, you still like red meat, right?”
“Um, yes?” said Luke, appearing slightly baffled. Beca was not usually helpful. Forceful, sometimes, when she had a new mix, but never helpful.
“Oh, then you have to try that burger place across campus. The one right by Jesse’s dorm,” she said, looking at Jesse significantly.
“Yeah, that place is great,” said Jesse, with a little too much emphasis.
“We should totally go right now, there’s usually a long line.” Beca looped her arm around Jesse’s to tug him towards the door. He stumbled along dutifully after her, waving at Luke. “We’ll be back.”
Out the door, Jesse laughed in bafflement. “I think I owe you one.”
“Something like that.”
Jesse did a little hop-skip and stopped in front of her. “I want to be clear, here,” he said.
“Yes?”
“There’s no burger place.”
Beca could not stop herself from smiling. “Nope.”
“So we are...”
She poked his chest. “I said I wasn’t going to have sex with you in there. I didn’t say not at all.”
This fic and more can be found at my AO3 archive!
Fandom: Pitch Perfect
Characters: Beca/Jesse, Luke
Word Count: 1409
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: The movie!
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: No one mentioned belongs to me.
Summary: Jesse gets it in his head to do the one thing Luke told them not to do.
Nothing But Treble
“We should have sex on the desk,” said Jesse, shelving a Zeppelin vinyl with too much force.
Beca gave him the side-eye. “Didn’t Luke warn us against that on, like, the first day?”
“I forgot you’re such a rule-follower.”
“That’s right, because you’re such a rule breaker.” Beca rolled her eyes. “Does the mid-afternoon seventies rock block turn you on?”
He considered this. “Sometimes. But I was staring at your ass.”
Beca cocked her arm as though to throw her CD like a shuriken at his face. “Am I being objectified?”
Jesse shrugged, apparently not afraid of her ninja skills. “What can I say? Listening to Styx with girls in plaid shirts really gets me hot. Gets me thinking crazy things.”
“Weirdo.”
“Just once?” On the whole, this was very un-Jesse-like behavior. If he’d been aggressive about it, she might’ve been concerned. But he didn’t seem particularly invested in the outcome. If she’d flat-out said yes (not that she was going to), she wondered how he’d respond. It seemed off somehow. She studied him suspiciously.
“You just want to get back at Luke,” she guessed. She didn’t mean for it to sound quite as accusatory.
“So wanting to have sex with my, incidentally, super-hot girlfriend has to be revenge-motivated? And has nothing to do with the fact that she’s super hot and I’ve been trying to date her since September?”
Beca smiled despite herself. “Flatterer.” But her focus was laser-like. “You do hate him.”
“Hate is such a strong word. I just think he belittles us, abuses his power, and has bad taste in music.”
“You also hate his abs,” guess number two.
“I do not,” he said instantly.
Beca managed to swallow her laughter, but could not hide her grin. He was being terribly transparent. “You do.”
Jesse looked a little hurt, which made her feel bad for smiling. “Okay, one, I have abs, so it’s a non-issue. Two, hating them indicates I’ve spent any time thinking about them whatsoever.” Oh, clearly. “Three, he stares at your ass. I don’t like him.”
“You just admitted to staring at my ass yourself.”
Lucky for Jesse, he was cute when he was flustered. “I spent all year chasing you. I like to think I’ve earned the right.” Beca raised an eyebrow, daring him to continue that train of thought. “I mean, the privilege,” he corrected himself. “The supreme honor. Anyway, I’m pretty sure he still thinks your name is Becky. And aren’t you mad that he’s only played one of your tracks?”
That really pissed her off, actually. But still, “Not mad enough for desk sex.”
“Damn.”
“You think he stares at my ass?”
“You didn’t notice?”
All of Beca’s interactions with Luke prior to this moment had been listening to his instructions, foisting her mixes on him, and trying not to roll her eyes at his general obliviousness. Except maybe she was the oblivious one. “I guess not.” Chloe had been trying to convince Beca for months that she (Beca) was attractive and a great person, and that people noticed, but Beca was so not into that sort of thing that she’d been brushing it off.
“That probably has something to do with your stark refusal to acknowledge when anyone gives you positive attention.” Well, that sounded a little too much like everything she’d ever heard.
“Is this your seduction attempt?” she said, going for levity instead of facing uncomfortable truths. “It’s awful.”
“Did I mention that part about you being super-hot?” Jesse gave her one of his hopeless-devoted-to-you faces. Beca smiled in spite of herself. She did that a lot when he was involved.
“I stand corrected. I’m all a-fluster. Get on over here, soldier. Show me those so-called abs.”
Jesse’s goofy expression faded, replaced with something more nervous. He remained staunchly rooted on his side of the table. “I thought...”
“Maybe I changed my mind,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t call her bluff. Well, not ‘hope.’ She did want to have sex with him. But not here. Probably. That desk looked splintery. And PDAs were the exact opposite of her thing. “He said he’d listen to my tracks and he didn’t. Screw him. By which I mean, I’m gonna screw you.” Okay, so maybe flirty wordplay was not her thing, either.
Beca patted the desktop. Yeah, no way she was putting her naked anything on it. “Come on,” she challenged him.
Jesse stared.
Beca undid the top button of the plaid shirt that had him so hot and bothered. Jesse’s neck got red. She was starting to genuinely have fun with this. “Well?”
Jesse glanced to the booth door, then the front door. “I mean...”
“Unless, of course, you weren’t really serious.”
“Well, I...”
“Performance anxiety?” she teased.
“Okay, fine, you win,” he sighed. “You have officially called my bluff, Matt Damon in Rounders. Anyway, I changed my mind. This place isn’t safe. I don’t want to risk letting that asshat seeing you naked,” he said, which was one of the more chivalrous ways he could concede defeat. He crossed the room, dramatically laying the flat of his palm over that two inches or so of exposed skin, as though she was some kind of Victorian harlot or something. “Cover up quick, before he looks over here.”
Beca rolled her eyes. “That guy routinely shows off his stomach like he’s auditioning for the Jersey Shore. Heaven forfend he see my clavicle.”
“The fact that you just used the word clavicle is really hot.”
“I thought it was the plaid.” She pointed above them to indicate the radio’s current selection. “Or ‘Baba O’Riley’.”
“‘Baba O’Riley’ gets everyone excited,” said Jesse dismissively.
Before she had the chance to call him weird again, the booth door opened and Luke stuck his head out. Jesse dropped his hand. There went her theory about him not paying attention to them ever. “Are you two working or chatting?”
“We’re advanced homosapiens, Luke, I think we can manage both,” said Beca.
Luke gave her a once-over then turned his gaze to Jesse. “Jesse, could you run and get me lunch?”
Jesse cast her a small, subtle, ‘can you believe this?’ look, and really, Beca couldn’t. Luke had never ever once sent her for lunch. It was unbalanced. Maybe he was trying to prove he wasn’t sexist by making Jesse do slightly more demeaning scutwork. Or maybe he was trying to get Jesse out of there so he and Beca would be alone? He had never overtly hit on her, true, but she wasn’t that great at picking up on subtleties (or, at the very least, she made sure she remained willfully ignorant to those subtleties).
Maybe it wasn’t a trying-to-get-in-her-pants thing. Maybe Luke just disliked Jesse that much more than he disliked Beca.
Whatever his reasoning, though, Beca knew that Luke had been being kind of a dick to Jesse, always sending him on errands. He’d been kind of a dick to her, too. She might not have cared before, but now she was a little more sympathetic to Jesse getting treated like crap. Especially since she’d done a lot of it herself.
Well, maybe it was time she started making amends.
“You know, Luke, you are totally right,” said Beca. Both men looked at her in surprise. “I am starving. Jesse, let’s go get lunch. Luke, you still like red meat, right?”
“Um, yes?” said Luke, appearing slightly baffled. Beca was not usually helpful. Forceful, sometimes, when she had a new mix, but never helpful.
“Oh, then you have to try that burger place across campus. The one right by Jesse’s dorm,” she said, looking at Jesse significantly.
“Yeah, that place is great,” said Jesse, with a little too much emphasis.
“We should totally go right now, there’s usually a long line.” Beca looped her arm around Jesse’s to tug him towards the door. He stumbled along dutifully after her, waving at Luke. “We’ll be back.”
Out the door, Jesse laughed in bafflement. “I think I owe you one.”
“Something like that.”
Jesse did a little hop-skip and stopped in front of her. “I want to be clear, here,” he said.
“Yes?”
“There’s no burger place.”
Beca could not stop herself from smiling. “Nope.”
“So we are...”
She poked his chest. “I said I wasn’t going to have sex with you in there. I didn’t say not at all.”
This fic and more can be found at my AO3 archive!