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Chloe is used to being talked about. Being captain of the Swords and Shields team doesn’t come without some recognition, and she’s friendly with just about everyone. She goes out of her way to help people, she has a smile for just about everyone, and she shuts down bullying behavior with very little patience or fanfare. She is well liked by a good majority of the school.
So she’s used to people talking about her, and she’s aware that that gossip often turns into speculations about her love life, as is what happens with most people who get a modicum of attention.
Chloe never really pays it much mind. Her teammates and friends usually fill her in on the things being said, and in recent weeks there seems to be a rumor going around that she and Red are dating. Which doesn’t really bother her- because a couple months before that, she was apparently shipped with Hank(?), her deputy of sorts in Swords and Shields.
But it surprises her, because she has no idea how anyone could have gotten that idea. They are close, of course, being roommates and that Red is kind of her favorite person in the world, but that’s all they are. Just friends. Having pictures of each other as their lock screen isn’t all that odd.
Neither is sitting in each other’s laps, she sees other friends do that all the time. Chloe doesn't even really know when sitting in each other’s laps became a Thing that she and Red did, because it was purely functional when it started.
The first time was because Chloe was attempting to tutor Red, but the girl was restless and kept getting up every few seconds, and it was irritating Chloe. So when she got the Wonderland princess seated at the desk once more, she planted herself in the red-head’s lap to keep her from getting up again. Red had moaned and complained, but eventually she hooked her chin over Chloe’s shoulder with a heavy sigh and finally focussed. It just kind of became the way they studied after that.
The first time Red sat in Chloe’s lap, it was because Chloe had been studying for hours and Red was bored, but no matter what Red did, Chloe just hummed noncommittal and continued focusing. So when Red found a really cool art piece on her phone, but Chloe wouldn’t even glance at it, Red sat herself sideways across Chloe’s thighs. It got her the reaction she wanted, because Chloe sputtered and protested, but all her attention was on Red so that Red could shove her phone under her nose.
It became a way for Red to get Chloe’s attention.
And then it evolved into a thing that they just did whether they wanted the other’s attention or not. If one of them sat down, it was like an open invitation for the other to join, which was taken up more often than not.
By the time their new habit started happening outside their room, it was no longer something calculated or thought about. It was automatic.
It was Red sitting down in the cafeteria while Chloe went to get their food. And she returned with one plate, so it’s obviously easier if they just shared a seat as well as the plate. Chloe’s friends (and Red’s, she supposes) stared at them as Red’s arms wound around her waist, but, well, Chloe didn’t pay much attention to it.
“So is this a thing now?” one of Chloe’s friends asks somewhere around the third instance.
She holds out a fork full of fruit behind her for Red to bite, before stabbing a strawberry for herself. “Is what a thing?” she asks.
“Alright then.”
Red was very touchy before the lap thing (Chloe thinks it has to do with not ever getting any sort of affection growing up), so Chloe doesn’t really think about it when it suddenly becomes more. When practice is over and Chloe is conversing with her team as she sits down for what feels like the first time all day, and Red instantly plants herself into her lap. It’s not totally unusual, or unreasonable, for Red to manually and forcefully wrap Chloe’s arms around her while Chloe sips on her water. And it’s really not a hassle indulging her.
Chloe herself is kind of clingy, so it’s a bit of a relief that her own physicality doesn’t irritate her friend (she forgets, while thinking this, that she very much did make the red-head uncomfortable at first).
...
The first time Red plants herself into Chloe’s lap in front of the elder Charmings, the two adults exchange looks. Because Chloe didn’t even blink when it happened, only wrapping her arms around her waist to secure her. When she leans forward to pick up her drink, one hand splays flat against Red’s stomach, and then rubs it slightly in absent apology before it returns to its original hold.
“So…” Chloe’s mom prompts hesitantly, “do you and Red have something to tell us?”
And Chloe takes a moment to contemplate that, wondering if she’s forgetting something, but she’s fairly sure, after thinking about it, that they are not (this is long after Chloe has become aware of the rumors pairing her with her dearest friend, so it doesn't often cross her mind unless very deliberately brought up). “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
Her parents look at each other again before her dad turns back to her. “If you say so, dear. As long as you know that we love you no matter what, and you can tell us anything.”
What a silly thing to remind her- as if she's ever likely to forget how lucky she got in the parents department after having to deal with the evil version of Red's. “I know that dad. And I love you guys, too. But I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Her mother shakes her head in exasperation as she nudges him, “She gets it from you.”
The rumor of their dating gets so widespread, that during one of the evenings Red and Chloe have dedicated to each other (which is most evenings, but especially Fridays and Sundays), Red glances over at Chloe during a slow part in the movie they are watching. She’s sitting sideways, half in and half off Chloe's lap, with her back against the armrest and head resting against her shoulder. She has to pull away slightly to meet Chloe’s eyes.
“Did you know that people think we’re dating,” she asks casually, absently playing with her hands.
Chloe snorts in reply, surprised that Red heard about it at all. She can be pretty oblivious sometimes in regards to the gossip going around school. “Yeah. It’s pretty funny, honestly, the stuff people come up with in their heads.” It occurs to her suddenly, that Red might not care for the rumors, and she frowns slightly. “It doesn’t bother you, does it?” she checks. Just because Chloe doesn't care, doesn't mean Red would feel the same.
Red doesn’t seem to feel weird about it, though, as she continues her careful exploration of Chloe’s hand. “No,” she says after thinking for a moment. She drags her nails across Chloe’s palms, tracing the lines, and she shivers pleasantly. “I’m actually kind of honored that people think I can swing a girl like you.” Red smiles very charmingly at her, and a wave of warmth washes over her, settling in her cheeks.
Chloe laughs, burying her face in Red’s neck. “Stoooop,” she complains blithely.
“I’m serious!” Red retorts, grin widening. “The rebel bad-girl getting the nicest and most popular girl in school?”
“You’re not much of a rebel now-a-days,” Chloe retorts cheekily, and Red gasps dramatically.
“You take that back!” she demands, dropping Chloe's hands to start tickling her, and the computer gets knocked off their laps, movie forgotten, as they wrestle each other and giggle, and Chloe’s chest soars in affection and contentment.
...
“Bye, boo, I’m headed to art,” Red says as Chloe lingers at her locker, talking to her friends. A kiss is brushed against her cheek, and she turns her head, catching her roommate’s hand before she can get too far.
“You don’t want me to walk you to class?” Chloe asks, confused about their break in routine.
Red rolls her eyes fondly, “Nah, you keep chatting; I want to get there early to set up my supplies. It’s the first day we’re getting to paint.”
“Okay,” Chloe relaxes, and lifts Red’s hand to place a kiss on the inside of her wrist before letting it drop, “have fun. Love you.”
“Back at ya, Princess,” Red winks before turning to head down the hall.
Chloe’s fond smile fades as she turns back to her friends, only to find them all staring at her. “I hate you both,” Jada says abruptly, rolling her eyes and turning sharply on her heel to walk away.
“What?” Chloe asks, bewildered.
“It’s just… are you sure you aren’t dating?” Hank asks.
“This again,” Chloe huffs as she realizes the silliness even her friends have fallen victim to in the rumor mill, and rolls her eyes. “I told you, we’re just friends. Best friends.”
“That is what you said,” he agrees, lips twitching in half-amused exasperation. “Okay then. Might want to wipe the lipstick off your cheek, though.”
...
It’s not only her friends and strangers who bring it up. It’s also her brother when he comes to visit- after they spend a good hour out on the lawn, clashing swords. Chad is left slumped dramatically face first in the grass as Chloe grins proudly down at him. She is sweaty and gross, but her veins sing with adrenaline.
It reminds her of the times he’d play knights with her as a kid, teaching her how to grip a sword and look for openings long before she was old enough to be put into a junior's Swords and Shields class. Now she nearly always wins their sparring. Chad rolls onto his back, huffing for breath.
“Light, sis, it hasn’t been that long since the last time we crossed swords. When did you get so good?”
Chloe flushes in pleasure, never quite getting over the craving she had as a child for his approval, but she only shrugs. “When did you get so bad?” she shoots back cheekily.
“Hey- I’ve been busy with Tourney. I haven’t had a lot of time to focus on my sword-work! Besides, I won’t need to be the best with my sword if I’ve got you as my most trusted knight when I’m king,” he boasts.
Chloe grimaces at that. That had been the plan since she was a kid. She’d always wanted to be a knight, and what better way to not be left behind by her older brother than to be his knight? But-
“Sorry, Mr. Princely,” Red drawls from her perch in the tree providing them shade. She was only paying them half of her attention, the other half caught by her sketchbook. Even with her speaking up, her eyes only flick up for a moment to smirk before returning to her slow-moving pencil. “Princess here is going to be my knight.”
“What?!” he squawks, sitting up. “But I’m your brother! Would you really choose your girlfriend over your brother?”
Chloe’s face flushes- a second wave of adrenaline from their extended match, no doubt. “Red and I aren’t dating, Chad,” she says awkwardly, and flabbergasted about how he could have possibly heard that rumor from all the way at his university.
Chad frowns at her, something like disbelief painted on his face. He lifts an arm, gesturing to the treed girl, “She’s wearing your letterman jacket.”
“She was cold,” Chloe defends.
Chad stares at her without blinking. “Then why didn’t she just grab her own jacket? Also, it is literally not cold out.”
“It was when I gave it to her,” she huffs, rolling her eyes, but Chad just snorts.
“Okay,” he says with his disbelieving scoff and the exaggerated hands on hips motion that makes most people want to hit him. Chloe has whacked him a million times growing up because of it. It’s probably why he’s as good at dodging as he is now. He looks even more stupid doing it from the ground.
She glances up at the tree in exasperation. “Little help, Red?”
Red’s eyes flick up from her page, and she grins, blowing Chloe a kiss before turning back to her drawing. “Love you, boo,” she calls.
“Thanks,” Chloe sighs, smiling despite herself. “Real helpful.”
Whatever. As long as Red is still comfortable with it, she’s not going to change her behavior just because other people don’t seem to interpret their relationship correctly.
...
The realization hits Chloe out of nowhere. They are having a picnic out on the Enchanted Lake, and the skies are blue with a few dappled clouds. She had been cloud watching for a while, spread out on the blanket with Red next to her, pointing out shapes, but Chloe had grown tired of that a while ago and turned into her friend.
The contentment is strong, Red’s arm curling around Chloe’s back while her nose is tucked against her neck. She gets a whiff of her shampoo with every inhale, and it’s the most soothing thing she can think of. Chloe is normally an anxious pile of things she needs to do, but since she’s met Red, a lot of the things that made her anxious before don’t seem as immediate and pressing.
Red calms her, just as much as she often frustrates and flusters her.
Chloe thinks she’s a better person with Red in her life. She doesn't mean morally, though that is true too as she's started considering the grey in things, but existentially. She treasures these moments with her friend, where she can just let herself relax and exist. She loves how comfortable they are around each other, and the physicality, and the way Red has slowly been opening up more and more to her. The kisses they’ve shared, giggling when sometimes they miss and it lands on the corners of lips instead of cheek.
She wants to spend her whole life with Red- like this.
It’s as her friend traces little hearts into Chloe’s shoulder, with her mouth pressed against the top of her head, that it hits her- and she bolts into an upright position.
“Chloe?” Red asks worriedly, sitting up as well, and Chloe turns wide eyes to the girl.
Chloe opens her mouth, and then it just kind of hangs open. Because she doesn’t remember a single time that Red has denied those rumors. It’s always Chloe with the denial on her tongue while Red snickers and eggs it on. She feels her cheeks warming painfully.
“Princess?” Red asks again, softer this time.
“Are we dating?” Chloe suddenly blurts.
Red’s eyes widen, and then she snorts, and they turn squinted as she smiles unbelievably prettily at her. It's unfair to have a smile directed at her like that. “It’s about time you’ve finally realized. Only everyone else has.”
“Oh,” Chloe utters, feeling dazzled and adrift in a sea of confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Red shrugs. “To be fair, I didn’t realize it right away, either. I figured I should wait for you to catch on, too.”
“But what if I didn’t?” Chloe insists, “What if we just kept on like this our whole lives and I never realized? Or what if I did, but I never admitted to catching on because maybe I was waiting for you, too, so we were really just waiting for each other when the other already knew, but neither of us was saying anything so nothing ever changed-”
“Blue,” Red laughs again, brightly and unrestrained, her eyes sparkling in mischief and contentment. “I think it’s safe to say you would have said something. Besides, spending our whole lives like this and nothing changing? That really doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.”
Chloe stares at her friend- girlfriend?- as the sun turns the halo of red around her head fuzzy and pink, like she’s not actually a real part of this world. She can see how it happened- how she missed it.
All the stories are fast burning romances- love at first sight- big villains trying to pull them apart- a fairytale worthy of storybooks. But this- this happened slow. So slow, she hadn’t even noticed it.
But apparently everyone else did.
And, well, she might have been slow to catch on, but she’s no coward. So she grabs her- definitely- girlfriend by the lapels of the letterman she has yet to return and drags her forward into a kiss. A real one. One that has Red’s hands twisting into her hair and kissing her back after she gets over her initial surprise.
“We aren’t telling anyone,” Red says between lingering kisses. She throws a leg over Chloe’s, settling in her lap, and the squirm in her gut isn’t new, but now she knows what it actually is and it makes her instantly hot.
“Why not? Everyone already knows,” Chloe asks breathlessly, attempting to draw back, but Red just kisses along her jaw instead, trailing up to her ear. Her hands clench the bunched fabric at Red’s waist as she gently bites her.
“Yeah,” Red giggles, and Chloe is endlessly enamored by the sound, just as she is every time she hears the red-head’s joy, “but I wanna fuck with everyone’s heads. I want to kiss you like this in the middle of the hallway and see their expressions when you insist that we are still just friends.”
“I’m not that oblivious,” Chloe defends without any heat. She leans forward to kiss her friend again, and Red smiles into it.
“Maybe you can save face and pretend like it was a joke this whole time- upping the obviousness over time to see how long it would take for people to get fed up and call us out for real.”
“No one would believe that for a second,” Chloe says, amused. She's still not a good liar.
Red casually plays with one of Chloe’s curls, winding it around her finger before letting it bounce back into shape, and she tilts her head as she looks at Chloe. “But you’ll play along?”
Chloe huffs a laugh, knowing without a doubt that Red knows exactly what she’s doing. She always does this when trying to rope her into a scheme. And she’s only slightly ashamed to admit that it nearly always works. Red is already grinning in victory before Chloe replies, “Sure, Red, I’ll play along.”
“Yes!” Red cheers, and then kisses Chloe soundly again- and, well, she despairs that Red is going to drag her into a lot more shenanigans if this is what she gets for her compliance. At least this one doesn’t involve helping the girl rearrange every classroom in the school to be completely inverted. That one was genius levels of evil, because it was subtle enough that people would keep forgetting about it and then always turn the wrong direction and run into things. Mass levels of confusion. Red described it as glorious.
Chloe called it chaos.
It’s a good thing she’s grown a bit fond of the chaos.