#*sighs as a sad girl living in a small & very non-artistic town*

[in-superbloom]

okay so. i never really did a review (feels weird to call it a review tho so let's say a very opinionated essay that's totally the opposite of what college taught me) for wfttwtaf but i never really know how to do that for any album, doesn't matter how much it makes me feel feelings, bc i simply can't write about my own emotions in cohesive thoughts ✌🏻😔

so instead, i let my brain do this thing he usually does when i listen to an album that leaves an effect on me, which is pretty much just creating visuals for the songs bc apparently my feelings translate better into images/vibes rather than words lmao but since i am unfortunately not skilled to drawn/paint/created actual visual stuff, i just wrote them so i'm gonna leave them here bc why not <3

i just really love when music (art in general, but especially music for me) makes your mind run wild & be so inspired that you can't help but create something based on that feeling <3 a great example of that is the amount of art everyone here (on tumblr!sos verse, but also tumblr & the internet in general) create based on other peoples' art & i just *clenches fists* really love that 💜

anyways !! if you're reading this, i hope this makes sense to you & if you wanna chat about the album, my mail box is always open 💜

• track one: starting line – like the mv, but he's running like he's trying to get away from something, always looking behind his shoulder, stumbling on things/people on the streets. also maybe not flying?;

• track two: saigon – then he reaches a tiny but unique/eye-catching door, gets intrigued & enters. he has to go downstairs through a dark and narrow corridor, he hears muffled music coming down there. he reaches the door & the music is now clear, it looks like there are disco balls everywhere ((pink, blue and purple bc ofc)), the place is packed with people dancing & just vibing™. he goes to the dancefloor, but soon it gets overwhelming so he tries to reach a wall or the other end of the club, but he can't. the more he walks, the furthest he feels from the walls. everything has a psychedelic look, also some of those trippy effects he used on motion, and no one seems to notice/ care about him. this goes on until the end of the song, then he finally finds a door ((not the one he came from)) and opens it;

• track three: motion – he expects to find a street, but instead he's inside a room. it's a bit dark, all he sees are shadows, but then suddenly everything turns into an explosion of colors ((when the songs picks up in the beginning)), all dancing in front of him, making him feel lost & dizzy. he keeps walking, but every now and them he stumbles on something ((random things like animals or weird props or stuff that aren't supposed to be alive, but are)). he admires everything with a childlike wonder, touches things and then they turn into something else, or change form/shape/color. in the end, he's distracted looking at something and then falls like the floor reached an end;

• track four: place in me – he fell right there where he is in the mv/visualizer, it goes on like that;

• track five: baby blue – make it look like he fell asleep after the end of place in me, so he's very confused when he wakes up & it looks like the place is falling apart, like end of the world type ((like the lamentis thingy on loki)). things are exploding & he can see another planet very close to the one where he is. it's a bit scary but it's a breathtaking view nonetheless. he's mesmerized, but also kinda already accepted his fate? he's not trying to run to find a shelter/salvation or anything, just watching it all fall apart. at the end, he stops, turns around & looks at the path that he was walking ((full of nature things colored in every shade of blue and also glittery dust)) and he's just admiring it when he's hit by a big rock maybe? or a moon, who knows;

• track six: repeat – he's throw away to somewhere that's not collapsing, it looks like a pathway in the woods? but like, no florest too near, and it's sunny but not too warm, and the path is filled with green grass and flowers. he lands in a place that looks like a field but not quite. and then after walking for a while, he finds himself, but another version of him. maybe a younger one or an older one or both? like, they both just stop and stare at each other and kinda do this lil dance of trying to touch the other & watching the other, both a lil frightened but completely intrigued. maybe the older version of him? ooooh maybe it starts with an older version, but then every time present luke gets distracted by something else or turns around for a second, the other luke is getting younger, until he's just a lil kid. the ending is the mini luke offering his hand for present luke to grab, so he can lead him to a house that was near where they were. ((or maybe mini luke makes him run after him));

• track seven: mum – luke enters the house & immediately recognizes it as the house he grew up in. every step he takes, a wall or an object or a room brings a memory & it plays it out like a hologram. lots of memories. then in the guitar solo part, he finds a guitar in the room where he used to play the most when he was a kid ((maybe some cool&cute effects going around him, representing the sound coming from the guitar)). before the solo ends, you can see a shadow in the threshold of the door, and when he finished the guitar solo, luke turns around and smiles, getting up to hug the person ((it's his mum)) but maybe you never actually see her face?;

• track eight: slip away – he steps out of his childhood house and enters this big dark room. there's only a lil blue light coming from the very center of the room. when he gets closer to it, he sees it's a lil star, who looks very scared. as soon as she notices him ((he tries to reach her)) she runs out of the door on the other side of the room. he's worried&intrigued so he follows her, but when he opens the door, he immediately falls, this time he's in what looks like the clouds ((blue hues ofc but clearer ones, not as dark shades like the ones in place in me & baby blue)), and soon he finds out he can "swim" through them. he does that for a while until he sees the lil star and tries to follow her again. this goes on until he finally gets close to her, but when he touches her, she literally slips from his grasp bc he's being teleported again ((but make it look like she's the portal));

• track nine: diamonds – it starts with a close up on the water maybe? and then the camera keeps getting higher & suddenly he falls into it and soon the camera follows. he's distorted for a bit, especially when he notices he's already too deep into the water, away from the surface. then he tries to swim to the surface, but there's a bunch of things?? or like weird and mean seapeople maybe? trying to drag him down ((kinda like that scene on harry potter & the goblet of fire)). he tries his best to fight them, but what gets him away from them is a group of nice seapeople who came to his rescue. then they all swim away from the place they were ((also maybe slip in some diamonds or things that look like them around there?));

• track ten: a beautiful dream – he reaches a lil city? under water with the help of the nice seapeople & then there's this piano on the ground ((maybe covered in seaweed and stuff like that)) and he's immediately drawn to it. he plays/sings the song ((maybe like the guitar effects in mum, the sounds coming from the piano affect the place around him even tho it looks like he barely notices it)). when the song is finishing, he notices a white light coming from the surface. he looks at it & then follows it;

• track eleven: bloodline – then he's getting out of the water? at some beach perhaps? he's slowly getting out of the water & there's this beautiful sunrise behind him. he's singing along, looking like he just came out of a battle but at the same time he's in peace with himself, looking not exactly happy but relieved. he's walking on the beach, making his way home but he's not in a hurry. then in that lil bit in the end of the song, he gets out of the frame after looking straight to the camera maybe?? and the camera focuses on the sunrise and then everything goes black;

• track twelve: comedown – he wakes up in a bed ((like, this is him waking up from all these dreams)) & he's slightly confused bc the dreams felt so real, but he's feeling better & not so lost anymore. he goes out in a walk that maybe shows every place he was in his dreams? but like, this time you see what they really are bc every place in his dreams was inspired by a real location/thing, just reimagined. but like, he doesn't enter anywhere, he's just walking & you can see the places on both sides of the street. like, it's clearly a set up location but it's just representative. maybe you can see some of his friends/family at some of these locations or maybe they're all together in one place? but they don't look at him, they're just talking&laughing with each other. he looks happy, at ease & he's smiling, wearing a yellow or gold shirt. in the end, he reaches a cliffside maybe? somewhere that leads you to think that he'll go through another portal, but then he suddenly stops, looks down at the cliffside and crouches down bc he saw the lil blue star from slip away but it's now a necklace. he picks it up, with a small&easy smile and then looks at the camera, gives a bigger, real smile, gets up and turns around, going back to where his friends&family are, but the camera stays there, just watching him go.

// now some notes bc i love to over explain myself //

• the "water" one was supposed to be slip away, but alison @bandsanitizer was talking about a beautiful dream these days & said that something about the song reminds her of a sonar-like sound & the idea of searching for something, so that got me thinking about the ocean & relating it to this song and it also makes a lot of sense with what the album represents in my mind, so it made me change that. thank you for that miss alison, it's always a pleasure to read your thoughts 😌💜

• & it also fitted well with the “i can't fight the bloodline living in the seams back home” line from bloodline, so i wanted that one to be related to the water as well bc that's all i can think about when i hear that lyric;

• something in common that appears in every single one: an object or something related to time, since it's the big common theme on the whole album;

• in each song he's wearing the same outfit he wore in the starting line mv (white tee + black pants + converse) but in each one of them, that red shirt is in a different color;

• i had the visuals from starting line to mum very clear in my head on my first listen of the album, but i only truly finished writing all of this yesterday bc i wanna listen to halsey's new album and see if my brain does this thing again, but i wanted to finish wfttwtaf first <3

& that's it bc i already talked too much for a day lmao if you read all of this, you're a true hero & i love you <3 have a nice day 💛

[punkpoemprose]

December 1st- Ink

Universe: Modern AU, Tattoo Artist! Kristoff Rating: M (Mature for non-descriptive sexual content & innuendo and Anna said fuck once) Length: Words 4184

You can blame a few people for this one. @frozenmusings for that artwork of Viking! Kristoff with the sleeve tat that I couldn’t find when I was writing but is absolutely gorgeous. And @karis-the-fangirl and @upthenorthmountain for reminding me how badly I wanted a tattoo artist AU when they posted about “tit for tat” which I still desperately want you to write.

Anyway, sorry for the lateness! Here we go!

This wasn’t his first rodeo. It wasn’t even his tenth. He’d heard every argument in the books and his counter argument was the same every single time, no matter how people yelled or how many eyelashes were batted at him.

“You’re not making this decision with a clear head, so I’m sorry. The answer is no.”

She looked like she was about to cry and he steeled himself. Kristoff Bjorgman had never been the type of man to be shaken from his convictions by a few tears. He had been called ‘no-nonsense’, ‘determined’ and even occasionally ‘obstinate’, but he’d never been afraid to live up to everyone.

It didn’t mean he was heartless.

He sighed and reached for the box of tissues on his desk, ready to hand them over in a moment’s notice. The distraught young woman before him, a pretty little redhead with freckles and blue eyes full of emotion, had come into his shop for a walk-in consultation but she’d pushed him to take it from a consultation to an appointment within the first ten minutes.

It was hardly unheard of. He’d been willing to work on a walk in several times in the past, but the last thing he wanted to do was put ink to skin on an emotional tattoo virgin. He knew implicitly that it was a horrible plan because impulse tats always came with regrets. He wasn’t going to tattoo her for the same reasons he wouldn’t tattoo someone drunk or high and he’d explain it to her before or after she cried it out.

“Look,” he said, already offering her a tissue with a sad smile, “It’s nothing personal. There’s about six shops on this side of town that would do this for you, no questions asked, but you walked into mine and I only tattoo people when I think they’re in the right headspace. You’ve never had a tattoo before and you look like you’re about to breakdown. So if you want you can leave and find someone else, or I can sketch something for you and you can come back in a week or so and tell me then if you still want it. Fair?”

She huffed out a sigh that sounded a little strangled to him, like she was choking down a sob, but she didn’t take a tissue from him and folded her hands in her lap calmly. She was staring through him as she weighed her options and he wondered if she was taking the time to truly decide or whether she was just trying to calm herself down.

“That’s fair. I knew I should have just dyed my hair or something… but I…” she stopped for a moment and closed her eyes. Whatever she had to say it was easier for her to not look at him when she did. “I’ve wanted one for a while and he never let…”

Her eyes opened again and she looked down at her own folded hands. Suddenly despite the open air style of his studio, their interaction felt intimate. He blamed it on the lack of other people in the shop. Even his dog Sven who usually greeted the customers at the door was off on some other canine errand and Kristoff wasn’t sure whether he wanted him to return or not to break the tension.

“Bad break up?”

He didn’t know why he was asking. It was private information. He didn’t need to know why she was distraught, he just needed to make sure she knew why he wouldn’t ink her while she was in such a state.

Despite the occupational hazard of small talk that came with his job, kind of like a bartender or hairdresser, Kristoff had never been the type to initiate conversation. He figured he was generally well liked, given his number of return customers, but he had a feeling it had more to do with his work and clean shop than it did his conversational skills. He’d always been content to listen than to pry or talk about any concern of his own.

But this girl, Anna, seemed like she was ready to explode and maybe he was beginning to soften a bit for a pretty face. No one was around to see it, so he decided that he was allowed.

She looked at him with a bit of shock on her face, but it quickly disappeared, and she nodded.

“I won’t bore you with the details,” she said, her voice cracking in a way that he could feel in his chest, “But this is the first time in a long time that I’ve been able to make a decision for myself… and I’m sorry… I should have thought it through before I came here to bother you, it’s just. God. I wanted to belong to myself again. Does that make sense? He hated women with tattoos and I’d always liked them, so it seemed like a good way to say ‘good riddance’.”

He nodded. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard something like this from someone just coming out of a relationship. Hell, he’d almost done it himself when he’d been a dumb seventeen year old and he’d found out his first and last girlfriend had been kissing every guy in the grade. He was glad he didn’t of course, but Anna seemed to have a bit more conviction and twice as good of a reason.

“It makes sense. But if it makes sense to you now it’ll make sense to you in a week, yeah? I don’t do this very often, but uh, well if you want after I draw it up for you I can transfer it on you and Sharpie it on so you can see what it’d be like for the week give or take. It won’t look as great, but it might help with… you know, uh what you’re feeling.”

He wondered if he was blushing. He hadn’t blushed in a long time, after all he’d tattooed enough naked women to be over getting embarrassed for the rest of his life, but there was something about approaching her feelings, a stranger, that made him feel flushed. There was a part of his head that told him it was justified by something between the way he desperately wanted to make her smile and the way he wanted to go drop her ex-boyfriend into the nearest body of water with a pair of cement shoes.

She smiled at that and he practically melted into his chair. She was still teary eyed and a bit exhausted looking, but there was a little light in her eyes that told him that it may have been the kindest thing someone had done for her in a very long time. It made him want to be even nicer.

“So a sunflower right?”

“Please!”

                                                               ***

Anna laid awake in her bed, tracing the faux tattoo on her bare shoulder with one finger as she held her book open with the other hand. She couldn’t keep her mind on reading it. She was too excited for her appointment first thing in the morning where it would be made permanent.

She closed her eyes and remembered how kind Kristoff had been when she stumbled into his tattoo parlor a complete wreck. He hadn’t needed to go out of his way to draw the line art onto her, but he had. He’d explained it off as if it were just something to do on a slow day, but she for all her past trouble understanding intentions, had seen right through it. He was a good man and he had been sweeter to her than anyone had been in a very long time.

She hoped that she was going to be able to keep it together when she arrived in the morning.

Setting the book down and laying back into the bed she realized how most of her excitement wasn’t even about the tattoo, though she was thrilled to be finally getting it and her week-long trial period had left her without any doubts, a major part of the excitement was owing to the fact that she was going to see him and his hands were going to be on her again. She could still feel the ghost of his calloused finger pads on her freckled shoulder. He’d been gentle in his machinations, his hand resting and shifting gently across her skin as he moved the marker, fingers patting powder onto the ink to keep it from smearing as he worked, and she’d almost sworn that once or twice his fingers swiped at her skin wholly unnecessarily. She was likely wrong, her imagination running wild that he’d found her something beyond a weepy mess, and yet she’d sworn he’d been blushing at least a little bit when he helped her slip her shirt back over her shoulder. Of course he was a gentleman, maybe he blushed every time he laid his hands on a lady for his work.

She smiled to herself and tried her best to fall asleep.

 Somehow I seriously doubt it.

                                                              ***

“Fuck!”

Kristoff chuckled. He couldn’t help himself.

“Anna, I just touched your shoulder, I haven’t even set up the gun yet.”

She felt herself going red and closed her eyes, as if her blocking out her own vision of the space around her could hide how embarrassing she was being. She had been so excited the night before, and now she was a mess. She’d never been very good at pain and despite Kristoff’s repeated promise that the first few minutes were the worst and that the pain dulls fast, it was all she could do to keep herself from shaking from her nerves alone.

“I know! I know! I’m sorry! I don’t mean to be so nervous! I’m sorry!”

He shook his head. Her eyes were closed tight. It was nothing new to him, scared first time clients were just a part of the business. What wasn’t run of the mill was the way he wanted to reach out and tuck a few stray hairs behind her ear and maybe cup her jaw and maybe tell her how he’d be happy to just spend the rest of the day in her presence with or without tattooing her despite the fact that he also very much wanted to mark her in a way he’d never wanted to do any other client in his six year career.

He settled on the safest bet and tried to erase the others from his mind.

“Don’t be sorry. You’re my only appointment today, so we don’t have to start until you’re feeling good about it. And if you want to back out, that’s fine too.”

“No. I want to do this.” She opened her eyes to see that he was still sitting to her side. His eyes were on her and she could see that there was no judgement there. “Plus you said it won’t even be that bad.”

He shook his head, “I don’t want to make it sound like a walk in the park or anything, but yeah most people agree the shoulder is the least painful.”

“What do you think though?”

He smiled that she wanted to know what he thought specifically. He wasn’t one of the artists that was head to toe ink, but he’d had a few pieces done since he’d started in the field at eighteen. He hadn’t ever had one on his shoulder specifically, but the sleeve on his right arm had started on his shoulder and had worked down his arm. He was certain that despite the intricacy of the design that it had been far less painful than the tattoo on his chest.

He shrugged off his flannel and watched Anna’s eyes go wide as she caught sight of his arm. He tried his best not to react as he tugged up the sleeve on the t-shirt beneath, so she could see his shoulder. It was hardly impressive compared to some of the sleeves he’d seen on others, or even compared to some he’d done himself, but he liked it well enough and judging by Anna’s reaction it seemed that she found it impressive.

It was a piece of Norse knotwork, a recreation of a wood carving in the wall of a 12th-century stave church that he longed to visit in person. The curves moved up his arm, lightly shaded to let the knotwork stand out against his skin, curves of lines following the contours of his arm that moved like living things along with him.

“Honestly it was my third tattoo, so I had stuff to compare it to, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I mean it’s going to be painful, but I promise it won’t be too much for you to handle and we can take all the breaks you want or need.”

Kristoff watched like it was in slow motion as she reached out to touch his arm gently. Her finger followed the path of one of the knots from his elbow up to his shoulder and he could scarcely breathe. She was so focused on what she was doing, as if it were wholly natural for her to touch him and he was enjoying it.

“I was a foster kid,” he said, the words tumbling from his lips without meaning to. He wasn’t the sharing sort. “When I was sixteen a family offered to adopt me but I didn’t want to be a burden and they kept me anyway. When I turned eighteen they still wanted me, they supported me and I wouldn’t be here without them. When I turned twenty they helped me figure out where I came from, one of those DNA tests and when I realized I was Norwegian… I sort of ran with it and honored it the only way I knew how.”

Anna blinked then pulled her hand away as if burned. She opened her mouth to apologize, but she saw his smile and stopped herself. He was already telling her there was nothing to apologize for.

“It suits you,” she said quietly, trying to subdue her blush as she chided herself about personal space as if she were a child again. It wasn’t his fault that she was attracted to him, that she’d forgotten completely how to act around other people.

“Thank you,” he said. And he meant it.

He pulled his flannel back on and cleared his throat. He meant it and that meant he had to remember where he was, what he was doing. Anna was sweet and beautiful and above all else she was his client. He needed to shake all the thoughts from his mind about how much he would enjoy letting her trace all his tattoos as he traced all her curves with his mouth.

“So how are you feeling about all of this now?”

She glanced around the room for a moment. Despite the fact that there was no one else in the shop and the fact that she didn’t need to strip down beyond her tank top to get her tattoo he’d brought her to a private room. She noticed it now, the bits and baubles that made it his more than the rest of his shop. There were flannels on a hook by the door that all looked well worn. A few clearly had been sewn back up on the elbows with patches. The flash on the wall was all hand drawn Thor’s hammers, Odin’s eyes, and more knotwork like what was present on his arm. In the corner of the room was a large dog bed for Sven, his wolfhound mix that was currently holding down the fort outside the closed door.

“Suddenly very good.”

“Okay,” he said, giving her a smile as he started off prepping her arm by removing the last of the sharpie on her arm, “If you start to feel not very good tell me, okay? You’ve got a little time before we start.”

She smiled back, “I, um… I don’t think that’s going to be an issue. I’m feeling a bit better now.”

“Good, I’m going to talk you through what I’m doing so I don’t scare you again, okay?”

Anna lost herself in the process, relaxing back onto the chair as he wiped away the temporary ink, shaved away the fine hair on her shoulder, and applied the pattern to her skin with transfer paper. His voice, walking her through the steps was soothing, though she barely paid attention to his words as she relaxed herself completely.

She had decided that she was in excellent hands, and the gentle touches of his hands on her made her wish she were with him for something more than business. She wished that he’d slip the gloves from his hands and change course for someplace a little more exciting than her shoulder. She bit her lip at the thought and was then pulled from her reverie by his voice calling her name.

“Anna? Are you ready?”

The calm evaporated, and she was suddenly all to aware of the fact that she was just moments away from getting her first tattoo.

“As I’ll ever be, I’m afraid.”

Kristoff could see her anxiety returning and he could understand it. It’d been more than six years since his first and he could still remember nearly wanting to vomit the whole time. He couldn’t really relate any more, but he felt a lot of empathy for her.

“Okay, keep your arm still alright? If it gets to be too much or you need a break or feel like you’re going to pass out or you need a drink or anything at all, you tell me, okay? I’m going to take care of you.”

He really wanted to take care of her.

“I’m getting a sunflower because before my parents passed away, we had a family camp up in the mountains and there were fields of sunflowers on the drive up.”

He hadn’t asked, but he appreciated her telling him anyway. She hadn’t asked about his and she’d appreciated him telling her anyway. There was a weight hanging in the air between them, something that was about their sharing and about something more. She could almost feel the pressure of it and then it dissipated pleasantly when she heard his voice.

“I’m honored you picked me to do it.”

“I’m honored you agreed.”

And with that she nodded, and she felt like her sister’s cat Olaf had decided to go to town on her shoulder.

“Ah!”

He didn’t mean to hush her gently when it came out of his mouth and he didn’t mean to quietly apologize to her either.

“Sorry Anna, I know it hurts, it’ll be alright in a moment, trust me.”

She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes. She was fairly certain it didn’t even hurt all that much and that it was more the foreignness of the situation that made it all seem worse. She focused on breathing through her nose and fought back against the little tears in the corner of her eyes.

“Hey, hey, don’t tense up. It’s okay, you’re doing great! Relax a bit and it’ll get better okay?”

“Easy for you to say.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that, “I know, do you want me to stop?”

“No, no, I think I’ll get used to it in a minute or two.”

He focused on keeping his hand steady after that, following the curves of the pattern as he created petals of ink on her skin. He wiped away gently at the blood and ink that appeared on her shoulder with the pinpricks the machine’s needles made in her skin. She was holding perfectly still, and he found he was able to work along at a nice pace as he focused on inking her skin.

Anna was somewhat surprised when she relaxed again and thought for a moment how amazing it was that what was once painful was now entirely bearable. Shortly after this realization came, she found the courage to glance in her periphery at what he was doing and how far along they were.

He was sexy when he was focused. She’d already decided it within a moment of laying eyes on him as he focused on tattooing her. If it weren’t for the fact that she had the state of mind not to, she would tell him so. She wondered if anyone had ever told him before.

That was when she felt a change again, but it wasn’t for the worse.

“Ah! Kristoff!”

She heard the gun stop before she realized what had happened, or even registered the sounds she’d made. A throaty moan, and then a needy call of his name followed by silence.

She could only imagine the shade of crimson she was as he looked at her nervously, likely trying to figure out what he had done to hurt her when she was the opposite of hurt beyond the ache in her arm.

“Are you alright?”

Anna had no idea how to respond to that. She felt hot and exhausted and embarrassed and she hadn’t thought that she could have made a bigger fool of herself, but somehow, she’d managed.

It clicked when he saw how she looked away from him suddenly, her body going from lax to stiff faster than he could say “that’s the first orgasm I’ve ever given a woman”, which he of course had the good sense not to say.

“Oh.”

“I should not be allowed in public. I’m a menace, oh my God. I’m so sorry!”

He, after spending half the session thinking less than gentlemanly thoughts about what he would do with her if she ever wanted to see him for non-tattoo purposes, immediately felt guilty.

“Why are you sorry? I mean… I know what just... but why would you be…?”

She was mortified. She couldn’t even answer him as she was trying to make mental plans as to how she was going to go the rest of her life with a half a sunflower on her shoulder. She had already paid him, she could bolt now and live with it. She didn’t think she could ever have anyone else tattoo her ever again.

“Anna, it happens. I mean… never to me, or someone I’ve been tattooing, but I’ve heard it happens. Usually with thigh and hip tattoos, but it happens, and you don’t need to be embarrassed.”

“Yes I do!” she replied before she could think any better of it, “I do because I’m recently single and there’s supposed to be a ‘mourning period’ you know? And you’ve been so nice to me and I’ve been zoning out thinking about what else you could do with your hands and I…”

She trailed off and he blinked.

“You’ve been thinking about…”

“I have to leave here and never come back, don’t I?” she said, already judging how fast she could get out the door.

“Well if you do I have to as well because I’ve been thinking about the same sort of thing.”

“Wait… what?”

Kristoff sighed and bemoaned his lack of experience with women beyond a few bad dates. There was no way that this was a normal way to tell her that he was interested in her, but normal fell by the wayside a while ago for them.

“Look I think you’re a very attractive woman and since you walked into my shop last week you’ve been on my mind and I’ll admit to thinking some things about you that I probably shouldn’t think about a client. I don’t want that to freak you out though and I know we’re here alone and you… well just know I’m not upset and I’m not going to act on anything because until I get this tattoo done there’s a power imbalance here and I’m not that kind of guy.”

Anna held her breath for a moment. She thought about pinching herself until the ache in her arm told her she certainly wasn’t dreaming.

“What about after?”

“After what?”

He was confused and embarrassed and already thinking about the other places in town he would trust enough to finish her tattoo for her given the fact that she’d probably not want him to finish it.

“After you finish my tattoo… I mean I understand the concept of not fraternizing with your customers, but after you’re done?”

He couldn’t believe what she was saying and he had to take a moment to connect her words to meaning in his mind.

“Then,” he said finally coming to his senses to blot away the excess ink on her arm gently, “I suppose if you… if we… I uh, would want to do things right. Maybe after I finish your tattoo I’ll take you out to dinner?”

“Maybe after you finish, I’ll kiss you and tell you dinner sounds great?”

“Then maybe I should get to it? If you’re feeling ready?”

Anna nodded, wondering if ‘doing things right’ meant he’d do the things she’d been imagining to her after dinner. She wanted to see what he could do with his hands when he was trying to make her feel something. While he’d blamed it on the tattoo gun she was pretty certain her few moments of bliss had been owing more to his proximity and her keen imagination. She wondered what it might be like not to imagine.

“Absolutely.”