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ubertastic-writing · 6 years

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warm hands feeling for mine

Fandom: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Pairing: LuciSev

Summary: Two weeks. Lucina has two weeks until she's officially crowned heir to the halidom; two weeks to convince Severa to come back to Ylisstol with her.

Outside Links: AO3

Notes: i heard tumblr is being wonky about embedded links these days, so i went back and forth about including the link here, but the formatting is better on ao3 so what are you going to do

warning: this is a long one

14.

“Stand a little straighter, please, Your Highness.”

Lucina complies immediately, wincing slightly when an errant pin glances her skin on its way through the fabric. There’s a stiffness in her back, no doubt from having to stand at attention for what must be over an hour in these heavy coming-of-age robes.

“One final touch,” the tailor tells her, before draping a weighty cape over her shoulders. “There. What do you think?”

Lucina turns toward the mirror hesitantly, the sheer weight of her outfit making her unsteady. The clothes are extravagant, surely befitting a princess coming of age in just over two weeks. Waves of blue silk trimmed in gold, under a cloak of rich red velvet and speckled fur. It reminds her of something her grandfather would have worn.

She hates it.

“Well?” the tailor presses, clearly eager for an answer. Lucina glances from the beady man to where Frederick had been standing off to the side, going through an itinerary of things to do before next week’s ceremony, to find him eyeing her patiently.

“It’s…” she starts, unsure of how to describe her distaste for the ensemble in a way that won’t require Aunt Emmeryn to patch up a spoiled relationship with the tailor.

Naga must be smiling on her, though, because as she wracks her brain, the door pushes open, distracting all three people in the room.

“This is a private fitting,” Frederick says, before the door has fully opened, but the interrupter continues anyway.

It’s Severa. Naga must truly be on Lucina’s side today.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” Severa says, waving a crumpled piece of parchment, “but I was sent with an urgent missive from the pegasus commanders.”

Frederick looks conflicted at letting his earlier no-entry policy go but waves her in nonetheless. “If you can spare the time, I’ll prepare a response to send back. It will just be a moment.”

Nodding stiffly, Severa crosses her arms and stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, apparently avoiding the eyes of both Lucina and the tailor.

“Severa,” Lucina calls, “what do you think?” Severa glances sidelong at her, and Lucina does as much of a spin as she can in the heavy clothes. “For the ceremony at the end of the month.”

The motion is subtle, but Severa turns to get a better look, eyes darting up and down Lucina’s outfit.

“It’s not really your style,” she says without missing a beat, turning back almost dismissively. “Especially that cape. It looks like you robbed the envoy from Rosanne.”

Lucina presses a fist, rescued from the layers and layers of fabric, against her lips to stifle her chuckle, but the tailor find the comments far less humorous.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” he cuts in, rounding on Severa. “These are the traditional clothes for Ylissean royals coming of age! The cape in particular has a long history in the royal family! Who are you to be passing judgment?”

“Look, bud,” Severa starts, bristling, “Her Highness asked for an opinion, and I gave it--”

Lucina cuts her off with a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Severa. I did ask for her opinion,” she tells the tailor, “and I appreciate the work you’ve done for the upcoming ceremony, but I find I agree with her.”

The tailor looks incredulous and indignant, so Lucina continues before he can protest. “The cape is beautiful, truly, but I believe I might be too restrained to fully appreciate it. Perhaps something simpler might be more suitable.”

“That may be a fair point,” the tailor concedes, considerably less put out than he had been moments before. “Maybe I didn’t see it before, that such extravagant clothing will only distract from Your Highness’s natural beauty.”

That’s not quite what Lucina was going for, but as long as he’s not upset. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” the tailor says, bowing deeply. “Between the two of us, however, I might recommend that you find company that is also… more suitable.”

Severa flushes an angry red, and Lucina opens her mouth to respond, but before she has a chance to say anything, Frederick reappears.

“Thank you for waiting, Severa. Here is my answer,” he tells her, handing her a small piece of parchment, folded and sealed with wax.

“Thank you, sir,” she says, taking the note from her father and bowing at the waist. She casts one last look around the room, catching Lucina’s eye briefly, before spinning on her heel and leaving.

For the rest of the fitting, Lucina finds herself watching the door, despite herself.

13.

There’s an odd, otherworldly stillness about the castle chapel. It seems to disturb most people Lucina knows, her own sister included, so Lucina goes there whenever she needs to be alone.

And she has never felt the desire to be alone more so than following the meeting with Frederick, Phila, and half the court about the approaching ceremony. She knows these meetings are important; there’s a good deal of ritual to the ceremony that she must memorise and practice until it becomes second nature, but also a fair amount of politics, and it is as much her duty as it is Frederick and Phila’s to ensure each of the noble families is attended to.

Which unfortunately means having young lords and ladies sent to the capitol by their parents vying for her attention every moment she’s available. Here in the chapel, however, Lucina can find sanctuary, brief as it may be, in the silence pervading the small hall.

Kneeling before the altar at the front of the room, Lucina bows her head and begins to recite a prayer under her breath. In less than two weeks, during the day-long coming-of-age ceremony, Lucina will do this very same thing with her family and a select group of clergy and nobles watching her. She tries not to think of how the scenario will play out -- the head priest dripping holy water over her head and circling her bowed body with a thurible as incense pours out -- and instead focuses on the words she has for Naga now.

The sound of wood scraping against stone as the door at the back of the chapel open easily breaks Lucina out of her thoughts, both pious and not. Jerking back to her feet, she spins towards the intrusion and is surprised to find Severa staring shocked back at her.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” Severa says in lieu of a greeting, the words echoing in the mostly empty room, “I didn’t realize you were in here.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Severa,” Lucina responds, self-consciously straightening her clothes as though she’s been caught in some mischievous act instead of praying. “The chapel is open to anyone in the castle. Are you here to perform your daily rites?”

Severa nods stiffly. “The altar in the cadet dorms gets so crowded after everyone’s finished the morning duties. And with the ceremony coming up, they don’t leave after their done, like reciting their rites more than once is going to prepare them any more for the ceremony.”

“Why don’t more of them come here, then?”

“They probably like having the commanders see how devoted they are,” Severa says with a dismissive shrug. “One of the cadets started a rumor that the commanders might not take everyone who passes the initiation, so they’re all trying to brown-nose themselves a spot. And they all think I’m guaranteed to get in, even if I don’t deserve it, so they wouldn’t listen to me even if I tried to correct them.

“It’s just easier to come here and avoid all of that,” Severa finishes.

“Get away from it all, if only for a moment,” Lucina agrees. She motions towards the altar and gets back into the position she was in before Severa interrupted her, a few inches to the side this time. “By all means, don’t let me get in your way.”

Severa hesitantly kneels besides her and clasps her hands. “This feels strange with someone else around. I’m used to doing this by myself,” she mutters, just loud enough for Lucina beside her to hear.

“You, too?” Lucina asks, making Severa look vaguely like she was caught doing something wrong. “I often come to this chapel to get some time alone and say my prayers. How come we’ve never run into each other here before?”

“I usually come late in the evening, when I think no one will be around,” Severa admits.

“What do you normally do after your morning duties, then?”

Severa drops her clasped hands and sits back on her heels, picking at the hem of her tunic. “The pegasus commanders like to use me as a go-between to my parents. I spend most of my time delivering missives.”

“That certainly explains yesterday. Speaking of which, I haven’t had the chance to thank you for that yet,” Lucina says.

“For what?” Severa asks, eyeing Lucina cautiously.

“I was in quite the bind when you interrupted the fitting. Your appearance was nothing short of a miracle.”

Severa looks skeptical. “Was it now?”

“Truly,” Lucina tells her. “You’ve always had a knack for helping me through difficult situations.”

“From where I was standing, you were the one getting the both of us out of that situation,” Severa shoots back.

Lucina laughs, the sound reverberating against the chapel’s stone walls. “On the contrary, I was struggling to let the tailor know how I felt about the clothes he had put me in until you arrived. It’s because of moments like those that I find myself wishing you were with me during my daily tasks. Perhaps then I would have the strength to speak my mind more often.”

Severa gives her an unsteady look, as though she’s unsure whether or not she should be taking Lucina seriously.

“Of course, I’m sure you’re already busy enough with your own schedule to be accompanying me to boring meetings,” Lucina backtracks.

“I’m not sure if I could handle more court types, if yesterday was any indication,” Severa says, though she looks relieved by Lucina’s backpedaling.

Lucina finds it strangely disappointing.

“Nonsense,” Lucina says instead, choosing to keep the stirring in her chest to herself. “Dealing with nobles is mostly about knowing the rules of engagement and sticking to it. It’s like following set of instructions.”

“I don’t recall getting any instructions for you.”

The laugh that bubbles out of Lucina seems to shock them both, the sound reverberating against the chapel’s walls. “Would you like me to provide some?” Lucina asks. “Although, I never realized I was that difficult to figure out.”

Severa smiles wryly, shaking her head. “With all do respect, Your Highness, you’re the biggest mystery I’ve ever met.”

Lucina isn’t quite sure what to say to that, but even if she did, she wouldn’t have had a chance to. Not a second later, the chapel doors open, breaking whatever spell had come over the two of them and reminding them of the world beyond the altar.

“Your Highness, there you are. You’re going to be late to your meeting with Lord Belfrey,” Frederick says in lieu of a greeting. And then he seems to notice his daughter’s presence with Lucina. “Ah, Severa, the pegasus commanders were wondering where you had gotten to. Report back at once.”

Severa stands immediately. “Of course, sir,” she says, all of the earlier mirth gone from her voice. “Your Highness.”

For the second time in two days, Lucina watches Severa go, unable to stop her.

12.

As the days drag closer to the ceremony, Lucina finds sleep more and more elusive. After tossing and turning in her bed for what feels like hours, she shucks her covers and rolls to her feet.

A walk, she decides, slipping from her room, should dispel the restless energy that seems to have settled over her recently.

The castle has a haunting quality at night, her steps echoing off the stone floors and reverberating down the hallways, but the feeling of isolation in such a typically crowded space is as calming as it is unsettling. With the ceremony drawing ever closer, it seems Lucina is only free from the court’s ever-watchful eye at moments like this, in the dead of night.

Having long since memorized the guards’ routes from years of sneaking around as child, it’s easy for Lucina to slip out onto the grounds without encountering anyone. It might be her mother’s influence, but she finds herself drawn to the stables as soon as she’s free of the inner walls, as though spending some time with the animals might clear her mind. She’s about halfway there when she hears a noise coming from the pegasus cadets’ dorm a few yards away.

Making a beeline for the building, she spots a figure slip out one of the windows and run around the building towards the cadet stables. Lucina follows at a distance, slipping around the corner and peeking into the stables once she reaches the entrance.

“Severa?”

Severa jumps when she hears her name, sword clattering on the ground from where she had been strapping it to her saddle. “Naga, Your Highness,” Severa says, her shoulders dropping at the sight of Lucina, “you’ll scare a girl to death.”

“My apologies, Severa, I just…” Lucina looks from the saddled pegasus, bags already packed, to the sword still laying on the ground where it fell. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Severa asks, picking up her sword and reattaching it to the saddle. “I’m getting out of here.”

“Why? The pegasus knight commencement is in just over a week.”

“Exactly,” Severa says, scoffing. “Now’s my last chance to leave before I’m stuck here forever.”

“I don’t understand. You don’t want to be a knight?”

Severa pauses. “I guess I can see why you would think I did. I mean, both of my parents are so dedicated to the royal family, and everyone expected me to be just the same. I’ve never had a choice, so I’ve never had a chance to think about what I’ve actually wanted to do with my life.”

Lucina watches as Severa hands fidget with her saddle straps, waiting for her to continue. “But now… There’s no going back now, and the more I think about being trapped in this for the rest of my life, the less I can take it. This is my last chance to get out.”

A strained silence overtakes the stable, as Severa busies herself with her pegasus and Lucina watches unsure of what to say.

“You’re not going to tell on me, are you?” Severa asks after a few moments, looking at Lucina for the first time since Lucina walked in on her.

“No, no, of course not,” Lucina tells her. “I’m really in no position to stop you. If it’s alright with you, however, I do have one request.”

Severa eyes her warily but drops her hands from her things and turns to fully face Lucina all the same. “Fine. Even if I’m not a pegasus knight, you’re still my princess. What is it?”

Lucina’s sure she surprises them both with what she says next: “Take me with you.”

11.

By the time dawn breaks over the horizon, Lucina can feel tiredness pull at her eyelids. Slumping against Severa seated on the pegasus in front of her, her eyes slip closed as she gives into the steady rhythm of the pegasus’s gait and Severa’s warmth in front of her.

“Sorry, Your Highness,” Severa says, and Lucina jerks up, suddenly awake. “I don’t plan on riding through the night much, but we needed to get as much distance between us and the capitol as possible.”

“No, it’s alright, and you’ve nothing to apologize for,” Lucina tells her. “I’ve been finding it difficult to get to sleep recently, especially as my coming-of-age draws closer.”

“You, too, huh?” Severa asks, shooting Lucina a glance over her shoulder. “You’re welcome to get some sleep now, if you’re able to, Your Highness--”

“Lucina,” Lucina cuts in, blushing slightly, when Severa sends her a confused look. “We’ll be caught quite easily if you call me ‘Your Highness’. You should start using my name.”

Severa is quiet for a few moments as she considers it. “You’re right,” she says with a sigh. “It’s going to feel weird since respect for the royal family has been beat into me since before I could walk, but…” She pauses again, face pulled into a frown. “In fact, we might want to use a nickname. Naga knows everyone in the halidom knows what the crown princess’s name is, and I’m not particularly interested in getting arrested for kidnapping you. How does ‘Luci’ sound to you?”

Hearing the nickname pass through Severa’s lips makes Lucina feel hot under her ears, but she finds she likes the feeling. “That works with me,” she says, settling against Severa’s back again. “Are you sure this is alright?”

“I’m dragging you to Naga knows where in the middle of the night,” Severa says, huffing slightly. “The least I can do is let you get some sleep.”

That doesn’t quite address the question Lucina was asking, and she suspects Severa knows that as well, but the vibrations gently rumbling through Severa’s back as she spoke are just what Lucina needed to lull into a sleepy haze too thick to argue.

When she wakes, it’s to the morning sun beating down on them from overhead.

“How long was I asleep?” she asks, voice scratchy and slurring.

Severa throws her a glance over her shoulder. “A couple hours. It’s a good thing you’re up. There’s a town ahead I want to stop in, and I would have hated to be the one to wake you.”

Lucina chuckles a little at that, stretching her back. “Is there anything I should know about this town before we arrive?”

“Not really. It’s far enough away from Ylisstol that people have no reason to suspect that we came from there,” Severa says, “and it’s one of the first major market towns outside of the capitol, so they should get enough strange traffic that we’ll blend right in.”

“Any chance of people recognizing us?”

“Not me,” Severa answers with a scoff. “But you, maybe. We can try to do something about your hair, and if that’s not good enough, I’ve got a cloak in one of my saddlebags that you can put on.”

The town appears on the horizon just as they finish planning their arrival, so Severa steers her pegasus off the road and behind a nearby tree. Hoping off, she offers a hand to help Lucina down.

“Right,” Severa says once they’ve got both their feet on the ground. “Any preferences?”

“I’ll leave it to you,” Lucina tells her.

Severa directs Lucina to sit on the ground and positions herself behind. “Just a moment,” she says, parting Lucina’s hair into two large sections.

Lucina closes her eyes, letting the feeling of Severa’s hands working her hair wash over her. It’s been a long time since Lucina’s had someone do her hair so gently; she used to revel in it as a child, when Aunt Lissa would help her brush her hair before bed or place her in her lap and give her pigtails not unlike the ones Aunt Lissa herself wore in her youth.

But as a growing heir-apparent, it soon became obvious that appearances meant as much as skill or talent in court, and Lucina found herself at the mercy of royal hair stylists pulling and prodding at her hair like a wild animal to be tamed.

“Alright, all finished,” Severa says, after a few moments of bliss. Lucina blinks her eyes open, a bit disappointed it ended so soon. “I don’t have a mirror, believe it or not, so I can’t show you the finished product. But I’d be surprised if anyone recognizes you like this.”

Lucina runs a tentative hand across her hair, worried about ruining Severa’s work, only to find it end just below her ears. “How…?”

“I just tucked the longer bits up underneath the shorter bits. It’s easier than it sounds,” Severa tells her with a shrug.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Severa.” Lucina says, fingers playing with the short strands hiding the rest of her hair. “This is amazing work.”

Severa flushes slightly and looks away, heading back to the pegasus. “Well, shall we?”

Town is a only a short ride from where they stopped, and Severa wastes no time directing them where the traffic seems the thickest. More than a few bystanders gawk at the pegasus as it passes by, but none stop them or even seem to pay attention to the pegasus’s riders.

They find an inn shortly after arriving at the town center, Severa steering her pegasus up to the hitching post in front.

“Wait here,” she tells Lucina, dropping down from the saddle. “I’m going to see if there’s a stable before we stop here for real.”

Lucina dismounts as well once Severa’s slipped through the inn doors, choosing to stretch her legs and give the pegasus some relief from its load in case they have to search for another inn. Tightly wrapping a hand in the reins -- just in case -- she takes a moment to survey the town.

It must be late morning by now, given how many people are milling about on the streets, making the most of their day at the market just a few meters further down the road. Lucina watches the crowds with interest, her free hand idly running through the pegasus’s mane.

In the rare moments she ventured out into Ylisstol in her childhood, she had always been surrounded by a retinue of guards, and the townspeople would stare as their princess went by. Now, with Severa’s cloak covering her royal garb and her hair unrecognizable, the odd bystander only pays her any mind because of the pure white mount beside her.

It’s a refreshing change.

“We’re in luck,” Severa’s voice breaks her out of her reverie, and Lucina turns to find her approaching with stout man following. “There’s a stable out back.”

The man -- who Lucina can only assume is the innkeeper -- leads them through an alley to the stable. There’s a large lock on the front door, and the innkeeper pulls a large ring of keys from his belt to unlock it.

“Not too often we get a pegasus around these parts,” he says, flicking through key after key. “You two from the capitol?”

“Originally,” Severa answers for both of them, “but our journey hasn’t taken us there in quite awhile.”

The innkeeper grunts, a noise of understanding at being away from home. “Well, you should try to head back sometime next week. The princess is coming of age, and by all accounts, she’s the prettiest royal we’ve had in generations. People around here can’t wait for the royal procession.”

Severa shoots Lucina an unreadable look. “Is that so? Maybe we’ll have to make a detour, then,” she says, gaze fixed on Lucina as though waiting for her reaction.

“I’m sure the princess can’t be that pretty,” Lucina says in protest, challenging Severa to react first. “In fact, I’d venture a guess and say she’s not too different from you or me.”

“No, I’m sure the princess is beautiful -- beautiful enough to be picked out of a crowd in commoner’s clothes,” the innkeeper says, finally fitting the correct key in the lock. Behind him, Severa shoots Lucina a smirk, and Lucina isn’t sure if she should consider that her victory or not. “Royals have this air about them, don’t they? Since they were blessed by Naga and all.”

With the stable door finally open, Lucina and Severa lead the pegasus into the first open stall and undress the mount. Once they’re finished, they meet the innkeeper outside and wait for him to relock the door.

“You know, I’ve met the princess before,” Severa says after a moment, and Lucina nearly groans at the topic being revived. The innkeeper, however, gives her a look of extreme interest, as though no other topic could possibly be more important at the moment. “She’s prettier than her father, that’s for sure. More poised, too.”

The innkeeper lets out a hearty laugh. “Consider yourself lucky then, girl. Most of us would die for just a glimpse of the royal family. To meet the princess must be the highest honor common folk like us could ask for.”

“It sure is something,” Severa agrees, catching Lucina’s eye with an indecipherable look.

Finished with the stables, Lucina and Severa circle back to the inn and find themselves a small table near the back, away from anyone who might look at them too hard. Once they’ve put in their orders with the innkeep, Severa pulls a map from her bags.

“The plan is to continue heading north from here,” she says tracing the route with a finger. “Regna Ferox has a lot of mercenary work available. Anyone passable with a sword can live comfortably, and those with skill have opportunities unlike anything you’d find in Ylisse.”

Lucina studies the map, taking note of the various towns and trading outposts marked on the way. “How long is the trip?”

“If we rode the whole way, ten days,” Severa explains. “We could get there in half that time if we flew, but I want to make sure we’re a good distance from the capitol before we take to the skies.”

“That’s just the right amount of time,” Lucina muses under her breath.

“For what?”

“Until the ceremony. A week and a half.”

Severa gives Lucina a hard stare, as if she’s expecting Lucina to buckle, but Lucina just matches it.

“By that time, we’ll be out of the country, and even if they wanted to keep looking for us, their hands would be tied,” Severa says, breaking the impromptu staring contest to fold up the map and place it back in her pack.

“You’ve really planned this all out, haven’t you?”

Scoffing and looking out towards the rest of the tavern, Severa sits back in her chair and crosses her arms. “Surely you don’t think the only thing I’ve done these past few weeks is pray and play messenger.”

“No, I’m just,” Lucina stops herself and studies the girl across from her. “I don’t know how I missed how dissatisfied you were at the castle. It feels like I’ve failed you.”

Severa’s gaze jerks back to Lucina sharply. “Why are you blaming yourself? It’s my problem, and you have your own stuff to deal with.”

“Maybe,” Lucina agrees, smiling wryly, “but I consider you a dear friend, and as heir to the throne, it is at least partially my responsibility to make sure my people are happy. I hate to think that you felt so suffocated that you decided your only option was to flee the country.”

“Stop being so damn noble,” Severa says, though if Lucina’s not imagining things, she hears a hint of affection in Severa’s voice. “You can’t be personally responsible for every person in the country’s happiness.”

“No? Well I’ll just settle for yours, then, if that’s possible.”

Severa flushes a bright red and looks away, huffing. “Nice try, Luci. But I’m not that easy to please.”

Lucina hums, considering it. “I guess I’ll have to keep trying then.”

Severa shakes her head, muttering something about Lucina being “too much” under her breath. Lucina’s denied a chance to respond, however, when the innkeep returns with their food right then. They take their meal in silence, something Lucina perhaps should not be surprised by given how little time it took to plan the rest of their journey. Severa in particularly seems intent to finish her meal as quickly as possible and get back out on the road.

Once they’re done, Severa pulls out enough gold to cover the food plus a little extra for the time in the stable. “I’ll grab Luna and meet you outside, alright? We’re still pretty close to the capitol, so I don’t want to linger here.”

The innkeep seems much less eager to chat now that his business is full of patrons for the lunch hour, but he gives them both a jovial smile as he walks Severa and her pegasus back around the front of the building, making them promise one last time not to miss the coming-of-age ceremony.

Severa takes a few moments to make sure the saddle is probably fitted and the bags properly secured before mounting, offering a hand to Lucina as soon as she’s up. “It should be awhile before we reach the next town, but we should get there before sundown. You ready?”

Lucina wraps her arms around Severa’s waist, settling into the saddle. “After you.”

10.

It’s about midday when they come across a stream running along the road, and Severa pulls her pegasus off the road to take a short break near it.

It’s an idyllic scene if Lucina’s ever seen one, the mid afternoon light reflecting off the water and the shade from the nearby trees bringing out the green of grass on the stream’s banks. For a moment, Lucina regrets that they’ll have to move from this spot when it’s so peaceful here.

“Not a bad spot for a break, huh?” Severa says, apparently having caught Lucina staring.

“Yes, it’s beautiful here.”

“Ylisse is a beautiful country,” Severa agrees, sitting down under the shade from one of the trees. “We’ve lived here seventeen years. It’s a pity we’re only getting the chance to see it like this now.”

Lucina joins Severa on the ground, watching as Luna dips her snout into the stream to take a drink. “Better late than never, I suppose. And perhaps we’ll have plenty of chances in the future.”

“You think so?” Severa asks. She looks almost wistful at the suggestion, as though it’s something she’s only let herself consider in the most fleeting daydreams.

“We’re almost adults,” Lucina says. “Running away aside, they couldn’t keep us cooped up in the castle for the rest of our lives.”

Severa stares out across the water, gaze hard though she doesn’t appear to be looking at anything in particular. “Maybe not,” she says, sounding less than sure of her own response, “but even then, how many moments like this would we get?”

Lucina closes her eyes and lets a cool, spring breeze blow over her. Opening her eyes, she glances at Severa next to her, red hair standing out against the green and brown around them, and the feeling that this moment is something she wouldn’t trade for anything in the world wells up in her, strong and sudden.

“Not enough,” she says, when she finally finds the voice to speak.

Severa turns her head just slightly and catches her eye, and seems to understand exactly what she means. But, she pushes off the ground to stand regardless, brushing herself off.

“It’s about time we got back on the road. We’ve lingered here long enough.”

Lucina stands too, sad to find the moment over. “It’s a pity we couldn’t stay here longer,” she says.

Severa looks out over the water, hesitating before shaking her head. “If only,” she says with a sigh, and Lucina knows she’s talking about more than just their break by the stream, but what else, she can’t be sure.

But then Severa’s turning to her and sending her a small grin. “Shall we?”

Lucina just returns the grin with a tight smile of her own. “Of course. Ready when you are.”

The market in the next town they stop in is bustling and lively, and Lucina and Severa blend in perfectly with the activity despite the novelty of their mount. Severa leads them through the streets, one hand tightly wrapped in Luna’s reigns, the other clutching one of Lucina’s.

Lucina follows along, keeping Severa’s cloak tight around her clothes and trying not to think too hard about the feeling of Severa’s hand in hers.

It doesn’t take long for them to find the stall they were looking for: a grain seller to replenish the quickly depleting supply of oats Severa had brought for Luna. As they approach the stall, Severa drops Lucina’s hand to dig around her belt, pulling a few gold coins free of their pouch and placing them into a different pouch on her hip.

“Here,” she says, pressing the coin bag into Lucina’s chest. “Go through some of the fruit sellers and see if you can grab something for tomorrow morning. I’ll deal with things here.”

Lucina nods her agreement, clutching the coin bag tightly and walking off in the direction of the food stalls. On the way, however, a woman calls out to her from behind her collection of wares -- various trinkets and small bits of jewelry.

“You there!” she says, grinning broadly as her bright red hair glints in the midafternoon sun. “Your mount is beautiful. Are you a pegasus knight?”

“Thank you,” Lucina replies, eyeing the woman cautiously. “My companion is.”

The merchant nods vigorously, as though she’s piecing everything together. “You sound like you’re from the capitol,” she tells her. “That would certainly explain how two beautiful strangers such as yourselves ended up in our little town.”

Lucina isn’t sure how to respond to such a comment, so she just smiles politely.

“You two are awfully far from the capitol, though,” the merchant continues. “Why, I’d say you’re nearly halfway to Ferox!”

“We’re making a voyage north,” Lucina says, idly picking up some of her wares and inspecting them. In Ylisstol, a merchant like this would primarily cater to visitors -- foreign envoys or lords whose fiefs fall far from the capitol. Lucina wonders what kind of patronage this selection of wares would garner in a town of this size.

“A good time for it. The north is just starting to melt,” the merchant says before turning her head down the row of stalls. “Your companion,” she starts, drawing Lucina to follow her gaze and find Severa staring back at her with a hard look, “watches you with the most curious eyes. She seems quite protective of you.”

For some reason, Lucina feels hot under Severa’s watchful eye. “Yes, well you could say she’s been looking after me since we were young.”

“Childhood friends, eh?” the merchant says knowingly, though Lucina isn’t sure what there is to know. “That’s an unshakeable bond. You must have been overjoyed when she got into the pegasus knights.”

“Of course,” Lucina says automatically, before pausing, worrying the item in her hand as she thinks about Severa’s reaction to the impending pegasus knight commencement. “No, not quite,” she reconsiders. “I’m happy as long as she is. But I can’t help but worry that I’m losing her.”

That night she found Severa in the stable still weighs heavily in her mind, and an uneasiness rises in her chest thinking about it. “Perhaps it’s selfish of me.”

“It’s only selfish if she doesn’t want the same thing,” the merchant muses, and Lucina briefly wonders why she’s even talking about such matters with a stranger.

“I suppose that’s true,” Lucina agrees, setting the item down. “Thank you for your time, and I’m sorry to trouble you with such nonsense.”

The merchant waves dismissively. “No trouble at all. But tell me this, have you told her any of these things?”

“I’ll tell her if the time is right,” Lucina says. “Though if I’m being honest, I doubt these are things she would care to hear.”

“Who wouldn’t want to hear about how much someone cares for them?” the merchant asks, and Lucina feels warm at how thoroughly she was seen through -- by a stranger, no less.

“Do you talk to all your potential customers like this?” Lucina asks, scanning over the woman’s wares one last time. She spots a silver necklace with a small feather pendant wrought in metal, and despite herself, she picks it up.

“Only the ones who look particularly troubled,” the merchant tells her. “A gift for your companion?”

“Perhaps. If she’ll take it,” Lucina says, more to herself than the merchant.

“You have to try giving it to her to know that. Come, I’ll sell it to you half-off.”

Lucina smiles wryly. “I didn’t even know the starting price.”

“Lovelorn, beautiful, and quick,” the merchant chuckles. “That girl of yours should have jumped into your arms ages ago.”

“It’s not like that.”

“No?” the merchant asks. “So the two of you aren’t on a romantic trip north, unaccompanied despite your youth, right before the pegasus knight induction ceremony?”

“That’s-” Lucina starts, frowning. She sighs, gathering her thoughts. “I can see how you might draw that conclusion, but I can assure our relationship is strictly platonic.”

“For now,” the merchant says, winking. “Two gold for the necklace.”

Lucina runs her thumb over the pendant. It really is an intricate bit of metalwork -- something that would go for much more in the capitol despite its size. “There’s too much between us,” she says, pulling the two gold pieces out of her own coin pouch rather than the one Severa handed to her. “I’m afraid our relationship isn’t merely a question of our own wants or desires. Though even then, I can’t say for sure what she would want from me.”

The merchant accepts the gold and takes the necklace, placing into a small cloth bag for protection. “You’d be willing to give it -- whatever it is she wants -- wouldn’t you?” she asks, handing the purchase back to Lucina.

“I think you know the answer to that already,” Lucina says, placing the bag into one of the pockets on her belt. “Thank you for the conversation. It was… insightful.”

“You should tell her how you feel,” the merchant says, just as Lucina turns to leave. “You seem convinced a relationship between you two wouldn’t work out, but how will you know until you try? Surely there are some strings you can pull as the princess.”

Lucina looks around sharply for any indication that someone else heard that last comment, but the market goers continue to move around her, oblivious.

“How?”

“I travel a bit myself. My sisters and I run stores all across the country,” the merchant says with a lazy grin. “I happened to be in Ylisstol once when the royal family made an appearance in town. Exciting stuff.”

Lucina frowns, looking down the row of stalls to where Severa is intensely haggling with the grain seller.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” the merchant tells her. “Though by my calculation, you should be coming of age very soon. Is it alright that you’re not in the capitol right now?”

“This is something I have to do,” Lucina says, unable to stop herself from glancing back at Severa. “Even if I fail, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t tried.”

The merchant follows her gaze and smiles knowingly. “I won’t pretend to understand the lives of those at court,” she says, “but I am a bit familiar with love. Some things are worth fighting for.”

“She is,” Lucina agrees.

Lucina leaves the stall with one last wish of luck from the merchant, mind swimming from the conversation, and makes her way to the nearest fruit stand. There Severa catches up with her, right as Lucina pays.

“You spent a lot of time at that one stall,” Severa mentions as they load Luna’s saddlebags with their purchases. “Pushy seller?”

“No,” Lucina says, the necklace in her belt pocket burning a hole in her hip. “I had a lovely conversation with her, actually.”

Severa gives her a skeptical look. “Really. And she didn’t try to sell you anything by the end of it?”

Lucina hums instead of answering directly. “I think those two matters are separate.”

“Uh huh. Well next time someone bothers you, you should let me know.”

“Of course,” Lucina says, waiting for Severa to mount Luna before she takes Severa’s offered hand up.

As they set off, Lucina curls into Severa’s back, her arms around Severa’s waist, and thinks about her conversation in the market. Things are surely not as simple as the merchant made it seem, but, with Severa’s warmth so close, Lucina can almost make herself believe it could be.

“Hopefully we won’t have to rough it at night much longer after this, Your Highness,” Severa says, freeing her bed roll from the saddlebags.

“What did we say?” Lucina lightly scolds as she fills Luna’s oatbag with the grain they had bought in the market yesterday.

Severa mutters a curse under her breath. “Luci,” she corrects, forcefully. “Although there’s no one here to hear us, anyway.”

“It’s not about anyone hearing us,” Lucina explains, fitting the oatbag over Luna’s head and giving the pegasus a few affection pats once she’s done. “It’s about getting in the habit of it, so it won’t happen when there is someone around to hear us.”

Severa grumbles something Lucina can’t quite catch, but sighs and says, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” all the same.

“You used to have no problem calling me by my name,” Lucina says, joining Severa at the bed roll and helping her untie the tight knots holding it together.

“That isn’t fair. We were children then.”

“Well,” Lucina says, finally freeing a particularly stiff knot, “what changed?”

“You started doing princess-y things, and I became a pegasus cadet,” Severa says, gathering the free ropes to place in the saddlebags for safe keeping. “If either of my parents or any of the pegasus commanders caught me calling you anything besides your title, there would have been hell to pay.”

“Perhaps in public,” Lucina shoots back, grabbing one end of the bed roll and flicking her wrists to unroll it. “But we’ve had plenty of moments in private where the only one to offend by calling me by name is me, and I can assure you, I will never be offended by such a thing.”

Severa pauses, still bent over the saddlebags they had relieved from Luna moments ago. “Have we ever truly had a private moment before leaving the castle?” she asks, voice stiff as the line of her back. “It seemed to me any time we spent together was open to interruption by anyone who thought themselves more deserving of our time than each other. And that was nearly everyone in the castle.”

“I’ll be of age soon,” Lucina says. “Others won’t always get to decide for me how my time should be spent.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Severa mutters, just loud enough to be heard. She lets out a mirthless laugh, standing from the saddlebags and returning to the bed roll. “This conversation is going nowhere. We should just go to sleep.”

Lucina lays down, accepting the thin blanket Severa tosses over both of them, but she can’t shake the feeling that she needs to press the issue. Once she feels Severa settle in, back against hers, she speaks up: “Why did you want to leave Ylisstol?”

“I thought I told you already.”

“You told me that you didn’t choose the pegasus cadet life for yourself, and you couldn’t stand the thought of being trapped in that,” Lucina says, “but you did not explain why that is.”

A silence settles over them, thick and tense, and for a brief moment, Lucina regrets pressing the question.

But after a particularly pregnant pause Severa heaves a deep sigh. “I don’t,” she starts, cutting herself off and sighing again. She settles on, “My life was decided for me the moment I was born. With my parents being who they are, it’s no question that I would become a knight and serve the royal family just as they had.

“But just like their legacy is inescapable, their legacy is inescapable,” Severa explains, almost hissing the words. “Everyone expected me to born some kind of prodigy, and when that didn’t work out, they assumed I would get everywhere in life riding on my parents’ coattails. My own merits -- my own desires -- have never meant anything in Ylisstol. How can anyone live like that?”

Lucina finds herself momentarily speechless, taken aback by the full force of Severa’s frustration. When she finally gains the ability to speak again, the only words that work themselves out of her mouth are a stunned, “I have.”

Severa scoffs. “You’re different.”

“How so?”

“Because you’re perfect,” Severa says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I bet you’ve never disappointed anyone in your entire life.”

Except for you, apparently, Lucina thinks, the words getting caught in her throat. Instead, she shakes her head and resists the urge to turn and face Severa. “I wish you had told me that you felt this way sooner. Perhaps-”

“‘Perhaps’, what? My parents would never have budged on their vision for my future,” Severa says, voice suddenly lifeless. “Not even the future exalt could change that.”

“Perhaps I could have been there for you,” Lucina finishes. “Someone to talk to. Someone to trust with your problems.”

Severa is quiet for a long moment at that -- so long Lucina worries that Severa has decided to ignore her entirely. But then, hesitantly, she mutters, “It’s not my place to saddle you with my problems.”

“I’m the one who decides that,” Lucina says, giving in and turning onto her other side, only to be greeted with Severa’s back, stiff as it was before. “Forget about rank and status for a moment, Severa. No matter what your parents, or my parents, or the people at court may have told you, we have known each other our whole lives, and I want to be a friend to you anytime you need one.”

“Why do you care?” Severa asks, still refusing to face Lucina. “Your sister isn’t half as kind to me, and I grew up with her, too.”

Lucina finds herself unable to give a voice to the feeling in her chest. “Do I need a reason?” she says instead.

Severa flops onto her back, the motion knocking a sigh out of her. “No. But maybe if I got one, I’d be able to understand you, finally.”

Lucina can’t stop the laugh that escapes her, the sound easing both the pressure in her chest and tension between her and Severa. “I’m still not sure what’s so hard to understand about me.”

“For starters, you could spend your time worrying about anyone, and yet you waste it worrying about your father’s retainer’s screw-up daughter.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so convinced you’re a failure,” Lucina says, laying a hand over one of Severa’s. “And even if you were, I don’t see how that should affect at all how much I care for you.”

“How do you not see it?” Severa scoffs. “Even if you don’t compare me to my parents, who excel at everything they do, I can hardly sharpen a blade without breaking the damn thing.”

“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” Lucina says, gripping the hand under hers. “Severa, your talents are not your parents’, nor should they be. You are your own person, with your own skills, your own merits, your own light. I only wish you could see that yourself.”

Severa sighs and looks at Lucina. “I wish I could see what you see.”

“If you give me a chance,” Lucina says, smiling when Severa intertwines their fingers, “perhaps I’ll be able to show you.”

Something changes in their relationship after that night. Something Lucina can’t name, but something tangible and real all the same. She can feel it in the way that Severa’s gaze lingers on her longer than it used to, the way she snuggles closer when the night turns chill.

The feeling in her chest -- the one that Lucina refused to give voice to the night before -- grows. It grows and spreads into her hands, fingers itching to grasp Severa’s hips and pull her close. At times it feels as though she can barely contain it, her desire to be closer to Severa ready to burst at every passing glance, every time they brush against each other.

The sun is low in the sky when they dismount one last time for the day, untacking Luna and preparing for the night. They work in the stilted silence that followed them most of the day, as though breaking it would unleash something neither girl is ready to handle.

When they finally settle into the bed roll, Severa lies facing the forest, same as always. Lucina feels her edge back until their backs are flush together and tries to get her heart under control.

“Luci,” Severa finally says, haltingly, as though she wishes she could take the words back as soon as their out of her mouth, “you told me to ignore rank and status, right?”

“When we’re together, you shouldn’t worry about such things.” Lucina’s mouth feels uncomfortably dry.

Lucina can hear Severa shift behind her, and the next thing she knows, Severa is nudging her onto her back. “In that case, this should be fine,” Severa says, face clearly bright red even in the low light.

And then Severa leans down, slowly, and for the brief moment before their lips meet, Lucina’s mind goes totally blank.

The kiss itself is beyond anything Lucina could have ever imagined -- and she’s imagined it more than she lets herself admit. Severa’s lips are soft, almost tentative, as they move against Lucina’s, the languidness of the motion compelling Lucina to raise a hand to cup Severa’s cheek.

Severa, as though spurred by that, pushes in further. The kiss grows rougher as the seconds pass, Severa clearly having gotten over any hesitation she may have had about kissing the princess.

And then their teeth clack against each other, the shock of it jolting both of them away from each other.

“I’m sorry,” Severa says, sitting up with a hand over her mouth.

“No, don’t apologize,” Lucina insists, pushing up onto a single arm. “I liked it, except for that last part. But the rest was… nice.”

“‘Nice’?”

“Yes. If you wouldn’t be opposed,” Lucina says, reaching out with the arm not supporting her weight and grabbing a handful of Severa’s tunic, “I would like to continue.”

Severa leans over Lucina’s mostly prone form and licks her lips. “Continue, huh?” she asks, sounding as confident as she ever has. “And just what does that mean to you, Your Highness?”

Lucina chuckles at the term -- in this situation it sounds more like a term of endearment than a reference to her birth. “I think I would rather like for you to kiss me again,” she says, tugging on the material bunched in her fist. “We can decide what to do after, after.”

“I can manage that,” Severa says, sliding a hand around Lucina’s collar and behind her neck. “What happens on the road, stays on the road, right?”

Something about those words, or the way Severa says them, causes Lucina’s stomach to churn uncomfortably, but she just lays back, taking Severa with her. Severa, responding to Lucina’s unspoken cue, follows through with the motion and pushes their lips together.

They can talk about it in the morning, Lucina resolves, as she tries to push the discomfort away. She should at least be able to enjoy this for as long as it lasts.

When her mind doesn’t clear immediately, she pulls Severa closer and pushes her tongue into her mouth, willing this moment to last forever.

The feeling of Severa’s fingers through Lucina’s hair is as amazing as it was the first time. Lucina’s eyes flutter closed -- an automatic reaction from each time Severa’s fingers lightly scratch at her scalp, however unintentional that motion may be.

They’re stopped in a forest just a few paces from the edge of a town, readying Lucina’s disguise after she had been recognized a few days ago.

(“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Severa had scolded her when Lucina offhandedly mentioned the incident before entering the next settlement they had come across.

“She assured me she wouldn’t tell anyone,” Lucina answered. “And she seemed quite earnest about that promise.”

“That’s not the point,” Severa said, rubbing her brow with a hand. “If she recognized you, anyone could have! It’s a wonder we don’t have a royal guard breathing down our neck right this instance.”

“Come now,” Lucina reasoned, “a royal guard would travel much slower than two women on a single pegasus.”

Severa just groaned in response and motioned for them to dismount.)

“Have I ever told you how jealous I am of your hair?” Severa asks, hands threading through Lucina’s hair for a few last sweeps before she divides it into three sections. “It’s such a beautiful color and so thick.”

“You think so? The royal stylists usually preferred to view my hair as an untamed beast.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Severa scoffs. “Those hags in court are probably just jealous and taking it out on you the only way they can get away with.”

Lucina chuckles despite herself. “You shouldn’t say that.”

“Or what? If I could go the rest of my life without dealing with another courtier, I could die happy,” Severa says, plaiting Lucina’s hair with ease.

“You don’t think you’ll have to deal with any in Ferox?”

“I certainly hope not,” Severa says. “Besides, if we were to attract the attention of a Khan, we’d likely have more status than any random court type vying for favor.”

“About that,” Lucina starts, but Severa gives her half-braided hair a tug, cutting her off.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Severa says, continuing with her work as though the interruption never happened. “Why did you ask to come with me, that night in the stable?”

Lucina sucks in an unsteady breath -- she knew the question was going to come sooner or later. “For the same reason you wanted to leave,” she answers after a moment. “The pressure of everything… it’s too much sometimes. It can be overwhelming.”

Severa hums a bit as she considers that, the sound soothing in a way Lucina couldn’t have predicted, especially with her working Lucina’s hair. “Hearing you say that,” she says, undoing Lucina’s braid to start again, “it’s reassuring.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, well, you always seem so determined, so unshakeable. To hear that you struggle with the same things as me… It’s vindicating.”

“I wonder how you’ll take what I have to say next, then,” Lucina says, finding it hard to fully focus with Severa’s hands drawing lengths through her hair again.

Severa’s hands skip in their motion. “Oh?”

“I had another motive when I asked to join you. Perhaps even more selfish than the first,” Lucina explains. Severa doesn’t say anything, but her hands move rougher through Lucina’s hair, snagging at a few tangles Lucina didn’t know she had. The feeling keeps Lucina in the moment.

“I’m not sure if you remember, but there were a few times when we had met up in those days before we left the castle. Each time, our duties had brought us together, but they also called us apart.” Lucina trains her eye on the way the light plays through the trees, refusing to let Severa’s fingers in her hair distract her. “At one point, I remember watching you walk away, wanting to call out to you but knowing I could not, because our responsibilities demanded that we do what is expected of us.

“But when I found you in the stables that night, I realized something. My duties will always be waiting for me, but you might not be. I couldn’t bear that thought.”

Severa stills her hands. A breeze cuts through the trees, shifting the shadows Lucina had been staring so intently at just minutes ago, but Lucina finds it difficult to focus on the scenery in front of her when she’s waiting on Severa’s response.

“You know, when you asked to come with me, that night in the stable, I knew you weren’t going to go all the way to Ferox with me,” Severa says, her exhale sounding more like sigh than a simple breath.

“Why did you let me come with you, then?”

“Maybe,” Severa starts, dropping her hands from Lucina’s hair to her shoulders, “maybe I wanted you to give me a reason to go back. I decided a while ago that I don’t need to live a life devoted to the royal family. But I wouldn’t mind a life devoted to you.”

“My father wants me to restart the Shepherds,” Lucina says, suddenly, causing Severa grip her shoulders.

“What?”

“We have an excess of royals right now, and our country’s at peace. My father believes he learned more about Ylisse and being a leader from leading the Shepherds than he ever did from dealing with nobles,” Lucina explains. “He thinks it would be valuable for me to spend a few years traveling the country, doing good for our citizens.”

Severa scoffs, releasing Lucina’s shoulder and returning her hair. “I never took your father to be such a wise man.”

“Perhaps you should spend more time with my father, then,” Lucina says, as lightly as possible, knowing Severa’s comment was not intended to sound nearly as harsh as it did.

“I hardly spend any time with my own father. It’d be weird to spend time with yours.”

Lucina laughs, unable to stop it. “Your father used to be a Shepherd as well, you know.”

“He told me a few stories growing up,” Severa says, beginning to plait Lucina’s hair again. “He’s always acted like it was the best time of his life, waiting on your father hand and foot without any court meddling.”

“Is that how your father made it sound?” Lucina asks. “My father’s stories focused on the action of it. Or the results. Fighting brigands to help villagers and the like.”

“I can see how our fathers’ priorities differ,” Severa says dryly, drawing another laugh from Lucina.

“You know, when Father told me he wanted me to restart the Shepherds, I always imagined you would be there with me,” Lucina confesses. “In fact, never once did I imagine myself in the Shepherds without you, even as a child hearing my father’s stories.”

Severa pauses in her work briefly, one hand tightly pinching Lucina’s braided hair, to dig through the nearest saddlebag for a ribbon. “Is this your way of asking me to join your newly re-formed Shepherds?” she asks, quickly tying off Lucina’s hair.

“I don’t want to force you, by any means,” Lucina says, finally getting the chance to turn and face Severa, “but I do want you there. With me.”

Severa turns her head and crosses her arms, clearly unsure what to do with her hands now that she’s done with Lucina’s hair. “I don’t know why you would. After this fiasco, the pegasus knights will have nothing to do with me, and you should have real knights in your ranks.”

“Severa,” Lucina says, urging Severa to look back at her. When she doesn’t, Lucina cups her cheek with a hand, and nudges her head. “Severa, you don’t need to be a knight. You have been my most constant companion throughout my life, and I don’t want to think about taking such a large step without you.”

Severa’s gaze drops down, still unable to look Lucina in the eye. “Is this just because we grew up together? You don’t owe me anything for something we couldn’t control.”

Lucina presses her forehead against Severa’s, praying Severa will understand her. “I owe you a lot, actually,” she says. “Whether or not we had any control over the circumstances of our meeting, you have done more for me than I can speak to. Besides, I’d dare say that wanting to keep you at my side is a more a selfish wish of mine than any kind of reward for you.”

“You’re crazy,” Severa says, pulling away to give Lucina an incredulous look, and Lucina can’t help but smile at the frankness of the statement. “Half of Ylisse would kill to be in my position right now and the other half would die for it. And you think it’s selfish to want someone by your side?”

A frown overtakes Lucina’s lips before she can stop it -- that wasn’t quite she was going for. “So you accept then?” she asks instead of pressing the other issue, hand dropping to Severa's shoulder.

“I can hardly say ‘no’, can I?” Severa says, typical confidence back in full force. Lucina finds it worrisome to see it back so quickly; it feels as though Severa is trying to hide something under that bravado. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Lucina agrees, frown still touching her lips. She suddenly wishes for the vulnerability of last night, Severa unsure of herself as she pinned Lucina to the ground. This Severa feels untouchable, walls even Lucina cannot break firmly erected around her.

Severa stands, and Lucina’s arm drops limply back to her side. “We’d better get you back in time for the ceremony, then, shouldn’t we?”

Lucina watches as Severa begins readying Luna -- she’s never felt further away.

“Yes,” Lucina hears herself say. “I suppose we should.”

Lucina wonders if she’s imagining it, but the return trip feels heavier than the trip out. She and Severa chat less during their hours of riding, for one, and -- though Lucina is convinced she is the only one thinking about it -- the night they spent kissing haunts nearly all of her thoughts, waking and sleeping.

At times that night feels like a fever dream, conjured by the monotony of the ride. But other times, it feels like the only real thing that occurred during their whole journey, and Lucina swears she can still feel Severa’s lips on hers days later.

It’s easy to regret it. However much Lucina may have longed for that moment, she would have preferred to continue the relationship she had had with Severa before -- friendly, if somewhat stilted at times as they tried to navigate the space between their ranks and their close upbringing -- than deal with the fallout. A Severa at arm’s length is certainly better than a Severa leagues away.

But just as much, she can’t help but hold that night close to her heart. Despite everything that has happened since, it was still a wish fulfilled (however much it was also a wish unspoken), and she refuses to let go of that.

Sometimes, during the long stretches where neither girl speaks a word to each other, Lucina wonders how Severa feels about it. She was, after all, the one to initiate it. But given her reticence on the subject, the way she is careful to keep both her touch and gaze from lingering on Lucina any longer than necessary, Lucina concludes that she would rather forget that night ever happened.

Perhaps that is what hurts most of all.

At times, when she knows Severa isn’t looking, Lucina pulls the necklace she bought days ago from the pocket she has it hidden in. With their relationship as splintered as it is, the necklace has become as much a symbol of what could have been as a trinket collected on their trip away from the capitol.

A million possibilities, Lucina thinks, rubbing the pendant idly.

A million possibilities, and she doesn’t know how to make any of them real.

“We’re cutting it a little close, but if we fly today and tomorrow, we should make it back on time,” Severa says, both of them hunched over her map in the early morning light. “Have you ever flown before?”

“I haven’t,” Lucina admits, trying not to thinking too much into Severa’s sudden willingness to be within arm’s length of her again. It won’t do for her to get her hopes up before they have a real chance to talk. “Mother made sure Kjelle and I had plenty of experience on horses, but she and father were hesitant about letting us ride with one of the pegasus knights.”

“You’ll love it,” Severa tells her, with such confidence Lucina can’t help but believe her. “The crispness of the air, the wind in your hair… Flying is unlike anything else in the world.”

Lucina smiles at how clearly enamored Severa is with the act, happy to see her unguarded for the first time in days. “With a recommendation like that,” she says, unable to keep her mirth from seeping into her voice, “I’m looking forward to it.”

Severa pushes off the ground, moving to start clearing their campsite. “I may have had no choice in becoming a pegasus knight, but getting to fly almost makes up for it. Almost.”

“About that, Severa,” Lucina says, fingers finding the feather pendant unconsciously. In the days since they’d turned back, she’d wondered nonstop if she should bother bringing up the conversation that prompted the decision, but the memory of how quickly and easily Severa shut herself away near the end of it stopped her. Now, however, with the threat of them returning to the castle, to a place where Severa has ample reason and room to continuing doing just that, Lucina can’t stand the thought of leaving things as they are. “How are you feeling?”

“‘How am I feeling?’ That’s a pretty broad question, Luci.”

Lucina smiles at the nickname despite herself. “About returning to Ylisstol. I feel when discussed it, we never had the chance to talk about your thoughts about it.”

Severa scoffs, as though the thought itself is ridiculous. “What’s it matter? You need to be back by the ceremony, so we’re getting you back by the ceremony.”

“Of course it matters, Severa. I thought I made this clear earlier, but I care about you. If you’re uneasy or unsure of what we’re doing, I want to know.”

“That’s,” Severa cuts herself off, shaking her head. “It’s a nice sentiment, Luci, but let’s not delude ourselves. So what if I still don’t really want to go back? You’re the princess, and I’m… I’m just a cadet whose own parents didn’t notice how miserable she was.”

“Severa,” Lucina starts, but Severa continues as though she said nothing.

“I’m glad you care enough to try to make me feel like my opinion matters, Luci, I really do. But,” Severa sighs, the sound bone-weary, “I’m not supposed to be a person who matters. I learned that a long time ago, and you’ll figure it out eventually, too.”

Those words, coupled with Severa’s defeated tone, send a wave of indignation crashing up through Lucina’s chest. “Severa, don’t you dare say that about yourself,” she says, clenching her hands to expel the restless energy that’s come over her. “I know the court acts like the royal family trumps all, but how did you ever come to the idea that you don’t matter?”

Severa sends her a pitying look, though Lucina can’t decide who it’s meant for. “You know how I started my cadet training earlier than most? I was the youngest there by years, and for most of it, I thought it was because my parents had assumed I would display a talent for it like my mother.” She looks away, towards Luna. “And then I overheard my parents talking about me.

“It turns out they wanted me in the cadets sooner because they were worried that I was raised too closely to you and your sister. They thought I might think myself on your level, or worse, you might think us equals. I don’t know if they intended me to hear them,” Severa says, “but I was so terrified by what they could have seen in me to think that kind of thing was necessary.”

Lucina swallows thickly, her throat suddenly dry. “And what do you think that could have been?”

Severa’s eyes dart over to Lucina’s before flicking away again, the motion a plea and an answer all in one. Lucina thinks of Severa’s studious denials that any tender moments between them on the road could point to anything more, her less-than-subtle sidestepping when Lucina began to edge on her declaring her own feelings.

Lucina wants to hit herself for not realizing it sooner.

“If I may be so frank,” Lucina says, after a moment of stewing in a silence so thick it chokes them both, “I don’t much care what our parents think of how we treat each other.”

Severa looks at her sharply, and Lucina, as if emboldened by Severa’s gaze on her, takes a step in her direction.

“I don’t like playing up my status, but if your parents make a fuss,” Lucina says, taking another step, “I will gladly remind them they have no authority over me.” Another step. “And if my own parents think they have any says in the matter,” another, “I will kindly inform them that as the future exalt,” and another, “such decisions will ultimately be out of their control.”

Standing face to face with Severa, the closest they’ve been in days, Lucina can hardly resist the urge to kiss the other girl. Instead, she takes her hand, intertwining their fingers.

“I don’t think you know what you’re getting into,” Severa tells her, voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m prepared to face it, regardless,” Lucina shoots back.

Severa drops her head to Lucina’s shoulder. “I really don’t get you,” she says, though she hardly sounds upset about it.

“You don’t have to,” Lucina replies, lightly, enjoying the contact while it lasts. “You just have to understand that I care about you, Severa. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes to prove that.”

Laughing dryly, Severa lifts her head, staring back at Lucina as though in challenge. “Fine. At the very least, I can wait and see what you plan to do.”

Unable to keep a smile from tugging on her lips, Lucina steps towards Luna, pulling Severa with her. “I won’t ask for anything more. Shall we go, then?”

Severa just shakes her head. “After you, Your Highness.”

Ylisstol is barely in view when a pair of pegasus knights flag them down. Severa raises a single hand to show their lack of resistance and lands immediately, only for the knights to quickly surround them, lances raised.

“Who goes there- Your Highness!” one of the knights exclaims, nearly dropping her weapon. “What are you doing here? Where have you been?”

“Severa, is that you?” the other knight cuts in. “Why-”

Severa dismounts, and the lances instantly raise again, pointed directly at her. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect this at least a little bit,” she says, lifting her hands in surrender.

“Stop, all of you,” Lucina commands, dropping from Luna as well. “By my order, you will let Severa return to the castle and to the cadet dorms.”

The knights look hesitantly between themselves, clearly unsure if they should listen. “Your Highness,” one of them starts, “we’re under orders from Commander Phila, Sir Frederick, your father, and Her Royal Majesty the Exalt to apprehend whoever took you from the castle.”

“And what if I were to tell you that Severa was under my orders to take me?” Lucina shoots back.

The knights hesitantly lower their lances. “What do you mean, Your Highness?”

“It was my idea to leave the castle,” Lucina lies, staring the knights down and daring them to challenge her. “I needed to see my country before the ceremony, to be reminded why my duty matters. I ordered Severa to take me; she didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

A moment passes in silence, the pegasus knights looking uneasily at each other. “I suppose we could take you to your father,” the first says. “You can explain the situation to him, and he can decide if she’s,” she motions to Severa with her lance, “allowed back in the castle.”

“I’ll accept those terms,” Lucina says. “May I have a moment with Severa before we go?”

At the knights’ synchronized nod, Lucina turns to Severa to find her giving her an unreadable look. “I’m surprised you covered for me,” she says, voice low.

Lucina shakes her head. “What are you talking about? I refuse to let you receive punishment for going along with my whims. I’ll explain everything to my father and Aunt Emmeryn, and I’m sure they will clear everything up.”

Severa’s eyes dart over Lucina face, as though searching for some sign of guile, before she shrugs, turning away. “My own father signed my arrest warrant. Surely you can’t expect to just smooth talk everything better.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Lucina vows, grasping one of Severa’s hands in her own. “If nothing else, I promise this.”

“Alright, that’s enough time you two,” the second knight calls, breaking them out of the moment.

Sensing hesitation in the stiffness of Severa’s body, the way Severa’s gaze stays firmly on the ground, Lucina tugs on her arm, pulling her close and pressing their lips together, in full view of their knightly audience. The kiss lasts a few seconds, long enough for Severa to recover from the impulsiveness of the act and relax into it, and Lucina finds breaking away is one of the hardest things she’s ever done.

“I’ll be waiting for you at the castle,” she says, loud enough that she’s sure the pegasus knights could hear her as well. “No matter what happens, I’ll be waiting for you.”

Severa nods wordlessly, flushed a bright red and breathing a little heavier than before.

Feeling immensely satisfied with that reaction, Lucina can hardly fight the grin off her face as one of the knights directs her pegasus closer, allowing Lucina to climb on the back. With one last fleeting look at Severa and Luna, they take off, the castle a quickly approaching dot in the distance.

Frederick is already in the castle yard by the time they arrive, looking as frazzled as Lucina’s ever seen him. When he spots her, head poking around the shoulder of her knight escort, she swears he looks vaguely like he wants to cry.

“Your Highness! Thank Naga you’re back!”

Lucina dismount with ease, the days spent with Luna giving her ample practice. “Frederick, it’s good to see you, too. I hope my absence hasn’t caused too much of a stir.”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle, Your Highness,” Frederick tells her. “But if I may ask, where did you go?”

Lucina opens her mouth to tell him, but the pegasus knight cuts in. “We found her on the back of your daughter’s pegasus, headed back towards the capitol.”

“Severa? You must be joking.”

“Frederick, if you can take me to my father, I can explain everything,” Lucina cuts in.

“Explain how my daughter is implicated in your apparent kidnapping?” Frederick asks, his typically stoic features shaken. “I will take you to your father, but I’m not sure what you can say that will make this better.”

The walk through the castle is stiff, the activity from the ceremony preparations only adding to the tension in the air. More than a few of the castle staff openly gawk as Lucina walks by, clearly shocked by the sudden reappearance of their princess.

They find her father in the chapel, overseeing some final touches before the ceremony tomorrow. Lucina doesn’t know how to feel that everyone seemed so confident that she would turn up in time and the ceremony could continue as planned.

“My Lord,” Frederick announces, drawing the attention of her father and the handful of priests with him. “Your daughter is here.”

Her father nearly drops the parchment in his hands. “Lucina!” he says, rushing over to her. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

“I’m perfectly healthy, Father,” Lucina tells him. “I want to talk to you about my departure from the castle.” She glances around the room at the priests, all trying very hard to look like they’re not listening. “In private.”

Chrom claps his hands. “If you could give us a moment,” he says, voiced raised and directed to the room. His eyes dart to Frederick.

“He can stay.”

“Alright, everyone out. We’ll let you know when we’re ready. Now, Lucina,” Chrom turns to her, “what happened to you? Half the castle believes you’ve been kidnapped, and the other half thinks you’ve been killed.”

Lucina frowns. “I left a note.”

“‘Don’t look for me, I’m safe’ is not a note that instills confidence.”

“I didn’t have very much time,” Lucina protests, weakly.

“It doesn’t much matter now,” Chrom says, shaking his head. “Tell us everything.”

Sparing one last glance at Frederick -- there are some details shy of everything she can leave out, at least until Severa is ready to talk to her own parents -- Lucina launches into the same explanation she gave the pegasus knights earlier. Her father listens with an unreadable expression, face flat and brows pulled together.

“I wish I could say that impulsive streak came solely from your mother,” Chrom says once she finished. He rubs his chin, clearly thinking his next sentence through. “I can’t fault you for wanting to be free of this place before the ceremony; I remember wanting to run away myself before my coming-of-age. And to be honest, I saw it in you, that desire to get out and see Ylisse for yourself. That’s why I want you to restart the Shepherds.”

“So you understand, then?”

Chrom nods, smiling slightly. “There’s a lot of work you’ll have to make up with Frederick before the ceremony, but I understand. Now we might have had some issues if you had missed the ceremony itself, but I think we can wave this off as one last hurrah before adulthood.”

“And Severa?” Lucina asks, more hesitantly.

“I’ll have to speak with the pegasus commanders,” Chrom tells her. “Regardless of whether or not you ordered her to take you, she still had responsibilities here at the castle, and they might not be so forgiving of her abandoning those for your sake.”

“But she won’t be punished?”

“For leaving, I can’t say, but not for taking you,” Chrom confirms. “Neither Emmeryn nor I thought your disappearance was as serious as the castle gossips were saying anyway, but too many of the lords and ladies visiting were in a frenzy over the idea that you were kidnapped.”

“I apologize for causing everyone so much distress.”

Chrom just laughs, placing a comforting hand on Lucina’s shoulder. “It’s no matter. Between you and me, those lords and ladies could use a little more excitement in their lives anyway. Now, come, there’s plenty of work we both need to do before the ceremony.”

Frederick motions for them to leave the chapel, Lucina thanking her father as they step out. As he leads her back through the castle, no fewer people gawk at her presence than in the walk in, and Lucina finds it more amusing with the added insight her father provided. Did they really think she was murdered?

“We should pay a visit to each of the noble families staying in the castle and let them know you’ve returned,” Frederick says, breaking Lucina from her thoughts. “But first, we should decide who your personal guard will be after the ceremony. As you know, it’s customary for women in the royal family to select a member of the pegasus knights, and I have a list of candidates your father and I think would serve you well.”

“Actually,” Lucina cuts in, “I have someone in mind already.”

“Oh? Well, I’m glad to hear you weren’t totally neglecting your duties while you were out galavanting across the country with my daughter.”

Lucina smiles wryly -- Frederick may not be as pleased with choice as she was hoping then -- but she spies Severa across the courtyard, talking with the pegasus commanders (no doubt getting dressed down for leaving the castle), and, her smile growing, she find she does not care what anyone else thinks.

When Lucina wakes the next morning, she finds absent all the nervousness that had plagued her during her previous days in the castle leading up to the ceremony. Her mind is clear, as though her path is laid out before her and all she needs to do is follow the steps until the end.

A part of her -- one that she refused to entertain in the past but she gives into more and more recently -- hopes to find Severa waiting for her when she gets there.

She takes her time dressing, savoring the last moments she’ll have alone before the big event starts. The robes the tailor selected for her are thankfully much more subdued than those from the fitting despite her not being around approve the final design -- she had been of half the mind to worry that she would be put in something particularly ostentatious as punishment for leaving so close to the ceremony.

On a whim, she takes the necklace she had bought on the road from its new spot on her bedside table, and strings it around her own neck, slipping it beneath her robes to hide it from view. A private reminder to give her strength.

A knock on her door reminds her that her day has only just started. Stepping out of the room, Lucina finds Cordelia waiting for her, her armor shining as though she polished it specially for this occasion.

“Good morning, Your Highness,” Cordelia says, greeting Lucina with a tight-lipped smile. “It looks like today will be the last day Frederick or I will be responsible for your wellbeing.”

“I’m sure Frederick will still worry about me, even once I have a personal guard of my own,” Lucina says, motioning for them to head for the chapel.

Cordelia laughs, the corners of her lips loosening. “He very much wanted to be the one to escort you this morning,” she confesses as they walk, “but he has about thirty other duties to attend to today. Mine has always been simply to make sure the royal family is safe.”

“Shouldn’t you be attending to Aunt Lissa, then?” Lucina asks. “Not that I object to your escort, of course.”

“No, it’s a fair question. Her Highness has been helping Her Majesty with some final preparations, so Commander Phila agreed to keep an eye on both of them until everyone is in one place.”

Lucina nods, as a silence settles over them. Peeking from the corner of her eye, she studies the older woman, examining as many of her features as she can without outright staring.

Ever since Severa was young, people often compared her appearance to her mother’s -- the color of their hair is undeniable, at least -- but Lucina struggles to find the similarity. There’s a softness to Cordelia’s features, a give where Severa is stone. Though Severa may have inherited the base of her beauty from her mother, Lucina finds she misses that hardness, the extra sharpness Severa lends her features from the way she holds herself alone.

“I will admit I had another reason I wanted to escort you to the chapel this morning,” Cordelia says, suddenly, breaking the silence and snapping Lucina’s gaze to her fully. “I heard about the little escapade you went on with my daughter.”

Lucina resists the urge to groan. “I assure you, whatever sordid rumor you heard has been wildly exaggerated.”

“I see. So you did not kiss my daughter when those pegasus knights found you on the way back to the castle?”

Face feeling as hot as it ever has, Lucina racks her brain for a proper response. “Is that all you heard?”

“I also heard you practically confessed your love to her right then and there. Is that incorrect as well?”

“I,” Lucina starts, swallowing thickly, “never said the kiss did not happen. Though I would argue what I said did not amount to a confession of love.”

Cordelia stops in her tracks, forcing Lucina to do the same. “Am I to assume you’re just playing with her, then?”

“Of course not!” Lucina protests immediately. “I care for Severa deeply, I can promise you that, Cordelia. But…”

“But?” Cordelia prompts, sharply.

“I’m working on it,” Lucina finishes, the response sounding far better in her head than out loud. “I need to know that if she reciprocates, it’s because she honestly feels the same as I do, not because she feels obligated to return my feelings because of my status.”

Cordelia frowns, the expression etching deep lines into her face, and for the first time, Lucina can see the resemblance with her daughter. “Has Severa ever expressed to you the desire to be in a relationship with you?”

Lucina thinks back to her conversation with Severa just a few days ago. The confession that her parents wanted to limit their contact likely for this exact reason. Briefly, she wonders if this is Cordelia’s worst fear come true.

“Until recently, I don’t believe Severa has allowed herself to consider it a possibility.”

“So, no?”

“No,” Lucina admits, after a moment, though it hurts to acknowledge. Especially in these circumstances. “Not in so many words.”

Cordelia sighs, swinging an arm out to signal that they should continue on their way towards the chapel. “I sympathize with you,” she tells her, once they’ve resumed their walk. “Did you know that I was in love with your father when I was a teenager?”

“I’ve heard rumors, but I always dismissed them,” Lucina says, slowly, unsure of how Cordelia will react.

“Thank you for thinking so highly of me, but I’m afraid those rumors are true,” Cordelia says, shaking her head wryly. “It’s been a long time since then, but I do remember what it’s like, being young and enamored with someone unattainable. When I married Frederick, the one thing I wanted, above all else, was to keep my child from making the same mistakes I did.”

Oh, Lucina thinks. That explains things. Out loud, she says, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Your Highness. Never apologize for loving someone,” Cordelia says, and Lucina wonders if she ever wished to hear those words when she was Lucina’s age. “Though I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish the circumstances were a bit different.”

“I understand that our families have a complicated history when it comes to such things,” Lucina says, haltingly, “but I can assure you, when it comes to Severa, her happiness is my first priority.”

Cordelia sighs again, the act so similar to one of Severa’s own, Lucina feels a wave of comfort from hearing it. “I’m glad to hear that, Your Highness. Truly. And I believe that you mean that.”

A moment passes, Cordelia clearly unsure how to proceed. “But I can’t help but worry for her,” she settles on. “Severa doesn’t like to talk about it, but she struggles with how others see her. She always has. It’s a familiar concern,” Cordelia admits, shaking her head.

“I’ve noticed that about her as well,” Lucina says, reminded of her conversation with Severa that night on the road. It feels like a lifetime ago now. “Though I must say it’s understandable why it would concern her.”

“Yes, I suppose Frederick and I did not leave her with the easiest legacy to live up to,” Cordelia agrees. “Sometimes I wonder if any child of mine would have been able to live up to the reputation I’ve been given. Severa’s done as well as the gossipers would let her.”

“Even better,” Lucina shoots back. “She has a drive I doubt any detractors would bother to notice.” Lucina can’t stop a fond smile from overtaking her lips. “She won’t go down without a fight, however frustrating that may be sometimes.”

“You really do care for her, don’t you?” Cordelia says, sounding a little taken aback.

“More than I fully feel comfortable admitting to her mother.”

Cordelia gives Lucina a long, appraising look. “Perhaps I misjudged you, Your Highness. Or perhaps I misjudged the situation. I suppose I never imagined you could feel so strongly about my daughter.”

“I can’t imagine feeling anything but,” Lucina replies, simply.

A silence settles over them at that, not quite comfortable but not quite tense either, as though both women are just on the cusp of airing one last comment. With the chapel fast approaching in the distance, Lucina finds she can’t quite leave the conversation where it is.

“Cordelia,” she starts, before pausing to choose her words. “I’m not asking for your approval -- I would continue to love your daughter even if you and Frederick were fiercely opposed to it. But I do hope that you and your husband will be able to accept whatever decision she and I make about our relationship going forward.”

“You Highness, is it alright if I take those words as a declaration from my daughter’s potential suitor,” Cordelia asks, “not the crown princess and future exalt?”

Lucina can’t stop the relieved laugh that breaks free from her throat. “By all means.”

“In that case, you have it. My acceptance and my approval,” Cordelia says. “I want my daughter to be happy, Your Highness, and if you’ve convinced me of anything, it’s that you would do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

Stopping outside the chapel door, Lucina turns to face Cordelia fully. “Thank you this,” she says, reaching a hand out into the space between them. “It was nice to have a chance to speak with you so frankly.”

Cordelia takes Lucina’s hand and gives it a firm shake, a small smile on her lips. “I agree. Our country is lucky to have you.”

Lucina flushes slightly at that bit of praise, dropping Cordelia’s hand to tug on a lock of hair near her ear sheepishly.

“Severa too, if she’s willing to take you,” Cordelia adds, with a grin Lucina didn’t know the serious woman was capable of. “Good luck, Your Highness.”

Unsure of what she can say to follow that up -- if anything at all -- Lucina simply gives Cordelia a nod, and pushes her way into the chapel.

The ceremony itself passes in a blur. Through some odd combination of the countless practice repetitions of her own motions Lucina had gone through in the weeks leading up to it and the sheer surreality of the day finally arriving, Lucina finds it extremely easy to let muscle memory take control.

Despite that, she can hardly ignore the moment Aunt Emmeryn -- every bit Exalt Emmeryn in this moment-- places a weighty circlet on her head, or the thunderous applause from the nobility at the crowning.

And just like that, she is a full-fledged member of the royal family and the officially recognized heir to the halidom.

Though there are plenty of goings-on still planned for the chapel, Lucina is hustled from the hall almost immediately, each step cresting on a wave of adulation from Ylisse’s ruling class. There’s a day-long banquet waiting for her, in theory a chance for the various lords and ladies visiting the capitol to properly meet the princess but in practice more an opportunity for the Ylissean nobility to celebrate the good fortune and prosperity of the current exalt’s reign.

As she and the nobility leave the chapel, she casts a glance around in hope of catching any who might be entering. The knighthood ceremony typically takes place in private -- to represent that the service is not something taken up for the accolades or recognition, but out of duty to the country -- and she wants any indication she can that Severa is with this year’s graduates. But the crowd around her is dense and charged with excitement, so much so she finds herself nearly carried across the yard and to the banquet hall.

The celebration itself is a whirlwind of activity, and for the briefest moment, Lucina regrets the days she did all she could to avoid meeting with the young lords and ladies visiting the castle. As the guest of honor, she’s pulled from noble to noble, barely hearing their words of congratulations or well-wishes before the next spins her around to do the same.

To her luck, however, Aunt Emmeryn arrives after the first hour, and for the first time since Lucina arrived at the banquet hall, she finds the attention off of her. Taking the opportunity, she slips off to the wings for quick break, only to bump into someone with the same idea.

“Hey, watch where you’re-”

“Severa!” Lucina says barely resisting the urge to hug the girl after a few days without seeing her. “You’re here!”

Severa smirks, all lopsided and full of bravado, but there’s an affectionate glint in her eye that takes the edge off. “Where else would I be?”

“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you since those knights flagged us down and brought me back to the castle,” Lucina says. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing exciting honestly,” Severa answers, sighing and letting the air go out of her. “The pegasus commanders gave me an earful, but once the rumor got around about,” she pauses, suddenly taking interest in one of the far walls, “us being found together, they seemed a lot less keen on actually punishing me.”

There’s lines there Lucina’s can’t quite read through, though she does wonder if it has anything at all to do with the rumors Cordelia mentioned to her earlier. “That simple?”

Severa sends her a look as though she’s scandalized that Lucina would suggest such a thing. “From a bureaucracy standpoint maybe,” she says, scoffing. “The other cadets won’t let me hear the end of it, though. Cynthia especially doesn’t know when to shut her damn trap.”

“I’m sorry?” Though for what, Lucina still isn’t entirely sure.

“Don’t apologize; it’s not your fault people around here can’t mind their own business,” Severa shoots back. “And I never said I had a problem with what you did. I just wish other people wouldn’t make such a big deal about it.”

Lucina nods -- she’ll just have to ask Cynthia for the full context later.

They settle into a comfortable silence after that, both enjoying the moment of reprieve in each other’s company. Lucina knows she’ll have to return to the celebration sooner rather than later, but for now, she simply wants to bask in Severa’s presence after missing it for the past couple of days.

To her surprise, however, Severa breaks the silence after a few beats.

“There’s a rumor going around that Lady Tanith is going to be your personal guard.”

Lucina winces. Now that she thinks about it, Lady Tanith had been at the top of Frederick’s shortlist of candidates, but she had forgotten all about the court’s expectations for her pick as she went off on her own whims. She’ll have to find a way to apologize to Lady Tanith privately for the castle rumor mill getting ahead of itself.

“Do you think that’s who I’ve chosen?” Lucina asks instead of outright denying the rumor.

“She’s the logical choice,” Severa responds. “One of the most talented knights in the service, and dedicated, too. Not much more you could ask for.”

“That’s not what I asked. Who do you think I chose?”

Severa eyes her warily, clearly unsure of this line of questioning. “How should I know? I don’t what goes on in that head of yours, Luci.”

Lucina smiles at the nickname. It fell from Severa’s lips so naturally, she doubts that Severa herself noticed that she used it. “I think you understand me more than you’re willing to admit,” Lucina argues. “We just spent a week and a half together. Who do you think I chose?”

Flushing red from an emotion Lucina can’t quite place, Severa looks away and crosses her arms. “I know what you’re trying to say,” she says after a particularly long pause of glaring at the ground, “but I can’t believe you could have possibly thought that was a good idea.”

“You don’t have to accept,” Lucina says, evenly. As though it wouldn’t crush her for Severa to do so.

“You really you think I could get away with that?”

“Of course,” Lucina tells her. “I haven’t told your father -- or mine -- my selection yet. If you tell me right now that you don’t want to be my personal guard, I’ll give them a different name.”

Severa looks back at her sharply, brow furrowed and frowning. “Am I allowed,” she starts, almost choking on the words, “am I allowed to say yes?”

A warmth blooms in Lucina’s chest. It reminds her of their trip and the road, when the world was just the two of them.

“If you want to,” Lucina says, willing herself not to sound too excited, not to influence Severa’s decision with her own desires. “As long as you want to, of course you can say yes.”

“Then,” Severa says, gaze dropping back to the ground as though suddenly shy, “I would be honored.”

Lucina can’t fight the smile from spreading on her face. “In that case,” she says, pulling the necklace out from beneath her tunic, the feather pendant catching in the light, “I have something to tell you.” She undoes the clasp behind her neck, lets the the necklace bunch into one hand. “Will you listen?”

“Listening is the least I can do, I think,” Severa says, watching the motion of Lucina's hands curiously.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Lucina argues, taking a small step towards Severa. Gauging whether it’s alright. “If anything, I’m in your debt.”

Severa sends Lucina an exasperated -- if somewhat affectionate -- look. “What could you possibly be going on about this time? Last I checked, the only reason we’re standing here like this is because of you.”

“You only got in trouble like that because of me,” Lucina shoots back, taking another step. “And I can’t imagine what it would be like having a knight I hardly know watching over me every waking moment. If you hadn’t agreed to be my guard, I’m not sure what I would have done.”

“You can’t be serious,” Severa says with a shake of her head. “Being a guard for the royal family is the highest honor any knight in the service could ask for. You just offered me the highest promotion I’ll ever get, and I only received my commission an hour ago!”

Finally face to face with Severa, she passes one end of the necklace to her other hand and reaches around Severa’s shoulders, deftly fixing the clasp being Severa’s neck. “A thank-you gift for taking me with you, and for putting up with me all those days on the road,” Lucina explains when Severa looks down at the necklace in confusion.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Perhaps not, but I wanted to,” Lucina says, stepping back. “I may have had an ulterior motive in choosing you to be my personal guard, and I want to give you another chance to back out before we make anything official. But I want you to keep the necklace regardless.”

Severa reaches for the pendant almost immediately, tracing over the grooves in the feather not unlike Lucina did in those last days before they returned to the castle. Lucina watches for a moment as she admires the present, simply happy that she was able to give it to her after all, when a voice cuts through the short silence.

“I love you.”

Lucina feels her brow furrow -- those were the words she had planned, but that wasn’t her voice that said them. “You… what?”

“I love you,” Severa repeats, cheeks pink. “I’ve probably been in love with you longer than I’ve been willing to admit to myself.”

Heart pounding faster than she ever thought possible, Lucina takes Severa’s hands from around the pendant and clutches them in her own. “I’m sorry, my brain isn’t quite catching up,” she says, a smile splitting on her face. “I wouldn't happen to be dreaming right now, would I?”

Severa smiles -- a small one, but it’s there -- and buries her face in the crook of Lucina’s neck. “I didn’t expect you to be such a dork about it.”

Lucina just laughs. She feels so light right now, it’s a wonder she hasn’t started floating. “My apologies, I just,” she pauses, dropping Severa’s hands to wrap her arms around Severa’s frame, “I love you, too.”

Mirroring the motion, Severa squeezes Lucina’s torso, the feeling of it sending Lucina's heart into double-time again. “I wonder how my parents will react,” she muses. “Naga, I don't even how to tell my mother.”

“I wouldn't worry about that,” Luciba replies, sneakily pressing a kiss to the top of Severa's head. “I have on good authority that she would be happy for us.”

Severa laughs at that, and Lucina swears she must be flying.

-30.

“So you’re going to save me a spot on the Shepherds, right?”

Severa pauses in packing Luna’s saddlebags long enough to send Cynthia a dry look over her shoulder.

“I’m just saying, it’s kinda unfair that you managed to find a whole group of people for this a whole year before I’m old enough to be knighted,” Cynthia continues.

“There’s no set number of people who can be in the Shepherds, Cynthia,” Lucina says from her place outside of Luna’s stall, when it becomes obvious Severa is refusing to acknowledge the complaint. “If you still want to join us in a year, we’d be happy to have you.”

“You’d be happy to have her,” Severa cuts in, exiting Luna’s stall and joining Lucina where she’s standing before lacing their fingers instinctively. Lucina can’t help but smile at how easy it comes now. “No need to answer for both of us.”

“Ugh, you two are so… saccharine. Which brings me to reason number two why you should take me!” Cynthia says, forging on. “Someone needs to keep you two in line. Naga knows how most of the nobility feels about you dating your personal guard.”

Lucina laughs lightly. “I don’t see why it should bother them. Aunt Emmeryn’s been involved with Phila for nearly as long as they’ve had a professional relationship.” The statement draws two incredulous gazes to her. “Is something wrong?”

“You’re kidding me,” Severa says, simply. “There’s no way a hardass like Commander Phila would ‘desecrate her position’ -- or whatever fancy words the nobles like to use -- by being in a relationship with the exalt.”

“Did neither of you know?” Lucina asks, sparing a glance at Cynthia’s equally gobsmacked expression.

“Is this why Her Majesty never married?” Cynthia says, quietly as though she’s starting to piece a huge puzzle together. “Lucina, are you going to need Kjelle to have kids for you?”

Severa smacks the back of Cynthia’s head so quickly, Lucina nearly misses it as she blinks. “Mind your own business, will you? It’s a little early to worry about things like that!”

“It’s a valid question!” Cynthia shoots back, holding the spot when Severa’s hand had made contact with her head.

“I think we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Lucina steps in, diplomatically. “For now, Severa and I are just enjoying what we have together.”

Cynthia pulls a face. “Stop being so sickly sweet. How the other Shepherds are gonna deal with you, I have no idea.”

“Weren’t you just begging to be one?” Severa goads. If they were a little younger, Lucina would have expected her to stick out her tongue.

“I’ve been dealing with you my whole life; I have practice,” Cynthia argues, proving Lucina wrong -- right? -- and doing just that.

Severa makes a motion like she’s going to pluck Cynthia’s out stuck tongue from her mouth, so Lucina grabs her other hand, intertwining those fingers as well. “There certainly won’t be a quiet day with both of you as Shepherds, will there?” she asks, though with the way her body is positioned after grabbing Severa’s hand, it feels as though she’s speaking to Severa alone. “I look forward to it.”

“You're too nice,” Severa says dryly, but there’s no bite to it. Just an affectionate curl to her lips.

“If you guys keep this up, I'm leaving,” Cynthia cuts in.

Severa doesn’t spare her a glance as she starts to lean in, “Then leave.”

Lucina thinks she might hear a huffing sound off to her side, but in this moment, she finds nothing matters but Severa’s lips meeting hers. Perhaps Cynthia has a point after all, she thinks, fleetingly, but Severa pulls her in deeper, effectively cutting off all thought.

The other Shepherds will work it out. This -- after all they've been through -- is too good to give up.

#lucisev #Fire Emblem: Awakening #my fic #road trip au

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ubertastic-writing · 6 years

Text

don’t stop the music

Fandom: Love Live! Sunshine!!

Pairing: KanaRiko

Summary: When Riko came to Uchiura, she wasn’t expecting to fall in love. one-sided kanariko, no-Aqours AU

Outisde Links: AO3

Notes: if you’re expecting a happy ending where kanan and riko get together and are cute and fluffy, this is not that fic. bittersweet ending ahead.

also only posting on AO3 this time because i’m lazy and posting is work

Perhaps the transition should have been more difficult.

When her parents broke the news to her that her father had been assigned to a provincial office -- on paper a promotion, but nonetheless a move that would take him away from their beloved Tokyo -- they had assured her they would do whatever it took to ensure that she could stay. Otonokizaka High School had always had a venerated music program, and they hadn’t wanted her to give up on such a clear cut future for her father’s.

But Riko finds a sense of comfort in Uchiura that she hadn’t felt in Tokyo in years. Not since the piano competitions started to get more serious, since her teacher started offhandedly mentioning talent agencies.

It’s not like Tokyo isn’t going to be there when she finally decides to go back, Riko tells herself. Her piano teacher had been so distraught when Riko told him she was moving, he assured her she would always be welcome back under his tutelage, anytime she was back in Tokyo.

Right now, however -- one week into the move -- Riko can’t see herself going back to Tokyo anytime soon. Here in Uchiura, she has new friends who know more about her piano slump than her parents, a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji, and the fresh sea air greeting her every morning.

Perhaps that’s all she needs to be satisfied.

And it is... until it isn’t.

Chika-chan introduces Riko to her childhood friend as part of her grand scheme to help Riko with her slump. Riko goes along with it, in part because Chika-chan’s energy is infectious and it’s easy to get wrapped up in it, but also because a part of her deep down needs to be able to sit at a piano again without feeling like tearing her skin apart.

Kanan-chan, as Chika-chan gleefully explains, has been running her family shop while her father recovers from a leg injury but attends Uranohoshi the same as them. She’s pretty -- like so pretty -- Chika-chan practically gushes on the ferry ride across the bay, and she could probably bench a walrus.

Riko watches as Chika-chan gestures wildly, clearly excited about the upcoming meeting, before coyly asking, “Chika-chan, do you like Kanan-san?”

Chika-chan flushes a pretty pink. “I, um… not anymore,” she says quietly, suddenly shy.

“Kanan-san really must be something,” Riko says, sparing Chika-chan any extra embarrassment by not lingering on the confession. “I’m excited to meet her.”

“You’ll love her!” Chika-chan enthuses, her energy back. “I just know it.”

Kanan-san greets them as they step off the ferry, dressed in a wetsuit with diving goggles hung around her neck. Riko is struck for a moment by the sharpness of her features -- she looks like a character straight out of one of Riko’s romance novels -- and that’s all it takes for her to stumble a bit as she steps off the boat.

“Woah, there,” Kanan-san says, steadying Riko with a hand braced against each arm. “I see you’re still getting your sea legs.”

“Nice catch, Kanan-chan!” Chika-chan says, hopping off the boat behind Riko. “This is Riko-chan.”

Kanan-san takes a step back, her fingers still brushing against Riko’s forearms, and gives her a once-over. “So this is the girl you won’t stop talking about, Chika. I guess I don’t blame you; she’s pretty.”

Riko feels her face heat up as Chika walks around them, scratching the back of her head. “It’s not just that,” Chika-chan says -- not quite a denial. “We don’t get transfer students everyday. Especially not from places like Tokyo.”

“Ah, a Tokyo girl. That certainly explains it,” Kanan-san says, looking over Riko again with an easy grin. “Well then, Riko-chan, are you ready to leave Tokyo behind for good?”

Under Kanan-san’s gaze, with Kanan-san’s arms still lightly touching her arms, Riko thinks she wouldn’t mind never seeing Tokyo again.

It only takes Riko two weeks to return to the piano in the end.

Her first attempts are halting and stilted things, her fingers freezing up more than they actually press any keys down, but when she leaves her room afterward, she catches her parents hiding grins.

Chika-chan is perhaps even more excited about it than she is, hanging out her window as Riko returns to the basics -- playing scales and cadences when her hands refuse to do anything more complicated -- and clapping frantically when she finishes, no matter how simple the exercises are.

“I don’t know why you’re so committed to this,” Riko says at one point, from her balcony to Chika’s open window.

“I know what it’s like for someone to live without a passion, I guess,” Chika-chan responds. “And if I can help with that, I’d do anything.”

“Talking about yourself, Miss Go-Home-Club?”

“Maybe,” Chika-chan sing-songs, the tone just wry enough that Riko can’t help but feel that she isn’t. At least not in this case.

Chika-chan takes her across the bay to Kanan-chan’s family shop about once a week, You-chan joining them on days she doesn’t have swim practice, in hopes that the ocean will finally speak to her and fix all her problems.

It’s still early in the year for tourists, so Kanan-chan has plenty of time to chaperone them, letting them stay out in the water longer than the tour times would normally allow and chat in the boat afterwards instead of immediately taking them back to shore.

“No luck?” Kanan-chan asks, hauling Riko out of the water effortlessly.

Riko pulls her goggles off, laying on the deck with her eyes closed. “Getting there,” she says.

“I hope you have a breakthrough soon,” Kanan-chan says, giving You-chan a hand up.

“Trying to get rid of us?” Chika-chan jokes, from her place on the stern deck, her legs dangling in the water.

“Like I could if I tried,” Kanan-chan shoots back. “But seriously, the way Chika talks you up… Riko-chan, I’d love to hear you play sometime.”

Something about those words sets a tightness in Riko’s chest, different than the one she’s gotten used to feeling when she thinks about performing, and she hears notes in the back of her head. Fleeting, like a dream forgotten upon waking.

“You’ll be one of the first to know as soon as I have something,” Riko tells her, more notes ringing in her head when Kanan-chan sends her a bright smile.

There’s a melody constantly playing in her head when she finally gets the courage to ask Chika-chan a question that’s been weighing on her for weeks now, on their walk home.

“Did you ever tell Kanan-chan how you felt?”

Chika-chan stops mid-step, her expression shell-shocked as though her mind just screeched to a halt. Eyes skirting to the side, she scratches at her cheek. “Uh, no, I never did.”

“Why not?”

“Riko-chan,” Chika-chan says, resuming eye contact with an intensity Riko almost wouldn’t expect from her, “why do you want to know?”

Riko’s chest tightens up, the melody in her ears pulsing louder with every second. “Please, just tell me.”

Chika-chan drops her gaze, sighing. “Kanan-chan had a girlfriend,” she says. “She has a girlfriend.”

Throat suddenly as tight as her chest, Riko looks out across the ocean, squinting when the light reflecting off the water catches her eyes. It’s the light, not her eyes burning. “That makes sense,” she manages, voice strained. “Kanan-chan really is something.”

In her head, the melody crests and fades into the distance.

There’s an irony to it. Running from the piano drove Riko to Uchiura, and running from what she knows of Uchiura drives her back to the piano.

She tries not to dwell on it. When she practices, she can fully absorb herself in just the feeling of her fingers against the keys, the way her joints grow stiff after too many hours of consecutive use.

She composes a new piece in an hour, rewrites it in another. Despite herself, she calls her piano teacher and plays it for him, half-heartedly agreeing to come back to Tokyo at some point to perform it at a competition.

“It’s beautiful,” Chika-chan tells her, across the gap between their houses, one night when Riko is packing up after a long evening of playing. “Did you write that yourself?”

Riko jumps at the unexpected comment, fallboard clattering as it slips from her hands. “I did,” she says, stepping out onto the balcony.

“That’s amazing,” Chika-chan says, before frowning. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When you got your passion back,” Chika-chan fiddles with her fingers, unable to make eye contact, “it was supposed to be finding out how to shine again. Instead it seems like I ruined it.”

Riko can’t stop the incredulous laugh that bubbles out of her. “What do you mean? This isn’t your fault.”

“Of course it is! I introduced you to Kanan-chan; I kept taking you back to her.” Chika-chan lets out a nervous chuckle. “She’s an unwitting flirt, you know? She’s good at making people fall for her.”

“Still, you didn’t have any control over that. That was all me,” Riko argues. Then, under her breath, “It’s really my fault anyway, falling for the first girl to flirt with me.”

“Are you going back?”

“What?”

“To Tokyo,” Chika-chan explains. “Do you think you want to go back?”

“I,” Riko starts, pausing to let the sea air wash over her. “No, I don’t think I do. I like it here.”

“Good,” Chika-chan says, looking relieved. “You-chan and I would miss you.”

A smile grows on Riko’s face before she can stop it. “Is that so? I guess I do owe you two a concert, don’t I?”

“Ah, that’s right!”

“You and You-chan and,” Riko swallows, “Kanan-chan. You three really helped me a bunch these past few weeks.”

“You just tell us when, and we’ll be there,” Chika-chan promises. “We’ve been dying to hear you play.”

Riko giggles. “What are you talking about? You’ve been listening in this whole time!”

“It’s not the same,” Chika-chan insists. “I bet you’re really radiant when you perform. Like actually perform, not just practice.”

“I’m just an ordinary girl,” Riko shoots back, reflexively. “Anyone could do this with enough time and effort.”

“Sure, sure,” Chika-chan says, clearly not believing her.

A comfortable silence settles over them for a moment, and Riko soaks in the crisp night air, the feeling of having a friend close.

“Hey, Riko-chan,” Chika-chan says, hesitantly, as though she regrets breaking the silence as much as she wants to say her piece, “you can talk to me about it whenever you want, you know?”

“Yeah, of course,” Riko agrees.

“I just don’t want you to think you have to suffer in silence or anything like that. We’ve all been there, you know? Well, not all of us and not thereexactly, but, um, some of us… have,” Chika-chan trails off. “You, uh, you know what I meant.”

“Thank you, Chika-chan,” Riko says, as genuinely as she’s said anything.

They settle into another silence, Chika-chan leaning against her window sill and Riko’s arms folded under her head on her balcony banister.

Despite everything, her fingers still itch to play.

#love live! sunshine!!#lls #kanariko #riko sakurauchi #kanan matsuura #chika takami #you watanabe #unrequited love #light angst #my deepest apologies for taking such an uplifting show and churning this sad mess out of it

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ubertastic-writing · 9 years

Text

A Royal Affair

Fandom: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Pairing: Lucina/Severa

Summary: Lucina's hiding something, and Severa will be damned if she doesn't find out what it is. Isn't half the point of dating being able to tell each other anything?

Outside Links: FF.net | AO3

Notes: prompt: We’ve been dating for almost a year now and your dad’s side of the family is in town and you really don’t want me to meet them even though I’ve met your mom and oh it turns out you’re the heir to a small country what

Won’t be home for dinner tonight. Something came up.

Severa stares at her phone, bemused. In the ten months they’ve been dating (and three months they’ve been practically living together), Lucina’s never missed a “it’s not delivery,” stay-in pizza night, not even for that time her brother got his nose broken trying to pick up girls at the bar down the street from Severa’s apartment. And that had been relatively early in their relationship.

Frowning, she texts Inigo, figuring he, if anyone, should know what’s going on in his sister’s life. Do you know what’s up with Lucina? She just cancelled pizza night.

Yeah, sorry, his reply comes, not a second later. Something big came up. Talk to you about it later. g2g

“Thanks for nothing,” Severa mutters under her breath, debating tossing her phone aside but deciding she’d rather spend her suddenly free evening with someone instead moping by herself.

She settles on calling Noire because she knows Noire will eat her pizza without asking too many questions.

Lucina doesn’t make her appearance in Severa’s apartment until the next morning, a solid twelve hours after she was supposed to.

To say Severa’s a little irritated when she tries to slip into bed, unannounced, at five in the morning is something of an understatement.

“So what was the big thing last night you couldn’t tell me about?” Severa asks once Lucina’s settled in, her arms wrapped around Severa’s waist.

“Oh! I didn’t realize you were awake.”

“You know I’m a light sleeper,” Severa shoots back. “And stop trying to avoid the question. You never skip out on pizza night.”

“I’m sorry, Severa. It was… an unexpected emergency,” Lucina says. “I’m afraid I can’t fully explain it yet.”

Severa huffs, glad that she’s facing away from Lucina because the last thing she wants to look at right now is that puppy-dog pout Lucina wears whenever she knows Severa’s irritated with her. “Can’t explain your big emergency. Right.”

“I’m...” Lucina trails off, before snuggling further into Severa’s hair. She’s the only person Severa knows who actually wants to be closer to the people who are mad at her; it’s weird. “I just don’t know how to explain it yet. Give me some time, and I will, alright?”

“Fine,” Severa huffs again for good measure, so Lucina knows that her cuddling shtick isn’t getting her anywhere. “But don’t think you can get away with cancelling on me last minute like that again.”

Lucina smiles — not that Severa can see it with her laying the way she is, but she can feel the way Lucina’s lips quirk against her neck before she presses a kiss to it. “Of course. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“And it’s good for you I get cold easily, or I’d make you sleep on the couch this week.”

Lucina laughs at that, the sound and her warmth already lulling Severa back to sleep.

Dating Lucina does not come with many downsides, but of the particularly notable ones, Severa is pretty sure having to put up with Inigo is the worst. (Her terrible fashion sense, at least, means Severa has an excuse to demand that Lucina never go shopping without her, and making her model-level-hot girlfriend play dress up with her at all the local clothing stores sits towards the top of her favorite activities list. Getting hit on by her girlfriend’s younger brother while said gorgeous-but-adorably-infuriatingly-oblivious girlfriend remains blissfully unaware does not.)

And it’s not even like Severa dislikes Inigo or blames him for flirting with her. She’s fully aware of how hot she is, and she knows that’s just how he is. Inigo flirts with everything that moves. He’s all bark and no bite, if that time she jokingly flirted back just to see what he would do and he looked vaguely like he was going to piss himself is any indication.

That doesn’t mean she can stand talking to him for more than half an hour at a time.

“So why’s it such a big deal that your dad’s in town?” Severa says before taking a bite out of her burger.

“He’s a busy guy, and he doesn’t live around here,” Inigo tell her, waving a fry around. “Plus, Lucina’s always been daddy’s little princess, so she likes to make time for him.”

Severa grunts around her mouthful of food. “And why couldn’t she just tell me that your dad dropped by unexpectedly?”

Inigo chews thoughtfully for a moment. “Hell if I know,” he says, a few crumbs flying out of his full mouth and making Severa wrinkle her nose in disgust. “You’ll have to ask her about that.”

It’s an obvious deflection if Severa’s ever heard one, but she decides not to press it. There’s something up with this impromptu fatherly visit, and Lucina’s clearly already asked Inigo not to fill Severa in. And it’s not like Severa can just ask Lucina why her father’s in town when Severa’s not supposed to know he’s around in the first place.

“So,” Severa says instead, “Lucina’s as much of a daddy’s girl as you are a momma’s boy?”

It shouldn’t be half as funny as it is when Inigo starts choking on his food.

As it just so happens, Severa’s really bad at sitting on secrets and pretending like she doesn’t know them.

“How come I’ve never met your dad?” she ends up blurting out one night while she and Lucina are cuddled up on the couch watching one of those rom coms that makes Lucina tear up and Severa roll her eyes.

“Huh?” Lucina responds, and it’s perhaps the least eloquent Severa’s ever heard her girlfriend in the two years she’s known her.

There’s no going back now, so Severa grits her teeth and pushes off her human cushion. “I’ve been to your mom’s dance studio like a million and a half times, but you never talk about your dad. How come?”

To her surprise, Lucina smiles gently. “Well, to be honest, I don’t get to see him much anymore. He and my mother divorced when I was still in high school, and my mother relocated here.”

“So your mother got custody?”

“No, not quite. It’s a bit complicated,” Lucina says, with small frown. “They had an amicable divorce, and they still love each other very much, but Mother couldn’t handle Father’s lifestyle. They agreed on joint custody, but Mother would get Inigo for most of the year and Father would have me. We switched for school holidays.”

Severa blinks. “That means you still grew up with him.”

Lucina blinks back. “Yes?”

“So that doesn’t explain why I haven’t heard anything about him until now.”

“Oh.”

“Nevermind,” Severa says with a sigh. It’s obvious Lucina doesn’t want to actually tell her anything about this mystery father of hers if she’s kept it from her this long and confronting her about it is like pulling teeth. “Forget I mentioned it; it’s not important.”

“Don’t say that,” Lucina says, reaching out for her and closing the gap that opened between them. “If you cared enough to ask, of course it’s important. I just… You tell me so much about your family that I often forget that I don’t always return the favor. I’ll try to be better about that in the future.”

Severa lets herself relax into Lucina’s arms, fully aware that Lucina’s managed to get away without telling her what she actually wanted to know. “It’s fine. It’s not like I ever asked until now anyway.”

Lucina hums, leaning down to peck Severa on the lips. “I love you.”

Smiling despite herself, Severa presses their lips together a second time. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I love you too, dork.”

It’s kind of stupid how Severa ends up finding out.

There’s a newspaper on the kitchen table. That shouldn’t matter; Severa doesn’t read the paper, doesn’t even know how it got in her apartment. But she does notice the headline “World Leaders Arrive for Three-Day Trade Conference” in big block letters across the top.

And more importantly, she notices the picture — not even the main one under the headline, but the smaller one underneath that — of Lucina and Inigo standing next to some important-looking man she’s never seen before. Perhaps most importantly, she reads the caption under that picture: “Prince Chrom of Ylisse (center) with his two children.”

“Luci?” Sev calls, absentmindedly turning the stove off because she’s done cooking anyway, and the last thing she needs upon discovering that her girlfriend may very well be a princess is to burn the apartment down. It’d make for a good story, sure, but she’d rather get her security deposit back someday.

Lucina pokes her head into the kitchen, so blissfully ignorant of the bombshell Severa is about to drop on her. “Yes?”

“What’s this?” Severa asks, motioning towards the paper on the table.

Lucina glances at it. “The morning paper?”

“No,” Severa says, feeling strangely calm, given how jumbled her thoughts are at the moment, “what’s this?” She points at the offending picture.

Lucina takes another look at it and then pales. Severa’s not sure if she’s ever seen Lucina go so white in the entire time she’s known her.

“That’s…” Lucina starts before closing and opening her mouth a few times soundlessly.

“Is this why you cancelled pizza night?” Severa presses. “Why you haven’t told me anything about your father?”

Instead of answering, Lucina pulls out one of the kitchen chairs and takes a seat. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” she says, though if her expression is anything to go by, she’s as painfully aware of how much like an excuse that sounds as Severa is.

“Riiiight,” Severa deadpans. “You weren’t trying to keep it from me, but you also didn’t see the point in informing me that your father’s actual, literal, fucking royalty.” Lucina winces, and that’s Severa’s first clue that she might be a little more angry about this that she thought she was. “Why? Why wouldn’t you tell me about this?”

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t tell anyone else, either,” Lucina says, glancing at Severa before promptly averting her gaze when Severa gives her a look. “I promise, it’s not like I didn’t want to tell you. I did. It’s just that…”

Severa raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow, and Lucina sighs.

“You can be so secretly insecure sometimes under all that bravado,” Lucina admits, quietly. “Sometimes you’re so scared that you’re not good enough and you won’t measure up to anyone, and I think you’re perfect the way you are, Severa, I really do, so I didn’t want to be one of those people you think you don’t measure up to. I was worried you might think you aren’t good enough to be in a relationship with me.”

Severa’s stunned. So stunned, it takes all her focus to pull out a chair of her own and slump into it. Burying her face into her hands, she resists the urge to scream. “You didn’t tell me because you were worried I might break up with you?”

There’s a pause, so Severa can only assume Lucina is nodding weakly, followed by a meek, “Yes.”

“Gawds, I can’t believe you sometimes,” Severa says into her hands, the sound muffled.

“So you don’t feel that way?”

Severa isn’t sure if she’s talking about her apparent lack of self-confidence or wanting to break up. “I don’t know, I might have before, but I’m trying to prove you wrong, so of course I don’t!” she practically snarls, ripping her hands away to reveal Lucina’s timid expression.

It reminds her of their first real date, when Lucina showed up in the most god-awful dress, prompting Severa to say “Dear Lord, what are you wearing?” and Lucina to give her that same small, scared look. The date had gone well in the end, but only after Severa had grabbed Lucina’s hand, muttering “I guess we’ll have to kill ‘em with confidence instead”, and marched into the restaurant with the sort of grace only befitting a lady.

But it’s this moment, with Lucina looking so ready to crumble at the prospect of Severa giving up on what they have together, more than all the I-love-yous or pizza nights or hours they’ve spent curled up on the couch together, that makes Severa realize just how much Lucina truly cares about her.

She reaches out, putting her hand on Lucina’s shoulder, though it quickly slides up to cup her cheek. “Hey,” she says, her voice too naturally rough to ever achieve that gentleness that Lucina’s can, but she thinks she’s pretty close this time. “I don’t care if you’re the world’s greatest con artist or a serial killer or even heir to some foreign country. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly but surely as the words dawn on her, Lucina’s face splits into the most glittering, brilliant smile, that she quickly hides by turning her head to press a kiss to Severa’s palm. “I was just so scared of losing you.”

“Well sorry to break it to you, but you’re kind of stuck with me whether you like it or not, so you better get used to it,” Severa quips, doing Lucina one better and pulling her in for a short kiss to her lips.

Lucina just smiles at her, eyes watery, before leaning in for another and another. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Severa pulls off her helmet and immediately checks her hair in her side view mirror. “I still can’t believe your father is the same guy my mom had one of those unattainable, celebrity crushes on in high school,” she grumbles, fixing her hair until it’s something similar to the way it looked before the ride over.

“The world is always smaller than we expect, I suppose,” Lucina says with a laugh, sliding her own helmet off. Her helmet hair is terrible as always, and she’s making no moves to fix it herself — Severa suspects Lucina prefers having Severa fix it for her — so Severa runs her hands through it until its typical volume has returned. “I should warn you before we go in, though. My parents may be divorced, but they’re still quite affectionate with each other. Inigo likes to say they never left the newlywed stage.”

Severa grimaces briefly, before nodding. “That’s fine. I can handle a little parent-PDA. God only knows mine are some of the worst offenders,” she says, swinging her leg off her bike and offering Lucina a hand while she does the same. “Wait, he’s not the kind of dad that would sick his bodyguard on me if I walk in there holding your hand, is he?”

Lucina giggles, covering her mouth with her free hand and intertwining their fingers. “No, he’s not. He’s actually quite excited to meet you.”

“That’s,” Severa considers it for moment — that’s probably a good thing, right? — “good.”

“He’s going to love you Severa,” Lucina tells her. “Mother and Inigo already do, and so do I.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Severa says, though if Lucina’s grin is any indication, she doesn’t buy it. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Lucina just gives her dazzling smile and a peck on the lips. “Now, come. I’m sure Father’s beside himself wondering what’s taking us so long.”

And with that, she lets Lucina lead them into a restaurant way above her income level.

#lucisev #fire emblem #fire emblem: awakening #lord fe was the first fandom i wrote fic for and now look at me #if only little freshman me could see how gay they would get in the future #my fic #romance

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ubertastic-writing · 9 years

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(315): Instead of having sex, we spent the entire night making pillow forts and have sword fights. I think I'm in love

Do you want to come over? My roommates are out for the night

Anna stares at the phone in her hand, eyes trailing over the words in the text for what feels like the hundredth time. This is the text she’s supposed to be waiting for. After a string of blissful dates and the occasional hot-and-heavy make-out session, it only makes sense that she and Elsa would finally take the next step in their budding relationship.

Hell, it’s not like they hadn’t tried to get there a few times before, but what with the bad timing of roommates, periods, work, and just about everything that could possibly ruin the tenuous mood they were building with each other, it just never seemed to work out.

But this, this is like the heavens themselves in alignment. A Friday night, so no work the next day. Periods that both ended roughly a week ago. Roommates out of the way.

It’s perfect.

“Hey, Kris?” Anna calls from the kitchen into the next room as she taps out her reply.

The video game soundtrack that provided the evening’s background music continues to play as though there was no interruption. “Yeah, what’s up?” Kristoff asks, voice raised to carry over the noise from TV and into the other room.

“I’m headed over to Elsa’s for the night. You and Sven can survive without me for a few hours, yeah?” she shoots back, already shrugging into her jacket and checking her pockets for her keys.

The music pauses just soon enough for Anna to hear the sound of skin smacking against skin, and she has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Her roommates were such men sometimes.

“Yeah, we’ll manage. Tell us how it goes, alright?”

“Of course. You’ll be the first ones to hear!” And then she’s out the door.

By the time she gets to Elsa’s apartment, the pillow fort is already halfway built. That’s actually how she catches Elsa, butt waving around in the air as she repositions a chair under a light blanket for optimal support.

She waits until Elsa’s completely out from under the structure to speak up. “Uh, Elsa? The door was unlocked so I let myself in.”

Elsa jumps in surprise, the pillow in her hands poised to strike. “Oh my goodness, Anna! I wasn’t expecting you so early!” she says, lowering the pillow to a less threatening height.

“Really?” Anna asks with a laugh. “It took me like, five minutes longer than it usually does. I had to make sure I was presentable.” Elsa just shrugs, fiddling with the pillow she still holds. “So, uh, what’s up with the pillow fort?”

“Oh, this?” Elsa says, tittering in a way that Anna would almost consider nervous if she wasn’t so used to the blonde always exuding an air of confidence. “I read some nostalgia post on Buzzfeed and felt impulsive. I, uh, started it the second Olaf left, and I was hoping to finish and tear it down before you got here.”

Anna hums in acknowledgement, eyeing the fort behind her girlfriend. It really was an impressive structure, sprawling over most of the living room, with something resembling a spire molded out of pillows and sheets at the front.

“Don’t you think this is a bit too… expansive to be finished in the ten minutes it takes for me to get here?” Anna asks, walking around the structure to examine it from all angles.

“Maybe I got a little excited when I got started,” Elsa jokes, a healthy blush on her cheeks.

Anna sends her a grin. “Well, it’s a good thing I showed up when I did, yeah? I can help you finish up.”

If anything, the smile Elsa gives her is more than worth the offer to help. So is the kiss pressed to her cheek and the other one she steals before Elsa can get away. And it’s not like Anna is particularly opposed to building a pillow fort in any scenario.

With the two of them working together, the fort is finished in record time, the final building stretching from the couch by the TV stand to the kitchen and the front door. There’s not a single blanket or pillow in the entire flat not used as some sort of building material, and half of the furniture is rearranged to act as fort foundation.

The inside is the real treat. They had purposefully left the TV-side of the fort open, using some couch cushions to create a nice den-like environment and creating the perfect place to snuggle up and watch a movie. Just past that is a nest of blankets, sheets, and the fluffy pillows from Elsa’s room, packed well enough to ensure prime comfort and coziness. Closer to the kitchen, they set up something of a stockroom, using the bookshelves in the living room and some of the kitchen chairs as places to stash the snacks they grabbed from pantry.

Standing back and appreciating their work, Elsa sighs. “It’d be a pity to tear it down now, after all the work we put into it,” she mutters.

“So let’s not.”

“What should we do, then? This thing takes up the entire apartment.”

Anna sends Elsa a smirk. “Not the entire apartment,” she says, grabbing one of the empty poster tubes they didn’t use in the fort and tossing it to Elsa. She picks up another a points it at her girlfriend. “En garde.”

Elsa just looks at her, face deadpan. “You’re not serious.”

“Dead serious,” Anna shoots back, twirling the sword like a fencing saber. “Winner gets to decide which movie we watch from the fort’s viewing lounge.”

“‘Viewing lounge?’” Elsa quotes with a laugh, dodging last second when Anna thrusts her makeshift weapon at her shoulder. Blowing a stray hair out of her face, she huffs. “Fine. But you are so going down.”

“I don’t know about that,” Anna quips, grinning. “I was in my college fencing club for a whole month. I’m practically an expert.” She thrusts again, eyes widening when Elsa perfectly parries the tube.

Elsa’s expression turns devious, and before Anna knows it, Elsa has her tube out of the way and one circular end pressed to her chest. “Good for you, but I was the captain of my team.”

Anna’s jaw drops, doing her best to look scandalized. “Best two out of three,” she says, swatting Elsa’s tube away with her hand.

“You’re on.”

Kristoff’s text comes in around 3 in the morning, long after Elsa and Anna called it a night and decided to curl up together in the nest at center of the pillow fort. Anna, on the brink of sleep, fumbles around for her phone, careful to point the bright screen away from the sleeping woman in her arms.

So how’d it go?

Anna smiles, looking down at where Elsa’s curled into her side with her arms wrapped around Anna’s waist, and presses a kiss to Elsa’s forehead before typing up her reply.

Instead of having sex, we spent the entire night making pillow forts and having sword fights. I think I'm in love

#elsanna #elsannafervor ficathon #tfln ficathon #i love not having to come up with titles #or summaries #read more because this ended up a little longer than planned

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ubertastic-writing · 9 years

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What Pride Had Wrought

Fandom: Frozen

Pairing: Elsa/Anna

Sumary: Dragon Age: Inquisition!AU. All Anna wants to do is find Elsa, cuddle up to her, and forget Adamant ever happened. Getting that is a little harder than she hoped. Inquisitor!Anna and Companion!Elsa

Outside Links: AO3 | ff.net

Notes: Be warned for possible spoilers for DA:I, especially if you haven’t played it yet. Nothing is particularly spoiler-y, but some mentions might count.

It’s honestly surprising how much worse than expected Adamant goes, given that Anna wasn’t expecting much from an ancient Grey Warden fortress filled to the brim with demons to start with. It also marks the first time Anna’s ever felt that she’d take the halls of Halamshiral and the Orlesians’ blighted “Game” over a battlefield. Especially if that battlefield is the Maker-damned Fade with its giant spiders and giant fear demons.

(Maker, does Anna hate demons.)

The icing on the already pathetic cake is the look Stroud gives her once they’re both out, the one of regret and maybe, just maybe, a hint of disdain, but right now, she can hardly pay him any mind with the exhaustion in her bones seeping into her brain. It’s a wonder she’s even still on her feet.

The walk from the wrecked courtyard to the carriage Cullen has prepared for her is a blur, and she’s pretty sure she’s going to get an earful from at least four different people when she gets back to Skyhold. And frankly, she wouldn’t blame any of them for it; after everything the Wardens did, she had every reason to disband the lot of them on the spot.

But she also just stepped out of the blighted Fade, for the second time in her life (as though once wasn't bad enough), and the last thing she wants to do is vilify the people that make up every child’s favorite stories. The Wardens are heroes at heart, even if their recent actions fail to reflect that.

Not that that makes the ride back to Skyhold any more comforting. Solas gives her the stink eye nearly the whole way back, and all Anna can think about is how much she wants to find Elsa and curl up in her arms, hoping that people will let her do that first and wait to give her a hard time about Adamant after.

And - Maker - Varric. Anna doesn’t know how to face him after this. How can she tell him his best friend, the person he spent years protecting from the Chantry, sacrificed herself so that she could escape the Fade?

Anna sinks further into the plush seat of the carriage, far too soft and cushy for a soldier, even a noble-born one, to find comfortable. Solas frowns at her in disappointment from the seat on the other side. Iron Bull and Sera are still too worked up about their own experiences in the fade to pay much mind to her, and she wishes even harder that she can find Elsa before getting pulled into another war council meeting.

As luck would have it, she doesn’t even need to look for Elsa when the carriage finally arrives at Skyhold. Elsa’s already in the courtyard when Anna steps out of the blighted thing, the first genuine smile she’s had since leaving Adamant growing on her face and subsequently dying upon seeing how irate Elsa is.

“Hi, El-” Anna starts, before being roughly yanked away from the cheering crowd gathered in the courtyard. She lets the mage pull her up the stairs leading to the main hall, arm outstretched as Elsa holds her wrist and walks her through various halls to the small corner of the hold she usually retreats to after missions.

“What were you thinking?!” Elsa demands as soon as they’re away from the prying ears of the Ferelden refugees and Orlesian nobility. “Going into the Fade? Physically? You’re lucky you got out of there at all, let alone alive!”

Anna holds her hands up defensively, resigning herself to not getting the cuddles she was hoping for. “I wasn’t trying to end up in the Fade,” she protests, tiredness plain in her voice. “Besides, I walked out of there once, without getting too scuffed up, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and that’s exactly why you shouldn’t try your luck!” Elsa says, a hand running through her hair and mussing her usually immaculate bangs. “It’s a wonder you survived the Fade the first time, and I don’t think I need to remind you that you spent the next few days after that ‘excursion’ unconscious!”

“That was because of the Anchor,” Anna argues, weakly. “The thing in my hand that glows green?”

Elsa huffs, and Anna writes off any remaining chance of even getting a hug from the irate woman in front of her. “And how do we know that the Anchor doesn’t react poorly to the Fade? How do we know that you didn’t almost die from getting it because a normal human can’t handle possessing an ancient, magical artifact in the realm of ancient magic? You could have died!”

And then, without warning, Elsa pulls Anna into her arms, crushing the Inquisitor to her body.

“The Inquisition couldn’t function without you, Anna, and not just because you’re the Inquisitor,” Elsa mutters, voice muted from being spoken into the crook of Anna’s neck. “All these people here? You brought them together; you gave them a reason to be here, to fight. Maker knows I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. I’m just a rebel mage, but you gave me a purpose beyond survival.”

Anna hears a sniff, and her arms instinctively come up to return the bone-crushing hug. “And you’re just so quick to throw your life away,” Elsa continues, and Anna can definitely feel her shoulder grow damp. “You don’t think twice about jumping into danger, and it’s equal parts inspiring and stupid. You keeping saying the men need you, but you forget that we - all of your friends and companions - we need you, too. Alive and in one piece.”

“So you’re not mad at me?” Anna chances, hands lightly rubbing soothing circles along Elsa’s back. This might not be the cuddle she was hoping for, but she certainly can’t complain about getting hugged and worried over.

“No, I’m not mad,” Elsa says from her place nuzzled under Anna’s chin, voice laced with just a hint of humor. “Just worried, scared, and overwhelmingly relieved that you’re still with us.”

“Good, good,” Anna replies, “because I’m surprised that I’m still upright, and I would really like to go lay down in my quarters before Cullen or Josephine finds me.”

As though burned, Elsa releases Anna, hands raised apologetically. “Oh, I’m sorry for keeping you then,” she says, her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks wet from earlier.

“Actually,” Anna starts, hand reaching out for one of Elsa’s and intertwining their fingers when she get ahold of it, “I was hoping that you would come with.”

Elsa’s eyes go wide for a split second before she ducks her head, blushing, and Anna grins despite her exhaustion. This might be her favorite part of flirting with Elsa, the coy looks and the way Elsa always seems so surprised that Anna is interested in her, as though she’s not the most breathtaking woman Anna’s had the good fortune of meeting.

“I’d like that,” Elsa mumbles, just loud enough for Anna to hear, and Anna’s grin grows.

She makes quick work of leading them to her quarters, excitement muting the tiredness in her limbs.

When Anna wakes up, the sky is dark and Elsa is curled into her side, sleeping peacefully. The scene is almost enough to convince her to go back to sleep, but she spots Baron Plucky, Leliana’s favorite raven, perched on her sofa and knows that she’s ignored her duties for too long.

Extracting herself from Elsa’s arms as delicately as possible, Anna makes sure the covers are properly tucked around the other woman and silently makes her way down to the war room.

Her advisors are shocked to see her enter.

“Inquisitor!” Cullen says, eyebrows jumping halfway up his forehead when he sees her. “Forgive me, we were expecting you to take more time to recuperate after the events at Adamant.” Is he… blushing?

“Yes,” Josephine cuts in, a nervous titter that Anna’s only heard in her voice when she’s talking about Blackwall’s newest hint of affection towards her, “you must be so tired after everything that happened. No one would blame you for wanting to take a night off.”

Anna looks between her commander and ambassador in confusion, trying to wrap her head around the Inquisitions’ two biggest workaholics’ insistence that she not get her work done. “Wait, what?” she asks. “You two are always on my case to get my reports done, and now you’re telling me to put it off? Am I dreaming? Did I get trapped in the Fade after all?”

Josephine and Cullen look between each other before turning to Leliana, the only of the three left to speak.

“I think what they’re trying to say is,” Leliana starts, mouth wrapping around the words with extra care, as though she’s trying to phrase herself as delicately as she can, “we caught you and Elsa looking quite comfortable cuddling up to each other in your quarters,” Anna turns bright red, though the blush on her face has nothing on the shade of pink on Cullen’s cheeks, “and we’ve been waiting for such a development between you two since you found Elsa in the Hinterlands. We don’t want to spoil the moment.”

Anna buries her face in her hands, certain that she’s never been so mortified as right now. She didn’t think it possible, but she would most definitely take Halamshiral, the Fade, or even some Maker-forsaken mix of the two (on second thought, maybe not; Halamshiral in the Fade would be a nightmare worse than anything Nightmare could come up with) to the realization that her war advisors, some of the most serious, committed people in the Inquisition, have been rooting for Elsa and her to get together from the moment Elsa joined their cause.

Don’t they have better things to do, like managing the organization trying to put the world back together?

“Elsa’s still asleep if you want to go back upstairs,” Leliana tells her after a few moments of strained silence. “I told Baron Plucky to report to me if she woke up.”

So that’s why Baron Plucky was in her room. Maybe Leliana should have tied a note to his leg, one that said “Go back to bed, only embarrassment and terrible relationship advice awaits downstairs”.

“Can we pretend this conversation never happened?” Anna asks, hands still covering every bit of face they can. “Tomorrow I’ll come back down here, and we’ll pretend none of this happened tonight?”

“Please,” Cullen mutters, sounding about as flustered as Anna feels, right as Josephine breathes a relieved. “Agreed.”

“Right. Goodnight, everyone,” Anna says, spinning on her heel and marching off before she can look any of her advisors in the eye.

“Goodnight, Inquisitor. Sleep well,” Leliana calls after her, voice saturated with barely contained laughter.

Luckily, Elsa’s still sound asleep when she gets back to her room, and instead of letting her spymaster’s words get to her, Anna crawls back into bed without a second thought. Elsa instantly reaches out for her once she’s settled in, wrapping an arm around her waist and nuzzling into the crook of her neck.

“You’re back,” Elsa mumbles sleepily, the words ghosting over Anna’s collarbone and almost tickling her skin.

“Sorry for waking you,” Anna whispers back. She reciprocates the cuddle, though she moves with more lucidity. “Had to go be the Inquisitor for a while.”

“Didn’t wake me,” Elsa protests softly, and Anna can hardly keep from smiling at how cute it is. “Just glad you came back.”

“Of course I came back,” Anna jokes, “it’s my room.”

“No,” Elsa says, surprisingly forcefully, given that she’s still half-asleep, “from the Fade, from Adamant, from every battle you get into.” She pushes herself up, eyes open, and Anna can see the intensity swimming around in their blue depths. “I want you to keep coming back. To Skyhold, to me.”

“Always,” Anna breathes out before she can think about what she’s saying. “And I promise, I will do everything in my power to keep coming back, no matter what happens.”

“That’s all I ask,” Elsa says, and then she leans down and gives Anna the softest, sweetest kiss Anna’s ever experienced. They break apart too soon for Anna’s liking, but for all that her mind might be ready to go further, her body is in no shape to do anything but cuddle and kiss chastely until it recovers from today.

“You, too,” Anna mutters once she’s found her voice again. “You need to do everything you can to come back, too, because I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

“That’s a fair deal,” Elsa agrees, pressing another kiss to Anna’s lips. “And I promise I will be as careful as I can, but for now we should get back to sleep and continue this tomorrow. It’s been a long day.”

“You can say that again,” Anna says, the idea of sleep unbelievably alluring even if tomorrow means she has to go back to work. Leaning up, she gives Elsa one final peck before dropping back to the pillow, fully prepared to snuggle until sleep takes her.

And tomorrow? She can deal with tomorrow when it gets here.

#my fic #elsanna #romance #frozen #dragon age: inquisition au

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ubertastic-writing · 9 years

Text

Let’s Take a Chance Now (We Could Fall in Love)

Fandom: Frozen

Pairing: Elsa/Anna

Summary: Anna needs a job; Elsa needs a cover. That’s all it’s supposed to be. Elsanna, modern AU, fake relationship AU, non-incest.

Outside Links: AO3 | FF.net

Notes: Still working on the formatting here, so please use one of those links for now.

It’s a job a few of her friends recommended to her. “Easy work,” they had told her. “A lot of fetching coffee and stupid shit like that.”

That’s what Anna’s expecting when she sends in her application to be a personal assistant on the set of some movie being filmed in town. She doesn’t expected to get an interview, really; there’s bound to be a seemingly endless number of people dying to work on a movie set (especially with Point Park right there in the city), and the other applicants are almost guaranteed to be more invested in the job. Anna’s only applying because she’d been laid off a few days before the applications went online.

She can’t even name the last movie she actually saw in theaters. That was probably years ago now.

But she isn’t about to say no to a job, especially when she has a rent payment looming just around the corner and no steady source of income anymore. The email from someone-or-other’s PA’s PA requesting her presence for an in-person screening was a godsend for her, and, despite all the shit she may have gotten in college from friends and acquaintances alike, she isn’t stupid enough to turn down four to five months of pay, more-qualified and committed applicants be damned.

And that’s why she’s standing awkwardly outside of a trailer in what had used to be an empty lot while someone-or-other’s manager rattles on about what behavior is expected of her if she gets the job. It had never occurred to her that she had applied to be a specific person’s “on-site personal assistant” or that there were multiple different PA positions she could have applied for. Part of her wonders, for what feels like the thousandth time, what she’s doing here.

Oh, right. Money, she remembers, wincing despite herself.

The manager raises a single eyebrow, but says nothing of it, continuing with his lecture. Anna had zoned out shortly after he started, and even though the balding man looks like he’s well-aware of it, it’s too late in his speech for her to start now. She just nods every time he pauses, trying to look respectful anyway, and twirls one of her braids absentmindedly.

Her mind doesn’t stop wandering until he shoves a clipboard under her nose.

“Please sign here, Miss Hall. It’s a confidentiality agreement,” the manager tells her, holding out a pen for her to take. She does so hesitantly, signing her name on the line marked with a large, red cross. “Alright, then, it’s time to meet Miss Frost. Come along.”

He opens the trailer door, and holds it while Anna climbs the small set of stairs to the entrance and steps through the threshold.

The woman seated inside is easily one of the most beautiful people Anna’s had the pleasure of meeting, and Anna nearly chokes on her own spit at the sight of her. The manager, who had followed her into the trailer before letting the door swing shut, walks around her and hands the woman the clipboard in his hands.

“Anna Hall?” the woman asks, looking up to meet Anna’s eyes and nearly giving her a heart attack in the process. Of course a celebrity would have a lovely voice to go along with her gorgeous face. Some people are just born perfect.

“It’s Ah-na, actually,” Anna stutters out, certain she’s turning pink. “Long ‘a’.”

“Ah-na?” Elsa repeats, smiling when Anna nods. “That’s beautiful name. I’m Elsa Frost. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, holding out a hand.

Anna steps closer to the other woman, careful not to trip on the trailer’s carpet, and takes the hand. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

The handshake lingers a little longer than Anna’s used to, so she snatches her hand back as soon as she feels Elsa’s grip on her hand loosen. Linking her hands behind her back, she shakes her hand out, frowning slightly at how it’s still tingling from the contact.

“So you want to be my PA,” Elsa says, either unaware of or ignoring Anna’s stilted behavior.

“Uh, yes!” Anna answers, heart rate picking up in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness. “Yes, I want to be your PA.”

Elsa just smiles. “Can you tell me why?”

Anna blanches, already kissing this job goodbye. “I, uh… That’s, well, uh…” she starts, wracking her brain for a reason that sounds better than “I need a job and I heard this was a pretty easy one.”

“You can be honest with me, Anna,” Elsa tells her before furrowing her brow. “You don’t mind if I call you Anna, do you?”

“Of course not! You can call me anything you want,” Anna says, tongue nearly tripping over itself in her hurry to get the sentence out.

“Great. You can call me Elsa, then.”

Anna’s face heats up at the notion of addressing someone undoubtedly famous so familiarly. “If you insist,” she mumbles.

Elsa just smiles larger. “So, why do you want to work for me? Be honest, I won’t judge.”

“I,” Anna starts before sighing and lifting a hand to tug on a braid. “I need a job,” she answers honestly. “I got laid off from my last one a few days back, but job hunting takes forever, and I need money to pay for rent and stuff now. This is a guaranteed paycheck for the next six months, and that’s better than getting evicted, you know?”

If anything, Elsa’s smile just grows at her reason. “Thank you for your help, Kai, but I’d like to talk with Anna alone for a bit,” Elsa tells the manager, who simply nods and leaves the trailer. Once the door shuts with a soft click, she turns back to Anna, her smile looking more and more like a smirk. “So you need a job.”

“Yes,” Anna admits, the predatory glint to Elsa’s grin making her fidget in place.

“Well then, I think I have an arrangement that might work for both of us.”

Anna frowns at that, pushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “What do you mean?”

“I’m looking for a personal assistant, but I need help with something beyond that,” Elsa says. Anna nods hesitantly, and Elsa continues, “I’m not sure how much you pay attention to tabloids, but the media likes to spread rumors about me and my relationships. Particularly my relationship with Hans Westergard, my co-star.”

“So what,” Anna cuts in, “you want me to cover for you while you sneak around with another actor?”

Elsa laughs, the sound clear and bright. “Hardly. Hans is a good friend of mine, but that’s it. He’s a just friend, and frankly, I’m tired of people assuming who I’m dating or that I’m even straight for that matter. So you’re going to help me throw the media a curveball.” She pauses and adds, almost as an afterthought, “If you want to, that is. I would hate to put you in a position you’re uncomfortable with, and I can always find someone else to help me with this.”

Anna’s certain the expression on her face is nothing short of utter confusion, so she shakes her head in a futile attempt to clear it. “Wait, are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“That depends,” Elsa replies with a small shrug and a sly grin. “What do you think I’m suggesting?”

“That you,” Anna pauses, one hand rubbing at her temple, “you want me to help you fake a relationship to get the media off your back.”

“Ding-ding-ding,” Elsa sing-songs. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

Hunch aside, Anna did not expect Elsa to be serious, so it floors her to hear that. “Seriously?” Anna asks, voice saturated with disbelief. “You want me to pretend-date you.” Elsa nods, the corners of her lips twitching upwards. “There’s, like, a million reasons why this won’t work.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Elsa says. “I’ve thought about this for a very long time, and I think we could pull it off. If you want to, that is.”

“This is crazy,” Anna replies, laughing shakily. She hadn’t expected to get an interview in the first place, but this is beyond anything she could have imagined. “But I think I’m about to say something even crazier.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Anna says, watching as Elsa’s expression shifts from confused to pleased. “You’ve got a deal; I’ll do it.”

Elsa laughs, hand daintily covering her mouth, and Anna can’t help but hear the relief in it. “You must really need this job.”

“Yeah, I really do,” Anna replies. “But who knows? Maybe it’ll be fun, fake-dating a celebrity.”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Elsa jokes, laughter still coloring her voice.

Anna keeps smiling, somehow immensely pleased with herself for making Elsa happy. “Yeah, I guess we will.”

It only takes Anna a few days to memorize Elsa’s favorite coffee order, and that’s the first sign that taking this job may not be as terrible an idea as Anna was worried it might be. If anything, Elsa’s bright smile the first time Anna handed her the styrofoam cup without being asked first is definitely worth it.

The paycheck she gets for standing around half the day is also worth it, but sometimes she has to remind herself that she’s doing this for the money and not the fake-relationship she got herself into.

The dating scheme doesn’t even start for the first week, though by the time Anna’s dismissed for the weekend, she’s a little worried that Elsa’s been sending her hints and she’s just failed to notice any.

That worry is quickly thrown out the window when she gets a text simply reading, Hey come pick me up. I’m staying at the Fairmont.

Which is why Anna finds herself fighting through a sea of paparazzi on a Friday night instead of drinking with her friends. She doesn’t really mind being pulled away from the half-assed tequila shots and an endless flow of PBR she isn’t even partaking of, and she’s not one to turn down a chance to spend time with a gorgeous woman, but damn, if this isn’t inconvenient.

By the time she gets to the front doors (she has to show a few haggard doormen her set pass before they let her through), Elsa’s already waiting for her, sunglasses on despite the late hour. Elsa greets her with a tight hug, whispering “Play along,” into her ear before she pulls away, and takes her arm. Anna just leads her back through the doors, making sure to keep a firm grip on the arm Elsa slipped through hers.

“Where do you want to go?” Anna nearly screams to be heard over the dull roar of the crowd just outside.

“How about your place?” Elsa says back, loudly enough that the paparazzi had to have heard her, and if the increased murmuring is any indication, they did.

Suddenly aware of everyone’s attention on her, Anna feels a whole body’s worth of blood rush to her face. “Are you sure?”

Elsa smiles back at her briefly before leaning down and whispering in her ear again. “What happened to playing along?” she asks, grin turning wicked at the increased flush to Anna’s face.

“S-sorry,” Anna chokes out, heart deciding the best place to beat is in her throat instead of her chest. Tightening her grip on the arm wrapped around hers, she tugs Elsa in the direction of her car, doing her best to ignore the probing questions from the crowd.

Not that actually doing so is easy. “Who this hell is this girl?” one voice pierces through the din as the mass of people move to block them.

“My PA,” Elsa calls back, grin so evident in her tone, Anna doesn’t need to look at her to confirm that it’s there. The crowd’s increased murmuring makes Anna duck her head down and redouble her efforts to block out what they’re saying.

It’s a fight to get to the car, and, though she’s never really entertained the idea of being famous, Anna decides that nothing could possibly make the sheer lack of privacy and respect for personal space worth it. Cameras flash around them as they walk, and once they reach Anna’s beat-up Camry, the paparazzi practically mob the car to keep them from getting in and driving away.

Anna’s about to threaten bodily harm to a few, but Elsa grabs her rising fist and smiles at her gratefully before opening the passenger door and shoving her in. She hardly has a second to react before Elsa slips in herself, nudging her to slide over the center console.

“How well do you know the city?” Elsa asks while Anna’s still climbing to the driver’s side.

“Born and raised,” Anna replies, finally settling into the seat.

“Good, because you might want to drive around a bit before going home. Wouldn’t want the paparazzi to find out where you live,” Elsa tells her with a wink, and the blush that had been draining from Anna’s face comes back in full force. Anna just nods and starts the car, honking a few times to scare the people blocking them into getting out of the way.

She takes Elsa’s advice once they get on their way and doesn’t bother driving anywhere close to Greenfield until after she’s sure there’s no cars following them. Absentmindedly, she calls out various place names as she drives, pointing them out when they hit red lights. Elsa just nods along as she looks around to see whatever she can in the low light.

By the time they get to Squirrel Hill, Anna’s pretty sure that anyone who thought to tail them has long since been left behind, so she keeps on Murray until they hit her neighborhood. She pulls onto her street, and the heavens themselves must be smiling on her because there’s a parking spot right outside her apartment.

“You own a house?” Elsa asks as she gets out of Anna’s beat-up Camry.

“Not exactly. I rent the first floor,” Anna explains, motioning towards the second door on the porch before locking her car. “Maybe one day, though.”

Elsa just smiles at her and walks up the path to the porch. “So someone lives on the second floor? Is that ever inconvenient?”

“No, not really,” Anna says, following along behind. “They do own a dog that barks at every other animal that walks by, but it’s easy enough to ignore after a while.” She steps onto the porch and digs her keys out, before yanking open the screen door and sticking her key in the lock. “Well, come on in.”

Stepping aside to let Elsa through the door, Anna belatedly realizes she probably should have cleaned earlier. She watches as Elsa takes the place in, eyes scanning over the whole room.

“It’s cozy,” Elsa says, and Anna feels her shoulders relax.

“Yeah, it’s home,” Anna replies. “Sorry for the mess, though. I wasn’t really expecting company.”

Elsa waves a hand dismissively, kicking her shoes off by the door and taking a seat on Anna’s ratty, old couch. “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t exactly give you much warning.”

“No, you didn’t,” Anna laughs, taking a seat on the couch next to the other woman. She’s surprised at how easy it is to talk to her, but she doesn’t bother to dwell on it. “So what do you want to do now? I’ve got old movies and ice cream.”

Elsa’s eyes light up, and Anna knows she’s in for a good night.

Anna doesn’t actually meet any of the other actors until that following Monday. She’s just arrived with Elsa’s morning coffee to find Elsa in her trailer with a man with sideburns big enough to see from space.

“Oh, Anna! You’re early,” Elsa says, smiling warmly at her as she closes the trailer door.

Anna fishes her phone out of her pocket and checks the time. True enough, she’s a few minutes ahead of time. “Line was shorter than usual,” she responds, sounding a bit too much like an excuse even to her own ears. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Elsa says, taking the cup with a gracious smile. “Have you met Hans, yet? He’ll be filming with us starting today.”

“No, I don’t believe we’ve met yet,” the man cuts in before Anna has a chance to answer. He pushes off the wall and takes a step closer to her, hand extended. “Hans Westerguard. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Anna Hall,” Anna says, giving his hand a firm shake and his body a once-over. They certainly found attractive actors for this movie. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Hans keeps a hold on her hand and gives her a stunning smile, one that reminds her of teen heartthrobs. “Elsa,” he says, eyes never leaving Anna’s face, “you never told me you found yourself such a beautiful assistant.”

“There’s a lot I don’t tell you, Hans,” Elsa replies lightly, with a small laugh. “Anna dear, how was the rest of your weekend?”

Anna’s ears turn bright red at the affectionate term, and she drops Hans’ hand like it’s burning her. “R-relaxed,” she stutters as she sidesteps the man in front of her. “I actually brought something you left at my place.” Rooting through her bag, she pulls out a flowy, blue scarf and holds it out.

“‘Left at her place’?” Hans questions, and out of the corner of her eye, Anna can see his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “I can see you two are getting along quite well, though it’s unlike you to leave your things around like that.”

Elsa takes the scarf, smiling warmly at Anna and resting her hand on Anna’s forearm. “I suppose I was just out of sorts,” she says, thumb rubbing the bare skin of Anna’s arm. “It was so much warmer the next morning, I must have forgotten I’d had it the night before,”

“Oh, you stayed the night? I hope the paparazzi didn’t notice that.” Hans turns to face the others, his eyebrows lifting a little higher.

“It was just an innocent sleepover. Girl stuff,” Elsa replies.

“‘Girl stuff’?”

“Movies and ice cream,” Anna cuts in. Hans sends her another charming grin, but Anna finds it hard to concentrate on it while Elsa’s fingers trace patterns on her skin. “Playing with each other’s hair. That kind of thing.”

“It was just so late by the time we were done, it would have been terrible to make Anna drive me back to the hotel after,” Elsa adds. “We just really hit it off, I guess.”

“I can see that,” Hans says, reclaiming his spot against the wall. “I’m glad to see you making friends so quickly, Elsa. I know you’ve struggled with it in the past.”

“Anna makes it easy. She’s got quite the infectious personality,” Elsa responds, sending Anna a wink.

Hans opens his mouth to speak again, but he’s interrupted by a pounding on the trailer door. “Ms. Frost, Have you seen Mr. Westerguard? Hair and make-up want him in ten, but he’s not in his trailer,” a voice calls through the thin walls.

Elsa abruptly drops Anna’s arm and nudges her towards the door. Taking the hint, Anna rushes to the door before Hans can leave on his own and pulls it open. “He’s not here,” she blurts out the second she spots the assistant on the other side, “but if he drops by, I’ll be sure to pass along the message.”

The assistant looks at her in what she can only assume is surprise. “Oh! Thanks, I’ll keep looking, then.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Anna says hurriedly, closing the door before she’s even done with the sentence. When she turns back around, Hans looks thoroughly confused, and Elsa just sends her a thankful smile.

“Do you not want to be seen with me anymore, Elsa?” Hans asks, sounding more bemused than hurt.

“It’s not that,” Elsa replies with a sigh. “It’s just -- you hate the rumors too. I don’t think you being caught in my trailer on the first day you’re here to film is the best idea.”

Hans looks to Anna, eyes trailing up and down her form like he’s looking at her for the first time. “You get your PA in on it?”

“Perceptive as always, Hans. It’ll make everything look more platonic, you know, if she’s always around too.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be upset about spending time with such a beautiful young woman,” Hans says, sending a wink in Anna’s direction, and she briefly wonders how a woman like Elsa managed to befriend a man like Hans. “You always did have great taste in women.”

Elsa flushes bright red at that comment, launching from her seat to push Hans towards the door. “Alright, that’s enough out of you,” she says hurriedly, throwing the door open. “Aren’t hair and make-up looking for you, anyway?” Hans manages one last mega-watt smile at Anna before Elsa slams the door in his face.

“So that’s Hans Westerguard?” Anna asks with a small chuckle, hoping to lighten the suddenly tense mood. “What’s up with those sideburns?”

Elsa just laughs, bright and clear with a hand over her mouth. “He insists they make him look good. Something about framing the face.”

“Is that what he calls it?” Anna jokes right back, glad to see Elsa’s shoulders have dropped from nearly touching her ears.

“You’d be surprised how many women it works on,” Elsa replies, smiling lightly as Anna approaches her from the other side of the trailer.

Grabbing her hand and intertwining their fingers, Anna gives Elsa a grin of her own. “Well, most women aren’t fake-dating someone like you.”

Elsa’s face turns flaming red, and Anna feels immensely proud of herself to know that she caused it.

The filming picks up after Hans’s arrival.

Anna’s always been overwhelmingly ambivalent about movies, so watching one come together in front of her is a whole new, fascinating experience. She never realized just how much work goes into every scene, let alone the whole film. Make-up is fixed almost every five minutes it seems, touched up between takes, which can range from two to twenty per scene.

Anna just stands on the side and watches the bustle around her. Compared to now, the first week seems like a vacation.

The crew’s dismissed at noon for lunch, and Anna’s on the way to her car when she walks past Elsa and a group of the other actors.

“Oh, Anna!” Elsa calls, waving her over. “Come to lunch with us? You know the restaurants around here better than we do.”

Anna bites the corner of her lips while she thinks. On one hand, she’s sure lunch with so many celebrities is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a nobody like her, but on the other, she was really looking forward to Pamela’s on her own.

“Please?” Elsa tries again, pouting just a little.

“Fine, fine,” Anna concedes, walking up to the group. “Where were you guys thinking of eating?”

Hans, who Anna hadn’t noticed in the group before, speaks up. “We weren’t sure, actually. This is the first time a lot of us have been to Pittsburgh. We were hoping you had a suggestion.”

Anna looks around the group, noting that most of the cast is with them. “Well, I might know someplace that could fit us all without having to wait for a table…”

She takes them to Hofbrauhaus. And at a good time too, seeing as the accordion guy is playing today. The rest of the group looks around the room in wonder, eying the long wooden tables in the main hall and the electronic sign counting down the days until Oktoberfest.

“What is this place?” someone mutters, in some mixture of confusion and awe, and Anna realizes for the first time that these types are probably more used to fancy L.A. restaurants than ones that try to recreate Germany circa four-hundred years ago.

“Hofbrauhaus,” Anna answers. “It’s like, Bavarian food. And beer. Lots of beer.”

Most of the group turns to her aghast, and Anna wonders briefly if southern California, or wherever these people are from, has a problem with beer. Or lederhosen.

“What do you recommend?” Elsa asks, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “Beer, I mean. What kind of beer to do you recommend here?”

“Since when did you like beer?” Hans whispers in Elsa’s ear, still loud enough for Anna to catch it over the dull roar of the restaurant, but Elsa just keeps eye contact with Anna, smiling.

“The lager is always a good choice,” Anna says, ignoring Hans’s comment and grinning to match Elsa’s. “But I’m partial to their Hefeweizen.”

If anything, Elsa’s smile grows. “Then let’s sit down. I want to try this Hefewiezen of theirs.”

Lunch isn’t actually as bad as the cast obviously worried it might be. Once they get over the initial culture shock, Anna has them trying the whole host of Hofbrau’s beers, and it doesn’t take long for them to start singing along to the in-house band, even if none of them know the language, the lyrics, or the tune.

Elsa keeps next to Anna the whole time, foregoing the singing endeavor to stay at the table and play with Anna’s fingers as they drum on the wood.

“What are you doing?” Anna asks, keeping an eye on the cast up at the front. It wouldn’t do for one of them to get into trouble and have it come back to her for bringing them here, even if she adamantly believes no one should get in trouble for enjoying Hofbrauhaus or the spirit of Oktoberfest. Maybe she should bring the directors sometime, too.

“Flirting with you,” Elsa replies lightly, walking her fingers up Anna’s arm and tugging on her shirt sleeve.

“Oh, we’re starting already?”

Elsa giggles, dragging her hand back down to play with Anna’s fingers again. “I started when you got hired. You’re just oblivious, dear.”

“M-maybe you should give me a little warning next time?” Anna says, trying to ignore the tingles shooting through her hand and arm.

“‘Next time’? How many times are you going to be my PA?”

“Well maybe if you came to Pittsburgh to film more.”

Elsa just smiles and lifts Anna’s hand, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles. “With an offer like that, how could I refuse?” she jokes, leaning in a little closer.

Anna’s almost certain Elsa’s going in for a kiss, but cheering from the front of the hall interrupts them, and the next thing she knows, she’s being mobbed by a group of drunken celebrities.

She does end up being scolded for getting a vast majority of the cast drunk on a work day -- during their lunch break, no less -- but the actors themselves keep shooting her thumbs-ups and high-fiving her, so it’s hard for her to take the director’s ire seriously.

Plus, Elsa kept holding her hand the whole way back to the set, so it’s a little hard for her to regret anything at the moment. Not when the whole trip was so obviously worth it.

Their little dating scheme doesn’t go much further until the Friday after the third week of filming. Anna and Elsa keep playfully flirting whenever they’re in public, but it’s that Friday that Elsa catches Anna on the way to her car and asks her out in front of the whole cast and crew.

Well, more like demands to be taken out, really.

“Huh?” Anna asks, car keys dangling loosely in her hand.

Elsa just smiles her infuriatingly-sweet smile. “I said, you should take me out to dinner tonight. To celebrate getting out early today.”

Anna opens and closes her mouth a few times, utterly dumbstruck. “Why am I the one taking you out?” she responds in lieu of an actual answer.

“Because I don’t know the restaurants in the area that well,” Elsa says, laughing brightly. “It’ll be my treat.”

Glancing around the set and noticing the sheer number of people watching them, Anna knows she has no choice but to go along with it, as unexpected as it is. Things like this are probably a part of the whole fake-dating deal. “Alright, but I don’t think we’ll be able to get in anywhere fancy on such short notice.”

“That’s fine. It doesn’t need to be anywhere fancy. Pick me up at six?”

“Actually,” Anna says, remember how frustrating the crowd outside the Fairmont was, “we could just leave here together. I’m not going to take you anywhere that would make you need to change, and I can just drop you off at the hotel afterwards.”

“If I want to go back to the hotel,” Elsa jokes with a wink. “Sounds like a plan to me. I just need to grab my bag, and we can go, alright?”

“Alright,” Anna agrees, chancing another glance around the set as Elsa walks back to her trailer. Most of the crew looks at her in surprise, while the cast is torn between bemusement and approval. Hans, who she spots near the trailers, seems to be amongst the former, though he also appears somewhat upset.

“He wanted to ask you out,” a voice from behind informs her. “Probably annoyed Frost got there first.”

Spinning on her heel, Anna nearly bumps into a burly blond who stands nearly a foot taller than her. “And how do you know this?” she asks, eyeing the man warily.

He crosses his arms and gives her the most deadpan looks she swears she’s even seen. “I overheard him telling some of the actors yesterday. He was the one who convinced the director to cut the filming short today.”

“Oh,” Anna says for lack of a better response. “Thanks for the heads up, uh…”

“Kristoff Bjorgmann,” the man fills in for her.

“Right. You’re one of the sound guys.”

Kristoff looks almost impressed that she recognizes him. “Yeah, and you’re the girl who’s about to end up in every major tabloid.” Anna frowns at that. “Just letting you know. Everyday people like you don’t get to hang out with celebrities without other people noticing.”

Anna opens her mouth to protest (though what she’s not entirely sure), but she’s interrupted by a tap on her shoulder.

“Ready to go?” Elsa asks, smiling like she hasn’t noticed how tense the air is between Anna and Kristoff.

“Yeah, of course,” Anna answers, offering her arm for Elsa to take. “Thanks for the help, Mr. Bjorgmann, but I think I can handle it.” Kristoff just raises an eyebrow and shrugs, walking off.

Elsa doesn’t say anything about Anna’s dismissal until they get to the parking lot. “Okay, what was that about?”

Anna rolls her eyes and leads them to where she parked her car that morning. “Nothing. Kristoff just decided to stick his nose in our business.”

Nodding, Elsa waits for Anna to unlock the doors of her Camry and takes her place in the passenger’s seat. “About that. Our ‘business’ as you put it,” she starts hesitantly. Anna smiles at her gently, encouraging her to continue. “Sorry about asking you out so publicly and out of the blue like that. I know we should have talked about it beforehand, but I heard Hans was planning on asking you out today and-”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Anna says. “I heard about it too, and I don’t mind you dropping that one me, really.”

Elsa doesn’t look convinced, frowning harder than before. “I’m glad I didn’t upset you, but that doesn’t make it fine. Our relationship right now has a weird power-dynamic anyway, and I don’t want you to ever feel like I’m coercing you or forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do. You’re allowed to tell me ‘no’ whenever, alright?”

“Yeah, alright,” Anna agrees when Elsa looks at her expectantly.

“More than that,” Elsa continues, “I want you to tell me ‘no’ if I ever step out of line or go too far. Even if we’re surrounded by people.”

“Okay, I will,” Anna says, reaching out and grabbing Elsa’s hand, as though it will help convince the other woman. “If you want, I can even start initiating things too. I was okay with letting you set the pace, but if you’re worried about making me uncomfortable, I can start contributing to this more too.”

Cracking a grin and then descending into giggles, Elsa reclaims her hand to cover her mouth. “God, it’s like we’re an actual couple or something.”

Smiling right back, though somewhat lopsidedly, Anna starts her car. “Well that’s kinda what we’re going for, right?”

“Cut, cut! Take half an hour to dry off; we’re doing another take,” the director orders. As if on cue, the crew starts buzzing around, turning off the rain machine and getting the cameras back in position.

Anna hops off the chair designated for Elsa, grabbing the towel that some staff member had slung over the back of it before filming started that day. Moving to meet Elsa as she walks off the set, Anna holds the towel out for Elsa to take.

“Thanks,” Elsa says, taking the towel and bringing it to her face immediately. “Rain scenes are the worst, let me tell you.”

“Is half an hour really enough time to dry off?” Anna asks, taking the towel back when Elsa holds it out to her.

“To dry me off? Yes,” Elsa starts, wringing out her hair as she walks towards the trailers. “To dry these clothes? No way in hell. Costuming has a few sets of the same outfit so we can run more than one take at a time.”

“That… makes a lot of sense,” Anna says, following along. Biting her lip in thought, she walks faster until she’s right beside Elsa and reaches out to take the other woman’s hand.

Jerking slightly in surprise but not rejecting the hand, Elsa smiles brightly at her as she intertwines their fingers. “Taking the initiative, I see,” she jokes, thumb lightly stroking Anna’s hand.

Anna just smiles back. “I did say I would start taking charge more. I’m as committed to this as you are. After all, I am getting paid for this.”

With a laugh, Elsa pulls her into the trailer and pins her against the door. “Careful who you say that around. People will talk about me corrupting my cute, little PA.”

“Maybe this ‘cute, little PA’ wants to be corrupted,” Anna quips back, painfully aware of the way she can feel Elsa’s breath on her face from their proximity.

Elsa laughs harder, hand darting up to cover her mouth, and takes a step back. “Oh, well in that case, you can help me out of these clothes,” she says with a wink, more playful than sultry. “They’re wet and uncomfortable, and I need to be back out there in twenty minutes.”

“Tempting offer,” Anna says with chuckle, hand tucking her hair behind her ear and face feeling warm, “but I think I should grab you another towel or two instead.”

“What are you waiting for, then?” Elsa jokes, fingers already working the buttons of her soaked cardigan, and Anna slips out the trailer door.

There’s a table of towels not too far from the trailer bay, so Anna makes a beeline for it, hoping her timing’s right to get back when Elsa’s decent. Walking just a little faster than her normal gait, she’s right about to reach the table when a crewmember backs into her, clipping her and sending her careening towards the ground.

Eyes scrunched and ready for impact, Anna’s surprised when, seconds after the initial collision, she doesn’t collide with the ground or the table. Peeking one eye open, she catches sight of auburn hair, messy and wet.

“Glad I caught you,” Hans says with one of those charming smiles Anna’s sure works great on women who aren’t fake-dating their extremely attractive bosses.

“Yeah, me too,” Anna replies, regaining her balance and untangling herself from Hans’ hold. “Thanks for the save.”

Hans grabs the towel draped around his shoulders and uses it to rub at his hair, drawing attention to his shirtless state. Anna resolutely keeps her eyes above the neckline. “It was my pleasure,” he tells her, that same grin fixed on his face.

Anna laughs nervously, wracking her mind for something decidedly platonic to say, when her phone goes off. “That must be Elsa,” she says, biting back a sigh of relief. “I need to get her a towel.”

“Duty calls,” Hans jokes with good-natured chuckle. “Don’t let me keep you, but do me a favor and get free of her long enough for me to buy you a drink, alright?”

“We’ll see about that,” Anna replies, snatching a towel from the table and rushing back to Elsa’s trailer. She nearly knocks the door down in her hurry to get in, panting slightly from her half-jog on the way there.

Elsa quirks an eyebrow at the sight of her, a grin playing on her lips. “Where’s the fire?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Anna says through her heaving breaths, holding the towel out like a trophy. “Dry off now.”

“If you say so,” Elsa laughs, taking the offered towel. “But I’m expecting full details once this scene is done.”

Anna watches as Elsa towels off her hair, the view doing nothing to calm her breathing. “Roger.”

“So what did you study in college?” Elsa asks her, rather unexpectedly one day while they’re driving back to Anna’s after dinner.

Anna chances a glance at her. “What brought this on?” she responds instead of answering.

Elsa hums, still fascinated with the sights of Pittsburgh if the way she keeps looking out the window is any indication. “I just realized I’ve never asked. I know your favorite color, but not which school you went to.”

“You know my favorite color?” Anna asks, putting a hand up in defense when Elsa shoots her a look that says “Of course I do; it’s all over your apartment.”

“Fine, fine. It’s not like it’s a secret, anyway,” she acquiesces. “I, uh, went to Pitt. Majored in History of Art and Architecture with a certificate in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Department names, not mine.”

“That’s,” Elsa starts, letting out a low whistle, “wow, that must have been a lot of work.”

“It’s not too bad if you enjoy it,” Anna says with a chuckle. “I actually used to dream about working at the Warhol Museum. I mean, the Neoclassical and Romantic periods are my thing, but I’ve always loved Warhol’s work. It’s probably just the Pittsburgh camaraderie thing, especially since he was grew up so close to the university. And you know, honestly, I’m not even good at art, but you want a three-thousand-word analysis comparing Gericault and Delacroix and how they influenced later French art, then I’m your girl.”

Taking a deep breath and only now realizing that she hadn’t breathed once during that whole rant, Anna feels her face heat up. “And that was way more information than you were probably looking for.”

“No, not at all,” Elsa laughs. “I think that’s the most fired-up I’ve ever seen you. It’s fun to see people get so passionate about the things they love.”

“You should see me at Pens games,” Anna jokes, blush still stubbornly on her face. “Well, what about you? Where’d you go to school?”

“NYU, actually,” Elsa admits, eyes averting back out the window in what Anna can only assume is a fit of shyness. “I was a drama major at the Tish School for the Arts. I used to want to do Broadway.”

“Really? That’s amazing!”

Elsa makes a noise in the back of her throat, something between a chuckle and hum. “It’s a lot less glamorous than it sounds.”

“A bit like being a movie star?” Anna quips, turning onto her street.

“Oh, trust me. Broadway is infinitely less glamorous than acting in movies,” Elsa tells her with a full laugh. “Shows every night and even some afternoons. It takes over your whole life. And New York is so much more stressful than L.A.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“I think it’s the weather,” Elsa says. “It’s either too hot and muggy or too cold and windy there, and it drives people mad.”

Anna snorts, pulling into an open parking spot a house down from her apartment. “As opposed to L.A., where it’s hot all the time.”

“You get used to it,” Elsa argues. “Though I do miss the snow. I’m a bit sad the filming won’t last till winter.”

“Ha, if you think winter’s here are anything like winters in New York, you have another thing coming,” Anna jokes, getting out of the car and waiting for Elsa to do the same before locking the doors. “The potholes are ridiculous and the roads are about as straight as I am.”

“Which is to say, not at all.”

“Exactly,” Anna agrees. She walks up the walkway to her apartment, unlocking and opening the door and holding it for Elsa. “That’s how I came out to my parents, actually.”

Elsa lets out a noise caught somewhere between an unladylike snort and a giggle, hand quickly moving to cover her mouth. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” Anna says gleefully. “I used to live on Mount Washington, in a real hard neighborhood to get to, and my dad was complaining about all the twists and turns on the road. ‘Why can’t any of these damned roads be straight!’ he yelled, and I said, ‘I don’t blame them; I’m also having trouble being straight,’ and he turned bright red and nearly ran us off the road, he was trying to so hard to assure me that he still loves me.”

“No way,” Elsa laughs, taking a seat on Anna’s couch. “You’re making this up.”

“Couldn’t make it up if I tried,” Anna replies before flopping on the couch herself. “After we got to my place, he lectured me about dropping bombs on him like that while he’s driving, and then he told me not to tell my mom about it, because they had a bet going about when I was going to come out to them, and I told him too early for him to win.”

“Did you listen to him?”

“Yeah, of course, after I got him to promise to give me half his winnings,” Anna says. “He said it wasn’t about the money so much as being right. Mom found out about a month after she paid him, and she nearly boxed my ears for helping Dad win.”

“And then?” Elsa asks, pulling her legs onto the couch and smiling warmly when Anna nudges them until they’re resting on her lap.

“She demanded that Dad give her back the money, though she let me keep the part he gave me. Told me that if I’d come clean to her sooner, she would have given me all of her winnings instead of just half.”

Elsa laughs again, hand seemingly glued to her lips with the way she keeps it there as she laughs. “What a pity.”

“I thought it was too funny to care,” Anna admits. “My parents can get pretty crazy.”

“They sound like lovely people,” Elsa says. “Though I’m not surprised, given they raised someone like you.”

Anna feels heat rush to her face, and she ducks her head to hide the blush. “What about you?” Anna asks. “Any funny coming out stories?”

Elsa scoffs and rolls her eyes, the small smile still gracing her lips the only indication the actions are more amused than derisive. “Hardly,” she says. “When I told my parents, they treated it like I had just told them the most boring news in the world.”

“Really?”

��Yep,” Elsa says with a slight nod. “I believe my mother said, verbatim, ‘That’s great, dear, now finish your dinner before it gets cold.’”

“Really?” Anna asks again, hands idly playing with Elsa’s legs.

“Really,” Elsa tells her. “I was so nervous, too. It took me weeks to build up the courage to tell them, and they were so nonchalant about it.”

Anna laughs incredulously. “But they don’t have a problem with it?”

“I don’t think so,” Elsa says, leg twitching when Anna traces a finger down her ankle. “At least, if they do, they’re incredibly good at hiding it.”

“Huh. You know, in a way, that story’s more entertaining than mine,” Anna muses, repeating the motion and laughing when Elsa shoots her a glare. “I’ve probably heard hundreds of coming out stories, and I’ve never heard one like that.”

“You want to switch parents?” Elsa jokes, poking Anna in the stomach with her foot as payback. “I think I’d take bets over ‘Yes, yes, you like girls, but this your father’s secret chicken recipe, and it won’t do for it get cold.’”

Laughing again -- partially from the joke, partially from Elsa getting her in a particularly ticklish part of her body -- Anna clutches Elsa’s ankle to keep her from digging her big toe into her stomach again. “That depends. How good is your dad’s secret chicken recipe? Because my dad can’t cook worth shit.”

Elsa just grins at her, trying to give Anna’s belly another few pokes with her other foot. “Well then, I guess I’ll just have to make it for you sometime, and you can decide for yourself.”

“Deal,” Anna says, desperately trying to defend her stomach from Elsa’s feet. “But please stop tickling me, or I might have to kick you off the couch.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Anna asks, hands gripping Elsa’s shirt. They’re in the trailer, on the futon Elsa likes to take naps on during breaks.

“We need as many people to talk as possible,” Elsa replies, fingers fiddling with Anna’s belt loops. “The make-up artists couldn’t care less about me, but they’ll definitely remember that they had to cover up a hickey. And the crew’s not going to miss us walking out of the trailer together looking disheveled.”

Anna picks at the collar of Elsa’s shirt, still hesitant. “No one’s going to think we’re dating unless the crew believes it. Not when they’re the ones who spread all the rumors. Plus, the sooner the rumors start, the sooner Hans will stop breathing down your neck. Now come on,” Elsa urges, tilting her head to expose her neck.

“Alright, fine,” Anna gives in, leaning in and pressing her lips lightly to Elsa’s neck.

“Don’t be nervous, Anna,” Elsa says. A breathy laugh escapes her lips as Anna’s tongue slips out to give her skin the slightest of licks. “And make it as messy as you can. It needs to be the most obvious hickey the crew’s ever seen.”

Slipping her bottom lip between her teeth, Anna takes an unsteady breath and grunts an acknowledgement to Elsa’s order. She presses her lips to the smooth expanse of skin harder this time, before parting them to lather the spot with her tongue.

Elsa lets out a gasp, and for a second, Anna’s not on a futon in a movie star’s trailer, giving a celebrity a hickey. She’s on the ratty couch in her apartment, making out with her girlfriend.

Closing her eyes, she gives in to the fantasy, her imagination emboldening her and pushing her to drag her teeth over that same spot on Elsa’s neck. Right now, in her mind, Elsa’s not Elsa the Celebrity, Actress Extraordinaire; she’s just Elsa, Anna’s girlfriend, the person Anna most definitely has the right to mark up.

Before long, she’s catching Elsa’s skin between her teeth and tugging gently until Elsa breathes out a small moan. The sound sends a shiver through Anna’s body, and, driven to hear it again, she releases the skin and starts sucking. Pulling away after a few, long seconds, she glances at the once spotless, pale skin through hooded eyes, and smiles at the contrast of the reddening mark on Elsa’s fair complexion.

Anna licks her lips and lowers her head, sucking at a new spot on Elsa’s neck while Elsa’s hands undo her braids and thread through her hair. One new mark leads to two, two to three, and by the time Anna pulls away again, hickeys of all shapes and sizes are scattered all over Elsa’s neck.

Elsa’s hands are still tangled in her hair, so instead of moving away fully, Anna releases her fistfuls of Elsa’s shirt and lifts her hands to cup Elsa’s neck, thumbs rubbing the marks dotting the skin there. Leaning down one more time, she angles her head up to press her lips to Elsa’s and feels the beginning of a sound rumbling against her palms, but rather than a noise of protest, the only thing that escapes from Elsa’s lips is another moan as she parts them for Anna’s tongue.

Anna’s hands slip away from Elsa’s neck and trail down to where the hem of Elsa’s shirt meets her pants. Her fingers play with the cloth for a few moments before slipping underneath the soft material and brushing against the smooth skin of Elsa’s stomach. Elsa jerks away, as if in surprise, and gasps Anna’s name. Anna presses her hands flat against Elsa’s abdomen and reclaims her lips, a moan rumbling in the back of her throat when Elsa tugs at her hair.

She’s right about to slip her tongue back into Elsa’s mouth when a knock at the trailer door interrupts them. They break apart grudgingly, and the hazy, hooded look Elsa gives Anna sends a jolt of electricity straight through her chest and to all of her extremities.

“Miss Frost, make-up and hair want you in ten minutes,” the voice of some assistant announces through the closed door, making Anna pull her hands out of Elsa’s shirt.

Elsa frees her hands from where they had been thoroughly caught in Anna’s hair and looks at herself in the mirror across from the futon. Flexing her neck to get a better look at her neck, she runs a hand down her wrinkled shirt and laughs. “Went a little overboard, don’t you think?”

Anna flushes, embarrassed at her apparent lack of control. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Elsa says with a giggle, pressing a quick kiss to Anna’s cheek. “It’s more convincing than I thought it was going to be.”

“You’re welcome?” Anna replies uncertainly, checking her own state in the mirror. Her lips are red and swollen and her hair an absolute mess. She raises a hand to run through her tousled locks, but Elsa grabs her wrist to halt her.

“Leave it. We can’t have anyone mistaking who I was just making out with,” she says with a wink.

With that, she stands and leaves the trailer, pausing only to blow Anna a kiss before leaving her assistant dumbstruck on the futon.

Something about their relationship changes after that day. Anna can’t exactly place what it is, but they’re more… comfortable around each other, both physically and emotionally. They flirt more too, but it’s far more playful and less forced than before. In fact, any obligation she may have felt about flirting is gone, replaced instead with a sense of enjoyment and anticipation.

About a month and a half after the first visit, Elsa ends up at Anna’s place again, citing tiredness for the reason she doesn’t want to go clubbing with the other actors. Anna, for her part, doesn’t particularly care why Elsa’s on her couch again; she’s just happy to spend some more time with her.

And that’s how they end up watching The Lion King at eleven at night again. Or at any rate, how Anna ends up watching The Lion King with Elsa again, and how Elsa ends up tucked under Anna’s arm, playing with her phone.

“And… post,” Anna hears Elsa mutter under her breath.

“‘And post’?” Anna repeats, tearing her eyes away from the movie to look down at the woman cuddled up to her.

Elsa looks up at her innocently and shows Anna the phone in her hands. She’s got her Instagram app up, and, at the top of her feed, is a picture of her smiling coyly for the camera, her face snuggled in to Anna’s arm, with the bottom half of Anna’s profile in the background. The caption reads “No better way to spend a Friday night.”

“That’s cute,” Anna says, a warm feeling rushing to her chest at the small smile that Elsa gives her.

“A hundred and fifty-two people would agree with you,” Elsa responds.

Anna laughs, squeezing Elsa a little tighter with the arm she has wrapped around the other woman. “I guess that means I must be right.”

“I think you might be,” Elsa agrees.

“It’s a hundred sixty-three now, so I’d say the odds are in my favor.”

Elsa giggles, snuggling back into Anna’s embrace. “I’m lucky I found you.”

“Oh?” Anna asks, raising her free hand to play with Elsa’s pushed-back bangs. “How so?”

“Just this whole fake-relationship thing,” Elsa says, a sigh working its way out of her mouth when Anna’s fingers delve a little deeper into her hair to scratch her scalp. “I could have gotten anyone to play along, but instead I found someone I genuinely like spending time with.”

Anna stops her ministrations to wrap her other arm around Elsa, giving her a somewhat awkward hug while she nuzzles her face into Elsa’s hair. “I like spending time with you, too.”

“I wasn’t expecting to make any friends in Pittsburgh,” Elsa admits, twisting in Anna’s arms to face her, “but I’m really glad I got to meet you.”

“Me, too,” Anna replies, trying not to feel so horribly self-conscious about how close Elsa’s face is, but her lips keep tingling lightly and she can hardly keep her eyes from drifting down to Elsa’s. “I’m gonna miss you when you go back to LA.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Elsa says with a gentle smile, pressing a peck to Anna’s cheek before settling back into her embrace like earlier. “So I guess it’s a good thing we have a couple more months before that happens, huh?”

Anna just bites her lips to stave off a frown. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Cut, cut! Take ten, everyone! And Westerguard, when you get back on set I expect you to get your act together!” the director shouts. The crew gets moving the second he’s finished, running around to get everything ready for the next take.

Anna just sits off on the side, waiting for Elsa to walk over and join her. “What’s the deal with Hans?” she asks once Elsa has.

“Didn’t you see the new issue of OK!?” Elsa asks in response. Anna shakes her head. “I’ve got a copy in my trailer if you want to come along.”

Even though Anna hasn’t seen the issue, she has an idea of what it must be about, given the stares and the murmurs they get as they walk through the set. Kristoff in particular, who she can only spot because of his height and ridiculous blond mop, eyes her with a distinctly knowing look. She has an urge to call out to him, but they reach the trailer before she can, and someone behind them blows a loud wolf whistle.

“That wasn’t for us, was it?” Anna asks, only half-jokingly.

Elsa doesn’t respond, just glancing over her shoulder before continuing to the small vanity inside. She picks up a magazine and hands it to Anna, before announcing, “I guess we did it, huh?”

Anna takes the magazine, eyes scanning over the cover. It’s mostly taken up by a picture of her with a possessive arm wrapped around Elsa’s waist, one hand up as though she’s blocking something. She realizes a second later that it must be from last Friday, when she picked Elsa up from her hotel and had to battle with the paparazzi again. The headline, positioned near their knees, reads, “Elsa and her PA? Just What Are They to Each Other?”

“Yeah, we did,” Anna says, unable to keep from grinning at how crazy it is to be on the cover of a magazine. “But what does this have to do with Hans?”

“Remember how he wanted to ask you out? But I got there first?” Elsa asks, running a hand through her hair. Anna bites the inside of her cheek to keep from telling Elsa to keep from messing up her immaculately styled hair. “He’s upset about it. Thinks I’m using you, or something like that.” Elsa lets out a humorless laugh. “Well, I guess he wouldn’t be wrong.”

Anna frowns. “You’re not using me, Elsa. You haven’t done a thing I didn’t already agree to.”

“But you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for our deal,” Elsa argues. “Just because you agreed to it doesn’t mean I’m not getting way more out of this arrangement than you are. What are you even getting out of this besides a job?”

“A chance to hang out with a really awesome person I would have never met otherwise,” Anna says, stomping her foot a little to emphasize her point. “Elsa, I swear, you’re not using me, and you shouldn’t think that you are just because Hans is upset that I’m not available.” Elsa gives her a look, one that says how unconvinced she is by Anna’s speech, and Anna huffs, running a hand through her own hair.

“If it’s bothering you that much, we can call it off. Say we were just fooling around and none of it meant anything,” Anna offers, trying to ignore the way her stomach churns at the thought of giving up on their scheme, of giving up Elsa.

A frown matching Anna’s grows on Elsa’s face. “No, I...” she pauses, “I don’t think we should stop. I just,” she sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’ve been worried this whole time that I might be forcing you to do things you might not be comfortable with, and I know we talked about this before,” she adds when Anna opens her mouth to interject, “but I was still afraid that you didn’t feel comfortable telling me to back off. When Hans said that I was using you, I thought that maybe that’s what it looks like, and I was the only one too oblivious to notice it.”

“Elsa,” Anna says, smiling despite herself at just how considerate Elsa is. “Elsa, look at me,” she adds when the other woman refuses to look up. “Believe it or not, but I’m having a lot of fun doing this stuff with you. I mean, how many ordinary people like me get to say they dated a celebrity? So you don’t have to worry that you’re pushing me or overstepping any boundaries, because the last time someone tried to make a move on me I didn’t want, I knocked him out.”

Elsa laughs, bright and clear and not a bit as tired as she sounded earlier. “I’m glad to hear you can take care of yourself,” she says, reaching a hand out for Anna to take.

Anna happily does. “It was during a Pens game. The hockey inspired me,” Anna replies, thumb rubbing Elsa’s knuckles. “So I’m thinking I make it clear to Hans that he and I wouldn’t work, even if you weren’t in the picture, so you won’t feel guilty about upsetting your friend -- and don’t even try to deny that’s another reason you’re feeling shitty about the magazine,” she adds when Elsa sends her a look, “and then we get dinner at that Chinese place you like on Squirrel Hill.”

“And then another round of The Lion King at yours?”

“Even better: I got my parents to drop off my old VHS of The Lion King 2. We’re moving up in the world.”

Elsa smiles, and if the warmth blooming in Anna’s chest is any indication, it’s a sight Anna wants to see for the rest of her life. “It’s a deal.”

Kristoff catches her a few days later, brandishing some magazine at her like a weapon. “Told you so,” he says, handing her the tabloid and crossing his arms in victory.

The headline reads “Hollywood Love Triangle? Hans and Elsa Fight for her PA’s Affections!”, as the cover displays pictures of Anna interacting with both actors. Barely resisting an eye roll, Anna shoves the magazine back into Kristoff’s arms.

“Told me what? All I see is a bullshit story someone made up for money,” Anna tells him, already walking away.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,” Kristoff argues, following behind her. “The media makes up whatever they want, but once they find a target, they’ll never leave you alone.”

“Why do you even care?” Anna asks. “You hardly even know me.”

Jogging ahead and cutting her off, Kristoff draws up to his full height, and Anna has to admit it’s more intimidating than she thought it would be. “I’ve been in this industry for a long time, and I’ve seen plenty of people jerked around by the media, celebrities and otherwise. I just want to prevent that from happening again if I can.”

“Look,” Anna says, rubbing a hand over her brow, “I appreciate the concern. Really. I just know what I’m doing, okay?”

Kristoff frowns, looking wholly unconvinced. “Everyone says that.”

“Well I actually do. Elsa and I talk a lot, and we worked out the terms of this relationship months ago.”

“Right,” Kristoff scoffs, “that’s why she’s totally aware that you’re head over heels for her.”

That makes Anna freeze, and if Kristoff’s smug expression is any indication, he knows it. “W-what are you talking about?”

“Give up the act, Hall. No one’s in earshot.”

“I’m,” Anna can hardly get the words out, her heart’s beating so fast, “I’m not…” Kristoff raises an eyebrow, and Anna’s filled with the sudden urge to sock him. “I’m not in love with anyone!”

Kristoff just shrugs, that infuriating smile still on his face. “Okay sure, maybe not. But you’re close. I’d say give it another week or so, and you’ll be long gone.”

“And how would you know?”

“Well I suppose you could say I was raised by love experts,” Kristoff says as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And besides that, I have eyes, Red. I can see how hard you’re falling for her.” Anna huffs, crossing her arms. “Look, I know how you feel. You’re what, twenty-three?”

“Twenty-five,” she mutters darkly.

“Fine, fine. You’re twenty-five, and you’re done with all that stupid college shit, and you know how to handle yourself, right?” he starts, his expression infinitely more sympathetic than before. “But whatever you think you’re doing right now, you have to realize you’re in way deeper than anything you signed up for. It’s only a matter of time before the paparazzi finds out where you live or starts hounding you when you try to leave the set, and then you have to ask yourself: was it worth it? Was it worth having a fling with a celebrity that doesn’t even love you back?”

Something swells up in Anna at that, a self-righteous heat that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and blood rush to her cheeks. “Listen, mind your own business, alright?” she all but shouts at him. “No one asked you for your help, so keep it to yourself.”

With that, she spins on her heel and marches off, ignoring the way Kristoff’s bemused expression matches her own surprise at how upset she is. She stomps all the way to Elsa’s trailer, practically throwing the door open before walking up to Elsa and pulling her into a hug.

“Is everything alright?” Elsa asks, arms wrapping themselves around Anna’s torso despite her obvious confusion.

“Yeah, I just need a hug,” Anna replies, squeezing a little tighter than is absolutely necessary.

“Was it Hans?”

Anna sighs, resigning herself to talking about Kristoff even if he’s the last person she wants to think about at the moment. “No, it was Kristoff.”

Elsa heaves an exaggerated sigh, one hand coming up to play with one of Anna’s braids. “Another man for me to compete with? You’re just too popular, Anna.”

Barking out a laugh, genuine but still too forceful, Anna burrows her face into Elsa’s shoulder. “Trust me, Kristoff is not interested in anything other than making my life harder,” she says, barely restraining a soft noise of pleasure from slipping through her throat when Elsa’s hand moves to thread itself into Anna’s hair.

“Hmm, do I need to speak to some people?”

“No, I can handle it. I just need cuddles,” Anna says, giving Elsa another squeeze to prove her point.

For her part, Elsa just laughs and awkwardly walks them over to the couch, falling onto it so she lands first. “Alright, I can do that,” she says, chuckling more when Anna nuzzles into her neck instead of speaking. “This is probably an easier job than talking to people, anyway.”

Anna doesn’t bother to respond, choosing to soak in the comfort of being in Elsa’s embrace instead. She buries her face in Elsa’s shirt, as though that will help her forget Kristoff’s words, or better yet, help her ignore the fact that he’s right.

It takes her a couple of days before she builds enough courage, but Anna manages to corner Kristoff before the week’s over. He’d sent her looks that ranged from pitying to wary every time he saw her since their chat, and she feels like she at least owes him an apology for biting his head off.

“Hey, Kristoff,” she calls out, while he’s taking apart a boom pole to store for the night. He looks at her like he’s been waiting for her to approach him, and that almost makes her turn and walk away. “I want to apologize for how I left things a couple days ago.”

“Oh, which part?” Kristoff starts, handing off his work to another sound guy. “The part where you yelled at me and ran off, or the part where you’re still in denial about your feelings?”

Biting back the urge to snap at him again, Anna takes a long breath through her nose. “Both,” she says, instead of the scathing reply that first came to mind. “And I’d like to add that I’m not so ‘in denial’, as you so nicely put it. I acknowledge that I,” she lowers her voice to a whisper, “have stronger feelings for Elsa than she does for me,” she raises it back to normal, “but I’ve accepted that. And I’m not going to stop seeing her. Might as well take advantage of our time together, right?”

Kristoff frowns at her, and for the first time, she gets the impression that he’s a bit like an older brother she never had. “You’re just going to hurt yourself worse in the long run, you know,” he says, more statement than question.

“It’s worth it,” Anna replies.

“If you really think so,” he sighs, frown still in place. “I’d beg to differ, but I guess I can’t stop you.”

“No, you can’t,” Anna agrees, “but thank you for the concern. It’s very sweet, actually.”

“Sweet enough to make you reconsider?”

Anna laughs, and something about it makes the tension she didn’t know she had in her shoulders release. “No, but thanks for trying. I know what I’m doing, and I know that what I’m doing probably isn’t the smartest thing ever, but love is stupid. And I’m willing to be stupid if it means I get to be with Elsa as long as I can.”

If anything, Kristoff’s frown gets deeper. “Let me see your phone,” he says, holding his hand out. “Personal phone, none of that business phone bullshit.”

“What, why?” Anna asks, fishing out her phone and giving it to him despite her confusion.

“This is probably a terrible idea,” Kristoff tells her, tapping away at her phone, “but I’m giving you my number. If you need to talk about anything about this, you can call or text me.” Finishing up his work, he hands her phone back.

Anna laughs for the second time, this one more familiar, chiding. “Why do you care so much, Kristoff?”

Kristoff runs a hand through his hair, mussing it up even more than usual. “I work in one of the most cutthroat industries in the country; I see people get crushed all the time. I guess I just want to do what I can to stop it from happening, especially to someone who obviously didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.”

Giving Kristoff’s arm an affectionate punch, Anna smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring manner. “Fair enough, big guy. And thanks, really. I do appreciate it.”

Kristoff shrugs, smiling back, and Anna walks away, back towards Elsa and the scheme that sank her into the deep end.

Anna’s flipping through Elsa’s schedule for the upcoming week when a flash and a camera shutter sound distracts her. Terrified for one second that the paparazzi have somehow invaded the set, her head jerks up, ready to chase someone away, but all she sees is Elsa looking far too amused to be innocent.

“Did you just take a picture of me?” she asks, though she already knows the answer.

“Maybe?” Elsa teases back, another shutter sound signalling another picture. “I’m trying to get a good shot for my phone lock screen. That’s a couple-y thing to do, right?”

“Yeah, if we’re in high school, maybe,” Anna retorts.

Another flash. “Maybe I should wait until you fall asleep. Sleeping photos are cute,” Elsa says instead, ignoring Anna’s comment.

“And kinda creepy,” Anna shoots back. Another shutter sound. “Wait, here, let me see.”

“Why?”

Anna rolls her eyes at the sudden defensiveness in Elsa’s voice. “Oh come on, I’m not gonna delete anything. I was just gonna take a selfie.”

“In that case, get over here,” Elsa says, waving Anna over. Obeying, Anna gets up from her seat and walks over to where Elsa sits. “C’mon,” Elsa goads, patting her lap.

“Really?” Anna asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It’ll be cute!” Elsa protests. “I need something I can show the talk show hosts.”

Rolling her eyes again, Anna plops down on Elsa’s lap, slinging an arm around her shoulder to steady herself. “Happy?”

“Very,” Elsa replies, guiding Anna’s other arm to link with the first and sliding her own arm around Anna’s waist. “Say cheese!” she cheers, planting a kiss on Anna’s cheek right before she presses the button, and Anna hardly has time to splutter in surprise before the shutter noise sounds again. Elsa ignores her obvious shock and checks the photo.

“Perfect,” she says, a small smile playing on her lips, and Anna can’t fight a matching grin from growing on her face. It took Elsa a few days to shake off her sad spell after the magazine release, but it seems she got back on her feet quickly enough.

Not that anyone else really noticed. Elsa’s not a critically-acclaimed, much-beloved actress just because of her pretty face, though Anna’s sure that doesn’t hurt. Regardless, Anna certainly doesn’t mind that Elsa’s back on board with their dating scheme -- it was a strangely painful few days that Elsa refused to get too close to her or let their contact linger any longer than necessary.

“How’s it look?” Elsa asks, breaking Anna out of her reverie. She holds her phone out, the unlock menu doing a terrible job of obscuring the image of Elsa kissing Anna’s cheek as Anna practically hangs off the other woman, a flushed smile on her face.

“Cute,” Anna replies honestly, though some shy side of her balks at the thought of Elsa showing off a photo that makes her looks so obviously enamored with her boss.

“Want to another for your phone?” Elsa offers with a wry grin, shaking her phone as she talks.

Anna nearly snorts, the laugh bubbling out of her chest catches her off guard so much. “What, for my business phone? Provided so nicely by the crew?”

“Yeah sure, why not?” Elsa says, that infernal grin still on her lips. “You still get to keep it for the next two and a half months. Hell, you could probably keep it longer. They usually just throw those phones away when they’re done with the movie.”

“Good to know,” Anna says, pulling the offending object from her back pocket. “This is probably the nicest piece of technology I’ve touched since college.”

Elsa hums, holding her hand out expectantly, and Anna caves and gives her the phone. “Pity they’ll stop paying for the plan as soon as filming’s done,” she muses, snapping a quick selfie, “but I guess you could always just switch to this phone instead paying for your old one.” Another snap.

“Oh, you get to take selfies, but I had to take the PDA photo?” Anna complains, laughing when Elsa sends her a wink. “I don’t think I can afford a data plan. Last time I checked, I’ll be unemployed once this is over.”

Another snap. “You better start looking for a new job while you still have the time, then,” Elsa says, tapping away on Anna’s phone. “Or better yet, move to California. You’re probably the best PA I’ve had.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re getting it on the side,” Anna jokes. “And an offer like that better come with housing, because I can’t afford Cali on a PA salary.”

“Who said it won’t?” Elsa asks. “I’d be a terrible girlfriend if I let my partner sleep on the streets.”

“Yeah, you would,” Anna agrees, heart beating a little too quickly at the thought of moving in with Elsa. “The absolute worst.”

Laughing brightly, Elsa hands Anna’s phone back and waits for Anna to check it. Anna turns the screen on, instantly smiling when she sees Elsa on the screen winking at her and blowing her a kiss.

“Adorable,” Anna says, turning the screen back off and slipping the phone into her pocket. “We’re a more functional couple than most couples I know, and we’re not even dating.”

“That’s the secret to success,” Elsa jokes back. “Now, let’s show those real couples what’s what and go on a big, fancy date tonight.”

Anna taps her phone through her pocket, willing it to stop burning a hole into her thigh. “Deal, but you’re paying this time,” she says, smiling despite herself when Elsa laughs.

It’s a rare Friday night that Anna and Elsa don’t already have plans with each other when she gets a phone call to pick up some drunk actors from some club on the South Side. She’s tempted to ask who’s calling, but the guy on the other side just tells her “Elsa fucking Frost demanded that we call you.”

That’s all Anna really needs, though she’s not entirely sure why Elsa went clubbing without even mentioning it to Anna once. Not that she’s jealous or hurt or anything.

When she gets to the club -- Diesel, she notes with an eye roll; she’s never particularly liked the place -- the actors she was called to collect are already waiting outside, under the watchful eye of a few bouncers. Elsa spots her beat up Camry almost immediately and waves so forcefully, she nearly tips herself over. Parking on the side of the street, Anna steps out of her car, catching a stumbling Elsa who seems more than content to just burrow her nose into crook of Anna’s neck.

“Sorry for the trouble,” she tells one of the bouncers, who just smiles and waves her off.

“No trouble at all,” he responds, and his buddy flips his clipboard around to show the paper clipped onto it, covered in scribbles. “We got autographs.”

Anna laughs and herds the actors into her car, glad that she can fit them all inside. She takes them to the Fairmont, and by some stroke of luck, the paparazzi seem to be taking the night off, leaving the entrance completely free. She walks them through the doors and to the elevators, Elsa clinging onto her the whole way.

“Can we go back to your place?” Elsa asks, whispering into Anna’s ear in a way that makes her flush and shiver simultaneously.

“Y-yeah, sure,” Anna replies, telling herself that the arm she has wrapped around Elsa’s waist is only to keep the other woman up.

The drive back to Greenfield is quiet, both on the road and in the car. Elsa leans across the center console to rest her head against Anna’s shoulder, and Anna can only tell she’s awake from her light humming.

Elsa’s resistant to leave the car once they get to Anna’s apartment, citing something about being comfy where she is, but Anna manages to get her inside and to the living room before Elsa all but tackles her to the couch.

“Hey, hey, how drunk are you right now?” Anna chides, her affectionate tone making the words soft.

“Enough,” Elsa mumbles into Anna’s neck, the feeling of her lips against Anna’s skin making the younger woman squirm. “Charlotte always teases me about going out with them more.”

Anna laughs, partly from the way Elsa’s tickling her with her lips, partly from the pout in Elsa’s voice . “I feel like there’s a moral in there about giving in to peer pressure.”

“She’s not wrong,” Elsa argues, pressing her nose even further into Anna’s neck. “I never really hung out with my costars before, except for Hans. It’s no surprise people thought we were dating.”

“So you went out to a club.”

“I thought drinking might help. I’m not that good with people, you see,” Elsa says, only now removing her face from Anna’s neck to look down at her.

Brushing an errant lock out of Elsa’s face and tucking it behind one of Elsa’s ears, Anna smiles lightly. “Could've fooled me.”

“I’m a good actress,” Elsa jokes, leaning into Anna’s hand as Anna plays with her hair.

“So I’ve been told,” Anna quips back. “C’mon, we should get you some water so tomorrow morning isn’t terrible.”

Elsa pouts almost instantly at the suggestion. “In a minute. I’m enjoying this.”

With a laugh and a tug on Elsa’s ear, Anna tries to sit up, only to be pushed back down by the woman on top of her. “You’re gonna have a hangover unless we get some water in you,” she protests, but Elsa just leans down and presses their lips together.

“It’ll be worth it,” Elsa whispers against her lips before kissing her again.

Breaking away, Anna puts a hand on Elsa’s shoulder, keeping her away long enough to ask, “How much have you had to drink again?”

Elsa frowns and gently removes the hand on her shoulder. “Anna? Please stop talking and let me kiss you.”

So Anna does, no matter how sure she is Elsa might regret it in the morning because it’s not like she doesn’t enjoy kissing Elsa. If anything, she probably enjoys it too much.

They end up making out for the next few minutes, until Elsa decides she’d rather stick her face back into the crook of Anna’s neck and go to sleep.

“Why is it so bright in here?”

Anna hears the whine from the kitchen and can hardly keep from laughing. Walking into the living room with two plates of breakfast, she sits herself on the couch, bumping Elsa’s legs with her butt.

“It’s your fault for sleeping on the couch,” Anna chides. “I tried to get you out of the living room, but you just held onto my waist and wouldn’t let me get up. The bedroom’s got blackout curtains.”

“If you’re gonna scold me, at least talk quieter,” Elsa moans in response, trying to block the light out with one arm and her ears with the other.

“If I stop scolding you, will you eat?” Anna shoots back, nudging one of Elsa’s arms. “I’ve got egg, bacon, toast, and some Advil on the side if you want it.”

“Yes, please,” Elsa says, pushing herself up to reach for the glass of water and the painkillers Anna had dropped on the table before making breakfast. “You’re an angel.”

Anna picks up a plate, tucking in while Elsa takes the pills. “Ah, yes, praise me more,” she jokes, watching Elsa chug the rest of the water.

“Quiet, you,” Elsa mutters, sluggishly grabbing the second plate, “I still have a headache.”

Chuckling as silently as possible, Anna presses a kiss to Elsa’s temple. “Sorry, babe,” she says, finishing up her breakfast and getting up to put her dishes in the kitchen. “When you’re done eating, just drop your things in the sink. I put an extra towel in the bathroom, so you can get a shower.”

Elsa hums in acknowledgement, still eating while Anna washes the pans. A few moment later, Elsa walks into the kitchen, slipping her plate and fork into the sink around Anna’s arms and giving her a quick peck on the cheek before heading to the bathroom.

“Thanks for breakfast,” she calls over her shoulder, laughing when Anna swats at her butt with a kitchen towel.

The dishes don’t take long to clean, though Anna welcomes the distraction while it lasts. She’s still stuck on whether the night before was a mistake or not, whether she should have put her foot down and made Elsa go to bed earlier.

When Elsa gets out of the shower, changed into some clothes Anna put out for her, Anna’s still in the kitchen, drying the dishes and still thinking about the night before.

“Oh, let me help,” Elsa says, walking into the kitchen, and Anna, breaking out of her thoughts at the sound of Elsa’s voice, gives her the best deadpan expression she has.

“Please, my mother would have my hide if she heard I made a guest dry my plates for me,” she says, sending Elsa a playful glare when she tries to take the plate from Anna’s hands. “Besides, you just got out of the shower, and you’re probably still hungover.”

Anna doesn’t need to look at Elsa to know she’s rolling her eyes. “The shower did wonders, thank you. And my alcohol tolerance isn’t as bad as you seem to think it is.”

“Oh really,” Anna starts, bumping Elsa with her hip, “because I seem to remember you hanging off of me last night because you couldn’t stand on your own.”

Elsa huffs, making another grab for a plate and barely missing. “First of all, my coordination is the first thing to go when I drink.” Anna just laughs. “Secondly, I remember last night very clearly.”

“Even the part where you refused to drink some water, even though that would have helped the hangover?”

“Yes, well you’re very comfortable,” Elsa argues, “and a very good kisser.” Anna flushes bright red, nearly dropping the silverware in her hands. “And for the record, I stand by what I said last night.” She wraps an arm around Anna’s waist and presses a long, wet kiss to the spot behind her ear. Anna thinks she’s either going to choke or suffocate -- or both. Probably both.

“It was totally worth it,” Elsa whispers, lips brushing against Anna’s ear as she speaks.

“Haha, alright, where’s the hidden camera?” Anna splutters once she’s found the capacity to speak again. “You don’t have to flirt so hard when it’s just the two of us.”

Elsa just hums, letting go of Anna’s waist and taking a step back to push herself up onto the kitchen counter. “Yeah, but I like flirting with you. Your reactions are cute.”

“Right, almost giving me a heart attack is cute,” Anna says, dropping the now-dry forks into the silverware drawer.

“Maybe not that part,” Elsa concedes, “but the blushing? Adorable.”

Anna rolls her eyes, willing her heart to stop beating so fast. “Sounds a lot to me like the pot calling the kettle black,” she says, giving her hands a final wipe with the kitchen towel and draping it over the oven handle. “Your face lights up just as easy as mine does. And don’t deny it, because I’ve seen it plenty of times.”

With a laugh, Elsa gracefully slides off the counter. “It’s the fair complexion, dear. Both a blessing and a curse.”

“With how hot you are, it’s more of a blessing than a curse,” Anna mutters, turning to leave the kitchen. She can hear Elsa on her heels, so she doesn’t stop until she reaches the couch in the living room.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Anna covers, dropping onto the worn-out cushions and giving Elsa an innocent look when she frowns at her in obvious disbelief. “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

The previous issue apparently dropped, Elsa looks down at her, a mischievous expression overtaking her features. “How about round two?” she asks, giggling as she watches Anna’s head nearly explode from the speed and pressure of the blood rushing to her face. “Kidding, kidding, sorry. How about we get some coffee first, and then decide from there?”

It takes a few seconds for Anna to respond, her mind too cluttered with excess blood and thoughts of kissing Elsa again, but when she finally gets her head back on right, she nods in affirmation and motions for them to get on their way.

They end up stopping by a café on Murray, Elsa in those outrageously large sunglasses Anna’s certain attracts more attention than dissuades. By some stroke of luck, however, no one stops or harrasses them, though Anna thinks she catches a few people sneaking photos.

Elsa, however, is either totally oblivious or happy to ignore it, so Anna follows suit.

Afterwards, Elsa playfully demands that Anna take her on a tour of Pitt’s campus, and they end up spending two hours just sitting in the grass at Schenley Park, alternately chatting and just enjoying each others’ company. Their last stop is the Warhol museum, where Anna’s art student mode takes over, and she spend the whole time telling Elsa random stories about Warhol, his art, and art in general.

Stumbling into Anna’s apartment six hours after they left it -- they had stopped by the Pamela’s in Oakland for food partway through -- Elsa pulls Anna to the couch, collapsing onto it and taking Anna with her.

“That was a surprisingly productive Saturday,” Elsa laughs, and Anna can feel the rumble of her chest from where she lays on top of the other woman, “especially considering how hungover I was this morning.”

“Yeah, thank god I get reimbursed for gas money,” Anna jokes, biting back a sigh that wants to escape her throat when Elsa tangles a hand into her hair.

“We didn’t drive that much,” Elsa protests half-heartedly. “Besides, now we’ve done just about everything I wanted to do in the city.”

Anna chuckles breathily, the pleasure from Elsa’s ministrations slipping into her voice. “Getting a half-assed tour of UPitt was on your Pittsburgh bucket list?”

“Not quite,” Elsa says, her other hand coming up to undo Anna’s braids so she can run her hands through her hair better. “My list was more like, ‘experience everything important to Anna’.”

Blood rushes to Anna’s face upon hearing that, heart pounding away at a breakneck pace, and for a moment, Anna wants to pull away so that Elsa won’t have a chance feel how intensely her heart is beating. “Why would that matter?” she stutters out instead, unable to think of a good excuse for leaving Elsa’s embrace.

“You and Pittsburgh are practically synonymous in my mind,” Elsa replies lightly, hands holding a bit more tightly to Anna as though she read her mind. “So I guess getting to know the city as you know it is like getting to know you a little better.”

“Pity that I can’t do the same for you,” Anna says, the soothing feeling of Elsa’s fingers in her hair calming her body from its excited state.

“All the more reason to come visit me in L.A.” Elsa jokes. “Even if I’m originally from New York.”

Anna smiles at the thought of touring L.A. and getting to see Elsa again, but rather than voice those thoughts, she hums contently, eyelids slipping closed. “Like I’ll ever have the money to visit a city like Los Angeles.”

“I’d pay for everything, of course,” Elsa muses, seemingly unaware that the mixture of her fingers scratching at Anna’s scalp and her lilting voice are slowly lulling Anna to sleep. “I could fly you out of the premiere of the movie, and you could be my date on the red carpet. The press would lose it.”

“Hmm, I’m holding you to this,” Anna mutters sleepily. “Can’t just make a girl promises like that without going through with them.”

Elsa presses a soft kiss to Anna’s forehead, letting the girl fall asleep on top of her. “I’ll keep every single one, if you want.”

Anna doesn’t know when she fully falls asleep, but she wakes up in her bed, curled into Elsa’s side.

Anna’s dosing in Elsa’s cast chair, when she feels a pair of hands clamp down on her shoulders. Jumping a solid six inches in the air, she whips around to find Elsa clutching her stomach with one arm while the other hovers over her mouth to stifle her laughter. She tries to fix her best look of annoyance on her face, but between Elsa’s gorgeous smile and the melodic sound of her giggles, she can’t keep a matching grin from overtaking her lips.

“What’s the big deal?” she asks, certain the smile on her face is turning goofier by the second.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Elsa says, once she calms down, though it’s hard to make out the words through how much she’s trying to catch her breath. “Not like that, although that was great.”

“Uh huh,” Anna says, mildly annoyed that she can’t even pretend to be upset with Elsa. This crush will be the death of her. “And how were you going to surprise me?”

Elsa just gives her one of the brightest smiles Anna’s ever seen pulls out her phone. Anna catches a glance of her lock screen, that damned picture of them still on it, before Elsa turns the phone to face her.

“With these,” Elsa says, and a loud squeal escapes Anna’s throat before she has the chance to stop it.

“You didn’t,” Anna gapes, snatching the phone from Elsa’s hand to reread the email on the screen.

“I did.”

“How?”

Elsa shrugs nonchalantly. “I got the assistant director’s PA to get them for me.”

“These are right behind the bench! How much did these cost?”

“That doesn’t matter, dear,” Elsa says with a light laugh. “But this is only half the surprise.”

Anna swears she’s going to faint. “There’s more?”

“There’s more,” Elsa confirms. “I had it delivered to my trailer while we were filming.”

“Well what are we waiting for?” Anna says, grabbing Elsa’s wrist and dragging her off towards the trailer. A few wolf whistles follow them, but Anna can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed.

Bursting through the trailer door, Anna’s eyes are instantly drawn to a pair of Penguins jerseys folded neatly on the coffee table inside, both bearing the number of her favorite player. Suddenly overcome with emotion, Anna sniffles, eyes burning with developing tears. “Please tell me this is it, because if there’s more I might cry.”

Elsa chuckles, slipping her wrist from Anna’s limp grasp to wrap her arms around Anna’s waist and rest her head on her shoulder. “This is it. And I’m glad you like it.”

“Why?” Anna chokes out, throat thick.

“I wanted to show my appreciation for all you’ve done for me these few months,” Elsa explains, lifting her head so Anna can turn around in her arms and give her a proper hug. “You’ve been a great friend, Anna, and one of the best people I’ve been lucky enough to meet. There’s not much time left for me to show you how grateful I’ve been to have you as my PA, fake-girlfriend, and best friend.”

“You didn’t have to do any of this,” Anna says, burrowing her face into the crook of Elsa’s neck in an attempt to stave off the tears threatening to escape her eyes. “I would have understood if you just said so.”

“I know,” Elsa mutters soothingly, hands rubbing calming patterns on Anna’s back, “but actions speak louder than words, and I know how much you love the Penguins. It’d be a travesty for me to leave without experiencing one of your biggest passions.”

Anna laughs wetly, squeezing Elsa closer. “You’re too good to me.”

“I could say the same,” Elsa replies. With a last pat to Anna’s back, she pulls away from the hug, hands cupping Anna’s face to wipe away any errant tears. “Now, c’mon let’s try those jerseys on and make sure I got the right size.”

Nodding and smiling wide enough to hurt her cheeks, Anna lets her arms slip away from Elsa’s waist. This crush will really be the death of her.

“And cut! That’s a wrap, everybody!” the director shouts, and the crew stops whatever they were doing to clap and cheer.

Elsa walks off the set, thanking everyone she passes, until she finds Anna, sitting in her cast chair and clapping bemusedly with everyone else.

“I’m confused,” Anna admits as she watches the crew tear down the set. It’s only 2:30, and the crew doesn’t usually disassemble anything until 5:30 at the earliest.

“We’re done with filming,” Elsa explains, hand covering Anna’s naturally, like a habit. “Now it’s on to post-production for a few months, then a press tour, and then it’s release time.”

“Already?” Anna asks, looking around the set with new eyes. “It’s only been five months.”

Elsa laughs, the sound more subdued than Anna’s used to. “We’re ahead of schedule. Very ahead of schedule.”

“So what happens now?”

“My manager will book me a flight back to L.A., and we go back to our lives as normal,” Elsa says, hand still playing with Anna’s fingers.

“Time flies when you’re having fun, huh?” Anna jokes, and it isn’t until Elsa frowns that she realizes that she’s not hiding the sudden drop in her mood well. “Do you know when you’re headed back? We still have that game to go to.”

“The director’s assistant should have contacted my manager a couple days ago, so I have maybe a week? It really depends on how full the flights west are,” Elsa explains. The frown is still on her face, and Anna’s never quite wished she could act before this moment. Anything to get Elsa to stop looking at her like this. “I’ll definitely be around for the game, don’t worry about that.”

Forcing a grin on her face, Anna takes her other hand and pulls on one of Elsa’s belt loops. “I guess there’s no way to convince you to stick around for the rest of the month anyway? I’m not sure if I want to go back my boring, old life yet.”

“Gonna miss the actor’s life?” Elsa quips.

“Almost as much as I’m gonna miss you,” Anna answers, revelling in the light blush that grows on Elsa’s cheeks.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Elsa tells her, draping her free arm over Anna’s shoulder. “Meeting you was my favorite part of filming this movie.”

With a wry smile, Anna gives the belt loop caught in her finger another tug. “Aw, you’re making me blush.”

“Literally,” Elsa quips, and Anna laughs, untangling herself from Elsa’s half-embrace to stand.

“Well, it looks like you only have a few more days here, so you better start thinking how you want to spend them now.”

“With you,” Elsa says, and Anna flushes at how quickly and frankly she answered. “You’re the only thing I won’t have or be able to get in L.A.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Anna fights the smile that tugs at her lips and the warmth that blooms in her chest. “I’ll be right here with you all the way to the airport, if you want,” she tells Elsa, losing the battle with her feelings when a bright grin grows on Elsa’s face.

“Good. I can’t think of a better send-off.”

How about one where you don’t leave? Anna thinks, feeling her smile droop, but the sheer affection in Elsa’s eyes is enough to save her mood. “Me neither,” she says instead.

At least she’ll be there when it all ends.

The Pens games is, of course, amazing, even with the looming sadness of Elsa’s approaching departure.

Anna had forgotten how much fun it is to be in the stands, watching the game in person, since the last time she’d managed to snag a ticket. Student Rush is great, but it did stop being an option once she stopped being a student.

And that’s not to mention the seats. Anna’s certain she’s never experienced a game like this, seeing the action from practically center ice, sitting right behind the Pens bench.

It’s so much fun, she hardly pays any mind to the number of phones pointed at her and Elsa. Or at least, she hardly pays any mind until Elsa mentions it.

“This may be the worst scandal of my career,” Elsa whispers into Anna’s ear, breath tickling her and making her shiver. “What will people say when they see me in this jersey? Supporting the Pens?”

Anna laughs, brushing Elsa’s braid out of the way so it won’t obscure the name on the back. “Just tell them the truth,” Anna says. “Your cute girlfriend got you super into hockey.”

Elsa just rolls her eyes before flicking Anna on the forehead. “Excuse me, but I still don’t know half the rules.”

“Maybe you would if you hadn’t stopped listening to me halfway through my explanation to take selfies,” Anna chides.

“They were cute selfies. You were in half of them.”

“Not denying,” Anna says. “Just reminding you that you made this bed, and you’re gonna have to sleep in it.”

Elsa frowns at her playfully and opens her mouth to retort, but anything she would say is lost to the sudden uproar of the crowd around them. Both women look around in confusion, Anna momentarily worried that Elsa distracted her from watching someone score, but Elsa tugs on her sleeve and point up at the scoreboard.

They’re on the large screen hanging above the rink, their image framed by the pink and red kiss cam border.

“Oh no,” Anna whimpers, torn between looking at the screen in horror and looking at the crowd in horror. Said crowd, obviously displeased with how little action they’re seeing on the screen, cheers harder.

“Should we give them what they want?” Elsa asks, one hand slipping around the back of Anna’s neck to draw her attention away from everything around them. The crowd only seems spurred on by the affection.

"And since when have you cared what the crowd wants?" Anna responds.

"Please, Anna," Elsa laughs, "it's my job to please the public." Her hand gives Anna's neck a light squeeze.

Anna has a response on the tip of her tongue, but Elsa's already leaning in and giving Anna the softest kiss she's ever experienced as the crowd around them goes wild. It takes a few seconds for them to break the kiss, and by the time they do, the kiss cam has already moved to a different couple.

"It's your job to act," Anna says quietly, eyes dropping to her lap. It was easy while it lasted, between the flirting and the skinship, to let herself think that Elsa might feel the same way she does, but with only a few days left of Elsa’s time in Pittsburgh, Anna is painfully reminded that Elsa is an actress, and a good one, at that.

Elsa still has a hand on the back of her neck, and the feeling of it burns the skin it touches. "Huh?"

"It's your job to act,” Anna repeats, louder. “Not to please people.”

“What’s the difference?” Elsa asks, wry smile playing on her lips. She takes her hand back, and Anna’s chest lights afire in pain.

It was so easy to let herself think that Elsa might feel the same way. But Elsa is an actress, and a good one, at that.

And everything they had together was just an act.

Anna’s about to excuse herself, the crowded stadium suddenly too much for her, but the speakers start blaring horns to signal a goal scored, and Elsa’s grabbing her arm in excitement as the crowd loses it.

“That was Kunitz!” Elsa says, teetering on the edge of her seat like she wants to jump out of it. The stadium is collectively letting out a loud, low cheer (“Kuuuuuun”), and Elsa joins in, picking up on the rituals despite being completely new to the sport.

“You’re only cheering because that’s the only player you know,” Anna accuses jokingly, hoping that her light laugh will clear the pressure in her ribcage.

It doesn’t.

“He’s the only player I know because he’s your favorite,” Elsa shoots back, sending Anna a cheeky grin over her shoulder.

“And now you know why he’s my favorite,” Anna says, glad that Elsa’s so involved with the game that she isn’t paying attention to Anna.

The players set up for another face-off, and Anna watches them idly, willing herself to at least enjoy herself. This is probably the last quality time she’ll get with Elsa before she goes back to L.A.

With a frown, Anna glances at Elsa’s back, the other woman still poised to launch from her seat at the next big play, and reaches out to grab Elsa’s hand, smiling slightly when Elsa instinctively intertwines their fingers.

It was fun while it lasted, Anna tells herself, resolutely ignoring how she wishes it could last forever.

The drive to the airport is bit more subdued than Anna was expecting, though it’s easy to blame that on the early hour and ignore her own somber mood. Glancing at Elsa as she stares blankly out the front windshield, Anna supposes that neither of them are particularly keen on saying goodbye.

The mood only seems to worsen as Anna pulls into the terminal, hopping out of the car first to pop the trunk and grab Elsa’s bags. Elsa takes her time getting out of the car, dragging herself out of the seat sluggishly.

“Too early for this, huh?” Anna jokes, placing Elsa’s suitcases on the sidewalk.

“You’re telling me,” Elsa mutters before yawning. “Why Kai had to book me such an early flight, I’ll never know.”

“At least you’ll get back to California at a reasonable time, right?”

“‘Reasonable’,” Elsa scoffs tiredly. “It’ll be eight when I get in. No one who doesn’t have to work a desk job is up at eight.”

Chuckling as she walks Elsa through the sliding doors and to flight check-in, Anna nudges the exhausted woman with her elbow. “So you can just sleep the day away, then. Get over your jet lag.”

“I think I’m just going to sleep on the plane,” Elsa says. “How are you so awake anyway?”

I was too anxious about you leaving to get any sleep, Anna thinks, instead answering, out loud, “Coffee. Lots of it.”

Elsa glances at her watch, half-moaning when she sees what time it is. “And why would you do that to yourself?”

“Didn’t want to crash on the way here,” Anna says with a shrug, dragging Elsa’s bags through the first class line. “Can you imagine the news reports? ‘Elsa Frost killed in tragic car accident by careless PA’.”

“Well if I was dead, I wouldn’t have to be awake right now,” Elsa jokes, tapping her flight information into the check-in kiosk. “God, I’m looking forward to L.A.’s dry heat, though. This humidity does terrible things to my hair.”

With a small laugh, Anna loads Elsa’s check bag onto the scale. “Says the lady who won People Magazine’s ‘Sexiest Woman Alive’ last year.”

“Heard about that, did you?” Elsa laughs. “I thought you didn’t keep up with celebrity gossip.”

“I did some research after I got hired,” Anna admits, shouldering one of Elsa’s carry-ons as they head towards security.

Elsa hums lightly, a small smile still on her lips. “That seems so long ago now, doesn’t it? But it’s only been five months.”

“It’s been a pretty packed five months,” Anna says. They wait at the entrance to the line, security packed despite the early hour. “We did a lot in that time.”

“It has. We did,” Elsa agrees. “It’s a pity that it ended as quickly as it did.”

Anna can’t fight the frown that tugs at the corner of her lips. “Yeah,” she mutters, directing her attention to the small café outside of the security line so Elsa won’t be able to see the expression on her face. “It’s gonna be weird not having you around.”

Elsa, luckily, doesn’t seem to notice the shift in her mood, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “I guess that means you’ll just have to keep up with my celebrity news,” she jokes, bumping her head against Anna’s, and they walk like that for a while, head-to-head, each with a bag.

“Well, seeing you in action certainly made me a fan,” Anna says. “Not sure if I’ll see the movie, though. I’m really not that into rom coms, and I’m not sure about their casting choice for the co-stars.”

“Hey!” Elsa protests, taking her arm back to swat at Anna’s shoulder. “You better see this movie in theaters. Your name will be in the credits.”

Laughing despite her subdued mood, Anna slips an arm around Elsa’s waist and pulls her into a half-hug. “I don’t know, eleven dollars is a lot of money just to barely catch my names as it goes by in the credits. And that one actress, the blonde one? I hear she was fooling around with her PA. I’m not sure if I want to support someone like that.”

“You’re such a dork,” Elsa says, pulling out her phone to find her boarding pass.

“But I’m your dork,” Anna shoots back. “Or, at least, I’m your dork for the next three minutes, and then I’m off payroll.”

Elsa laughs, clear and bright, and Anna can already tell she’s going to sorely miss the sound. “All that means is I’m going to have a opening for a the position of personal dork. You’re always welcome to apply.”

“I’ll send Kai my application as soon as I get home,” Anna quips. There’s only a handful of people in line ahead of them, so she fully turns to Elsa for the first time since they entered the line, feeling her stomach drop. “So I guess this is it,” she says, smiling because she doesn’t want to send Elsa off with anything less.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Elsa mutters, walking into Anna’s arms when she opens them. “I’m going to miss you, so much.”

“Me, too,” Anna says into the crook of Elsa’s neck, “but I’m glad we had the chance to meet.”

When she pulls away, Elsa has tears in her eyes and she lets out a wet chuckle. “Me, too. I’m so glad I met you.”

Only one person stands between them and the TSA officer, so Anna musters the little courage she can find beneath the overwhelming sense of sadness churning in her stomach and pushes onto her toes to press a light kiss to Elsa’s lips, grinning almost automatically when Elsa returns the pressure. A cough from somewhere behind them reminds them of where they are, and with a cursory glance at the open space in front of them, Anna lets Elsa go.

She watches as Elsa hands the officer her passport and phone, keeping an eye on her as she moves to the line for the body scanner. Once Elsa’s on the other side of security, bags back in her possession, she turns around, catching Anna’s eye and waving at her. Anna waves back, watching until Elsa’s out of sight.

It’s only then that she lets herself break down, crying in the airport like she’s in some teen drama.

Anna’s not entirely sure how she gets home after that. She has vague memories of leaving the airport and finding her car, but the next thing she knows, she’s back home, huddled under her covers and face pressed into the pillow that still smells slightly like Elsa from the last time she slept there.

She’s not crying anymore, but between her swollen eyes and the dregs of her caffeine high wearing off, she lets herself drift off, hoping that by the time she wakes up, her heart will have stopped pumping pure pain through her veins.

Somehow, she thinks that isn’t likely.

It’s stupid really, how hung up Anna still is, months after Elsa’s departure. They’d decided from the start that their fake relationship would end once Elsa finished filming; there’s no reason she should still be so upset Elsa’s gone.

Except for the part where she fell in love when she totally should not have.

So it’s both a blessing and a curse that Elsa starts doing a lot of promotional work for her new movie just a couple of months after she leaves. Talk show appearances, magazine interviews, photoshoots -- all of them give Anna an opportunity to see her, even if she can’t actually see her.

Anna refuses to let herself dwell on just how much Elsa has changed her, how she went from someone oblivious to celebrities and their lives to someone desperate to hear more and more about an actress. She ignores how her priorities have flipped, how she spends fewer nights out at clubs or bars and more nights in her apartment, keeping up on Elsa’s celebrity gossip.

She buys celebrity magazines almost compulsively now, eating up any information she can about the woman she fake-dated for five months, and, as ridiculous as it is, she budgets for it now, to keep herself from going overboard.

And that’s how Anna finds herself watching some vapid, late-night talk show while her friends are out at the bar living up their mid-twenties like she used to. She doesn’t care about the jokes or skits that take up the first half-hour of the show, nor does she even know whose show it is, but she is painfully aware that the commercial previews advertised that Elsa would be on the show that day to promote her new movie.

Her phone is buzzing incessantly -- her friends, no doubt, insisting that she come join them; she never told them about her deal with Elsa, so they only know what the media knows, and they’re worried that she’s taking the break-up badly. If only they knew -- but the sound doesn’t register once she sees a familiar blonde walk on-screen, looking just as beautiful as she did the day Anna saw her off in the airport.

The interview starts off slowly as Elsa and the talk show host chat about how great she looks (Anna doesn’t need them to tell her that; she’s all too aware already) and the film’s plot. In a few minutes, the screen cuts to a scene from the movie, Elsa and Hans holding hands as they run from the rain before stopping under a bus stop overhang to finally confess the feelings they have for each other. The sneak peak stops before the kiss that Anna remembers watching from the sidelines.

That had been so early in their relationship, Anna hadn’t even considered being jealous about it. Now, overwhelming relief floods through her once she realizes she won’t have to watch it again.

Refocusing on the screen, the audience’s applause dies down as Elsa smiles proudly at her work and the host turns back to her.

“Amazing,” he says. “You’ve really grown as an actress since the first time you sat in that chair.”

“Thank you,” Elsa replies, still smiling graciously. “It means a lot to hear you say that.”

The host grins back, like an affectionate uncle. “But a lot has happened in your life beside your acting career, hasn’t it?” he asks. “People can not stop talking about that five-month fling you had with your personal assistant. Could you tell us about that?”

Elsa laughs, but to Anna’s ears, it sounds nervous. “What do you want to know?”

“How did it happen? Are you still together? That kind of thing. There aren’t many details out there.”

“Well, I’ve been trying not to talk about it too much, out of respect for her privacy. No one likes having their lives on display, but Anna’s not a celebrity, so she’s definitely not used to things like this.” Elsa explains, hands fiddling with each other.

“Oh, so her name is Anna?” the host asks, and Elsa winces. Not enough for most people to pick up, but Anna’s used to noticing all of Elsa’s subtleties.

“Yes, and that’s all you’re getting about her private life!” Elsa jokes back, the audience chuckling with her.

The host laughs too and takes a quick sip from the mug on his desk. “So how did you start seeing this Anna girl?”

“Well as I’m sure you already know, she was my PA for One Step Closer. We spent a lot of time together, and we just sort of clicked,” Elsa says. “I don’t think either of us was expecting anything lasting out of it, really, but having her there on set made it one of my favorite movies to film.” The audience coos, as if on cue, and Elsa turns to the crowd to smile, embarrassed.

“Wow, it sounds like you really care about her. So are you still dating?”

Elsa shakes her head. “No, we broke up after filming ended, shortly before I left.”

“Why is that?” the host asks, pressing for a more-detailed answer, and Anna waits for Elsa to recite one of the reasons they had practiced. They play in her head (long distance is so hard, we always knew it would only last as long as the filming did, we’re from different worlds so it would have never lasted), and it’s going to kill her to hear Elsa say one out loud.

But Elsa doesn’t answer like she’s expecting. Rather, she smiles sadly, hands clasped in her lap and no longer fidgeting, and says, “I realized a little too late that I’m in love with her.” The audience erupts in chatter, and Anna can feel her throat go dry, exposed to the open air by her hanging jaw. “By the time I figured out how much I need her, I was already on the plane back to California, and she was still on the ground in Pittsburgh.”

The host splutters, obviously blindsided by Elsa’s answer. Anna doesn’t blame the man; she feels the same way. “So what are you going to do?” he asks, slowly regaining his composure.

“I’m not sure what I can do, honestly. She was given a disposable business phone as part of her contract, so I don’t have a way to contact her anymore. Besides that, I don’t even know if she would want to continue a relationship with me. We were pretty clear when it started that it was only supposed to last as long as I was in town.”

“Wow, that’s rough,” the host says.

“It’s hardly ideal,” Elsa agrees with a small laugh.

“Well, do you know what I think you should do?” he asks, smiling when Elsa shakes her head. “I think you should book a ticket for the next flight to Pittsburgh, find that girl, and let her know how you feel.”

And that’s when Anna hears a knock on her door.

Elsa’s saying something on the TV still, so it takes all of Anna’s willpower to drag herself from her couch to answer the door. Once she gets there, she flings it open, not wasting time to check the peephole first.

“Yeah, what do you want?” she asks, the words dying in her throat as she recognizes the blue eyes staring her down from the porch. “Elsa?”

The name is barely out of her mouth before Elsa steps closer and kisses her hard, hands grabbing her hips to pull her close. Anna reacts instinctively, kissing back without a second thought as her arms wrap themselves around Elsa’s shoulders. When they finally break apart, Elsa burrows her face in the crook of Anna’s neck, hands sliding off Anna’s hips to clasp behind her back.

“What are you doing here?” Anna asks, enjoying the feeling of Elsa’s breath on her neck and arms around her waist. Elsa mumbles something into her collarbone, and Anna chuckles both from the tickling sensation of Elsa’s lips and the action itself. “No, really, Elsa. Why did you come back here?”

Elsa lifts her head and frowns. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Anna laughs, and the sound is foreign to her ears. When was the last time she actually laughed? “Maybe,” she says, “but maybe I want to hear you say it.”

Elsa’s face splits into a huge grin at the sound of Anna’s laugh, and she leans down to press her forehead against Anna’s. “I love you,” she says. “And I was really stupid to not have noticed it sooner.”

“Yeah, you are,” Anna agrees, the grin on her face stretching from ear to ear, “but I love you anyway.”

Chuckling breathlessly, Elsa drops her head to Anna’s shoulder and squeezes her waist. “I’m so happy to hear you say that.”

“You’re not the only one,” Anna replies, lifting a hand to stroke Elsa’s hair. “Do you want to come inside?”

“Give me a minute. I’m enjoying this.”

Anna laughs again, tightening her hold on the woman in her arms. “That’s good, but I have idea that I think you’d like even more.”

Elsa lifts her head, one eyebrow raised in challenge, so Anna stands on her tiptoes and presses their lips together. When Elsa clutches her waist even tighter, she slips her hands around to grab the front of Elsa’s shirt, pulling her as close a possible.

They stand like that for a few moments longer, but when they break apart, Anna yanks Elsa into her apartment and kicks the door closed behind them.

“This Tuesday at three? And there’s no way to reschedule that?” Elsa asks, sending Anna an apologetic smile over her shoulder. “No, I understand Kai. Thanks for setting everything up, really. I’ll see you tomorrow? Alright, bye.” She hangs up, tossing her phone onto the bed with a huff.

“Woah there, watch where you throw that thing!” Anna jokes from her place on the bed, a foot away from Elsa’s phone-missile. Elsa gives her a look, the one with the raised eyebrow and set jaw like she doesn’t find Anna just about the funniest person in the world. Anna opens her arms in invitation and mild apology. “C’mon, we can always reschedule date time.”

Elsa, for all her exasperated looks, accepts the cuddle without hesitation. “We’ve had this planned for the past three weeks,” she complains, nuzzling her head into the crook of Anna’s neck. “And I just got back from four months of filming in Europe. Excuse me for wanting some quality time with my girlfriend.”

“You’re excused,” Anna says with a chuckle at Elsa’s deadpan expression. “Tuesday’s in three days, babe. That’s plenty of time for us to make up for the past four months. We’re doing it right now.”

“Believe it or not, I occasionally like showing my cute girlfriend off to paparazzi sometimes,” Elsa protests. “Cuddling is nice, but I’m not about to let those skeeves into the house.”

Anna hums, pulling Elsa as close as she can. “Don’t tell me this is about that tabloid that came out last month.” Elsa just squirms in her arms. “Elsa, you know I don’t believe that crap. Hell, I wouldn’t have seen it even, if Kristoff hadn’t insisted on texting me about it.”

“Just because you know better doesn’t mean other people do,” Elsa says, finally settling down. “I want the paparazzi to know that I have someone that I’m very happy with, and that’s not about to change any time soon.”

“Ariel Triton?” Anna asks, laughing when Elsa smacks her chest, a little harder than entirely necessary. “Hey,” she says, sobering, “let’s just move date time to Wednesday. I never look good on Tuesdays, anyway.”

“Dork,” Elsa accuses, rolling her eyes when Anna sends her a faux-outraged look. “Alright fine, Wednesday date time, but you better make this up to me with amazing sex that night.”

Anna scoffs, playing up the offended act as much as she can. “‘Make it up to you’?” she asks. “You should be making this up to me, moving date time because you have work.”

“Says the girl who couldn’t go out with me on Monday because ‘the new gallery I helped curate opens Monday night, and I need to spend the whole day being nervous about it.’”

“That is a perfectly good reason, thank you very much,” Anna protests, though her façade of ire is no doubt ruined by the laughter coloring her voice.

“You’re welcome, dear,” Elsa says, pressing a kiss to Anna’s temple before snuggling back under Anna’s chin. “So, do we have a deal?”

“Tell you what,” Anna offers, “you do well at your audition on Tuesday, and I’ll give you amazing sex both nights. And maybe in the afternoon too, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“You’re insatiable.”

“You were the one who asked,” Anna shoots back, mood settling down as she and Elsa sink more and more into each others’ embraces. “I love you.”

Elsa smiles, absolutely radiant, and Anna can hardly believe that they managed get this far -- not that she’s about to give it up any time soon.

“I love you, too.”

#elsanna #my fic #romance #frozen

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ubertastic-writing · 11 years

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i'm on emirael's fic rec. excuse me while i just

#Mod Note #don't mind me #getting recced is just literally everything i've ever wanted

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ubertastic-writing · 11 years

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Your fic "Just Friends" is my most favorite one-shot of all time!!! You did a fantastic job :)

Yo thanks! It makes me happy to hear that you like something I wrote so much!

#asks: anon #Anonymous

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ubertastic-writing · 11 years

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(just gonna casually put this here)

I read the fic you wanted to talk about and OMG :o It's so pERFECT

ISN’T IT JUST LIKE WOW SO PERF

#no this isn't shameless self-promotion at all

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ubertastic-writing · 11 years

Text

sounds fun. might be on later than most, but i'll take drabble requests!

Saturday, March 15 is the #ElsannaSleepover

Hey so some people got together and talked. And now, this upcoming Saturday all Elsanna shippers are encouraged to hang out on tumblr and engage in silly sleepover-antics. Lots of headcanon sharing, making new friends, drawing fanart, and writing fics.

There’s no official start time, but most of the people participating thus far are In the British-to-Western-North-America sweep of the world, so things will probably pick up in the later evening in Europe and in the afternoon, Pacific time.

For those of us who are of-age and of the inclination, there will be a lot of drinking. For those not drinking, silliness and laughing your asses off at silly drunk posts is encouraged, as is egging on writers and artists attempting their crafts while intoxicated.

So this Saturday, we’re gonna be having a bunch of fun together, including, but not limited to the following methods of participation:

I, along with various other writers, will be taking and filling drabble requests. Possibly drunk. Artists are encouraged to offer sketch requests.

Ridiculous ask memes and general ask box silliness, crush sharing, and amusing headcanons are encouraged.

For those who want chat/video, alphaskag1 has offered up his tiny-chat here.

There will likely be a hella antics on the chatzy room here, but no video/audio capabilities.

If you want to chat with a random, try out omegle once things get rolling and list “ElsannaSleepover” as an interest so you only get people who are participating.

Some people have suggested using omegle for random rp matchups, but I don’t roleplay so if someone wants to get on organizing that, go for it.

Lots of CAH games, knowing us.

*sigh* aaaand I might be persuaded to live-write smut (again) on either google docs or on a chatroom. We’ll see.

Reblog with how you’ll be participating so we can all find one another and have a hella fun. Tag your plans with #ElsannaSleepover so we can find one another.

Personally, I’ll be doing drabble requests all Saturday afternoon. I made another quick fic code thing I’m excited guys. As the night wears on, however and I start drinking, they will likely go down in quality but hopefully up in amusement.

EDIT: I will also be compiling a masterlist of participants who are offering sketch requests/drabble requests/participating in some fashion that is interactive. If you want to be on it, reblog this with what you’re doing and I’ll make sure you’re on the list. I’ll publish it on Friday night or Saturday morning.

#ElsannaSleepover #elsanna

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ubertastic-writing · 11 years

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Just Friends

Fandom: Frozen

Pairing: Elsanna

Summary: Elsa still isn't entirely sure how Anna got it in her mind that they should be friends with benefits, but a few weeks and one set of unexpectedly romantic feelings in, their relationship will never be the same.

Based off a set of posts by tumblr user fixeruppr (here and here).

Outside Links: AO3 | ff.net

It’s normal for them, Elsa reasons, though she’s well-aware that it wouldn’t be normal for any other pair of friends. Anna’s just a touchy-feely person, she tells herself, and while Elsa’s never been the most comfortable with contact, something about Anna makes it feel natural, welcome.

So Elsa doesn’t question the hand-holding or the greeting hugs or the quick cheek pecks or the way they seem to comfortably settle into each other whenever they’re sitting even remotely closely. It never occurs to her that other people might think it’s strange that Anna’s arm, without fail, wraps itself around her shoulders or waist when they’re standing next to each other, or that she always lets her head ease its way down to Anna’s shoulder until she can feel the pressure of Anna’s cheek against the top of her head.

If anything, it makes her happy. Elsa’s glad to know she has a friend like Anna; one that brings her out of her shell with warm hugs and kisses pressed firmly to her cheeks.

When Anna asks if she can kiss her for real, while they’re watching some terrible horror flick in Anna’s apartment, Elsa is hardly given a second to wonder if that would be considered strange before Anna turns from the TV to stare at her directly.

“Just as friends, of course,” she explains, her one arm still slung over Elsa’s shoulders. She grins lopsidedly, like she didn’t just suggest that they should get even more intimate with each other.

Elsa’s weak to Anna’s smile, so she just nods and mutters a short “sure”, and the next thing she knows, Anna’s leaning down and pushing their lips together, gently as though if she’s too forceful, Elsa will pull away.

She doesn’t, and before she even has the chance to breathe, Anna’s ended the kiss, a small smile on gracing her lips.

“That was fun,” she states, “I should have asked if we could do that sooner.”

Elsa cracks her own smile, hardly larger than Anna’s, and agrees.

When she leaves that night for her own place, Anna leans in again and gives her another kiss, so light Elsa has to return the pressure just to confirm for herself that it actually happened.

Kissing is added to the list of things they do together. Neither thinks to question it.

“I know you and Elsa have been friends since the beginning of time, but don’t you think it’s just a little bit weird how touchy you are with each other?” Kristoff asks Anna one day, as they’re out grocery shopping.

“No?” Anna responds. She doesn’t bother to look up from the two loaves of bread she’s comparing. “Maybe it’s different for guys, but girls can totally hold hands and stuff without it being weird.”

Kristoff grabs one of the loaves, ignoring Anna’s protests about still looking at them. “You guys do a lot more than just ‘hold hands and stuff’. I mean, I get the occasional hug, but you practically make out every time you see each other. “

“So what?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs. “I’m just saying you guys act a whole lot less like friends and whole lot more like girlfriends.”

Anna laughs and walks to the end of the aisle, letting him trail behind her. “That’s ridiculous, Kristoff. There’s absolutely nothing romantic about our relationship.”

“All physical then, huh?” Kristoff shoots back, crossing his arms awkwardly around the hand basket he’s holding. “Like, girl-friends with benefits?”

“Puh-lease.” Anna rolls her eyes and tosses a box of cereal into the basket.

Kristoff doesn’t budge, raising an eyebrow and fixing her with a steady look of skepticism. “Uh huh. Well when it happens, don’t say I didn’t see it coming.”

Anna waves him off and continues to make her way through the store, resolutely pretending she isn’t thinking about what a good idea it was.

Elsa’s not sure how to take Anna’s new request.

Hugging? That’s fine; typical, even. Kissing? A bit more of a stretch, but for them, completely normal. Sex? Elsa’s mind can’t seem to process it.

“Uh, Anna? I really appre- I mean, I’m happy that you’d want to do something that intimate with me, but don’t you think it’s a little, well…” she trails off, desperately hoping Anna will realize that having sex is not just something that friends casually do with each other.

She doesn’t. “A little what?”

Elsa wrings her hands, “A little strange? It’s just that – isn’t, uh, sex something you’d want to do with your – oh, I don’t know – future boyfriend, maybe?”

“Yeah, well, duh,” Anna says simply, as though she honestly can’t comprehend why Elsa’s making such a big deal about it. “But we’re already kissing and I figured, hey, a little more tongue wouldn’t hurt anyone…” She finishes with a small shrug, her sheepish grin poorly masking how excited she is at the prospect of them sleeping together.

Elsa watches the way Anna’s hands find each other and pull at each other nervously. She briefly imagines what they would feel like on her body, and she flushes bright red at the thought, coughing to try to cover her embarrassment.

“Well?” Anna asks, expectantly. She’s biting her lip in a way that means she’s really putting herself out there and is actually nervous about possible rejection.

Elsa’s gaze flickers back up to her eyes, and she can see the swelling doubt in them. “I,” she starts, utterly unsure what she should say, before she remember that this is Anna, who she couldn’t bear upsetting. Anna, whose happiness means more to her than even her own.

And, if she’s going to be completely honest with herself, it isn’t like she’s never thought about getting a little bit friendlier with her best friend.

“Ok,” she says after a long pause, trying her best to keep her voice sounding even and not at all like her heart had jumped into her throat at the knowledge that she’s going to get it on with Anna of all people. “Let’s do it.”

Anna squeals happily and pulls her into a crushing hug. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” she cries, nuzzling her nose into the crook of Elsa’s neck.

Elsa returns the hug, arms wrapped tightly around Anna’s waist and heart ready to beat out of her chest.

The most surprising thing about being friends with benefits, Elsa learns, is not how not-awkward the first few times were, but how little their relationship actually changes.

They still kiss briefly when they met up and before they part ways. They still hold hands, swinging them in tandem as they walk side by side. They still cuddle, Elsa curled into Anna’s side as Anna holds her.

Really, the only difference is that instead of one of them leaving for home after a long night of TV and junk food, they spend the later parts of the night kissing on the couch before moving into the bedroom.

They spend so many nights in each other’s apartments, Elsa has trouble remembering which outfits she leaves where, and half the time she just ends up pulling on one of Anna’s shirts, knowing she’ll be returning it later that day anyway.

Anna always laughs on those days, when she pulls her shirt over Elsa’s head, kissing her way up Elsa’s torso as the skin is exposed.

It’s bright and early on Valentine’s Day when Elsa’s phone buzzes in its spot on her bedside table. Reaching out blindly for it, Elsa briefly checks the time (6 AM, she notes irritatedly) before sluggishly tapping the answer button.

“Hello?” she answers, her voice halfway between speech and a yawn.

“Elsa! Hey, what’s up?” Anna’s cheerful voice floats through her phone, and despite the distortion, Elsa can hear the smile in it.

“Anna, it’s six o’clock in the morning. Go back to sleep,” Elsa mutters sleepily.

“Oh, come on, now! The sky’s awake,” Anna starts.

“So you’re awake. I get it, I get it. What do you want?” Elsa asks, rolling over to pin the phone between her head and the pillow.

She can hear giggling on the other line before Anna speaks again. “It’s Valentine’s Day! Do you know what that means?”

“No, please enlighten me,” she responds, not even trying to disguise her sleepy amusement.

“It means we’re gonna spend the day together, obviously,” Anna tells her like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Elsa’s clearly crazy to have not realized it.

Elsa yawns, hand over her mouth trying to mask the sound. “Anna, we ‘spent’ all day together yesterday, and I’m completely worn out. I don’t think I could handle a second day of that.”

Anna huffs on the other line, and Elsa smiles sleepily. “That’s not what I meant!” she protests. “Look, you better get ready because I’m already leaving my apartment. I’ll see you in thirty.”

“Huh?”

“And dress nicely! I won’t be taking a bum out on a date!”

The phone’s call-ended sound plays lightly in her ear, but Elsa’s too busy falling back asleep to really notice it. Then Anna’s words set it.

She sits up abruptly, her phone slipping from her bed to the floor, the soft thud not even registering in her mind.

“A date,” she repeats incredulously, and for a few seconds, all she can hear is the sound of her heart pumping away, far faster than it usually does. “A date?”

Elsa springs from her bed, rushing to her closet and rooting through widely in her search for her nicest semi-casual clothes. She mentally curses herself when she realizes she left her favorite blouse at Anna’s last week and never bothered to pick it up.

Tossing the clothes she picked on her bed, she runs a hand through her hair and blanches. I still need to freshen up, she thinks, casting one last cursory glance at the sweater she pulled from her closet and wondering that’s really the best one she could have chosen.

Anna arrives right when she said she would, a large box of chocolates with a gaudy heart-shaped balloon tied to it in one hand. Her smile’s full to burst, and Elsa’s certain that if Anna smiled any more, her face would split in two.

“Excited?” Elsa asks, ignoring how breathless she sounds and how much noise her heart seems to be making.

“For this box of chocolates? Definitely,” Anna answers. “They were having a last-minute sale at the store down the street for all the jerks who forgot to get their girlfriends anything. I figure we can share it later tonight,” she explains, holding out the box and winking.

Elsa takes it, laughing. “And just what does it say about you since you took advantage of that sale?”

“Well, I’m planning on eating half of that, so I guess that makes me an opportunist.”

“Or a terrible boyfriend,” Elsa shoots back, laughter still coloring her voice. She moves from the doorway so Anna can enter her apartment.

Anna follows her in and winks, joking, “The sex is amazing, so you’ll never get rid of me.”

Elsa has to swallow the lump in her throat at that one. “Oh, well I guess I can’t deny that,” she responds, mentally berating herself for thinking about having sex with Anna before they even start their date.

She sets the chocolate down on her coffee table and turns to face the woman still standing by the door.

“So,” she starts, “where are you taking me?”

They get breakfast at a local café first, holding hands the whole time on their way there and as they leave. Next, Anna drags her to a nearby museum, pulling her from exhibit to exhibit as Anna tries to get as close to the displays as she can before the alarms sets off.

They’re eventually asked to leave, politely but with barely restrained annoyance, by a security guard. Anna makes a fuss the whole way out, only stopping once the guard is out of earshot and sliding an arm around Elsa’s waist as she guffaws at their situation.

It’s about noon when they come across a small arcade and Anna pulls her into that too, stating that they can’t leave until they’ve gotten through the whole zombie apocalypse game. They leave two hours later and twenty dollars down.

The next stop is a favorite diner of theirs for lunch, and when they finish, they stop in by Anna’s apartment for a break from walking all over town. Elsa yawns loudly the second they get through the door, and laughing, Anna tugs her into the bed room, making quick work of their outer layers. Elsa gives Anna a thankful hug and crawls under the covers, smiling lightly as Anna follows behind her and wraps her arms around her waist.

When they get up three hours later, Elsa feels somehow both refreshed and nervous as all hell, as though every single nerve in her body was lit on fire while she slept.

Now fully conscious, she can’t stop thinking about the things they had done that day. Everything was all completely normal for them – today certainly wasn’t the first time they were kicked out of a museum; the portrait gallery on the other side of town had Anna’s picture hanging by the front security desk as a warning – but when she thinks about the in the context of a date, Elsa can hardly stop the butterflies in the stomach from beating their wings wildly.

“Something wrong?” Anna asks when she notices how Elsa stopped putting her coat on midway.

“Huh?” Elsa responds instantly, head whipping around to look at Anna. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just wondering where we’re headed next.”

Anna crosses her arms to think, face scrunching up cutely as she considers their options. She seems to settle on something before long, and she’s soon hurrying Elsa to the door. “Let’s go watch a rom com!”

“Where? The local theater? We haven’t even looked up movie times.”

“No, silly, your place!” Anna tells her, ushering her out the door. “Your couch is way comfier than mine and your TV’s bigger.”

Elsa rolls her eyes and lets Anna push her out the door, patiently waiting while Anna locks up, and Anna links their arms the second she’s done.

“So I’m thinking either The Princess Bride or When Harry Met Sally. What do you think?”

There’s nothing strange about watching a movie together; they do it all the time, even. Anna’s got an arm around Elsa’s shoulder like usual, her other hand playing with one of Elsa’s. It’s all very normal for them. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Except for how cold and sweaty Elsa’s hands seem to have gotten, and no matter how much she prays that Anna won’t notice, she can feel the girl shift to look at her. With a cursory glance up, she can see the utterly adorable look of confusion of Anna’s face, eyebrows drawn together in slight concern.

Elsa looks back at the TV before Anna catches her sneaking a peek, and she refuses to look up again until she can feel Anna settle back into the couch, huffing softly at Elsa’s insistence to ignore her. Elsa’s certain her face is bright red, and, eyes peeking up as discretely as possible, she can tell Anna noticed that too, but right as she’s about to excuse herself for a moment, Anna gives her hand an extra squeeze and pulls Elsa closer into her side.

Well-aware that she couldn’t leave now even if she wanted to, Elsa lets herself relax, doing her best to pretend her heartbeat doesn’t pick up every time Anna snuggles into her.

The next thing Elsa fully registers is Anna removing the arm wrapped around her and making to get off the couch. She’s about to resist the movement until she notices the credits rolling on her TV screen. Looking up at Anna, she opens her mouth, a question already bubbling in her throat when Anna smiles at her apologetically.

“Sorry, I’ve got an early lecture tomorrow morning,” Anna explains. “I should probably head back to my place now.”

Elsa numbly nods. “Yeah, of course,” she says, getting off the couch and following Anna to the door of her apartment. “I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow, right?”

“I’ve never missed a lunch date with you and Kristoff yet, and I don’t plan on starting now,” Anna jokes. She looks into Elsa eyes, waiting patiently and expectantly, and it takes a beat, but Elsa realizes that she’s expecting a kiss.

Which should be fine. After all, they’ve done it a million times. But this time is different. This time they just finished a date, and Elsa isn’t sure if goodnight kisses on the first date are something that people do or if it’s something she should do.

She stares right back at Anna, thoughts running a mile a minute through her head before she remembers that this shouldn’t affect her like it does. She should be calm; kissing is something she’s done before – even if it’s after a date – and this is Anna, her closest friend.

Anna’s gaze flickers downward, obviously hurt by Elsa’s hesitance to kiss her, so Elsa quickly leans down and presses their lips together.

It’s meant to be a short, innocent kiss, but Anna clearly has a different plan for it. Her hands grips at Elsa’s hips, pulling her in and holding the two of them close together. Her mouth works smoothly, nipping at Elsa’s bottom lip until she parts them, and her tongue takes advantage of the opening to slide into Elsa’s mouth.

Elsa melts into the kiss, one hand tangled in Anna’s hair while the other desperately tugs at her shirt. But something about it isn’t right. She’s enjoying it and feeling almost lightheaded from the sensations, but it’s weird. Everything just feels weird.

Breaking the kiss, Elsa closes her eyes, terrified that if she opens them, she would have to see Anna staring back at her. Just looking at Anna at all seems like a bad idea, even though the thought of seeing the girl breathless and smiling after the kiss makes a strange heat blossom in her chest. She leans forward, letting her forehead bump against Anna’s.

“Text me when you get back to your apartment, alright?” Elsa asks, eyes still closed.

Anna pushes their lips together briefly for one last time. “Of course.” She lets Elsa’s hips go, and Elsa can feel a rush of cool air hit her as the door opens. “Good night, Elsa.”

Sleep is annoyingly elusive that night after Elsa crawls into bed. Elsa can only stare at the ceiling of her bedroom wondering what could have possibly changed between them that would make her feel such an odd mixture of elation and nausea.

By the time Elsa rushes into the cafe across from the campus gates, Anna and Kristoff are already sitting at one of the window tables. She spots a third cup sitting on the table as she walks up, and she smiles lightly at her friends’ consideration.

“Sorry I’m late,” she greets, draping her bag off the back of her chair.

Anna leans over the second she sits down to give her a quick peck on the lips, something that makes Elsa flush and quickly hide her face with the coffee they got her.

Kristoff gives her a curious look but says nothing, opting instead to turn to Anna and ask her, “So how was your Valentine’s Day? You seemed pretty excited about it when you called me the night before.”

“It was great!” Anna tells him, catching Elsa’s eye and grinning at her. “Elsa and I were valentines.”

“Oh, really,” Kristoff enthuses, eyebrows raised and looking between the two of them approvingly. “Well it’s about damn time, jeez.”

Anna squints her eyes, her face an odd mixture of confusion and worry. “What do you mean?”

“The two of you together! I mean, I get that you guys were making that whole ‘friends-with-benefits’ thing work out all right, but, I don’t know,” he pauses, running a hand through his hair, “something about you guys going out just makes sense.”

Elsa, who had just attempted to take another sip of her coffee, chokes at Kristoff’s statement, bringing her hand up to her mouth to stop herself from spraying the mouthful all over the table. She doesn’t even get a chance to consider swallow before Anna cuts in.

“Wha? No, Kristoff; you’ve got it all wrong! Elsa and I were friend-valentines! Just as friends, right Elsa?” She rounds on Elsa, looking at her pleadingly and silently asking for her support. Elsa catches one glance at Anna’s face and almost chokes again, swallowing thickly and coughing when the liquid slips down her windpipe.

Both Anna and Kristoff react immediately, pounding her back as she coughs out the coffee she inhaled, and the second she can speak again, she settles on a topic she knows always distracts her two friends.

“How’s Sven?” she asks, voice still hoarse from coughing. She internally prays that they won’t continue to press her on Valentine’s Day, and much to her luck, Kristoff’s eyes light up and he starts on a long-winded story about his dog.

When she catches Anna’s eye again, she deflects the concerned look with a shaky smile.

Anna and Kristoff have a lecture together right after lunch, and Elsa’s done for the day, so she says goodbye to them at the café entrance and heads off back to her apartment. The walk back is by no means long, but after the conversation at lunch, it feels like too much time for Elsa to be alone in her head.

She really shouldn’t be surprised it was just a friends thing, she reasons, annoyed at herself for getting so worked up about it. There’s no reason for her to make such a big deal out of it, even if it’s only mentally. And besides, their relationship is good – great, even – the way that it is. She shouldn’t mess it up by worrying about such silly things.

She shouldn’t mess it up by worrying about such silly things, she tells herself again, like repeating it will somehow make it more convincing.

Their relationship doesn’t really change after the day-after-Valentine’s fiasco. Anna still comes over on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and Elsa still goes to visit her on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. They still cuddle up when they sit together on the couch, and they still get frisky almost every other night.

Everything’s back to normal, even if Elsa still feels overly-conscious of every bit of contact the two of them have. She resolutely ignores the way just being around Anna seems to put her on edge, and she passes off the feeling of near-constant anxiousness as stress.

But she can’t deny the way she doesn’t want to get out of bed on the days that she stays over at Anna’s. She also can’t deny her desire to start making them breakfast, maybe surprising Anna with it before she wakes up.

Then there’s the restless way she can’t seem to get comfortable at night unless Anna’s got her arms wrapped around her, something Elsa never had to deal with before the nap they took during their Valentine’s date.

And it’s seems she’s developed an addiction to making Anna laugh, no matter how terrible or corny the joke, because she just wants to see the way Anna’s whole face lights up when she laughs, her mouth stretched in such a perfect smile.

Elsa finds herself initiating the contact between them more, doing things she always let Anna do before, just so they can touch. She starts laying her head in Anna’s lap, head spinning when Anna’s hands gently comb their way through her hair. She spends less time paying attention to the TV they watch and more time glancing at Anna’s profile, heart swelling with every little smile and show of emotion.

She can hardly walk down the street or around campus or through the local grocery store without thinking of things she can do with Anna, presents she could get Anna, ways she could surprise Anna…

Anna, Anna, Anna, Anna…

It confuses her completely, her sudden preoccupation with her best friend. The feelings are completely alien, nothing like she’s felt since she met the other girl or in the year they’ve been a little bit more than just friends.

Eventually it occurs to her that she can’t keep on like this, so she calls Kristoff one night when Anna’s not around, and explains every painful detail of her turbulent emotional state.

Kristoff spends the next three minutes utterly silent, before he mutters a soft, “Oh, Elsa.”

“What?” she shoots back, a little too vehement, and she winces at the sharpness of her tone.

“Elsa, you like Anna. And not in a friend way either,” he explains, his voice gentle, as though he’s afraid of how she might react to the news. “You’re in love with her.”

Elsa almost drops her phone as he says it, and she drops to her couch, unsure whether her legs can really hold her for all the shaking they’re doing.

“No,” she responds, quiet but determined. She speaks up, adding a little force to her voice. “No, I can’t be. I’m not going there, Kris. Not with Anna.”

She can practically hear him shrug in defeat, but he doesn’t try to push her any more. “Alright, fine,” he says, resigned. “I can’t tell you to acknowledge it, but just remember, you won’t be able to run from it forever.”

With that, he wishes her a quick goodnight and hangs up.

Even after a month of constant denial, Elsa is no closer to shaking off the weird feelings she get whenever she’s around Anna. She likes to think that she’s gotten better at not thinking about Anna all the time, but every time Kristoff gives her a knowing look, she knows there’s no point in pretending she’s come that far.

Her and Anna’s relationship still continues the same as always, and Elsa takes that as a small blessing, that her emotional turmoil does not affect one of the best parts of her life. She almost thinks that she might be able to keep living like this forever, resolutely ignoring the conversation she had with Kristoff so many nights ago.

But then Anna tells her about Hans.

He’s some boy in her Norwegian History discussion section, and, if the way Anna speaks about him is any indication, he’s the best thing to happen to the human race.

He’s handsome and charming and such a nice guy. Funny, but not in an asshole-ish way; he’s quirky, like Anna’s quirky, and sometimes she feels like he’s the only one who really gets her.

“He’s absolutely perfect,” Anna finishes, staring dreamily in the distance and toying with her food. She doesn’t seem the notice the way Elsa’s face progressively fell throughout the night, and, picking at her own food sullenly, Elsa almost regrets insisting that she cook for them tonight.

“He sounds wonderful, Anna,” she says, ignoring how every nerve in her body feels like it’s screaming in pain, but she can’t block out the way her heart pounds forcefully against her chest or the sound of blood rushing in her ears.

Anna smiles at her, mouth stretching from ear to ear, and Elsa can feel another punch to her gut at the knowledge that someone else put it on her face. Anna looks away, almost shyly, shortly after and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear, an old nervous tick of hers Elsa can spot from a mile away.

“About that, actually,” Anna starts, teeth worrying her bottom lip. “He really likes me, and I like him too, so… I, uh, I think we should stop.”

Elsa can feel her expression freeze on her face. “Stop?” she asks, terrified by what Anna could possibly mean.

“Stop sleeping together. I mean, the sex is great, and I’ll always be your friend, but… Hans,” Anna explains, finishing sheepishly as though she didn’t just spend the night raving about the man.

Elsa wants to say something in response, but the second she tries to make her voice work, she can already feel it giving out on her. She nods quickly, hoping Anna doesn’t wonder why she clammed up so quickly.

To her luck, Anna doesn’t, though she does leap out of her chair and rush to Elsa’s side of the table, pulling her up so she can kiss her on the cheek and give her a crushing hug.

“Thanks for being so understanding,” Anna tells her, her voice muffled from the way her face is pressed into the crook of Elsa’s neck. “You’re the best friend in the world.”

Elsa returns the hug hesitantly, as though she’s not sure if she’s even allowed hugs anymore, and tries to ignore the way holding Anna only makes the pain worse.

After Anna’s left and her apartment is empty, Elsa sits on her couch, numbly noting that it’s a little lonelier than she’s used to, sitting there by herself.

She has a book open on her lap, but she doesn’t register the words on the page and isn’t fully aware of how she got even got there. Her heartbeat is the only sound in the room, but even more than the way it pounds in her ears, she can feel it beat against her rib cage like it’s taunting her for caring for someone so much.

Her chest aches in a way she can’t really explain, like it’s on fire but also being crushed with all the pressure of a black hole. All she can think about is how stupid she was thinking all those weeks that she didn’t love Anna. That she couldn’t love Anna.

She certainly isn’t a love expert, but the way she’s feeling now – the pain, the ringing in her ears, the sheer speed and intensity of her heartbeat – can only mean one thing.

She’s heartbroken.

Elsa finds it unbelievably hard to see Anna again after that night, and, though she knows it would be impossible to avoid her completely, she tries to keep their time together extra short.

It helps that Anna spends so much time with Hans now, though thinking about that drives spikes through her chest.

Now when they meet up for their daily lunch dates with Kristoff, Hans joins them, always taking the seat nearest Anna and holding her hand on the table for nearly the entire meal. Elsa scoots her chair closer to Kristoff and tries her best to avoid eye contact with Anna on the other side of the table.

Conversation is considerably harder to stay away from, and it seems like every time her attention drifts away, Anna pulls her back with a question directed to her. Elsa answers each one to varying degrees of coldness, some bordering on warm while others sound so aloof even she’s surprised at herself.

For every gruff answer she gives, she can see Anna’s face drop, and that’s almost enough to get her to open up again, but then she hears Hans drag Anna’s attention back to him, and she clams up again.

Kristoff stealthily bumps her knee with his under the table, and Elsa’s phone buzzes where she had placed it on the table, a text message notification popping up on the screen. It’s from Kristoff.

Hang in there, okay?

Sven bounds around the snowy ground, tail wagging and head whipping from sculpture to sculpture.

“It’s been a while since we’ve hung out alone, hasn’t it?” Kristoff asks, softly as though if he speaks too loudly, he’ll damage the ice around them.

“Actually, I don’t know if we’ve ever really hung out alone,” Elsa responds, her own voice barely above a whisper as she marvels at the pure artistry that surrounds her.

They come to a halt in front of one of the most intricate of the ice sculptures in the exhibit. “Well thanks for coming anyway,” he tells her, leaning down slightly so that she can hear him.

“No, I should thank you. This is really getting my mind of the whole…” she trails off.

Kristoff turns to face her, nudging her shoulder to do the same. “Oh no, you don’t,” he says. “You are not thinking about that today. Today is about ice, so you are only going to think about ice. Got it?”

Elsa smiles sheepishly at him, hoping to thank him telepathically because she’s not sure if she can really speak at the moment. He grins back, and she knows that he understands.

They’re about to move to look at another sculpture when they hear a whimper and some shocked gasps. Spinning around, they spot Sven, tongue stuck to a sculpture of a snowman and desperately trying to free himself.

Kristoff heaves a sigh, running a hand over his face. “And I told him to behave and everything.”

Hand darting up to cover her mouth, Elsa giggles, and it’s the first time she can honestly say she’s laughed in weeks.

It’s pretty rare for Elsa to get a call from Kristoff, especially so late at night. Tapping the answer button, she hardly gets the phone to her ear before he’s talking at her.

“Elsa! Hey, sorry for calling so late, but it’s Anna.”

Her heart picks up in love-struck excitement at the mention of Anna’s name but accelerates even faster in worry at Kristoff’s tone.

“What about her? Is something wrong?” she interrogates him, one hand pressed to her chest in a vain attempt to slow her heart rate down.

“It’s Hans,” Kristoff explains, keeping his voice calm, as though he knows how worried Elsa is. “It turns out he’s a huge asshole.”

For all his concern, it doesn’t help at all, and Elsa’s barely containing her emotions when she grits out, “Is Anna okay? Did he hurt her at all?”

“No! No, Anna’s okay, Elsa. If anything, Hans is the one hurting right now.”

“What happened?” she demands, unconvinced that Anna could have gotten out unscathed after butting heads with Hans.

“Hans tried to get Anna to sleep with him before she was ready to,” Kristoff tells her, careful to cut her off when she tries to get a word in. “They got in a fight about it, and she knocked him right in the nose. Then she called me to pick her up from the ER, because she can’t even break a guy’s nose without making sure he’s taken care of apparently.”

Elsa wants to laugh, but she’s too busy steaming at the knowledge that Hans had only gone out with Anna for sex. If Anna had been dating her…

She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, sighing heavily in both relief and exasperation. “So she’s okay?”

“Physically, yeah. I kept asking her if she was fine the whole drive to her apartment, but she just insisted nothing was wrong. I’m worried she might not want to open up to me about how she’s feeling emotionally, though.”

“And what do you want me to do about that?” Elsa asks him, well-aware that there’s nothing else she would love to do more than rush to Anna’s apartment and kiss her until she feels better, but that’s not the relationship they have anymore.

Kristoff huffs into the phone. “I want you to go over there and comfort her. I don’t care if you guys hit a rough patch in your relationship; you’re still Anna’s best friend, and if anyone’s gonna get through to her it’s you.”

Elsa wants to be able to protest that, but, knowing that she can’t, she just gnaws her bottom lip until Kristoff speaks again.

“Get your ass over there, Elsa. Anna wants to see you.”

And that’s that. No matter how much it might hurt to be with Anna without being with Anna, there’s no way she can just sit by while Anna’s in pain.

“Alright,” she eventually mutters into the phone. “I’ll go make sure she’s okay.”

She presses the end call button before Kristoff has a chance to respond.

The wait outside Anna’s door is terrible. Part of her is afraid that Anna might not want to see her, especially after the way she acted over the past few weeks.

Worried that Anna may not have heard her first knock and raising her fist to knock again, Elsa freezes when she hears Anna’s voice.

“Hans, if that’s you, you can stay out there all night for all I care!” Anna roughly pulls the door open. “Don’t think I won’t send you to the hospital aga- Elsa?”

Elsa’s vaguely aware of how silly she must look, one fist hovering in the air where the door used to be. She lets it drop to her side. “Hey, Anna, I heard about the thing with Hans. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Anna seems almost surprised to see Elsa at first, her mouth slightly gaping before it stretches into an adorable grin. “I’m completely fine. Better than fine, even! How have you been? I know we still see each other all the time, but it feel like it’s been months since we’ve hung out. I’ve missed you.”

“I’m fine,” Elsa says slowly, trying to interpret the jumble of words Anna just shot at her rapidly. “But are you sure you’re okay? Shouldn’t you be upset about Hans?”

“That jerk? Nah, I didn’t even really like him in the first place,” Anna tells her, one hand waving dismissively while her face stays transfixed on Elsa’s face, like she could stare at it for days.

“What?” Elsa asks incredulously. Her mouth opens and closes a few more times, floundering for something else to say but too shocked to think of what that should be.

Anna shrugs slightly and runs a hand along her hair, as though she were pushing an imaginary lock behind her ear. “Haha, yeah…” she trails off awkwardly, laughter too forced to be convincing.

“Then why did you want to break up with me?” The words are out of Elsa’s mouth before she can stop them.

“Break up with you?” Anna repeats, her expression dropping to one of concern.

Elsa winces internally; she’s usually so much better at keeping herself together. “N-not break up with per se… I mean…” she stutters out.

Anna tilts her head slightly to one side in what would have been an adorable gesture had Elsa not been digging herself into a giant hole.

“Uh, n-nevermind. It’s nothing. I just misspoke.” Elsa shakes her head and tries to smile. “It’s good to see you’re all right.”

Anna smiles back. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, you know.”

“And?”

“I always used to go to your place on Saturdays,” Anna explains, pouting a little at Elsa’s apparent forgetfulness. “I was wondering if we could start doing that again.”

Elsa smiles for real this time, gently because she can already feel her heart breaking. She’s not sure if she can handle just being Anna’s friend again. “Only if you want to, Anna.”

“Are you crazy? Of course I want to! I wasn’t lying when I said I missed you.”

That’s all it takes. Elsa can’t fight with such a heartfelt confession, even if she knows every moment from this point on will be emotional torture. After all, this is Anna, whose happiness means even more to her than her own.

“Well then,” she says, desperately trying to hide her overwhelming mix of emotions. “I’m expecting you to pick out which movie we’re watching.”

Anna pulls her into a hug, right there in the awkward space between the apartment threshold and the hallway, and Elsa’s heart jumps into her throat.

The transition back to friendship is only slightly easier than Elsa’s expecting.

She and Anna go back to their six-days-a-week-together schedule, but Elsa does everything she can to limit their physical contact. When Anna goes to give her a peck on the lips, Elsa turns her head just enough to redirect it to her cheeks. Hugs are kept short, and while she can’t find a way to stop the handholding, she never initiates it.

Most importantly, however, she outright demands that there be no sex.

Anna doesn’t complain about Elsa’s new restrictions; rather, she seems all too happy to do whatever it takes to keep Elsa around.

Elsa isn’t entirely sure if she’s glad or frustrated about that.

If Kristoff notices the change at all, he doesn’t comment on it. He seems far too preoccupied with goading Elsa into telling Anna her feelings.

“Just go for it! What’ve you got to lose?” he asks, gesturing wildly while Anna’s in the café bathroom.

Elsa smiles at him wryly. “This, Kristoff. I could lose this. She doesn’t like me that way.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you know that? You said yourself that she was super excited to see you after she broke it off with the asshole. People don’t just get excited about seeing someone after a break-up unless they really like that person.”

She’s not convinced, and it shows. “Yeah, and how do you know that?”

Kristoff looks at her smugly, like she played right into his trap. “Because she didn’t act that way with me.”

Elsa can’t think of a good argument to refute that, so she sits back into her chair, crossing her arms.

When Anna gets back from the bathroom, she finds them like that, Kristoff looking all too pleased with himself and Elsa glaring out the window. No matter how much she asks, neither of them will tell her what happened.

It would be a lie if Kristoff says he’s happy with their current friend-dynamic. For all that his (outrageously large extended) family claims about his grumpiness, he’s always enjoyed having Elsa and Anna as friends.

This fiasco, however, is just too much.

He doesn’t mention Elsa’s feelings for Anna out of respect and care for the older woman, but part of him wishes he could send screenshots of his text conversations with her to Anna, just to speed up the process.

There are only so many hints he can drop to both of them before he’s the one who wants to pull out his hair at their “unrequited” feelings.

After a few day of deliberation, he finally comes up with a solution. He digs up an old email he sent Anna’s uncle, Oaken, a few months back about directions up to the North Mountain, and quickly types up a new message.

Anna and Elsa are beating themselves up thinking that they don’t feel the same way about each other. We need to help them out.

Over the next week, Kristoff and Oaken devise the perfect strategy: a nice weekend at Oaken’s vacation home on the North Mountain. They choose the next weekend with a predicted snowstorm and send Elsa and Anna invites.

Kristoff smiles to himself, one hand scratching under Sven’s chin. He and Oaken might not always see eye to eye, but they’re going to make this happen.

The drive up to Oaken’s cabins is uneventful, though Elsa keeps her eyes trained to the scenery outside the car window to make sure Anna can’t see her blushing at the way Anna plays with her one hand.

It’s late April, so Anna spends the ride excitedly pointing out the gradual progression of snow accumulation as they move upward in altitude. Kristoff keeps looking back at them from his place in the passenger’s seat to laugh with Anna and shoot Elsa knowing looks.

She’d never met Anna’s uncle before, but the large man is every bit the teddy bear – though Kristoff seemed to emphasize the bear part, especially – Anna and Kristoff insisted he is. The only thing unsettling, really, is the fact that Oaken sends her knowing glances that rival Kristoff’s.

When they arrive at the resort, it takes them an extra few minutes of driving before they reach Oaken’s cabins. He owns a couple, and while they’re both sizeable, it’s obvious they would only fit two comfortably.

Elsa hardly has a chance to realize what the implications of that are before Kristoff pipes up.

“Oh, darn, it looks like we’re gonna have to split up the sleeping arrangements two and two,” he says, with the fakest acting Elsa has ever heard. “I guess that means the two of us are going to be in one cabin, huh, Oaken?”

Elsa is rounds on him, mouth open in protest when Anna links arms with her. “Sounds good to me. What about you, roomie?” she asks Elsa, grinning and wagging her eyebrows at her.

The protest dies on Elsa’s lips, choosing instead to fix an accusing glare at Kristoff, who just smirks and chuckles at her expense.

Anna beams at Elsa for her silent approval, grabs both of their bags from Oaken’s car, and, hooking her arm around Elsa’s again, drags her to the cabin of her choice.

Elsa lets herself be tugged along, already praying that the room has more than one bed.

The room, of course, only has one bed.

Between that and the suggestive looks Anna keeps directing at her, Elsa is certain there must be some deity out there that has it out for her.

She tries her best to ignore the way Anna’s spread herself out on the bed provocatively, and searches through the cabinets and dressers for extra blankets and pillows.

“Hey, Elsa,” Anna speaks up, halting Elsa mid-rummage. “It’s getting kinda late. Maybe we should get to bed.”

Elsa turns around to find Anna smirking at her, winking mischievously once she realizes Elsa’s spotted her. Elsa shakes her head, going back to work looking for linens.

“Well, if you’re not tired yet, I have an idea that will help tire you out,” Anna says, trying again to get Elsa’s attention.

Elsa keeps her eyes trained on the cabinet in front of her. “Anna, no.” She yanks a sheet off one of the shelves and heads for the door. “I’ll take the couch.”

She can feel Anna’s eyes burning into her back as she leaves.

The first thing Elsa’s aware of when she wakes up the next morning is how cold it is in the living room, which is strange, she thinks, because she’s got the best cold tolerance of anyone she knows.

Briefly taking note of the sheet that had fallen off her and to the floor, she rubs her hands together slightly and walks to the window to take a look outside.

All she can see is snow.

Opening her mouth to curse softly, she’s stopped when Anna bursts into the living room, excited as a small child. “There’s so much snow!”

Elsa smiles privately at the exclamation and quickly moves to the cabin’s kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Anna asks her, following a few steps behind.

“I need to make sure we have food. I don’t think we’ll be leaving any time soon,” Elsa explains, pulling the fridge door open and taking a quick inventory of what’s there. It’s fully stocked with more than enough food for a few days, something Elsa’s instantly suspicious of.

Kristoff and Oaken definitely had something do to with this.

Spinning on her heel, she walks back towards the living room, well-aware of the way Anna just tags along just behind her. Anna doesn’t say anything, though, so she doesn’t either.

There’s plenty of firewood by the fireplace, so Elsa tosses a few logs and some wadded-up newspaper in and searches around for something to light it with. Anna beats her to the punch, flicking a match in and watching as the fire quickly catches.

Satisfied that the room won’t be frigid (for Anna especially; Elsa knows how easily she got cold), Elsa picks up her book from where it lays on the coffee table and sits down.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Anna, who had opted to stay by the fireplace a while longer, watch her. The silence in the room, thick and strained, almost compels her to speak, but then Anna gets up, walks over to the couch, and sits down on the other side. Slowly, inch by inch, Anna slides closer to her, trying to move as smoothly as possible.

Elsa, annoyed that Anna seems to be treating her like a cornered animal, snaps. “That’s enough, Anna.” she says, irritation obvious in her voice.

Anna recoils, and, for a split second, Elsa deeply regrets speaking. “What’s wrong with you? What did I ever to do you that made you decide to treat me like this?”

“I said,” Elsa repeats, trying to control the sudden swirl of emotions inside her, “that’s enough, Anna.” She springs from the couch, striding past Anna and towards the bedroom.

“Elsa,” Anna calls out, and Elsa can hear her get off to couch to follow. “What we had – we were perfect, Elsa. You don’t have to do this. We can be like that agai-.”

Elsa holds up a hand to cut her off as she walks into the bedroom. “No, Anna, no we weren’t.” She can hear Anna stop behind her, so she walks to the furthest wall.

“What do you mean?” Anna asks delicately, as though speaking any louder would scare Elsa away.

But Elsa has nowhere to run. She stands, facing away from the woman in the doorway and staring out the window. She wraps her arms around herself and rubs like she’s cold and needs all the warmth she can get.

Breathing out shakily, Elsa knows this is it. There’s nothing she can do, and as much as she tried to hide it, there’s nowhere to hide now. Whispering, she breathes out a short “I love you.”

The floor creaks behind her, and she feel Anna walking over to her. She’s too scared to turn right now, but if she could, she’s certain she’d see Anna right behind her, within arm’s reach. She can even imagine Anna with her arms half out, like she wants to wrap Elsa in a hug but isn’t sure if she should.

Elsa squeezes her eyes together and hunches until her forehead rests against the cold window pane. Steeling herself, she speaks again. “I love you.”

Then she feels arms sneaking around her, holding her close. Anna’s pushed right up against her, and she can feel Anna’s heartbeat, racing just as fast as hers.

“You stinker,” Anna mutters, her face pressed into Elsa’s neck. “I love you, too.”

Elsa is so tempted to melt into Anna’s embrace, but she knows she can’t. Anna doesn’t love her; at least, not like she loves Anna. Anna’s love is friendship and accepting your best friend, even if she likes you more than in a friend way.

Anna squeezes her harder and speaks into her shoulder, too muffled for Elsa to make out the words. Aware that Elsa is still stiff in her arms, Anna lifts her head and rests in on Elsa’s shoulder. “Hey, I said I love you too, silly. As in, I’m in love you too,” she explains, pressing a kiss into the back of Elsa’s neck.

When Elsa doesn’t respond, Anna keeps going, kissing her neck over and over again, until she apparently realizes that Elsa isn’t going to move. Turning her around, Anna looks into Elsa’s eyes, bringing her hands up to cup Elsa’s cheeks. She smiles gently, and Elsa’s breath catches in her throat as Anna leans in, kissing her with a force that seems out of place after the soft expression she had just given Elsa.

Anna’s hands slide from Elsa’s cheeks to her hair, pushing further until her arms are wrapped around Elsa’s neck, resting on her shoulders. For every second that Elsa doesn’t respond, Anna kisses her harder, lips, teeth, and tongue all working to get Elsa to react. She nips at Elsa’s lips, like she’s trying to convince her to open her mouth, and when she doesn’t Anna bites down harder.

That finally works, and as Elsa gasps, Anna takes advantage of the moment to deepen the kiss, pushing her tongue past the threshold of Elsa’s mouth. Anna presses her body in closer, as though she’s trying to feel as much of Elsa can she can, and Elsa, misjudging the force at which Anna pushes into her, can feel her balance slipping.

Wrapping her arms around Anna in a desperate attempt to regain her balance, she only serves drag them both down to the bed, Anna on top of her. The second her back hits the mattress, she can feel Anna press into the kiss even more, almost emboldened by Elsa’s slight response.

Elsa’s mind is whirling, but all she can feel is Anna. Anna on top of her, wiggling slightly and trying to get even more contact between them; Anna’s lips and tongue, moving so perfectly and teasing Elsa to follow along. She knows she can’t keep up her stone-faced act much longer, so she doesn’t.

She lets go.

The next thing she’s fully aware of is the light patterns Anna’s fingers trace on her stomach, her hands under her shirt and pushing higher. Elsa braces her hands on Anna’s shoulder, gently pushing her until Anna has no choice but to break away. She isn’t sure how long they’ve been at it; it feels like forever but somehow not nearly long enough.

Anna’s hands are still teasing the skin on Elsa’s stomach, so Elsa grabs Anna’s arms and slowly removes them from under her shirt. Anna pouts and mutters protests the whole way, but Elsa successfully places them on either side of her.

It doesn’t seem Anna likes hovering above her, however, so she quickly snuggles into her, face nuzzling into Elsa’s neck where she presses a kiss that makes Elsa shiver. Tilting her head up, Anna breathes into Elsa’s ear, mumbling, “It’s about damn time, geez.”

Elsa, meanwhile, is still struggling to catch up with everything that happened since entering the room. Her mind is in a haze, reeling from the kissing and everything afterward.

Anna pushes herself up to look down at Elsa and takes her silence as permission to continue speaking.

“That thing with Hans,” she starts, nervously picking at the hem of Elsa’s shirt with one of her hands. “I never really liked him. I just… I didn’t think I had a chance with you, and I couldn’t…” she pauses, as though she isn’t sure how to convey what she’s feeling, “It killed me, to be with you, to have you… but not really have you, you know?”

Elsa breathes in deeply, but keeps silent, letting Anna go on.

“So I tried to move on, with Hans, but then you got all moody about it and then Hans turned out to be a huge douchebag… But I had a broken heart. Not because of him, but because of you, and then you just, like, left me, and I…” she trails off again, her eyes flickering up to meet Elsa’s.

“I just really missed you,” she finishes, lamely, like she had a much bigger ending planned but forgot it halfway there.

Elsa moves her hands from where they had been clutching Anna’s arms to wrap them around Anna’s waist. She thinks back to everything that happened since Hans and how she had acted back then, trying to make sense of it all. Anna smiles sheepishly at her, hand still plucking away at the hem of Elsa’s shirt.

She knows she should say something, but there are so many things to say, and she can’t decide which she should say first. A few things come to mind – I’ve missed you too, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left, I’m such an idiot, you only deserve the best, I love you so much, you’re just so wonderful, you’re perfect and I love you, I love you I love you I love you – but they all get caught in her throat as they try to escape at once.

Anna’s expression subtly drops, and Elsa can tell she took too long to answer. “I guess it’s my fault, really. I mean, I left first. I ruined such a good thing that we had going for us… I’m so-“

Elsa doesn’t let her even think to finish that sentence, sitting up to crush their lips together. She does everything she can to pour all her emotions into that kiss, because even if she can’t say what she’s feeling, she’s not going to let Anna blame herself for anything or think that she did anything wrong.

Anna melts into the kiss, returning the pressure and then some, hands quickly returning to the place they had found under Elsa’s shirt. Elsa breaks the kiss to move her lips down Anna’s jaw and to her neck, nipping and sucking the whole way there.

Somewhere amidst their new wave of passion, Anna tosses her shirt over her head and runs a hand down Elsa’s braid to undo it, tangling her hands in Elsa’s hair once it’s free.

That’s not enough, Elsa thinks, undoing Anna’s bra and kissing down to her collarbone. It will never be enough.

Anna gasps as Elsa’s hands find her breasts, fingers tracing around her nipples, now erect from arousal and the chill air in the room. Elsa dips her head and takes one into her mouth, sucking lightly and smirking as she hears Anna pant.

One of Anna’s hands leaves Elsa’s head to clutch at the sheets, the blanket long kicked off the bed when they had tumbled to it earlier. Elsa grabs at Anna’s hips, pulling her closer, desperate for more contact.

Anna tugs at Elsa’s hair until she breaks away, and, leaning down for a quick kiss, she yanks Elsa’s shirt over her head. Elsa, unsatisfied with the short kiss, pulls Anna down for another, letting the other woman take off her bra and toss it away from them.

Elsa fiddles with Anna’s braids until those are undone too, one hand running through Anna’s hair while the other keeps Anna’s hips from moving too far away. She feels Anna’s hands run all over her now-bare back before sliding to her stomach and playing with the button on her jeans. Her hips buck from the teasing touches until Anna pops the button and pulls down the zipper.

Breaking their kiss, Anna slides off the bed and Elsa’s lap, chuckling at the needy whimper Elsa makes from the loss of contact. With a hand on Elsa’s shoulder, she applies pressure, pushing her until she’s lying on her back. There, with Elsa lying down and Anna standing over her, Anna kicks off her own pants then hooks two fingers in the belt loop of Elsa’s, tugging until Elsa lifts her hips and helps Anna pull them off of her.

Once both pairs of jeans have hit the ground, Anna climbs back on the bed, body gliding just above Elsa’s, bottom lip caught in her teeth as she tries to hide her grin.

Elsa reaches out to her, hands sliding from Anna’s sides to her back and then down to cup her bottom, catching her panties as she goes and pushing them down. Anna’s bottom lip escapes her teeth as her smile grows, and she leans down to kiss Elsa again, this time much slower and sensually.

Anna’s hands trail down Elsa’s body, and her mouth moves to follow that path, kissing down Elsa’s jaw, the line of her neck, through the valley of her breasts (a quick, open-mouthed kiss pressed to each pink peak), and even further downward. She snags Elsa’s underwear, pulling at them as she nudges Elsa to lift her legs.

Tossing them over her shoulder, Anna continues her descent down Elsa’s body until she reaches Elsa’s core, flushed and warm and wet with arousal. Her eyes flicker up to catch Elsa’s, and, keeping their gazes locked, Anna’s tongue darts out, circling Elsa’s clit. When Elsa lets out a low moan, Anna repeats the motion, over and over until Elsa throws her head back and groans a breathy “I love you.”

Anna stops her ministrations to smile, giggling when Elsa makes eye contact again to shoot her a desperate look, silently asking her why she stopped. “Sorry,” she mutters under her breath, dipping her head to start lapping at Elsa’s sex again.

One of Elsa’s hands tangles itself in Anna’s hair as she works, her tongue lazily licking up one labia and down the other, occasionally flicking up to catch Elsa’s clit or teasingly gliding across her entrance. Elsa’s panting, hard, but she manages to find her voice, somehow.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathes out, hand tugging at Anna’s hair. “I’m so sorry for leaving.”

She’s surprised when she feels Anna’s lips on her, still wet from her previous activities. “I forgive you,” Anna tells her, fingers replacing her mouth at Elsa’s core. “I’m sorry for not being honest.”

Two of Anna’s fingers plunge into her, and Elsa keens. “I forgive you,” she moans. “It wasn’t your fault. I forgive you.”

Elsa pants to the rhythm of Anna’s fingers pumping in and out of her. She clutches at anything she can grab – Anna’s shoulders, the sheets, her hair – and groans every time Anna curls her fingers. She can feel Anna at her neck – kissing, biting, sucking – until she’s certain she’s going to go crazy.

Tilting her head to nip at Elsa’s ear lobe, Anna whispers a last “I love you” into her ear, and Elsa comes undone, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, and voice low in a long moan until it catches in her throat.

Anna keeps moving her hand as Elsa comes down, coaxing her to ride the orgasm as long as possible. When Elsa finally relaxes, she opens her eyes and sees Anna smiling down at her, expression as adoring as Elsa’s ever seen.

“Hey,” Anna mumbles, carefully sliding her hand free and looking all too satisfied with herself.

“Hey, yourself,” Elsa responds. She’s still a little breathless, and when Anna hears the way Elsa’s still panting, she grins. Elsa can’t fight a matching smile from finding its way on her face. “Keep laughing,” she tells Anna, already flipping their positions, “because it’s your turn next.”

Anna laughs, and it’s music to Elsa’s ears.

It’s been a long time since the two of them have just taken the time to enjoy each other’s company. Even before the fiasco with Hans, there was so much going on between them emotionally, that Elsa isn’t sure they’ve ever fully experienced just lying in each other’s arms, enjoying the way it feels.

They’ve already retrieved the bed’s comforter from where it had fallen to the ground, and, snuggled into each other, they talk.

“It’s weird,” Elsa admits, hand tracing patterns on Anna’s sternum, “I’d never really considered seeing you as more than a friend before Valentine’s Day. But the whole time, I kept thinking about how you called it a date, and it made me so nervous. And then I kept feeling that way. I stopped just having fun with you and started to want to cuddle all day in bed and make you breakfast once we woke up.”

Anna chuckles a bit at that, tightening her hold on Elsa and signaling for her to continue.

“And then I talked to Kristoff about it, and he said that I liked you. I just thought ‘No way, this can’t be happening. I can’t be in love with my best friend.’”

“But you were,” Anna adds, kissing Elsa’s forehead.

Elsa tilts her head up to give Anna a real kiss. “But I am,” she corrects. “And I was so certain you didn’t feel the same way, because you just seemed to approach everything so casually. Like, you didn’t even bat an eye when you asked me to sleep with you the first time.”

Anna ducks her head in silent apology, and Elsa kisses her again to let her know she’s forgiven.

“And then the thing with Hans happened,” Elsa continues, giggling softly when Anna makes a face, “which I won’t go into because I know we both don’t need that reminder. But it killed me, because it confirmed what I had thought all along: that you just didn’t like me that way.”

“I’m sorry for that too,” Anna tells her. “And I’m really sorry about how casually I acted. I just liked you so much from the second I met you, and I was so convinced that you wouldn’t even give the time of day to someone like me. So I pretended like our relationship was no big deal, because I was worried that if I acted too clingy or something, I’d scare you off.”

Elsa kisses her again, a little longer this time. “I’m sorry for never picking up on your feelings.”

“Don’t be. I didn’t pick up on yours either.”

“Well then, I guess we’re both sorry,” Elsa jokes, laughing when Anna heaves a dramatic sigh.

“I forgive you, and I’m assuming you forgive me,” Anna pauses, waiting for Elsa to agree, “so I guess the only thing left is to stop apologizing and forgive ourselves. Deal?”

Elsa can’t keep the huge smile off her face. “Deal.”

Grinning back, Anna leans in and presses their lips together again. “Glad we’re clear on that.”

Elsa and Anna are so entranced with each other, they almost forget that they’re on a trip with two other people, and it’s not until later that night that they’re rudely reminded of that fact.

They’re right about to start another round when Kristoff and Oaken burst through the bedroom doors, Oaken greeting them with his signature “Hoo hoo!”, and Elsa can barely register their horrified looks before Kristoff slaps a hand over both his and Oaken’s eyes.

“OH MY GOD, I’M SO SORRY,” he yells, exiting the room and pulling Oaken along behind him. “WE’LL BE IN THE LIVING ROOM ONCE YOU’RE DECENT.”

Anna sighs and flops back on the pillows. “Talk about a mood killer, huh?”

“You can say that again,” Elsa mutters. She rolls off the bed and starts searching for her clothes.

“How long do you think they can wait?” Anna asks, watching Elsa attempt to pull her clothes back on.

Elsa shoots her a look over her shoulder, letting her pants fall to the floor only shortly after she’d gotten them past her knees.

“Long enough,” she responds, crawling back onto the bed, lips crushed against Anna’s.

When they finally join the two men in the living room, Elsa’s certain her face is so red it could glow in the dark. Kristoff catches her eye and smiles, eyes darting between her face and her and Anna’s joined hands.

“So I take you two worked out your problems, ja?” Oaken asks them, adding a few more logs to the fireplace.

Anna scratches the back of her head with her free hand, laughing sheepishly. Elsa’s still too embarrassed to talk.

Kistoff just beams at them.

“Well it’s about damn time, jeez.”

#super worried about people i know irl finding this because i think they track the frozen tag #but whatevs doing it anyway #frozen #elsanna #romance #nsfw #my fic

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