A/N: Here's Part 3, shortened and chopped and actually proofread. This chapter is actually lighter than the last two, and waaay long because I like writing about lovesick Elsa as seen from Jack's dumbass denial. Her you go.
Part Three: On Snow,a Dog and Colouring Pencils
'Clouds come floating into my life,
No longer to carry rain or usher storm,
But to add colour to my sunset sky.'
Rabindranath Tagore
He was in Mumbai in July, and the backstage was sweltering. His snowy hair was slathered across his forehead, held in place by a sheen of sweat.
He was working on Jasmine, struggling with the liquid foundation, which rolled down her cheeks instead of remaining spotted. He had to brush plain talcum powder across her face to prevent a complete meltdown.
Toothiana materialized at his elbow. "Jack, I need to talk to you."
"In a minute, Tooth."
"Now."
"Then talk to me now," he muttered angrily. The heat, the humidity, and the excessive sparkle in the models' clothes were getting to him.
Toothiana huffed. "Fine. Elsa Arryn-Dalla wants you."
He looked up, craned his neck, and searched the crowd. "I didn't know she was here tonight. She'll have to wait, Jasmine here's the showstopper." He picked up one of the mascara tubes.
"No, no. She wants you. She wants to hire you as her personal artist."
Jasmine's eyebrows shot up, widening her eyes. Yes, stay that way, Jack wanted to tell her. "I'm employed by you, Tooth."
"Is what I told her." Toothiana ran her fingers through her hair, the golden streak usually in front standing on its end near her crown. "She's persistent."
"Then quote me," he snapped. "I don't want to be employed by her. There."
One of Jasmine's eyebrows descended. You sure you want to do that, bub?
"Close your eyes, please," he said, his tone the coldest thing in the room. Sapphire. Silver. Gold. Night. Burgundy, cerise, shimmer. Around him, jewellery clinked and jingled, saris crackled as they were wrapped, PA's whimpered and a hair dryer groaned. "You're done, ma'am."
Jasmine glanced at her newly distorted self in the mirror. "Can I call you an idiot, Frost?"
"I believe you did so eleven times the first time I worked with you, ma'am," he replied, trying to sound sarcastic. He only sounded tired to the bone.
Jasmine adjusted the cloth draped over her shoulder. "Here's the twelfth, then. You're an idiot, Jack Frost. Arryn-Dalla wants to hire you, you don't just say no. Arryn-Dalla hates the word no."
"Thank you for the advice, ma'am. There are people waiting behind you."
Jasmine shot him a look too tired to be exasperated, clutching at the voluminous skirt that threatened to overwhelm her lower body. The studio lights caught the hundreds of little mirrors sewn into its hem, flashing at his eyes and quickening his irritation.
"She's right," Toothiana shrugged as the dusky woman sashayed away. "Elsa hates being denied anything."
"I didn't say I'll never work on her again, Tooth. I don't want to work for her."
"Is this about Christmas?" Tooth's eyes were a dark blue, borderline purple, and he knew they had the tiniest sparkle in them right now. You nearly got lucky with Elsa God-fucked Arryn-Dalla, and you brought her cake? You, Jackson Frost, are an idiot.
It was so warm even remembering her words made him want to scream.
So Jack ignored her. Tiana was in the seat now, curtained in sparkles and silver and pink, hair straightened out into black ribbons, looking for all the world like an abomination. He sighed softly, to himself, preparing to emblazon her in gold and bronze, gazing ruefully at the girls lovely cheekbones before softening them into the rest of her face.
Whenever did these figurines start turning human in a swirl of silken skirts, he wondered.
In Florence that August, she was the first to slide into his seat. "I hear you don't want to work for me."
The bags under her eyes were smaller, and he noticed a very light smattering of freckles that he could have sworn weren't there before.
"I hear you don't want to work with me," she started, cold as her hands.
"I like working for Tooth," he replied. She was neat in a rich, furry mantle, the midriff slashed open, the skirt simply tiers of tulle. The theme was the fashionistas of the '90s, and they had gone all the way to draw the same.
"And I like working for Gucci." She rolled her eyes, and he nearly slipped the eyeliner across her temples. "Face it, Jack, you're miserable."
He let go of a hollow laugh. "I'm not miserable because of Tooth." He swept the sorrel pencil into a small wing. "I'm miserable because I spend days and nights prettifying terrible people." Odd, that's why I started in the first place.
"Then quit."
"Easy for you to say. You don't even keep down chocolate cake."
Her jaw shifted. "Those two things aren't related."
"Of course not. Close your eyes, please."
Elsa followed him to his hotel room that night. She wasn't the least bit drunk.
"You can't persuade me to work for you this way," he laughed. "My answer's still no."
She shrugged, falling backwards onto his bed, like those months ago in Prague. "Maybe I just want a place to sleep, Jackson, ever thought of that?"
All they really did was sleep, in the end, tired out by their argument; she curled up into a foetal position at one edge of the bed, threatening to fall off, and Jack spread himself over the other, one long pale arm dangling.
He woke up to his head nestled on her stomach, her fingers running through his hair. She picked up each strand and let it fall, then swept her hand through, watching the rows fall into place. Jack could see his blue-grey eyes reflected in hers. Her fingertips were cold; perhaps her veins really did channel cold water.
"Your hair's not dyed," she whispered, twisting a bunch. It hurt, but just a little. "Why is it so white?"
"It grows brown sometimes. One hair, or two. I pull them out."
She studied his scalp with clinical curiosity, her nails scraping softly. It was almost soothing, and he felt his eyes droop slightly. "Is it a disease of some sort?"
"Nah." He entwined his own hand into hers, fingers and snowy hair entangled, all so so pale. "I had an accident while ice-skating. Took me months to recover. My hair…it just turned white, like an old man's. Never completely grew out brown again."
"I like it." She shifted so she could bury her small, fragile face into his temple. "It looks like winter."
"It was snowing in Prague." You had more vodka than water in your system, and we both smelled of cosmetics and smoke and gasoline.
"I remember. Your window was all frosted over in the morning." She frowned, her skin crinkling like vellum. "I don't actually remember that show at all."
You were fifth from the last walk, piss drunk and bone tired. You looked like an evil queen, the kind that always turned out to be a sorceress with a heart of gold. Only you were wearing the gold, and there was only ice in your heart.
From Florence he landed in Budapest, and she ended up somewhere in Brazil.
He wasn't Toothiana's employee any more when he reached Paris. He was a colleague.
She was in Paris in a floaty blue dress with silver scales down the front and rhinestones on the train. He did her make-up, moonlight and plums and oceans and ice tipped with crimson and rose.
She didn't talk. She only shifted the skirt about, fingering the train, tracing the scales. She seemed a little in awe of her outfit.
"It brings out the colour of your eyes, my lady," Jack supplied with a smile as he deepened her eyebrows.
Her fist clenched around a particularly large rhinestone; her facial muscles seemed to solidify. "Do your job, Frost," she gritted out.
Jack wanted to stop doing exactly that and ask her what was wrong. Only that made him feel like they were friends, and he didn't know if he wanted to be friends with this woman with her dead eyes and deader hair that felt like the threads of an unraveled satin ribbon, whose voice sounded like an alcoholic's one December but a chain smoker's in July, and like autumn leaves in the early morning.
He held his tongue, working carefully, trying to make her face glow.
She was glowering, a twig-like little stormcloud hailing a blizzard. She was moving her jaw, and Jack could hear the uncomfortable dissonance of enamel grazing enamel.
"Please stop that," he half-snapped, holding a crimson-coated brush an inch from her mouth. "I am trying to do my job."
Her mouth stretched into a snarl that was almost petulant. She looked like she was on the verge of slapping him.
Go on, hit me. Hit me if that doesn't snap your fingers in half.
For five seconds there was silence between the two, punctuated only by her rapid, shallow breathes and the clack of a straightening iron behind them.
Her jaw stopped shifting as she turned her eyes away from his. Her ice-chip eyes gleamed, only for a second. "Please, Frost," she whispered. "Just…finish up, I have to have my hair done."
"Don't want to talk about it?" he asked, concern creeping into the coldness he attempted. "Open your eyes wide and look at the ceiling, please."
"I would, but I won't," she replied, her voice gaining some strength.
"Then don't." Silver seemed to melt into her skin, the alabaster foundation only sucking it in. He'd have to use the silver-blue, then. But silver-blue would only highlight the death in her irises, and people couldn't have that. Paris's fashion aristocracy wanted to see a living doll draped in ice, not a snow zombie from the pits of the North Pole.
"My dog died," she blurted.
Jack nearly dropped the palette in his hand. "I'm sorry, what?"
"My…my dog died." Tears were welling up, making her eyes twinkle and threatening to ruin his hard work. "Mar—Marshmallow, he swallowed something—he died this morning, and I don't— don't know how to—"
She blinked, trying to hold the droplets in (thank God for waterproof mascara), shaking her head slightly. The motion loosened some of her shorter bangs from her headband, so white gold stuck to her forehead, embedding in some still-wet concealer.
Jack took a step back, trying to get further away from the hiccupping mess of a girl before him as she desperately dabbed at her eyes with a blue-stained cotton pad. She wasn't the supermodel just then, she was a girl in her twenties in a borderline ridiculous costume, breaking down over the news of a deceased pet. She wasn't cold pliable plastic anymore, she was skin and bones and blood and tears and shaking with sobs that she must have hoarded inside herself with the meticulosity of a dragon with gold.
She was a person, a woman, a bag of bones with actual feelings like love and grief, a working brain, a live Homo sapiens sapiens, a human being.
Something that felt like the bottom end of an angle brush poked in the back. "Do something," Toothiana hissed.
He took a step forward, then another. He was holding himself back from any form of human contact with her, which was ridiculous. Florence was only a month and a half back; sometimes he'd wake up in another city with the ghost of her fingertips on his scalp.
She looked up at him, her face paint completely ruined, some purple smeared over the bridge of her nose and up to her forehead.
He had to smile. "I'd hug you, Elsa, but I'm wearing a new shirt."
Her lip quivered, and Jack was half-afraid it would drip to the floor like spilled jelly. She nodded, mouthed an "Excuse me" and left for the washroom, the rhinestones on her train hitting the chairs and legs with little clinks.
"I think you should follow her," Toothiana whispered.
"What, to the ladies' room?" He gestured one of the younger models to the now empty chair. "She'll be okay."
Elsa walked the ramp with the composure only a woman of her professionalism could muster. As Jack watched her swirl around, the train sweeping a wide arc on the polished wood, he saw the gleam gone from her eyes again. The fire was out, because on the runway she wasn't Elsa-whose-dog-died, she was Elsa Arryn-Dalla, Supermodel and Snow Queen, seventh from the last walk.
"So…you and Elsa got anything going?"
Jack stopped his fingers to glare at Belle. "No, ma'am."
She perked a skeptical eyebrow, looking ridiculous because he had only removed the colour on her left eye.
"We honestly have nothing going," he insisted. She likes my hotel rooms, is all.
Belle opened her mouth, but was interrupted by a slight commotion when all of Rapunzel's beautiful golden hair slid off her head and to the floor in a graceful shower of sunlight.
Merida whistled. "Not so golden ar' ya, eh, princess?"
Rapunzel turned very red, stamped her foot, and walked off, her PA scampering after her, clutching the wig that had covered her employer's short brown hair.
Not so golden ar' ya, eh, princess? Jack had a queer feeling those words were going to haunt him for days.
At least he'd come away with a great story. The other day, I saw Rapunzel Corona's wig fall off, and her hair is as drab as mine.
'I like it. It reminds me of winter.'
He shook his head and moved back to swiping Belle's cheeks with the smelly blue mixture. "Elsa and I are definitely not a thing," he told her again.
Night found him at the door of his room, and Elsa before him, clutching a small overnight bag.
"Why?" he groaned.
"Why am I here or why can't I just move in with you?" she smirked.
"Why won't you leave me alone." He was too tired to let his tone lift at the ends of the question, rendering it a flat statement.
Flat statements were really all that were necessarily required to communicate with Elsa, he realised.
"Come on, Jackson," she whined. "It's only for the night."
"Are you drunk?" he asked her as she passed the threshold.
"Not enough," she replied, dropping the case on the carpet.
Midnight found her sitting up, leaning against the headboard, with the lamp on her side lit.
"Elsa?" he called, mind cloudy, voice groggy, the inside of his eyelids uncomfortably bright. "What are you even doing? It's the middle of the goddamn night."
He opened his eyes enough to note the notebook leaning on her thighs and the double-ended colouring pencil (violet and black, who puts violet and black together?) in her fingers.
"You're colouring? You can colour in the morning…or in flight…" He yawned loudly. "Please turn off the light," he finally mumbled.
His brain wouldn't figure out Elsa's expression just then. The words hurt and exasperated registered somewhere. She smiled, very very slowly, and reached out to stroke his hair.
Her gel fingernails were infuriatingly soothing against his scalp. His eyelids were betraying him.
He snapped them open and refused to shut them, letting the air-conditioning dry out his corneas and the cold pierce through. He had to blink several times, but he was almost completely awake.
"Elsa?" He propped himself up on his elbows, her hand slipping away. "What are you doing?"
"Colouring," she replied, her tone as clipped as kitchen shears. "Pull the blanket over your head and go back to sleep."
Jack flipped on to his stomach and groaned. "Can't do that now." He peered at her. "What are you colouring, anyway?"
She sucked in a shallow breath, her neck so thin Jack saw her Adam's apple bobbing. The yellow lamplight reflected off her hair, and her face was glowing, but there were also the dark circles under her eyes and shadows in the hollows of her cheeks. She looked half undead and half ethereal, a fallen angel perhaps, or a merciless goddess.
The goddess's head drooped, and her halo appeared as she blocked the lamplight. "Marshmallow," she whispered, her voice the sound of two stones being rubbed together. "I'm colouring Marshmallow."
Jack had nearly forgotten about her dog. "May I—may I have a look?"
She dropped the pencil beside her and nearly handed the notebook over, but her hand stopped midair, trembling slightly, as if the thin spiral-bound book was too heavy for her to bear. Her fingers slipped from under it, letting it land with a soft whumph on her lap.
"No," she stated flatly. "You may not."
"Okay," Jack whispered. There was that gleam in her eyes again, the one that made them look like painted eggshells. "Can you turn the light off now?"
A/N: Hehe I like writing sleepy Jack. His thoughts are barely linked to one another, because his brain is practically screaming GO THE FUCK BACK TO SLEEP! the entire time, and his sensitivity goes wheeeee. And Elsa carries around colouring pencils. I don't even know why I added that in.
On a more serious note, I'll probably be taking this story down a month after the last part is published. There are reasons, one being that I have the self-esteem of a brain-damaged walrus.
A huge thank you to all the lovely people who have subscribed to this story or added it in their favourites, the notifications make the sun shine a little brighter (not that it needs to get any brighter here, I swer to God, if it doesn't rain by July I'm moving to Kashmir).
Drop a review maybe?