inspired by an otpprompts submission on tumblr (post/124058891816). Wanted to (once again) try something new. Angsty af but ends on a relatively happy note.

and for the guest reviewer, I like unrequited love because I like writing angst. And I like doing that because it's interesting, and usually very introspective. A practise in 'how to write what people are feeling'.


It was Jeff Buckley's fault.

Anna hadn't wanted to return. Hadn't wanted to stay away. She hated Elsa's apartment, but she didn't hate Elsa – could never hate Elsa. It had been a long time, though.

The haunting notes of that famous cover were playing, setting Anna's teeth on edge. She put her keys on the counter, flicked on a light. Took in her surroundings with a poorly-concealed grimace.

She broke your throne and she cut your hair…and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah…

Her sister's home, with its filthy walls and broken curtains. It smelt of musk balls and kitty litter, and Elsa tried. She tried so hard. The place always felt ten degrees cooler than it really was. The sound of the song seemed amplified in the small space, echoing. Haunting

The landlord charged too much, but Elsa didn't care. Anna had asked her to move in to her home – there was space enough, with her and Kristoff and Olaf. Elsa had no reason to refuse, but did so anyway.

Fiercely independent, she was and always had been. She once shared as a child, allowed others to carry her burdens with her. But that changed; she was barely fifteen when she changed. The song became an anthem before it became a mantra. Anna hated it as a child. Elsa's room would ring with the sweet notes, muffled only by the door she refused to open. And Anna, the poor fool, only kept knocking.

And love is not a victory march…it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah…

It had been years since she'd been here. The last time, she'd stormed out, the silence after the storm following her. Their words had been explosive, actions even more so.

But that was a long time ago. Anna's hand drifted to the slight swell of her stomach, and she let out a sad smile.

Taking a breath, she roused herself from her thoughts; glanced around to seek out some small sign of life. Her feet moved silently beneath the ending notes of the song before it started up afresh.

Anna truly hated this song.

Her feet carried her through the small apartment. A messy mattress on the floor met her in one room. An old Windows PC met her in another. There was a bowl of cat food in the hallway, overflowing with biscuits, and a saucer for water a few metres down; the cat itself was merely a set of glowing eyes, peering from the gloom.

Anna felt her heart clench, for a reason she refused to fathom. It was just a feeling; a stone in her stomach, and an icy grip on her heart.

A faint light floated from beneath one of the doors – how she'd missed it at first, Anna couldn't say. Lost in memory, perhaps. It was the last one left.

There was a time when you let me know…what's really going on below…

The door squeaked; months or years of rust. It had to have been that long; the key to the apartment was given to Anna by their mother when Elsa first moved in. She didn't know about it – the key – but then, that didn't matter. No one visited. Agdar and Idun were the ones to pay for the place when Elsa flunked from college. When she lost her job. When she lost her heart and her hope.

Her first impression was that of darkness; the single bulb gave off a feeble light that barely illuminated the white-and-blue tiled walls. A small medicine cabinet was open, full of bottles and yellow canisters. Rolled up upon the counter was a tube of old toothpaste, discontinued months ago. White hairs filled a brush, lying haphazardly on the left side of the counter.

And Elsa, eyes wide and staring blankly at Anna. Shock, written in her beautiful blue eyes and open mouth; pain, written in the red, purple, white lines across her body and the bumps of her ribs. The tension steamed around them, making it hard to see, to breathe. Her fingers, pruned from the water, moved up to hug her chest, bringing to view more red. In her fingers was clasped a long object that shone in the pathetic light.

Everything about it made Anna sick.

"…Elsa…?"

And then the tears began. It was slow and quiet; the apartment still blazed with the gentle chords of the song as Elsa's eyes filled up before streaking down her cheeks. It felt sudden, but Anna supposed she should have seen the signs as her own vision blurred and her breath caught in her throat.

The poor slip of a woman who sat in the bath… Elsa began to shake, just a little, her eyes still fixed on Anna's. Anna felt it piercing her; felt like fire and desperation. It did not take her long to cross the small space, coming to kneel next to the cold rim.

Elsa didn't say anything when Anna dipped her hand into the frigid water, pulling the plug. She didn't fight back when Anna took her hands, taking the scissors and tossing them away. She didn't do anything because there was nothing to be done; Anna silently, carefully, dabbed away at the water. The pain in her eyes hurt far more than any marks the scratchy towels could irritate.

And when Elsa spoke, her voice was harsh, deep. Not the same timbre as Anna remembered. Not filled with the same light or the same joy. The whispered, choked, "I'm sorry," was nothing more than a painful reminder. And Anna wanted to ask. She wanted Elsa to talk and share; her burdens could be Anna's burdens, if only she'd let her. But all she could hear, all she would hear, were those same two words over and over and over again.

"I'm sorry…"

It's not somebody who's seen the light…it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah…