This was going to be the fourth time Anna was late to rehearsals, and there'd only been five since she was hired. I seriously need to get my shit together she thought, sprinting across the fairgrounds. At least she could wear whatever she wanted in this hot-as-satan's-toenail weather, so she was wearing shorter than short shorts and a dumb tank top that had a big dumb saying in a big dumb font on it. Her shoulder freckles were out in full force and there wasn't anything she was gonna do to hide them.
Which was, admittedly, a mistake on her part because a blushy color had already began spreading over her shoulders. She should've put sunscreen on.
She tried her best not to be all outta breath when she got to the big top, really trying to contain her breathing, but good god that thirty second sprint winded her. Should go to the gym more, she thought, having no intention to go to the gym at all. Lucky for her, no one seemed to mind-slash-notice as she burst through the tent flaps, chest heaving and drenched in sweat. She inconspicuously fanned at her spicy armpits.
The performers were scattered around the stage, starting their various warm-ups and Anna slunk into the sidelines. Heheh, she'd gotten away with being late AGAIN and went to go grab her tools from where she left them last time, when— chriiiiissssst— she suddenly remembered that she left her toolbelt in her car. That car parked in the parking lot all the way outside of the goddamn fairgrounds. She palmed her face with her sweaty hands and groaned a long groan.
"Are you good?" The soft question came from behind her. She turned to look, and it was Rapunzel sitting on a sideline bench.
"Yeah, I just," Anna groaned again and grumbled incoherently, "I'm just an idiot, is all. I left my tools in the car." She paused before deciding that, yeah, she could overshare. "You wanna know why they were in my car in the first place?"
"Sure..." Rapunzel replied uneasily.
"Uh, surprise. I put them there so I wouldn't forget where they were. Like I did last time, and- you know, now that I'm thinking about it, I did the same thing the time before that, like the big dorkus I am. God, who did you guys hire?"
At this, Rapunzel opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it and remained quiet. Anna sat her sorry ass next to her on the bench. She planted her elbows on her knees and chin in her hands. They watched the usual chaos of setup for a moment and Anna recognized that all of the performers were warming up with the exception of the one next to her.
"Not to be, you know, rude or anything but don't you have to go rehearse?"
"No, my bit doesn't include much." Rapunzel sighed and leaned back.
"Does that bother you?" Anna asked, lifting her head from her hands.
"Ah, it's show business so I get it. If I wanna be a real dancer, I've got to start from the bottom."
"I guess that's true. Well, and you'll probably have to shave."
"Shave?"
Anna pointed to her chin, indicating Rapunzel's beard. "You know, so it doesn't get in the way...?"
At this, Rapunzel patted down the length of it. "Oh yeah. That thing."
Did... Did Rapunzel seriously forget that she has a beard? A six foot, braided beard? Hanging directly off her face, 'that thing'?
Anna was so dumbstruck, emphasis on dumb, so the other girl kept going. "Even so, Hans probably wouldn't allow it. He already told me that long hair isn't a schtick."
"He— what?"
"Yeah. He said something along the lines of, 'you're not a circus freak just 'cause you've never gotten a haircut', or, 'long hair's not carnie enough', or whatever."
Anna didn't understand. What was Rapunzel talking about? She didn't look like she had long hair. She didn't look like she had much hair at all. The hair on her head was pressed against her scalp, actually, and seemed to go into the beard. as if the beard was eating it alive. Was it that monstrous that it could eat her head hair?
Anna didn't mean to look so horrified at the thought of hair eating hair, but Rapunzel must've caught her expression 'cause she let out a short shy laugh.
"Come on Anna. Did you really not notice?"
"Notice what? That your beard gains all its power from the hair on your head?!"
"Gains power... hah! You're close in a way, I suppose."
And so, with little to no effort, she heaved the giant multi-braid over the crown of her head until it laid upon her back and smoothed it out. She did this as if she'd done it a million times, which she just might've. But Anna had never ever witnessed anything like this, ever, and her mouth stayed agape.
Within moments, the bearded lady who'd been in front of her had turned into just a normal girl. A normal girl, with abnormally long-ass hair.
"You... don't have a beard?"
"I've got some peach fuzz, but I mean everyone does." Rapunzel tucked a stray lock of hair, hair and not a beard, behind her ear.
"Dude, I have to admit, I— I'm real lost here." Anna couldn't pry her eyebrows apart with a crowbar. This whole thing, it was just so out of her depth.
"Anna. I need you to look around at everyone here. What do you see?"
She didn't really want to turn away from this girl in case she changed again (maybe it'd be six-foot pigtails this time, who knows!), but slowly she let her eyes wander to the others. Olaf was drawing on a stage mirror and if Anna listened hard enough, she could make out him repeating red leather, yellow leather, lead reather, lellow feather. Oaken was on a ladder replacing a lightbulb as slowly as possible— there was a small heap of glass shards next to him because he was just too strong for those fragile lightbulbs. Kristoff and Flynn were breathless, berating each other while attempting to see who could do more pull-ups with one arm ("this couldn't be less fair... you've been one-armed... for a while now!" "You're just... a sore loser."). Elsa was pulling ice rabbit after ice rabbit out of a sparkling ice top hat. They each dissipated before they could hit the floor. Hans was pacing around with a hand running through his hair, spurting short responses into his Bluetooth earpiece.
"Uh..." Anna uttered, unprepared, "... I see a group of idiots?"
Rapunzel shook her head with a slight smile. "You're not wrong but... we're all con artists."
"You're all..."
"That's what makes this circus so successful. Hans picked each of us out to accent our individual amazingness. I'm still pretty new but I've learned a few things. For instance, Flynn. I haven't talked to him much but I guess he got caught robbing a bank once—"
"—Yeah he mentioned that."
"Did he mention that it wasn't the first time he robbed a bank? He said he was some sort of master thief, think Sly Cooper... Though, he could've just been saying that to try and impress me..."
"This is all a rouse?" Anna asked. Rapunzel nodded, so she continued. "Then let me see if I can get this right. Flynn is a parkour-slash-flashy distraction guy. Oaken was just born a big buff baby?"
"Actually, I hear he's the runt in his family." The other girl said, a small laugh accompanying the statement.
"O... kay..." Anna's eyes darted to said runt, who was still atop the ladder replacing lightbulbs. Each time he'd finished one (without it breaking), he'd nimbly climb down the ladder and move it to the next position. Anna noted that he was as tall as the ladder itself and twice as wide. He could hoist it over his head and the only sweat on him would be from the hot stage lights. "What about Olaf? Is he just a short guy with intensely white makeup? Or some albino guy?"
"Oh, Olaf isn't a person with albinism. He's just really white. We don't have to put much makeup on him at all. He does have to put on a lot of sunscreen though; poor little guy is practically allergic to the sun. Like, poof, instant rash."
Anna briefly remembered in that moment that she still forgot her own sunscreen, shit, but she wasn't nearly in as much danger as the little white dude. "That's... tragic. Well, Kristoff? Is his puppet a real reindeer and he literally sticks his hand up a reindeer's— "
"—No! Ew! No, the puppet is just that: a puppet. But I'm pretty sure Kristoff thinks it's sentient." She leaned in conspiratorially, "I sometimes hear him talking to it when there isn't a performance."
Anna tried her darnedest to take in all this information she was given. She really wasn't the best at keeping secrets. It wasn't even like she'd go around town blasting secrets or anything along those lines- she would honestly forget it's supposed to be kept a secret. How was she supposed to keep her job if her job was coated in secrecy and lies and lying? Though this train of thought made her realize something- something mega important and mega gay: she could learn more about Elsa. She just needed to be really really subtle about it. In the best, most nonchalant way she could muster, Anna nodded her head and ran a hand over her sweaty forehead.
"So. That Elsa chick. What's, like, y'know... What's Elsa's con?" Smooth, Anna. Smooth.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Rapunzel replied coyly. Anna's face kept the nonchalance up for nearly an entire three fucking seconds before turning into some desperate intensity. "Oh. You would like to know. Well, she sort of secludes herself from the rest of us to be honest, so as far as I know... It's magic."
"Yeah, yeah, hokay." Anna couldn't hold back the major eye roll. "Come on. How does she do all those amazing tricks?" Crush aside, she wanted to know how the heck that card trick worked. It kept her awake at night. Rapunzel hummed and let her gaze wander. She seemed to find the answer she was looking for when she looked at Anna, splayed her fingers out with a flourish, and whispered "magic" with a little giggle.
Anna wanted to rip out her own hair.
Hans paced briskly in front of them with his fingers pinched around the bridge of his nose and his eyes shut. He hissed out agonizingly through bared teeth. Whatever was going on in that phone call, he was not having it. Only when he noticed the girls in front of him did his pissy demeanor change, replaced by a cool calmness that Anna didn't think he could have right then. The odd moment passed as he walked away. Anna didn't realize how hardcore she'd been staring after him until Rapunzel's voice broke the air.
"I wish... I wish I didn't have to hide behind my hair." Rapunzel said candidly. Her hands reached for her braid to flip it back over.
"Do you want to cut it off?"
"No!" She hugged her hair mid-flip, "I mean, I want to do what I joined this circus to do. Dance."
With that, she heaved the rest of her wad of hair over her head. It rested upon the front of her chest. Her butterfly clips sparkled in the stage lighting around them. Anna couldn't help but feel sorry for Rapunzel. She was feeling empathetic, instead of her usual pathetic, and placed a hand on Rapunzel's back.
"You were right though; my 'beard' would get in the way." Rapunzel said solemnly.
"Well, what if that wasn't your act anymore?"
"I can't up and change my act like that. Hans wouldn't allow it."
"What if we work it in gradually? Show him what you can do before dropping that bomb?"
"Maybe," Rapunzel regarded her quietly and then let her eyes shift over to Flynn, who was laying on the ground with his chest visibly heaving from his stupid contest with Kristoff. "All I want is to be as carefree as he is. But I can't dance so freely, and I don't think he's really even seen me as anything other than a bearded lady."
Anna followed Rapunzel's eyes to the acrobat panting on the floor. Flynn had said something about Rapunzel being a lady with a beard during the "we're a family" conversation where he mentioned her being the weird cousin. Maybe he hadn't ever seen her without the beard and literally didn't know she wasn't an honest-to-goodness bearded lady. Pining after someone who didn't even know you, she thought, turning her gay gaze (gayze) to Elsa subconsciously. In a moment of solidarity, Anna grasped Rapunzel's shoulders (a little too excitedly, sheesh).
"Hey, we can get through this. We'll figure out the dancing thing and your crush on Flynn-"
"-And your crush on Elsa-"
"SHshshshSHHhh", Anna slapped a hand on Rapunzel's mouth, "yeah, yeah. We'll figure something out, together. I promise."
Anna could feel Rapunzel's smile on her hand as the other girl lifted a pinky and asked a muffled "promise?"
She entwined their pinkies and grinned, determined. "Promise."
And they finally hugged. Even though the beard was in the way, both metaphorically and literally (Anna couldn't put her arms fully around the girl), she felt a special bond with her and would help her any way she could. As she stood to go retrieve her tools from her car, because how else was she supposed to actually do her job, Rapunzel finally spoke up about the tool shed not too far from the family tent. Anna couldn't even be mad about it, and let out a breathy laugh. Of course there'd be a tool shed.
Anna debated going out and picking up food real quick, but she really didn't want to miss Elsa's part. Not only 'cause of the crush, of course. Mostly. It was only half because of the crush, okay, and the other half was the magic. Maybe she'd see something this time!
And see something she did— she saw the volunteer get all handsy with Elsa. His dirty fingers worked on the chains slowly, dragging over Elsa's hands as he cuffed her, sheesh. Anna tried not to let it get to her, but when she heard the volunteer say "oh you enjoy being tied up, don't you", she about stormed onto the stage. Didn't, only 'cause Flynn held her arm firmly. And then when her anger outweighed Flynn's strength, Kristoff held onto her other arm.
Anna was angry at them too, for a second. Then she saw their own protective expressions. They looked like they wanted to take this guy down themselves. They looked like the overprotective older brothers that Flynn said they were. The boy's grips on her arms tightened until the volunteer moseyed his stupid P.O.S. face back to his dumb seat.
The literal second that Elsa's act was done, Anna ran to meet her on the stage's sideline.
"Are you okay?" She asked. Elsa had long since dropped the polite smile that she used onstage and exhaled.
"It's a test in what I'm willing to put up with, that's for sure." Elsa was approximately really fucking tall in her Ice Queen getup, so Anna had to crane her neck to make eye contact.
"I don't like the idea of randos tying you up "she realized how grossly possessive that sounded and shrugged to quickly add, "you never know when some creep will volunteer just to get close enough to touch you." It's me, I'm some creep.
"I suppose it would be a lot better to know the person, at the very least."
"...Yeah." Anna furrowed her eyes in thought, "yeah, you're right! It would! Like an assistant!"
"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Anna, but I don't work with an assistant anymore. I used to, back before Kristoff broke his arm, and after that I had to adapt and I found that I very much enjoy doing it on my own. That way less people get hurt. I'm sorry to say this: I think that only magicians should know the magician's routine."
"That implies Kristoff's a magician"
"Well, he does have an affinity for making the impossible possible-" Elsa flared out her hands. Her really really pretty hands, long drool-worthy fingers... "-With his unexpected broken bones and whatnot."
"You're not a bad news bear, Elsa. How about if I was your assistant?"
"You're saying you can make the impossible possible?"
"Well, I do know this one thing..." Anna reached into her pocket and pulled out a wrinkled receipt (McDonald's, shockingly) that she balled up and held in front of her. "I'll now make this piece of paper... disappear! On the count of three. One!-" She smacked it into her outreached hand, "Two!-" Another smack, and then- without any secrecy or gusto at all- very obviously threw the ball behind her and smacked her now-empty hand into the outreached one, "Three! Ta-da! Where did it gooooo~"
She ended her trick with a showy bow and a cheeky grin.
Elsa laughed. Her mouth was hidden by her hand, but Anna still managed to get a peek at her cute dimples.
I wanna give those big cheeks a pinch and smooch 'em a lil.
"Alright."
"Alright?"
"You can be my assistant."
Anna jumped in place, "really? You mean it?"
Elsa held Anna's shoulders lightly to steady her, "yes, I mean it- on one condition," she said, her face serious and searching. "You have to start showing up on time. Maybe even earlier and you might have to stay late. Can you do that?"
Anna had left earth and launched right through the atmosphere when she felt the other girl's cool fingers touch her and, not trusting her mouth to make real coherent words, nodded silently. Elsa released her and Anna already missed the warmth. She bit her bottom lip and in a moment of bravery and stupidity blurted out a single word.
"PHONE."
Elsa eyebrows furrowed and her head tilted slightly.
"Uh, your phone. The number, your number. For your phone." Anna cleared her throat to give herself a moment to think before she spoke for once. "Maybe I should get your number so you can call me and, y'know, hold me accountable if I'm late."
That had to be the dumbest pickup line ever with the dumbest delivery. Elsa regarded her slowly and, before Anna could attempt some damage control, absolutely destroyed Anna's personal space. She could only watch as the much much taller girl reached forward and felt up the front and sides of Anna's shorts. Forget the atmosphere, she was headed toward another galaxy. Her face felt so warm, warmer than if she'd launched herself straight into the sun. She was burning alive and then Elsa slowly pulled Anna's phone out of her front pocket. Her nimble fingers tapped the screen and entered a phone number and her contact info, and gave the phone back to the roasting tomato.
"I'll hold you to it, then. See you, Anna."
And then Anna was all by herself as Elsa joined the other cast members onstage for the final bow.
Kristoff neared her as the tent emptied and Anna told him all about the interaction. He laughed and congratulated her.
"You're such a simp," he said and excitedly clapped one of her shoulders which- now she knew for sure- were indeed sunburnt. Yeah, She should've put sunscreen on.