So,
Where the hell has Anna gone? Not to worry - she's around.
Thanks for all the reviews, PMs and favourites. I'm sorry it took so long for an update, but things managed to get busy, and busy gets the better of me every single time. Stupid busy.
I hope you're well! This chapter is a little longer than the others. I hope that makes up for the wait. Actually, wait - I hope the writing makes up for the wait! I may have to do some touch-ups here and there later today, but I hope you enjoy the chapter despite any typos or other messiness I might have overlooked before posting it. :)
Thank you for reading!
ssg.x.
CHAPTER 10
A BEAST, AN ANGEL, AND A MADMAN
"Anna, Kai and Gerda, Olaf…Come on, come on, come on…" Elsa muttered under her breath, hands hovering over Hans' chest. She was afraid to touch him again, even with her gloves back on.
"Chocolate, apple cider, music, dried cherries, dancing…" she continued, making a list of the things she loved in the hopes that she could thaw Hans' heart, or at least bring the temperature down in the room to keep him a little more comfortable…if that was possible. Unlike Anna, Hans had at least been granted the small mercy of being unconscious as he slowly froze to death.
He's not going to die. You're not going to let him.
"I might not have a choice." Elsa muttered. She took a deep breath before lifting the top half of Hans' body off the floor. She crouched behind him, slipping her arms under his and around his ribs so she could haul him up against her chest. She was hoping that with enough will and determination, she'd be able to lift Hans off the frosty floor and get him on the bed so she could wrap him up in the blankets.
My kingdom for a big, able-bodied, snow monster.
While Elsa was sure she could call one into being easily enough, until she knew how to send it back from whence it came, bringing even more snow and ice into the room wasn't a good idea. She tightened her arms around Hans, knees wobbling as she struggled to get back on her feet. Once her legs were steady, she began dragging him along the floor towards the bed.
She tried to tell herself that if he did die, if she couldn't stop it from happening, he would only be getting what he deserved. His parents thought so, Kai and Gerda thought so, and even Hans himself seemed to think so. People were executed for treason all the time, right?
Elsa knew her rationalizations were completely nonsensical. If Hans died, it would be because she killed him – not for treason, but because he had kissed her.
And because she had liked it. Very much.
She'd never been kissed before, so she really had nothing to compare it to. All the folktales and myths she'd read never told her anything about kissing beyond it being a catalyst for something wonderful or something terrible happening. The prince kissed the princess and woke her from an eternal slumber, or the prince kissed the Fairy of Eden and all of Paradise fell into a thousand years of darkness. Elsa decided a long time ago that she just wasn't ready for princes, kisses, or whatever the combination of the two might bring, catastrophic or otherwise.
Never would Elsa have ever predicted that her first kiss would be someone's last. But then she also never thought her first kiss would be with her sister's sword-wielding, regicidal ex-fiancé.
What was she thinking?
She stood on the mattress, and, on a mental count of three, used all her strength to drag Hans onto the bed. The stiff fabric of the jacket he was wearing didn't make the task any easier. Once she was sure he wasn't going to slip over the edge, she let his body rest against hers as she tried to catch her breath. Her arms relaxed around him. She leaned her forehead against his back and sighed, wondering what the time was. Was it even the same day? She was hungry and exhausted, even though she knew there was no chance she'd be able to sleep or eat if given the opportunity to do either.
Elsa carefully eased the top half of Hans' body back on the bed as she slipped out from under him. She adjusted the pillow under his head and removed one of her gloves to check his pulse. It was slow, but steady. She was relieved until she noticed the streak of white extending from his forehead off to the right side of the part in his auburn hair. Under normal circumstances, she would have remarked on how distinguished it made him look.
Actually, that's not true. Under normal circumstances, Elsa wouldn't be here. She'd be at home in her own bed not giving Hans a second thought. Instead, she traced the strong line of his jaw with the very tip of one long, curious finger. Since she was wholly sure she couldn't cause him more harm than she already had, she climbed onto the bed and settled back on her haunches, leaning over to get a closer look at him.
"Hans?" she called to him quietly. He gave no response. In a normal speaking voice she called his name again, but again there was no answer. Telling herself she was only doing so to see if his eyes were moving beneath his eyelids, she leaned in even closer. Really she was marvelling over how long and dense his eyelashes were, and how perfect his turned up nose was. His skin was pale and his lips were thin, though they didn't feel thin pressed against hers, she remembered.
"Maybe," she began, touching the shock of white in his hair, "I could have…"
…could have loved you once.
"Maybe," she whispered bleakly. "If things had been different."
If she had seen the sword coming, had turned her head in time to see the look on his face seconds before he almost took her life without a moment's hesitation, maybe she wouldn't be waiting so expectantly for him to speak again. But she hadn't, and she didn't. Looking at him now, she couldn't imagine he could ever have been so cruel. Like he had said, though - it was his looks and his charisma that had first captivated Anna, and he had callously taken full advantage of that. Elsa had to remind herself that Hans was a cold, calculating master of deception.
Very cold, Elsa thought wryly before she could help it. And a good kisser. I think.
She flopped back on the bed beside Hans, putting as much distance between their bodies as the mattress would allow. Her eyes fluttered shut for few minutes, finding the rhythm of Hans' slow, rasping breaths strangely comforting. Her mind wandered to places it shouldn't have. She thought about the box hiding under the floorboards. She thought about the eleven pearl swans on the lid, and the long, white feathers he'd saved. She thought about the pebbles and imagined a young Hans standing on a beach, collecting those same pebbles and watching the swans out on the water through his grandfather's spyglass.
Even after all the time she'd spent with King Enoch and Queen Alma, and despite having met their other twelve sons, Elsa, try as she might, couldn't imagine Hans out on that beach with a single one of them. In her mind's eye, he was alone, watching the waves lapping the shore and the toes of his boots with a faraway look in his sad, green eyes. It was just him.
Just him.
"I thought you didn't dance."
Elsa started at the sound of Hans' voice, eyes widening with a mixture of surprise and relief. There was a chance she wouldn't be labelled a murderer after all. He didn't open his eyes, but it was just enough for Elsa that he was able to speak, even if what he'd said hadn't made any sense and sounded like it was crawling to her across broken glass.
"You're awake," she said, stating the obvious. Hans gave a little nod of his head.
"I thought you didn't dance," he said again.
Elsa scrunched up her nose, puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
"Anna told me…you didn't...dance," he croaked. Elsa blinked. Had he been able to hear her when she was trying to revive him earlier?
"She's right. I don't dance," Elsa replied, still confused but curious. She pulled her glove back on. "I like to watch people dancing, though. I just…" she hesitated, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. "I don't like being touched."
Hans smirked, "Yeah…I kind of got that."
Feeling ashamed, Elsa blushed. "I'm sorry. It…I didn't hurt you on purpose."
"And here I thought you were warming up to me," he said, his chuckle trailing off into a series of coughs. Elsa looked away.
"This isn't an appropriate time to make jokes," she said.
"Not even bad ones?" he replied. When Elsa glanced down at him, she saw that he had one eye open and a grin across his face. She turned her back to him so he couldn't see her smile.
She really needed Anna here so she could smack Elsa upside her big, stupid, smitten head.
The same head Hans tried to take right off your shoulders with his sword, she reminded herself.
"How do you feel?" she asked soberly.
"Cold," he answered. "My chest aches and it's a little hard to breathe, like there's a fist squeezing my heart."
My fist, Elsa thought, wincing. "I'm sorry," she said. "I've gotten so much better at controlling my powers. But you startled me, and…I told you that trying to pull the same tricks on me that you pulled on Anna would be a waste of your time. The only other reason for…"
…kissing me.
She couldn't even say the words out loud.
"…for doing what you did…" she fumbled shyly, "The only other reason would be that you were hoping it would kill you. You were hoping I would kill you. I'm not an angel of death. Not that I thought we've become the best of friends or anything, but I thought you understood my position on -"
She felt a lump grow in her throat, effectively stopping her from finishing that sentence. Tears sprang to her eyes and she quickly brushed them away with her gloved hands before he could see them.
Hans tried to raise himself up on his elbows. His breathing was laboured, and he was shivering violently. Elsa knew she should have stopped him from trying to move, but she was afraid to touch him again, even with the gloves on. He squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth, clearly in agony, but the emotional tumult within Elsa had grown too powerful, and it was a power she could no longer trust so long as she was alone with Hans.
He finally managed to sit up straighter than either of them thought he could, or at least that's what Elsa guessed by the look on Hans' face when they found themselves nose to nose.
After the initial shock, Hans' features softened with what could only be described as uninhibited wonder.
"Maybe I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you," he said softly.
Taken aback, Elsa's heart began pounding against her ribs and the bodice of her dress suddenly felt far too tight to accommodate all the activity. His lips parted and his eyes began to close. Hers did the same. The blankets fell away from his chest as he leaned his body forward, and Elsa, though every single one of her instincts screamed at her to pull away and make another go at getting out of that room, swayed precariously closer to his lips. The kiss she hadn't anticipated she'd want so much never came, though. Instead, his icy breath ghosted along her jawline, traced the helix of her ear, a foreshadowing of how the cold sting of his mouth directly on her skin might feel. The freeze hummed sensually throughout her entire body, but with no way to release, or even relieve itself, it just kept churning and churning inside of her, becoming more commanding by the second. If she didn't do something, she was afraid she might crack like an egg. Thankfully, the tickle of Hans' sideburn against her cheek returned to her a sliver of her mind, just enough to give her pause.
"Don't," she whispered.
"Don't what?" Hans breathed. His hand crept along the bed towards hers. She was perfectly still as he toyed with the fingers of her glove. With one firm tug, he managed to yank it right off her hand. Elsa crossed her arms and, with great effort, stood from the bed, but not before snatching her glove back from him.
"That's enough," she said, her voice trembling. "I've already told you I don't like being touched. And you're supposed to be on your deathbed."
Hans laughed mirthlessly and stared at his hands in his lap. "That's right. I almost forgot you tried to kill me."
Stricken, Elsa's blue eyes grew wide as night. "You know that's not true!"
"Fine," he muttered, waving a hand at her dismissively. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put it that way."
Elsa looked back over her shoulder at him, disgusted with herself for missing the feel of his breath on her neck. "God, I'm so stupid. I need to get out of here."
"What are you talking about?" Hans asked, bemused.
Elsa sighed. "Just when I think you're being even a little genuine with me, the mask slips."
Hans rolled his eyes. "So what's supposed to have given me away this time? Another lie?" he asked sarcastically. "And what was I lying about? That I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you, or that another part of me still believes that you want me dead?"
Elsa arched an eyebrow at him. "And what if a part of me did want you dead? You yourself told me you couldn't blame me. You left my sister to die a slow, painful death, you repulsive parasite! But that wasn't even your biggest crime. You made her fall in love with you first, and then you made a cruel joke of it. You shut her up in a room not unlike this one, you put out the fire to hasten her demise, and then you came after me."
Looking infuriatingly unmoved, Hans wrapped his arms around himself and glared at her. Elsa's hands balled into fists. Cracks began to appear in the sheets of black ice on the walls and window, glowing hellish red in spite of the near-arctic temperature of the room.
"What do you want me to tell you? That I'm sorry?" he snapped, his face darkening.
"Like a sorry from you would mean anything," Elsa snorted. "I've picked handfuls of berries worth more than an apology from a slimy bastard like you."
"A slimy bastard like me, huh? Why did you kiss me back, then?"
"I'm tired, and hungry, and out of my mind with worry!" she yelled, composure finally worn down to nothing.
Hans angrily threw the sheets back and climbed out of bed. He stood on unsteady legs, leaning heavily on one of the bedposts for a moment before attempting to stand on his own. Elsa detested that she was concerned he might hurt himself.
"Who's lying now?" he spat. His shoulders stiffened and his face contorted in anguish. Another streak of white unfurled in his auburn hair, not far from the first one.
"How dare you question me!" she shouted. "I only came here in the first place to investigate what I'd been led to believe was an influenza epidemic. I was doing what I thought was best for Arend—"
"Oh, blah-blah-blah!" Hans shouted back. Elsa couldn't believe her ears. No one had ever dared speak to her that way before. She barely knew how to react.
"Excuse me?!" she blurted. Her wild blue eyes locked with his absinthe green ones combatively. A muscle in Hans' clenched jaw ticked and Elsa felt an unfamiliar heat pool in the pit of her stomach.
"You might not be ready to admit it, but I am," he said. "You kissed me back and you liked it, and that's what scared you. You have the love of your people, and your sister, and that's all well and fine, I'm sure. But what you felt when I kissed you was -"
"Ugh!" Elsa scowled, cutting him off before he said something that would mess with her head even further. "Don't even think about trying to talk me into believing you're capable of loving anyone but yourself."
Hans groaned and fell to his knees, his spirit looking suitably crushed for Elsa's purposes. Another streak of white rippled through his hair, then another. Still, Hans grabbed the bedpost and stubbornly attempted to pull himself up. Elsa's heart hurt for him, but if she'd learned anything from her experience with Hans, it was that a really good series of lies required an unwavering commitment to the bit.
"Does it hurt?" Elsa asked, plastering a sickening smirk on her face. Hans said nothing, but the answer was obvious. "I'm glad," she said.
She wasn't.
Hans gave up the fight to get back on his feet and sank to the floor. His eyes narrowed with rage, spilling angry tears.
Elsa found she couldn't control the sheer volume of ugly words that had built up inside her. They just kept coming. She knew a large part of it had to do with her never having truly confronted Hans about everything he almost got away with during the eternal winter. But another part of it, an even larger part, was about her desperate need to push Hans as far away from her emotionally as possible, because no matter how he felt about her, or made her believe he felt about her; it wouldn't change how she felt about him. Elsa was repeating Anna's mistake, fully aware of the consequences but unable to stop herself. She was falling in love with Hans, and she was terrified.
"The closest we've ever come to sharing a connection is when the blade of your sword almost connected with the back my neck." Elsa said, swaying where she stood and feeling as though she might faint. Trying to keep the freeze under control so as not to give away her true feelings had taken a great physical toll on her. The room wasn't big enough to contain the storm spiralling out of control inside her, so that's exactly where she needed to keep it.
"I don't know why your parents trapped me in here with you," she continued. "Maybe they're too cowardly to execute you themselves, or maybe they're exacting some sort of revenge on me and my kingdom. Either way, the rotten apple evidently doesn't fall far from the tree." Elsa said, feigning apathy by turning away so she wouldn't have to see the barefaced suffering etched into Hans' handsome features as she delivered the final blow. "I met your brothers and they barely acknowledged your existence. Even your own parents want you dead. Maybe your last moments on this earth could have been different, if only there was someone out there who loved you."
"Enough!" Hans cried out, raising his hands to cover his ears. The suffering in his voice was so raw that Elsa could feel it in her bones. Before she knew what was happening, she found herself falling backwards, landing rather inelegantly on her backside to avoid the barbed hedge of ice that appeared in an explosion of snow and frost between her and Hans as though it was an extension of his voice.
His voice. His hands.
Elsa scrambled to make her way around the wide arc of the icy barrier. Behind it, Hans lay on his side, one hand still over one ear, one arm twisted behind his back. She carefully turned him over so that he was resting on his back, gently unwinding his arm and placing it at his side. She began to unbutton his jacket and waistcoat so she could check his heartbeat. That's when she saw it – an azure blue glow radiating from beneath Hans' white, cotton shirt.
"What…?" Elsa whispered, voice trailing off into stunned silence. She threw open the jacket and waistcoat then quickly untied the scarf that was wrapped around his neck. She slipped his braces over his shoulders and tugged them down around his elbows. Despite the dire circumstances, Elsa hesitated before pulling his shirt up under his arms.
Really, Elsa. This is no time for modesty.
She needn't have worried that her eyes would wander where they hadn't been invited. Once she lifted Hans' shirt, all she could see was the brilliant, shimmering imprint of a snowflake over his heart. Not just a snowflake – her snowflake. She hesitantly reached out and touched it before recoiling, alarmed, when she realized the mark was burned into Hans' flesh like some sort of branding. Elsa closed her eyes against the intensity of its light and laid her head against his chest to listen for a heartbeat, but there wasn't one to be found.
Hans…
I wish Anna was here. Anna would know what to do.
Elsa's chin wobbled as she pressed her lips together to keep from crying. Crying certainly wouldn't do either of them any good just then. "I don't understand what's happening, and I don't know how to help you. This is all I can do," she said, holding out her hand and conjuring a few glittering snowflakes with a flourish of her fingers. "This is it. I can bring snowmen to life, but I can't bring people back from the dead. So you can't die, okay?" she sniffled, the suppression of tears causing an ache in her throat that made it hard to speak aloud.
She bundled Hans back up in his waistcoat and jacket. "Listen," she began, lifting his hand and trying to bend it into a handshake. "I'll make a deal with you – you stay alive, and I'll figure out a way to get us out of here, and we'll…we'll figure something out, okay? I-I'll bring you with me. But I can't do it if you're..."
Elsa let Hans' hand fall back to his side and bowed her head.
"You were right," she said. "I'm a liar. I said there was no connection between us, but that isn't true. We do have a connection. I really, really hate it, but it's there. You were shut out, and I was shut in. You were a boy who grew up wanting one kind of freedom, and I was a girl who grew up wanting another. And here we are, needing and wanting our freedom more than ever. The difference now is that neither of us are alone this time. We can do this together. I just need you to stay with me."
Elsa searched Hans' face for any sign that he could hear her, but there was nothing. "Please, Hans…" she whispered thickly. Defeated, her shoulders sagged and she began to sob, releasing the freeze that had been building up inside her all this time from its shackles to do with her body as it wished.
