3.1.16
The aftermath is here, everyone! Finally...
From now on I'm just going to say that every chapter is rated a strong M. I should also caution you that there will be triggers for violence, and possibly abuse as well. You've probably all guessed this already based on the subject matter of this story, but please be advised going forward.
Thanks,
-Rex
8.
She spends the weekend in the library on her computer.
Charity Week continues to rage all around her, though, by Sunday, the first effects of prolonged hangovers begin to take effect and the campus is eerily quiet until almost five in the evening.
If Anna returns to the room, Elsa doesn't know. She pours through wikipedia articles, forums, blogs, and even a couple of porn sites, focusing intently for small intervals of time before remembering her location, and glancing around furtively to check for wandering eyes.
She doesn't eat. She barely sleeps.
She learns, but she doesn't really find any answers.
/-/-/-/-/
Monday morning arrives like a brick to the face. Samantha drops her stuff down on the desk, and Elsa jumps violently, clutching at her chest.
"Holy shit..." She breathes out and releases the front of her sweater. "You scared me."
"Sup, Elsa. You're looking, um...bedraggled? Is that the word?"
"Yeah, that's the word." Elsa lets her head drop onto the desk.
Sam sighs noisily. "What's up, chica? You look like shit."
"Thanks," Elsa mutters.
"Seriously."
Elsa rolls her eyes and sits up, brushing her hair out of her face. "Seriously, thanks."
Sam's eyes widen. "Oh, hey, your hair is down. Why is your hair down?"
Elsa mumbles something into her hands.
"What?"
"I said, Anna told me she likes it."
"Anna your roommate?"
"Yeah."
Sam's brows go up. "The one you hate?"
"I don't hate her," Elsa frowns, tugs the cuffs of her sweater over her knuckles, "she's just..."
"Messy, drunk, obsessed with her boyfriend-"
"-Yeah, yeah. Jeez, shh." Elsa glances around surreptitiously. "She might have friends in this class."
"The way you talk about her, I'm surprised she has time for anything other than banging Ha-"
"Will you shut up!" Elsa slaps her hand over Sam's mouth. "Sit the hell down, and stop being so loud."
"Okay, jeez, sorry." Sam takes her seat, eyeing Elsa suspiciously as she opens her notebook. "Why are you taking your hated roommate's advice?" Sam looks her over carefully. "And why does it look like you haven't slept all weekend?"
Elsa groans. "Sam, can we not?"
"Um, no, you don't get to do that." Sam swivels to face her. "If I have to sit and listen to you bitch about Anna at lunch every week, then you get to tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing."
"Lies," Sam sing-songs, "traitorous lies!"
"Oh my god."
"Are you gonna tell me? Because otherwise I'm gonna tell you all about Mari's gratuitous public make-out grope fest with her biology TA on Saturday-"
"-Okay!" Elsa hangs her head, and sniffs. "Okay, okay, uncle. Uncle. Just, later, please? Not in class?"
Sam's expression softens. She hooks her long sleeved henley over her thumb and leans forward to wipe a smudge of mascara from Elsa's face.
"One of these days you're gonna figure out that I care about you, Elce."
"We've only known each other for three months." Elsa brushes Sam's hand away and wipes her eyes bruskly.
"So?"
"So, that's not enough time to get to know someone, let alone care about them."
Sam's jaw sets, her mouth hardens into a line, and she looks suddenly quite intimidating. "Says who? The friend police?"
"I-"
"-Can it, Larsen." The brunette pokes her in the chest. "No one gets to tell me who I care about and when I care about them, least of all you!"
Elsa's head drops, and her eyes well up again just as the professor sweeps into the auditorium, five minutes late, barking threats of bodily harm into her cell phone.
"We'll talk after class," Sam murmurs, watching, warily, as Dr. Fisher chucks her bookbag onto the podium with an audible bang. "I think this is going to be an interesting lecture."
/-/-/-/-/
An hour and ten minutes later, Sam drags Elsa by the sleeve of her jacket into her dorm room and deposits her on the bed. The room is hot with the heater blasting, and Elsa's jacket immediately feels suffocating. She unzips the front just as she breaks into a sweat, and looks around at Sam's stuff for lack of anything better to do. She's been over before, but Sam's done a little more decorating since then, there's a purple desk lamp now clipped to the headboard of her bunk, and a few posters on the wall: Muse, Chvrches, a map of Minnesota, the New England Patriots, a fish-eye shot of a girl flying off the end of an icy halfpipe on her snowboard against a jewel blue sky. Nothing else has changed much. The desk is still organized into much the same categories, a messy stack of notebooks and papers, a spilled jar of change, a pile of gum wrappers, reminders written on bent up post-its.
Sam, apparently oblivious to the uncomfortable heat, paws through something in her closet.
"Why are we here?" Elsa asks, growing impatient.
"I'm trying to find my extra cash."
Elsa rolls her shoulders slowly, stretching out the tension. "What for?"
"So, I can buy you lunch…"
"You don't have to do that."
"I know, but I want to... aha!" Sam emerges, smiling, holding a wallet. "Let's go!"
"Why don't you keep your wallet on you?"
"Cuz I'll spend money. I'm not real good with it."
Elsa heaves a noisy sigh, but she tucks the rest of her exasperation away behind a surge of fondness. "Okay. Where are we going?"
"Taco Bell."
Elsa makes a face.
Sam's smile slips. "Would you...rather go somewhere else?"
"Please."
/-/-/-/-/
Elsa has some money. The loans she took out for school (what little wasn't covered by grants and scholarships) included funds to cover her living expenses, and she's worked out a very flexible budget for herself. She tells her friend this as they brave the slushy streets in Sam's little, blue hatchback. Of course, her protests fall on deaf ears. She's found that Sam takes a peculiar pride in her midwestern sense of hospitality, so Elsa doesn't push it. It's not a fight she really wants to win.
The fuzzy dice on Sam's rearview mirror swing violently back and forth when she takes a particularly sharp corner, wheels skidding on a slick patch of pavement as the chassis is jostled up and down. Elsa tries really hard to keep her facial expressions impassive and fails. Sam laughs heartily at her expense.
"I'm a good driver, Elsa. Chill out!"
Elsa just whimpers and clings to the door as they swerve to avoid a pothole
They end up at a Chipotle across town because Elsa doesn't trust the liquid orange cheese at Taco Bell, and Sam already has her heart set on Tex-Mex. The afternoon is bitter cold and soggy, icy streets steaming in the pale, winter sun, melting and cracking and forming brackish puddles in every pothole, divet, and dent. Sam holds the door for her as they pass inside and jump in the winding lunch line. A blast of heat hits Elsa square in the face and she immediately strips off her hat and gloves, stuffing them into the pockets of her blue parka.
"We're supposed to get rain tomorrow," Sam says idly, staring down at her phone.
"Will it freeze?"
"I don't think so. Weather app says it's gonna heat up a for a few days."
"And by heat up they mean low forties, right?"
Sam smirks. "Of course."
"Halloween is gonna be miserable." Elsa scans the menu, pretending she doesn't already know that she's going to get her usual. "I'd rather we got more snow. It's less cold somehow."
"Ditto." Sam tucks her phone away. "I dunno if I'm gonna go out, to be honest. I'm kinda partied out."
Elsa shoots her a skeptical glance.
"I know, right? But seriously, Mari's still retching from Saturday, and I think I'm still dehydrated." Sam pinches the skin on the back of her hand and watches with furrowed brows as the raised, white ridge slowly smoothes itself back into a smooth plain. "Yep. Definitely."
"Wouldn't it be sacrilege to skip the Halloween Bash?"
Sam scoffs and elbows Elsa, a mischievous smile sliding on her lips. "What does a library wraith like yourself care for the parties of mere mortals?"
Elsa blushes lightly and keeps her eyes fixed on the menu. "I don't."
"Did you go to any this weekend?"
"No. Just studied."
At this, Sam seems a little surprised. "Really?" She gives Elsa a quick once over. "That's surprising. You looked like such crap in class this morning that I assumed you were hungover."
Elsa thinks of tequila dribbling down Anna's chin and swallows hard. Her mouth begins to water. If it's a hangover of a different sort that Sam is referring to then maybe, but Elsa shakes her head.
"Alright, well…" Sam musses her hair, growing long now over her ears, and shrugs. "Are you gonna tell me what's actually wrong, then?"
"It's nothing." Elsa cringes at the false levity in her own voice and turns to find Sam wearing an expression of absolutely scathing disbelief. "Er...well. It's not…" Elsa huffs. "I don't know how to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it, I guess."
Sam nods. Elsa wonders if she actually understands this, or if she's just trying to be sympathetic. It's placating either way. They are interrupted by a Chipotle worker as they reach the front of the line, and the next several minutes are spent sliding along the shiny, metal counter, pointing to ingredients for their burrito bowls. Sam, predictably, loads hers up with cheese, guacamole, and sour cream, smiling indulgently at the man behind the counter just so he'll add a little extra. By the time they've taken their seats, Sam has doused her food in hot sauce and dug in with gusto. She smiles across the booth with bulging cheeks.
"I love this place."
Elsa grimaces, and then laughs helplessly. "You look like a chipmunk."
Sam shoves another spoonful of rice and beans into her mouth, reaching for her soda to wash it all down. "Ugh. So good."
"It kinda hits the spot," Elsa admits, digging into her own bowl with considerably less vigor.
"Totally. Best hangover food on the planet." Sam wipes her mouth with a napkin and crumples it up in her fist. "So, spill. What's going on?"
"I don't really want to talk about it."
"Yeah, I know. Tell me anyway."
Elsa looks aghast at this and glares at Sam. "Why should I?"
Sam jabs her fork at Elsa's chest, pausing to swallow another massive bite of food. "You bottle everything up. It's not healthy."
"I'm a private person."
"I think you're just scared of being vulnerable."
"It hasn't worked out so well for me in the past," Elsa snaps, "so excuse me if I'm reticent to share personal details about my life."
Sam leans back in the booth, eyes scrunching tightly. "I'm not the past, Elce. I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? Maybe don't tell me, but tell someone, okay? I've been a little worried about you lately."
"If you knew me at all, you would know that this is normal."
"Fine, well, I'd like to know you better."
Elsa glances up and studies the hard set of Sam's jaw, the odd glassy sheen in her wide brown eyes. "Why?"
"Oh, come on! That's a stupid question." Sam digs angrily into her bowl, wrenching her gaze away. "We're friends and I care about you. Of course I want to get to know you better. What the heck is wrong with you?"
"Nothing! Well…"
"Nothing?"
"Well, I'm just...still not used to people wanting to...be friends with me. I guess."
Sam scoffs. "Who wouldn't want to be friends with you? You're smart and witty and beautiful."
"I-" Elsa huffs. "I wasn't always."
"I definitely don't believe that."
"Anyway, I'm not good at talking about myself. I'm not good at it, okay? I'm sorry."
Sam sighs and runs her fingers through her hair, and Elsa immediately knows that she feels guilty, that she's frustrated, that she's trying to decide how to proceed. Proceeding with caution isn't Sam's strong suit. She's dogged and straightforward. She's earnest and honest and caring, and she drives straight to the heart of any problem she finds. Elsa smiles wanly and wonders when she came to know her friend so well. Her hands quiver under the table, wringing the hem of her pullover. The room is loud and bright, colors bleeding together like the screen on an old TV. She has to close her eyes for a moment, has to steel herself, because Sam deserves an olive branch, even if she doesn't want to give it. If she can trust Jenny, she can learn to trust Sam, too. If she can divulge just a little of this secret, it should be sufficient. There will be more than enough to keep close, to hoard deep in her chest with the greedy flame that Anna has lit there. Sam doesn't have to know it all. She can't, because Elsa's not sure what'll happen when her secret hits the open air, whether the rush of oxygen will feed the flames and drive them higher, whip them into a frenzy, into a blistering fire storm that she can't extinguish. There isn't enough ice around her broken heart to keep her safe.
Whatever this is, she knows it will consume her.
Elsa hesitates. "It's… It's just..." she closes her eyes and knots her fingers together in her lap. "It's Anna."
"God, of course it is." Elsa huffs sharply and glares, but Sam is unrepentant, even smirking a little as she chews. "Don't look at me like that, Elce. She upsets you all the time. It's almost like…" Sam trails off, brows knitting together. "Hm."
Elsa breaks into a nervous sweat and turns her eyes away. Of course, common sense dictates that it shouldn't be obvious to anyone else, but still, she feels branded. She is so aware, so self-conscious, that it feels as if her sins are written plainly on her forehead for all the world to see. She reaches for her soda, fingers curling desperately around cold, damp cardboard, bringing the straw to her mouth to disguise the anxious twitch of her lips as Sam studies her, eyes narrowed in in thought.
"Are you-?" Sam begins to ask, but doesn't get a chance to finish, because just at that moment a blur in a navy blue parka has sailed up to the table and is leaning down to talk to Elsa.
Hans.
"Hey!" Hans smiles his white, unctuous smile and gives Elsa a quick once over. "Nice hair. Finally decided to let it down for change, huh?"
Nervous, sweaty, and dazed, Elsa can only stare for a moment while her brain switches gears. "Um, thanks."
He turns, seeming to notice Sam for the first time. "Hey, I'm Hans."
"Samantha." She fixes him with a knowing smile. "So, you're the boyfriend?"
Hans quirks a brow. "Yes?" He turns to Elsa. "She doesn't mean your boyfriend, right?"
"No, moron." Elsa rolls her eyes. "Everybody knows I don't date guys with bad comb-overs."
Hans' fingers twitch and reach up as if to touch his hair, but then his eyes narrow imperceptibly and he catches himself. He lowers his hand again slowly.
"Nice." His answering smile is a little thin. "I thought it was the sideburns you hated."
"I'm capable of multitasking."
Sam snickers. Something weird flickers across Hans' face, and for a moment he seems privately bemused about something, but he keeps it to himself.
"Cute." He rolls his eyes. "Anyway, this isn't a social call, Elsa. I actually have a favor to ask you."
"A favor?" Elsa frowns. "Why?"
"Relax, I just need you to give a book to Anna. She needs it for her big test on Wednesday."
"Why don't you give it to her yourself? You see her more than I do."
Hans shrugs. "Not lately. It seems like you two are always together."
Confused, Elsa starts to open her mouth, but Sam interrupts. "Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem." She shoots Elsa a giddy look across the table. "Right, Elce?"
"Um," Elsa glances from Sam to Hans, who is now giving both of them a weird look, and then back again. "Yeah? Should be fine."
"Okay, I'll uh," he hitches a thumb over his shoulder, "just go get it from the car." He glances between them one more time. "Be right back."
As soon as Hans is out of earshot, Sam nearly lunges across the table. "OhmygodElsa! Tell me this isn't what it looks like!"
"I have no idea!" Elsa hisses, perplexed. "What does it look like?"
"Well, I know you haven't been hanging out with Anna all the time."
Elsa squirms.
"Wait…" Sam's eyes widen. "Wait wait wait. Have you?"
"Well…" Elsa bites her lip. "Not really. I saw her briefly on Wednesday night, and then….Friday night, but that's it."
"So, she's lying to him!" Sam grins and whirls around to glance at the door. "I knew it!"
"Why do you look so happy about this?"
"Only because it's a freaking scandal!" Food forgotten, Sam reaches into her pocket and whips out her phone. "I have to ask Mari if she knows anything."
"No, wait! Stop, stop!" Elsa reaches out and bats Sam's phone away. "Don't do that!"
"What?" Sam laughs incredulously. "Why not?"
"Because we- We shouldn't get involved."
"Oh, come on, Elce, you don't think it's hilarious that your party animal roommate -the one that you hate- is cheating on her boyfriend and lying about it?"
Elsa clenches her teeth and tries to swallow down the acid creeping up her throat. Her thoughts are flying all over the place. Her emotions are hanging in suspense, not certain yet where to fall.
"Not particularly," she grits out.
"But it's karmic justice! Maybe you can blackmail her into cleaning the room!"
"We don't even know what's going on!" Elsa bats Sam's phone away again. "And besides, I don't hate Anna."
Sam cocks her head to the side. "Since when?"
"Since never! I never hated her."
"I don't understand. You complain about her all the time, and you were just about to tell me that Anna is the reason why you came to class this morning looking like microwaved shit before Hans walked in…" Sam trails off, eyes scrunched up in confusion.
Elsa shushes her as the door opens and Hans returns, striding over wearing an unreadable expression on his face. His expensive boots squeak on the floor as he comes to a stop at their table, and Elsa shoots one last silencing glare at Sam before glancing up at him.
"Here." He hands over a paperback with a picture of a bust of Octavian Augustus on the front. "She texted to let me know she's at library. Just run it over to her when you get back."
"Okay." Elsa accepts the book and looks it over in her hands. "Still not sure why you don't just give it to her yourself, since she's at your place every night."
Sam shoots her an incredulous glare across the table, like she's only seconds away from kicking Elsa under the table. Hans' brow furrows.
"I won't be back on campus until late tonight. I saw you and figured you would see her first." He studies her curiously for a couple of tense seconds before nodding and turning away. "Anyway, thanks, Elsa. I owe you one. See you around."
He takes the bag of food that Elsa hadn't even noticed sitting on the edge of their table, and leaves quickly, the musky scent of his cologne lingering lightly over them. The door to the restaurant slams and a blast of cold air rushes into the room, drawing loud complaints from a group of girls nearby. Elsa shivers.
She feels very, very cold.
Slowly, like a frog reanimating in a Spring thaw, Sam blinks, stuffs her phone back in her pocket, and turns her wide brown eyes to Elsa's. Her jaw works as she chews on her thoughts, and it's unnerving to see Sam so quiet. Elsa goes to set the book aside just so she'll have an excuse to avert her gaze.
"Hm. Well." Sam leans forward and picks up her fork again, resuming the steady demolition of her burrito bowl. "You are definitely acting weird."
Elsa bristles, laughs nervously, caustically. "Aren't I always acting weird?"
Sam hardly misses a beat, eyes fixed on her food. "No."
"Oh. Um."
"What were you going to tell me?"
"About?"
"Anna." Sam shoots her a glance. "C'mon, after that awkwardness? You have to tell me what's going on."
Elsa's stomach churns and she drums her fingernails against the tabletop, thinking longingly of Jenny, how much she would rather have this conversation with her old best friend who has made enough mistakes herself not to find any of Elsa's damning.
Sam can't promise her empathy for this.
What can Elsa give? What can she give to satisfy Sam's curiosity, her dangerous impulse for deeper friendship, for mutual understanding.
Elsa crosses her arms, lets her fingertips dig into her biceps until the muscles burn and her breathing returns to normal again.
Give just enough.
"I already knew Anna was cheating," Elsa says quietly, and that, at least, manages to surprise Sam.
"Wait, you did?" Sam chews slowly. "How?"
"I put two and two together." Elsa shrugs.
"Why'd you cover for her?"
"I didn't cover for her. You covered for her."
"But- wait."
"I didn't realize she's been telling Hans that we were hanging out together." Elsa's eyes sting and she blinks the moisture away. "I would've blown it, probably."
"Can I tell Mari?"
"Let me talk to Anna first." Elsa picks up her fork and stares unenthusiastically at her food. "Mari's a gossip."
"Are you and Anna…" Sam twirls her fork, searching for a word, "friends now?"
Elsa manages a wan smile. "Sure. You could say that."
Sam stares for a second, trying to make sense of it, and when the the bolt of comprehension strikes, when the wrinkles in her brow smooth flat and her eyes widen, Elsa just smiles sadly and resumes eating her food.
"So…what exactly does that mean?"
"Another time, okay?"
Sam, thankfully, decides not to press the issue.
/-/-/-/-/
Life after her first ograsm isn't all too different from life before it, except that Elsa is suddenly, obnoxiously, aware of body parts in a way that she has never been before. In particular, her eyes are drawn to mouths and tongues, whenever Sam, who's made a habit of it, flicks her tongue across her lips while texting, Elsa's heart skips a beat. Of course, her eyes are also drawn to other things, the rounded curves of breasts under fabric, the flow of long hair over collarbones, the indentations of waists and jutting of hips, the subtle curve of muscle that swells at the thighs, the way butts jiggle mid stride. If she notices the bulge between the legs of her male counterparts as well, she tries not to think about it.
It kills her a little bit, how undignified she feels, because there is nothing dignified about the way her underwear soaks through whenever she thinks of Anna's fingers curling into her waistband.
It's embarrassing.
She shouldn't want it to happen again, but she's only human, and humans have appetites. Despite her dread, despite her embarrassment, despite her abject moral mortification, Elsa is starving like she's slept without food for 100 years. Her thoughts wander despite her hellbent efforts to stay focused, despite a weekend of uncharacteristic indulgence, fantasizing in her dorm room, lying back on her bed feeling the pulse between her legs with tentative fingers. For all that she's now aware of other bodies, it's the sudden, throbbing awareness of her own that is truly unsettling. A single, sloppy encounter with Anna's tongue has melted through the glaciers over her desires and loosed the magma underneath. A single eruption, a pyroclastic flow of feeling and emotion, has irreversibly transformed her body's icy landscape. It is impossible to go back to the way things were before.
She's a sexual being now.
Sam drops her off near the center of campus, mumbling something about a "food baby and a nap", and now Elsa's minds ticks steadily as she treks past a sluggish group of girls in tight yoga pants. Her cheeks glow and her blue eyes slide off toward the ground when she catches the tug of spandex over taut thighs and bulging butts. Curious urges rise and break the surface, but she forces them back down again, holding them under, drowning them. Her arms hang stiff at her sides, sleeves swishing lightly against the body of her jacket. Her fists curl, clench, and uncurl again, unsynchronized and erratic. Her gaze jumps between cracks in the sidewalk, and she muses on the ways in which she has earned a new appreciation for the struggles of pubescent boys, because college campuses are hotbeds for sexual expression and liberation, and Elsa has to keep her gaze glued to the bricks as she enters the quad, power walking around some kind of risque costume contest at the dj booth on her way to the north side.
The near deafening silence that washes over her as she enters the library soothes her mind like aloe on a sunburn. She takes the low, stone steps two at a time up a shallow staircase to the periodicals room and cuts across. The muted sounds of shifting books, swishing fabric, and light feet float to her between the stacks, interrupted here and there by the harsh staccato of a backpack zipper or a cough. Periodicals is a popular place to study, since it has the best wifi access and comfiest chairs, but she doesn't spot Anna's shock of red hair among any of the square, wooden tables. She passes through.
At the far end of the room she turns down a wide, arched passageway toward the main study hall. The change in temperature is immediately palpable, and Elsa shivers and hunches further into her jacket. The stone chamber is older and draftier than the other rooms, making it unpopular in the winter despite the superior scenery. Today, the study hall is nearly deserted. Charity Week is in its final throes and the rows of long wooden tables are largely vacant. Either Anna's professor is very unaware or very cruel, because Elsa can't imagine trying to prepare for a test in the midst of all the madness. She scans the room, and again, Anna is nowhere to be found.
Very reluctantly, Elsa shoots Anna a text, and leans up against a dark, polished bookcase, peering around blankly at the old hall. Silver light filters in through the stained glass windows, colors dulled by the looming rain clouds in the west. Her foot taps restlessly against the hardwood floor, unceasing, burning off excess adrenalin. She checks her watch and focuses on one of the giant, copper chandeliers to keep her thoughts corralled, to keep her imagination shut tight.
Her phone buzzes in her hand.
Fourth floor. SE corner :)
Elsa stares, blood thrumming in her ears, and then her feet begin to move, carrying her to the stairwell and up four flights before she's even worked out what's she supposed to say to the girl that went down on her three days ago.
It's dark on the southeast side. The clouds have covered the sun to the west, and the afternoon is waning. She finds Anna tucked away in a lonely corner at a long table, books and papers fanned out in an arc around her laptop, a brand new, silver Macbook that Elsa notes with some envy. Tall bookshelves press in around the table like a silent forest, and it's actually rather cozy and intimate, not at all where Elsa would have expected Anna to study.
Her boots scuff against the stiff carpet as she comes to a stop, blue eyes wavering.
Anna looks up at her.
Then… Oh.
Something snaps in the quiet, and Elsa looks down to find that she's cracked her plastic phone case, fissured now along one of the thinner sides. Her ears burn. Blinking at the floor, she shoves the device hastily in her coat pocket, out of sight, out of mind. A flash of red catches the corner of her eye and her chin is lifting again of its own according, gaze connecting, lashes falling to leave her crystal orbs half-lidded, half-dazed. She's in a trance before she can ward herself against it. She's disarmed before she can raise her sword.
Anna just smiles.
"Thanks for coming," she says, as if it were a favor and not somehow inevitable.
Her voice is velvety soft and her hair is piled atop her head in a tousled, messy bun, errant strands falling down around her face in ribbons of cinnamon and burnt orange. Elsa's mouth falls open, but she forgets to respond for a second, lost in the constellation of freckles on Anna's cheeks, and presently, the warm teal hue in her blue irises.
"I-um," Elsa stammers, eyes falling, as if weighted, down the ridges of Anna's collarbone toward the valley between her breasts. "You're... welcome."
Elsa clears her throat. Her weight shifts from one foot to the other. The cut of Anna's long, goldenrod shirt isn't even especially generous, but it doesn't matter. Anna licks her lips and the action doesn't go unnoticed. Elsa feels a telltale tightening of muscle between her legs.
"Hans gave you the book?" Anna asks, seemingly for something to say, and it's the spark that finally jolts Elsa forward.
"Right." She stumbles a bit. "Right, yes."
In haste, she slides her backpack off her shoulders and lays it on the table with an incriminating thump.
"Wow." Anna's eyebrows shoot up. "You've got a lot of stuff in there."
Elsa swallows. The sound of the zipper coming undone is harsh and startling, the muted atmosphere in the library nearly claustrophobic. She reaches into the largest pocket and begins to dig for Anna's book, but it has shifted around somehow. She mutters curses under her breath as she frantically begins to pull things out.
"Aha." Elsa's fingers slide across the face of Emperor Augustus, half hidden behind a spiral notebook. "Here." She whips it out and tosses it rudely onto the desk, grimacing immediately at the noisy smack it makes against the wood. "Um. Sorry. There's your book."
"Thanks."
Anna doesn't reach for it. Her eyes don't leave Elsa's face for even a single second, growing more intense, more intent. Tentative raindrops splatter on the windowpane behind her, gentle disturbances against the glass. Elsa can feel the burn from Anna's eyes, but she keeps her gaze fixed on the book, waiting to see if Anna will take it.
She doesn't.
"You wore your hair down."
Elsa's saliva turns to glue and she can't think of anything to say. She just nods again, and this time Anna hesitates.
"...Do you want to talk?"
Elsa flinches and turns her head, faces the opposite wall, trembles. Anna's voice sounds husky, quiet in a way that Anna is rarely quiet. It's humble and subdued. It's cautious. It's considerate of it's volume and it's effect. Elsa is terrified of what that might mean.
Wooden chair legs slide against the carpet and then Anna is stepping around the table, deliberately invading Elsa's space. Elsa's breath hitches and gives her away, but it's too much to hide. She can smell Anna now. The hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and her skin pebbles into goosebumps, caught in Anna's magnetic pull, straining to be closer. Elsa closes her eyes and tries to center herself. With Anna, she is always trying to center herself, and that is terrifying, too, because no one has ever thrown her off balance so much. Not even her father, her abusive, manipulative father could get so far under her skin. It's the best and worst kind of vertigo.
Anna slides closer, until their chests are nearly touching. She inhales audibly, nose brushing Elsa's collarbone through the fabric, errant hairs tickling Elsa's chin. Elsa's eyes flick open and she isn't strong enough to look away.
Anna sighs. "You smell really good." Her lips catch and tug against Elsa's shirt, tickling the skin beneath it.
Elsa hums nervously, awkwardly. "Like Chipotle?"
"No," Anna murmurs, and Elsa hears an exasperated giggle. "Definitely not like Chipotle."
"Anna-"
"-I can't stop thinking about the other night," Anna whispers, leaning up into her neck, breath rustling the hair tucked behind her ear. "It's like a video in my head on repeat."
"O-oh." Elsa's lashes flutter.
Every inch of her pale skin buzzes and burns.
"Honestly?" Anna cups the back of Elsa's neck, drags the tip of her tongue along the outer shell of Elsa's ear, paints a trail of static. "I don't want to stop thinking about it."
Elsa's thighs clench together. A tiny, startled whimper escapes her lips.
"God, if you only knew what you did to me..."
Anna takes Elsa's hand in hers, cool thumb brushing across a sweaty palm, and hikes up the hem of her long t-shirt. She presses Elsa's hand flush against the warm, soft skin of her abdomen and smiles at the way it makes both their chests hitch. Lava erupts out of Elsa's core and spills into her legs, her toes, her throbbing, aching fingertips.
Anna curls a thumb into the waistband of her leggings and tugs.
Elsa can't help herself. She panics a little.
"What're you doing?"
"Demonstrating."
A dark smile flickers across Anna's lips, and it's enough that Elsa nearly yanks her hand away, nearly runs for the stairwell. Her heart is beating so hard that it's making her dizzy. Why is she frozen? Why can't she move? It all becomes clear when Anna licks her lips and leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to the center of Elsa's throat.
And then she takes Elsa's hand and pushes it down.
"Oh!" she gasps.
There is a moment of blind panic as she brushes over a coarse patch of trimmed curls. Her eyes squeeze shut. She clenches her jaw and fights the impulse to move, whether to dive deeper or to come up for air she isn't sure, but Anna's hand is still entwined with hers, guiding her urgently lower into her underwear until Elsa is cupping something soft and slippery and hot.
So hot. So very, very hot.
Nerves forgotten, Elsa's fingers twitch and flex, inadvertently slipping deeper into the heat, until she's surrounded by soft, silky flesh, and wet up to the second knuckle.
Someone moans. Anna falls against her suddenly, bonelessly, breathing fast, and Elsa nearly loses her footing. She stumbles backwards, driven by Anna's weight, until her back hits the end of a bookshelf with a heavy thud and rattles the metal shelves. Elsa's fingers jerk automatically, trapped by layers of elastic fabric at the apex of Anna's legs, and Anna shudders, hand reaching up to tangle in Elsa's hair, arching until their chests are flush, breasts sliding past each other. Elsa gasps, overwhelmed with new sensations.
"Shit," Anna breathes, biting into the collar of Elsa's shirt.
Elsa strokes with her fingers. She watches, transfixed as Anna whines and writhes, twisting to prolong the contact, to hold their bodies closer. Elsa mimics the patterns that Anna made with her tongue, the memory still fresh in her mind. Anna is so wet already that Elsa's fingers are completely coated. They glide, frictionless, back and forth, pausing to swirl here or there, catching on Anna's clit, making her hips jump.
"Shit," Anna moans again, pressing sloppy kisses to swath of skin exposed at Elsa's collar. "Shit, Elsa. Oh my god."
Aggression bubbles up hot from somewhere deep, filling Elsa's mind with fire. She wraps an arm firmly around Anna's hips and drags her close, palming her ass, holding their bodies flush. Anna gasps, teal eyes rolling back into her head, and Elsa nearly growls, fingers throbbing even more painfully as she pushes deeper, probes Anna's opening with the pad of her index finger.
It's the right thing to do.
Anna's mouth falls open, wordless, breathless, tongue sliding against a ridge of white teeth. Her hips buck forward, hands grasping for holds. Every muscle in her face slackens, suspended for a moment of bliss. Elsa licks her lips and inserts the tip of her finger, watching them contract again, concentration renewed. Anna has to clutch at the front of her parka just to keep her legs beneath her, and Elsa can feel the energy shifting.
"Fuck." Anna sinks her teeth into Elsa's neck, and Elsa sinks her finger in deeper, as deep as their angle will allow. "Oh, fuck fuck fuck."
Elsa leans into her ear, bites her lip as Anna shudders. "Good?"
"Yes," Anna breathes. "God, keep going, please."
Elsa slides a second finger in to join the first, pumps both fingers slowly, and steadies her arm around Anna's waist, holding her close as she shivers and pants, hips canting against Elsa's wrist, writhing in Elsa's grasp. Elsa leans down and fixes her lips to Anna's jaw, feels the sparks race up and down her spine. She doesn't even notice the sharp sting of canine teeth cutting into her shoulder.
Suddenly, like a shot, a muffled cough carries through the stacks from the opposite end of the floor and freezes them both. Anna's body stills, eyes fluttering open, flicking up to Elsa's in alarm as they each remember where they are. Anna jerks as if to pull away, but Elsa's arm holds firm, fingers digging mercilessly into her cunt. She hasn't come this far to back down now. She's spent a lifetime averting her gaze. She's done with that.
Anna whimpers.
"Be quiet," Elsa warns. She grabs a fistful of red hair and pulls Anna's face into her chest, muffling an excited gasp against her shirt. "I want to finish you."
She starts up the rhythm again slow, and picks up the pace when Anna's body begins to respond. Another muffled cough rings out behind them, and Anna jumps, but Elsa doesn't stop this time. She pumps her fingers faster and kisses Anna's ear, whispering tiny encouragements as the body in her arms shudders and chases her thrusts.
"Are you close?"
Anna nods helplessly against Elsa's shirt.
Elsa sighs, because nothing has ever felt more powerful than this. Nothing has ever made more sense than this. Anna is unraveling against her body, and the only thing holding her together is Elsa's ruthless pace. Nothing has ever felt more amazing than this.
Nothing.
"Elsa," Anna murmurs, fists balled in the lapels of Elsa's coat, face flushed, bright hair sticking to her cheeks and her forehead, legs trembling so badly that she can barely stand, can barely keep Elsa's brutal cadence. "Yes!" she whispers.
She throws her arms around Elsa's neck and comes hard.
Elsa nearly comes with her.
Anna is so beautiful that Elsa has to look away, focuses instead on keeping both of them upright, propped against the bookshelf. Her shoulder blades are sore and she knows they'll be bruised in morning, knows that her underwear are wet and her jeans are likely damp, too, at the rate she's going, because Anna's body is still convulsing, chest sliding against hers with each rolling wave. Elsa is flushed and she's ready to go. Every breath that Anna heaves against her oversensitive neck is a tiny agony. She wants to crumble onto the hard carpet and drag Anna down with her.
Strip her.
Ravage her.
Keep her.
"Holy shit, you're amazing." Anna pulls away, smiling like an angel, wavering on weak legs. "Who taught you how to do that?"
Elsa offers a shaky smile. "I'm naturally talented."
"God, apparently." Anna laughs and runs her fingers through her hair. "Wow."
She turns and walks back to the desk, leans against it heavily, still so affected that she can barely stand. Anna's phone buzzes on the tabletop and she leans over to examine it. A light frown clouds her features. Her fingers swipe to cancel, and Elsa knows exactly who it is. She doesn't even need to ask. When Anna turns to look at her again, her expression is a little sheepish.
"So, um. Thanks for bringing the book. Sorry for jumping your bones like that." Anna rubs the back of her neck. "Studying makes me horny."
"Yeah." Elsa offers a stiff smile and lurches off the bookcase. "No problem."
"Want me to do you?" Anna asks, so casually that Elsa actually feels a little winded as she goes to pick up her bag. "I'm pretty talented, too."
Anna wiggles her fingers suggestively and Elsa hates herself for being so sorely tempted. She turns away, and it's like ripping off a bandaid. The sting lingers.
"No thanks. I have class in a bit."
"Right, no problem."
"Anyway." Elsa slips her pack onto her shoulders. "I'll see you later?"
Anna smiles, but she can't quite meet Elsa's eyes. She settles back in her chair and hunches over her laptop, hair falling like a shield around her face.
"I won't be back tonight."
"Going to the Delta Chi house?"
Anna nods and smiles again. Elsa walks away.
"Bye Anna."
/-/-/-/-/
Elsa takes the stairs back down and ducks into the bathroom on the first floor, finishing herself silently in the last stall with Anna's name trapped behind her teeth.
Afterwards, she washes her hands and avoids the mirrors. She lathers on three layers of soap and scrubs at her cuticles, but it doesn't make them clean enough. She can still smell Anna on her fingertips when she wanders off to the cafeteria to pick up a takeaway box for dinner.
/-/-/-/-/
It's dark and quiet in the dorm when Elsa gets home, slogging in from the cold, wet streets, dragging herself up five flights of stairs on aching, leaden legs. Her heavy backpack is overstuffed with books, digging literal grooves into her shoulders, a nearly unmanageable dead weight bouncing against her lower back. Everything hurts. She fumbles with her key card at the door, groaning miserably when it slips from her hands and falls to the floor. Nothing could be more inconvenient than trying to bend over in her current state. She glares down at the offending piece of plastic on the carpet, cursing its existence, and becomes even more frustrated with herself when hot tears prick her eyes.
"Elsa. Hey."
Kristoff's calm, deadpan tone is alarming in the quiet hallway, his approach unnoticed in the midst of Elsa's internal meltdown. She flinches visibly and draws away, startled and flustered, feeling somehow as though an intensely private moment has been interrupted. Kristoff only quirks a brow, looking no less bedraggled than she feels in a threadbare sweatshirt and sweatpants, greasy hair sticking up in several places as though he has been studying with his fingers knotted up in it for the whole night.
She clears her throat as best she can, but the sound is still incriminating. Everything she does is incriminating when he gives her one of his appraising looks.
"Hey," she says, trying for something even, achieving something hoarse.
He jerks his chin up once. "You okay?"
"Fine." With great difficulty, Elsa slides the pack from her shoulders and lets it thump heavily against the floor. "I dropped my key." She bends down to retrieve the white plastic card as she says this, mentally willing Kristoff to leave.
He does not leave.
"I haven't seen your roommate around much this week."
Elsa stiffens. "Neither have I."
"She stays at the Delta Chi house a lot, then?"
"I guess so."
He scratches his arm, glancing sidelong at the door as Elsa opens it, wedging her foot inside to keep it cracked. She makes a show out of appearing exasperated and exhausted, but if he notices her impatience, he doesn't say anything.
"Does it get lonely living here by yourself?"
Elsa stares back, confused. "I'm not alone."
"I mean, basically, you are. Right?"
She shifts her weight from foot to foot, annoyed to find that they both hurt equally. No rest for the wicked. She leans back against the doorframe and folds her arms, shoulders hunching.
"I guess so."
Kristoff nods. "And I bet the mess bothers you. You seem tidy."
Elsa purses her lips, then nods reluctantly.
"You don't have to live with the same roommate all year." Stoic as ever, Kristoff studies her confused expression for a moment in silence before continuing. "I just thought you might like to know. I have the change request forms in my room. Stop by if you need one."
"Um," Elsa blinks, noting the dull flicker of pain behind her heavy eyelids, "okay. Thanks."
Kristoff nods. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," she echoes.
He pads off again down the hall, almost silently, Elsa realizes, and disappears into his room. How did such a big guy learn to be so quiet? She pushes her bangs out of her eyes and nudges the door open, reaching down to drag her heavy bag inside.
She thinks about the form before she nods off to sleep, but she doesn't reach a decision.
/-/-/-/-/
She doesn't sleep well. The nightmares return with a vengeance, and they follow her through several restless hours like a hitman with a grudge.
At three am she's wide awake, and it's all starting to sink in.
"I feel like I'm made of glass," Elsa says, wiping her tears away roughly into the crook of her elbow. "I think I forgot."
"Forgot what?" Jenny whispers.
"That ice shatters."
"Ice?"
Elsa sobs weakly into her kneecaps and brings a hand up to wind through her hair, fisting in it, tugging until the roots ache. "I'm just...I feel so brittle. Like I could break, just fly apart at any moment."
She hears a door close through the phone line, and knows that Jenny has stepped outside into the yard where Gary won't hear her. "Babe, tell me what's wrong." Her whisper rises in volume, becoming a strained murmur. "Tell me what happened."
"Anna happened."
"Your roommate?"
"It's all fucked, Jen." Elsa grits her teeth. "I know why this is happening, you know? I'm not a good person. I killed my father. I shot him in the face-"
"-Wait, babe-"
"I see him in my sleep," her voice breaks, drops breathlessly to a haunted whisper, "sometimes with half his face blasted off-"
"-Elsa-"
"He follows me until I slip and then he holds me down bleeds all over me."
"Jesus Christ, Elce."
Elsa chokes and sobs, smears her wet cheeks against her knees. The floor is hard and her pelvis aches from rocking. The fingers of her free hand slide and gather hot blood, streaming from a lattice of fresh cuts, painting guilty red trails on her pale thigh. She shivers violently and tilts her face up into the cold wind blowing in from the window. Her pajama pants are gone, thrown somewhere on one of Anna's piles. She should probably throw herself there, too, ridden hard and put away wet, entrapped so easily by the fleeting bursts of pleasure that her roommate offers. Goosebumps peak and prickle on her legs, her arms. She wipes her tears away with bloody fingertips, maybe forgetful, likely uncaring.
Right, she doesn't care.
Blood can be her warpaint.
"I'm covered in it." She stares down at her messy hand and curls it into a tight fist, gleaning brutal satisfaction from the telltale squelch of fluid. "It's all over me."
"I really hope you don't mean literally."
Elsa crumples and sobs again.
"Oh my god, babe. What did you do?"
She tries to breathe, tries to speak. Nothing comes out. Another sob escapes her clenched teeth.
"Elsa. Elsa, talk to me. You're freaking me out."
"I-I'm n-not…" she sucks in a breath, "n-not like, g-gonna k-kill myself."
"Fuck. Okay. Okay, you're okay."
"I'm n-n-not-"
"Shh, Elce. You're just having a panic attack, right? It's okay. Breathe slowly in and out, okay?"
"Jen…"
"It's okay. Breathe."
Elsa breathes. Jen listens and waits. Elsa keeps breathing. The blood gets stickier as it dries. The cold air gets colder. The throbbing pain in her thighs returns with a vengeance, unhappily forgotten. She shivers and pulls her legs close against her chest. She'll have to throw the shirt out later.
"Tell me what happened with Anna."
A familiar pitter-patter hits the ledge outside and Elsa stands on shaking legs, trekking across the room to close the window. The snow is almost gone and the rain keeps coming. A huddled pair of boys trudge along the path below in sodden costumes, half covered by their coats, weaving from a night of drunken revelry. A flash of envy marrs her face. The old windowpane groans and shudders as she tugs it shut.
"Elsa."
"We fucked."
The words feel clunky and unpracticed in her mouth, but they're appropriate. She wipes her eyes, catches sight of her tear-stained, blood-smeared face in the vanity mirror and turns away sharply. The room is dark, veiled in thick shadows, even now that her eyes have long since adjusted. There is no moon to light the way.
Jenny is quiet, but Elsa can hear her breathing into the phone. She picks her way carefully through Anna's mess and waits.
"I...that's…" Jenny sighs. "Oh."
"Yeah."
"Once?"
Elsa looks down at her bed, doesn't sit. "Twice."
"Oh."
"Don't tell Gary. He'll mail me another Bible."
Jenny laughs weakly. "He kinda gave up on that after you shot your dad."
"Oh, yeah." Elsa sighs. "Well, I was wondering about that."
"Gary's a dick."
"Yeah."
"So, that's what's got your head all fucked up?"
"Maybe. Yes. I don't know."
"Elsa, for real, are you okay? Like, I know you're a strong independent woman who don't need no man and all that..." Jenny pauses, scoffs at herself, and presses on. "Anyway, I know you can take care of yourself, but it's the middle of the night, and I've never heard you freak out like this. I'm worried."
Elsa turns away from her bed and stumbles to the bathroom, pausing in the doorway, not ready yet to flip on the light and face the damage. "It's happened before. It used to happen all the time."
"You never told me."
"I know."
"What changed?"
Elsa hears the implicit question and worries her bottom lip. When did she decide to cross the line in the sand?
"I never thought you wanted to hear about it."
"What? No, of course I did. I don't know if I would've been much help, but I would've listened if you'd needed me to." Jenny hesitates, and continues softly, "It didn't seem like you wanted to talk about it. I tried not to pry."
Elsa closes her eyes and feels fresh tears prickle. "Damnit."
"We were dumb." Jenny huffs a laugh. "Can't fix the past though. I'll listen now, if you want."
Elsa smiles. "Will you still love me if I'm gay?"
"Shut up."
Her smile grows a little bit wider.
"...Are you gay?"
"Remember when Zach Carpenter tried to kiss me at Hayley's 15th birthday party?"
"Flaming. Got it."
Elsa laughs and leans her head back against the door frame. "Can lesbians be flaming?"
"Fuck it, Elsa. You can be whatever the fuck you want, okay?"
She flicks on the bathroom lights, winces, and covers her eyes. "Okay."
/-/-/-/-/
A/N: Any guesses what Anna's getting up to at night? ;)
