A/N: Little more than halfway there. Rating goes up to 'M' next chapter (chapter eight). I find it a bit hard to believe that I have more than 30 follows already; just, wow. Thanks, guys.
Disclaimer: Frozen and it's characters are copyright to Disney
Chapter VII: Soylent Green
The trek home was considerably slower. Elsa seemed to ache, her gate smaller, eyes tired. Having seen what she had burned away Anna's impatience, and she held to the blonde's meandering pace.
What the redhead had hoped would turn out to be neat and interesting turned out to be... well, something. Something terrible. She pondered on the agony of the change. If seeing it had cut to her core, what was it like to live it? The girl was relatively certain that a body wasn't meant to be broken like that; reason told her that the blonde should have been killed by the shift. She tilted her head slightly to peer up at Elsa from the corner of her eye.
Anna wanted to ask a million questions, and none. On some level she didn't want to know any more, didn't want to go any deeper into this horrifying new world. Her very nature defied that logic, however. Before she could stop herself, she broke the silence, "Are you-" she paused, looking more directly at the taller woman, "are you okay?"
Elsa sighed, glancing forlornly at the girl walking next to her, "I'm fine. Just tired." The sound of the blonde's stomach complaining pulled Anna's attention downward, "And hungry."
Their first meeting played through Anna's mind briefly. "-have you for lunch some time." The girl stopped in her tracks, gulping nervously, eyes wide.
Elsa halted when she realized Anna was no longer at her side, looking over her shoulder with a wily smirk, seeming to read the redheads mind, "Don't worry. I don't eat human."
The girl released a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding, posture relaxing when the blonde turned and began to walk again, "They taste terrible, anyway."
Implying. "Oh my god," Anna thought with a queasy churn of her gut, "Has she eaten people before?" She honestly couldn't tell of Elsa was joking or not, and lingered behind for a while before the loud snap of a branch behind her caused her to jump and dash after the woman.
She must have decided that Elsa was kidding, because she fell into step with the blonde again, taking hold of her arm as she glanced about in the dark. Elsa peeked down at the girl with small, smug smile, "Scared of old man Jenkins coming to get you in his spooky mask, scooby?"
Anna groaned, taking the opportunity of the blonde not pulling away to link her arm with the other woman. And squeeze her bicep; but who was there to notice? "Not funny. These woods are Creepsville, even in the day."
Elsa arched a delicate brow, smile growing, "Mmhmm, yes," she agreed, the canter of her voice teasing, "You never know what could be lurking out there, waiting to pounce on an innocent girl accompanied by a monster."
Anna shot the woman a sour expression, and Elsa turned her head to look away, "Do you really think I'd let anything happen to you?" Her tone was slightly offended, partly feigned, partly not.
That gave the redhead some pause. Nibbling at her lower lip thoughtfully, she glanced ahead, then back up to the blonde, cheeks flushed ("For the millionth time. Am I like, twelve?"), "I didn't think about it that way. I guess not. You're kind of like a really big guard do-"
Elsa halted rigidly for a second, stating in a low voice as she bristled at the statement, "Don't use that word." The woman inhaled slowly, calming herself, "Please."
Anna pursed her lips, "Sorry." She thought Elsa might pull free from her grasp, but she didn't. After a moment of quiet, they began walking again, approaching the treeline to the Bjorgman property.
The smell of meat being grilled assaulted Elsa's senses and her pace picked up, her stomach protesting it's emptiness noisily. When the woman's strides were too long for Anna to keep up though, she considerately slowed back down. "So hungry," the blonde muttered, her mouth watering.
Deciding it was better to let Elsa get to her meal than force the woman to hold back for her sake, she nudged Elsa's shoulder with her own, releasing her arm and taking off in a sprint toward the house, "Race ya!"
Elsa staggered a bit and paused, a confident smirk creeping across her features when it dawned on her what had just taken place. A challenge! As she counted quietly to five "Mississippi", she shifted into position to take off after the girl; wouldn't be any fun if she didn't have a head start.
Anna was half way to the house when Elsa dashed past her, nearly blowing the girl off her feet. Her posture was that of a professional athlete, but the speed. She was all but a blur as she left Anna in the dust, skidding to a halt at the foot of the steps a good forty feet ahead of the girl.
As the redhead slowed to a jog, gasping for breath, she noticed that, at the very least, Elsa was breathless too. She was also wonderfully flushed, the rosy hue standing out against her pale skin even in the dull light of the sky. Anna's eyes fell to slightly parted lips, then the pulse in the blonde's neck, tracing the color to the rising and falling of her chest. Disheveled and panting, she looked incredibly, "Hot." No wait, that wasn't right. "Human. She looks very human."
The redhead worried her lower lip as she eyed the woman up and down again, heart hammering with reckless abandon. Her already warm cheeks scorched further as she began to fiddle with her hands, kicking the toe of her shoe into the dust. Elsa was watching her with an intensely predatory glint in her eyes that made Anna shiver. There was still an underlying fear that still prickled at the girls senses but at the same time, the effect had become warped. Who the Hell was she trying to kid?
She was getting "kind of... turned on" by the penetrating stare of the older woman. Anna pressed her thighs together, trying to work up the nerve to pounce. Before she could rally her courage, Elsa turned and bounced up the steps, leading Anna's gaze to drop to her backside.
"Kristoff is waiting," she squawked, the words clipped and short, without looking back.
The redhead stared at the blonde's butt until she disappeared inside, the spell of hypnosis ending as the realization gradually dawned on her of what had just occurred. Her thoughts had been absolutely salacious. Her eyes widened when it crossed her mind that she had very nearly attacked the woman. With her mouth. More awkward still was the prospect of sitting through dinner with Elsa and her cousin, all hot and bothered.
She spent an extra minute trying to give herself a mental cold shower before walking into the house and crossing the living room to the back door, where she slid the glass open and stepped out back. Krisoff was standing at the end of the long rear deck in front of a large grill, flipping steaks. Upon hearing the door open, he turned happily as if to greet her, but stopped short the second her feet hit the wood. The man went slack-jawed, staring at Anna bug-eyed. He threw his gaze from Anna to Elsa, who was studiously focused on cutting up her steak and shoveling bites down her gullet, and back again.
He wanted to say something, she could tell. He knew. "Oh my gosh, please don't say anything- please don't say anything-" she chanted the mantra in her head zealously.
Kristoff seemed to know that it wasn't a subject one breached openly, so he settled for looking back to the grill, coughing into his fist and asking, "So, how was it?"
Anna's mind ran in several directions with that question. "Mm, fine. Interesting." Her gaze flicked to Elsa, and his followed.
He hesitated. "Uhh," a beat, "Yeah. Well, why don't you grab a plate and help yourself?" He motioned to the patio table Elsa was seated at, where she was digging into her second steak, a dish holding a pile of already finished ones sitting in the setter of it. With his attention off of her, Anna watched the blonde woman for a few seconds.
When Elsa looked up to meet her eyes, Anna froze. If Kristoff knew...
"Oh, crap." That meant Elsa knew too. Suddenly the situation was that much more mortifying. "Ahh, you know, I'm actually not that hungry. I think I'm just gonna crash so I can get home early tomorrow." The redhead didn't wait for a reply, moving quickly back into the house and toward Elsa's bedroom.
Kristoff turned to say goodnight, but she was gone. Instead, he looked to Elsa, who shrugged flippantly as if she hadn't a clue.
It wasn't until after she flicked out the flights and threw herself under the covers that she noted that she hadn't thought the idea through. The pillow was saturated with the scent of Elsa's shampoo. Anna closed her eyes, imagination taking flight again. Elsa. Elsa's blinding smile. Elsa's body, lean and lithe with taut wires of muscle coursing her body under the moonlight. Elsa's stare. Elsa's red cheeks and heaving chest.
Anna shuddered violently, squirming on the mattress, tossing and turning in an attempt to get comfortable. It had been some time since she felt the urge, as it were. Of course it would come on when she was away from home, in a strangers bed. The girl sighed heavily. She would have to settle for letting her dreams take the wheel.
Elsa crept in some time later, though Anna was fast asleep. Rather than taking a position by the head or foot of the bed, she crouched to her hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the mattress. There, the blonde paused to study the redhead in silence. When the girl groaned and rolled to her other side, Elsa sighed softly, shaking her head and laying on her side, back turned to her. She slept next to Anna on the floor that night.
Daylight had just pierced the sky when the redhead awoke. She was so warm, felt like she was floating. Indeed, her dreams had continued to run with her train of thought from the night previous. "Oh, yes," she groaned internally. It was only when she inhaled deeply and got a tickle to her nose that she realized she was perched precariously at the edge of the bed with an arm wrapped across the front of the sprawled blonde's shoulders, face buried in her hair.
No wonder her libido had raged so thoroughly in her sleep. She had been clinging to the very subject of her lascivious dreams. When lusty thoughts surfaced again, it prompted the girl to remove her arm from the still slumbering woman and scoot away as gingerly as humanly possible.
She needed to get home so she could get this out of her system. Anna opted that it was best to let Elsa sleep in. She deserved it. However, before she slipped off the mattress and snuck her way to the door, she took a chance and leaned over to lay a quick peck on the blonde's cheek, then gathered her shoes and disappeared into the hall.
Anna nearly ran into Kristoff in the entry way as he came in. He paused in the door, blocking her exit as he took a sip of his coffee. He peered at her over the rim of his cup, slurping at the dark liquid. "Leaving already?" he inquired awkwardly.
The redhead shifted her weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably, "Yeah, I better get back. People to do, places to thing." A pause, and the man cracked a grin, "People to places, things to see." Another beat. Anna cursed inwardly. "Things to do, people to see."
Kristoff grinned, chuckling and shaking his head as he stepped out of the way, "Elsa will be pissed when she finds out you left without saying goodbye, ya know."
"I'll call."
The burly man arched a brow, "She doesn't have a phone."
Uneasy silence.
"Uh, right, what about you?"
He cackled again, pulling a pen from his pocket and taking her hand to write down his number, "Send me a text later so I know it's you. Then I can just let Elsa pick it up when you ring."
Anna looked down at the smudgy ink on her palm, "Will do." The girl worked her jaw, glancing away from the man before looking back up at him with a genuine smile, "Thanks for... I dunno. But thanks."
With a lilt of his mug, Kristoff motioned to the door, "Better go before she wakes up."
Anna spun on her heel and headed out the door for her truck, but was intercepted by Sven. She spent a moment placating the beast, patting his head and assuring him she would return to visit him soon before climbing into her vehicle and heading home.