Dearest Elsa,
I know it's old-fashioned to write you a letter - but I still hate being unable to text you. Perhaps it's for the better that I don't. So that I don't fall into the nasty habit of double-texting and triple-texting and leaving you on read when I'm at work. You deserve so much more than this, Elsa. And if I'm to be terribly, horribly honest - some nights I look at all the lovey-dovey couples at the lounge. And I wonder whether I deserve the joy of knowing you.
Actually scrap all of that. I'm writing you a letter because I'm just bursting with the thought of seeing you again. And I'm so full of this feeling that I have to let it out on paper rather than let them consume me whole. Not that it's a bad feeling. Also, when is ice-princess going to update the next chapter? She hasn't written for quite some time. Did your parents confiscate your laptop as well? Don't take this the wrong way, but that's just…insane.
Please for the love of god, let me know when you get your phone back. Or at least drop by the lounge one of these nights so I can sing to you again. I'll tell them you're my older sister and totally over 18.
-Anna.
"You're freaking reading that letter again, aren't you?" Rapunzel leans over her desk - forcing Elsa to turn away.
"Stop peeking!"
"Oh shit, I didn't realise you were reading a letter brought to you by I-don't-know, myself?" Rapunzel sneers.
"Ok, ok!" Elsa relents, plastering the letter face down on her desk, "thanks for helping with our letters, but, but it's private."
"God, I don't need to read the letter to know what's in it," Rapunzel mocks, before putting on a squeaky voice, "oh my god Elsa, I'm so in love with you - I want to jump your bones everytime I see you."
Elsa's cheeks burn red. The brunette notices this and takes full advantage, ruffling her hair and pinching her cheeks. Amidst Elsa's squealing, the momentary distraction is enough for her fingers to creep closer and closer to the letter. She nearly makes it before the schoolbell cuts them off - and Elsa slams her hand down on the letter.
"Shoot! I was this close to reading the raunchy love confessions between you two-"
"Oh yea right," Elsa sniggers, "Like that would ever happen."
She watches Rapunzel pack her bags and head off to drama practice with an ache in her chest. Love confession. The letter's crinkled from endless reading and re-readings, same as all the other ones. But Elsa still tips it to her nose, just trying to detect the faintest trace of Anna's hands. Those hands which bore so much character, so much skill with the way she wove a spell around her each time she picked up a guitar. So much…love?
The question of exactly what Anna is to her sits at the front of her mind as she gets ready for that cold, frigid cycle back to an even colder house. More importantly, despite all the affectionate words - Elsa wonders what she is to Anna. Or what they are together. A couple? Friends? Just two stars meeting each other on the infinite vastness of a cosmic journey and forever going their separate ways? The thought swirls around as winter bites her cheeks. But that red crop of hair standing in the carpark is all it takes to warm her heart again.
"God, Anna," Elsa gasps, "it's a really long way here - don't you have like, detention or something?"
The girl raises both arms into the air, and screams, "It's finally over!"
Elsa's heart leaps at the beaming smile on Anna's face. She misinterprets the gesture and plods towards her like a train. Arms swept open for a hug. Only to be stopped mid-hug by a book thrust into her hand. Empress of a Thousand Skies. Elsa resists letting the disappointment show on her face.
"You finished it," Elsa observes the tattered corners, pockmarked with dogears.
"Twice."
"You liked it that much, huh?" Elsa says. Before her eyes dip to Anna's lips shifting. Her pulse quickens at the imagined words moving behind them.
Not as much as I like you.
The book tugs back. Her breath catches when she notices Anna's fingers still clamped over the book. Like she doesn't want to let go.
"It's yours to keep," Elsa continues, "I have a digital copy."
"Nothing beats the touch of something in your hands, doesn't it?" Anna drawls. The slight bat of her eyelashes puts a tremble in her hands. She panics momentarily at the thought of Anna feeling it through the book's spine. And tells herself that goddamn it's just been too long since they last met.
Yet why does the memory of her voice haunt your dreams each night?
"That's why I'm giving it to you," Elsa stumbles, "but - if you came all the way here to return it. Well, I'm sorry-"
"You know very well that's not the reason I came here."
"What is, then?"
And again - Anna allows the silence to speak on her behalf. Teal eyes bright against the glaring winter sun. A breeze puts a flutter in her copper hair, and Elsa's chest. Elsa smiles. Words desert them both for a moment, but a single tug from Anna yanks the book back - and the hesitant words from her tongue.
"C'mon," Anna grins, "Let's get outta here. I know you don't have track after school."
"Where?" Elsa asks, already mounting her bicycle.
I don't know. I don't care. I'd travel anywhere in this galaxy as long as you're next to me.
Elsa fixes her eyes on that redhead as they cycle out of school. She holds her breath when Anna sits upright. Hands off the handlebars. Lips pursed around her hair tie as she bundles her gleaming red hair into a ponytail. A fluttering, protective instinct pushes Elsa to grab those wobbly handlebars. Before she catches herself realising that Anna's willing to cede control over something as trivial as tying her hair. The thought vaporises when Anna suddenly turns away and picks up speed, daring Elsa to match her pedal for pedal. Like paper planes whisked by the wind, the girls cycle up and down the undulating suburban streets. Barely noticing the frigid cold passing between them. Driven only by the flutter of a red ponytail and a blonde braid. Crisp December air and the sensation of being completely free from everything else. Perched standing on the pedals, Anna climbs the crest of a small hill - chest heaving with the wind. She grins at Elsa pedaling behind, barely breaking a sweat at the gradient.
"Where're we going?" Elsa catches up to her.
Anna shakes her head, the beaming smile still plastered on her face. Without warning, she takes off hard, and Elsa races after her. Spurred on by the wind fanning Anna's hair in waves of copper. And that giddy joy which has deserted her for the past few months. A chortle breaks out from Anna's throat as Elsa easily overtakes her - the blonde looking back with a grin like she's just won the Olympics.
"Ok, ok!" Anna gasps, watching her soar down the road, "You win! Don't leave me in the dust."
Elsa slows down, chest rising and falling in time with the steady ticking of their bicycles, "What do I win?"
Anna points forwards, "A beach date with me, I guess. We're nearly there."
The roaring Atlantic waves draw them towards the beach like ants to sugar. Their efforts over the last hour rewarded by the ocean's breeze. Salty spray and the flushed, reddened cheeks of knowing they're alone and so far away from anyone else.
"I don't - I don't know how we ended up here," Elsa watches the foamy tide going out, "Or why-"
Anna's gaze stretches to the horizon. An expanse of blue and white ocean as far as her eyes could see. The wind whips her hair around her freckled cheeks in auburn tendrils. And she pauses to think. Sneakers sinking slightly into the wet sand.
"Maybe," Anna thinks aloud, "Not everything needs a reason."
The words stick in Elsa's head on an infinite loop like the crashing waves as they wander further down the wind-swept beach. There's a comfortable silence between them despite the weeks they've spent apart. Filled in no small part by the letters they've exchanged, the squawk of seagulls and the endless, roaring sea.
Anna looks back at Elsa. Just to make sure she's still walking behind her.
I missed you so much, Elsa mouths. This time, hoping the girl would pick it up.
She smiles.
Me too.
They come across a dead bonfire. Still smouldering. Anna takes a moment to survey the charred, wooden ruins - before her eyes widen at something in the pile of burnt logs.
"Holy shit!" Anna exclaims, digging with her bare hands, "They left an entire Ukelele in there."
"What-"
She holds the charred wooden contraption up to Elsa's eyes. Blackened by the flames. But with strings still intact.
"Looks like the remnants of some mad, drunken party," Elsa kicks at a Corona bottle.
"Much to my benefit," Anna giggles, "And yours maybe, if you can put up with my playing."
Immediately, the girl sits on a craggy boulder and tunes the instrument, plucking at the strings. Each note she plays slices through the sounds of the sea - and Elsa finds herself drawn next to her.
"Is this the part where we play Kumbaya to make up for all the weeks apart?"
Anna smirks, "Oh, you know it's going to take more than that."
Elsa digs around at the wet sand with her shoes, before her ears perk at the sweet melody wafting over the waves. And at Anna's voice which comes after. She hadn't counted on this gem of Anna's presence after school. And the added joy of hearing her sing again curls the fingers into her jeans.
Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high
And the dreams that you dream of
Once in a lullaby, oh
The music stops. Elsa snaps her attention to Anna; lips shuddering as a tear slides down her cheek.
"It's ok," Elsa's voice cracks, patting Anna's knee, "y-you don't have to if you don't want to."
"No, no, it's just that-" Anna snivels, wiping her tears, "I played this song last weekend at the lounge for all these couples. They just seemed to get so lost in the music. And for a moment right there and then. I just, really really, missed you."
A hand reaches inside Elsa's chest and tugs at her heartstrings. The words I-missed-you-too teeter on the tip of Elsa's tongue. But with everything filling her heart right now, and despite all the grandiose declarations of love in her fics - somehow those little words just aren't enough to capture the breadth of what she feels.
"I'm right here," Elsa whispers, leaning close to Anna's ears, "For you. I'm not going anywhere."
Anna's fingers are still frozen on the strings as her lips quiver. It takes a couple of attempts to get her sentence started.
"Is it, I don't know. Is it bad? Or is it clingy - I don't want to freak you out," Anna sighs, and she looks away. Only for the calmness of Elsa's voice to tip her back.
"You beat up another girl for calling you a fag, Anna. I think we're past that freaking out stage by now."
Anna giggles, before she chucks the ukelele in the sand. Her fingers perch a miniscule distance away from Elsa's on the sandy boulder.
"Is it bad if I say that I just can't get enough of you?"
A jolt passes through her heart at that word. Enough. Once condemned to a curse she'd never be able to live up to. Now a profession of affection from someone who's more than enough for her. Elsa swallows back her fears. Her breath stops as she closes that distance between their fingertips - a spark travels up her arms and sets her senses alight.
"It's not," Elsa answers, enjoying the way Anna's calloused fingers press back against hers, "Ever since I saw you on that rooftop, at that party, I just couldn't stop thinking about you."
Anna sighs, before she echoes the thoughts in Elsa's head all this while.
"This entire thing just feels like a dream," Anna sighs. Barely a breath beneath the gushing tide. Heat spreads through Elsa's body when she feels the girl's fingers curl deeper into her hand.
"If it is, I never want to wake from it. From you."
That rumbling in her chest intensifies when Anna leans against her shoulder. It takes all her effort not to pass out at her hair's scent touching every nerve in her body. And the sight of those fingers interlaced within hers. She wonders if the girl can detect the trembling in the fingertips. Or if it's really her's. Oh god. Those perfect lips curl into a smile. I want to touch your lips so bad - just to know you're real.
The feelings within her beg to be released. I want you. I need you even more. Stay by my side. Until time stops when our breaths meet in that small space between us. Until we fall asleep beneath the night sky. This time with only the softness of our skin separating us.
But she can't speak. Not with the way her chest is pounding now. Or the way Anna's fingers trace every line on her palm like it contains a map to the hidden treasure that is her heart. So instead, she does the most responsible thing she can do. And kills this perfect moment.
"If we start walking back now, you should reach the lounge in time for your shift."
But there's no criticism from Anna. No biting remark. Just the gentle sway of their hands as they walk back to their bicycles in silence with fingers tangled in one another. The ache in Elsa's chest endures as they cycle all the way to town. Stopping every now and then to make sure Anna's able to catch up. The journey takes forever, and yet it still feels like the shortest of breaths. The kind of not-enough that puts a smile on her face. It burns her to the core when they reach the lounge. But Anna makes up for it with the tightest embrace she can muster.
"Thank you," Anna whispers - a tremble evident in her voice, "I really, really liked hanging out with you today."
And as the girl disappears behind those velvet curtains - Elsa feels a piece of her heart go in after her.