thesvenqueen

[thesvenqueen]

i must not stir the pot. stirring the pot is the notifications-killer. participation in the discourse is the little-death that brings total activity obliteration. i will face the bad opinions on the internet. i will permit them to pass over me and through me. and when they have gone past, i will turn the block button onto their source. where the discourse has come from there will be nothing. only i will remain.

[thesvenqueen]

The secret wish is to write a fanfic that someone loves so much they make fan art of it, or to create a drawing that someone creates an entire fic based off of it.

[thesvenqueen]

Up In The Air Chapter 2

Kristanna Modern AU

Rated: T

WC: 2568

Summary: Tired of her nomad lifestyle, traveling nurse Anna Arendelle on a whim picks Pensacola Florida as her new town to try find a sense of home. Meanwhile, Navy Pilot Kristoff Bjorgman has accepted a dream position at the Naval station in the same town. After a chance encounter goes south, the two of them find their lives entwined, with neither of them all that happy about it!

Also available on AO3

Previous chapter

“So have you given it any thought?”

Anna opened her locker smiling and shaking her head as her co-worker, Camila, sat down near her.  “Not really.”

“Come on, it will be fun.  Everyone’s going.”

“Everyone?”  Anna quickly threw her things in the locker.  She really needed to tidy it up soon.  She had a bad habit of throwing whatever in there until it was an unorganized disaster.  But that would have to wait until another day as she glanced quickly at Camila.  They had been walking out of the hospital together whenever they were on the same shift, sometimes even grabbing a coffee afterwards on particularly hard days.  The one thing she already knew about Camila was she did not want to stay a second longer at work than necessary.

“Yes, everyone,” Camila said, standing to leave.  “And you should be there too.”

Anna grabbed her purse, slamming the locker closed.  A lone piece of paper flew out from the force and floated down, sliding when it hit the floor directly into Camila’s foot.  She picked it up, starting to look it over before Anna snatched it back.

“What’s that?”

“Nosey, aren’t we?” Anna said, giving a little smirk so Camila would know she wasn’t upset.  

“Anything in the common area is fair game.  Seriously that looked official.  What is it?”

“It’s nothing really.  I was asked if I was interested in representing the nursing staff on the community outreach team.  I have prior experience from other hospitals that line up with what they do here.”

“Sounds like extra work without the extra pay.  Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

They made their way down the corridors heading to parking garage.  Camila took a sudden turn at a door when they made it to ground level.  She had shown Anna this route on the first nice day.  A direct walk outside to the parking garage.  Anna smiled as the sun hit her face.  November hit different down here than the cold dreary Northeast fall and winters she had grown up with.  

“Are you really thinking about not going?” Camila said, bringing up the topic again.

Anna paused, trying to think of an excuse.  “I don’t really know anyone that well yet and- “

Camila stopped in her tracks, turning to Anna.  “And everyone on the team already loves you.”

“Really?”  Anna cocked an eyebrow.  “Even Sue?”

Camila let out a loud laugh.  “Especially Sue!  She may be a little…outgoing, but she has the best heart and she’s had nothing but nice things to say about you.  Seriously Anna.  I know you’ve only been working here less two months, but it’s like you’ve always been here.  You fit in so great.”

A warmth spread across Anna’s chest at those words.  She had been searching for so long for a sense of belonging and this was the first hospital she had worked at in years that felt right.  “That’s really nice to hear.”

It really had been that long.  After spending the last five years as a traveling nurse, Anna had grown tired of the constant moving.  Sure, the pay had been great, and she got to see different parts of the country, but it had also started to wear on her.  A growing part of her also knew that for her, being a traveling nurse was as much running away from her lonely past as it was wanting to see the country.   She finally agreed that “doing the sensible thing”, as her sister always suggested, and finding a permanent location was for the best.

Going home was out of the question for her.  So, she figured out areas of the country that were most in need of nursing staff, narrowed it down to ten, wrote the cities on pieces of paper, threw them into a bowl and blindly grabbed one.  Pensacola it was.  It really had been that simple.  Luckily her first choice in hospitals in the area had an opening in the department she wanted, and the rest all fell into place.

“Alright, tell me where everyone is going,” Anna said as they began to walk again. 

Camila flashed the largest grin.  “Does that mean you’re going?”

Anna held out her arm toward Camila. “Twist my arm.”

Camila giggled.  “Rocklin’s.  Towards the naval base.  It’s a center point from where everyone lives.  Nothing overly fancy, but it’s good food, good people, good music.  You’ll love it!”

“Sounds…wait, did you say by the naval base?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So, there’ll be military there?”

“Yes.  It’s Pensacola, where don’t you see the military?”

“Point taken.  But I know Sue is going to be on a mission to set me up at the bar.”

“Definitely.”

“…with a sailor.” 

Camila laughed again.  “I don’t think Sue is that particular.  And to be fair, it’s not that big of a Navy bar.  I think it’s mostly officers that do show up.  At least it could be someone with rank.”

“No thank you.”

“Was it really that bad?”

“Ugh.”  Anna thought back to the one date she’d been on since moving down to Pensacola.  “If you like going out with a pretentious know it all that doesn’t stop talking about himself the whole time, then no.  I swear Camila, that was enough.  I’ve had my fill of dating anyone in the military, officers included.”

“I don’t know.  Some of them aren’t too bad looking and you don’t have date anyone.  Nothing wrong with having a little fun and done.”

“Camila!”

Camila grabbed Anna’s arm.  “Tell you what.  I’ve got your back.  You don’t have to talk to anyone, no matter what Sue says.  We’re here to have fun.  That’s it.  I promise.  So, it’s set.  You’re going!  I’ll even drive.”

“Thank you, but I’ll have to meet you.  I’m working the afternoon at Dr. Intilli’s.”

“Again?  Girl, if you aren’t at the hospital, you’re there!  When do you take time to relax?”

“I like to stay busy.”

“Stay busy at the beach!  It’s called taking a break.”

Anna thought about Camila’s words.  She had been working in her free time at one of the ob/gyn offices.  She adored working with the patients there and seeing some of them full circle when they came on the maternity ward, but Camila did have a point.  Maybe she should cut down on the number of hours she was working and take the time to explore her new home.

“I will.  Maybe after they hire- “

The roar shook Anna to her bones.  She jumped and threw her gaze to the sky in time to see two blue blurs pass by.  A few seconds later four more, slower and higher jets in a tight diamond pattern passed over the hospital.  Everyone stopped to look up.  A few cheered before the formation disappeared past the tree line.

“Looks like practice for the next season has started.”  Camila said, nonchalantly.

“What was that?” Anna asked as she tried to assess the state of her hearing. 

Camila tilted her head with a confused look.  “What do you mean, ‘what was that?’  It’s the Blue Angels.”

“The who?”

Camila looked almost disgusted at Anna’s question.  “You cannot be serious.  The Blue Angels?  You know, the Navy demonstration team?  The ones you see at shows?  The big blue fighter jets?  Ringing any bells?”  Camila stopped and stared at Anna waiting for some recognition.

“No bells, just ears.”  Anna tugged at her ear. She had a vague idea of what Camila was talking about.  But not to the level she was expecting of Anna.  “What are they doing here?”

The look of bewilderment on Camila’s turned to understanding.  “That’s right, this is new to you!  The team ended last season before you moved here.  Get used to them.  They are stationed at NAS here.  It’s an institution around these parts.”

“Is it always this loud?”

“They don’t usually fly that close to the hospital.  It must be a welcome back flyby.  The patients get a kick out of seeing them out the windows.  Anyway, we should be done now with the noise.  What were you saying?”

Anna waved her off.  “It wasn’t important.”

“Oh, I remember.  Less work, more play.” Camila bumped Anna's shoulder playfully.

“Something like that.”

“Hey, who knows.  Maybe you’ll meet a handsome airman on Friday.” The twinkle in Camila's eyes looked like trouble.

Anna rolled her eyes and said definitively.  “Absolutely not.”

[thesvenqueen]

Fat bodies are mentioned most often in terms of the negative space left behind by the pounds lost, the dress sizes dropped, the inches shrunk—fat bodies are only valued for their absence.

There's a phrase you may have heard, that 'inside every fat person, there's a thin person waiting to get out'. It makes fat bodies sound like a prison, like the grotesque carapace of Kafka's beetle, with the real self like a trapped and frightened Gregor Samsa inside. Society is deeply permeated with the idea that my fat body isn't my 'real' body, and that I need to dig and excavate and starve out my true self, rescuing my inner thin princess from the imprisoning tower of my body.

This idea taught me not to feel fully connected to my body—after all, so much of my body is dead weight, it's not really me, my fatness isn't who I am, so why bother fully inhabiting it?

For years I didn't embrace my body. I was like someone squatting in a few rooms of a mansion, pretending that I was living in a condo and ignoring the three wings, twenty-four bedrooms, ballroom, bowling alley, and the entire library from Disney's Beauty and the Beast that make up my body.

—‘Where Are the Fat Girls? The Absence of Plus-Size Characters in Fantasy Literature’ by Charis M. Ellison [video]

[thesvenqueen]

look, fandom as a whole certainly has its own built-in biases and problems that need to be addressed 

but like

every so often i think about all of the deep, nurturing lifelong friendships that only ever happened because one day two internet strangers were like ‘oh hey, we agree on which fictional characters should kiss!’

people who are right now helping each other survive via connections they initially forged by liking the same sailor moon girl or something

the internet is a goddamn garbage pit but it is also a goddamn miracle

[thesvenqueen]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)  dir. Joe Johnston

[thesvenqueen]

#dirty minds worldwide

[thesvenqueen]

Up In The Air- Chapter 1

Kristanna Modern AU

Rated: T

WC: 1234

Summary: Tired of her nomad lifestyle, traveling nurse Anna Arendelle on a whim picks Pensacola Florida as her new town to try find a sense of home. Meanwhile, Navy Pilot Kristoff Bjorgman has accepted a dream position at the Naval station in the same town. After a chance encounter goes south, the two of them find their lives entwined, with neither of them all that happy about it!

Also available on AO3 here

Happy Birthday @kristoffxannafanatic! This is as much her story as it is mine and please consider her the co-author. I just managed to write down all our ideas! Hope you enjoy

10:50

There really was no point in checking the time, he already knew before he looked.  Kristoff sat his phone down and leaned forward on the bench at the foot of the bed, elbows on his thighs as he scrubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger of one hand.  He hated this.  Only ten minutes to go and it felt like an eternity.  Five months of hustling, mostly on his own dime in the hopes that he would even get noticed had all boiled down to the longest ten minutes of his life.

He sat up and looked around.  It was oddest feeling whenever he was back home, sitting in his old room with almost all the remnants of his childhood stripped away.  It was a neutral color now, with a new bed and bland as any guest bedroom you would imagine.  But there still were the nicks on the closet from where Kristoff used to clean his hockey sticks against and a couple trophies his mother didn’t have the heart to throw out were on the dresser.  A few remaining snippets of a simpler time.

A week had gone by since he first graced his parent’s doorstep.  It was the longest stint he’d been home since the summer before his senior year of college.  That was well over ten years ago and he’d been a nomad the whole time since.  He had to admit it was comforting to be back home.  It had been an anchor for him during the chaos of the last few weeks and the thought of wanting to stay had started to creep up on him.  Now he was stuck between the desire to escape from the reminder this wasn’t his room or even his home anymore and the intense pull that was calling for a sense of some permanence.  In ten- no, eight- minutes he’d know if he’d be able to answer that pull.

This was better than the other candidates had for sure.  While the others went back to their temporary barracks, Kristoff came home to a comfortable bed and most importantly, his parents.  One of the many benefits of being local, a piece of information Kristoff had kept close to his chest the entire process.  His days and nights had been long, but he always took the time to sit with his mom and dad for a bit before heading upstairs and collapsing into bed.  He felt bad he hadn’t been able to spend more time with them.  Regardless of the outcome of the call at 1100 hours, Kristoff was going to take the next week off to decompress and spend some real time with them before heading back to Norfolk.

He thought about going downstairs since no one was home.  His mother promised she’d be out of the house until after lunch, but he knew her too well.  It would be all too convenient for her to have “forgotten” something and come home and he really didn’t want an audience for what most likely was going to be a polite rejection.  There were only eight pilots after all that flew for the Navy’s Blue Angels, and four were returning from the previous season.  Four open slots for the 90 candidates that started officially with him in April.  Now they were down to 20 vying for those 4 positions.  He knew the odds, had rehearsed what to say to sound professional when the rejection came.  But still…there was something that also told him to plan for what to say just in case it was a yes.  He would want to sound excited, but not like some idiot screaming and jumping up and down.  Kristoff shook the thought from his head, accepting the impending rejection.

10:55

Kristoff sat and reflected on the events that led him here.  He had officially put his formal application for the Blue Angels in February through his Naval chain of command.  By March his application had been accepted and he was on his way to his first airshow.  Spring was a blur, with his everyday duties during the week, followed by a rush to an airshow whenever he could to shadow the team by sitting on team briefs, post show activities and social events all to haul it back to base Sunday night to start the week again.     

The application process was described to him like rushing a fraternity.  Something Kristoff knew nothing of except that he probably wouldn’t be good at it.  But he did understand the game.  The process objectives were clear: meet the candidates and find out if they were the type of people you want to be part of your organization.  The team needed to get to know the individual and Kristoff’s personality wouldn’t get him there attending one or two shows.  So, he showed them his tenacity attending as many events as he could, talking to each team member on an individual basis, meeting the fans, showing them what he could do.

10:57

Whatever he did worked because by June he received an invitation to Pensacola for finalist weeks in July.  Now he was at the end of the time that had consisted of a dizzying number of activities – dinner with the team only, dinner with team and families, social beach party with team and families, strength tests, the briefs/shows/debriefs, and the dreaded interview.

All 16 Blue Angels officers from the different departments were at the interview and they each asked him one question.  He had taken the time to prepare for it, just by thinking about some things that were important to him.  It didn’t matter how many flight hours he had or the combat missions he flew.  Everyone sitting on the interviews had the same qualifications as him.  Kristoff told himself to be honest at all costs.  It was the only way it would work.  He had once made a promise to see this through and he was going to keep it.

10:59

He came out of the interview feeling good about it.  At the very least, if he didn’t get the job, he knew he had given them everything he could.  His dad casually mentioned that evening the officer who was renting his place had been transferred and the family were leaving by September and maybe they should hold off putting a listing up.  

It was all too convenient and too hopeful. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to have that conversation yet.

Kristoff’s alarm went off.  He grabbed the phone and took a deep breath. The moment of truth was here.  He had a five-minute window to call the Boss.  His commanding officer at his base in Norfolk had let him in on a little secret.  If the Boss put you on speaker, you were in, otherwise you were out.  Kristoff placed the call trying to keep his hands from shaking too much.  

“Lt. Cmdr. Bjorgman,” he identified himself and was asked to hold.  

A minute later Boss Kesselring answered then said “hold on a sec.”  Kristoff heard the unmistakable change in background sound when being put on speaker.  His heart raced as he had and only an instant of prep for what the Boss was going to tell him.

“You there Bjorgman?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a moment of silent before a group of voices yelled in unison, “Welcome to the team asshole!”

#.....you've peaked my interest #fic rec

[thesvenqueen]

The QUEEN and her husband🥺😫

[thesvenqueen]

they were so wrong to cut this song

[thesvenqueen]

they were so wrong to cut this song

[thesvenqueen]

Storyboards for In Summer by Jeff Ranjo

[thesvenqueen]

Anna doodles🌻

[thesvenqueen]

We need like a month where nothing happens and there’s no repercussions we all just stay in bed and hibernate and nothing goes wrong

[thesvenqueen]

you know whats wayyyyy easier than writing? scrolling through tumblr for hours and hours and tangentially thinking about your WIPs but not Actually working on them

[thesvenqueen]

Reblog if you’re 30 or older

This is an experiment to see if there really are as few of us as people think.You can also use this to freak out your followers who think you’re 25 or something. Yay!

#30 ☺️

[thesvenqueen]

Second Chances

Kristanna Modern AU Rated: Explicit (See tags) WC: 3163

Summary: It's been eight months since Anna's ex broke up with her in a brutal way. Her concerned sister sets her up on a date, and when she meets Kristoff, it does not go well. Afterward, upon getting an earful from Elsa, Anna realizes her mistake and goes about making things right. What happens between them afterward gives them each a second chance at love and the life they both want to have.

------------

“Anna, I am breaking up with you.”

Anna nearly choked on the sip of coffee she had just taken.  She stared at her boyfriend with wide eyes, not sure what she had just heard.  “What?”

“It’s over.”

Panic began to well in the pit of her stomach.  Her hands started to shake as she set the coffee mug back down on the table.  “What do you mean?”

He heaved a dramatic sigh.  “You heard me.  We’re done.”

“Where is this coming from,” she pleaded, getting up and walking over to where he was standing in the kitchen.   He’d just gotten back from his run.  When he left the house, it was as if nothing was any different.  And now he was telling her that they were done?

He rolled his eyes.  “Oh come on, Anna.  We haven’t had sex in weeks.  And when we do, you’re so…” he moved his hands around like he was fishing for the word, “…uninspired.   I mean, you don’t even give good blow jobs.”

Tears welled up in her eyes.   She had thought the problems they were facing were just a bit of a slump.  Just the day before she’d gone out and bought some sexy lingerie to surprise him with after the romantic dinner they had planned for that weekend.   Was that not happening now?

“Oh, and just so you know,” he said casually as he turned away, “I’ve started seeing other women.  So I can get… you know… taken care of.   You don’t even know how to kiss properly.”

Anna felt sick to her stomach, watching helplessly after him as he walked towards their bedroom to take a shower.  Despite having said some mean things to her from time to time, what he had just said was downright cruel, and she felt ashamed of herself.  She felt stupid and pathetic. 

Wiping her eyes, she went back to the table and sat down slowly, staring into her morning coffee that she’d actually been enjoying only a moment ago, trying to figure out in her mind what had just happened.  The long and short of it?  She didn’t please him and he’d been seeing other women. 

How had she not known this?  She had thought everything was just… normal.   He had never been a very enthusiastic lover, and he always met his end while Anna had to often take care of herself, and now she had to wonder if it was because she was just that bad at pleasing a man?

He'd been her first serious boyfriend.  Her first real love.  The first guy she’d ever moved out with.  And now all that was coming crashing down around her.   Three years of her life, gone, just like that.

Anna buried her head into her hands and sobbed.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

“This is a nice place, Anna.”

Anna didn’t respond, she just let her sister in without a word.  The apartment had been his, of course she had to move out when he dumped her. 

Her sister turned around at Anna’s silence.  “You know I hate that man for what he did to you.”

“I know,” Anna said through a sigh.  “I hate him too.”  She told Elsa that he had cheated on her but she did not tell her sister the awful things that her ex had said to her.  And they hadn’t ended in the kitchen that day.  She had begged and pleaded with him for hours afterwards and was met with yet more harsh comments on what an awful woman she was.

Anna led them into the living room and poured them each a glass of red wine from the bottle that was sitting on the coffee table.   She watched her sister as her eyes went around, taking in the small apartment before settling onto her gaze.      

“So, have you been on any dates?”

“Elsa…” Anna sighed with frustration.  “Why won’t you drop it?”

“Anna, it’s been what?  Eight months?  You need to move on.”

Anna was silent and looked down into her wine.  She knew she needed to move on, but how could she do that?  Apparently, she had nothing to offer a man.  What possible hope did she have of making something work.

Elsa set her wine glass down on the table and turned towards her on the couch.  “I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to get out here sooner.  Work has been incredibly demanding, only now that I see you, I feel like that is a pathetic excuse.”

She frowned.  Did she really look that bad?  “It’s okay, Elsa.  I know how important your job is.  And you still call me almost every night.”

“I do, which is probably why you’re tired of telling me you need to get back out there.  You have to see that it’s time to live your life again, don’t you?”

Anna did know that.  And she wanted to, desperately.  But what man would want her?  She’d been hit on a few times only to brush the guy off knowing that she would end up disappointing him in the end.   If she was honest with herself, she didn’t think she’d be able to stomach going through that again.

“Listen, Anna.  I have a friend who’s fairly new to our firm who happens to have moved from here.  She has a brother, and she says-”

Anna’s eyes went wide.  “No way, Elsa.  I am absolutely not about to be set up right now.”

“Please, Anna.”  Elsa reached out and grabbed her free hand.  “For me?   Please?  You can’t be afraid to start dating again.”

She pulled her hand away from her sisters and set the wine down on the coffee table as she got up.  “No.  Absolutely not.”

Elsa followed her as she walked into the kitchen.  “Give me one good reason why you won’t?” her sister demanded. 

Anna pursed her lips.  She would never breathe a word of what her ex had said to her to another living soul, and that was giving her little option for an excuse.   “I… don’t want to.”

Her sister put her hands on her hips.  “It’s just one date.  Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky.  Maybe what you need is a night of hot sex to get back on the horse.”

Her face lit up with heat.  “What the fuck, Elsa?  I do not need to hear that coming from my sister.”  Not only that, she did not need a reminder of how awful she was in bed.  It was a constant source of shame thug hung over her head.

Elsa gave her a gentle smile.  “Sorry.  I was just trying to make a point.  You have to stop keeping yourself from things that make you happy.  You haven’t even gone to the gym or hung out with your friends since you left your ex.”

“He dumped me, but yeah, I know I haven’t.”

“You need to start living again.”

Anna heaved a deep sigh.  Perhaps it was time.  She’d certainly seen plenty of men who she thought were attractive.  Enough that she’d pleasured herself to the thoughts of being with a man again.  That at least she knew she wasn’t bad at.  In fact, she was practically an expert at getting herself off now. 

“Can I tell my friend yes?”

Anna looked to her sister’s pleading eyes.  “Fine.  One date.”

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

The bar was packed, making it hard for Anna to pick out the man that she was supposed to meet.  She’d been given a general description.  Tall guy, big build, blond…  Anna had formed many mental pictures in her mind of what he might actually look like.

She was told that he’d be somewhere in the bar waiting for her, and every blond Anna looked at seemed to already be on a date or clearly out with a group of friends.  The guy Anna was looking for was supposed to be alone.

She muscled her way to the bar where groups of people were gathered around the stools and talking, waiting on drinks.  Then she spotted a blond man sitting at the end, surrounded by women.  The guy was absolutely huge; his t-shirt stretched tight over his biceps and chest.  And he was gorgeous.  His rugged handsomeness was undeniable.  That was why there were women all over him.

Thinking that couldn’t be her date, Anna went to turn away, when his eyes caught hers and widened with something like recognition.

“Hey, are you Anna?” he called to her over the music and loud conversations

She nodded, not wanting to shout back to him, and he got up from his stool and approached her.  Every single woman he was surrounded by watched all of his movements with lusty interest.

His imposing height loomed over her. “I’m Kristoff,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Anna responded, shaking it and thinking it wasn’t nice at all.  Not after he’d been hanging out with all those stunning women while waiting for her to show up for their date.  What the hell?  Who does that?

“They’re super busy and wouldn’t let me grab a table until you showed up,” he said.

He already sounded bored.  What the hell had Anna gotten herself into.  “Okay.”

Kristoff shrugged and took off to find a table.  Anna followed, kind of hoping they wouldn’t find one.  The guy was clearly someone who could get whoever he wanted and probably often did. 

Towards the back of the bar near the bathrooms, he spied an open table and made a b-line to it.  Anna sat on the stool across from him and put her purse on the edge of the high table.

He smiled.  “It’s quieter over here too.”

There was nothing but cool confidence behind that smile and Anna squirmed again thinking of how many gorgeous women had been salivating over him moments before.  “You sure didn’t waste your time talking to the other ladies, I see.”

He frowned.  “They were talking to me.  I wasn’t talking to them.”

Anna rolled her eyes.  “Sure.  A guy like you must just hate it when women hang all over him.”

His unhappy face turned into a scowl.  “What are you saying?”

“Look, I agreed to go on this date, but not with a player, okay?”

Kristoff became emotionless.  “Have me pegged, do you?” he asked evenly.

Anna could only shrug.  “It’s not that hard to figure out.  The reason a guy who looks like you is single, is that he wants to stay single.”

He stared at her, expression impossible to read.

“Lets just save us both time.  I refuse to be a conquest, so you can just go back to all those ladies at the bar who can barely keep it in their pants.”  Anna got up, keeping her eyes off his unreadable face, feeling relieved.  She didn’t even want to go on this date in the first place.  She was almost glad that this guy, as hot as he was, wasn’t going to work out.

Anna spared him a glance as she turned away and was a little shocked to see profound sadness in his eyes.  It was almost enough for her to turn back around and say something. 

Almost. 

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

Anna looked at her ringing phone.  It was Elsa.  She let out a long sigh and answered.  “Hello?”

“What the fuck, Anna?  Why the hell did you brush off that date last night?”

She groaned inwardly.  This was not a conversation she wanted to have.  “He wasn’t my type.”

“Bullshit!  My friend talked to her brother and he told her what you said to him.  That was pretty awful, Anna.”

She frowned.  Had it been?  She was only speaking the truth.  “Well… you didn’t tell me the guy was a total player.”

Elsa huffed with frustration.  “He’s not!  He hasn’t been on a date in a year!”

“Elsa, he had women, and I mean gorgeous women, all over him when I arrived at the bar.”

“And he was what?  Flirting with them?”

Anna thought back to the scene at the bar.  One of the women had her hand on his arm and was talking his ear off, another one giving him fuck me eyes from his other side, two behind him waiting for their turn, and he was… sitting there.  He was staring at something.  Or was it nothing.  Then he’d looked over and his eyes had widened… they kind of looked a little… well at the time it looked like recognition but thinking back, they seemed a little more… relieved?

Anna gasped.  “Oh no, what have I done?”

Her sister sighed.  “Anna, you might need to talk to someone.  I don’t know what Hans did to you, but it was something.   I have doubts that he was never abusive to you even though you assured me that he never was.”

“He said some mean things, Elsa.  That’s all.”  Anna would give her that much, no more.  Not ever.  No one would ever know of her humiliation.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a beat.  “So maybe you said some things you didn’t mean to a nice guy because you are still so scared of putting yourself out there?”

Anna’s stomach rolled with unease to think about the hurtful way she’d brushed Kristoff off.  “Yeah.  I guess I am.”

“Well, at least you can recognise that.”

“Elsa, I feel terrible.  Is there any way I can get his number?  To apologise?”

“Well…I can ask my friend, although I have to warn you, she was pretty pissed that you treated her brother that way.”

“Please try, Elsa.  I feel awful and I need to tell him that I am sorry.”

“Alright.  I’ll call you back in five, okay?”

“Okay.”  Anna hung up the phone and rung it in her hands.  She could not believe she’d been so mean to someone and tears sprung in her eyes.  It made her feel terrible to think she’d said something hurtful to someone.  It reminded her of what her ex had said to her, and that Kristoff guy did not deserve that, even if he was a player.

Her phone rang in her hands and startled her to the point she almost threw it across the room.  “Hello?”

“Okay, I got the number.”

“Oh, thank you, Elsa.  Thank you so much.”  She sniffed.  “And tell your friend-”

“Anna, are you crying?”

She nodded and started to sob.  “I feel so bad, Elsa.  I was so mean to that poor man.  Please tell your friend to tell her brother that I am so sorry and that he can expect me to contact him to say so that I can apologize and-”

“Anna… Anna!”

She sniffed and reigned in her emotions.  This was insane.  She needed to get a grip on herself.  For all those months she carried all that hurt when her ex broke up with her and it was all starting to come out after treating someone else poorly.  It was becoming a little clearer to her that there were some issues she was going to have to deal with, and soon.

“Anna?”

Sniff.  “Yeah?”

“You need to stop beating yourself up about this, okay?”

“What if he doesn’t accept my apology?” Anna asked, wiping her damp cheeks. 

“Well, then I guess you just have to live with it.”

She shoulders slumped, suddenly exhausted.  “Yeah.  I guess I made the bed I have to lie in it.”

Her sister was silent on the other end for a moment.  “Whatever happens, Anna… it’ll be okay.  Everything will be okay.  You’ll have plenty of other chances.”

Anna nodded to herself, steeling her emotions for the text she was about to send.  “I know.  Thank you, Elsa.”

*****

Kristoff looked at the text from the number that he did not know, and set the phone down in contemplation.

He knew it was coming.  His sister had called him and given him the heads up she’d passed his number along to the woman who was so rude to him last night.  To say he was conflicted was an understatement. 

He hadn’t been hurt like that in a while.  Which was weird because he didn’t know this woman.  It was just that she passed him off so easily that it made him second guess himself a bit.  In retrospect, he should have been ruder to the women vying for his attention at the bar.  Why couldn’t this Anna understand that he had absolutely zero interest in them.  Instead, she’d taken one look at him and decided he was one of those pigs that used women as conquests.  And that fucking hurt.

That was why he’d agreed to be set up.  Trying to meet someone on line or even in a club brought out all the wrong kinds of women for him.  He had yet to meet someone that was looking for something serious, not just some fun fling or one night stand. 

He sighed, and read the message again.

Hi Kristoff, this is Anna, the woman who was rude to you last night and who you wish you probably never met.  I need to say that I am sorry for how I acted and what I said to you.  Clearly! I have issues to deal with.  I would hope you have it in your heart to meet me quickly so that I may apologize in person.  If you wish to never talk to me again though, I completely understand.  If I don’t hear back from you in a couple of days, I will assume I have my answer and delete your number. �� I am sorry.

It read like an email, and quite frankly a little bit of a cry for help.  He certainly had his own issues, and he could not deny that her acknowledging her own had softened his attitude towards how she had treated him.  It wasn’t like he was exactly innocent of never behaving poorly when he was dealing with things.  When his sister had let him know to expect her to contact him, he just shrugged and assumed he’d delete the message and move on.  Only having read it and its sincerity…

He started typing.

Hi Anna.  Thank you for reaching out.  Please don’t be too hard on yourself.  If you would like to talk, we could meet for a coffee?

He read it three times and hit send before he changed his mind.  He’d just set his phone down when it dinged.

He chuckled.  “That was fast.”

Thank you so much Kristoff!  Would tomorrow work?  I could meet you at 11 at that coffee shop that’s just on the corner of 10th and Elm?

He typed back;

Sure.  See you then

Anna immediately hearted his message and he set his phone down.  He’d been watching the game on TV and he turned his attention back to it, only in the back of his mind he had other thoughts about how seeing this woman again was going to go.

#fic rec