#thats not blood btw its ketchup

[tokyasu]

ikevil x bg3 ? cleric of selune!Kate x warlock!Jude

[upthenorthmountain]

Only Love - Together

Happy birthday @karis-the-fangirl! For you, I have managed to finish this. I hope you have a wonderful day :D

Previous Chapters: Part 1, Part 2

This story and the larger upthenorthmountain modern AU Kristannaverse have no affiliation with the real-life town of Arundel and any similarities with the town, its people and its actual summer festival are purely coincidental.

Together

But as Anna lay on the sofa disconsolately that Sunday evening, her phone beeped. It was Jessica.

oh btw i gave kris your number hope thats ok

Anna scowled at her phone. Rude! I mean, if she wanted Kristoff to have her number, she would give it to him herself. Gladly. Or up until last night she would have. Ugh, now he would ring and be really nice and explain how he really liked her as a friend, and he was happy to forget everything that had happened, and he hoped he’d see her soon, but in a friend way. And she’d be forced to see him and pretend everything was cool while secretly dying inside. So she wouldn’t be able to go to Sven and Jessica’s ever again and she’d have to make all new friends and everything would be stupid and terrible and all because she couldn’t control herself and gave into every immediate instinct like a TODDLER or a, a GOAT.

The phone rang. An unknown mobile number. Anna jumped and dropped it on the floor.

It lay there, on its back, ringing. Oh god. Oh god oh god. Just answer it, woman, it’s probably a PPI spam call.

“Hello?”

“Ah, hi, Anna?”

It was him, oh god. Oh no oh no oh no. “Hi, Kris? I mean I guess this is Kris, Jessica just texted and said she gave you my number, which is fine, I just - um. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Ah. I - Anna, I wanted to apologise for last night. The last thing I wanted to do was upset you -”

“It’s - it’s okay! I should be apologising, and I am, I’m apologising. I’m the one who made everything awkward, I’d really like to just forget it. Pretend it never happened. I was drunk, I’m sorry.”

“Pretend it never happened?”

“Please. We’re friends, it’s cool.”

There was a pause. Then Kristoff said, “Well, this is awkward.”

“I guess…”

“No, I mean….” he cleared his throat. “Because the other reason I phoned you was to ask you out.”

“....what?”

“It has been explained to me,” he said, “At great length, over the course of this afternoon, that I am an idiot, and if I like you and you like me then we should spend some time just the two of us, to - explore that further. And that sounded about right to me, once Sven had finished his harangue, so I was wondering if you wanted to go to the festival thing in the park with me next weekend. There’s live bands and food stalls and things. I mean, if you want to. If I’m not being even more of an idiot.”

“....Sven spent a whole afternoon calling you an idiot and telling you to ask me out?”

“Except for when Jessica was doing it, yeah. You should probably know that they’re pretty invested in this. You haven’t actually answered.”

“No. I mean, no I haven’t, but yes. Yes, please.”

“Okay!” She could hear the relief in his voice. “That’s - awesome. Cool. Okay, I’ll check the times and call you later in the week, okay?”

“Okay, great. Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay. Bye, then. Anna.”

“Bye,” she almost whispered, and the line went dead as he ended the call.

Anna sat for a moment, her phone in her hands. Then she shook herself, and saved his number carefully to her contacts, and went to text Jessica and tell her - but no. Not straight away. She would let herself sit here for a moment, for one perfect moment, enjoying this feeling. Before she undoubtedly did something to muck it up again.

----

Her phone rang again about twenty minutes later.

“Soooo? Did he ask you out?”

“Jess!”

“Well, did he?”

“As if you don’t know.”

Jessica laughed. “I was just worried he’d bottle it. Sven practically had to threaten him.”

“That makes me feel great, thanks.”

“Oh, no, he wanted to! He was just all, what if she doesn’t want to talk to me, what if she says no, won’t it make everything awkward, and I was like, I got the impression everything was already awkward? But anyway. He did, so. He’s a good boy really.”

“Mm.”

“So, what are you going to wear?”

“I don’t know! He like literally JUST called. Oh no, I have to decide what do wear….what if I do something stupid. Like say something stupid. Or, or I spill my drink all over myself, or something, and he changes his mind about me, and -”

“What do you mean? Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway. He’s definitely seen you spill a drink on yourself before.”

“...um. Maybe?”

“Yes, you remember, it was only a couple of weeks ago and he was definitely there - and that time at the barbecue, when you took a bite of your burger and got ketchup all down your front - and at the mini golf, when you tripped over your club and fell over and skinned your knees, and we were all trying to give you tissues and things and you were insisting you were fine with blood running all down onto your socks -”

“WHY are we doing this?”

“I’m just saying - he’s seen all these things and he still asked you out. So I’m not sure what you could do to put him off, unless you were planning on being, like, WILDLY racist or something - oh, Anna, do you remember when someone made you laugh when you were eating Doritos and you choked and some went up your nose and then you blew your nose and it was all orange -”

“I’m a disaster human, I know, everyone apparently knows, please stop now.”

“Sorry. I’m stopping. But, isn’t it nice to go out with someone who already knows you this well? And wants to be with you anyway?”

“Rude.” But she had to admit, it was nice.

----

He felt - not broken, exactly, but - raw. Bruised. After Maria, part of him wanted to crawl away into a corner and lick his wounds, wait for everything to heal, wait to feel normal again, whatever normal felt like.

But.

If he waited, he’d miss her, he was certain of that. She was so - everything she was, and someone else would see it, soon enough. Sven had gone on at length about striking while the iron was hot and Kristoff knew he was right even as he wished for a little more time.

-----

The annual Arundel Summer Festival was in the park. Anna met Kristoff at the gates at four, or close enough to four, after she’d tried on every outfit she owned, and put her hair up and taken it down and put it half-up; and her sandals were super-pretty but also they rubbed if, for example, you had to run halfway across town because you were nearly late for a date you were super-excited about. But she was here now.

He was wearing a shirt, was the first thing she noticed. Not a t-shirt, a shirt with buttons, and jeans that looked suspiciously new. He’d brushed his hair, and he had a picnic blanket rolled up under his arm.

“I thought we could go listen to the music for a bit,” he said, “Then maybe get something to eat, there’s a lot of stalls - and there’s bands into the evening, I think, but we don’t have to stay the whole time, it’s up to you -”

“That sounds good! Great.”

“Great.” They beamed at each other.

Anna had been so worried it would be awkward, or she would make it awkward again somehow, but after the first little while everything was great. They sat on the picnic blanket - while on the stage a school band played a medley of musical theatre tunes that was actually pretty good - and talked. Then they walked round the food stalls and couldn’t decide what to eat so took a few things back to their blanket to share, and if Anna did nearly choke on a piece of naan because Kristoff made her laugh at the wrong moment then that was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. A couple of times Anna got inquisitive texts but she ignored them. Jessica could wait.

Kristoff came back from putting the remains of their meal in the bin and sat down on the blanket next to her, leaning back on his hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this relaxed on a date before,” he said, then hesitated as if afraid he’d given too much away.

“Me neither. Must be the music,” Anna said, nodding towards the stage where some men with guitars were doing a sound check. Kristoff laughed.

He was so close. He was leaning right towards her, and his smile was slowly fading to be replaced with a look of almost wonder, almost - she didn’t know what; his eyes went to her lips then back up, and her heartbeat was almost drowning out the words kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me chanting in her head.

He bent his head down, leaning in, and the anticipation was delicious but also she was going to scream with the effort of not leaping forward and pinning him down. She closed her eyes instead, feeling his breath on her lips before, finally, gently, slowly, he kissed her.

Now she let herself push forward. Now she ran her hand over his shoulder and to the back of his neck, as he kissed her again, more assuredly this time.

He was so close, and he smelt so nice, and Anna longed to pull him down onto the blanket next to her - on top of her - and...

...and get thrown out of the Arundel Summer Festival for indecent, non-family-friendly behaviour, that was what. Anna couldn’t help it, she started giggling, and Kristoff pulled away. “What?” he said, smiling.

“Nothing,” Anna said. “Just happy, that’s all. The kiss was nice,” she added. “You can do that again if you want.”

So he did.