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Babysitters- A Kristanna Oneshot

Universe: Modern AU Rating: T (Minor curse, shameless attraction) Length: 3558 Words Summary: Kristoff and Anna both wind up as babysitters on the whims of two young girls. They find out that despite being near strangers, they have an incredible amount in common. A/N: Yes this is a meet cute based on the double babysitter episode of Bluey. Yes the plot and a good chunk of the dialog are wholesale stolen from the cartoon dog show for toddlers. Those writers are geniuses and I will not apologize.

Anna was still trying to figure out how exactly she’d gotten herself into such a uniquely odd, yet pleasant situation.

“You can ask us anything you’d like, and that way you can get to know us better,” she suggested to the two little girls before her, happy to be able to give them a way to feel a little more comfortable in their new situation. Afterall, it’s not everyday you wind up with not just one new babysitter, but two, and to have to be put to bed by the pair of them.

“It’s easy,” Kristoff agreed.

Kristoff was the aforementioned second babysitter and the uncle of the little girls before them. She couldn’t help but think that he was a bit attractive, but she tried not to dwell on it given she was there to give her attention to the girls. She was there to watch them as a good friend of their mother. In fact she was the older girl’s godmother, or “fairy godmother” as she liked to put it. She had frequently spent time with the girls, but this was her first time watching them without their mom hanging out.

“Why don’t you have a wife?”

Ooof.

She was not expecting a six year old to come out with such a hardball question out of the gate, and she was glad that she was not in the crosshairs. She hoped that maybe their questions would lighten up.

“How do you know that I don’t?”

Oh geeze, I was just thinking about how cute another woman’s husband is.

“Do you have a wife?”

She saw the man start to flush and she knew the answer before he spoke it, a comfort to her moral compass, she supposed.

“Well… no.”

“Oh, okay, then why don’t you have a wife.”

He pointed to Anna and said, “Oh no, can’t answer more than a couple in a row, it’s her turn.”

Only marginally less attractive when he’s shoving me under the bus.

The younger girl nodded, as if her uncle’s insistence on sharing was admirable.

“How many friends have you got?”

Anna blinked for a moment, not sure how to respond, and then counted the friends she could think to name on her fingers.

Their mom, Elsa, Elsa’s girlfriend…

She struggled to come up with anyone else, decided that she could not, shrugged and said, “Three.”

“That’s not many.”

“Why do you only have three friends?”

Children are brutal.

“Well, uh…back to him.”

Two could play at that game.

“Why do we only see you at Christmas?”

The girls looked both genuine in their curiosity, and a bit sad. Clearly they want to see their Uncle Kristoff more often… I would like to see their Uncle Kristoff more often.

“Because I was working up in Alaska. I might be getting a new job now though.”

He seemed a little more relaxed by this line of questioning, and while they were not touching, Anna swore she could feel the man sitting at her side relaxing.

“Is that why you don’t have a wife?”

He looked surprised when Anna snuck a peek at him out of the corner of her eye.

So much for any hope at easy questions.

“Huh,” he paused for a moment, “Probably actually.”

“Why does your hair look so pretty?”

“Almondmilk shampoo.”

She was surprised to hear him saying the same thing at the same time. She assumed the girls had been asking her, and he, clearly, had assumed the same.

She saw his surprised look and she was certain that he would see it mirrored in her expression.

“Do you want any kids?”

“Yes,” she answered, hearing him echo the statement, and not being wholly sure why she’d looked at him while she answered.

“Will Hans be the daddy?”

Ouch. Back to hardball.

“Oh, no… Hans and I aren’t friends anymore.”

She was over it, over him, but it still hurt when she had thought that he would have been her future. Explaining the terrible things he’d done to her in a way that children could understand was something she did not have in her tonight, and frankly they didn’t deserve to have their worldview turned so grim just yet.

She thought of her sister and herself at the girls’ ages and took a deep breath.

What I wouldn’t give to be so young and happy and naive again.

“Who’s Hans?” Kristoff asked at her side, and she couldn’t help but note the genuine curiosity in his voice. She wondered if he had seen the split second of discomfort she’d let show on her face.

“No one. Next question!”

She didn’t have it in her to explain to him either. She didn’t owe him the explanation, even if she thought that maybe he’d be nice to talk to.

“Hans in her true love!”

She shook her head, trying to retain her composure and keep her tone light. “Not anymore!”

The little girls looked crestfallen. They’d only met the man once, and while she wished she didn’t have to, she wanted to let them keep their good memory of him from the day they’d spent in the park together.

“But true love is forever!”

Gosh I wish.

“Well, uh…”

“Is true love not forever?”

The littler girl asked the question with tears in her eyes and Anna thought that if she started to cry, she might too.

“It is! Or… at least I thought it was.”

“Okay,” Kristoff interjected, clearly seeing that Anna was not about to dig herself out of this hole, “Let’s play in the backyard!”

***

Kristoff had forgotten exactly how brutal children could be in their lines of interrogation. His nieces had certainly taken after their father in that regard. The older boy had asked about a million hard and invasive questions of him when his parents had adopted him. It had all turned out well in the end because he loved his brother, he loved his family, and he loved the girls, but he had the sense that Anna hadn’t quite realized what she’d signed up for by offering to let the girls play twenty questions.

When he’d noticed just how sad she looked about the girls asking about Hans, whoever the asshole was, he had been only all too happy to encourage some outdoor activity. He hoped that she would take all the time she needed to collect herself while he had the girls outside, but he could already tell that she was better at taking care of others than she was at taking care of herself. It was obvious from the way she let herself get hurt by the girls questions, just to let them ask them as promised.

She was far too beautiful to look so sad, and if he ever thought that she might like to hear such a thing from him, he’d happily share it. After the kids were to bed of course.

“Can you play the same games as mom and dad?”

“Sure,” he answered, recalling at least some of the games that he had played with his brother as a child, assuming that they couldn’t be all that different. “What do they play?”

“Chicken rat!”

“Wha-?”

This is what happens when you assume.

“Come here and go away!”

He shook his head, wondering if his nieces were speaking another language suddenly. He knew what the words normally meant, but he could not imagine what they might mean in the form of a children’s game.

“You don’t need the same games.”

Anna’s voice came from behind him, her flip flops making soft sounds on the wooden porch stairs as she approached him and tugged his keys from his back pocket.

What is she doing?

He was too stunned to ask, he just jumped at the contact and watched as she masterfully taught both girls a new game using the emergency flashlight on his keyring.

He would have applauded Anna’s genius, if he weren’t too tired chasing the light around the yard like a cat with her.

At one point in the game she’d pounced upon him, following the girl’s light, and it had taken all of his strength to not wrap his arms around her and hold her to him.

***

Anna smiled as Kristoff held his niece’s feet up to the ceiling and let her walk across it like they were living in an MC Escher drawing. They were supposed to be finishing getting the girls washed up for bedtime, but clearly Kristoff was a fun uncle for whom timelines were less important than fun. She’d always thought of what it would be like to be a mom like that one day. She always imagined being the sort of mom that let her kids explore anything that they wanted, to help them grow into the people they wanted to be instead of what society expected of them.

I could be that with Kristoff.

She shook the thought from her mind and, to the best of her ability, helped the younger girl onto the ceiling.

“Ooof, you’re heavier than I remember.”

The little girl giggled and played with her sister on the ceiling for a moment, until her weight became too much for Anna to bear holding and she collapsed to the floor, landing the little girl on her lap.

“How about a story girls,” Anna offered, “Run along to bed and we’ll be in in just a minute.”

After I catch my breath.

Kristoff, for his part, much more gracefully lowered his older niece to the floor and offered her a hand up, not immediately releasing it when she was standing, which made her heart do a little flip in her chest.

“Thank you,” she said, and he just smiled in response.

She could hardly move her eyes away from his chocolate brown ones until he offered her hand a little knowing squeeze and walked with her to the girls room for a story.

***

Kristoff nearly laughed himself as he dramatically “slayed” the girls stuffed dragon and climbed to the top bunk of their bed where Anna, the “princess” was clearly awaiting his valourous return from battle.

“Princess, I have rescued you, and now we shall marry.”

She made a face, and he wondered for a moment if he had overstepped, even in their game of pretend. It was of course, all show for the girls, but he thought back to all the earlier uncomfortable talk of true love and hoped that he hadn’t upset Anna, particularly because he was really beginning to like her.

It was impossible not to of course. She was funny, smart, and gorgeous. If he never saw her again her fiery red hair and beautiful smile would haunt him until the day he died. To make matters worse, it was clear to him that she loved his nieces, and probably kids in general. He’d never really dated much or had given much thought to who his perfect person would be, but now she was sitting in front of him, wearing a princess crown, and turning her head away.

“And then the princess said, ‘no thanks!’”

Her smirk and wink did things to him that he would not be allowing himself to think about until he was at least a week out from babysitting. It was that indecent.

“What?”

His response was honest as the girls giggled to themselves from below.

“She just didn’t like the look of him.”

The girls exploded into greater laughter, and it was all he could do to not laugh himself. He mocked taking it personally, but couldn’t help but wonder if maybe a small part of her was being serious.

“Why not?”

“Well his hair was messy and he was a bit too muscly. You know what I mean kids?”

The girls, on queue, laughed with glee, happy to be included.

“Well wait a minute,” he replied, noticing the way that her eyes hung a bit appreciatively on the arm he was hanging onto the bunk bed ladder by.

Too muscly my ass.

“I defeat the dragon, take it back to my castle, and we get married. I’ve read the stories. That’s just business.”

“Well,” Anna replied with a dramatic wave of her hand, “I didn’t ask to be rescued.”

“So you just want to stay here? With the stinky dragon?”

He could imagine all the fun they could get into together. She was funny, she was trouble, and while he normally avoided trouble, he could imagine just how good trouble could be with her.

“I’m getting used to him.”

Kristoff grinned, letting go of the ladder and walking back down to the stuffed dragon. He raised his eyebrow to Anna in challenge, “Well then, I’ll just wake him up for you and-”

He didn’t even reach his hand all that close to the stuffed creature before Anna responded to his challenge. “No, wait!”

“I thought so.”

The girls were in hysterics now, clearly enjoying their bit of pantomime, and Kristoff had to give it to Anna, she was certainly making things more interesting.

She did look almost sad for a moment when she glanced down at the “slain” stuffy.

“She knew it, princes are all the same.”

Kristoff wondered, for a moment, if all the “princes” she knew had taken away her choices. He wanted to ask, but now was not the time.

“No we’re not,” he replied, “There are good princes and bad princes.”

“Which one was he?”

One of the girls asked the question, the other waiting with bated breath, the apparent drama of it all being enough to stop the giggles from allowing them to speak for the time being.

“He’s a good one, he rescued the princess.”

“Only because he likes slaying dragons,” Anna replied, “Tomorrow he’ll be off in search of another princess.”

The girls looked to him again, in rapt attention to hear his response, but all he had was, “This is a tough princess to rescue, he’ll probably be at it a long time and then he’ll be happy to never rescue one again.”

He kept his tone light, the girls giggled again, but Anna got the message and her small smile was more than he could have ever dreamed of seeing leveled at him.

“Well while the prince figures it out, the Princess is going to read a good book and live happily ever after. The end!”

The girls disapproval was immediate, and Kristoff was taken as off guard as Anna clearly was. She was looking down at the girls in surprise as they called up to her.

“That can’t be the end. In mom and dad’s stories, they always get married in the end.”

Kristoff, looking to Anna again, shrugged.

“Princess?”

Anna’s lip quirked into a smirk for a moment before she put back on her “too cool for this” princess expression and announced, “Okay fine.”

She jumped from the top bunk of the bed, gave the girls a fleeting “don’t jump on or off of your beds” look and continued her story.

“For the sake of the children, they both get married,” she crossed the space between them and linked her arm through his, smiling as she added with finality, “the end.”

The girls cheered and were, somewhat easily, guided to bed after the story’s conclusion.

***

Anna tucked in her goddaughter and smoothed the hair from the little girl’s eyes with the side of her hand.

“Goodnight sweetie,” she said, and was about to walk away and turn off the lights when the little girl caught her attention again.

She looked a little bit stressed, which worried Anna. The last thing she wanted was for either of the girls to be uncomfortable or upset.

“Anna, can you not watch tv after you put us to bed?”

Anna was confused for a moment.

“Sure sweetie, I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“Wait a minute,” Kristoff said, crossing the room where his youngest niece was already out snoring.

“Was your last babysitter Grandma?”

“Yeah,” the little girl admitted, “She had the TV on really loud and I had a hard time sleeping and she was watching something scary.”

“Oh, sorry bug,” Kristoff said, squeezing the little girl’s hand where it laid on top of the comforter.

Anna couldn’t help but smile at the way Kristoff was comforting the little girl.

“Mom doesn’t hear as well as she used to these days,” he said, letting Anna in on what he clearly knew but was news to her, “She has the tv and radio on too loud if she doesn’t have her hearing aids in.”

He turned back to the little girl.

“Don’t worry, this won’t be anything like that, it was just the one time.”

The little girl still looked upset and Anna covered Kristoff’s hand with her own for extra support.

“How can I know that it won’t ever be like that again?”

Anna took this one, knowing full well from her own childhood that living in fear of things going wrong was a surefire way for a childhood to be spent alone and sad.

“You don’t, but you have to give it a try. Otherwise you end up in a tower with a stinky dragon forever.”

She thought that Kristoff was smiling, even though she couldn’t see his face.

“Okay,” she said, snuggling into her blankets seeming a bit apprehensive, but willing to make an attempt, “I’ll try.”

“That’s my girl.”

***

When the girls were asleep, Kristoff invited Anna out onto the balcony outside their room. He figured that it would be far enough away that if they whispered, they wouldn’t wake them, but it was also close enough where if the girls woke up and needed them, they would be right there.

They were sitting on the ground together, and Kristoff wished that he could take the risk to wake the girls to at least get her a chair. It would be the good princely thing to do after all, but Anna seemed perfectly content to sit next to him.

“I don’t care for the conditioner,” she said, and Kristoff thought that despite the fact that he would describe himself as being not all that much of a people person, he would happily talk with Anna about her ever opinion or thought, even as mundane as haircare, for the rest of his life.

“I agree, it’s not nearly as good as the shampoo. They also put out that body wash for a bit and it was awful.”

Anna nodded sagely as if he’d just offered her an extremely important opinion about an earth shattering concept for which she was fully in agreement. He’d decided from the start that he liked the way her face showed her thoughts honestly. He’d never been amazing at communicating with others, but she wore her feelings on her sleeve and he could appreciate the way it made her easy to talk with.

“I know, it was horrible. I tried using it after the gym once and I just smelled like sweat and cherries. I hate wasting things because some people would be so happy to have something that I don’t need, but gosh I just threw the whole bottle out because no one should use a body wash that bad.”

Kristoff almost laughed, but managed for the sake of the sleeping girls in the next room over, to turn it into a low chuff.

“They shouldn’t have been able to call it a body wash at all. Maybe a body smell or something?”

“In shower terrible perfume?” she asked, clearly of the same opinion and happy to run with the joke, “Really they needed to stay in their lane and just focus on improving their conditioner.”

He smiled at her, and did his best not to let his hand catch hers when she stretched her back and her hand slid toward him, brushing against him for a moment.

“Have you found a good one yet?”

“What bodywash? Yeah, but I don’t think you’d want to use it, it’s sugar cookie scented.”

He responded before thinking, “No, I figured, you smell like warm vanilla, it’s nice.”

He flushed and hoped that the dark of the night was stronger than the girls nightlights so she couldn’t see him blushing.

“I, uh, meant conditioner.”

She smiled, and he knew that she could see him blushing.

“No, not yet. Maybe we could find something together?”

He turned his head to look at her and thought, in the darkness of the space, that he saw her blushing too.

“Like… do you mean like a date?”

She shrugged, and he realized the her hair and her face, in the darkness, were approaching the same shade. She was certainly blushing.

“I guess, yeah?”

He did laugh then, and was grateful in the silence that followed that neither of the girls had appeared to have awoken from his over loud expression of amusement.

“Well, sure. But maybe I can take you out to coffee first? Maybe in the morning after my brother gets home? I think it might make for a better first date than grocery shopping.”

Anna grinned at him and he couldn’t help but return the look, grateful for his brother and sister in law’s accidentally requesting two babysitters at once.

“It’s a date.”

When he let his hand catch hers, she gladly held it.

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