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shhh-no-ones-home · 3 years

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model citizen ricky horror x reader

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college au

prompt: Character A sitting in a college 7am lecture and Character B sitting next to them pouring an energy drink into their coffee and says, "I'm going to die." (First interaction)

Song: pretty little distance by as it is

tag list: @musicsexandpizza69 @svintsandghosts @theoneandonlykymberlee @alilpunkrock @cynic-spirit @thisplace-ishaunted @lifeisabitchandsoareyou @xyours-eternallyx

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i walked into the room and huffed as i took my seat, reaching into my bag for my notebook and a pen. i hated having a 9am again and missed being able to sleep-in like i did last semester. this was the first day though and i was hopeful my mind would change about it as the course went on. it probably wouldnt though. i sat there, catching a few more students walk in as i looked down at my phone.

nothing was too exciting yet and the teacher hadnt even shown up. i was more-so ready for the new art class though. it was my major after all and i was pretty well known by the professors at this point. as i sat there, a loud clatter grabbed my attention, making me look to my right. there was sat a shorter, skinny kid, with long inky black hair tucked under a beanie. my eyes went wide as he cracked the monster in his hand open, pouring it into his half=full trenta cup from Starbucks. he looked over at me and smiled.

"im going to die."

he said in the most sure-fire tone before putting the lid back on the cup and chugging it. i sat there in horror staring at him.

"are you okay?"

i asked and he shrugged, looking at me over the top of the cup. he had the bluest eyes i had ever seen, even in the low light of the art room. i was a little start struck for a second before shaking myself out of my daze, watching him put the cup down against the desk with a thud.

"if i pass out during class just push me out of the way and ill figure something out later."

he said, turning forward. i went to say something just as the teacher walked in.

"y/n! good to see you back. we missed you last semester."

professor crane said, looking to the student teacher as he ducked behind him and paced quickly to the front desk. his gaze followed him too before he shrugged and turned back to me with a smile.

"whatever, im sure he missed you too. but either way its good to have you back in class and i look forward to seeing what you come up with for the showcase in march."

i nodded with a smile before he walked away to the front of the class, instructing everyone to take their seats.

"you come here often?"

i heard from the kid next to me, hearing him laugh to himself as he took another drink of his coffee/monster concoction.

"yes, actually. im an art major."

i said a little dumbfounded. he nodded.

"cool, im here for film."

i drew my brows.

"youre doing film?"

i asked and he winked at me, looking to Brian as he turned the projector on. i opened my mouth before closing it quickly, feeling a little more confused than before.

"alright, first things first. i only make a syllabus because administration says i have to. the schedule is shit and we will most likely be doing something completely different so i suggest you keep a planner or something to keep track of your assignments. secondly, i will get to it later but i want you to start thinking about your projects for the spring showcase in march. we have a few short months so after you learn the basics of form you will be instructed to sketch something in your own style and present it to the board."

my mind went in and out after that, trying to catch quick glances at the kid next to me without being suspicious. every time he moved i could feel my heart pulse, giving me anxiety that he could actually pass out or something.

"y/n, your partner for this project will be mr olson."

brian said, standing over me and looking between the two of us. i nodded with wide eyes as he moved to the two kids behind us.

"guess that means we have pretty high chances at getting an A."

he said, raising his cup in cheers. i looked down at the assignment sheet, grazing over it and groaning. we had to come up with a comic strip in different style parts; the first panel a base sketch, the second panel a hard sketch, the third panel color blocking, and so on. god this was gonna be a nightmare.

"you dont seem too enthused."

the kid said amused. i sent him a testing look.

"im not, ive done something similar before and you have to get every step just right or they take points off. and we have to prove what parts we did."

i said, rolling my eyes. i looked over to him, blinking as a camera flash went off. i drew my brows as he looked down at the screen on it.

"where did you even get that?"

i asked, trying to inspect him. he sent me a smile.

"i always keep it on me. im ricky by the way, and you look great."

he said amused and i breathed deeply.

"y/n."

i said, looking back to the paper.

"well y/n i think this is going to be a great partnership-"

"alright!"

brian called, cutting him off.

"you have your assignments. i have nothing else for you today so you are welcome to either stay here and work until class time is over or you can leave and work on it on your own time. i dont really care either way, just get it done."

i hummed to myself before stuffing my notebook and the assignment sheet into my bag and standing up. i caught a glimpse of ricky starting at me with wide eyes as i turned to leave.

"what are you doing?"

he asked and i looked between him and the door, pointing at it.

"leaving, its not due for another week."

i started off, hearing him shuffle around before chasing after me.

"hey wait! cant we like plan what we're doing or something?"

he asked and i shrugged, looking over to him as he tried to put his paper in his backpack and hold the camera and cup of coffee. i stopped, staring at him as he struggled. i rolled my eyes, taking the cup and the camera from him. he looked to me in shock and i raised my brows.

"get to it, i dont have all day."

i said and he finished what he was doing, zipping his bag up and slinging it over it shoulder. i handed him the cup and camera back and kept walking.

"so uh, what kind of thing did you have in mind for this project?"

he asked and i looked to the sky, squinting but trying to think as we made it outside.

"i dont know, maybe a ball of some kind?"

he raised a brow, shuffling his feet as he tried to keep up with my long strides.

"like masks and large dresses?"

he asked and i nodded, opening the door to dinging hall.

"something like that yeah."

he nodded as i led us to a table.

"that sounds cool, i could get behind that."

i sent him a knowing look.

"you seem like the kind of guy who would."

i said, pulling my sketchpad out. he raised a brow, sitting beside me.

"whats that supposed to mean?"

he asked and i sent him a look.

"im assuming you like vampires, and the Edwardian thing usually goes hand in hand with that."

he sent me a nervous smile.

"is it that obvious?"

he asked, rubbing his hands against his pants. i nodded.

"thats okay though, cause i like them too. so much so that i have costumes already, we can pose for each other. i think youd look great in this."

i said, sliding my phone across the table to show him the outfit i had for it. i just hoped it would fit him.

"you seem like youve been planning this for a while."

he said through a laugh and i shrugged.

"i just like to feel fancy, the projects on the other hand kind of fall into my lap."

i said, flipping through a few pages in my book. he placed his hand on one before taking it from me and looking over it.

"this looks insane."

he said and i looked around awkwardly.

"in a good way?"

i asked, finding his gaze.

"oh! yeah! of course in a good way. it looks super cool. i see why you wanted to do the ball thing now."

he commented, noting the sketch i had done already that was similar. it is what i was used to after all. he set the book back down in front of me and sent me a wide smile, picking his camera up and taking another picture of me.

"why do you do that?"

i asked and he laughed.

"i need models for my art and i think now that we've met you would be a great subject."

i set him a look, trying to hide the blush creeping its way up my neck.

"you really think so?"

i asked bashfully and he nodded.

"oh yeah, absolutely. and now that we're partners i think it will give me ample opportunity to find a new muse. you wanna be a subject for a music video?"

i sat back, a little taken aback.

"you want me to do what?"

i asked and he laughed, putting the camera on the table.

"in about a month my band is gonna need some girls for a video but its cool if not. i can live with us just being art project partners."

i cleared my throat, rubbing my hands together under the table.

"how about we get through this first and ill get back to you on that?"

he smiled knowingly at me, raising his coffee to me in cheers.

"sounds like a plan to me."

#wattpad #x reader #ricky olson #ricky horror #imagines #miw #one shots #288

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joealwyndaily · 4 years

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Joe Alwyn (Class of 2009)

source

After leaving City in 2009, Joe Alwyn went on to read English and Drama at University of Bristol before heading to The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama- securing shortly after his big-break as Billy Lynn in Netflix’s film of the same name. From there on, he has had leading roles alongside Nicole Kidman and Olivia Colman in the films ‘Boy Erased’ and ‘The Favourite’- the latter winning Best British Film at the BAFTAs.

Whilst quarantining in the US, Joe was interviewed by Louis and Erik (Junior Sixth), this was first published in The eCitizen in May 2020.

What are your fondest memories from City?

I have a lot of good memories from school. I loved being in the heart of the city, right by the Thames. I had a lot of good teachers, and I was lucky enough to make friends with people that I still speak to now, every day. It was a good time to be there. I loved the sport that it offered and I played football throughout. I loved the Art department and the teachers there. There was a freedom to explore and leave the building and do your own thing. I think I owe the Art department a lot of stolen pens, and maybe a few hours of ducking out of class and lying on the roof of the school in the sun. It was the people though - the teachers, and of course my classmates - that made my time there what it was.

Which teachers are most memorable to you, and why?

There are a few teachers that have stuck with me. Mr Keates, our English teacher… He thought (and taught) outside the box and ‘against’ the syllabus in the best way. It was unconventional and refreshing and I liked it a lot. Mr Biltcliffe (and Joe, in the technical department) ran Drama and I loved that class. Mr Pomeroy in the Art Department was excellent. I only did one year of Spanish, but there was a teacher, Senor Cruz, who used to jump on the tables and make a lot of noise. Mr Dowler, who used to try and make me cut my hair short. (At the end of every school report there would be a message from Mrs Ralph: ‘Ps. Joe: get a haircut’). Mr Chamberlain, who we used to lock out of the classroom to try and delay maths. Mr Cornwall who ran sports. I was a defender, and I was asked to play for the First XI football team a year early, I think. I scored an own goal. It was the only goal I ever scored for City.

Were you involved much in Drama at City?

I actually wasn’t too heavily involved in extra-curricular Drama at school. I took it for GCSE and A-level, and loved that, but I wish I’d taken more advantage of the facilities beyond. There was a great theatre at school. I’m not sure why I didn’t do more. It was something that I knew I enjoyed, but part of me shied away from that side of things… perhaps because I played a lot of sport, and that took up a fair amount of time.

I knew at school that I wanted to do this, but I didn’t know how to go about getting there. As far as I knew nobody else wanted to be an actor, and so there wasn’t really a clear road-map on how achieve it! I largely kept it to myself. I would look up Drama Schools online and think about applying, but almost like a secret. In fact, I ended up going to Bristol University first - which I loved – and it was only after going there that I applied to Drama School and was accepted.

How did you get into acting?

I grew up watching a lot of films and going to the theatre. I always wanted to be a part of that world. My own involvement, or realisation that this was what I wanted to do, was gradual though. There wasn’t really a lightbulb moment, or not one that I remember. I studied it at school…performed a lot at university in what were probably some terrible, terrible productions (but great experiences) …and then went to Drama School. It was getting into Drama School that really made me think that I can do this. It was a really big moment for me.

What was your first major role?

I was very lucky with how things started. It was quite early in my final year of training, and I’d just signed with an agent from my showcase. I was sent a self-tape – an audition – for a film called ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’. Ang Lee was the director. I’d never really made a self-tape before, but I got some friends to tape me doing a scene during a lunch break. Within a few days they brought me over to New York to meet Ang and the casting director. I then went through about 10 days of testing in New York and Atlanta. I’d never been to America before but had always wanted to go. It was very surreal and it happened very quickly. I’d grown up watching Ang’s films (Life of Pi, The Ice storm, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). They cast me right after that trip, and I only had a few days to pack my things before leaving for military bootcamp. I left school and spent the next few months filming in Atlanta. I played ‘Billy’, a young Texan Soldier, a ‘war hero’, returning home from Iraq for a victory tour in the United States. It was a completely amazing experience, especially to be thrown into as my first job.

What has been favourite acting job so far?

‘Billy Lynn’ has been my favourite job for many reasons, but there are others too that I’ve really enjoyed. I loved being a part of a film called ‘The Favourite’. That was a very special, unique experience.

Yorgos Lanthimos, who you worked with on The Favourite, is known for his extremely odd movies such as The Lobster and Dogtooth. What is it like working with such a unique director?

Yorgos is fantastic, and completely singular. He’s very different from Ang… but they’re both strong auteurs. Yorgos is very unconventional in terms of direction. He doesn’t give a lot away. He doesn’t ‘direct’ you in a way that you expect, whatever that might mean. To be honest I’m not sure how he does it, but it works! He has a real aesthetic and vision though, and creates a really nice environment on set. There was a brilliant cast and team of people on ‘The Favourite’, and it was amazing to be a part of.

You have played extremely complex characters, especially in films like Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Boy Erased. How do you work on your character development?

I suppose it depends on the nature of the project. Something like Billy Lynn was very intense – it was a long shoot and I was there for a long time. We went through military bootcamp, had a dialect coach, physically bulked up etc. I was also in a new country for the first time, with a new group of people. It was quite immersive, I suppose. It depends on who you’re playing and the story you’re telling. I watched a lot of documentaries (there’s a great one called ‘Restrepo’), read a lot of books, talked to military advisers, soldiers with PTSD... And of course, a lot of conversations with the director. It really depends though. I think I’m still working it out. It’s something that shifts each time. You make mistakes and you learn something new each time.

Boy Erased I really enjoyed being a part of, but I had less to do there. I knew I was kind of being brought in for one big, important moment in the film… and so a lot of it centred around the psychology of that event, and why this boy behaved the way he did.

Now living in the States, what do you miss most about London?

I live in London! I spend quite a bit of time in America, but London is still my home.

How are you finding quarantine? What impact has it had on the acting industry?

It’s very odd! Trying to stay busy, but also enjoying a slower pace and not worrying too much when things drift (which they do). Reading, watching old films, talking to friends. Zoom meetings. Skype calls. Just today actually, I had a Zoom call with my closest friends from school. I’m not in London at the moment but I’ve loved seeing these videos of everyone clapping for the NHS.

In terms of the industry, everything has sort of shut down. I was supposed to start a job this month in UK but that’s had to push back. I’m not sure when things will start up again, or how this will change things going forward. I think it’s going to be tricky for while…but there’ll be a way through.

Obviously, The eCitizen is the least of your press commitments. How have you found media attention?

It depends a bit on how much you choose to engage with it, and where it’s coming from. Maybe what’s strange is that media attention is an abnormal thing, and the implication of the attention is that something abnormal has happened to you… But actually, whilst I can see that some things have changed in my life, ultimately, I feel the same as I ever did.

It is old Citizen tradition for interviewees to finish with a joke...

What time does Sean Connery go to Wimbledon?

Tennish.

#joe alwyn #interview

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kassies-take · 4 years

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A Tutor!

A/n: Another Supercorp daughter story. I should really be doing my homework... I’ve thought about it and I’m doing this.

Warning: Insecurity

Supercorp, Lena Luthor x Reader, Kara Danvers x Reader

Word Count: 2090

Lena Luthor-Danvers was someone you could rely on to go to when anything was wrong. Lena Luthor however was not going to be happy when she gets home from work.

You ran a hand through your hair and hid in your arms. On the paper was the bleeding ink of a D.

To be fair, you didn’t care about math. But being a daughter to a Luthor and a daughter to a Kryptonian, who learned calculus in the 3rd grade, it was supposed to be easy. You didn’t understand, you spent countless hours with your nose in the book, countless hours working and writing problems step by step, and countless hours in Mr. Pierce’s office hours. How could you get a D? A D- for that matter.

The other kids were working on their homework when you were called to Mr. Pierce’s desk.

“(Y/n), is everything alright? I know you’ve been going to office hours, and staying after class to finish your homework, but your test scores say otherwise.”

“I don’t know, I’m trying I really am. But no matter what I do, I don’t seem to get it. Math and many other things.” You mumbled the last part.

“Maybe it��s the way you’re trying to learn it. You could have your mo-“

“No!” You blurted out as all eyes focused on you.

“Regardless, you’re going to have to have one of your parents sign off on the test.”

“Yeah, it’s in the syllabus that I have to have a parent sign off on my tests till they become better. Gradually.”

“Until then I want you to change your method of studying. Maybe get a tutor.”

You winced at the idea. You had nothing against tutors, in fact you admire their patience but it was the principal of the matter. Luthors don’t need tutors, you just work harder.

The moment you got home you spent your time looking for the perfect tutor. The ones who weren’t just doing it for money, but actually wanting to help. You gave up trying to find someone to tutor you with the constant Luthor voice in your head.

You pulled out the test again to look through the mistakes. You had a terrible migraine and you flipped through the sheets angrily. You got to the last paper and pulled a post-it note off the paper to read it carefully:

I’ll be happy to tutor you - (Y/C/n)

This can not be happening. You turned the post-it note around and saw their number. You immediately pulled out your phone and contemplated on what to text them. Your thumbs hovered over the keyboard and the backspace key was pressed multiple times. It took an hour or so to send your message, they agreed to meet with you at your place every Wednesday afterschool.

Tutor, check. All you had to do now was tell your parents. Your leg shook nervously as you chewed on your fingernail, a habit you got from Lena. The balcony door clicked and beeped, Kara preferred the balcony entrance over the front door. You were relieved it was Ieiu and not your mom. Only that didn’t end well as chills were sent through your spine, at your mother’s voice and you hid part of your test under your laptop.

“Hey, little one!” Kara held you tightly in her arms.

“Hi Ieiu. Hi mom.” You hugged Lena as Kara went into the kitchen for a bottle of water and Lena’s wine.

“Oh, you’re looking to tutor someone?” Lena questioned before she pulled away and grabbed her wine glass from Kara’s hand. “That’ll look great on your college app, especially with MIT,” Lena took a sip from her glass.

“Mom...” Kara caught your heartbeat speeding up.

“Little one are you okay?”

Lena turned towards Kara when she began to speak and frowned back towards you.

“Is everything alright?”

You couldn’t tell your parents. Luckily neither of your parents could read your mind, but at the same time you wished they could, it would be a lot easier than saying what you have to say.

If I break, my family will shatter. Our family is measured by who I become. To my parents a good daughter is educated, remains “super.” It’s easier expected than done. It hurts the most when I’m doing my absolute best and it still isn’t enough.

Lena and Kara both raised you to be a strong fighter. They didn’t explicitly send you to boarding school, or expected you to save the day. But all the implications are there, of being a Luthor and a Super.

Striving to meet these expectations is like climbing out of quicksand: the harder I try to get to the top, the more I’m sucked back down.

Because Mom and Ieiu are constantly saving the day, they were preoccupied with raising the perfect daughter. They think they are keeping you safe. They never think about how lonely you were. They were oblivious of the nightmares you had from trying to fit in to the Super and Luthor box.

You’re Kara’s girl. You’re just another Luthor. At least we know this one won’t be a psychopathic lunatic. You’re not a Luthor and you’re not a super. You can go to any college you want, MIT is a really good option. You could do so much better.

“STOP!” You shook your head trying to get rid of the flooding thoughts that spilled through the dam of your eyelids.

No one dared to move, you didn’t need super hearing to hear a pin drop.

“I’m the one who needs a tutor! I’m sorry I’m not a Luthor, or a Danvers, or Zor-El, or a super. I’m sorry I am nothing! I’m not going to NCU and I doubt I’ll get into MIT. okay? I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Baby,” Lena took a step forward. “We raised you to be a strong fighter, not to be a Luthor.”

“You didn’t but everyone out there does! No matter what I do, I am evaluated on the fact that one I am a Luthor and two I am a Danvers! There’s a constant scale. I’m either one or the other! The world has expectations of who I should be and could care less of what I become, because to them my future is already written to them!” You stormed towards your room and slammed the door shut.

Both Lena and Kara flinched with the door close shut. Lena let a shaky sigh before she hid her face in her hands and slouched on the couch. The couch dipped beside her and a strong arm wrapped around her.

“She’s going to be okay. She’s strong,” Kara whispered and rested her chin on Lena’s head.

“I failed her Kara.”

“No you didn’t.”

“The moment we knew I was carrying her, this was all I feared. Becoming my mother.”

“You are not your mother, (Y/n) was raised from a home with love and acceptance.”

“How can you say that when she is clearly trying to fill up her cup with water from every single person except hers. She was so afraid of failing that she had to get a tutor. A tutor! What kind of mother lets her kids fail at something she excels at?” Tears began to flow from Lena’s eyes.

“A mother who lets her kid try to do it on her own. A mother so talented that she tries to be like you.”

“I spent all these years trying to make sure I was not Lillian, and here I am. What you resist will persist.”

“Look Lena, the things in our life are not always going to be the way we want it to be. The only thing we can do now is accept it and move on. Make it better. Our daughter needs a tutor, and that is not so much your fault as it is mine. We will get through this together.”

“El Mayarah” Lena whispered.

They stayed like that in each others arms till Lena was rid of tears.

“Lets go see our baby girl.” Kara suggested.

Lena sat up and wiped her tears with her fingertips when her foot accidentally grazed over the mouse pad and the tabs closed. She moved to recover the tabs when her eye caught a folder labeled “edits” on the snow covered desktop background with Lena and you throwing snowballs at Kara.

The folder opened with many short films, videos, and clips. Lena clicked on one titled “Aunt Lena and Aunt Kara MUST watch” hidden in a file of its own.

“Hey cuz,” It was a footage of you at your desk. “Are you still working on that edit?”

“It’s a new edit, with the same clips.”

“Why?”

“I can’t show it to anyone unless it is perfect.”

‘‘You know there is no right or wrong way you could edit something right?”

“It has to be perfect so no one could demean it.”

“You can’t please everyone.”

“No, but I can please my parents.

The camera panned to Alex’s and Kelly’s son, Lucas.

“Aunt Kara, Aunt Lena if you’re watching this I think (Y/n) might need a little reassurance that she doesn’t need to try too hard for you. She told me that she was under a lot of pressure from everyone.”

The video ended and Kara and Lena made a B-Line towards your room.

“Little one?” Kara pushes the door open.

You laid on your stomach, under a pile of blankets and a pillow over your head.

Lena crouched beside your bed and removed the pillow over your head. You groaned and tried to move the blankets over your head.

“No. Look at me.”

You reluctantly turned around to face the emerald green and ocean eyes.

“Little one, just because you need a tutor does not mean we love you any less. In fact I’m happy that you’re getting one, it means you’re not willing to fail. That’s super enough. It might not feel like it and I understand that. You had a question about yourself and you deserved to try and answer it. You’re not a Luthor, you’re not a Super. You are (Y/n) Alura Luthor-Danvers. We love you for who you are and not who you will become.” Kara kisses your forehead.

“Baby, I never meant for the Luthor name to be any trouble for you. And I’m sorry you felt as if you couldn’t come to us about this, or about anything. A part of me, actually the whole part of me believes this wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t give you the Luthors name. But I don’t regret ever having you because you’re the best thing I ever made. I am so sorry you feel this way and you won’t ever be alone.”

“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed with myself. I just try so hard, but I don’t get anywhere.” You sighed.

“You know life is about making mistakes, learning from them, and growing as a person. We’re going to love you no matter what. You’re going to be accepted here, because you’re safe and in an environment where you have a Super and a Luthor protecting you.” Kara smiled.

You smiled back before the two gave kisses to your forehead and cheek.

“Okay now move over,” Lena removed the first layer of blankets. “Oh,” she said before removing another. “How many blankets do you have?”

“It’s cold!”

Lena moved the last layer and snuggled towards you.

“Make room for me I want to cuddle too.”

“The bed is not big enough!” Your voice was muffled by the blankets.

“There’s always room to cuddle!” Kara opened her arms wide and prepared to jump.

“No no!”

“Kara, if you jump you’re staying on the couch!” Lena glared.

“What happened to you jump, I jump?” Kara pouted.

“I didn’t jump.”

“Get in puppy Ieiu,” you held up the layers of blankets as Kara’s eyes lit up before she crawled under the blankets.

After a while the silence was broken. “So (Y/C/n) is going to tutor you?” Lena smirked.

“Mom,” you groaned.

“What, I need to make sure they won’t distract you.”

“The only thing that is going to be distracting is you and Ieiu.”

“That wasn’t gonna happen, but thanks for the tip.” Lena smiled.

“If it’s like that, (Y/C/n) has to with stand three punches from me.” Kara beamed.

“What? I’m being tutored not going out on a date. Mom please tell Ieiu that that is ridiculous because she has super strength!”

#supercorp #supercorp daughter #supercorp x reader #kara danvers #lena luthor #lena luthor imagines #lena luthor imagine #lena luthor x reader #lena luthor x daughter!reader #kara danvers imagines #kara danvers imagine #kara danvers x reader #kara danvers x daughter!reader #supergirl imagine #supergirl imagines #supergirl x reader #supergirl

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Got my nightmare professor fired, might've indirectly gotten him deported too

Before this tale even begins, this is obviously a throwaway account. This is a big bitch of a story spanning two semesters, so I'm putting the tealdeer at the beginning and at the end for those who are short on time.

TL;DR - My French professor was so terrible that I decided to get him fired on behalf of my classmates. After he got fired, my partner that I worked with to do this tipped him off to an immigration agency to get him deported.

Last semester, I enrolled in an introductory French course at my university. This was to learn at least a little bit of French so that I could read French papers about French filmmaking techniques since I'm a pretty hardcore film student and I really love film as an art form. Plus, I needed some gen ed credit for my degree, so it made sense to take the course.

I went to the first lecture kind of dreading the course. I was in 19 credit hours, which is taking six classes in a single semester, and the class was 4 credit hours, meaning we met four days out of the week, every week. Very overwhelming schedule, indeed. Needless to say, I didn't work a single job that semester.

The professor, who will be referred to as Baguette because it's one of the few French words I actually know, began to go through the syllabus and I watched as the excitement that is usually present in students on the first day slowly left everyone's faces. Before I explain why, I have to address that this is the most basic French class that the university I go to offers and is really meant for people who never took a lick of French in high school. Like me.

Baguette announced that not only would he be teaching the entire class in fluent French with no English whatsoever, he wouldn't be answering questions in English at all, and if you asked him a question in French but got even a word or a conjugation wrong, he wouldn't answer you either. Attendance was mandatory as well, and you could only miss 4 class periods before he started dropping letter grades. Now, this attendance policy is unfair bullshit because we met for class just under 60 times that semester, meaning you would fail the course if you missed 8 class periods, which is only about 7% of the total course. I was looking around the class and people looked like they couldn't drop this class fast enough.

Then, he announced that not only would we not be using a physical book, we'd be using a free website online, a site called Francais Interactif. Now, this got some excitement back in the air. Textbook prices suck, and anything to lower the cost of education for students is great. You can even use the site yourself to practice your French skills, if you want. It's open source, knock yourself out.

That said, the site isn't meant to replace a textbook. There's a free workbook and audio files to help with aural comprehension on it, and that helped me and some of the other students pass some of the exams, but the site's equivalent to the part of a textbook that actually teaches you the material is extremely lacking, sometimes only having a couple of paragraphs about a really important concept in the language. In short, it gives you a ton of ways to practice concepts but almost no ways to learn them in the first place.

This would have been totally fine if Baguette would have explained things better in his lectures. But, as you'll recall, he gave them entirely in French, and in fast fluent French. So, picture this; you have to sit through four classes a week that you understand literally nothing of for an hour at a time while the professor rambles on in a language that you don't understand but are desperately trying to learn, and on top of all that, you can't even ask him any questions in English because he won't answer you and you can't ask him any questions in French either, because you don't know how to do that properly yet, and you won't for 3/4ths of the semester, because the unit that covers question words and phrases was arbitrarily put a few weeks after midterms, and on top of all that, you can't even really do your homework or study for exams because you have no fucking idea what any of this nasally shit means. Naturally, we, as a class, slowly started to get more and more frustrated as time went on. A few of us decided to band together and be friends and study partners to weather the storm. I'll call the important ones to the story R and S.

S was a foreign exchange student from Spain who spoke perfect Spanish and was taking the class to learn French for when she goes back to Europe. Now, we dug into what all other classes Baguette taught and found out that he taught Spanish, too. Perfect. We found a loophole. We could ask S a question in English, and she could ask him in Spanish, since it wasn't asking him in English, and he could answer in Spanish and she could translate that back to us in English. Now, you might be saying to yourself that this a fucking stupid and no self respecting educator should teach in this broken, shitty, ass-backwards way. You're right.

This worked for a bit, but he started answering S's Spanish questions in French to combat our little exploit of the rules. We were defeated and back to square one. We needed to devise a new plan, because most of us were failing at this point and we were stressed beyond belief.

R, a frat lad, and I, decidedly not a frat lad, became unlikely friends. He was a pretty naive kid, and he was a hardcore drinker. It visibly took a toll on him. He had a beer gut at 22 and addiction kind of mentally hollowed him out and made him flippant and emotional. The guy was super easy to piss off and he overreacted to everything. I felt bad for the guy and even outside of the struggle in class, I tried my best to be there for him. We were talking one day and we decided to meet up at the library and just theorize ways to crack the class to get at least a 60.

At the library, R was playing around on Francais Interactif trying to find the videos the professor would use for the aural part of the exam (basically, you'd listen to the video and copy down whatever the person was saying for credit. problem was, it was hard as shit and it was easily the part of the exams that took the biggest chunk out of the class's grade). He couldn't find them on the site anywhere and he got frustrated and gave up, so he started filling in the slots where you put answers on the homework pages of Francais Interactif with random words.

That's when we realized that when you do this, the site gives you the right answer regardless, no matter how wrong you are. Essentially, we now had access to the entire course's answers for the homework section and all we had to do was put one character into the answer boxes and, since all we had to do for the homework assignments was copy and paste our answers into a Word document and submit them online, we could theoretically do all the homework while knowing zero material whatsoever if we just changed the answers in Word. We sat for about 45 minutes and did the rest of the homework for the entire course this way in one sitting.

We agreed to not turn it all in at once so we couldn't get caught and we agreed to keep our mouths shut and only share this with people who wouldn't rat on us. Obviously, we told S.

One of the things I'll never forget about that first French class was that, during the final, one of the students started to quietly weep. Then, the weeping got louder, then louder still. The student was clutching his head in his hands and you could feel the palpable impotent frustration at his inability to do French correctly. After I finished the final, I saw him outside the class staring out a window in the hall. I asked if he was alright and what he was crying about and he told me he couldn't answer even the most basic questions asking for words for things like left and right and up and down and that was thing that finally broke him. That got to me, man.

Most of the kids failed the course, even some of the ones who used the homework exploit. R and S passed with a D and I passed with a C, surprisingly. The professor actually liked me, for some reason, and graded my exams a bit more fairly. Even still, I'm an A/B student, one in the Honor's Program at my university, so a C kind of stung my GPA. But, seeing as more than half the class failed, I counted my lucky stars that I got off easy.

I went to enroll in my classes for the next semester, and I had completely forgot that I still had to take another French class for my degree. I checked the class list and the second class you're supposed to take in the progression was only taught by Baguette. No other professor taught Beginning French II, apparently. This struck me as kind of odd, so I checked the rest of the French classes that were available. All of them, all 6 courses in the French department, were taught by Baguette. He was the only fucking teacher the department had. My stomach dropped as I realized I had locked myself into yet another class taught by the worst professor I've ever had, to this day.

This is class where the revenge begins, and I'm sorry if that preamble was too long, but I had to give context as to how horrible Baguette was. Even still, I'm frankly not doing him justice. His class was an artful trainwreck of incompetence, in the slowest slow motion available over nearly 60 class periods. And I had to do it again, only this time with harder material.

I had been keeping up with R and S over the winter break and S was going back to Spain, so she wouldn't be in the next class with me. But, I got R to enroll in the same section of Beginning French II as me.

Baguette passed out the syllabus to Beginning French II and it was the exact same as French I, down to us using Francais Interactif again, just in the higher chapters instead of the basic chapters. Now, here's the thing about learning a foreign language; you have to build from the basics, or else none of the other stuff makes sense. None of us in that class, not one person, knew any of the material past maybe Chapter 3. Most of us didn't even know how to ask questions. I did, so I asked questions for people who didn't, since S wasn't there.

Well, if you thought we bumbled through the basic material, no harder bumbling took place then when we started on things that have no direct English translation like y and en. When he asked students questions in this class, they'd just kind of look at him dumbfounded and shrug.

We got a study guide for our first exam and I was going to study my ass off so that I could get a better grade than a C. Besides a brief stint with depression my first semester that made me not be able to go to classes and fail one of my courses, a C was the lowest grade I had gotten at university. I must've studied for twenty hours over the course of a week before the exam. I hadn't even put that much effort into classes for my major. I got into class on the day of the exam, and nothing that I had spent all that time studying was on it. I bombed that test spectacularly, getting a 30%.

At this point, I was pretty much done. I was willing to go to my professor's office hours and ask him how I was supposed to study for his exams effectively, and his response is what began my quest to get revenge on him. He told me to watch YouTube videos. I don't know what it was about this that got me so pissed, but I was fired up.

But, that wasn't all that drove me to take the revenge I took on this fucker. No, what drove me to go after this guy was R calling me up crying after getting his exam back. He did worse than I did. He got a 15%. He kept repeating through sobs that he just wanted to be a good student and that he didn't want to disappoint his mom again. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried at this. I thought back to that kid in French I after the final, about my peers and about R and something inside me snapped. I was going to get this guy fired and peacefully do anything else I could to ruin this guy's life one way or another, and R was going to be my Right Hand Man.

We met at his dorm and started brainstorming. It was about halfway through the semester, after our midterms. We both had a job, a significant other, extracurricular activities and I was taking 19 hours again this semester. We were going to need time on our side, a commodity that neither of us had, and we were going to need it quickly. We knew that the professor was going to be gone for a week at a conference right after spring break, so there was a two week window there. But, even still, we needed more time for what we started planning to do. I faked a doctor's note for two weeks absence and R agreed to use all four of his absences to meet at the same time French was supposed to occur and plan our peaceful academic coup.

Now, I knew I was eventually going to get caught from word go. But, I was so confident that I could get this guy fired before I would have a disciplinary hearing that I took the gamble, and Baguette took the bait. He excused me for two whole weeks.

So, you're probably wondering what we actually did. Well, the reason we needed so much time is that we needed time to both conduct interviews from the class as well as collect data on scores. We got a total of thirteen out of the seventeen students to make a statement about Baguette's performance in his Beginning French II class and all of them were negative. This was just in one section of the course.

Then, we asked if we could have their exam scores so that we could have some hard data to nail this guy with. All but two complied. We did some quick maths, and determined that more than half the class failed the exams, with most scoring between 30 and 50.

But, as it turns out, we didn't even need the exam scores given to us. We figured out that the online grade database site that our school uses so students can monitor their grades without asking their profs has a built in feature that shows the class average of every assignment that's put into the gradebook. Not a single assignment had a class average above a 50 except for the homework, which had a class average of around 80, no doubt thanks to the stupid exploit in the website.

Sure enough, I got tagged with a notice that I broke the discipline code of the university because obvious shop is obvious. But, it didn't matter. I had everything I needed to go to the Foreign Language department chair and sort this shit out. So, I did.

I showed the department chair all the data, let him listen to the audio from the student testimonies as well as gave my own testimony on the course. After showing him all this, he was dumbfounded. Not only did the chair not know that Baguette was a shitty teacher, almost nobody did course evaluations for French I, so he thought that Baguette was doing a decent job. He took all my evidence and gave it to the dean of arts and sciences and a couple weeks later, I get an email saying that Baguette was Bag-gone and that I was going to be withdrawn from the course along with everyone else who would've likely failed. Those who would've passed got to get a Credit Received grade without having to take the final. He got fired one semester before he qualified for his tenure.

But, that's not the juiciest fucking morsel of this tale. You're probably wondering how he got deported and how I found out that he got deported because of his firing. Well, after my disciplinary hearing got thrown out because the complainant was no longer affiliated with the university, I got more than I bargained for.

During his lectures, one of the few times he spoke English was after he introduced the syllabus on the first day. He had everyone introduce themselves and he started the exercise by introducing himself. Well, in his introduction, I remember him saying something about him being an immigrant from Venezuela. I live in the States (Etats-Unis for you Bonjour Bois), and some of you might know that we have pretty strict visa policies.

Well, R is pretty conservative. After our work got Baguette fired, we celebrated by getting some beer and shooting the shit. We talked about random aspects of the course and the fact that he was an immigrant got brought up. Apparently, R didn't know this and he was pretty upset about it. I tried to calm him down, but he went on a rant that I tried to politely nod along to while tuning out since I'm not really about that. I didn't think anything of it until a couple of days later.

He called me up and told me that he tipped Baguette off to a certain immigration agency for a "visa check" (his words, not mine) and that now all we had to do was wait. I was shocked. I didn't think this would go this far. I feigned that I was pleased with this but in reality, I was kinda bummed. Since he was probably here on an academic visa since he was a professor, he probably is going back home to Venezuela. I am glad, though, that he won't be teaching any more of my fellow students at my uni, because I wouldn't wish his classes on anyone.

edit: formatting

(source) story by (/u/ouiouirevenge)

#prorevenge #by /u/ouiouirevenge #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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bananonymity · 5 years

Text

Based on this au

“So,” said Ludwig, “you’d like to drop Music Theory.”

Student Advisor Ludwig Beilschmidt’s office was orderly, clean, and devoid of distraction. It was a wonder how it hadn’t driven anyone mad yet. Emil found it calming to a point; it made him somewhat nostalgic for his comfort zone of Icelandic minimalism, except for the lack of spacious windows.

Emil nodded.

“Not your liking?” said Ludwig.

“It wasn’t bad,” Emil said. He had no real complaint against the course. The first day of class, Professor Edelstein spent the entire hour and fifteen minutes teaching the students how to find the cheapest textbooks on Amazon. “But I already know music theory.”

“So you’d like to challenge yourself,” Ludwig said.

“I guess,” Emil said.

Ludwig nodded with approval, missing or ignoring the glum note to Emil’s tone. The real reason that he wanted to drop out was in fact the very opposite; the moment he stepped into the music building, he felt such oppressive intimidation that he actually texted his older brother for comfort, which went something like this:

LUKAS: How are you liking your classes?

EMIL: [thumbs down emoji]

It was a risky move, because goodness knew if this amount of unprecedented emotional vulnerability would worry Lukas. Emil regretted the raw honesty immediately afterward, but by then it was too late.

“That’s one of the great things about university,” said Ludwig. “It gives you avenues to study subjects you wouldn’t have thought of before. Now, dropping this course would mean you need to take up another course to fulfill the minimum amount of credits to be a full time student in this semester. Have you thought of what you would like to add?”

“Not exactly,” Emil said, staring at the corner of Ludwig’s screen where about seven new email notifications from frantic students at the edge of add-drop period scrambled to change their majors.

“Well, I can tell you that you still have some gen eds that you would have to fulfill,” said Ludwig. “One social studies and one art course. That would be good to take care of while you are still a first year.”

“Mm,” Emil said.

“And if you’re up for a challenge, or have interest in specific topics, there are certainly some classes in the one thousand level that have extra space.”

“Mm.”

“Or since you’re already quite ahead in your credits, you can explore a topic for your own enrichment.”

“Mm.”

Ludwig gave Emil a look of pleading exasperation. Emil fixed his gaze stubbornly on the window.

“What is your preference?” Ludwig said.

Emil pursed his lips. He knew that it was harder on Ludwig than on him to deal with his unhelpful indecision, but it did not give him any clearer opinion on what he ought to do. Maybe he should have bitten the bullet and stayed in Professor Roderich’s class. Maybe he should have thought of this before the semester started. Maybe he should have never applied to a university so far from home. Maybe he should have never graduated high school, in general.

“I guess finish my gen ed courses,” Emil said.

Ludwig nodded with enthusiasm for the both of them.

“So, an art course and a social studies course,” said Ludwig. “We have several art courses that are available for you here. Let’s see…”

Ludwig pulled up all the available courses for the semester that would fulfill an art credit. The array of choices made Emil’s eyes blur.

“How about Intro to Film?” said Ludwig. “That would cover your art credit, and also give you an extra English credit if you’re looking into pursuing a certificate.”

“A certificate?” Emil said. “What for?”

“Certification for Digital Media, if that interests you,” Ludwig said.

Emil sputtered.

“I don’t even know what my major is!” he said. “What’s a certificate going to do for me?”

“You don’t have to take it for a certificate,” Ludwig said quickly as Emil buried his face in his hands. “I just meant that it was a nice way to kill two birds with one stone if--”

“But I don’t want to kill birds,” Emil said. “I don’t even know what birds to kill. What kind of person am I if I went around killing random birds just because society tells me that’s how to get a job?”

He slumped back into his seat, letting out a huff of distress. He supposed that he needn’t yell about it, but he had to affirm himself that he made a solid point. Ludwig, in the meantime, only rubbed his brow wearily.

“No certification then,” said Ludwig. “But if we just look at art credits, would that interest you?”

“What is the class like?” Emil said.

“Well...”

“Class, I want you to write this down. Soviet cinema banks on violently killing off every character that has a face on screen. You can quote me on that, I have a doctorate.”

Leon Wang, Emil’s roommate, scribbled this down on his notebook, if only because he knew it would make a solid tweet later on. Professor Alfred F. Jones paced about the front of the room, whizzing through his PowerPoint presentation faster than any of the students could actually take notes.

“Battleship Potemkin? Dead,” said Alfred. “Strike? Dead. A five-second example of the Kuleshov effect? Dead baby. Basically, if you want to make a Soviet montage, kill a bunch of farmers from different camera angles.”

“Professor Jones?” One student raised their hand in the back.

“Call me Alfred,” Alfred said, flashing a dazzling grin. “What’s up?”

“Can you go back to the last slide with all the notes?” they said.

“Fine, but you all gotta catch up faster than that,” Alfred said.

He backspaced on the PowerPoint, skipping through the past fifteen or so slides that he had flew through in half a minute until he reached the slide of haphazard bullet points.

“So, to recap,” said Alfred. “Soviet montage wasn’t necessarily trying to break the rules of cinema. Leave that to the French in the sixties, God help them. But Eisenstein and Kuleshov in particular wanted to use editing differently, to create a synergetic meaning through editing shots together that, by itself, wouldn’t communicate that. Sort of like how on Instagram, you can either build a collage or just have multiple photos in a post, and the effect of it is different depending on how you arrange it, right?”

“What?” said Leon.

“So there you go,” Alfred said. Leon sighed and wrote Instagram = Soviet montage (?) in his notebooks, and hoped that Alfred upload the slides onto Blackboard later today.

“But here’s the wild thing,” said Alfred. “Soviet montage outlived the USSR. Stalin is dead! But even in the play-it-safe boon of Hollywood, we still use those seemingly weird and non-linear montage editing for our movies. Take Arrival. Has anyone here not seen Arrival?”

Several hands went up in the air. Alfred threw a dry erase board marker on the floor.

“Too bad! Spoilers alert,” he said. “The reason why you go into the movie thinking that it is being told in a linear manner, and that Amy Adams’ daughter dies in the beginning of the story, is through the Kuleshov effect. You see her in the beginning of the movie watching her daughter die, and then the scene cuts to her going to work. And you--the audience, you think she looks so sad and distant and uninterested in the news about these octopus aliens because of the recent death of her daughter. But actually you only think that because the two scenes are put back to back. Her face was really just neutral, but because of editing you think they are related, when it is actually a flash forward--or flashback. Dead baby!”

Leon nodded fervently, writing with a little more vigor in his notebook. Maybe Alfred actually did know what he was talking about. He made sense, which was more than he could ask for in a college course. This course made him feel excitable, to relish the honor and merit of his favorite medium, handing back to it the dignity it deserved.

“Or like in this one episode of Lizzie McGuire,” said Alfred.

Leon blanked immediately.

“There is this one scene I remember,” Alfred said, his eyes widening with nostalgia. “I don’t remember the characters’ names at all, or the plot, or if this was even an episode of Lizzie McGuire, but I’m kind of certain that it was on the TV when I was about ten years old. Anyway, there was a scene where this boy, no idea who he was, maybe he was like, Hilary Duff’s little brother or something? Anyway, he had a dirty nose and his mom was like, you got a dirty nose and when and licked a napkin or something to clean it off, and then it would suddenly cut to an unrelated, non-narrative shot of a lion licking her cub’s face, and then cut back to the mom wiping the dirt off her kid’s face. The lion has nothing to do with the story, but it was edited in there to make a more symbolic comparison, to emphasize the overbearing nature of the mother. Disney Channel was flexing its Soviet montage, baby!”

Alfred sped through several tens other PowerPoint slides that looked like they held vital information. Leon leaned over to the student sitting next to him.

“What the hell is Lizzie McGuire?” he whispered.

“All right, fifteen minute break commences now,” Alfred said, closing his laptop while students desperately scribbled the last of the bullet points with their aching hands. “Second half of class, we’ll get right into the film. Unfortunately, if you graduate from this school with a film degree and not know what the Odessa steps are, you aren’t going to make it out alive in Hollywood or wherever the hell you guys want to go. So we’re going to have to watch some Eisenstein. I’m so sorry, everyone.”

While other students went to use the restroom, or checked their text messages on their phones, Leon flipped through the syllabus for this course once more. He was hopeful that they would watch a John Woo film in this course, which did not seem like a far cry from what Alfred would assign. Apparently, one of their midterms would include writing a paper applying an advanced film theory to Die Hard.

“Come on, kids!” Alfred said. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to stretch your legs. This is a four-hour course, you’ve got all the time to sit around. Don’t you know that sitting is the new smoking?”

He promptly took a bite from a box of Chick-Fil-A strips waiting for him on the podium.

(tbc?)

#hetalia #hetalia au #university au #aph america #aph germany #aph iceland #aph hong kong

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upthenorthmountain · 6 years

Text

A First Time For Everything

Happy birthday @kristanna!

For you I have a story! Or the first part of one. I started this waaaay back in April, after Charis was talking about the idea a lot and I just started writing. Then I was ill for months and then I picked it up again and here it is! I hope you like it.

Big thanks to @karis-the-fangirl as always x

Rating: MA, 6462 words (I KNOW)

A First Time For Everything

“Hi, are you Anna?”

She turned, prepared to deny it if necessary, but the man asking looked, well, normal. He was six-foot-something, blond with brown eyes, wearing a nice shirt and jeans, and he was smiling.

“Um, yes?”

“I’m Kristoff. Can I get you a drink?”

“Sure, of course.”

“Lindsay sent me your picture,” Kristoff said as they sat down in the corner of the bar, “So I knew who I was looking for.”

“She said you’ve - done this before?”

“Few times, yeah.”

“So it’s okay? Do we, do we go to yours, or -”

“Hey. Anna.” She looked up, and caught his eye. His gaze was steady, and she took a deep breath to calm herself down. “I think we have a drink together,” he said, “And then we can decide what we want to do. Okay?”

She nodded.

“And if you’ve changed your mind, then that’s cool,” he said. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Anna took a drink to steady herself. “Can I ask a question?”

“Of course, yeah.”

“How do you get into - this line of work? Oh no, not work, I don’t mean work, I mean -”

He laughed. “I know what you mean. It’s a fair question. OK. Well you know Lindsay’s my ex?”

“Yes, of course.”

“We were together a couple of years, and then we kinda grew apart so we split up but we stayed friends. And she was my first but I wasn’t hers, but she said a few times that she wished I had been because her first experience was, not good. I mean not awful but, yeah. She didn’t really enjoy it.”

Anna nodded. Kristoff was so matter-of-fact that she was quickly forgetting to feel awkward; she’d spent most of the day psyching herself up to come tonight, convinced it would go terribly and wondering why she was bothering, but it was fine so far.

“So after we broke up,” Kristoff continued, “A few months after, she rang me up and she said she had a friend who was complaining that her virginity seemed to be scaring the men away, and she asked me if I would sleep with her because, and I quote, ‘I know you’d do a proper job.’ Obviously I said no,” he added quickly. “Because, what the hell, but then I did agree to meet her friend for a drink and I thought….”

“What the hell,” Anna said. Kristoff smiled.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “And I guess I did do a proper job, because she recommended me to her cousin, and I suppose at some point I got a reputation.”

Anna nodded solemnly. “I’ve heard that can happen,” she said.

“Right. I suppose it probably all sounds really weird,” he said. “It all made sense at the time.”

“A little weird,” Anna said, fiddling with the stem of her wine glass. “I mean, I was just complaining to Alison - I don’t know if you know Alison - I didn’t expect her to actually come up with a solution! But I told her, you know, and she said, you need to speak to Linds, she knows a guy.” Kristoff laughed.

“How many times have you done this?” Anna asked.

“You are number five. Will be number five. No pressure.”

“I’m not going to change my mind. Once I decide to do something, I do it.” She drained her drink. “Your place or mine?”

-----

You’re so innocent, Anna, Henry said. It’s sweet, but it’s hard on me, sometimes. Having to teach you everything about how the world works, show you everything. It’s a heavy responsibility, knowing I’d be the only man you’d been with. And I don’t want you to wake up one day and realise you missed out.

Hadn’t she always done everything he wanted? Always agreed with him, had her hair done the way he liked, wore the jewellery he gave her (even if, privately, she found the earrings too heavy, the necklaces too showy). Didn’t she deserve the thing that she wanted? A ring. Jewellery, again. But this time she’d be happy to let him choose it.

She wanted to be married. It wasn’t about his money, it really wasn’t; she wanted the security, she wanted to know that he’d chosen her, someone always on her side, forever. That was what she wanted. Forever.

This was just a blip. She just needed to do this, rid herself of this pesky virginity, and she’d get him back.

-----

They went to his place.

Anna felt her nerves coming back as they walked down the street, and the only way she knew to get over them was to talk over them.

“This is a one-off, right?” she said.

“Hmm? Yeah. It’s not, like,” he smiled at her, “An ongoing course.”

That made Anna laugh. “You don’t have a syllabus? No powerpoint?”

“Just the practical.” He unlocked his front door. “Do you want another drink first?”

“No, I’d better not. Complete lightweight,” she explained. “Two drinks and I’m tipsy, three and I’m under the table.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

The front door to the flat led into an ordinary-looking hall. As Kristoff shut the door behind them, Anna fell silent, unsure what to do now. She didn’t know how these things - got started. “Where’s your bedroom?” she heard herself say, then froze, afraid he was going to laugh at her.

But he didn’t; just smiled, and said “It’s right here,” and leant past her to open a door. Beyond it, sure enough, was a perfectly ordinary bedroom, with a neatly made bed and the bedside lamp already lit.

He waited behind her, and Anna took a deep breath and a few steps forward. This was fine. She was in a man’s bedroom, a man she’d just met that evening, and it was fine. Lots of people did this all the time, and she even had references. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off her shoes. Her heart was drumming.

Kristoff opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but after a second he closed it again and walked over to sit next to her. Anna’s head burst with a million questions - should she undress? Or did he want to do it? Or should she undress him? Or maybe it would be quicker if they didn’t, maybe she should just lie down and -

Her train of thought was thrown from the track by the warmth of Kristoff’s hand on the side of her face. She jumped slightly - not quite a flinch - and he paused, still; then leant in until his lips were a breath away from hers.

It was Anna that closed the gap, in a sudden movement that was almost jerky. She was so used to kissing Henry, it felt strange - this was different, so different, warmer and softer and she didn’t know what to do with her hands, it felt strange leaving them in her lap, when he was running his fingers through her hair to cup the back of her head - should she do that? She put one hand hesitantly on his shoulder.

But maybe it felt more like she was pushing him away, because Kristoff withdrew, moving his own hand down to her arm. “Relax, Anna,” he said. “If you’ve changed your mind, it’s okay.”

“I haven’t. I’m fine. I am!” she said at his sceptical expression. “I am, I want - this, I want…”

He was still looking at her, thoughtful. “Tell you what,” he said.

“What?”

“How about we lower the pressure a bit - go into the lounge and watch a film or something, see how we get on. It’s barely nine, we’ve got plenty of time.”

“Watch a film?”

“Sure, sit next to each other, kiss a bit if we want, see what happens.”

“...okay.”

He stood and Anna followed him through to his living room, which was also very tidy. Kristoff sat on the sofa and picked up a couple of remotes; once he’d brought up the Netflix screen he held out one of them to her, and she sat next to him to take it. “Whatever you like,” he said. “Nothing too gory.”

“Or too girly?”

“Whatever you like. I have sisters, girly doesn’t bother me.”

Anna scrolled down until she found a rom-com she liked, an old favourite. She hesitated on the selection, but Kristoff put his hand over hers on the remote and pressed the OK. “Sure, why not.”

He leant back and put his arm out. Anna shuffled across to him and let him pull her closer.

----

“Anna.”

“Hmmph?”

“Anna. Film’s finished. Let me walk you home.”

Anna blinked, puzzled. No, the film was only partway through, they were only at the scene where….although she’d got a bit distracted, because Kristoff kept kissing her, and it was nice, very nice once she got used to it. And then at one point she’d sort of snuggled up next to him and it was very cosy and now the film was over and also she seemed to have drooled on his t-shirt.

“I can’t go home,” she said. “We didn’t, you know.”

“It’s late, you’re obviously tired. Come on,” he said, standing up, “Where did you leave your shoes?”

“In the bedroom. Where we should go, because, I came here on a mission, and I shaved my legs all the way up and everything, and I want to get it done -”

“Anna, come on,” Kristoff said. “It’s not some horrible ordeal to get through, okay? If you’re not ready today, that’s fine. I’ll walk you home.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” He left the room and returned with her shoes. She put them on.

“For - leading you on. And, um, for falling asleep on you.”

“You’re always allowed to change your mind,” was all he said.

-----

He walked her home, but neither of them said much - it was only a short walk, anyway. When they parted, Anna said “Thanks anyway. Even if it didn’t work out.”

“Well - if you want another try, give me a bell,” Kristoff said.

“Really? You didn’t find it - frustrating?”

“We didn’t really get far enough for that to be a problem - and, sure. You’re gorgeous,” he said, as if it was a simple statement of fact. “Think about it, okay? Up to you. Goodnight,” and he walked away.

-----

“Hello?”

“Hi, Kris - um, you know you said if I wanted to try again, I should phone you?”

“Sure.”

“Are you still - interested?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.” And she hung up, and rang the doorbell.

“I’m ready,” she said when he answered the door. “I’m ready this time. Honest.”

Kristoff put his hands in his pockets and looked her up and down. “If you say so. Come in, then.”

Anna went through and shut the door behind her. She kicked off her shoes and, determined, walked straight through to the bedroom. Kristoff followed her, his hands still in his pockets, an expression of mild amusement on her face. Anna sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. “Come on, then.”

He sat next to her. “Why the sudden enthusiasm?”

“Just - you know.”

“Do I?”

“Want to get it over with.”

“That’s extremely flattering, thank you.”

“Don’t you want to?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he looked her up and down in a way that made her blush; then he cupped the side of her face with his hand, stroked his thumb over her cheek, and kissed her.

She was a bit more used to kissing him, this time. It felt more natural, and she could relax into it and enjoy it. After a few minutes, Kristoff pulled away and climbed up properly onto the bed; he held out an arm to her and she followed, then let him gently pull her down until they were lying facing, his arm around her. He kissed her again.

It was nice. He was so warm, and solid, and while he certainly wasn’t holding her down, his hand against her back was almost comforting, almost safe, and she didn’t want anything else but to be lying here kissing him. She wriggled closer.

Kristoff slid his hand down her back and stroked her bottom over her jeans for a minute, then he moved it back up again and slipped it under her t-shirt. The warmth against her bare skin made her shiver pleasantly, and after a second he moved his hand still higher and brought it round to the front.

Then three things happened, one after the other. Kristoff ran his thumb inside her bra cup and over her nipple; Anna reflexively bucked her hips against his, and felt the hard ridge of his erection against her thigh; and she gasped and let out a moan against his mouth.

And it all felt so good but also it was too much, and her body had never wanted anything this badly, and as she realised that she gasped again but this time her reflexive movement was away from him. She pushed him away and sat up, still out of breath and her heart racing.

“Sorry,” Kristoff said. “Shit. Sorry, Anna.” He sat up and ran a hand over his hair.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry. I’ll be okay, just - just give me a minute.”

“Okay.” They sat in silence for a minute.

“Anna,” Kristoff said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. I know you’ve never actually had sex before, but - what have you done? I mean, you’ve kissed someone before, right?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

“Okay, good.”

“I was with Henry two years! Of course we kissed.”

“That’s what I was thinking, right.”

“But not kissing like that, you know. With hands and things.”

“Really?”

“Yes, he was always - very respectful, you know.”

“Never went for the boob.”

“No! No.”

Kristoff looked thoughtful for a minute. “And you didn’t want him to?”

“I - I don’t know.”

He looked at her. Anna was looking down, twisting her hands together. Kristoff cleared his throat. “Tell you what,” he said, “I was about to make dinner. Would you like to join me?”

“What? Really?”

“Sure. Be nice to have some company.”

“Okay. Yes. Thank you.”

Kristoff stood and walked over to the door. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I think you can be perfectly respectful and put your hand on someone’s…well, anywhere.”

-----

“So what do you do?” Anna asked, following him through to the kitchen. “Like, for a job.”

“I’m an electrician.”

“Oh, cool.”

“New builds, mainly.”

“Do you have all your certificates and stuff.”

“Well, I’m legally required to, so, yes. Come here.”

Anna had sat down at the table, but now she stood obediently and came over to the counter. Kristoff put a chopping board and knife down in front of her, then handed her an onion. She looked at him. “Chop it up,” he said. “Spag bol okay?”

“Oh, yes, lovely.”

Kristoff got out some pans and started taking things out of cupboards and the fridge. Anna looked at her onion. She didn’t want to admit to never having chopped an onion before. The brown skin needed to come off first, right? How hard could it be.

The doorbell rang. Kristoff looked puzzled, and went to open it; Anna listened to him having a conversation, then he came back through to the kitchen accompanied by a young woman. “...it’s in the big cupboard, I think,” he said. “Ah, Anna, this is Katja. My sister. Our mother wants to borrow a dish -” he opened the cupboard, rummaged for a moment, and pulled out a serving dish - “so she’s sent Kat. Kat, this is Anna.”

“Oh, goodness, I’m sorry, Kris!” Katja said. “If I’d known you had a date I’d have come another time.” She took the dish and hugged it, grinning at them both.

“It’s not -” Anna started, turning back to her onion, sure she was blushing. Kristoff had frozen with his mouth open. Katja flapped her free hand.

“Oh, well, whatever you call it - I’ll get out of your way, don’t worry.” She leant comfortably against the edge of the worktop. “It’s so nice to see, though, how long has it been since you’ve had a girlfriend, Kris? Or even been out with someone -”

“I don’t tell you everything I do,” he muttered, taking jars off the spice rack and lining them up. “I thought you were leaving?”

“Oh, I am. I am. How did you two meet?”

“Friend of a friend. Goodbye, Katja.”

“Mm. Well.” Katja sighed, stood upright and took one half-step to the door. “It was lovely meeting you, Anna! Perhaps we’ll all see you again sometime -“

Kristoff put one hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle push back out to the hall. “Give my love to our mother, when you see her and discuss this two-minute encounter in extravagant detail.”

“Oh, Kris, why are you always so -” The door shut. Anna fiddled with the handle of her knife. Kristoff came back into the room. “Sorry,” he said. “She’s just, you know. My whole family is like that.”

“Friendly?”

“Don’t know when to shut up. Is that onion done?”

“Um, yes.” She pushed the chopping board towards him. The onion looked pretty mangled to her eyes, but he didn’t comment, just lifted the board and slid the pieces into the hot pan.

“And now she’ll go straight to Mum’s,” he continued, “And describe you and what we were doing, and they’ll talk about it all evening and have us married off by the time they part. They all refuse to believe that I’m quite happy living by myself. When I split up with Lindsey it broke my mother’s heart. She’s obsessed with me Finding Someone. An actual woman in my flat after 7pm will drive her into a frenzy.”

“It’s fine,” Anna said. “I don’t mind - I mean, if she does think it’s a date, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I suppose not.”

“You can always just say it didn’t work out or we split up or whatever.”

“Yeah.”

She watched him cook. He looked tense, and she couldn’t bear the silence. “How long have you been single?”

“You know Lindsey.”

“Yes, but - you haven’t had a girlfriend since then? But that was years ago!”

“Mmhmm.”

“Linds is married.”

“Sure is.”

Now he looked even tenser. “Well, I’m sure you’ll meet someone soon.”

“I’m not looking, but thanks.”

“Really? But -”

“Anna, leave it, okay? I’m no good at relationships, I’d rather just be - me.” He stirred the saucepan, his jaw set. “I know that’s what you want but not everyone is built for that.”

“You’ve done it before - okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she said at his expression. “It just sounds - lonely.”

“Not everyone is the falling-in-love type.”

“Of course they are, everyone can fall in love -”

He sighed. “Of course they aren’t. Look, I was very fond of Lindsey - don’t tell her I said this, because I said I loved her, but I never really knew what I was supposed to mean by that. I was very fond of her and I liked spending time with her and I enjoy sex. But I don’t do falling in love. That’s just how I am, you don’t need to try and persuade me.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

He turned back to his saucepans and apparently the conversation was over.

-----

hey kris

hey what’s up

you not busy? at home

yes and yes, why?

The doorbell rang. When Kristoff answered it, Anna was standing there with a determined expression on her face. “I really mean it this time,” she said. “Honest.”

He stood back and let her in, taking her coat. “You know the way,” he said. “On your back, knickers off.”

At Anna’s face, he added “That was a joke. Can I get you a drink, or...”

“I’m good. And I can’t take my knickers off, because I’m not wearing any.” She plumped down on the side of his bed and grinned at him.

“Was that a joke?”

“Why don’t you come here and find out.”

He stood watching her, arms folded.

“I worked it out,” she said. “I worked out what the problem was.”

“And?”

“Oh, god, usual stuff I guess.I felt bad. For liking it? Because I felt like I shouldn’t. Because I’m a, a nice girl.”

“I didn’t realise you were brought up in the 1950s.”

“I know, I know...but. Once I realised that was the problem, it stopped being a problem! You know?”

“I guess.”

“I mean it. It is the twenty-first century, I am a grown woman, I am allowed to enjoy this. I will enjoy it.” She fell onto her back, arms above her head. “Come here and deflower me.”

He didn’t say anything, and Anna was about to sit up and argue her case again; but then suddenly he was on the bed, right above her, holding himself up with his hands on either side of her shoulders. Her heart thumped alarmingly.

He held her gaze for a long moment, then flicked his eyes to her lips and back up again. She closed her eyes a second before he kissed her; a deep, intense kiss, that was only broken when he pulled back a fraction of a centimetre to murmur “Ready?” against her mouth.

Anna wasn’t sure she could speak and she only had space to give the tiniest nod. She kept her eyes closed as he kissed her, again and again, his body still hovering a centimetre above her own.

When he shifted his weight onto his side next to her she must have tensed up slightly, because he said quietly “We’re just having fun, okay?”

“Mmhmm,” she managed, as he kissed her neck.

“And if you’re not having fun, at any point,” he murmured right by her ear, “You just say and we’ll do something else. Okay?”

“Okay…”

He kissed her again, then leant back further to pull his t-shirt off over his head. It was the first time either of them had actually removed any clothing and Anna felt herself blushing - to cover it, she pulled off her own top, and threw it on the floor. Kristoff looked her up and down, and now she was definitely blushing.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

He shrugged. “Only the ones that are beautiful. Now,” he said, hooking a thumb under the waistband of her jeans, “let’s see if you were telling the truth.”

She hesitated, expecting him to undo her trousers, but he didn’t. He just ran his thumb under the waistband, and when he didn’t find anything underneath, he grinned at her and pulled her closer to kiss her.

Kissing felt even better with her bare skin against his. She let him unclip her bra, and wriggled her arms out of the straps; then was surprised when he rolled away, but it was only to shed the rest of his clothes and rummage in his bedside drawer.

Anna watched him, not sure what she should be doing, not wanting to stare but at the same time not knowing where else to look. She shrugged her bra off completely, then remembered her socks and pulled them off as well. Kristoff found what he was looking for, put the condom down on the bedside table and shut the drawer. He smiled when he turned back to her.

“I hope you’ve at least had an orgasm before,” he said.

“Yes, but not - in company. And it’s okay, we can just….”

But he was already kissing her again, and flicking open the button of her jeans as he did so. Anna shivered, and he moved to draw her body against his, keeping her warm as he pushed her jeans over her hips. She wriggled and kicked the trousers off. She could feel his erection now, hot and hard against her thigh, and when he moved his hand to her breast she moaned loudly and involuntarily against his mouth.

He gently pushed on her shoulder until she was lying on her back. “Okay?” he said, and she nodded. “How about now?” he said, sliding his hand over her thigh and between her legs, “How’s that?”

“Good,” she managed. “That’s - um, a bit lower -“ Anna stopped - she was being rude, she shouldn’t correct him - but then he did move his fingers a little lower, and she gasped. Kristoff smiled. “Relax,” he said softly, “We’re having fun, remember?”

Anna tried to nod, but she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think of anything except his hand between her legs - his mouth now on her nipple, his tongue stroking - Relax, she told herself. She clutched at his shoulder, blindly, and he looked up. “Okay?” he said.

“Yes - yes, please, don’t stop -”

He didn’t, but he did move a little so that he could hold her at the same time. She buried her head in his shoulder, trying to muffle the sounds she knew she was making, and when she came he pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head as her breathing slowed.

Then he moved away, and she couldn’t think why, until she saw him reaching for the condom packet on the side. Oh, yes. That. She bit her lip.

He must have seen, because he said “We can stop now, if you want.”

“But that’s not fair.”

He shrugged.

“And anyway, I want to,” she added quickly. Because she did - and not just, any more, in the sense of wanting it to be done. She was curious, and also...she just wanted to. She didn’t need to analyse it. She settled herself comfortably on her back and reached out an arm to him.

He kissed her again, gently, and and she felt herself relaxing into it. She closed her eyes and wrapped an arm around his neck, and let him gently move her legs so that he could position himself above her. She kept her eyes closed as he carefully guided himself into her - and then stopped. “I’m okay,” she said firmly before he could ask, and he huffed a laugh and started to move again.

And it was - nice. It didn’t hurt, and it felt somehow satisfying, almost. Anna shifted her hips to get more comfortable and Kristoff groaned in her ear. “You’re amazing,” he muttered. “God, I’ve been thinking about this for so long, ever since I saw you -”

“Really?”

“Of course.” He paused, breathing heavily, and she felt him throbbing inside her. “I didn’t want to pressure you into coming back, after the first time, but god, I wanted you -”

He wrapped an arm around her then, and pressed his lips to hers, and she felt him thrust against her three, four more times. Then he broke the kiss to groan and bury his head in her neck, and she felt him throbbing deep inside her and realised that she liked it. She was suddenly fiercely glad she’d come back tonight and that she hadn’t given up.

After a moment Kristoff kissed her quickly on the lips, then gently withdrew and sat on the edge of the bed. Anna lay there, thoughtful, while he dealt with the condom. Did she feel any different? A little. Did she feel older, wiser, more mature? Not really.

“I guess….I should go,” she said, “Shouldn’t I.”

“Mmm.”

“I should get dressed.”

“If you don’t want to catch cold, yes.”

“But now I’m sleeeeeepy.” She pulled at the duvet underneath her. “I’ll just have a little nap.”

“Come on, Anna,” he said, standing up and reaching for his trousers.

He dressed quickly, said “I’ll let you get on,” and went out of the room. He was smiling, perfectly friendly, but Anna felt a little let down. She found her clothes and dressed.

When she went through into the hall, Kristoff came out of the living room. “You okay?” he said.

“Yes, sure.”

“Just thought we’d better get up before we fell asleep.”

“No, you’re right. I should be getting back before it gets too late.”

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

“No, I’m okay. It’s only half a mile, and it’s not late.”

She walked over to the door and opened it. “Bye, then.”

He smiled. “Bye, Anna.”

Kristoff shut the door behind her. Anna stood on the pavement for a moment, before giving herself a little shake and heading for home. Anyone watching would have seen me go in and then come out a while later, she thought. They wouldn’t know what happened. They wouldn’t know I’m a woman now. Then she had to laugh at herself for being so ridiculous. She didn’t look any different, or she didn’t think she did; she felt a tiny bit sore, maybe, but the fresh air was waking her up out of her post-coital sleepiness.

She took her phone out of her pocket and quickly typed a text. Definitely a proper job. Thx for your help x

He replied a few seconds later. No problem. Take care

And that was that, she supposed. Problem solved.

——-

Henry handed her a glass. “To us,” he said.

“To us,” Anna said, and sipped the champagne. She took another surreptitious glance at her left hand. The ring was as bright and sparkly as she could ever have imagined.

He’d already had the ring, when she came back and told him what she’d done. She didn’t tell him all the details, of course; she’d described it more as a brief fling, insisted that it had made her more certain of what she really wanted. And he’d already had the ring, ready.

It was strange, though, being back here with Henry. Part of her seemed to be looking at him with new eyes. This is what you’ve wanted for years, she told herself firmly. Be happy.

But suddenly she couldn’t think what to say. She drained her champagne flute instead.

“I’ve got work in the morning,” she said, “So I’d better get going soon.”

“You know you don’t need to worry about that,” Henry said. “Once we’re married you won’t need to work.”

“I know.”

“You could give it up now if you like. Move in here.”

“Really?”

“Yes, of course. You can have the blue room.” He smiled at her indulgently. “It has a lovely view. I’ll make sure you have everything you need, my darling.”

Anna opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Why wouldn’t she sleep in his bedroom? But obviously he didn’t want to, or he’d have suggested it. Surely when they were married…

Then she looked around the room, and noticed something she hadn’t before. There was no sofa, or anything resembling one. All the chairs were for one person only. Each person sitting by themself, individually, not touching. When was the last time Henry had touched her? She couldn’t remember. He hadn’t even put the ring on her finger - he’d waited until she took it from the box and put it on herself.

Henry cleared his throat, and Anna looked up. “Perhaps we should go there now,” he said, “And you can show me what you learnt - while we were apart.”

He leant down to kiss her, and Anna lifted her face to his obediently. She knew how to do this, now; she could do it. It was easy.

-----

ONE MONTH LATER

It was funny. When Kristoff had suggested meeting at that bar, she’d been pleased because it was just round the corner from her flat. But that meant, of course, that she found herself walking past it all the time, and it had started to give her - a little pang, almost. That had been fun, hadn’t it? The whole thing. And now it was irrevocably in the past. And the future was looking pretty bleak.

She’d worked late. It was half eight by the time Anna was walking along the road the bar was on, and as she was its door ahead of her it opened, and two people came out, chatting.

One of them was Kristoff, and her heart leapt into her throat. And the other was a young woman, and her heart sank back down again into her boots.

You are number five. Will be number five. No pressure.

Anna stopped. And then started again, because she needed to walk down the road here, and it was silly to hide. What did it matter who he was with, and why? Maybe it was a friend. Maybe it was his sister - no, as the couple walked under a streetlight ahead of her she could see that it wasn’t Katja. Anna thought a bad word, and then told herself off.

She kept walking, steadily. Kristoff would turn right, here, to get to his flat, and she would keep walking straight on, and he wouldn’t even see her. She was concentrating so hard on this that she almost walked straight into him.

Kristoff and the woman he was with had stopped, for some reason, right by the bus stop. He saw her and said “Anna!” with a smile, and then she had to stop too, and say “Hi,” and this was so awkward. The last time he saw her, almost, she was naked in his bed.

“So this is Anna!” the other woman said, stepping sideways to hold her arm out into the road. “Hello!”

Kristoff rolled his eyes. “Yes. Anna, this is my sister, who I’m sure has heard all about you.”

Anna felt a brief surge of anger. She didn’t care who he was with, or why, she didn’t, but there was no need for him to lie. “I’ve met your sister,” she said.

“He has two. That was Katja, I’m Heidi. And here’s my bus! Lovely to meet you,”

“And you,” Anna said automatically. Heidi smiled at them both and boarded the bus. Anna and Kristoff stood in silence as it pulled away.

After a moment Kristoff coughed. “I heard you got engaged,” he said. “Congrats. That worked out, then, glad I could help.”

“Oh, no,” Anna said. “Well - yes, I did. But we broke up.”

“Really, already? I mean, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay - well, I’m mean it’s not okay, but it’s for the best. I realised - it wasn’t what I wanted. I tried, but - well. I gave him the ring back and everything. So, yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The problem I have now is that I gave notice on my flat and the landlord found new tenants right away, and I have to move out in two days and all my stuff is in boxes and I’m going to be sleeping on my friend’s sofa and it’s not great but, you know. I’ll find somewhere new, I guess, though I’m not having much luck….I don’t know why I’m telling you this, I’m sorry…” She rubbed at her eyes, then looked up in surprise - Kristoff had put his hands on her shoulders, and she could feel the warmth of his hands even through her winter coat.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, but this time there was more sympathy in his voice. “It must be rough.”

He was standing so close. Anna wondered if, if she leant into him, he would hug her, and then realised with a shade of alarm that what she really wanted to do was kiss him.

“Um,” she said. “Maybe, if you’re not busy, we could go back to yours, and...or is it still a one-off…”

“A one-off. Sorry.”

“OK.” She sniffed. “Sure.”

“But if you want, we could - just hang out? Watch a film or something?”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want to impose…”

“I’m the one who offered.”

“Oh, so you did.”

They walked down the street together.

“You’ll find somewhere,” Kristoff said. “Somewhere even better, I bet.”

“Thanks. I hope so. It’s just, you know. And he didn’t even seem that bothered?” Anna added. “I was like, I’m really sorry Henry but I don’t think I can marry you, and he was all ‘oh okay fair enough, thanks for letting me know’.”

“Right decision, then.”

“Oh, I know it was the right decision...you know when something is just suddenly obviously the thing to do?”

“Sure.”

“Elsa always says - that’s my sister - she says I act without thinking but that’s not true, I just think quicker than her so I act quicker. But, maybe I shouldn’t have acted so quickly before, when I gave up my flat….oh, I don’t know. What’s done is done.”

“Can’t you live with your sister? Is she not local?”

Anna smiled. “She’s not local, no. She’s a microbiologist and she’s in Antarctica over the winter.”

“Antarctica? Really?”

“Uh-huh. Something to do with ice and bacteria and goodness knows what.”

“Wow.”

They’d reached Kristoff’s flat and he unlocked the door and let them in. “Have you eaten?” he said.

“Yeah, I had something at work. Why, are you going to cook for me again?”

“No. But you can make some toast if you want.”

“I’m good.”

Anna sat on the sofa. Suddenly she felt exhausted. Maybe she should just have gone home.

Kristoff say down next to her and picked up the remotes. “What do you want to watch?”

“Don’t care.”

He gave her a look, then pressed buttons until he’d selected the film they’d been watching before. “You missed most of it,” he said.

“I guess so.”

The film started. All Anna could think about was when they’d watched it before, when she’d been full of anticipation. When she’d been looking forward, to getting what she wanted out of life, to love and marriage and happiness. Now she didn’t have anything. Or anyone.

Her mood must have shown on her face, because Kristoff lifted his arm and waited for her to move underneath it. He was such a good hugger.

“It’ll work out,” he said quietly. “Things generally do.” Anna sighed and snuggled up further against his chest. Kristoff lifted his hand and gently stroked her hair.

“S’funny,” Anna said into his jumper.

“What is?”

“I had it all wrong. I thought being in love with someone would be - like this. Warm and safe and comfortable and not having to - perform, all the time. But it wasn’t. I was wrong. Kristoff?”

His hand had stopped moving on her hair, and when she looked up he was staring at the ceiling. After a second he blinked and focussed on her again. “Nothing,” he said. “I think - these things can be complicated. You don’t always feel the way you’d expect to.”

“Maybe the person I am now is different from the person I was two years ago, and we want different things.”

“Sure, probably.”

“Or maybe I was wrong all along.”

Kristoff said nothing, just started stroking her hair again. When Anna also stayed silent he said her name softly, and realised she had fallen asleep.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

#kristanna #fanfic #fanfiction #sara #you get the banner again because you get it every year #actually remembered to save it in my tumblr folder this year so maybe next time I won't have to go searching for it

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