Never Been Bothered

Title: Never Been Bothered

Author: 4mation

Type: One-shot

Rating: K+

Genre: Fluff, Romance, AU

Warnings: Incest, fem!Slash, Mentioned Mature Content

Pairing: Elsanna

Characters: Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Sven, Olaf, OC

Summary: You're not entirely sure what to make of your new neighbours

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All names mentioned do not represent the true persons. All brand names do not belong to the author. No copyright laws or personal privacy laws are intended to be infringed.

A/N: My first fanfiction on this site, and I'm proud to say that it's for one of the cutest couples ever animated, even if they're not (and probably never will be) canon. Hope you enjoy, and leave some reviews commenting about what you think J

Winter has never been your favourite season. The snow clogs up your driveway, your car refuses to start, traffic is atrocious because nobody wants to walk and there's never any soup left at the supermarkets, but mostly because it's cold. Seriously, nose-bitingly, finger-frostingly cold. You huddle indoors, wrapped in three blankets and holding a mug of hot chocolate, glaring outside into the abominable white death of nature drifting down from the heavens.

You pity your new neighbours, who've just started moving into the neighbourhood. The delivery truck is parked outside on the curb, and you pity the square-jawed, beanie-wearing muscular blonde who's busy wrestling a sled out of the back. Two covered-up women (you assume them to be women, judging by their build) huddle together as one fumbles with the key to their new home. A Labrador harasses a toddler for his carrot in the garden. The toddler, dressed in snowman-themed pyjamas, retaliates with his reindeer plushie, poking the Labrador into submission. The Labrador, hardly amused, knocks aside the plushie and grabs the carrot, before dashing away to shelter with its new toy behind the man, who's finally unloaded the sled. The toddler, unbalanced, falls ungracefully onto his butt, before one of the women reaches down and scoops him up. She turns to the man, and you can tell that she's scolding him. The big man gives a "Whatever" shrug, before reaching down to scratch his Labrador behind the ears. The other woman manages to unlock the door and puts an arm protectively around the first, escorting her into their new home.

You're surprised to see that she isn't wearing gloves, despite the icy weather, but quickly forget this detail when it becomes apparent that the two women have locked the man and his Labrador outside the house, and the two have to beg for forgiveness to gain entry.

Your new neighbours' names are Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven the Labrador, and they are quite possibly the strangest people you have ever met.

Your first meeting happened when you were forced out of the warm haven of your room to clear your driveway. Grumbling, you were busy trying to crack a particularly stubborn sheet of ice with the point of your shovel when the new family burst out of the house, and seemed to actually intend on playing in this winter hellhole.

First out is the Labrador, who almost busts down the door as he flees with yet another carrot in his mouth. Chasing him is the toddler, though he trips on the stairs and ends up rolling through the yard to resemble a giant snowball. The big man, Kristoff, is next out, and he skids down the driveway on his sled to follow his pet, Sven. Unfortunately, he slips off the side and, his foot tangled by the leather straps keeping him attached to the board, ends up being dragged through the snow. A laughing, twin-plaited (Brunette? Redhead? You really can't tell, actually) woman walks out, only to similarly trip and ends up sliding down the front steps in a most undignified manner.

The last member of this bizarre family rolls her eyes and walks down the steps without any issue, unlike her clumsy companions. Tall, blonde, lithe and graceful, she has a noticeable lack of coats, gloves and scarves, instead opting for a simple blue sweater. She notices you watching and gives a small smile. The blonde helps the other woman to her feet (the man is left to disentangle himself from the sled whilst the toddler waddles over to laugh at him), and she points you out to her. The brunette (redhead?) looks over at you and her face breaks into a wide smile.

"Hi!"

"Hey," you respond. You rest on your shovel, ice momentarily forgotten. "You guys are new to the neighbourhood, right?"

"Yup! Just moved in last week," the brunette-redhead grins. "We just came from Arendelle."

"Where?"

"It's a small town in Scandinavia," the blonde explains. "Not many people will have heard of it."

"Well, welcome to the neighbourhood," you say pleasantly. Now that you can see them side-by-side, you suspect them to be sisters; there is a definite familial relationship, even though their personalities are immediately recognisable to be as different as fire and ice. The bubbly one, who introduces herself as Anna, is all warmth, cheerful clumsiness and optimism. Her sister(?), Elsa, is composed, politely graceful and has an air of calm serenity about her. A classic pair of yin-yang siblings, you conclude, though both are definitely friendly in their own way.

Kristoff, the big man with the sled, is friendly in a different way. He's gruff, and you can't help but feel intimidated by his bulk, but he's affectionate with his dog, Sven, who is incredibly emotive for a Labrador, and although he's rough around the edges, he's likeable nonetheless. The toddler, Olaf, is cute and curious, and has an odd affection for carrots, often leading to squabbles with Sven, Kristoff explains.

"Is he yours?" you ask Anna, who laughs.

"In a way, I guess. We've adopted him, you see."

"Oh? Did you know his parents?" You ask Kristoff, but it's Elsa who answers.

"As a matter of fact, we do," She says with a small smile. "We didn't know it at the time, but we're directly responsible for his birth."

This statement makes absolutely no sense to you, but you can tell by the secretive smirk that answers will not be forthcoming, so you instead change the topic, and ask if Elsa isn't cold without a jacket or gloves. All of them, even Sven, who barks his amusement, laugh at that, like it's some kind of inside joke.

"No, I'm fine. I've never been a huge fan of gloves, actually. Besides, the cold never bothers me anyway."

Over the next few days, you get to know your fascinating new neighbours better. Each is quirky in their own way, and they all have their own stories and hobbies, but you can immediately tell that they're a tight-knit group. Much to your embarrassment, it turns out that Anna is not married to Kristoff, as you previously assumed, and is instead happily wed to Elsa, who affectionately holds her close as she makes her proud declaration. To avoid further humiliation, you wisely choose not to voice your original belief that the two were sisters; even though the resemblance is uncanny, you're not really prepared to make a further fool out of yourself. Instead, you change the topic to the local ice-sculpting contest.

"Yeah, we've heard of it. I'm actually helping deliver the blocks to the participating families," Kristoff says. Sven barks happily and wags his tail enthusiastically.

"And that's why I pretend to not know you," Elsa teases good-naturedly.

"I don't really like ice sculptures," little Olaf pipes up. "They don't give very good hugs. Not warm, not warm at all."

You laugh at that. "I agree. It's far too cold a hobby for someone like me. Summer's more my season; winters are way too chilly, and they tend to drag on forever."

Anna giggles. "If you think that you've seen long winters, you've obviously never been to Arendelle."

"Hey, I grew up in Corona; we're used to sunny weather and long warm summer days there!" you object. "Besides, I don't see you participating."

Anna's smile shrinks a little. It's not particularly noticeable, but her grin is normally so radiant that even if it dims a shade, you can tell right away.

"No, I don't think I will. I've had… bad experiences, shall we say, with ice sculptures."

There's an awkward silence that follows, which Kristoff promptly breaks.

"Elsa, on the other hand, she's great at this kind of thing. The stuff she can craft from ice is really just something else. She once did an entire palace!"

"Oh?" you say, surprised. "How big was it?"

She smirks at that. "Oh, roughly the size of a mountain."

You all laugh at that, but you can't help but feel that your laughter and their laughter is once again different, and you can't shake the growing intuition that there's a lot about them that they're not telling you.

So, one day you're visiting them for a cup of coffee when a blizzard acts up, eliminating any ideas of returning home. Instead, you amuse yourself by plopping yourself comfortably in an armchair and watch Sven and Olaf fight over yet another carrot in the living room. Kristoff is upstairs phoning his family back in Arendelle (apparently, his grandfather Pappie is quite the character: he refuses to speak plainly and instead enjoys spouting riddles for people to decipher. What a troll), while downstairs Elsa and Anna share a slice of chocolate cake.

"I really don't like snow," you comment. "It's pretty at first, true, but when it melts it just becomes a giant slush pile."

Anna laughs at that. "Trust me, it'd be much worse if snow didn't melt. Can you imagine how much that would stink?"

Elsa scowls at that, and punishes Anna by taking the last chocolate chip hidden inside the cake. "I happen to think that snow's perfectly fine. It may seem like a curse, but it can be beautiful as well. So let the storm rage on, I say."

"Poetic," you comment dryly, "but that's because you barely seem to feel the cold."

"Now, now," Anna chides. "Ellie feels the cold; it's just that she doesn't show it."

Elsa winces at the nickname, but otherwise doesn't show any other sign of exasperation. Anna is constantly trying to come up with a nickname for her wife, a privilege Elsa awards only to the optimistic woman, but that doesn't mean that she enjoys it. Unfortunately, Anna notices the wince, and immediately goes into defensive mode.

"What? Come on, Elsa, that one isn't too bad. It's better than Elsephant, right?"

You goggle. "She called you Elsephant?"

"We were watching Dumbo!" Elsa snaps, relieved to have someone to lash out at and thus let Anna avoid her wrath. "It was a phase!"

"All right, all right," Anna says, placating her touchy wife. She taps her fork against her chin as she thinks. "How about Elspectacular?"

"Sounds like a Mexican wrestler," you snort. You pay for your brief amusement with a cushion to the face as Elsa vents her frustration on you.

"Elsa!" Anna whines. "There have to be some names you like!"

"She likes Olaf!" Olaf declares from the carpet where he is currently wrestling with Sven. For some reason or other, the carrot is sticking out of his left nostril and Sven is desperately trying to bite it.

"Boy names don't count, Olaf," you sigh, rolling your eyes. "Who's going to call a woman a boy's name? Besides, I doubt really see the need to make a nickname for Elsa. The name's already pretty short. It'd be like trying to make a nickname out of Anna, or Alex, or Hans."

Dead silence meets your words. You can immediately tell that you've touched on some aspect of their past life, a big no-no in this family. The awkward silence stretches on for a full five minutes, until Kristoff finishes his phone call and comes downstairs to walk into a silence so thick it was practically a fog. He stands there awkwardly as he tries to read facial expressions to understand what's happening.

"… Did I miss something?"

"No, it's nothing," Elsa finally says. Anna is chewing on the end of her fork, her pretty forehead creased by her frown. "Just a little unpleasant flashback."

"Sorry," you try to apologise, but Elsa just shakes her head.

"No, it's fine; we should try to leave the past in the past anyway." She gently wraps her arms around Anna and gently lifts her to her feet. "Anna? Do you want to go build a snowman? It'll be the first time in forever."

Anna gives a little shiver, but she quickly smiles again when she glances up and sees Elsa looking down at her with a warm, loving look. The adoring duo walk outside wrapped in each other's arms, mindless of the blizzard roaring outside, leaving you to deal with a confused Kristoff and Sven chewing on a carrot that has Olaf's mucus on the tip.

It's been a month since the Name Incident, and you take special care to never mention the names "Alex" and "Hans" among them again. Winter has finally passed, meaning that the additional furniture and decorations sent over by Kristoff's family has finally managed to cross the Atlantic. You decide to help out your neighbours as they unpack the personal effects they'd left in Arendelle. The items are… unusual, to say the least.

First is a crate filled with planks, reins and crafting equipment like saws, hammers and nails. Apparently, it's so that Kristoff can recreate his beloved sleigh (Elsa rolls her eyes at that, but Anna just smiles sheepishly at Kristoff's accusing glare). Also included is a set of antlers, which Kristoff straps on to Sven's head. The Labrador, overjoyed, proceeds to run laps back and forth down the street. Olaf, meanwhile, unpacks two sticks, a carrot and sunglasses, which he happily perches on his nose.

You're about to open another crate, this one labelled for Anna and Elsa, when Elsa quickly shuts it closed and Anna runs over to distract you by asking if you could help Kristoff build his sleigh. This does little but increase your curiosity, of course, and, later, when everyone else is trying to move a queen-sized bed upstairs, you decide to sneak a peek.

You are utterly unprepared for what you find.

Inside the crate is a pair of gloves and a tiara. Unassuming, true, but they rest on top of a silvery, sparkling dress and cloak. Blue-white, the fabric is cold to the touch and unlike anything you've ever seen or felt. It is incredibly smooth and soft, yet chilled and unyielding, and (dare you say it?) it feels like… like ice. Like snow. It's almost as if somehow has crafted clothing out of winter.

But that's not what gives you greatest pause.

Beneath the dress, wrapped safely into the cloak, is a photo. A family photo. And the two girls, the two sisters sitting proudly in front of crowned father and mother are, despite being no more than six years old at most, clearly identifiable as Elsa and Anna.

You don't know what to do. You have stumbled across an incredible, terrible secret, one which has obviously been well-guarded and will damn this family to the status of social pariah if it ever got out. As you panic and try to figure out what to do (should you pretend you never saw it? Act like you know nothing?) a voice cuts through your shock to chill you to the core.

"So. Now you know."

You turn to find Elsa standing right in front of you, watching with cool eyes as you are caught red-handed: your hand is still in the crate, and there's nothing you can say to defend yourself. The upstairs is silent, and you have little doubt that Anna and the others are hiding on the stairs, eavesdropping on the conversation but obviously trusting Elsa to represent them. You awkwardly withdraw your hand and close the box, only to find that you forgot to release the photo, and you are now holding the evidence of your discovery right in front of Elsa.

You decide to try and talk your way out of the situation.

"Um-"

Oh, great start, idiot.

Elsa doesn't seem to mind though. She walks to you and plucks the photo from your hand and places it on the table facing up, so that you can clearly see the proof of their great lie.

"You were going to find out sooner or later, I suppose. It's not something that's easy to hide. When the people of Arendelle found out, we had no choice but to abdicate the throne and flee. Kristoff and his family managed to help us escape. Sven and Olaf were the real problems, because we couldn't dare leave them behind, but luckily Pappie was able to help us. The glamour fooled everyone. Turns out, though, it's easier to disguise a reindeer and a living snowman than it is to hide the fact that you're married to your sister."

Elsa looks at you, and her eyes are calm, cool. She betrays no emotion, but you can detect a hint of unease beneath her serene exterior.

"We didn't mean for it to happen. Of course, that's the funny thing about love, isn't it? You're never sure when it'll hit, and who you'll fall for. At first, we denied it completely, and we tried to avoid each other. When we realised that we couldn't live like that, pretending that the other didn't exist, we convinced ourselves that it was just sisterly love. Then, after it became obvious that we couldn't disguise it as family affection, we argued about why it was wrong, why it shouldn't be, why we must never act on our feelings, how disappointed our parents would be. Eventually, we realised that we couldn't keep our love at bay forever, and instead we made plans on how we'd hide it, how we'd limit ourselves. In the end, though, our plans meant nothing; we couldn't disguise our love for each other any longer, not even in public. Rumours started to spread, no doubt helped by the fact that the palace maids kept having to clean stained sheets even though neither of us ever allowed anyone into our beds other than each other. When a visiting nobleman tried to get lucky with Anna and snuck into her room at the dead of night, when we thought it'd be safe… well, there's nothing you can say to defend yourself when you're found naked in your sister's bed with three fingers in her and both of you moaning the other's name. It was the biggest scandal in Arendelle history, even worse than when people found out about my… Well, it was a big scandal. Royal incest has happened before, true, but never like us. Never between siblings, and certainly never between a Queen and a Princess. We escaped only because of Kristoff and his family, as well as the threat of what I could do if anyone tried to chase us. Now some distant cousin sits the throne in Arendelle. And you know what? I don't care. They can have their throne, they can have their fear, they can have their prejudice, and they can have Arendelle. As long as Anna and I have each other, and as long as Kristoff, Olaf and Sven are there with us, everything is fine. But..."

And for the first time since she started her speech, Elsa looked up and looks at you right in the eyes, unflinching and questioning. You clear your throat, uncomfortable.

"But?"

There is a hidden, buried plea in her eyes.

"But it would definitely be easier, if you never told anyone about what you've learnt today. If you just pretended you'd never seen anything."

You remain silent, unsure as to how to respond. Elsa takes your silence as refusal, and for the first time since you've known her, a hint of panic enters her voice.

"If there's anything you want, if there's anything you could possibly desire, I promise I'll do whatever I can to repay you. Name your price. Anything. We don't have a lot of money, but the tiara is worth quite a bit, and so are the gloves. Just, please. We've just managed to make it somewhere where no one will know who we are. Anna is finally happy again, the happiest she's been since we lost Arendelle. Just… I have to protect her. People won't understand. I don't want to have to hurt people to ensure our safety, but I will if I have to. As her Queen, as her sister, as her wife, I have to protect Anna. Please, please understand. There has to be somethi-"

"Stop! Stop."

Elsa quietens, but what her mouth can't say, her eyes speak instead, pleading, despairing… but defensive as well, with a fierceness akin to a mother bear's blazing. She would really do anything to protect Anna. Even if she hates it, she would do anything.

There is a moment of silence as you try to formulate your response. Elsa's fingers have gripped the photo even tighter, and a slight frost has started to form on the picture frame. You choose not to question it, and instead reach over and grip Elsa's slim wrist.

"Don't worry, Elsa. There's nothing to fear. There's nothing to worry about. I can't promise to forget what I've learnt today… but I can promise that I will never, ever tell anyone about it."

Her grip relaxes a little, but her eyes bore into you. There is a mistrust in those eyes that speak of previous betrayal, a suspicious nature born from past experience with liars and deceit.

You gently tug at her wrist.

"Let it go, Elsa. Let it go. Your secret is safe with me. Your family is safe. Anna is safe. Let it go."

A dim hope blooms in Elsa's icy-blue eyes, tempered by lingering suspicion.

"Really? Can I trust you?"

"I swear to it, on my life."

Elsa's fingers loosen and she draws her hand away from the photo. She looks at you, and her expression is pure relief.

"You... You really don't mind?"

You shrug.

"If Anna's who you love, then Anna's who you love. Love is like an open door: you're never sure exactly who will walk in. Even if she is your sister, if you truly, honestly love her, then there's nothing more to say. Besides, in all honesty? I've always kind of suspected it. Obviously, I never really thought it could be real, but the thought was always there. And not once, ever, did I care. It's never bothered me."

Fin