Frozen Apart // Frozen/RotG // Jelsa

Chapter 7: Lost

Elsa

And maybe that's why I love you...

Her thoughts were like a hurricane, swirling and disorienting with her at the center with no idea at all what to do. She'd frozen in his arms, her tear streaked face pressed into the scratchy material of his tunic and surrounded by all that was him.

Surrounded by his arms, his warmth, his smell, his words, just him.

She'd never really been good with words, with talking in general, really. She'd never been able to express herself and most often just preferred to stay quiet and out of the way. Where everyone else spoke in stanzas and lyrics, she instead spoke in scattered heartbeats and falling breaths.

She thought in time to her heart because sometimes it was simpler to just follow that rhythm.

She pulled back from him to look up at his moonlit profile, wanting to say that she loved him too and, "Like a sister?" Came out instead. She almost yelled at herself.

His head whipped back to her and he locked gazes with her, his eyes practically glowing with the moonlight filtering through his irises. He opened his mouth to speak, closing it to clench his teeth, and then smiling at her almost sheepishly, "Not exactly".

If she could tell stories the way her mother used to tell them to her, she'd tell stories about his glances. About how each glance of his seemed intentional and subconscious all at once and how each movement made her want to run after him no matter where he went because she wasn't sure she'd be able to handle all of this without her best friend.

He ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching on the tangled dark locks, messing it up even more, "I'm not entirely sure how to explain this,"

She wasn't entirely sure how to explain this, this twisting feeling in her gut like someone had released a thousand small magic things with wings in her stomach, each trying to explain to her what this was in the clustered chaos.

He grasped her hand and lifted it up, intertwining their fingers, "It's just this feeling of never wanting to let you go, because if I never see you again, I might implode or something".

Love was weird, she thought to herself. It was something people could witness, maternally, fraternally, and romantically, but something that was never able to be put into words. It was something that you just knew, like knowing that you were alive, you knew you loved someone.

He sighed, "It's just, I know I love you, and I know I love you for who you are and who you might become but I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to say that I love you like a man loves a woman because that wouldn't be right. It's more like I love you like I love winter days indoors and racing through the foest. I think I love you in breaths, like in short gasps and long exhales because if I don't take enough eventually you'll disappear from me. That sounded stupid, didn't it."

She glanced up, "Not stupid, just human."
He grinned, glancing down to where their laced fingers rested in the spaced between them.

He looked embarrassingly cute and a thousand diffet emotions and she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him.

She remember one time complaining about how couples on the street seemed to kiss first and ask questions later, like if they didn't then they might never get another chance. She regretted saying that to him.

His eyes glanced up to meet hers, his hair in chaos and his face flushed, and she swore she'd love him forever for being such an endearing mess.

He mumbled something, and at her confusion flushed even darker and pulled her to him, his head in the crook of her neck.

He mumbled something that sounded like a promise, "I'm going to kiss you now, is that okay?", and she nodded and then he pulled back and leaned back in to press his lips to hers and she never knew love could taste like Jack Overland.

***

Last Edited: 10.17.16