#dystopianau

Elsa's lips tingled with the previous night's heated memory. It was the first time they'd been able to "take the edge off," as Anna liked to put it, in two weeks of non-stop running.

But they'd managed to escape, yet again, to a temporary safe space. She nuzzled closer and couldn't resist squeezing Anna tighter, just a bit. They would be safe here for at least a week or two.

Her gaze wandered back to the marks she'd left on Anna's neck and a small thrill ran through her, tempered by sadness. She could mark Anna's lovely freckled skin when they lay together, scratch her nails down the other woman's back and make her arch and groan. They faded over a few days, but they let her pretend, just a little, that Anna was hers.

And when Anna marked her up in return, laughing and casual about "taking the edge off" together, sometimes Elsa pretended that meant she was Anna's.

The redhead took a deep breath and hummed slightly as she exhaled. Elsa was looking up at her closed, sleepy eyes when her bed partner ran a hand through her hair.

The gesture was so affectionate, so loving. She knew she shouldn't, but couldn't resist rolling her head back into the touch. "Anna," she breathed. The redhead ran sleepy fingers through her hair and Elsa pressed a kiss against the bare skin along the top of her friend's breast.

"You lied to me, didn't you." Anna's voice was so calm, smooth, and lightly happy in the way it usually was that Elsa didn't register the words' meaning at first.

Then she did. "What? Of course not!" She jumped up from her favorite spot and scrambled to a sitting position. "N-no, I haven't lied to you, Anna, I swear. Everything I've told you is true!"

Anna had been skeptical of her story at first, even as she'd kindly helped Elsa hide during those first few, confusing hours. Upper-Tier girl on the run from the City Police, fleeing experimental testing? She couldn't have looked more out of place in No-Tier. Anna was the only person to talk to her, let alone smile at her. But she had been skeptical. Why in the world would anyone leave the city's uppermost echelons? ("I hear you guys actually get food up there," Anna had laughed)

"I know it's crazy, but we've been on the run for months now. You know they're chasing me."

Elsa had nearly passed out summoning the effort to push past the barriers they'd put on her powers and generate a few snowflakes from her fingertips, but it had convinced Anna, at least at the time.

She was babbling over a story the No-Tier girl had heard a dozen times as Anna sat up with an odd smile, then held up a hand.

Immediately, Elsa shut up.

"No, Elsa, that's not what I'm talking about. I believe you and your yarn about the city and your ice power alterations and shit, really." Anna laughed lightly and Elsa relaxed in a slump.

"Oh, okay." A blush colored her cheeks as she began to feel embarrassed about having overreacted so badly.

Anna pat her head. "That's fine." Her gaze sobered. "But you lied to me. You said you didn't think you were in love with me. You are, aren't you." Her tone had the same light feeling, almost too airy. The small laugh that followed was empty, a shell of humor and a mockery of their usual effortless ribbing cultivated by months as fugitives.

Elsa averted her gaze as her mind raced through every detail of their frantic race to safety, how they'd fallen down into the hiding place and, almost immediately, kissed in pure relief at having escaped. The rest of the night blurred in a passionate memory. It was the first time they'd managed to lay together in a fortnight, a night of lusty grabbing and... whispers between them. About being happy to be safe, happy they were alive, and... 

She kept her eyes averted and tried to remember everything she'd said in between marking Anna's freckled skin, practically drunk on the other woman's body and the adrenaline high of their escape. She had pretended Anna loved her back as they fucked. She must have said something that gave her away.

"You do," Anna said when she wouldn't answer. Elsa knew her expression probably confirmed it. "How long? Did you start to feel that way at some point after I asked you that question, after we started sleeping together?"

Defeated, Elsa just shrugged. "It was a half-lie when I told you that I didn't," she said. I felt... something about you. Before we slept together." When Anna had asked if she'd wanted to fuck, just "to take the edge off" their lives on the run, Elsa had said yes instantly, even knowing how Anna felt about love.

She'd thought she could keep her feelings separate from their coupling, but.... Anna was just so ineffable and passionate in bed. She laughed and smiled and held Elsa close and whispered how glad she was that they were safe together. She could be deliciously rough and heart-rendingly tender in the course of a night. She usually was, every night they had together.

"... Sleeping with you just made it worse," she admitted.

"That's why I asked you." Anna sighed heavily and lay her arms under her head. The distance and cynicism in her expression cut a sharp contrast to the desperation and contentedness she'd been wearing the night before, but Elsa couldn't even be surprised. Her friend was always a markedly different person each morning after.

But each night cast such a powerful illusion of love that Elsa never stopped coming back for a hit. She took a deep breath. "Why does it matter if I love you and you don't?" She asked, "I hardly think it keeps the sex from relieving your urges."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Of course not, but it's not fair to you. I don't want to hurt you. I don't believe in love anymore. It's easy for you to believe it because you have time for that fairy-tale shit in Upper-Tier." She laughed in that hollow way that broke Elsa's heart. "My first boyfriend, Hans, used me to try and get more territory for his gang of brothers down in No-Tier. I dated the next boy because he could feed me." She'd explained this to Elsa already, in one of their early debates about love, but it never got less sad.

Then Elsa perked up. Something about Anna's phrasing invited examination.

"Why do you care if it's not fair to me?" Elsa bit her lip and took a small pleasure noticing that Anna's eyes still flickered down from her eyes to her mouth. "Why do you not want to hurt me?"

The cynicism edging Anna's lips softened. "Because I care about you, Elsa."

She held back the urge to hope. "Isn't that a form of love?"

"Hey, if we're on the run, all over the world together, I might as well make sure you're okay, right?" The redhead tossed her head to get the bangs out of her face and laughed. It was more natural, almost a real joke, but she still sounded.... guarded.

"Do you want to stop sleeping together?"

The redhead's freckles crinkled as she made a conflicted face. "Noooo.... but we should." She glanced away, eyes roaming the short ceiling. "You're just going to get hurt."

Honestly, it was never the sex that hurt. Anna was more than affectionate enough in bed. Elsa hardly needed to pretend, really. It was just the aftermath, when the younger woman always seemed to make extra sure she was clear about what their couplings meant and did not mean, never staying snuggled in bed after they woke, always making certain she used that phrase, "taking off the edge" at least three or four times the morning after. Anna was painstakingly clear. Almost as if she were... overcompensating?

Maybe. Maybe maybe. Elsa didn't dare to hope, but... it made some sense. She'd have to observe some more, see if Anna was aware how much of her cynicism was bravado.

"Sleeping together hasn't hurt me, Anna." She moved forward and planted her hands on either side of Anna's shoulders. "And I've been in love with you and my touch hasn't burned you with how quixotic I am." She pressed her hips against Anna's and smirked as the redhead's pressed back instinctively.

"B-but... you know this doesn't mean...." A bright blush spread across Anna's cheeks.

Elsa leaned down and kissed each one. "I know. It's just "taking off the edge" for you. You know it's that and a little more for me." She pressed her breasts down against Anna's and took a breath in time with her, letting their chests swell in time with one another. "That doesn't mean we can't enjoy each other."

The redhead looked positively flustered beneath her. Elsa winked as she slowly pushed their hips together again. "If it's just another physical activity, you'll be fine. Nothing has changed really. All that's different is that now you know how I feel."

She pressed a brief kiss to Anna's lips and pulled back to see them pulled in a bittersweet smile that couldn't quite pass for a smirk. "I know what you're trying to do," Anna said wryly. "I'm not going to change."

Elsa deflated a bit and could only manage a one-sided smile. She shrugged. "There's no harm in letting me try, though."

"I guess not," Anna whispered the moment before their lips touched.

*