Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Day One: Ice Skating

They awoke warm, limbs entangled, under the covers on a chilly Monday morning, and for once they didn’t have to go to work. That is, after all, one of the many boons of Christmas – a time of year that pushes rest to the forefront. Behind the consumerism, and the food, and a number of strenuous family gatherings, there is a day to be spent with a lover, or a friend, your sister or your brother, mother or father.

Sasha spent this Christmas with Anne.

It was, frankly, a very easy choice for her. Her mother and father lived across the country (as did Anne’s family), in two separate houses. Flights were exorbitant – naturally – and Sasha didn’t want to touch California with a 10-foot pole. Too many bad memories, she told Anne.

But this, this, was a good memory. Pale morning light through sheer cotton curtains, shadows crawling slowly along the roof. Fingertips on bare back. The honk of a horn, the shout of last night’s drunks, the bird that always roosts right by their window, the whistle of the wind through the naked branches of the trees on the footpath. The sweetly dissonant melodies of a sleepy New York City almost lull Sasha back to sleep – though, before she knows it, she is being lightly shaken awake, greeted with a kiss on the forehead and another voice thick with sleep:

“I’d like to go ice skating.”

Yeah, yeah. Sure. As if she can even stand up on the ice without looking like Bambi.

“I know you think I’m joking.”

Sasha rolls her face into the pillow and mumbles a reply. “I never said that.”

“I could tell from the way your face changed, idiot.”

Looks like she isn’t giving up so easily. Sasha rolls herself back over, face up, and stares right at Anne. “Only if you make me pancakes first.”

“Anything for you.” Anne pulls her close, kissing her once, soft and sweet, before hopping out of bed, pulling on a pair of pants and kicking the door closed behind her as she leaves.

An hour or so later, the two of them have begun their valiant quest to Central Park, bundled up warm in puffer jackets and beanies, bellies full of pancakes and hands clutching scalding hot coffees.

New York looks different in the wintertime. It feels almost black and white, devoid of the usual greens, reds and yellows, replaced instead with a big white sheet spread by the heavens across the city. It’s an ending and beginning all at once, Sasha thinks – the skeletal structures of the trees tower above them, bare now but promising new growth as the city warms up once more, ready for the rebirth of the coming year.  

Wollman Rink – Central Park’s ice skating rink – is filled with the sights and sounds of joy and happiness. It’s perhaps a little less fantastical than Sasha would have liked, and for a moment her face wrinkles – most of her ice skating knowledge comes from Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (cute pink minidresses, lace-up skates, glistening blue ice). Instead, they are both greeted with scuffed ice, overpriced skate rental and at least three crying children, but it has charm, charm enough that Anne’s soon smiling big and bright, cooing over nearby babies in their caps and coats – and when Anne smiles, Sasha cannot help but smile too.

They hold hands as they step onto the ice, cautious like newborn foals, feeling out the change of terrain underneath them, clutching the fencing. One step, two steps, and Sasha pushes off her back foot, gliding gracefully across the ice and away from Anne, who is screaming and cussing at her from the fence (“Hey, Sasha. Sasha. Come back! Hey, you little shit! Show off!”). Sasha looks back over her shoulder, grinning like a cat, revelling in her moment of flight before slamming directly into someone else, sending them both to meet the hard, cold ice. Sasha skids about 6 feet on her ass before attempting to claw her way back up. The victim of her overconfidence, a boy who looks about 12, hops up quickly onto his feet and flips Sasha off before skating off hurriedly towards his parents.

Anne is, by this point, in fits of giggles over by the fence, still clinging on for dear life as her feet slide around beneath her.

“Hey, dipshit. Don’t just laugh at me. Help me up.”

“No, Sash. I think you should be stuck there.”

“I’m sorry!”

Anne grins at her. “Sorry for what?”

Sasha sighs. “Ah…I’m sorry for leaving you by the fence and being a show off.”

Anne’s grin widens. “That’s more like it.” Carefully, cautiously, Anne pushes herself off the fence too, taking one foot in front of the other, gingerly making her way over to Sasha. She extends a hand out to a dejected-looking Sasha, then briefly retracts it. “Now, don’t pull me down with you.”

“No guarantees,” Sasha replies drily. She sticks her hand out and grabs hold of Anne, trying to support her own weight as much as possible – and for a second there, she makes it back up onto her feet. She smiles at Anne, and Anne smiles back, hands holding her hands, warm summer sun on a winter’s day. She wishes she could freeze time and take a picture of this moment, and look back on it every time she’s sad or lonely – golden-brown skin, face flushed pretty pink from the cold, little curls tied with pink ribbon, her ribbed stockings and fluffy legwarmers peeking out from a long white skirt.

This everlasting instant, a moment of pure peace, joy and happiness couldn’t be more precious to –

“AAGH, Anne –”

Sasha’s feet fly out from under her rather unceremoniously, sending her smack bang onto her left hip. She realises quickly that she never did let go of Anne’s hands, as Anne comes tumbling down on top of her too.

“Ow, OW, Sasha, I told you not to pull me down!”

“I was admiring you! I got distracted! This is technically your fault.”

“Oh, that’s rich. Now I’m gonna have the hugest bruise on my side.”

“Try knocking your entire tailbone. Twice.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. I thought you were meant to be the athletic one.”

“I never said I could ice skate…

The sound of their conversation fades into the background, amid the chatter and noise of the rink. They too fade into the background, talking and laughing the whole way home amid the other revellers, planning the rest of their week, chasing the last few birds roaming the park, feeding the apartment complex’s cats, nursing big fresh bruises, revelling in the company of each other. It’s all they need.

Chapter Text

Day Two: Hot Chocolate

Anne wakes up with the bed cold. Her head feels heavy, her nose stuffy.

Sasha’s side of the bed is abandoned.

The apartment is silent.

She – reluctantly – rolls to the edge of the bed, running a hand on the floor in an attempt to find her sweatpants. She feels soft fleece under her fingertips (aha, got them), pulls them to her. Puts one foot, then the other onto the floor. She stumbles a little as she stands up – the room is dark, Sasha’s drawn the blackout curtains – and feels the bedside table for her phone, knocking it off in the process. It lands on the carpet with an unceremonious thud.

Anne finds herself once again fumbling around on top of the soft carpet, eventually securing her phone. It blinds her as it lights up, and she blinks a couple times before reading the iMessage notification:

Sasha <3  19min ago

Left to go get hot chocolate ingredients. You seemed sick, breathing through your mouth. Too much ice skating I guess. Be back soon xxxxxxx

Anne smiles slightly, feeling a pang of nostalgia.

About 7 years ago – yes, 7, they were seventeen – Sasha made hot chocolate for Anne for the first time.

It was winter – though, in fairness, it was California winter, a dismal imitation of a proper winter, barely falling under 50 degrees. To a seventeen year old who’s only known sunshine though, it’s cold enough.

Sasha had been ignoring Anne in the corridors at high school. If she was hardened before Amphibia, she was stone cold now – a shadow of her sociable middle school persona, hard and biting to those she didn’t like and barely affectionate to those she did. Her popularity remained, though it was tied much more intrinsically to her mystique. She did not date. She went to parties and outdrank boys twice her weight. She grew into her sharp features as she aged; she wore her uncut blonde hair down, where it would graze the small of her back. She never wore stockings, even in the winter.

Anne was – unknowingly – enamoured with the girl, though most of this love was conveyed not through affection but through quiet hostility, the kind that belied the kindness and generosity she was known for amongst her peers.

They had separate friend groups now, separate social lives, maybe bumping into each other at a party – altercations that generally ended in tears on Anne’s end as Sasha shut down conversation again and again and again. They were both in therapy, they were both doing better, but they were doing without each other – something the both of them still had not gotten used to, not after 3 years of high school apart.

It must have been a day or two before winter break. It was overcast, miserable – pathetic fallacy, Anne thinks now. Anne remembers walking out of school, and catching Sasha’s eye. She was sitting on the front steps, a lit cigarette in her mouth, legs bare in the cold, blonde leg hairs standing on end despite her seeming apathy. Below the hem of her shirt, Anne could see she had rolled the waistband of her skirt.

“Sasha.”

She looked up, eyes half lidded. She didn’t say a word.

“You smoke now?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It’s not good for your health.”

“Good.”

She inhaled, turned her head away from Anne and exhaled slowly, letting the wind carry away the smoke. A couple plump drops of water landed on Anne’s head. Anne remembers blinking a couple times, trying to recenter herself, unsure quite how she was supposed to respond. This was probably their first conversation in three months.

“Are you going home?”

It was Sasha asking the questions now. She put out the cigarette in a rather sizeable drop of water that had landed on her school shoes. It sizzled as it went out.

“I was going to, yes.” Anne sounded the words out slowly, apprehensively, once again unsure where exactly the conversation was headed.

“When we were children,” Sasha began, “did I ever make you hot chocolate?”

Are we not still just silly kids?

“No?”

“Come to my…my mother’s. Just for the afternoon. I’ll make it for you.” And then, as a sheepish afterthought: “It’s, um, really good.”

So – despite her best judgment – Anne did. They walked to the bus stop together, caught the bus into Sasha’s neighbourhood together, walked ritzy tree-lined avenues together. They spoke a little – only really in passing (“Next stop, Anne”). A cold breeze ran through the December air, rain pitter-pattered down onto Sasha’s pink umbrella. Anne stood close to her underneath it as they walked. They bumped shoulders, and apologised in hushed tones each time, as if sharing a secret.

Sasha’s house was big and beautiful, a well-preserved piece of golden LA real estate, Spanish Colonial style, with a grey-looking palm tree on the front lawn.  It was empty inside – a large Christmas tree twinkled lamely in the living room, its branches perhaps a little barren, its size still dwarfed by the space around it.

She led Anne into a grey, spacious kitchen and gestured to a bar stool.

“Feel free to sit down.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Sasha had, by this point, already busied herself with pulling things out of cupboards – expensive-looking Belgian chocolate, heavy cream, a bottle of milk, honey, cinnamon. She fussed over the induction cooktop, and hauled a saucepan out of a cupboard.

“How have you been?”

God, the weird questions just keep coming.

“What do you mean?”

Ok, not the brightest response either, Anne.

Sasha looked at her a little funny, then fumbled out an explanation:

“I don’t know, I just know we haven’t talked in ages, and I barely know what you’re up to anymore. I don’t know. How’s…um…Ms Boonchuy? How’s Domino?”

“I…my mum is good. She probably misses you, you know. It’s been a couple years now.” Sasha’s eyes wander down to her feet. “Domino is good too. A little old, now. But still kicking.”

“And you?” Sasha’s eyes, pale blue, were fixed on Anne.

“Same as always, I suppose. I really want to study herpetology at college. You know, to, um, honour our friends or whatever. School hasn’t always been easy for me, but I’m trying my best. Apart from that, I don’t know. I have my friends and I do love them a lot, but nothing has been the same since Marcy left and we started high school.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Sasha replied, setting a cup full of something sweet-smelling and deep chocolatey brown in front of Anne. “There you go. My hot chocolate. It’s a lot better than the shit you get at cafés. I don’t use the powdered crap.”

It was, for sure, the best hot chocolate Anne had ever tasted, velvety smooth and rich, though bitter – like Sasha herself, har har – though she didn’t quite feel like telling Sasha that yet. What came out instead was a hell of a lot worse.

“Why did you ask me to come here?”

“What? Do you not like it?” Sasha gestures vaguely at the cup in front of Anne.

“No, God, this has nothing to do with it. I mean why ask me here, now, today when you’ve been avoiding me for two years?”

Sasha looked exasperated, like she had been expecting the question. “You’ve been avoiding me too!”

“Only because you avoided me first. You made new friends, became all popular or whatever and left me for dust.”

“Do you think I wanted to be popular? After everything that happened?”

Anne didn’t answer.

“I needed space, Anne. I needed to at least try to make new friends. I’m trying to…forget about it all. I just want to be normal again.”

“Couldn’t we have been normal together?”

“I was never normal with you around.”

A beat. Sasha’s hot chocolate was untouched. Then Anne spoke once more:

“You should have told me.”

“I didn’t know how. I’m sorry, Anne.”

Anne was sorry too. At the time, she wasn’t quite sure how to say that – she remembers being admittedly, still rather pissed off, but fully aware at this point that she too had played a role in the crumbling of their relationship.

“I’ve been pretty mean for years. I didn’t understand.” Then, after a long, deep breath: “I’m sorry too.”

“I forgive you, Anne.” And she remembers Sasha smiled, just slightly, but it was warm and familiar, and something Anne had been so deprived of for so long, sweeter than the hot chocolate in front of her, and more addictive than the cigarettes between Sasha’s lips. “I hope you can forgive me too.”

Sasha picked up her mug, drinking a little of the chocolatey liquid. A little bit dribbled down her lip. She swiped it away with her index finger, painted shiny red.

“Of course I do.”

(From Anne’s journal that day: How could I not? You’re the biggest thorn in my side, but when you’re like this, you’re the head of the rose, soft, velvety.)

“Can we be friends again, Anne?”

Anne smiled. “As long as I can come over for hot chocolate again.”

Anne smiles now too, as she drags herself out of their bedroom into the bathroom to wash her face, the memory warming her from the inside despite her array of cold symptoms.

They had hot chocolate together many more times that California winter. Each time they learnt a little more about each other. Each time they found something new to apologise for. Each time they found something new to love each other for.

A stupid Christmas-y tradition became so, so much more – the start of their re-friendship, a symbol of an unbreakable bond they tried to break and a symbol of building themselves up all over again.

The front door of the apartment opens, and Sasha comes through the doorway, clutching a plastic shopping bag, bundled up in a big black puffer jacket. Her beanie has snow on it.

“I got you some cold meds too. Now, don’t come too close to me, I don’t wanna get sick too –”

Anne is already running up to her, lightheaded, squeezing her arms around Sasha tight.

“I love you, Sasha.”

“I love you too, Anne,” Sasha laughs, setting down the bag. “Now, come on, I’ll get the hot chocolate on. Take some goddam Tylenol.”