Okay, I've had this idea for Copper for a long time, but I never wrote it because it felt very OOC for how ZeroKiba made Anna and Elsa's characters (and kindof Mulan's character, too...The whole premise of this one-shot feels like it destroys a lot of the cannon, but hey, I did come up with it a long time ago).
(I mean no offense, ZeroKiba-senpei. Please forgive me if I butcher your AU. At this point, I'm convinced that I thought this out in a fever dream based on a play, but I just had to write it out.)
Ya'll can check out ZeroKiba's comic on deviantart. I highly recommend it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Frozen or Copper or Neil Simmons.
It all started with a fight. Most things that went to shit in Anna's life usually did.
In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea to argue with Elsa while drunk. Anna could hold her alcohol with the best of them, sure, but her mouth and her mind became autonomous and turned against her like those droids in I, Robot turned on their masters. They destroyed everything she knew and loved.
Honestly, she blames Kristoff. It was his idea to have the double date at a bar to watch the World Cup.
But it wasn't until she and Elsa got home that shit really hit the fan…
"You know what we should do, Elsa?" Anna slurred as she and Elsa entered their apartment. The redhead was thoroughly drunk, but she happened to be one of those lucky few blessed with the abilities of a high-functioning drunk.
"No, Anna, I don't know," Elsa said. She looked and sounded very tired. "Please, enlighten me."
"We should go downstairs and yell 'POLICE' to see who comes out of their apartment. That sounds pretty funny, don't ya think?" Anna looked at her girlfriend when she didn't respond. "Elsa?"
Elsa glared at her. "I can't believe you did that to Mulan."
"What do you mean?"
"Did you really not see how miserable she was tonight? She mentioned one time off-handedly that she was bi-curious, and you took it upon yourself to set her up on the worst blind date in the history of mankind. Oh no, I guess you couldn't have noticed since you were off doing shots and eating sheep-stomach-dip with a kilted Troll Doll all night."
"What are you talking about? Mulan never complained."
"Of course she didn't. She's Mulan. She smiled and waved all night so she didn't hurt anyone's feelings. How could you drag her across town to drink expensive rat poison and watch a sports game that she doesn't understand?"
Anna scowled. "Well, at least SHE had a few beers and watched the Cup with us. YOU had soda the whole night and kept saying soccer was too slow to enjoy watching."
"At least I was honest," Elsa spat. She strode towards their bedroom.
"Why are you so pissed, copper?" Anna asked, following her. "I mean, Mulan even took Merida back to her place after all was said and done!"
"Yes, I can just imagine how RIVETING that car ride must be. Merida's probably telling her about the time she had to sleep in a bear carcass to wait out a blizzard." Elsa slid out of her shirt and rummaged through a drawer for a pair of pajamas. "How could you not care about how she felt?"
"Of course I care about how she felt!" Anna slammed the drawer, barely missing Elsa's fingers. They glared at each other. "At least SHE had a bit of fun! YOU sat around and watched us like you were our mom! I don't think you're even capable of having a good time!"
"Why?" Elsa seethed. "Why can't I? Because I don't wear animal skins and walk barefoot in the snow like a Scottish pixie?"
"No. Because you don't have any sense of adventure," Anna said. Elsa rolled her eyes and opened the drawer, again. "You know what you are, copper? You're a watcher. And there are watchers in this world, and there are doers. And tonight, YOU watched, and I did."
"Oh yeah? Well, I can guarantee that it was a lot harder for me to watch what you were doing than it was for you to do what I was watching."
"You couldn't relax for one night, could ya? You're just—"
"What? Just what? Boring?"
"I didn't say that."
"You implied it."
"Nooo, you were anticipating it," Anna said. "What you ARE is extremely PROPER and DIGNIFIED."
Elsa scoffed. "I'M proper and dignified? When? When was I EVER proper and dignified?"
"Fine. You want an example?" Anna asked, crossing her arms. "Last week at the Snugly Duckling you were drunk, right?"
"I was hammered."
"I didn't know until you told me in the morning. You're a weird drunk, Elsa. You just sat there looking all serious and staring at the wall."
"I was staring at the wall because I saw someone else staring at the wall!" Elsa yelled. She threw her hands up. "I can get drunk and have a good time just like anybody else!" Elsa stormed away, but she quickly spun on her heel and marched back. "Did you know that last year I got a ticket for parking in a handicap spot when I was off duty? I'm not proper and dignified!"
"Oh, PLEASE. You always say the right things, you always wear the right clothes, you always do the right thing—You're pretty damn close to being PERFECT!"
Elsa gasped, looking at Anna like she'd just insulted her ancestors. "You take that back."
"It's true! You wouldn't even dance with me and Merida tonight! Why not? Even Mulan did for a little bit!"
"Well, SOMEONE had to catch you when you inevitably fell off the table! I'm sorry, maybe you would have had a better time if you'd taken someone like MERIDA to the bar instead of ME!"
"Maybe I would!"
"Well—Well, maybe you should do that in the future, then!"
"Maybe I will!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
It was the next day, now, and Anna hadn't seen Elsa since morning. She'd searched high and low, trying to find her so she could apologize.
She'd done fucked up big time, that's for sure.
She really hoped the copper wasn't still mad at her, vain and useless as that hope was. Elsa wasn't the kind of person who just 'cooled down'. Her anger was a renewable resource that fed off itself in an infinite loop. Like sunlight. Honestly, the city could use it in place of a fission reactor. It burned so hot that Anna knew when Elsa was coming long before she saw her because her radiation parted crowds like Moses parted the Red Sea.
Elsa harnessed her fury in her glare like a laser, and if she ever put its full power into her words, Anna had no doubt that she was more than capable of ripping her apart until only a fragment of her soul was left tethered to the living world.
When night rolled around and there was still no sign of Elsa, Anna knew she was a dead woman walking. The world seemed to know it, too. Every person she passed looked at her with pitied glances like she was being dragged towards a guillotine.
Then, her phone buzzed, and the sudden uneasiness that choked the universe rippled through Anna's being like a disturbance in the force.
Mulan: get over here
Mulan: now
Anna: what? Why?
Anna: where's here?
Mulan: my house
Mulan: you need to come get your girlfriend. I can't catch her
Anna: what the hell does that mean?
Mulan: just get over here
Anna swallowed. There was definitely some dangerous fukery afoot here, and it was going to shove its size ten right up her ass, wasn't it?
Anna heard Elsa before she even got to the house.
The copper was belting ABBA's Greatest Hits so loud that she could hear her a block away.
That was it. That was the mark of the end. Anna was going to die not with a scream but with the classical lyrics of a Swedish pop group on her lips.
When she opened Mulan's door, 'Dancing Queen' boomed forth like the waves of evil released from Pandora's Box. Anna covered her ears to keep them from bleeding and looked around the living room. She had heard tales that a clusterfuck of this magnitude was only possible when sorority parties worldwide synced into perfect, trashy alignment.
"Finally, you're here!"
Mulan pulled her inside. She looked as disgruntled and desperate as that guy from Cast Away when Wilson drifted into the ocean.
"Where's Elsa?" Anna asked, trying to figure out what the green stuff smeared on the wall was. "What the hell is going on?"
"You tell me, Anna! I just got home from my shift and found her in my place getting completely shit-faced!"
Mulan dragged her towards Elsa's singing. They went down a short flight of stairs, and Mulan kept looking back at her like she was making sure she wasn't thinking about running away. All they needed was a black horse and a secret underground lair and Anna would be Christine Daae descending into the bowls of an opera house.
They stopped. Anna hesitated before she stepped into the seventh level of hell that was Mulan's back room.
Elsa was lying upside down on the couch and singing into an empty Smirnoff bottle. Her face was beet red, and she clutched one of Mulan's family photos that had been ripped from the wall to her chest like it was her firstborn.
Anna never felt so disturbed or personally attacked in her entire life.
That was not the Elsa she knew. It left a bad taste in her mouth just to associate the copper's name with the bizarre drunk on the couch.
Mulan motioned Anna to be quiet. She made a bunch of cop hand-gestures, and Anna pretended to understand them. Mulan then nodded and crept towards the CD player, moving as quiet and serious as a soldier crawling between foxholes.
She turned the music off.
"Heyyyyyy," Elsa whined. She slipped to the ground in a graceless heap. Her words slurred like she didn't have a tongue. "I like that song…"
Mulan pounced. Elsa made a drunken yelp before parkour-ing out of the way and flipping over the couch like she'd suddenly become an experimental mix between a monkey and a gecko. Poor Mulan slammed her head on the coffee table, and Elsa giggled and took a swig of what looked like beer.
"Oh hi, Annnnnnaaaa!" she slurred excitedly, waving her arm like it was one of those noodle things in front of car dealerships. She turned the music back on and began a dance that many cultures believed would make it rain.
"Elsa, what the hell are you doing?! Turn that off before the neighbors get pissed with the noise and call the actual police!"
Elsa stopped, looking at her girlfriend with glazed, owlish eyes. The dulled neurons in her brain sparked to life and processed what Anna said with the kind of basic word association that only the most far gone drunks were capable of.
She promptly threw her bottle on the ground and yelled, "FUCK THE POLICE!" before trying to jump out the window. She tripped over her own feet and dove out the back door, instead.
Anna and Mulan rushed after her into the snowy backyard.
"Where did she go, now?" Mulan asked.
"I'VE BEEN CHEATED BY YOU, AND I THINK YOU KNOW WHEN~"
Anna turned around.
The roof.
Elsa was on the roof, and she'd apparently found another bottle of alcohol.
"Elsa, what the fuck is wrong with you?!" Anna screamed.
Elsa giggled. "I have a drinking problem, obviouslyyyyyy."
"Come down, right now!"
"No! I refuuuuuuse!"
Elsa leaned against the satellite dish, and they both teetered dangerously.
"Elsa, you're drunk! You need to go home!" Mulan yelled.
Elsa threw her drink up in salute. "That's right! That's me! Elsa: the lousy DRUNK!" She twirled around the dish and started the chorus of 'Singing in the Rain'.
"Elsa! We're serious!" Anna yelled. "You could really hurt yourself!"
Elsa leaned towards her, squinting like she was deep in thought. "Isn't this what you wanted?" She let go of the satellite dish and slid towards the chimney. "I'm having FUN!"
"No! This isn't what I wanted! This isn't fun! I hate this! I hate this person you're acting like! I want my Elsa back! I want my stupid copper who gives me the best hugs and loves me enough to tolerate all my bullshit and does everything she can to protect me! I want that Elsa! Not this!"
Elsa stopped. Her voice was suddenly small, vulnerable and cracking like she was a little girl again. "You do?"
Anna's shoulders relaxed, and she smiled softly. "Yes. I do. I'm sorry for what I said last night. I love you, Elsa."
"I love you too, Anna. I love you a big…a lot much." Elsa sniffled. She looked like she was going to cry. She hugged the chimney and plopped into a sitting position. "I'm sorryyy…"
"No, no, no, it's okay, Elsa. It's okay. Just come down, alright?"
"Um…I can't."
"What—What do you mean 'you can't'?"
"It's really high…" Elsa hugged the chimney tighter. "Annaaaa…," she whined, like a mewling kitten stuck in a tree.
Mulan sighed. "Stay here and guard her. I'll go get the ladder."
"…I was on the roof?"
Anna nodded. She closed the microwave and walked into the living room, handing Elsa her soup. The detective was wrapped in a cocoon of blankets that left only her pale face visible. She looked utterly miserable, and Anna didn't blame her. The blonde's insides were probably melting and turning to slush like she really was undergoing metamorphosis.
"Mulan was pissed. You better go over there tomorrow and help her clean up. You absolutely trashed the place. Although, after we got you down from the roof, we had a pretty good time. You won't believe what you did."
Elsa groaned. "Please, God don't tell me. I don't want to listen anymore. I can only lose so much dignity in one day."
"Don't worry. You can watch it, instead. I recorded the whole thing. My favorite part was when you started talking to this squirrel and convinced yourself that you could shoot fire from your hands." Anna suddenly grinned. "Hey, you know what? We can make it into a little movie date night! I have plenty of footage to keep us entertained."
Elsa raised her hands in prayer. The thick blanket covering her body like a veil coupled with her pale face made her look like a renaissance painting of the Virgin Mary. "Dear Lord, I know I don't call upon you often, but please afford me this one mercy and strike me down. Now. Please. End my suffering, I beg of you."
Anna laughed. She wrapped an arm around Elsa's shoulders and pulled her against her side. Elsa mumbled something when Anna kissed her brow, but the blonde snuggled closer, regardless.
"…I can't wait to tell Kristoff."
"I swear to God, Anna, if you tell a single soul, I will—"
"You'll what? Beat me up and take my lunch money?"
"Fight me. I can lay you out right now, if you want."
"Nah, I think I'll pass. Wouldn't want you to lose the last of your dignity, right?...Elsa?"
Anna didn't get a response, so she looked down.
The copper was already asleep.
Anna smiled and pulled her closer, savoring the still moment and the faint sounds of Elsa's soft breaths.
"Sweet dreams, my little lightweight. Sweet dreams."
Hope ya enjoyed?
-REKA