Elsa knew saying yes to Anna that first time was a bad idea. She knew it would lead to a great deal of stress and misunderstandings. But did she stop herself? No. Not at all.

The change was a painful process, and both girls were still adapting to it, even after weeks. It came in the form of sickness, a mixture between pneumonia and hell, Elsa said. Her skin burned, her eyes hurt and couldn't stand the light, and her entire body ached, accommodating to the activation of that one gene that made her different than most.

Thankfully, that part of the process took a couple of weeks only, in which Elsa didn't eat anything and only drank water. After that, it was a matter of discovering what she had turned into.

The blood test was quick and sure: succubus, meaning Elsa's main source of energy was now sex.

(She didn't understand how the doctor could just say that with a straight face, in front of her parents. She couldn't look them in the eye for the rest of the day after that.)

The leaflet the hospital gave her was half-helpful, half-terrifying, but at least it said what Elsa couldn't be more relieved to hear.

Becoming an incubus/succubus does not mean one is dependent of sexual intercourse in order to restore their forces. What counts is the sexual energy, commonly called arousal.

It then explained that even the "mere act of kissing" would do, as long as it was more frequent that the actual intercourse. The funny thing is that Elsa felt hungry like she did before, the pain almost unbearable in her stomach, and her usual cereal or buttered toast never relieved it completely. She thought the pain would subdue or that she'd get used to it, but there wasn't one moment in the day in which it didn't hurt enough for her to forget it. Her parents'd ask how she was and she choked out a "fine, great". If they'd detected the lie, they said nothing about it.

The next day, Elsa really didn't want to leave, to go to school. There was this irrational fear in her head that people would somehow know and react badly to it. She tried to come up with arguments to possible accusations that might be thrown at her, but not a single one was formed, which didn't help ease her nervousness. But in the end, she reasoned it was better to get it done with as fast as she could — it's not like staying in the house would help, and she had so much work to do it wasn't even funny.

For a moment, she was surprised that so many people missed her, and even more when they asked what she had turned into. At the mention of the word, there was mostly awkward silences and lame attempts of making it no big deal — which turned out to be much better than what the fuckboys had to say on the subject; ignoring them was surprisingly easy, but perhaps it was because she was already used to their brainless comments.

Then finally, she found Anna, who was also looking for her apparently, because she ran and jumped at Elsa in the middle of the hall, almost making them fall, and trapped her into a painful hug.

"I left you a thousand billion messages, you total douche ass." Anna hissed, still hugging her friend. "I called you more than your mom did that day at the beach. What's the diagnosis?" She let her friend go, holding Elsa by the shoulders, preventing a possible escape. Anna knew she had gone to the hospital and got tested, but she heard no news afterward.

"I was not ready to tell you about... about what I am." Elsa looked away, shrugging, trying to make herself smaller. She could feel the looks some students gave her as they passed by, the whispers, but Anna seemed oblivious to it.

Anna contemplated. Then she said, "I like the past tense in that sentence. Spill the goodies, blondie."

Elsa opened her mouth to say no, not here, later, or anything of the sort, but instead, she took a deep breath and said "succubus", the same way she had done to the other people before.

It's just that Anna was different. She wasn't a mere friend; she knew Elsa since they were five and cried over shows like Teletubbies. A person like that was more family than anything else.

Anna didn't even look surprised. She just breathed in deeply and took Elsa in another hug, gentler now, and held her until Elsa felt like it was actually going to be okay, like it didn't even matter.

It was during lunchtime that Elsa actually felt the difference between her and everyone else. She sat at her usual table, with her usual friends, but she was the only one without a tray full of edible food from the cafeteria — Elsa thought it smelled as good as garbage (it got less and less appetizing with time, and she only ate a quarter of what she used to, during the day). She surfed through her phone while the room around her was filled with laughter and excited chat.

Anna didn't rant as usual, staying silent during most of the time. She looked like she wanted to say something, looking at Elsa, who sat beside her, for long periods of time before shaking her head and turning her attention back to her food. When Elsa questioned her about it, she replied with a "nothing" that came out a octave higher than normal, which meant she was lying, but Elsa decided not to press her on the subject. There was a lot on both girls' minds.

Somehow, the next day was worse.

She woke up with a migraine, and her entire body shook with hunger. At some point, Elsa was certain she would faint; each step was a miracle, but it didn't matter. She wouldn't get to the end of the day like this. She needed to kiss someone, feed; whatever helped the pain go away — for good.

At school, Anna took one look at her and her eyes widened.

"You look like death. What happened?" She mumbled, and Elsa would've thought Anna was trying to be funny if it wasn't for the expression of true concern of her face. She must've been serious, then. Great.

"I'm starving. I'm not gonna make it. Food is not helping much anymore." She whispered in reply, and watched as Anna's face changed from worry to confusion, followed by a flash of understanding and shock.

"Wait, wait, what? You mean to tell me you haven't eaten people yet? Since the change?"

Elsa was momentarily distracted by Anna's anger."Yeah, why?"

"Because you can't be hungry for too long, you absolute pasta. Not in the first days. I read a whole forum yesterday about how bad the hunger in that period is. Your immunological system may get weak, and the symptoms are alike those of—"

"Wait. Wait, did you call me 'pasta' as an insult?"

Anna's left eye twitched. "Shut up or I swear I'll punch you. Seriously, you don't get the gravity of the situation." She pointed an accusatory finger toward Elsa. "You should be the one staying awake all night doing a hell out of a research on succubus crap instead of writing the essay due next week." Her voice died down, concern coming back to her features, and Elsa felt a sudden wave of gratitude and affection for her friend.

"An," She started, taking the other girl's hand and drawing circles on its surface with her thumb. "Thanks, really. But I'm like, the worst succubus ever. How am I ever going to, huh, seduce someone?" She looked up in time to see Anna about to say something, only to change her mind and close her mouth.

Elsa wasn't really good at flirting. She felt too self-conscious and wrong doing it, and had never had much tact for that kind of thing, which Anna didn't believe until The Connor Incident. It was how they referred to Elsa's attempts to woo her seventh grade crush (the least embarrassing thing she did was to deliberately read the dictionary in front of him as if she did it everyday, because she thought boys liked intelligent girls, and she thought being intelligent meant reading the dictionary for fun) (seventh grade wasn't a good year). Thus, being a succubus was like a nightmare coming true.

"Maybe—" Anna started, staring at a point beside Elsa, not really seeing anything. She licked her lips. "Maybe you don't have to. I can... I can help you, just in these first few days." She added quickly, her eyes focusing on Elsa's wide ones. "Just until you're not starving. Please, Elsa. I don't wanna see you starve. The more you do, the worse it gets." She pleaded.

And see, Elsa should've said no. In multiple languages, if necessary. No, não, nein, nope. The idea of making things weird forever with a stranger was bad enough, and a thousand times worse with a friend. A billion times worse when the friend was Anna.

But, the hungry side of her brain began, who, then? Who know you as well as Anna does, good and bad? This would be just one more thing to the list.

And they didn't even have to do everything, it could stay restricted to kissing, only. Only for a few days, until she found the courage to actually flirt with another person.

Seeing the engines working in Elsa's brain, Anna beamed and got closer to Elsa. "Please? Pretty, pretty please? It will be fun! And helpful."

Would she fuck it up with one of the people she loved most in this Earth? Maybe. Was it worth a try, though? Her weak muscles screamed in approval.

"Okay." Elsa said, knowing she would probably regret it. It was an easy feeling to ignore, though, when she saw the way Anna's face lit up.

During lunchtime, Anna took her straight to the back of the bleachers, in the gym. "No one will bother us here." She explained.

See? That was the type of thing Elsa would have never thought of. If she was to make out with someone, she would probably look for an empty classroom or something, where anyone could enter anytime.

By the time Anna had trapped her against a wall, Elsa's heart was throbbing in her ribcage, her mind much more alert than this morning, fear and anxiety making her want to run. But Anna noticed it, and the smile she gave Elsa was full of promises.

"Relax. I'll go gentle with you." She teased, her voice full of something akin to affection. "Close your eyes."

Elsa did.

Anna kissed her cheek, her temple, and even stood at the tip of her toes to kiss her forehead, taking her time. It worked. Elsa's shoulders fell, releasing the tension she felt, until Anna kissed her in the lips.

It was as quick as the other kisses, yet Elsa felt it was too quick, disappointment hitting her palpitating heart. Anna started making a trail over Elsa's jaw, but the latter was almost impatient for it to end. Not that it was bad — it actually felt really good, making her sigh and have the nice kind of goosebumps —, but she wanted Anna's warm lips over hers again.

In a gesture that surprised herself, Elsa cupped Anna's face with her hands and joined their lips, making it last longer than the kiss Anna had given her. Soon her tongue was tracing Anna's lower lip, entering her mouth, which was so freaking warm, and Elsa's whole body vibrated when she heard the other girl gasp in delight. She needed more.

She turned them and pressed Anna against the wall, immediately attacking her lips again. It was much more comfortable this way, with her whole body keeping the other girl in place. She could feel that Anna's heart was beating as fast as hers, her skin warm to the touch, and she finally understood her own hunger.

She could taste Anna's arousal on her tongue, and it was delicious.

Elsa tilted her head to get a better angle and deepen the kiss, and sucked Anna's tongue the same way she would do a slow caress over skin — with adoration. She drove her fingers up and down her lower back, feeling Anna's slight tremor. Made a path of kisses toward her neck, where she bit, intending to leave a mark. At that point, Anna moaned in a way that made Elsa have thoughts far too unappropriated, even for what they were doing. That was precisely what she needed — the sighs and moans and gasps coming from Anna's mouth, the way she would slightly move up and down in a tentative of creating friction between.

"Damn it, Anna." She hissed and went back to the lips again. Anna happily grabbed Elsa's hair, trying to impossibly diminish the distance between them, to merge them.

They were late for their respective classes that day, and miraculously no one commented on the way their hair was wild in the back, as if someone had tugged it, or on how swollen their lips were, and not even on the red spots in Anna's neck, which looked like they wouldn't fade for a while. Elsa never said it, but she was secretly proud of those.

Elsa was surprised at the realization that everything was as normal as ever.

Anna and her would chat and make stupid jokes about irrelevant things, like always. Her friends treated her as they had always done, now and then asking about "the whole succubus deal", to make sure she was okay with herself. Her mom was the one who had the courage to ask, during dinnertime, if Elsa had found a safe way to deal with her needs. Her dad studied his soup with an excessive intensity.

"Yep. Anna's helping. She offered to help me, I mean, and everything's been fine." She gave her mom a reassuring smile, and didn't fail to notice how her dad's shoulders relaxed with relief. Elsa could almost hear the thank the Lord she didn't run straight to the fuckboys in his head.

Anna did help her during that first week, and Lord almighty, how did she help.

They never did more than make out behind the gym, but Elsa was getting more creative and much more confident, which received 110% of Anna's approval, demonstrated through moans and whispers and pleadings that Elsa was happy to attend.

They never really talked about stopping, so one week became two, then three, then a whole month. They had even developed a little routine — they would do it on Mondays and Thursdays, during lunchtime, and sometimes in the weekend, if Elsa's or Anna's parents were out, and it never became more than shameless making out.

(Although one Saturday they took off their shirts, and Elsa was about to take Anna's bra out of the way when the other girl stopped her with a gentle "no". Elsa not once did that again, and the only time they talked about it was right afterward, when she asked if she had done anything wrong, to which Anna promised she hadn't.)

And then Anna started doing certain things that made Elsa's heart race in a very confusing way.

The first incident was when Anna grabbed Elsa's hand while they were in the library, absentmindedly looking for a textbook. She just held it, like it was nothing, like they did it all the time. And okay, they locked arms and Elsa gave Anna piggyback rides all the time and they made out every other day, for God's sake! So why did this small gesture feel like something huge?

Anna did this a second time, for no apparent logical reason, while they were in the bus, heading towards the movies. In addition to that, she rested her head on Elsa's shoulder, as she did all the time, and the latter couldn't comprehend why her heart jumped at that simple, common act. Her mind became a dangerous place during the rest of the ride, fantasizing with couple things, like over-sweetened coffee in the morning, bed hair and sleepy eyes and dumb pajamas, hand holding in random places, fights over a forgotten date — their anniversary, perhaps?

The thing was, they had no anniversary. They weren't a thing. They were friends in a mutual relationship, like business or shit like that. They weren't together.

Elsa didn't understand why that realization made her sad, but Anna noticed as soon as she looked up to say something.

"What is it?" She whispered instead, a familiar frown of concern making its way to her forehead.

"I — I just remembered the amount of homework I still have to do." Elsa muttered, feeling her throat and eyes ache with tears that never fell when Anna laughed and hugged her.

"It's going to be okay, you pizza." She affirmed, resting her head just where Elsa's neck met shoulder.

The thing is, Elsa wished Anna was right.

It was November when everything went to shit.

It had already begun to snow on the town they lived, and Anna was delighted as she watched the small flakes descending from the gray sky she claimed was beautiful.

They were hanging on Anna's, enjoying the facts that 1) it was Saturday; 2) their homework was done and away from their sight, the concepts (almost) fully understood and; 3) it was snowing!

Anna stood up from the white ground of her front yard and took a few steps back, in her friend's direction.

"What do you think?" She asked, pretending to analyze the snow angel she's just made.

And then she took Elsa's glowed hand in her own again, and the latter couldn't help but flinch.

Elsa truly believed the thoughts of domesticity and long phone calls and the word girlfriend would leave, but it'd been a few weeks since that day in the bus and they were still there. Her make-out sessions with Anna acquired a bittersweet taste, as if she was doing something wrong, dishonest — she began enjoying it more than she should, emotionally-wise, and it felt like a bad secret, since Anna never gave any sign of wanting more than that. She had thought about ending that part of their friendship, in a desperate attempt to bring things back to normal, but the thought of doing it with someone else was wrong.

Until now she took it all, never commenting on Anna's small couple-y acts, but today Anna's eyes were gleaming with such joy, and her ginger hair was combed in two braids, under a ridiculous yellow and green knitted beanie, and Elsa had never seen anyone more beautiful, had never loved her more. She wanted her, to hold her and caress her, and it had nothing to do with hunger or anything — physically, she had never felt better.

It hurt when Anna's joyful expression crumbled and became a question Elsa was afraid to answer.

The silence became unbearable between them in the course of a minute or two, in which neither said anything at all. Elsa was the one who broke it.

"I'm sorry." She said what was probably the worst choice of words ever, and regretted them immediately, along with her stupid flinch. She wanted to take it back, to hold hands and make Anna smile again, but it was impossible now, and she knew it.

"Don't be." Anna muttered, a scowl appearing on her face, which soon faded, giving space to a serene expression. "I get it."

Elsa shook her head, tried to explain why she had to keep her distance, but Anna was faster. She looked down and began speaking.

"It's all my fault, I get it, and I'm sorry. I should've known you... you didn't want this, okay? It's just..." She sniffed, and the blush on her cheeks became more pronounced. "I love you. I fucking love ever since I was, what, thirteen? And I thought I was over it, but then I kissed you and you kissed me back and we became this strange little thing and I thought..." She sniffed again. "I thought maybe we had a chance. I thought maybe..." Anna didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.

Elsa was barely aware that her mouth was opened with shock, horror clear in her face as a little voice whispered in her head. Anna wants the word girlfriend too. And you fucked it up, you ass.

Anna looked up with a small smile that was so sad it broke Elsa's heart, her eyes watery. "I just want to ask that... We keep being friends and all. Forget this ever happened, okay? I —"

"Shut up." Elsa whispered.

Anna's smile faded and she frowned. "Elsa, honestly," Her voice shook. "I'm trying to make a confession and kind of... half-break-up with you at the same time, so can you —"

"No. You got it all wrong, I —"

"I'll go back to full friends again, seriously. I'll even help you with the whole succubus thing, but like, without actually help? Did that make any sense?" Anna rambled, staring at a random point in Elsa's direction. Her frown deepened. "We can look at tutorials onto how to flirt on YouTube —"

"Stop interrupting me!" Elsa shouted and threw some snow in Anna's face, which she'd gotten while the other girl rambled all that nonsense stuff.

Anna was so surprised she actually stopped talking, then stared at Elsa for long seconds before her expression got angry. "What was that for, you absolute pancake? Stop smiling like that, it's some fucked-up, cruel shi —"

Elsa cupped her face and kissed her in a smooth motion, but didn't let it last long. "Stay right here, okay? It's just a sec." She said in a voice that sounded way too excited for Anna, and didn't wait for any sign of agreement or anything. Instead, she ran up to the inside of Anna's house, toward the living room. Over the coffee table, there was a white porcelain vase with fake orange flowers inside. Not much and not pretty, but they would do right now.

She got all of them and ran back outside, where Anna was waiting. The latter blushed profoundly when she took sight of those horrible flowers in Elsa's hand, and her eyes widened when the other girl knelt in front of her, offering her the fake flowers.

"Anna," Elsa started, a little out of breath, and blushing a lot herself. "I love you too. I want you, every day. I want to hold your hand and have fights over stupid stuff with you and everything. Will you be my girlfriend?"

"YES!" Anna's shout startled Elsa. She accepted the flowers, but let them fall when Elsa stood up and kissed her. This particular kiss was messy, and barely a kiss, since both of them had identical wide smiles.

"I didn't think you wanted anything serious. I thought you just wanted to hold hands for the sake of it." Elsa confessed when they gave up kissing and hugged instead.

She could almost feel Anna rolling her eyes. "You are so dumb in the whole relationship spectrum, pancake."

"Stop calling me food names."

"Hm, no." Anna mumbled, smiling, and was about to kiss Elsa again when someone interrupted.

"Hm, Elsa? Did you just propose to my daughter?" Anna's father asked, his head just outside the doorway, watching the girls and the fake flowers on the ground with amused eyes.

Elsa took a moment to reply. "I kind of did, sir, yeah." Anna looked up and laughed at her girlfriend's red face and wide eyes — of fear, probably.

God, her girlfriend was such a lovely dork.

"That's great news! Hey, Jen! Call the Andersens and tell them we won the bet!" He yelled to the inside of the house. A moment later he looked back at Elsa. "Your parents are going to pay the celebration dinner." Then he gave them thumbs-up and a final huge smile and disappeared inside the house.

"I can't believe this." Elsa mumbled as Anna broke the hug, shaking with laughter.

"So you were saying... You don't want me to call you food names, is that it?" She said as she wiped the tears off of her eyes, and Elsa's heart felt full and warm at the sight of so much happiness. It was so right.

"Yes. Do you have a problem with it?"

"I happen to have a problem with it, yes." Anna's voice was entertained.

"Then I think we have to discuss about it like the couple we are."

"Definitely."

But instead of discussing it, they kissed, for a long, long time.