swirling_storm (swirling_storm) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-24 08:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, anna of arendelle, elsa of arendelle, ezra fitz, kate kane (batwoman) |
Who: Anna of Arendelle, Ezra Fitz, Elsa of Arendelle, Kate Kane
When: Christmas Eve
Where: Arendelle Household
What: Christmas Celebrations!
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete
Anna and Ezra stood on the doorstep of the Arendelle household. Anna felt a little funny. She was bringing Ezra in to meet her sister and sister-in-law. This was sort of weird. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to just let herself in, or if she was supposed to ring the bell. So she ended up ringing the bell and waiting awkwardly on the step. Anna turned to look at Ezra, holding packages with both hands and unable to touch him. She’d like to hold his hand, but her own were occupied. So she simply gave him a smile as they waited for Elsa or Kate to come to the door.
Ezra wasn’t exactly sure why he agreed to meet Anna’s family for Christmas. He didn’t particularly like to celebrate the holiday and he didn’t really do the whole family thing either. But Anna had been acting kind of strange lately and he wanted to do something to make her happy for Christmas at her sister’s it was. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too awkward considering as of a few weeks ago he had been Anna’s Creative Writing Professor as well. “Are you sure you don’t want help carrying all those?” he asked as they waited for someone to open the door.
Before Anna could answer Elsa opened the door and smiled brightly at her sister, “Anna, here let me help you” she said taking some packages from her and setting them on the table by the door. Ushering them in she then hugged her sister once her arms were free and the door was shut, “It’s so good to see you. And this must be your friend” she said turning to the man Anna had brought.
Anna probably could have let herself in, but Kate could understand the nerves, slightly. Bringing someone home was always nerve wracking, about as equally so for all parties involved. She'd put on nice slacks and a button up shirt, but she'd let her hair grow out and kept it down.
The house was that odd mixture of decorations in a mixed-faith house around the holidays, and Kate had wanted everyone to feel welcome so she’d gotten a lot of snacks and other things.
She set down a tray with glasses and assorted alcohol for after dinner, and joined them in the living room. "Happy Holidays!"
Anna looked absolutely adorable in an “ugly sweater” (which was actually quite cute on her) and matching skirt, over thick tights. She had a Santa hat set in her red hair, too. Okay, maybe she went a little overboard for Christmas, but she wasn’t wearing the light-up Christmas lights necklace like she’d planned?
The redhead beamed over at her sister when the door opened, then let Elsa take some of the packages. She’d brought presents, of course, and a pie from Baxter Bakery, along with some rolls, too, for dinner. Maybe she’d gone overboard there, too.
“Happy Holidays!” Anna responded to Kate, then turned back to Ezra. “Elsa, Kate, this is Ezra.” Now that her hands were free, she could reach a hand over to touch his elbow. Not quite possessively, but affectionately. “Ezra, this is my sister, Elsa, and her wife, Kate.”
Ezra had dressed for the meet the family occasion. Anna wasn’t exactly his girlfriend but she was close enough and he didn’t want to make a bad impression. So he was in a pair of black pants with a blue collared shirt and tie. He had to admit he was a little nervous to meet her sister and sister-in-law but it came with the territory he supposed.
“Nice to meet you,” he said to them both holding out his hand to shake Elsa’s first and then Kate’s. “Anna’s told me a lot about you.” More so about Elsa, but still that was to be expected right? With Elsa being her sister.
Their home was probably more festive than Christmassy, Elsa wasn’t exactly the kind to celebrate anything in a religious way but she liked the uplifting feeling of the festive period. There were a lot of snowflake themed decorations as a little nod to her gift as well.
Shaking his hand she smiled at Ezra, “Pleased to meet you. I’m afraid Anna has said little about you, keeping you all to herself for a while I imagine” she was still summing him up but for now he seemed decent enough.
Kate smiled at Ezra. She had a way of looking at someone like she was breaking them down to their base parts and examining what lay beneath. She could be a hard woman when she wanted to be (though that was always difficult around Elsa). Liking what she saw at least for now, she nodded at him and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you too."
It was a small blessing that Anna hadn't gone with the christmas light necklace. That was a little over doing it. "We only bite a little."
Anna wasn't going to let this Christmas go by without giving Ezra a place to celebrate. She couldn't stand the idea of him alone in his apartment on Christmas. Not Christmas. That was her favorite holiday of the year! Okay, whatever holiday they were celebrating at the moment was her favorite.... but Christmas was definitely up there. She loved the lights and the bows and the holly and the pine garlands and wreaths... If her own house was any indication, anyway. She'd decorated a lot at the Arendelle/Kane household, too.
Anna watched Elsa and Kate sizing Ezra up, and she didn't feel embarrassed in the slightest by it. Maybe a couple weeks ago, but now? Now she wasn't that afraid of losing him. He was a great guy, and she cared about him a great deal... but she wasn't as terrified that Elsa and Kate might scare him away now. If they could scare him off... it wasn't meant to be.
"Come on. Let's get something to drink. Egg nog?" Anna asked, beaming brightly. "Or apple cider?"
Ezra wasn’t all that surprised that Anna hadn’t mentioned him. He hadn’t discussed her all that much himself. It wasn’t appropriate while she had been his student. Now that the semester had ended and grades were in things were different, but he still wasn’t quite ready to define what they were and she had been acting strange lately anyway.
“Well as long as she hasn’t said anything bad I’ll take it as a good sign,” he replied with a bit of a nervous smile especially with Kate’s comment about the biting. Even though he was fairly certain she had been joking. “Egg nog sounds great.”
Elsa had no idea that Ezra had been Anna’s teacher and while she would like to think she wasn’t the sort to judge that, she probably would look at him a little differently. But then Anna was her baby sister and protectiveness came into it a lot.
“Egg nog it is then, please follow Anna through and I’ll get the drinks” she told them before moving towards the kitchen.
It wouldn't bother Kate too much since they were both adults, and they weren't in a teacher/student relationship now. Right? Right. She glanced at Elsa with a smile, then followed everyone into the kitchen. Honestly, if her dad could see her now he'd ask who she was and what she'd done with Kate, but he was happy for her and liked Elsa, so it would be a good laugh at least.
"So how'd you two meet?"
“At school.” Anna said, moving into the living room. She’d let Elsa get the drinks from the kitchen, even though it was weird to sort of be waited on in her own house? Kinda? Anyway, she moved into the living room, shedding scarf and jacket as she moved. “UCI.” She wasn’t sure how many more details she should go into where that was concerned. She turned to Ezra. “He’s a writer.” Anna wore a warm smile as she looked up at him. “A very talented one.”
Ezra followed Anna into the living room, coughing at Anna’s comment about him being a talented writer. That was not exactly true. He had yet to write a book and was stuck thanks to those wonderful dreams. “She was in one of my classes,” he replied removing his own jacket. If there was one thing he learned from the dreams it was not to lie. Well he also probably should have learned not to date a student, but at least Anna was of age unlike his dream!girlfriend. “We met before she was in my class,” he clarified.
Elsa arrived with drinks just in time to catch the last statement from Ezra, “Anna is your student?” she asked her voice even, after all her sister had said it was serious and that she wanted Elsa to give Ezra a chance so she’d listen. After all they were both of age, it wasn’t like he’d been preying on Anna when she was fifteen or something.
Both of Kate’s eyebrows raised way, way up, but she had no comment about that, leaving it up to Elsa. Wasn’t her place, and honestly she’d been in worse relationships in the past. Like being a vigilante dating a cop. Talk about conflict of interest. She took a glass for herself and took a sip, hoping she wouldn’t need anything fortifying and that this wasn’t about to get awkward.
Okay so she couldn’t help it. “Is or was?”
Anna reached over for her own glass off the tray, giving her sister a nervous smile and a gentle “thank you.” Then she turned her eyes to Kate. “Was. Creative Writing. I decided not to double major in it. Though, now I’m thinking about pursuing journalism as a secondary major or a minor or something. I think it’d go pretty well with my Art History major.” She hadn’t told Ezra this yet, but thought he would probably approve. After all, sometimes she could sentence.
Ezra wasn’t going to try and defend himself. He was well aware of the fact that his relationship with Anna was in a grey area. There were certain measures he took to keep it from completely crossing the line. He wasn’t sure how good of an impression the whole being Anna’s professor was making on her family but he wasn’t going to start out his relationship with them by lying either. “Journalism?” he asked picking up his own drink. “When did you decide on that?” since Anna had already answered the whole is versus was question for Elsa and Kate.
Elsa wasn’t sure the was made much of a difference but decided for now she would leave it. If he broke her sisters heart then she’d send the snow monsters after him but for now she was going to play nice. And then possibly rant at her wife later. Luckily Kate was rather good at distracting her.
Sitting down she took Kate’s hand in her own as she listened to Anna and her future intentions, “Written or otherwise?” she asked curiously since if Anna needed television journalist experience they jointly owned a television company though Elsa currently ran it.
Kate nodded. Journalism sounded like a good idea to her, and she hoped it would be something Anna would enjoy. And she appreciated Ezra not lying to them. She’d feel guilty if she had to break his fingers later.
She squeezed Elsa’s hand. She didn’t have too much experience there - her fortune came from her step-mother’s military contractor business, but she believed in the concept of free speech. And that the current state of the media being bought and paid for by big companies was a travesty. But that was a rant that she probably shouldn’t get started on. “Newspapers are dying, but there’s always online journalism.”
“Written. Like, online.” Anna said, smiling at her sister and Kate. They didn’t seem to be latching onto Ezra’s status as her teacher, so that was good. Former teacher, that is. It wasn’t a big deal to Anna, and didn’t seem to be a big deal to Ezra, either. They were just two good people who enjoyed each other’s company. They just happened to have met because he worked at the school. No big, right?
“I decided… I dunno, sometime before or during finals.” Anna waved that off. It may have been the awkward night she fled his apartment. “I mean, it’s a good idea if I want to go into Art History, that I know how to write well. Right? If I’m going to be like, reviewing art or discussing art, I need to be able to articulate. To communicate.”
He was relieved they had breezed over the whole professor thing. Focussing now on Anna’s change in minor. He did his best not to wince at the mention of finals and how awkward things had been between them, but they were past that now even if Anna had been acting a little different lately. “You communicate just fine,” he assured her with a smile. And she did for the most part, despite what he had said during the whole week when all of Orange County turned into assholes. And the times where she rambled.
He turned his attention to Kate. “What do you do?” he asked taking a sip of his egg nog. He already knew a bit about Elsa ran the television network. It was in their name after all. But he didn’t know anything about Kate.
“There’s a number of art galleries around, so I doubt you will ever be short of things to write about” she certainly wasn’t short of weather news to report on what with the crazy snow happening again. Then she smiled as Ezra directed his question at Kate.
What did she do? That was... actually a very good question. She couldn't talk about her extra-curricular activities, which she was increasingly getting Elsa into. 'I'm the Batwoman' would be an odd segue. She scratched her chin. "Honestly, I don't know. My army plans got derailed about six or seven years ago and I was pretty listless until I met Elsa. She turned a party girl heiress into... less of a party girl."
“Thanks, Elsa. I think it’s a good idea. You know how much I love art and art museums.” Anna smiled at Ezra’s assurances, then slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. She wanted to touch him in that moment--to let him know that she appreciated his support. She didn’t want to interrupt his conversation with her sister and sister in law. She turned her attention back to Elsa and Kate.
Ezra just nodded as Kate explained what she did. It didn’t exactly sound like a career to him. It was kind of the life he had left behind back when he was eighteen, but maybe her situation was different. He figured it was best not to comment on it, not everyone was brought up the way he was he knew that perfectly well. “It seems like you have settled into a nice life,” he commented to Kate but meant it for both her and Elsa, before looking back at Anna and giving her an encouraging smile. He would make a joke about how English or Creative Writing were the better majors but in this case he didn’t want Anna in any more of his classes. No more grey areas thanks. “Art and journalism seem like the perfect fit.”
“Pretty perfect” Elsa nodded in agreement with Ezra’s assessment, she was proud of her wife even if she couldn’t tell people exactly what Kate did. She had to admit it was a thrill when they went out together, like the secret life of a superhero. It was something Elsa was becoming increasingly more used to.
“It does Anna, I’m so glad you’ve found what it is you want to do”
She looked damn good in a costume, too. But Kate was biased. She shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve got no complaints. Maybe I should go back to school too. Just not sure what I’d do. Too late to rejoin the army, and they don’t deserve me anyway.” She nodded at Anna. “I won’t step on your toes, the only thing I know about art is what might sell well.”
“Ooh, if you went to UCI we could be study buddies!” Anna said, cheerfully. She was bright and bubbly most of the time, and when it came to her sister and sister-in-law, she was even more so. Anna had grown up so very alone, when Elsa came back Anna had been thrilled to have her best friend back. And then Kate was another sister! How could she not be thrilled?
“Is it dinner time yet?” She added after her stomach gave a rather loud growl. A sheepish grin crossed her lips, and a blush took to her cheeks. “I’m kinda hungry.”
“Figuring out your career path can be tough,” Ezra agreed. Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately for him depending how you looked at it, he had always had a passion for literature and writing. One of the many things he and his parents disagreed on. Weird how this time of year made people think about family. “UCI is a great school though,” but he was biased when it came to that just like Kate with Elsa’s costume not that he knew about that.
“Dinner does smell great,” he added onto Anna’s comment giving Elsa a smile. But yes now that she mentioned it he was getting hungry too.
“Let’s hope it tastes just as good” Elsa said, knowing that it would since they’d ordered in and it was simply warming in the oven. Standing she said, “I’ll go and serve up while Kate takes you through to the dining room” They’d set it up nicely with them all at one end of the table rather than having to shout the entire length of it and it should be a really nice meal where they could all get to know each other better.