Archive of Our Own ^beta

Anna shivered as she stared up at the bed's canopy above her, trying not to panic. If she took deep enough breaths she would get through this.

Her trembling limbs were feeling less pleasant by the minute, as was the sensation coming from between her legs. Earlier it had been so good she'd felt like she'd been blown out of her body and gently placed back in again. That wasn't the case now.

Everything had started off just grand, but now she felt utterly helpless as her insides prickled and tingled painfully against the offending item. She turned her head, watching the machine as its dials gleamed.

She bit her lip and covered her face with shaking hands. And to think she'd thought this would turn out well.

Idiot. Idiot!

One day with the machine, and she'd already broken it. Of course she had: she broke everything she touched, didn't she? So much for her test. So much for curing Elsa. So much for being useful in any way at all.

Worse, her numb fingers were only so long but her insides so deep and the doorknob planted well outside her grasp. As bad as breaking the hammer was, this was the more pressing issue.

Literally.

She'd turned the dial to zero, but it still sent shocks running through her. She couldn't tell if they were phantom tremors or if she'd truly mucked things up beyond all repair.

She'd thought of pulling it out by the wires, but was so seized with terror at the thought of subjecting her most private area to possible discharge of powerful electricity – her palm a constant warning – that she didn't dare harm the delicate wires. The ones Mr. Orsted had sealed to the inside of the doorknob, and then said…something about them, but she hadn't been paying attention because of course she hadn't! And she couldn't take the wires out from the machine, either; he had screwed a safety plate over the holes as an afterthought.

For her safety. She hated herself.

What was she going to do? Sit and wait for it to fall out? Would it fall out? She couldn't exactly get up and jump around right now, her limbs feeling as limp as the overcooked noodles last night.

Think, think think she had to think there had to be some way out of this it couldn't possibly be hopeless.

Oh God it was hopeless and she was going to be stuck with a doorknob inside of her until the end of time. 'Here lies Anna, dearly departed, and her trusty sidekick suitcase.'

She was going to wind up in some awful story about how one should never touch oneself. At least if it were released to the masses Elsa wouldn't read it.

Oh God and all the angels in Heaven what if Elsa found out oh saints she was going to be in so much more trouble than she was now…

She was startled out of her thoughts by a knock at the door.

"GAAAHHHWHAT?" She shot up, scrambling frantically for her skirts, trying to make herself appear presentable, covering the wires. The doorknob shifted inside of her as if the metal was possessed by some evil spirit that was gleefully reminding her at every opportunity that she was well and truly fucked.

"Your Highness…? It's, well it's dinnertime," Kai said through the thick wood. He was unusually hesitant. Probably because she'd just screamed at him.

"…oh, well, that's…um. I'm not really hungry right now, thanks and no really I'm perfectly fine!" Her voice rose in terror as she realized she hadn't locked her door. "Just not hungry, no problem, uh, good night."

Any second now he was going to open the door and see her and she would never recover and neither would he and…

"As you wish," he said, his soft step heading away.

Dead but for the grace of God. Someday she was going to figure out just how she'd been born under both lucky and unlucky stars at the same time.

Damnit! She hadn't locked the door of course she hadn't locked the door that would have been the intelligent thing to do but no, she was Anna, and the average bumblebee was smarter than her and more importantly it didn't have a doorknob stuck inside its vagina what was wrong with her didn't she ever think?

Maybe if she just…found something to dig it out with…

She gagged at the very thought. No, she had learned her lesson in the worst way possible: never, ever stick anything inside of her that she could not pull out.

And she'd forced Mr. Orsted to release the hammer early and there hadn't been anything in the instruction manual about sticking it inside her of course it had broken because some people were allergic to pollen and Anna was allergic to common sense and planning and a general sense of decency…

There came another knock.

"Aaaahhh! Don't come in!"

"Um…your Highness?" It was Kai again. He sounded like someone was holding a gun to his back. "Perhaps you'd like to have some dinner now?"

It couldn't have been two minutes since he'd last asked why was he back? Had he even left the hallway?

"No, I'd really rather not, thank you!" She had done a much better job at keeping the strain out of her voice this time. Now she only sounded agitated instead of deranged.

"If…if that's what you want." His footsteps left once more, leaving Anna behind.

She wished so desperately that she could join him, but she was currently tethered because if people's brains were houses with tidy rooms filled with beautifully carved furniture then Anna's was a broken down shack with a two-legged stool inside.

Which she probably would try putting inside her at some point because that's what idiots like her did!

Breathe breathe breathe you need to breathe to live.

Not the best argument to make right now, considering how desperately she wanted to just lay back and die.

She couldn't reach the doorknob with her fingers, as a second hasty exploration found, and clenching down only seemed to move it farther back. She withdrew her fingers from between her legs, wincing. Unlike her "treatment" which had made her wet and loose, she was now so dry and tight that it felt like her body was punishing her for that one bout too many.

She nearly pulled her hair out when the knocking started again.

"Kai, I'm really not feeling hungry right now!" she cried. "Please just leave me alone!"

There was a long pause, and for a moment she thought he had left. She let out a sigh of relief, glad that she would probably not be disturbed again. She'd make it up to Kai tomorrow, somehow.

Assuming she ever got out of this horrible bind. God why was she always such an idio-

"I'm not Kai," a woman said quietly.

Anna's jaw went slack as she stared at the door. In that single instant she forgot everything that had happened; the device, the treatment, the doorknob fading away in time, each as a distant memory, much like the one that called to her from the door. Her mind could barely comprehend what was happening, hardly daring to believe what her ears had just heard. The voice coming from behind the door was familiar, but its placement was entirely foreign to her. It didn't fit right; there was something off about it. The echoes were wrong, the doorknob was on the wrong side, it wasn't Anna's voice. It wasn't right.

She came to a startled conclusion, sucking in a quick breath.

Elsa had knocked at her door.

No, not her door; their door, because Anna had stayed and Elsa had left, but now she'd returned.

"Anna?" Her sister asked, once. She would not ask a second time.

"Please, come in," Anna said without thinking, and instantly balked at what she'd done. She leapt up, froze as the wires grew taut. She hurriedly pulled the suitcase to the edge of the bed and began searching the room with wild, terrified eyes for something close enough to grab. She just barely managed to reach the dress stand, yanking the dress off and throwing it over the device before seating herself right next to it, heart hammering as she posed herself as innocently as possible on the bed, the wires hidden by folds in the covers.

The knob on her door turned in time to Anna's stomach while she sat and watched it move, as if captured by some strange, supernatural power, but the door opened to reveal only her sister, which was its own form of magic. The sight of her in the doorway was strange in a jarring, unsettling way, and Anna couldn't understand why. Elsa looked no different than she always did; how could her person be wrong on such a fundamental level that left Anna wracked with confusion? Then it hit her.

The last time she'd seen Elsa standing in that doorway, her head had barely been at the level of the doorknob. Now it was at the level of her hips as she turned and shut the door behind her.

They looked at each other, Anna in complete perplexity, Elsa in her usual tight pensiveness as she folded her hands over each other in front of her dress. She was wearing her hair back in a severe bun that matched her features, a floor-length dress that suited her figure well, and eyes that were watching Anna warily, as though she expected her to leap up and attack her. But Anna was struck dumb and motionless, so Elsa examined her sister briefly before moving on, as if she couldn't help but look around what had once been their bedroom.

Elsa's gaze took in the room, moving from Anna on the bed to the wardrobe filled with a woman's clothes that had long since supplanted Elsa's bed, to the corner where the writing desk had replaced the toy chest, to the window where Anna had left some books she had been working on. Anna suddenly remembered Elsa giggling into her hand as Anna used her steamy breath against the panes to draw silly pictures of animals and people. The image was so vivid she could remember the exact color of the headband Elsa had been wearing, the flower designs on her dress that shuddered as her sister's giggles raced over her body, the fact that she had been barefoot.

Her sister clearing her throat wrenched her back to the present.

"Anna," she said, but before she could continue Anna beat her to it.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice sounded strangled, fighting out the words that had been lingering on her tongue, on her mind, for too long, had never been spoken before and felt oddly hostile in the open air.

Elsa's flinch was understandable, but Anna hadn't meant it like that, like she wanted her sister to leave, but for her to explain herself.

Why was she here, of all places? And now? What had Anna done to prompt this? Could she do it in the future, too?

"I just…I'm not saying you're not welcome," Anna continued, the words flying out of her mouth, "just that I'm surprised to…you know. See you…here. Because you're never her-because you should be at dinner and I'm fine and…why are you here?"

Elsa, though more than a year from the throne, had embodied what it meant to be queen since her youth. She stood as tall and straight as an oak, weathering Anna's questions and half-formed accusations with that quiet civility that masked her inner turmoil.

She tried again, because Elsa wasn't talking and the silence was so loud it beat against her already sensitive skin and she couldn't wait that long. "It's great to see you." She grinned weakly, but Elsa didn't return the gesture. Elsa never returned anything, be they smiles or notes slipped under her door or the love of a sister freely given.

But now she herself had returned and Anna was still struggling to understand that.

"It's…why are you here, Elsa?"

Elsa folded her arms over her chest. "You're not coming to dinner."

Anna winced when she shifted and was reminded of the secret she was hiding in plain sight. Yes, she was definitely not coming to dinner.

"No I…I'm not hungry." It was easier to lie when she was telling the truth. She couldn't feel hungry at a time like this. Her stomach was twisted up on account of Elsa's presence, not dinner's absence.

"Nor have you been hungry for the past few days," Elsa continued. Her words were factual and concise at a moment when Anna was still reeling from the shock of seeing her sister in her room. It wasn't right and it wasn't wrong all at once.

"And you have been fleeing me at every opportunity." Elsa's eyebrows lifted in accusation, but that wasn't fair. It was true, but it wasn't fair to level that charge at Anna, of all people, because she had always been there for Elsa who had never been willing to stay.

"And you have been unhappy," she concluded. "It's not you, Anna."

Anna's words took a while to surface, weighed down by a swirling concoction of fear and confusion and anger and surprise. "How do you even know me?" she asked, because Elsa spent the majority of her time, of her life, far from Anna's sight.

The side of Elsa's mouth turned up at that. It wasn't a smile, merely the shadow of one. "I live with you," she said, as if it were that simple, as if years of turning away was the same thing as close kinship. "I have eyes and can see, and you…" She sighed, looking weary, and Anna immediately felt terrible for asking the question. "You are acting completely out of character. Is there something wrong?"

There was something wrong. It was called "constant and eternal rejection despite over a decade of devotion".

No, that wasn't the actual concern right now, it had to do with the metal beside and inside her, but that was a secret. Not something she wanted Elsa to know about.

God, how do you even keep a secret from your own sister? She was trying not to sweat and give up the game and it'd only been a few minutes at most.

How could she get Elsa to leave?

How could she get her to stay?

Elsa came around to the side of the bed, Anna's head turning slowly to track her movement. She looked down at her sister, her concerned examination of Anna's person now apparent. She was close enough to touch but Anna didn't dare to, afraid to disturb whatever spell had been woven in place that had tricked her sister into coming here.

"Anna?" she asked, tilting her head. "Is there something wrong?"

Elsa was worried about her. She could see it in her face. It made Anna want to shoot to her feet and hug her and tell her she needn't worry at all, but that wasn't true.

It was just so odd to see Elsa herself here, not when she had others to do her bidding. She hadn't sent for the doctor, or for Kai – but no, Anna realized, she had, for Kai had always respected her decisions in the past. Elsa had been so concerned at Anna's change in character over the last several days that she had interrupted her own schedule to see what was wrong.

Once again she thought that this was profoundly unfair. Anna's concern for her sister's change in personality had been blunted against the wall their parents had made. Her power to investigate years of unhappiness was nothing compared to Elsa's freedom to investigate mere days of secrecy on her part.

"Anna?"

"Y-yes," Anna admitted, because she couldn't bear the weight of Elsa's fear any longer. "I've um…I've kind of…hurt myself."

That was delicate enough, right? Elsa would call for the doctor, Anna would tell hi-would request that he proscribe her several days bedrest on account of something vague like "nerves", and she'd have more time to figure out how to deal with this whole nasty affair.

"And how have you done that?"

She was asking questions? Now? She was interested enough to ask questions now, of all times?

"I um…well, it's kind of…" She coughed instead of choking on her words. The action made the doorknob rub against her. "It's kind of hard to describe…um." That was one way of putting it. "I…don't know if you'd understand it." That was another way, and probably the wrong one, because both of Elsa's eyebrows lifted in intrigue.

Why now. Why now?

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Elsa said, sounding almost amused by how coy Anna was being. She actually chuckled, eyes flicking up to Anna's, her laughter waning when Anna's distressed expression didn't waver.

"Would…you like to talk about it?" she asked. "It doesn't have to leave this room. It can just be between us."

At any other time she would have cried upon hearing those words. She was pretty close to screeching now.

"Well, no, I think I'm just-"

Anna had only a second to recognize the danger before Elsa thoughtlessly brushed the dress aside and sat down without looking.

"What the-?" Elsa cried, standing quickly, but the damage was done.

"Aaaaaaahhhhhh turn it off turn it off turn it off!" Anna shrieked as the doorknob began crackling inside her. She motioned frantically at the machine and a startled Elsa hastened to obey, gloved hands twisting the second dial to the left but that was the wrong one. "No, not that one, the other one!"

Elsa turned the "Shutoff" dial and Anna instantly slumped back, leaning against the bedpost when the sensation halted immediately, leaving only lingering echoes. "Thank…thank you," she managed between huge breaths.

"What…what is this?" Elsa asked, looking down at the machine. "'Electrical Stimulation?' 'Vibration?' Anna…what IS this?"

"It's how I got hurt. I used it," Anna said, "and-wait, no, it's…it's medicine, it's okay, I can deal with it and you don't have to worry ab-"

"Wait…is this a Granville device?" Elsa asked.

Oh God she knew. Of course she knew. It made sense that she knew. Her doctor had prescribed it for her; of course she would know what it was and Anna couldn't possibly lie her way out of this, she had to admit that she had been touching herself, without having been diagnosed by a doctor, so she was just abusing herself, not actually treating herself, and she couldn't explain that she had done it all for Elsa's benefit because that was stupid as she realized now, and Elsa wasn't talking and why wasn't she talking if this grew any more tense Anna would puke.

"How did you get one?" Elsa didn't seem angry, just surprised. That made no sense whatsoever.

"I found it and repaired it because it was broken but I guess I didn't really repair it because the tip broke off and now it's-"

She clapped her hands over her face to stop the babbling before she let the secret out. Elsa, meanwhile, didn't say a word as she sat down, the mattress dipping a little to the side.

Anna peeked out from between her fingers. Elsa was examining the wires. Her eyes were slowly following the trail, which led from the machine, across the bed, lingering on the halved vibrator, over the now disturbed covers, underneath one of Anna's legs and under her dress.

Oh…oh no.

"Anna…why is…?" She stared for a moment at the spot on Anna's dress where her hips were before directing her eyes away quickly.

"It's, um…" Anna clamped her legs together and Elsa stared as the wires stretched taut in response. Anna quickly spread her legs again, holding her dress down with sweaty palms. "It's…well, it's…the tip is um…"

"The tip of…it…the…the metal tip…" Elsa looked lost and confused and very, very scared, eyes darting between the broken hammer lying on the covers and the wires and where they led.

"It broke off inside-" Anna bit her tongue before she could plunge headlong into insanity and start giving her sister details.

"It…it broke off…it's…it's inside you?" Elsa was repeating her words slowly, as if she needed that extra pause before she could comprehend them. Her head hung lower with every terrible realization written in thick lines under her eyes. She couldn't even look her sister in the eye, which was the only good thing Anna could be thankful for right now.

"So…" she looked like she was choking on something huge.

Anna knew the feeling all too well.

"So…so you…you put the metal tip inside you?"

And then, because Anna's mouth was entirely unconnected to her brain, she then heard it say, "actually it's a doorknob."

What followed was the longest moment in Anna's life. It stretched into infinity and back again while the silence between them howled and Anna wondered why it was she was still capable of speech if she had her foot so firmly planted in her mouth.

If Elsa was planning on disowning her she'd better start now before Anna threw herself out the window. If she was lucky she'd hit the water and sink below the waves and no one would ever see her stupid, thoughtless head again.

Elsa slowly raised her head. Stunned realization crept across her face with all the speed of a glacier, sinking into her usually pristine features one by one as her unfocused eyes stared out the window. Anna cringed back farther and farther as her sister's expression settled upon wide-eyed apprehension and an almost childlike fear.

"Anna," she said, not looking at her, not looking like she could even turn her head at all, "is it…my doorknob?"

"…yes," Anna admitted, helpless to resist.

Elsa was a pale woman but Anna could still see the blood drain from her face in seconds. It matched the feeling of blinding terror in Anna's gut perfectly.

"I know this really sounds bad," she said frantically, forcing the words out and shattering the undeclared silence between them, "but hang on, before you get angry – please don't get angry – I have to tell you that it actually all makes sense, no, really. It all started about a week ago, when I was-"

"What?" Elsa gasped.

"-alone and then I heard Kai and-"

"There is a story behind this?" Elsa fairly choked on the words. Oh God she wasn't listening. This was bad, this was beyond bad. Anna sped up, desperate to make her understand.

"-doctor's conversation and I'm sorry, but I had to and then I found this device and thought-"

Elsa looked like she was watching someone die right in front of her. It wasn't half-wrong. "Are you actually trying to suggest that, that there is a, a…a logical progression from not having a doorknob inside of you, to having a doorknob in your vagina?"

She turned to Anna, eyes and empty hands begging in silent bewilderment. "And it's MY doorknob?!"

"I was just thinking about you the entire time!" Anna blurted out.

If not for the fact that every muscle in her body had immediately tensed she would have punched herself in the face. Anna could practically see the mental gears shudder to a stop and emit smoke as Elsa's face lost what color it had left. Neither of them moved an inch. Elsa didn't say anything, which was good, because Anna was too busy screaming internally to hear a single word.

Her sister's mouth flopped open and moved up and down in a crude imitation of speech. No sound came out. Anna's chest was too tight to manage more than shallow, gasping breaths as the two of them stared at each other in wordless horror. Anna had learned not to believe in the power of prayer long ago, but that didn't stop her from silently begging God to strike her dead on the spot. Preferably with an actual lightning bolt. At least if she was just a darkened smear on the bed Elsa wouldn't have to put up with her anymore.

"…Anna?" Elsa's voice cracked on the high note. She lifted her hands and stopped, falling limp again, like a puppet with her strings cut. She brought her hands up, clutching uselessly at empty air, stricken. She took a deep breath and dropped her face into her hands, which had begun to tremble. "Anna," she mumbled, her voice muffled by her palms, "please…please tell me you weren't thinking about me when you were…abusing yourself."

"But I wasn't abusing myself!" If she was going to Hell, she wasn't going to do it with her sister disgusted in her. There was punishment and then there was eternal damnation. "I was testing out the hammer – they call it a vibrator, I think – to see if it was safe and worked better than just manual stimulation and would give someone, meaning you, a paroxysm, and hey, wow, let me tell you that i-and that it would then cure you of your illness and then we could be friends again." If she said it all in one breath it had to be true, right? Oh please let it be right.

"…that…" Elsa scrubbed her face with her palms. "But that…that almost makes sens-" She dropped her hands and looked at Anna. "What are you talking about?"

Anna searched her face, but for once Elsa's was wide open and filled to the brim with honest confusion. "You have, um, an illness. That requires curing." Shouldn't she already know that?

Anna suddenly realized she'd never found out if the doctor had told her sister about his diagnosis. That kind of made things worse in an impossible way, because things were already pretty bad. As in infinitely bad.

Elsa swallowed. There was an emotion covering her face that Anna had never seen before. It looked almost like guilt, tinged with a strange sense of regret that made no sense to her. How could she be feeling guilty when it was Anna who was currently wishing she could crawl into the deepest, darkest hole that had ever been made and never see the light of day again?

"And just what illness is that?" Elsa asked, her voice rough. She cleared her throat, looking down at her hands.

"Feminine hysteria. You know, your…your illness."

"Feminine what?" Elsa asked, perplexed.

Oh God so the doctor hadn't even told her. And now Anna had to explain what it meant. She had to explain, to her older sister, who was definitely of marrying age, what it was like to…to…

"It's…it's an illness," she said. She was not thinking about those diagrams. She was not thinking about Elsa touching herself. She was not thinking about what she had just done. She had all the knowledge and know-how to explain things calmly and clearly. She was going to describe it in the most clinical, most neutral way possible.

"It's an illness where you have to touch yourself between the legs to get better."

…damnit.

Elsa's eyes were as big as saucers. "That's…wait, what?"

"Your doctor ordered you a Granville device for it. That's…that's how you know about it, right?"

Elsa stared at her. "You mean my hand massager?"

Anna actually felt a part of herself shrivel up and die.

Elsa kept talking while Anna strangled on thin air, wracked in agony just feet from her. "I just…I had thought maybe if I tried something ne-…" She stopped abruptly and glanced at Anna out of the corner of her eye. "I had complained to the doctor," she said, enunciating each word with care, "of a…pain in my hand, and he thought it might be tendonitis brought on from excessive writing, and suggested that massaging my hand would help. I rejected that because…well, what I mean to say is, I didn't believe that that would be enough, or I would have been fine already because I can certainly massage my own hands, so recently he suggested that I try a Granville device."

"…as a hand massager?" Anna croaked.

Her sister's hands were always covered in those damn gloves. She never let anyone near them.

"She would never allow it…especially there."

Just…just why…

"Wait…" Elsa paused. "Feminine hysteria…that's…I've heard of that. Our old doctor discussed it with me, once, because I'd read…well, I'd read something, and thought that maybe, well…"

Maybe there was a glimmer of hope.

"He said it wasn't a real illness because it was far too vague a collection of symptoms, and that time would prove him right."

Maybe there was no hope for her at all.

"Anna, did you…did you think it was real?"

"I thought a lot of things," Anna said weakly. She stared down at her useless hands in her lap. "I thought…I thought if you had it then…then it'd explain why you never wanted to be with me."

Elsa stilled. She didn't speak.

"And I thought that…if I repaired the machine then…you could be treated and it'd make things better. But I wasn't sure if it'd work. So I just…I tested it on myself so I could see if it would. On you. So you'd get better."

Anna's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry I'm such an idiot."

"Anna…" Elsa said, drawing in a deep breath.

Anna tensed, waiting for the lecture which she surely deserved.

"…that is the most perverse, kindest thing anyone has ever done for me."

Anna stared at her sister, who sent her a shaky, hesitant smile. She couldn't help it: she started to smile too, until the both of them were grinning, albeit self-consciously, at one another. She couldn't remember the last time they'd done that. It felt too good to be real. "You're…you're not mad at me?"

"How could I be?" Elsa asked, shrugging. "You just…you were doing it for me, right?"

"Yeah but…" Anna decided that if she wasn't going to pick the best time to shut up she'd at least pick this time.

They were quiet for a time, Anna leaning against her bedpost, Elsa sitting beside the machine, neither saying anything as they thought. For once the silence was companionable, not awkward. Well, it was still tinged with awkwardness, but in a good way, in a way that meant that Elsa wasn't mad at her for being a dunce.

Elsa's long fingers tapped against her bicep. "So…so it's stuck inside you?" she asked, glancing at the wires.

"Yeah," Anna mumbled. She knew the moment wouldn't last.

"Could you pull it out by the wires?"

"No, because it'd…it'd probably just rip the wires off, and they're kind of sharp, so…" Anna said. The other woman instantly flinched, pressing her legs together tightly.

"Okay," she said. "So, that's…that's not going to work. Um. Have you tried, uh, your…your fingers?"

Anna nodded miserably.

"And that didn't work?"

"It's too deep."

Elsa's eyes grew round. "Oh…it's that…oh dear."

Anna nodded again.

Elsa was looking at the floor.

The only solution remained unspoken, but neither of them were brave enough to mention it yet.

"You're…have you tried um…using something else…to get it out?"

Anna tried not to shudder. "Like what?" She couldn't imagine what and was quite glad for that.

Elsa winced. "Ah, I guess…no, that wouldn't work either."

The silence returned, thicker this time, heavier on their shoulders. At least they'd both had years to grow accustomed to the burden.

Elsa finally voiced what both of them had been thinking: "I think…I think you need someone else to ah, pull it out."

"Or I could just leave it in there," Anna said immediately. That was a better option. Anything was a better option. Maybe she'd give birth to a nice, healthy door in nine months.

"No, you can't just give up-okay, but…you must understand, Anna. This isn't something that we can let too many people know about," Elsa said, entirely unnecessarily. Even if the servants were generally discreet, as queen-to-be she had to think about her reputation. A mishap like this could be blown entirely out of proportion, turned from an innocent misunderstanding into something far cruder. "No one, actually," she decided as Anna's stomach dropped out of her. "So. Who else knows about this?"

"About the machine?" Anna said, her voice very small. She could still hold onto hope that had Elsa meant that. "I mean, there's the doctor and Ka-"

"No, Anna, I mean-" Elsa waved a hand in her general direction. "About this."

Anna looked at her. And kept looking.

Elsa's face dropped into that terrified, broken look again. "Oh…oh no."

Elsa had insisted upon locking the door. She had to be convinced by her sister that no, she couldn't drag the wardrobe in front of it, either. She probably didn't have the strength for it, and Anna was currently deposed.

Elsa turned away from the door, breathing hard and leaning against it as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Okay." She hugged herself briefly and let go. "Okay."

Anna stopped herself before she could ask if they were really going to do this. She'd asked it often enough earlier while Elsa stared off into space, practically radiating embarrassment and terror.

"I just…" Elsa drew a hand over her mouth. "Okay, we'll, don't worry, we'll get through this, we'll…we'll be fine, so long as you don't panic," she said.

"Um." Anna looked between herself and the suitcase. She looked back at her sister. "I'm not panicking." Not anymore, at least. The worst thing that could possibly happen had already happened, so she wasn't panicking. Scared out of her wits, sure, but…

"I wasn't talking to you," Elsa snapped testily before making an apologetic gesture and blowing out a huge breath. She resembled a criminal being lead to the gallows; anxious and flighty but desperate to pull herself together and see this to the end.

She came back to the bed and sat down, her hands scrunching up her dress and marring the fabric.

"How…how are we going to do this?"

"Um, well, I could-" Anna decided her mouth had done enough damage for today and just spoke with her actions, starting to pull her dress up.

Elsa's hand shot to hers, covering it. "No. No. Just…" She released Anna's hand, which felt strangely cold at the loss. "I couldn't-I'd really rather not look."

"Well how else are you going to do it?" If she couldn't see what she was doing…?

"I don't…I guess somehow use gravity to help…somehow…?" Elsa floundered, unable to turn the idea into a reality.

Using gravity…

Well, there was one way she could do it.

Anna looked down into Elsa's startled eyes as she slung one leg over her, losing her balance and grabbing for Elsa's shoulder. Thankfully, her sister understood what she was trying to do, and shifted back on the bed, pulling Anna closer until she was settled on Elsa's lap, her arms hanging over her shoulders.

Anna tried not to squirm, even though her insides were crawling already. This was actually happening. "Would this work?"

Elsa wasn't looking at her when she nodded. There was a muscle going in her cheek that made Anna acutely conscious of their situation. She was very glad for the locked door, now. If anyone saw them like this they might assume things. Certain very wrong things.

Elsa's hand moved beneath her skirts and Anna braced herself, but it was Elsa who jumped at the first touch.

"Oh, you're…you're not wearing any…" she said. Her glove felt sinfully soft against the inside of Anna's thigh.

"Well, yeah…?" That's what the book had said. The book that was wrong, as wrong as Elsa's touch. But while she could curse the former she certainly wasn't rejecting the latter. "I had to take them off for earlier."

"So all this time you've been…"

"Y-yeah."

Elsa's eyes shot to hers for a split second before jumping away again.

"Okay just…"

Elsa's finger brushed the wires, making Anna's stomach flip in anticipation. She should be scared; what if this didn't work? Instead she found herself oddly excited.

She definitely couldn't tell Elsa that. What would she think of Anna then?

At the first touch of her sister's fingers against her outer lips Anna tensed.

"Am I hurting you?" Elsa asked instantly. Her voice was thick, like she was speaking through a fog. She was not looking at Anna but rather at the dip in her collarbone as Anna swallowed and shivered. The touch was hesitant and slow. Unfortunately for her that was what Anna apparently preferred.

That explained why she could already feel herself growing wet.

"No, I just…oh that…it actually feels…it actually feels pretty good." Elsa's exploration mimicked her earlier movements; nervous, gentle, and surprisingly cold. She sucked in a breath and held it when the first finger entered her.

"It…it feels good?" Elsa's voice didn't sound like her own. It was detached from her, like someone else was speaking, someone Anna had never known before.

"Yeah just…I don't know what you're doing but…sorry, I'm making this more awkward."

There was a silence as Elsa pushed her finger up inside of her and Anna's hands clutched hard at her sister's shoulders.

A second finger joined the first, slipping easily through the dampness.

"Tell me how it feels," Elsa rasped.

"What-?" Of all the questions to ask, why would she…? "I, but-"

"Tell me," Elsa said, through gritted teeth, "how it feels. I need-" She cut herself off. "I need to know if I've got it or not."

That made sense. It was perfectly logical. It was Anna who was interpreting it wrong; Elsa hadn't meant it like that.

"Ah, no, you haven't yet. Um, maybe a little deeper…?"

"Deeper," Elsa repeated. She sounded drunk. She tilted her head back, but her eyes were shut so tightly Anna wasn't sure she could ever open them again. The same muscle in her cheek was flexing again.

Anna bit her tongue against a groan when Elsa moved deeper inside of her. For someone who had never done this before Elsa was pretty consistently hitting spots that made her want to push her hips down, seeking out more of the pleasure that accompanied her touch.

The edge of Elsa's palm grazed the sensitive bud just above her entrance and Anna bucked instantly, gasping.

"Tell me how it feels," Elsa whispered.

"That didn't hurt, don't worry about i-"

"How does it feel?" Elsa hissed. Her eyes were still closed.

"It feels good," Anna said, giving in to her demand and answering truthfully. "It…it feels…oh please, I-I'm sorry, it just, it makes me feel like begging…"

"Begging," Elsa whined. "Oh, it…" Her fingers didn't stop moving, inching forward, deeper inside. This time it was her thumb that accidentally stroked her and Anna gasped, unable to stop herself from shoving her hips forward, forcing Elsa's fingers deep inside.

"I've got it," Elsa choked out. She was right: Anna could feel the metal being nudged. Every time Elsa flexed her fingers to try and draw the doorknob closer Anna had to bite back another breathy plea.

Elsa did…something…with her fingers that made Anna's hands bear down on her shoulders even harder. She tried to let go because surely she was hurting her sister, but she couldn't release her, not when Elsa was doing that.

"Does that hurt?"

"No-o-!" She couldn't stop. "It's good, so good, I-"

Anna struggled to clamp down on the rising tide of heat, forcing it aside to concentrate on the sensations and not the pleasure they produced. Elsa was counting on her to describe how things were progressing, not to lose herself in the feelings. Elsa was, for the first time, completely focused upon her sister, and Anna couldn't just ignore that because it felt too good.

Elsa was…

Elsa was trembling.

It had started so slowly that Anna hadn't even been aware of it, but the harder she gripped her shoulders the more she felt it. Her shoulders were shaking, her other hand at Anna's back jittering over her dress. Only her touch inside of her was steady and sure.

She stared down at Elsa's face, drawn as tight as a bowstring, her eyes still closed in adamant refusal to look at her sister.

She was disgusted by this. She was disgusted by the whole ordeal, by her sister, by the touch, and Anna had forced her to do this out of a sense of duty that beat inside Elsa's chest like a second heart, reminding the heir to the throne of her responsibilities. This was a horrible idea, a horrible idea that was the culmination of other horrible ideas.

Elsa shook beneath her and Anna, distraught, tried to pull away. Her selfish needs weren't worth this.

The hand at her back tightened suddenly, forcing her forward, the arm drawing her close up against Elsa's chest, locking her in a cage so strong Anna was left gasping in shock. She staggered forward, trying to maintain her balance, her knees shaking as her hands clutched at Elsa's neck, desperate for purchase.

Elsa's fingers twisted, and Anna made a high-pitched noise as the pleasure swamped her. Elsa moved her fingers again, mercilessly, the metal twisting in response, and Anna's fingernails bit into her sister's cheeks when her thumb grazed that spot and then quite deliberately pressed down.

Her chest heaved and spasmed as she fought to breathe without giving up any more needy, breathy sounds.

"Elsa, oh-what are-"

Elsa opened her eyes, and Anna was nearly overcome with awe.

In the depths of her sister's sky blue eyes was a darkness that howled.

It was a maelstrom locked up in a cage that strained to hold it, a soundless roar of sheer power imprisoned, a god chained to a rock, writhing in agony, a falling star tempered with denial and rejection into a white-hot mass that rolled in a boiling sea that screamed against the bars. It was like she had opened a window into Elsa's cracked and trembling soul, and only Anna was there to bear witness to it in all its glory.

It was the most beautiful, most terrifying thing she'd ever seen.

She couldn't see anything else besides those eyes, those eyes which held her, locked in their spell as Elsa worked her magic with her hands, making Anna move with her, closer, their lips inches away as they panted.

They were close enough to kiss. It was a delirious notion, brought on by her sister's actions and her unwilling, her willing responses. It was utterly mad, sick, and twisted.

She had never craved anything so badly in her life as Elsa's kiss.

Suddenly she realized something.

Elsa had let go of her back.

She kept her eyes on her younger sister as her hand settled upon the first dial.

And twisted it savagely to the right.

Anna let out a cry and jerked as the electricity shot through the wires, through the metal, through her body and sending shocks of pleasure rolling up her body. The respite had turned the previously irritating stimulation into something that was so intense she could barely breathe.

Elsa was panting now, her throat shuddering as she gasped for air while Anna clutched at her face, needing to hold something, needing to hold her, needing needing needing and Elsa was right there, her hand supporting Anna again as she stroked the doorknob against that one spot inside of her that made her feel like her body couldn't contain all this feeling, would bleed out at the seams as she died over and over again.

There was a spring inside of her that was twisting and twisting, the coiled energy hissing with a promise that Elsa delivered with each sure, practiced stroke of the metal against her inside until she could take no more.

Anna sobbed as her second paroxysm ripped through her, tearing her to pieces.

But for once, Elsa was there, holding her close, stroking her hair and whispering something that Anna couldn't hear but could feel against her ear as she pressed herself into Elsa's neck and wailed until she ran out of breath, until she was spent and limp.

Their bodies fit together in a way that their persons never had, not for a very long time, but Anna could be glad to have this one moment where she could be weak and Elsa would hold her and keep her from breaking. The exhaustion that hung from her bones was a reminder of how tiring it was to be without that gentle but sure embrace, and for what felt like hours Anna couldn't move and Elsa wouldn't give her up, so they stayed together, their breath merging and blending in the quiet.

Elsa shifted, and Anna sighed; it had to end. It always did. It always ended with Elsa walking away, the shape of her proud, straight back, a queen before her time, more familiar than her face. She braced herself as best she could for the inevitable.

Anna made a small noise of surprise when Elsa's hand settled upon her back again and she felt herself being tipped gracefully, as though they were dancing, onto the bed. Elsa looked down at her, Anna looked up, and there was…there was a smile on Elsa's face. A real, honest to God smile. She lifted her hand: she was holding the glistening doorknob.

"Why did you…" Anna was utterly stunned. That had been beyond amazing but had Elsa actually intended…?

"Stimulation produces wetness, which made it easier to pull it out," Elsa informed her as she tossed the doorknob to the side.

That sort of made sense. Once again, Elsa was being logical while Anna was just being dirty.

"Feeling better?" her sister asked.

Anna giggled, tilting her head back against the bedsheets. She hummed in satisfaction, stretching out, her eyes sinking closed as her body sang in tired bliss. "So much better," she drawled, turning her head to see Elsa's smile grow wider as she lay beside her sister, her reflection from across the bed.

Anna grabbed Elsa's hand without thinking, wanting to hold onto this moment in any way she could, starting a little upon finding the glove damp. She sniggered as she realized why Elsa's glove was wet; she didn't usually think of hand-holding as lewd, but this certainly counted.

Elsa held her back. Anna beamed brighter than the Sun.

"I'm glad," Elsa said quietly. She had not lost her smile. It made her look younger by a whole lifetime.

This was the closest they'd ever been in years, so close that Anna could hold her hand, could look in her eyes, could share something special with her sister that no one else in the world could. This was the most the palace, this room, had ever felt like a true home.

So of course Anna then did something that was very stupid.

"You want to know something funny?" she asked, biting her lip.

Elsa brought herself closer, smiling mischievously, the look of a sister who was about to be let in on a close secret. "Oh?" If not for what had just transpired Anna would believe they were girls again, giggling as they recounted their pranks of the past day before planning more for the next to the future woe of their parents.

Anna grinned, leaning her head against the sheets, eyes falling half shut in warm, fuzzy pleasure. She stroked a thumb over Elsa's gloved hand. "If I had known this was what it took to get you here…" She chuckled. "I'd have gotten hurt years ago."

Elsa's smile died so quickly it was if Anna had shot her in the heart.

She sat up without a word and Anna tried to do the same, her arms weak from passion, from regret, the shock of loss staining what had been a happy moment. "Wait, Elsa-!" She barely made it to one elbow when Elsa stood, her back as straight as a pole. Anna clutched at her but Elsa drew her hand away with such ferocity it felt like a blow.

She saw now, the shiver in Elsa's shoulders that spoke of a heavy strain, one that she could not alleviate or soothe or even understand, try as she might. She was only human, only Anna.

Her sister was a shattered statue that stooped to pick up its pieces, staggering on broken legs to the door. Her flight took years. It had lasted more.

She stopped at the door, laying a hand on the knob. She unlocked it with a sharp, jerky motion.

"I'm glad you're feeling better." Anna recoiled; Elsa's clipped, soulless words, directed not at her but at the door struck her that much harder, spoken as they were by the same woman who had been, for the smallest moment, there for her. "I suggest you refrain from using that device in the future."

"Elsa, please…" She was struggling not to cry, the devastation rattling around in her chest. "Don't go, I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I…"

It didn't matter. Nothing ever did.

Elsa pulled open the door, just like she had so many years ago.

She had looked back, then.

She did not look back now.

The door closed behind her with a gentle click that echoed and rebounded with a ringing finality, the brief connection between them severed so neatly it was as if it hadn't ever been there at all.

Anna sank back into the cold sheets, trembling, fighting back tears.

This time there was no afterglow.