Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Elsa, in all her pale, white-haired, blue-shirted, hand-shaking, sweating glory, stood outside a house. It wasn’t just any house, mind you. It was an expensive, sprawling sort of house. The sort of house with stucco covered brick, and big windows to let in a lot of light.

It was also the sort of house where the climbing plants up the side had gotten under the roofing tiles. It was the sort of house where the stucco was flaking off, where heavy curtains were shut against the afternoon sun.

It was also, in theory, Elsa’s house. That was why Elsa’s hands trembled and her legs felt weak. It was why she was sorely tempted to just turn around a leave and continue to never come back.

On the other hand, she’d just ‘graduated’ from the boarding school and what else was she supposed to do with no money? Move north and get a job? That sounded like a good idea. Maybe she could move to Canada or something. People were friendly in Canada, right?

Elsa poked the doorbell before her brain could carry her away.

Clearly no one was home though. A second was more than enough time to wait for someone to open the door, surely. There was no need for her to stand there like an idiot waiting for someone to answer the door when the house was clearly empty.

On the other hand, it was technically, a little bit, her house, so… did she even need to knock? Should she go and check under that very dead flowerpot for the spare key? Where had that pot been, anyway?

The door was opened by a girl, shorter than Elsa and vastly more red-haired than Elsa. She had bags under her eyes and freckles dotted her skin and she stared at Elsa. She stared very hard at Elsa.

‘Um… hi… Anna,’ Elsa said, giving a little wave like an absolute buffoon.

‘Elsa?’ Anna stared. ‘ELSA!’ Anna fairly leapt on Elsa, almost knocking the unprepared older girl over. Anna wrapped herself around Elsa and held tight. Elsa blushed, her body flushed with heat. She awkwardly patted Anna on the back.

Before she could say anything, Anna pulled back, sliding her hands down Elsa’s arms. ‘It’s soooo good to see you, Elsa,’ Anna said, taking Elsa’s hands.

Elsa blushed harder. Her arms tingled. Her body felt warm.

‘Come in,’ Anna said, pulling Elsa toward the door. ‘Come in, come in.’

Elsa let herself be pulled in the door. ‘It’s good to see you again, too, Anna,’ she said. ‘It’s um… I’m sorry I didn’t like… call ahead or anything.’

Anna shook her head a lot, letting go of one of Elsa’s hands to pull the door shut. ‘No, no, no,’ Anna said. ‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it.’

Elsa managed a little smile. ‘I’m um… sorry?’

Anna grinned and wrapped Elsa in a hug again. ‘No you’re not,’ she said. ‘I’m not sorry they’re dead. About fucking time.’ Anna’s hands rubbed up and down Elsa’s back.

That warmth was building in Elsa’s body, her hands were trembling. Anna’s hand ran up Elsa’s back and Elsa shivered. Her hand ran up to the back of Elsa’s neck and Anna leaned back just a little and went up on her toes.

Elsa’s breath hitched. She was sure she should do something. She needed to stop this, but she couldn’t quite make her body move. Anna leaned in and pressed her lips to Elsa’s.

Anna’s lips were soft and warm, her body was soft and warm. Her hand was firm and felt like fire on the back of Elsa’s neck. Elsa’s whole body felt like fire. Her hands were shaking, her legs were shaking. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

But finally, Elsa made her body move. It felt like it had been an hour, felt like a week or a month. Elsa’s body felt glacial as she reached up to put her hands on Anna’s shoulders. Elsa pushed Anna away and her breath hitched. It felt like some great loss, it felt like some great betrayal. It felt like Elsa had failed.

‘When he sleeps naked under a thin blanket, does the monk’s body become less eroticised, I wonder?’ Anna smiled and pulled away. She winked, turned on her heel and wandered into the living room.

‘Spare bedroom’s made up,’ Anna called back. ‘It’s where your old room was.’

***

Even though their parents had left them quite a lot of money, along with the house, Elsa decided to get a job in a café. She also enrolled in a cooking class at the local community college because.

Anna came home from hanging out with friends or something, it was summer break, to find Elsa in the kitchen. On this particular day, Elsa was teaching herself how to make puff pastry from scratch.

Anna sat at the dining table. The kitchen, dining room and living room were conjoined, so Elsa could see Anna sitting there, watching her like a hawk. She tried to ignore it. She tried to ignore the way her mind flashed to the sensation of Anna’s soft, warm lips.

After all, Elsa was eighteen and Anna was fifteen. Also, they were sisters. Basically the whole thing was wrong. Even so, Elsa hadn’t dared to raise the issue with Anna. She hadn’t dared to talk about it lest she think about it for even a moment and get herself worked up or something.

And here she was, thinking around it as she felt herself flush. Here she was, trying not to think about it and getting worked up. After all: sleeping naked under that thin blanket had never worked for the monk.

Elsa folded up the pastry, wrapped it, and put it in the fridge. Anna was right behind her when she turned around. The only space between them was a bouquet of red roses.

‘Oh,’ Elsa said, blushing harder.

‘Yes.’ Anna pressed the flowers against Elsa’s chest. ‘As a thank you for... being here, I guess. Also for cooking so much. And for, you know...’ Anna wiggled her eyebrows.

Elsa took the flowers. ‘That’s um...’ Her mouth was dry, her heart was beating faster than she would have liked. ‘That’s really nice of you, Anna.’ She spotted a card in the bouquet.

The card said ‘Love you. How’s that thin blanket treating you?’

Anna leaned in to kiss Elsa on the cheek. Elsa flushed again, opened her mouth to say something and stuttered. ‘I... I... Anna... you shouldn’t...’

Anna smiled. ‘Sure thing, monk. Just a sisterly kiss.’

Anna retreated to the dining table as Elsa searched for a vase to put the roses in. She tried not to think of any of the bouquets of red roses she’d been given before. She tried not to think about what red roses meant. But her blush didn’t fade.

‘Were you allowed to get flowers in heaven?’ Anna asked, playing with her hair.

‘I...’ Elsa took a moment to pour some water into the vase and take deep breaths and fail to calm down. ‘Yes. The boys were allowed to give us flowers.’

Anna smiled. ‘No flowers from any girls, then?’

‘No, that wasn’t allowed.’

Anna nodded. ‘I’ll get you more flowers, in that case,’ she said.

‘Um...’

***

The dining table was starting to fill up with flowers. The kitchen counter already had too many. It was approaching the middle of the summer holidays, and had only been two weeks since Anna gave Elsa those red roses.

Almost every day Anna went out with some friends that Elsa never met, and came back with another bouquet of flowers. It wasn’t always red roses, either. There had been some white roses and some orange roses. But there had also been an orchid, some white and purple lilies, some carnations, some tulips, even some white and pink crocuses.

Almost all of the notes had read ‘From a girl to a girl. It’s allowed.’

Anna hadn’t kissed her on the cheek again since the bouquet of red roses. But she hadn’t had to kiss Elsa at all achieve the apparently desired effect of Elsa blushing furiously and starting to stutter.

***

Three days before Anna’s sixteenth birthday, Elsa started making the cake. Or she started on one of several cakes that she had decided to make so that Anna had options. Elsa was sure that Anna was too skinny, Elsa was sure that Elsa was too skinny.

Anna sat down at the dining table. They spent a fair amount of time like this. Elsa spent a lot of time in the kitchen, teaching herself to make all kinds of pastries and sweets. Anna spent a lot of time at the dining table, playing on her phone or her laptop or talking to Elsa.

‘What do you want for your birthday, Anna?’ Elsa asked, turning on the stand mixer. They weren’t quite as loud as food processors.

‘You.’

‘No.’ Elsa blushed a little, but not nearly as much as she would have when she arrived a couple of months ago.

‘A kiss.’ Anna smiled. ‘From you.’

Elsa flushed a little harder as she thought about it. For whatever nonsense reason, it felt slightly less weird if Anna was sixteen. Anna was still her sister. Elsa also got wildly flustered any time Anna showed affection. Though that seemed fair, given the context.

At length, the stand mixer having gone far too long, Elsa nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘Sweet.’ Anna did a fist-pump and everything. ‘Thank you. Can I give you a hug?’

Elsa stared at Anna for a second before remembering to turn the mixer off. ‘Um, sure,’ she said. She tried to remember if Anna had actually asked consent before. She should probably talk to Anna about consent at some point.

Anna got up and gave Elsa a careful hug. It was kind of nice and Elsa flushed as she felt Anna’s warmth against her, but that was to be expected. It wasn’t the kind of aggressive affection that Anna usually displayed.

Anna kissed her on the cheek and giggled. Elsa flushed harder and frowned at Anna. ‘Couldn’t resist,’ Anna said. She grinned. ‘I’m so excited for my birthday. I’m getting a kiss from a monk, that’s gotta be special or something.’ She slid back into her seat at the table. ‘Do you think I’ll turn into a monk if you kiss me?’

‘I… I don’t think it works like that,’ Elsa muttered, dumping the overworked batter into a cake pan anyway.

‘Is it like being a werewolf, only spread by bite?’

Elsa blushed hard enough that her vision fizzled at the edges.

‘Ooh.’

Elsa knew what Anna was about to excitedly proclaim before she said anything.

‘For chistmas I want you to bite me.’

Elsa took a deep breath and sighed, massively.

***

On the day of her sixteenth birthday, Anna proclaimed that she was going to see a film with her friends and left mid-morning, which suited Elsa anyway. She still had three cakes to finish and a birthday present to try to prepare for.

Instead of mentally preparing herself, Elsa made three types of icing, then some meringue roses, then some candied rose petals. Then she wondered if that would come across as way too romantic, tried eating one of the petals and threw the rest out.

Elsa sat around fidgeting for a bit before an idea occurred to her. It certainly wasn’t a less romantic idea than giving someone candied rose petals.

Anna got home from the film at about three in the afternoon. She was slightly sweaty, what with the blistering heat outside, and she was so fucking excited that she hadn’t slept more than four hours in the last three days.

Anna took a deep breath, she needed to be chill. She was the chill one. She would be chill about this. ‘I’m just going to wash up,’ she called to Elsa, or at least to the noises in the kitchen. ‘Just be a minute.’

Anna rushed upstairs, rinsed her face, then wiped off the minimal, but wildly smudged, makeup. Should she apply more? Should she use that dark lipstick that stained everything? Did she even still have that?

‘Anna, the cakes are ready?’ Elsa called.

Cakes? Anna was pretty sure she remembered talk of cakes. She still hadn’t expected there to be multiple cakes somehow. She decided not to put on any makeup and just hope that Elsa would still find her flustering without it.

Anna rushed into the loungeroom and stopped dead. There was Elsa, standing between the lounge set and the dining table. Elsa was wearing a light-blue, fit and flare sort of summer dress with a white, frilly apron over it. She looked stunning as ever.

More important: Elsa was holding a bouquet of white and red roses.

‘Ah – Are those for me?’ Anna stuttered. Fuck. Wasn’t she supposed to be the chill one?

Elsa nodded, and blushed furiously, and it was cute as hell. Elsa took the couple of steps to reach her and handed over the bouquet. There was a note that said ‘happy birthday’ which was weirdly disappointing.

Until Elsa took a deep breath, blushed scarlet, leaned in and kissed Anna on the lips. Not quite a peck, not quite not a peck. If Anna had been a cartoon character, she would have melted into a puddle.

‘Alright,’ Elsa said, blushing so hard she might have caught fire. ‘Come and eat some cakes.’

Chapter Text

‘My love, it’s October,’ Anna announced, arriving at the dining table.

‘Correct.’ Elsa didn’t turn from the stovetop, where she was cooking eggs.

‘You know what that means?’ Anna prodded.

‘The Devil is upon us once again,’ Elsa said. ‘Come to trick our good christian children into performing satanic rituals.’

‘Oh yeah, guess so.’

Elsa brought breakfast over to the table, bacon and eggs on toast. ‘Or were you talking about Halloween?’

Anna perked up. ‘I was indeed talking about the Devil’s holiday, my love,’ Anna said, shovelling slightly more egg and bacon into her mouth than could fit. ‘We should do Halloween stuff. We’re finally free.’

Elsa frowned vaguely in Anna’s direction. ‘I don’t know what Halloween stuff is, now that I’m thinking about it. I know there’s carved pumpkins and candy. But that’s about it.’

‘No Halloween in heaven, then?’ Anna masticated.

Elsa gave that little huff that was kind of like a laugh but not really a laugh. ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘Too much like satanism for us.’

Anna shoved the rest of breakfast into her mouth. ‘Can I give you a hug? Off to school hug?’

Elsa shrugged. ‘Sure, as long as you keep your mouth closed while you do it.’

Anna grinned and eggs leaked out the side of her mouth.

She gave Elsa a quick hug, and it didn’t make Elsa’s heart race as much as it had done a few months ago. She still felt guilty about enjoying physical affection, from anyone, but not as guilty.

‘Alright, I’m off,’ Anna shouted through her breakfast. ‘Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ Elsa called. Then she blushed. Then she went and lay, face down, on the couch. She took deep breaths and her heart raced. Surely that wasn’t the first time she’d told Anna that she loved her? But it might have been.

And here came the spirit of Halloween past to punch her with memories for a bit. Some googling had suggested that Elsa might have PTSD, but she preferred, in this moment, to think of it as a spirit come to torment her. Probably the holy spirit or something.

She remembered a skinny man, probably in his late 20s, telling a roomful of children ‘god loves you’ and holding a hand up to his ear. She remembered chanting, along with all her fellow sinners, ‘and we love god’.

Elsa remembered a girl, fifteen, same age as she had been, whispering ‘I think I love you’ in the quiet darkness of the dorm. Elsa remembered whispering ‘I think I love you too.’

Elsa remembered a skinny man, into his mid-thirties by now, saying ‘god loves her, and she is with him now.’

Anna woke her sister by climbing onto the couch with her and wrapping Elsa in as many limbs as she could manage. Elsa stirred, sniffled, and looked up. Her eyes were red, her cheeks were puffy, her hair was messed up.

‘What’s the sign over the mouth of hell say, Anna?’ Elsa sniffled.

Anna held her tighter. “I too was created with eternal Love.”

Elsa pressed her face into Anna’s collar. ‘You ever think about what made us?’

‘All the time,’ Anna said. ‘But they’re quite dead now.’ Anna kissed Elsa on the ear. ‘Everyone except you.’

Elsa took a deep breath through her nose, which was distinct from sniffing Anna but had the same effect. Anna smelled like a teenaged girl who didn’t use much deodorant and also did some sports.

‘Not for me,’ Elsa said. ‘Not all of them.’

‘If you tell me his name, I’ll go and murder him for you,’ Anna coaxed.

‘Hans Western or something,’ Elsa said. ‘Westin? Whatever. Don’t worry about it. I’ll go get some cake.’

‘No.’ Anna gave her a firm look and started disentangling herself. ‘I will get the cake. You stay here.’

Anna turned on the heater as she passed.

***

‘We should watch a scary movie,’ Anna said. ‘In honour of the Devil.’

‘Disagree,’ Elsa said. ‘I’m very soft.’

Anna gave her a hug. ‘Not that soft, you should eat more cake.’

Elsa snorted. ‘I’m working on it, dear. Why not watch a nice movie?’

‘Don’t be afraid, my love,’ Anna said, squeezing her slightly too tight, for effect. ‘I will keep you safe.’

Elsa sighed. ‘Sure. Let me get some cookies first.’

‘Yes! Let’s do it. I get to pick the movie.’

Elsa got up to retrieve a tupperware of caramel cookies she’d made. She was working on caramel and chocolate at the moment with plans to make her own candies by the time Halloween arrived.

She put the open container on the coffee table and slumped back down onto the couch. Anna leaned against her, and it was kind of nice. ‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’ Elsa picked a cookie out of the tin.

Anna hit play and picked up a cookie.

About forty minutes later, Anna was sitting in Elsa’s lap, hiding her face in Elsa’s collar as Elsa frowned mildly at the screen. ‘I don’t get why the christians don’t like this sort of stuff,’ Elsa said. ‘Dude’s hunting down teens for having sex. Seems like exactly the sort of thing the parents would have liked.’

Anna squeezed her tighter. ‘Don’t talk about them while I’m already freaking out,’ she said. ‘I don’t need any more nightmares than I already have.’

Elsa squeezed Anna tighter, rubbing her back in slow circles. ‘Sorry, Anna,’ she said. ‘It’s just… whatever. You have nightmares?’

‘Of course I have nightmares, idiot,’ Anna mumbled into her neck. ‘You may have been stuck in heaven, but I was stuck here with them.’

Elsa leaned them both forward to pick up the remote and turn off the TV. Then she went back to rubbing Anna’s back. ‘That’s… I’m sorry, Anna.’

‘What are you sorry for?’ Anna mumbled. ‘You didn’t run away. You got thrown away. You’re basically… you died, Elsa.’

‘I what?’

‘You… I have this dream… nightmare… where we… you know? But… but then you’re getting loaded into this van by big men in white clothes and like, medical masks. And the van drives away and I can hear you screaming and screaming. And then a choking noise and then you’re silent.’

‘It’s ok, Anna,’ Elsa said, rubbing her back and holding her tighter. ‘I’m still alive, I didn’t die.’

Anna sniffled. ‘No, you don’t... you don’t get it, Elsa, you died. You... they told me you were sick, right?’ Anna kissed Elsa on the side of the neck and Elsa shivered but she didn’t do anything, not yet. ‘They sent you away to get better and then... and then they just stopped talking about you. They stopped acknowledging that you even existed. You died.’

Anna kissed her on the neck again and the kiss was damp. ‘Anna, stop it.’

‘It was like...’ Anna sniffled and leaned away to look Elsa in the eyes. Anna’s eyes were red and puffy and watering, and her cheeks glistened with tears. ‘Elsa, it was like... it was like I killed you. I...’

Elsa reached up to wipe at Anna’s tears. Anna leaned forward and Elsa tensed as her sister rested her forehead against Elsa’s. Anna was so close and her lips were right there and...

‘Do you think about it, Elsa?’

‘Yes.’ Elsa couldn’t help but whisper, couldn’t help her eyes resting on Anna’s lips. ‘It’s... it was the source. It was... it was why I was there to begin with.’

‘The inciting incident.’ Anna was whispering too and it seemed like her lips were getting closer.

‘It was... it was the point of no return, for me,’ Elsa said. ‘There was nothing I could say... nothing I could do that could... that could turn it back.’

‘I can’t get it out of my head, Elsa,’ Anna whispered. And she was definitely getting closer.

Elsa’s heart was racing, her body felt flushed. She knew, knew that she should move, that she should stop this. She knew this was wrong, that this was evil, and yet...

Anna whispered. ‘Can I?’

And Elsa whispered. ‘Yes.’

The first kiss was wet and salty, soft and tentative. Anna pulled back and wiped her face with her sleeve. Elsa thought that maybe that was it, and she tried her utmost not to be disappointed. But her blanket was still so thin.

‘It’s… you’re seared into my brain, Elsa,’ Anna said, and she leaned in again and this time the kiss was dry and there was more pressure and there was Anna’s tongue wetting their lips and going no further.

Anna leaned back and took a deep breath. ‘It was so much, Elsa, so big… it weighed everything down like… like a heavy weight or something.’ She smiled and gave a little, sniffling chuckle.

‘I…’ Elsa didn’t want to be talking, she wanted Anna to kiss her again and that was… that was not what should be happening. That was not what she should be thinking. Now, she felt tears in her own eyes. ‘I never… they never stopped talking about it, Anna.’

Anna hugged her and that wasn’t what she wanted.

‘It was all that mattered there,’ Elsa said, and she turned Anna’s head and pressed their lips together. ‘All that they ever talked about. The only thing that mattered.’ She kissed Anna again.

Anna kissed her back and it was back to being wet and warm and soft. They held on tight and they kissed and it was… they were both crying. Neither of them wanted to stop and it hurt not to want that. Cracks were turning to breaks.

***

‘We should watch Sabrina,’ Anna said. ‘It’s got witches.’

‘The Devil’s brides?’

‘Yep.’

Elsa was decidedly busy, furiously whisking caramel (she’d added the butter and cream, you see). ‘Anything other than witches?’

‘It’s got a black cat. He talks.’

‘Cool, put it on, but like. I’m busy.’

‘Yep.’ Anna leaned over the counter to look in the pot. ‘Looks painful.’

‘Yeah. Has to cool fully before we can eat it.’

‘Boo.’

‘Just put on the witch show.’

Anna sighed and slouched over to the couch where she did, indeed, put on the witch show. The original Sabrina the Teenaged Witch show. And it was probably fine.

***

‘Fuck me, this is delicious,’ Anna groaned around a bite of caramel.

‘No, Anna, you’re too young,’ Elsa grinned.

Anna pecked Elsa on the nose, leaving a touch of sticky chocolate there. ‘They’re sooo good, my love,’

Elsa wiped her nose and stole the other half of the caramel out of Anna’s hand. Her heart raced and she was definitely blushing as she popped it in her mouth. ‘Oh yeah! They turned out well.’

‘Basically perfect,’ Anna picked another one off the tray and popped the whole thing in her mouth. ‘Could use more love.’

Elsa pecked her on the lips. ‘Alright, chill. I wanna make some more before tomorrow night.’

‘Before all the spooky spirits and spectres come to take them?’

‘Yes, Anna, before all the children wearing sheets come trick-or-treating.’

‘Boring.’ Anna kissed her. ‘No fun at all.’ Kissed her again.

Elsa kissed her sister back, just briefly. ‘Chill. I’m gonna make another batch of caramel. You can eat these ones, alright.’

Anna picked up another one. ‘Thank you. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

Chapter Text

It was the middle of December, almost Elsa’s birthday. Anna collapsed on the couch the moment she got home from school. Elsa felt like she should care more that Anna was still in high school. Maybe she would care more once she turned nineteen.

For the moment, Elsa crouched next to Anna and gave her a brief kiss before returning to the kitchen. The birthday cake wasn’t going to make itself. Well… Anna had said she would make a cake from Elsa’s birthday, but she had immediately followed up by saying that she didn’t know how to make a cake.

Elsa’s attempt to teach her sister to make cakes had just turned into her making cakes and Anna being bitter about having to go back to school. About half the cakes Elsa made when to the café where she sort of worked, the sisters ate the other half. A good third of the fridge was taken up with christmas cakes and christmas puddings.

‘My love, what do you want for your birthday?’ Anna was distinctly muffled by the couch, but she had picked a lull in baking noise to ask.

‘Not sure.’ Elsa put the most recent cake in the oven, then slid under Anna on the couch to hold her tight. ‘I only ever got bibles as presents before.’

Anna kissed her on the neck and Elsa shivered.

‘Ok, so not a bible,’ Anna muttered, her breath warm against Elsa’s collar. ‘Probably not sweets, since yours would be better.’

‘It’s the thought the counts, though,’ Elsa said.

Anna giggled, breathily. ‘No it’s not.’

‘You could get me more flowers. I liked when you got me flowers.’

‘No you didn’t.’

‘I did too, just don’t get me that many.’

Anna nodded and kissed Elsa on the neck again, holding her tight. ‘Alright, flowers it is.’

‘Good.’ Elsa kissed the top of her sister’s head.

‘How about christmas?’

Elsa’s whole body tensed.

Anna kissed her again, this time on the jaw. ‘Tell me about it,’ she whispered. ‘What was it like in heaven?’

Elsa took a deep breath and tried to relax. ‘It wasn’t… I don’t know. It wasn’t that interesting.’

‘Tell me, please.’

Elsa took another deep breath and still couldn’t quite relax. ‘What was it like here?’ she deflected. ‘If you… you don’t have to tell me.’

‘I’ll tell you, but you have to tell me after.’

Elsa nodded.

Anna hugged her tighter, and shifted a little so that their heads were at the same level. Anna kissed Elsa softly on the lips, then lay her head by Elsa’s ear. ‘It wasn’t that interesting either,’ she said.

Anna kissed her on the ear and hugged her tight. ‘But it wasn’t… it wasn’t nothing,’ Anna whispered. ‘It was… we went to church, of course. First thing. We got to hear about how the world would burn because there was a black man in office or because gays were allowed or whatever. Then we had… brunch, I guess, lunch, with the church. Everyone complained about the state of the world, people kept glancing at me because everyone knew I was some kind of sinner.’

Elsa hugged her tighter.

‘It wasn’t… it wasn’t that much,’ Anna said. ‘It was like. It was like they’d put me on a lifeboat or something, kicked me out, but they’d tied us together and they kept checking that I was there. Like I had to be there to know I’d been kicked out, to know how they felt about me. I didn’t have to look at them, you know?’

Elsa kissed Anna on the cheek, on the ear, on the lips. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Anna said. ‘You… well… you know. But after lunch we had another service. All us good christian soldiers had survived the war on christmas or some shit. It got wilder as time went on, too. Like… like last year they were talking about the Jewish media and how George Soros was trying to destroy christ and the paedophile elites were going to give us all microchips and it would the mark of the beast or some shit.’

‘Gross.’ Elsa kissed her sister on the nose.

‘Yeah.’ Anna sighed. ‘Then we had dinner with the family, all the cousins and uncles and aunts and grand parents and whatever. I remember all us kids playing together and it being alright, but then as we got older we had to hang out with the adults. And there were the uncles and great uncles and older cousins who were always trying to touch us girls and everything. And just like… it never went anywhere really but like… the priest had just been screaming about a world full of paedophiles right?’

Elsa hugged her sister closer and tried not to think too hard about the fact that Anna was sixteen. She tried not to think about anything, really, just that they were warm and comfortable and that… that maybe she should think about it later.

‘You shut up,’ Anna said.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Elsa said.

‘Sure, but you thought it real loud. You’re not… you’re not like them.’

‘But…’ Elsa took a deep breath and tried to formulate her thoughts. It wasn’t a thought that had really struck her until this moment. ‘But like… you’re my little sister. I’m about to turn nineteen.’

‘The age of consent is sixteen,’ Anna said, or pouted.

‘I don’t like that you know that off the top of your head, if I’m honest,’ Elsa said. ‘But that’s not the point, right? Like… like they never let me forget you, right? They never let you forget me. What if… what if this is just because of that? What if it just… brain rot?’

‘Of course it’s brain rot, my love,’ Anna said. ‘There’s no… we’re a product of our lives, right? What else could we be? You want to… do you not want to be…’ Anna couldn’t seem to bring herself to finish the sentence.

‘I… I don’t know,’ Elsa said, because she didn’t. ‘I don’t know what I want. I know that you’re fucking lodged in my brain, like that… that I really should be here, that I really want to be here has been hammered into my mind since I was seven years old.’

‘Yeah, and for me it’s since I was five,’ Anna said. ‘Does that… what does that mean? We don’t have free will either way.’

‘But what if… what if I want to pretend to have free will, Anna?’ Elsa said. ‘What if I… I don’t know. What if we stopped to think and realised that… that I don’t know, we don’t really want to be here.’

‘I tried to think,’ Anna said. ‘I tried to stop and think, tried to… I don’t know, move on from your death or whatever. I tried. I had a boyfriend, did you know?’

‘So did I,’ Elsa said. ‘That’s how it worked.’

‘No, shut up for a second,’ Anna said. ‘I didn’t have a boyfriend because some fucking closetted priest told me I should. There’s this dude at school, a friend of mine, who’s nice and gentle and kind and all that good shit, right? I figure I’m supposed to date dudes, and maybe that’s the priest, but I figure I should give it a go.’

Elsa tensed, she didn’t know the end of the story, but she knew the end of her version of it, for sure. She remembered that same, fucking skinny dude and his brown hair and sideburns. She remembered the number of coffins that he had prayed over and told everyone that ‘they’re with god now.’

‘It didn’t work out,’ Anna said. ‘Obviously. Because I’m gay and I didn’t really want to date him, and he knew that. And it’s fine, right? And before I could try getting a girlfriend, well… well you turned up and now we’re here.’

‘I… this isn’t… I don’t mean it like woe is me or whatever,’ Elsa said. ‘My boyfriend killed himself. The girl I had a crush on, who liked me, who I kissed when I was sixteen, she killed herself. It’s… there’s nothing in there for me, right? All that self is wrapped up in force.’

Anna sighed and held Elsa tighter and carefully, cautiouslly, beseechingly lay a kiss on Elsa’s lips. ‘I… I’m sorry, Elsa,’ she said. ‘If I hadn’t…’

‘If you hadn’t nothing,’ Elsa cut in. ‘Neither of us are at fault here, are at fault for what happened. We didn’t do this to ourselves, no matter what anyone said. No matter what everyone said.’

‘After dinner, we went to another mass at night, and this one was about christmas and the birth of christ,’ Anna said, cuddling closer to Elsa. ‘But it was still about fire, right? Christ was going to come back and burn the world and us good christians were going to be saved or something. They didn’t have to look at me, you know. I knew they didn’t mean me.’

‘I… Anna…’ but Elsa had no idea what to say.

‘I’m over it, Elsa,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t want to be saved by their version of christ. I don’t want to be… I wanted to be saved by you. I wanted you to appear out of nowhere, return from the grave, and whisk me away to… to somewhere else, I guess.’

‘I…’ Elsa tried again. ‘I wish I could have.’

‘It doesn’t matter, my love,’ Anna said. ‘You’re here now. We’re here now. Don’t… don’t let them seep back in.’

‘That’s not it, Anna…’

‘I know, but it’s not… it’s not nothing, Elsa.’ Anna took a deep breath and kissed her sister again. ‘I have scars, still, same as you. I… I know. It’s just… don’t leave me again.’

Elsa held Anna tight. ‘I’m not leaving you,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not. I just…’ She didn’t know what she just… she didn’t know how to say it in a way that Anna would understand.

‘Tell me about your christmas,’ Anna said.

Elsa took a deep breath. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘But… I don’t know. It doesn’t seem very interesting.’

‘It is,’ Anna said, and kissed her again. ‘It is interesting. It is worth talking about. I want to hear it.’

Elsa took another deep breath. ‘Alright,’ she said again. ‘It didn’t start much differently, christmas. We all wash and have breakfast. And then we go to the church hall and Hans tells us all about god’s love. God loves all of us sinners, god wants us to be happy and healthy, and that’s why we’re there. To get happy and healthy and find god’s love. The bit he didn’t have to say, of course, was that we’d never find it. That was… that was the point, right? We’re here for the saints to watch us suffer.’

Anna kissed her on the cheek, on the side of the mouth. ‘To indulge heaven’s greatest pleasure.’

‘Not quite yet,’ Elsa said. ‘After the service, we give each other gifts. Bibles, of course. And flowers or trinkets, always from a boy to a girl. It was usually flowers, or some kind of plants. Something to take care of, I guess.’

‘Did your boyfriend give you gifts?’ Anna asked, holding Elsa tight, kissing her on the cheek.

‘He did, yeah,’ Elsa said. ‘Twice. First time he wasn’t my boyfriend, second time he was. He died the same day.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah. He gave me jewellery, actually,’ Elsa said. ‘A cheap little golden cross necklace.’

‘Sounds cute,’ Anna said.

Elsa smiled, sadly. ‘It was, some of it,’ she said. ‘Some of us girls got to look kind of cute. It’s all… it’s all dowdy sorts of clothes, though. Some of us could pull it off.’ She smiled again, mischievously. ‘Some of the girls looked really cute in it.’

Anna smiled, and kissed Elsa on the jaw. ‘How about the pleasure?’

‘Lunch first,’ Elsa said. ‘We had lunch, and we had to sit next to the boy who gave us the gift. That was fine, I suppose. I didn’t necessarily want to, but most of the boys were nice enough, and at least nothing ever happened to me.’

Anna grimaced and hugged her sister tighter.

‘But then the pleasure, right?’ Elsa said, snuggling into Anna. ‘The confessions. It wasn’t just christmas when we did the confessions, but on christmas we got to do it in front of everyone, not just people our own age. And the thing was… you couldn’t not confess, right? And you couldn’t have nothing to confess. It was an art you got the hang of quickly.’

‘How to give the people of heaven their greatest pleasure?’

Elsa nodded into Anna’s shoulder. ‘We all got to look down on each other in public,’ she said. ‘But the problem, of course, was none of us are sinless, right? The art was to never get anyone else in trouble, never say that anyone else gave you sinful thoughts, and to always mention your origin story.’

‘So like… “I’ve been thinking about girls like I think about my baby sister who I kissed?”’ Anna grinned and kissed Elsa on the ear.

‘Too much,’ Elsa said, trying to smile. “I’ve been thinking about girls, wondering about kissing them.”

‘Oh. You weren’t thinking about me?’

‘Of course I was thinking about you, Anna,’ Elsa said. ‘All the time. They wouldn’t let me stop thinking about you. But I couldn’t tell them that, even if people already knew. It’s like… we were all allowed the pleasure of watching the suffering of sinners, but there was a hierarchy I guess. That was the art of it, you had to confess to something, but the worse it was the less pleasure you could get from the suffering of others.’

‘Sounds shit.’

‘It was, yeah,’ Elsa said. ‘But… but it wasn’t art for everyone, was it? Some of them… some of us really believed, at least at times. I never confessed to anything specific, not really. But… but my boyfriend confessed that christmas to kissing another boy. He didn’t say which one, so he got put in solitary by himself. It was supposed to be for two weeks. But…’ She shrugged and snuggled into Anna.

‘The girl you liked?’

Elsa shook her head. ‘No, that wasn’t christmas.’

‘But you got out, alive enough.’

Elsa sniffled, nodded against Anna’s shoulder. ‘I did,’ she mumbled. ‘Eventually I turned eighteen and I was staying with this queer group that takes in kids whose parents disown them. Then I heard that ours had died so I came back.’

Anna snuggled closer. ‘What was christmas like there? With the queers?’

‘It was… it was nice,’ Elsa said. ‘It was a bit weird, I guess. But in a good way. I arrived on the twenty-third, right? They asked if I wanted a christmas present, and I said I didn’t. So I didn’t get a present and I mostly stayed in the room they gave me. It was nice, like… nice and quiet finally.’

Anna nodded, and kissed Elsa’s collar. ‘Is that why you’re a housewife now?’

Elsa blurt-laughed. ‘I guess so, yeah.’

***

‘It’s so dry!’ Yellow cake fell out of Anna’s mouth as she tried to talk.

‘That’s just sponge cakes,’ Elsa said. ‘Especially on day two.’

‘I’m not getting up super early to make you a sponge cake on your birthday,’ Anna said, before shoving more of the unfrosted sponge cake in her mouth.

‘That’s fine,’ Elsa said. ‘You don’t need to make me a cake.’

‘I’m gonna make you a cake, my love,’ Anna said. ‘It’s gonna be the best cake I’ve ever made you.’

Elsa picked at the slice of yellow cake in front of her. ‘That’s a low bar.’

Anna nodded and pointed the fork at Elsa. ‘That’s the trick,’ she said. ‘Set expectations low, then when I do something competent you’ll think it’s great.’

Elsa grinned. ‘I’ll appreciate it even if it’s shit,’ she said. ‘It’s the thought that counts or something.’

Anna leaned over to the table to peck Elsa on the lips and Elsa tensed. Anna kissed her on the nose and took another bite of the terrible cake. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘It’s just… sticking with me,’ Elsa muttered.

Anna nodded, took another bite of the cake. ‘I don’t want us to change,’ she said. ‘I want to…’ She took a deep breath, coughed, and had a drink. ‘I want you to be comfortable, but I don’t want to change, you know?’

Elsa nodded. ‘I… yeah… I don’t want to change, but I feel like… I want to know why I don’t want to change. Like… I don’t mean it like, like I’m protecting you or whatever. But am I just taking advantage of you being here and comfortable?’

Anna smiled. ‘Am I comfortable?’

‘Now, yeah.’

‘That’s cute,’ Anna said. ‘That’s nice. And yeah, a bit offputting, maybe. Like…’ she gave a little huff of a laugh. ‘You’re right, I guess. You’re comfortable, but like… it’s not that I don’t want to get out of bed, right? It’s more like I’ve found a comfy chair that I don’t want to get rid of.’

‘You’re sixteen.’

‘You’re eighteen.’

‘I know, but… but I don’t know if it’s a bed I don’t want to get out of, right? It’s like I got to lie down for the first time in my life. It’s like I got my first ever bed and… I dunno, this sounds really bad. But it’s like I don’t know if it’s actually the most comfortable bed in existence or just the first one I got to lie down on.’

‘You’re right,’ Anna glared. ‘That did sound bad.’

‘Right?’ Elsa threw her hands up. ‘I don’t know… that was a bad metaphor, but it’s like I finally found something comfortable at all and I don’t know if it’s just because it’s better than nothing.’

‘Still bad.’

‘Yeah, sorry. But… but do you get me?’

Anna nodded, and got up and left the room.

***

Elsa woke up on the 21^st of December to find rose petals outside her bedroom forming a trail down the stairs and into the main space of the house, the conjoined living room, dining room and kitchen. On the coffee table was a vase with some fresh flowers in it.

Elsa smiled to herself as she picked up the card in the bouquet, ‘I forgot that we’re different’. Elsa frowned at the card.

Anna, looking extremely tired, entered the kitchen.

‘Anna, I’m sorry,’ Elsa said. ‘I really am. I didn’t mean it like that. But I’m really sorry for being shit.’

Anna nodded. ‘Good. Your cake is in the oven.’

The whole space smelled great, a bit like pumpkin pie spice. Elsa was fairly sure she knew what was in the oven, but she decided to wait for the surprise. At the very least, it wasn’t a sponge cake and that was ideal.

‘Elsa, my love,’ Anna said. ‘I have realised that we’re different. I know that seems like an obvious realisation, but it just come to me this morning when I was out getting you flowers.’

Elsa nodded. ‘We are different,’ she said, cautiously, not really sure what Anna was talking about.

‘For me, it’s like you’re back from the dead, heaven spat you back onto the earth and you came home, to me,’ she said. ‘And you’ve been wedged in my brain since I was little and it’s glorious. Whereas, for you…’ Anna shrugged. ‘It’s different.’

Elsa nodded. ‘For me it’s like… it’s like I escaped a trap and I went home, but I remember that home is where the trap was laid.’ Elsa grimmaced. ‘That’s not it, not exactly. They lodged you in my brain, too. And I couldn’t think of anything else to do, anywhere else I wanted to go. Now… now I’m worried that that’s because I’m too broken to think of something else.’

Anna grinned. ‘Good.’ Then she did that huff-laugh. ‘Or bad, but… but that’s manageable, right? I know it’s not that literal, but I’ve got another week off from school after this. We should go away.’

Elsa frowned. ‘Fuck I’m dumb.’

‘Yep.’

Elsa grinned at her little sister. ‘Alright, that sounds good. We can go today, just see how it goes.’

‘Yes.’ Anna spun around and checked the oven. ‘After you eat this carrot cake I made you.’

‘Yes.’