originally posted on ao3. thanks to m for finally convincing me to post it here i guess. have at it.

release date: april 17, 2015

inspiration: life.

warnings: homophobia, slurs

disclaimer: i don't own frozen.

I've never seen her dead before.

I mean, of course, I've seen Elsa in lots of ways. I've seen her cheerful and stoic and angry and sad and everywhere in between. After all, I've known her my whole life, she's known me her whole life, and we saw each other on a daily basis — it's kind of a package deal when you are each other's sister.

But I've never seen her dead before, which in retrospect, is a fortunate occurrence I never even considered until now. (Because she's dead now, which is what brought the entire thought into existence in the first place, and is really, really...a lot more than unfortunate.)

She's in there. I'm peering inside of her casket, my twitching fingers hovering over the slick oaken casing: wanting to touch, but too scared to do so. They've tucked her all nice and tidy inside that coffin, pampered and drained white as a sheet and waiting to be dolled up for the funeral processions. She's nestled in the area where the lace meets the light blue silk (not that she can see it) and her fingers curl loosely into the smooth fabric (not that she can feel it) like powdered talons.

She looks artificial, every single bit of her, and I hate it.

I hate how they reflected in her death how she had been treated during her life. I hate how they couldn't even offer her the comfort of letting her be who she was even after she gave her life and soul back to...wherever life comes from, anyway.

They've put makeup over the ugly bruises that had been liberally tattooed across her torso. Put blush onto the hollows of her sunken cheeks, swept away all traces of her eviscerated throat. Wiped clean all the blood, too. Stitched up the cuts and lacerations, clinical as clinical can be. Cleaned the dirt and dust from her hair until it once again shines its trademark platinum blonde.

I've never seen another person with hair like Elsa's.

They closed her eyes, though, so thank God for that.

Though God clearly hasn't been very kind to Elsa. Otherwise, she wouldn't be lying in a coffin that would be buried underneath several feet of dirt and stones and worms in the cemetery come tomorrow morning.

Cindy appears adjacent to my left elbow, smoking a cigarette and rattling her hips at me. (She usually doesn't like me because my hips jut out like the spokes on a bicycle and hers tend to undulate in strong winds.) She thinks she can get away with smoking in a church even though all the school board administrators are here, because...well, reasons.

Reason number one: we're technically not on school property. Reason number two: no one wants to issue a suspension when a dead girl's watching you from three feet away.

"Jesus fucking Christ," she hisses, and I know this is the first time she's seen a dead girl, too. She touches her index finger to Elsa's pale pinky and grins at me wickedly.

If I were a dragon, I'd have breathed fire at her. "For the life of you," I say through gritted teeth, "do not touch her again."

She flips me off, but doesn't reach back into the coffin. "Shit. She's as cold as ice." She puffs out a smoke ring, one that curls around and folds in on itself like a ghost.

I look at my dead sister and close my eyes.

I had heard the rumor. We had all heard the rumor. The rumor is what brought us together, in this room, standing in a church around a dead girl lying in a coffin. And I know it firsthand. I found her. I found her. I was her goddamn sister, so wasn't it fitting that I found her? None of us want to know if it was true or not — least of all me — that was a given; and yet it burned at the backs of our heads like smoking iron brands, glowing red-hot and smoldering through the dusk.

I lift my hand to Elsa's paper-fold eyelid and part of me wants to do it. Wants to do it so badly. Part of me wants to do it just to see, so that I won't have to sit on her grave thirty years from now wondering whether the hell or not it had been true. So I hold my tongue in my cheek like a wet fish and flick my hands upward so subtly it could be called a mistake. Her skin follows my finger, and the eyelid opens right there in the goddamn coffin.

I hear Cindy suck in her breath behind me.

"I didn't want to believe it," she whispers, and claws at the marbled floor with her grubby sneaker. "I didn't want to believe it at all."

I close the eyelid gently, and step aside. Cindy follows me, huffing her cigarette at my elbow.

"Shit, Anna," she whispers, pulling me into a pew where we can watch from afar the kids crying faux tears and spewing empty glass memories into the cold air, reminiscing about field trips and gym classes and parties that my dead sister didn't go to, friendships that my dead sister never made.

My blood boils.

You never cared when she was alive, I want to scream. Hell, you gave her shit for it. I knew you would do this. I knew this would happen. I told Elsa that it would happen. It's your fault. It's all...your...fucking...fault...

"Shit, shit, shit," Cindy whispers, hugging my arm, an unfamiliar feeling.

I know what's coming, and I don't have the strength to tell her off. I can't. I can't. I can't.

I can hear someone let out a strangled sob, but only Cindy and I are standing there and Cindy still looks appalled.

Elsa...

"That's freaky, that's what it is," she whispers again. "Freaky kid."

By the age of two, her mother had already told her that she had an eye for pretty things. She was prone to them, was what her mother said.

Elsa liked that. It meant that she was different. The other kids were prone to falling over toys and throwing tantrums with screams that crumbled through their fists before bleeding into the air, and she wasn't the same. She possessed the innate ability to walk into a front yard and pull from dense dirt a flower caressed by dew, its moist pink petals curling away from the yellow fluff at the center, its aroma permeating the air like cloying perfume. She had the power to walk into a forest, holding her mother's hand, and marvel at the sunlight dripping through the dizzying heights of the trees, at the soft flap of birds' wings as they escaped across the sky.

Once, near a creek in her backyard, she'd caught a turtle. She could feel its leathery nose squirming through her chubby fingers, a gentle clawing on her sweaty palms as it tried to paw its way to freedom. She'd sighed at the turtle's futile scramble. Silly turtle. It didn't yet understand the consequences and boundaries of its ecosystem, the rules and freedoms of its small world. Tilting her head, she waited until she felt it stop struggling.

Slowly, she peeled away her fingers, prying them off one by one, until the jagged emerald shell was revealed to the sweet air.

;

When Elsa was three, Anna came barging into her world swaddled inside a thick cocoon of light green blankets and wrinkly smiles.

Elsa, balancing precariously on top of a stack of books she had assembled, peered over the smooth white bars of Anna's crib. She watched her baby sister's pudgy fists flail through the air as Anna cried. She didn't really know why Anna was crying — she never knew why Anna was crying, and the baby cried quite a lot — but she reached into the crib anyway, taking care to avoid her jerking arms.

Hello, little baby, she whispered. Why're you crying?

Anna wailed. Elsa dangled her hand further in.

You can hold my hand, if it makes you feel better.

A warm and pudgy vice then closed around her wrist. Anna had finally taken notice of the new object through her screams and immediately snatched at it. Gradually, the screaming faded away, to be replaced by gurgles and warbles.

See? Elsa smiled down at her.

Anna cooed and happily gummed Elsa's fingers.

;

Dyke. Homo. Freak.

Those were only a few of the names. As her mother's car neared the school parking lot, she could feel them coming. Leaping up from the ground and crawling along the freeway, slithering into the car and reaching across the windows. She could feel the words grabbing at her throat, grabbing at her legs, trying to drag her closer and closer to hell.

Anna had no idea, if her incessant chatter was any indication. And Elsa had no idea how Anna didn't know, given that it was a hot topic of school gossip, but she thanked her lucky stars every day that her sister was comfortably oblivious. She chalked it up to the difference in their grade level.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her sister was free, unbound by chains that yanked Elsa to the ground every single day when she stepped into the threshold of the school. Anna was always yammering on about her mean algebra teacher and what she and her friends did that day and what with all this talk about boys and boys and boys...

Ooh, Elsa, how about you? Do you like anyone? There's this one guy, Jack. I've seen him making eyes at you across the hall. Anna attempted to wiggle her eyebrows at this. Elsa's hand shot up to her mouth to stifle a burst of laughter, the kind that only Anna could ever bring out of her.

No, she'd say back with a gentle smile. I'm not that interested.

(Not in Jack, at least.)

The other kids didn't understand her. They didn't understand that she was prone to beauty the way they were prone to tantrums. They didn't understand the way she talked, the way she dressed, the way she could stare at other girls on the commons for more than ten seconds.

Just watching.

She'd tried explaining to them once about how good she was at spotting beautiful things. She pointed to a pair of shoes, a gust of wind, the way sunlight seemed to dapple over the ground and the trees.

Can't you see it? she asked, but by then, her head was already pressed against the wall.

Can't you see it? she asked, but her heart was beating another staccato rhythm, one that painted the gravel with pain and swept through the air like a bird, far away but not far enough.

Can't you see it? the bird chirped.

Can't you see me?

;

She was fifteen the day Anna stomped over and sat herself on the chair next to Elsa's during lunch.

No one ever sat with Elsa during lunch.

You look kinda sad, was the first thing Anna said.

Elsa sighed and stared at her uneaten ham sandwich. I'm not —

And don't say you aren't sad, 'cause you totally are sad.

— ...sad. Yes, I'm sad.

Yeah. They said you were gay. There was a strange glint in Anna's eyes now, one that Elsa was terrified of because she didn't know what it signified, but oh god she couldn't do a single thing about it.

Are you gay? her sister asked. It was a blunt blow.

Elsa avoided her gaze. Do you think I am?

Anna smiled at her then, and it was an optimistic one, yet frayed around the edges with melancholy.

Well, I think you're sad, she said softly.

Elsa blinked at her, startled. Then she lifted her shoulders, conscious of the stares starting to burn into the two of them from the other students. Poisonous whispers filtered through the air, leeching into her ears and bouncing around her skull. They didn't fall back out.

Anna, please...

What?

There are people looking — I don't want them to start picking on you —

Anna looked resolute. So what? I don't care if they're looking. They can say all the stupid things about you — and me sitting with you — that they want. I mean, we're sisters! Why can't I sit next to my own sister? They're all stupid idiots. She turned and stuck her tongue out at a random group of girls who were sneering at them. Then she turned back and placed her hands firmly on Elsa's shoulders. You're sad, and I really, really don't like it when you're sad. So stop moping around and come here!

She threw open her arms and tugged Elsa into a crushing embrace.

It was the best hug Elsa had experienced in a while. It wasn't at all like hugging the concrete floor.

After all, Anna's hug was warm.

;

Sometimes, she would stand in front of the mirror in her bathroom and examine the scars on her stomach. They were varied and terrible and blooming: bruises, cuts, scrapes. She'd run her hands over the pummeled flesh, not wincing at the physical pain but at the little messages hidden deep behind each wound, the tiny little demons embedded under each one.

I hate you, was written behind each swell, around each cut.

I hate you for who you are.

I hate you for what you are.

I hate you.

There were messages sprouting from each wound like those trees that grow on top of dead bodies, and their roots curled around her heart like poisonous vines.

The girls at school didn't like her because she donned drab blue shirts that didn't comply with any fashion trend hailing from the past two decades and wore her hair in a braid and read poetry about snow and ice and gay rights. She wasn't sure what the boys at school thought, but it didn't really matter, anyway.

The only person who would ever talk to her was Anna. Wonderful Anna. Ever since that first day, the Day of the Ham Sandwich, Anna had made it a point to sit with her every day during lunch and walk with her in the halls, never mind that their classes were on opposite sides of the school. She still chattered away, but Elsa noticed that she didn't talk about boys at all around her.

And then the kids who bullied her began to bully Anna. That was what Elsa hated the most — that they were cruel enough to take their disgust of her and pile it onto her little sister, who never did a thing to earn their ire, except for be her sister. Guilty by association. It didn't matter so much when they were younger. Anna didn't care too much about anything when they were little. But things changed when Elsa found her crying behind the school dumpsters. Anna was fourteen and already their lives were too long.

Anna! Are you okay?

Yeah. Totally fine. Whew, it's just really hot outside, can't you feel it? There's just lots of water condensing on my face.

It was the dead of winter.

...You're lying.

Anna smiled shakily through the "water that had condensed on her face." Okay. Okay, fine. I'm not "okay."

You don't have to be with me all the time, you know. Elsa fiddled with her hands. I'm perfectly fine with that. I mean, I lived with it for five years.

Anna didn't laugh. If anything, she looked angry. Shut up, Elsa. I'm going to do whatever I goddamn want to, and I want to sit with you and walk with you in the hallways because you're my sister.

...Well, then, can I at least buy you a milkshake?

Anna looked up. Is it going to be chocolate?

Of course, Elsa laughed.

Then I'd really like that.

Sometimes, she would say it, when the girls said it. Dyke. She didn't know why, but it helped. If they could believe it, then she could believe it. If they could say it, then she could say it.

Elsa looked at herself in the mirror, and the steam curled around her hair like a cloud of smoke. She wiped the condensation from the glass, and her fingers were stained with a heavy kind of wetness, and she looked at herself.

She almost wished she could cry. Maybe then it would get easier.

She dipped her finger onto the solid glass and traced out the word. Dyke. Tilting her head and staring at it, she couldn't help but feel like it stared back. Then, she reached her hand out and wiped it off the glass.

See? she told herself.

It's not so scary after all.

;

Anna dragged her to a café one morning, scoring a booth near the corner where they wouldn't be disturbed. The air was humid already, but Elsa didn't mind.

She was poring over the menu when Anna put aside hers, plopped her chin into the cradle of her hands, and proceeded to stare at her.

Y'know, Elsa, sometimes, I don't get you.

Elsa put down her own menu. Um...what don't you get about me?

Anna rolled her eyes like it was obvious. Oh, come on. You almost never smile when I know you're actually happy. But you always smile when you're sad. Isn't that, like, ironic or something? Or, I mean, it's just...different.

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. Elsa waved a waitress over, placing her order.

Her sister pursed her lips, thinning them into a scowl. I mean, you smile when they taunt you. You smile when they slap you. You smile when they fucking push your head against the wall.

Her drink arrived then: hot chocolate. She clasped her hands around the white mug. Well, what do you want me to do instead?

She huffed. Oh, I don't know. Say something back! Punch them in the face and show them who's boss! Anna slapped her palm onto the table for emphasis, rattling the cute little silver stand that held the salt and pepper shakers. Oooh, you know what? You should totally, one thousand percent punch what's-her-face — the girl who looks like a rat that got stepped on —

Anna!

What?! I only speak the truth. Anyway, her. What's her name again?

Drizella.

See? Anna frowned. That's exactly what I mean. You know their names. You smile and you don't give a shit. You don't give one shit that they're bullying you and trying to kill you.

Elsa was taken aback by the morbid turn of the conversation. Er...kill me?

Anna sighed. Elsa, they're hurting you. Whether you want to think it or not, they're hurting you. They're...they're...they're vultures! They fly around your head while you're alive, and they're going to eat your body and your bones when you're gone.

I highly doubt that Drizella is a cannibal, said Elsa dryly. Forget about eating dead human cadavers.

Elsa, that's not the point! Stay with me here!

Well, you think that they're going to kill me? She was still skeptical.

Anna breathed out through her nose, closing her eyes. When she opened them, Elsa was taken aback by the fear swimming within.

I think that you're going to kill yourself, she finally blurted out.

Elsa paused in the lifting of her mug. She set the cup down with such precision that one would probably think she was trying not to detonate a nuclear bomb.

And then she folded her hands on her lap and patiently watched her sister.

Don't think I don't know what you do in that bathroom of yours, Anna snapped sharply. Her knuckles were white, fingers seizing the edge of the booth in a death grip. Elsa choked on her mouthful of hot chocolate. I know you, Elsa. You're my sister! You're my sister, and I care about you! You think that I'm going to see a stray bloody fucking razor you left out on the sink and then forget about it? You think I'm not going to care? Because you're wrong, Elsa. You're so goddamn wrong.

You're still sad, Elsa. You're scared, and you're still acting like it's no big fucking deal. Well, let me tell you: it's a big fucking deal! Those kids, the ones you smile at while they beat you up? They're going to come to your funeral and dance on your grave. They're going to cry fake tears and sprout even faker condolences and they're going to be secretly howling with glee inside. They're disgusting and evil and I'd like to punch every single one of them in the face, but that doesn't stop them from not giving a shit about you because of who you are. And that's...what...I'm terrified of.

Elsa said, impossibly soft, You don't know me, then. I'm not going to kill myself.

Anna looked surprisingly unperturbed. She just shrugged.

I'm not going to kill myself, Elsa repeated.

Anna watched her. Good. Because if you do, they win.

Another pause. Then, Anna murmured, I wish you didn't say that.

What?

That I don't know you. Another pause. Softer, I do know you, Elsa. More than you think I do.

Elsa played with the handle of her mug. And then she muttered, No, apparently not enough.

Anna narrowed her eyes into slivers of blue-green. They gleamed with anger and sadness.

That hurt, Elsa. That really...really...hurt.

The blonde looked away, her eyes stinging. ...I'm sorry.

But Anna was already gone.

;

Sleep was an unknown beast. It was three-forty-five in the morning, and it was like she'd never slept a wink.

She had never thought about killing herself. She did not want to kill herself. In fact, there was nothing in the world she wanted less than killing herself.

But Anna had made some valid points.

Because what did she want?

Elsa hugged her pillow to her chest and closed her eyes.

;

Anna was sick with the flu, so Elsa sat alone at lunch.

She unwrapped her sandwich from a parcel of wax paper.

Ham, she thought. How ironic.

Behind her came a shrill giggle. Elsa swallowed a dry mouthful of bread and deli meat. It tasted like sawdust.

Hi, Elsa.

Elsa didn't answer, instead choosing to stare at her food.

I said, hi, Elsa.

She stuffed another bite of sandwich in and thought she might choke.

So yesterday, my mom told me that in Vietnam, there are these prostitutes that act like women but are really men. They wear dresses and jewelry and everything. It's disgusting. They're filthy degenerates. Just...like...you.

Elsa closed her eyes.

Hey, Elsa.

They should send you to Vietnam.

;

She sat on a courtyard bench. The sky was an awful kind of gray, and the din of teenagers chattering was sticky, heaving itself to and fro between the outer edges of the schoolyard and the red-bricked school building.

She wished Anna was with her, but her sister was doing volunteer work in the library. Besides, she didn't think her sister would be with her if she had the choice, anyway.

I care about you, okay? Her sister's voice rang through her head at that.

Elsa shifted.

Behind her, the school bell pierced through the air with its shrill wail.

But instead of looking back toward the harsh gray walls of the school, she found herself looking to the east. Looking toward where the vista sloped downward over the earth, as if pulling it forward and rolling it away. Looking at the sunlight as it dripped through the trees and dribbled to the ground, at the blur of cars as they rushed and rumbled by on the winding asphalt road.

She stood up, and she was resolute.

She walked to the edge of the schoolyard, and the gate swung open before her. She looked around — looked at the shadows of kids slipping around and past each other.

And then she looked out. The black road lay before her.

Is it really this easy?

As she walked, she listened to the rich notes of the school bell fading into the distance, until it was merely a ghost flitting on the milky sky: a quiet apparition bidding her goodbye. She listened to the deep tones of the boys, the higher laughs of the girls, curling around and through each other in a growing cacophony of voices.

Elsa slipped her hands in her pockets and bent her head to the ground. She tried to imagine a future. One where the sky was clearer, and the clouds were lighter, and the voices of her colleagues weren't dripping with smoke and ash. Maye there was a world like that out there, hidden behind the trees, floating beyond the horizon.

Maybe, or maybe not. But it didn't matter.

She'd find one either way.

"Fuck," Cindy whispers. She sticks her cigarette back in her lips and waggles it like the tail of a fish. "Fuck."

I look at Elsa. She's small in her coffin. Her hands are tucked around her like she is hugging herself, and her powdered eyelids are closed.

I hope they don't wrap my arms around me when I die. It only makes Elsa look afraid.

Truth is, I know what happened to Elsa, and Cindy knows what happened to Elsa, and all the kids in this goddamn church know what happened to Elsa (except maybe the ones who only tagged along with their friends and didn't know her to begin with). Truth is, it's hanging in the air. It's slithering beneath our feet, it's squeezing itself into the cracked and lukewarm spaces between us. It's all around us and still no one will admit it, still no one will say anything, and it makes me want to stand up on top of the pulpit and scream bloody murder to the eyes of the church until the stained glass cracks and sprinkles to the ground like variegated raindrops, until God himself looks down and sees us and listens, for once just listens to what we have to say.

"Do you think it hurt?" Cindy whispers, even though the answer is clear as day.

I narrow my eyes at her.

Of course it hurt, I want to snap. Of course it did.

Maybe not the car, maybe not the collision of metal and flesh, but everything that came before. Imagine screams that force their way down your throat and into your stomach like a tapeworm; imagine taunts that stretch their fingers into your ears and rock your brain while you sleep.

Of course it hurt. Of course.

The school administrators whisper next to me, and their words are soft and wrinkled like newspaper soaked in perfume. That's what happens when you're truant, they say. No crossing-guard, not in the right state of mind, of course you wouldn't be looking across the street, wouldn't be minding the traffic light red-green-red-green ebb and flow. Of course you wouldn't be paying attention, of course this would happen to you.

Elsa had two days of freedom. She was missing for two days before they found her, and by then it was no one's fault but hers. Well, and the driver's.

She had tried to escape, and I tried not to feel...I don't know. I don't know what I felt, other than the regular terror and anger and oh my god what are you doing what have you done.

The day I heard that she was missing was the day when I felt a true bolt of fear, that for all Elsa had said about not killing herself...some part of my still suspected. I'd dogged after the missing child reports on the TV and local news networks, desperately trying to find any trace of where she'd gone. If she was okay. And I'd never know for sure — they say that she'd tried to run away, but was it permanently, or was it permanently, permanently?

She was hit by a car, and she had lost her eyes. I mean that literally. Her eyes were gone. The only thing left were two sockets: empty, terrible, beautiful grooves in her face. They cleaned up the rest of her pretty good, but they couldn't get her eyes. Her eyes were gone, and so was the rest of her.

"I heard that she was gay," says Cindy uneasily.

She looks at me expectantly. I don't answer.

"Well, was she gay?"

This time, I turn to her. Her expression reflects the uncertainty in my eyes. I open my mouth, an answer about to tumble into the air between us.

"...Anna?"

I close it.

I want to say something — say anything — but I can't. I can't. I can't.

The question has been answered, though, regardless of whether I had spoken or not.

Cindy claps what she probably intends to be a comforting a hand on my shoulder. It feels like the weight of the world instead, and slips away when she turns to pad out of the doors of the church.

She leaves me alone and standing next to my sister's coffin.

;

fin