Author's notes:
Hi and welcome to this massive work that I've been plodding away at behind the scenes for a long time. I didn't want to post it until I had all the flashbacks evenly spaced out. There are lots of layers to this family, and a lot going on, so please let me know if anything is unclear and I can work on clarifying it.

Before you read, please be aware this is a loooong story, and very slow paced. This work is also very sensitive and close to my heart for a number of reasons, and a lot of the topics are quite heavy (things like self-harm, child abuse, racism) so please prepare yourself for that. To put it in perspective, if any of you have read my other story Guardian Angel, this is heavier than that.

PLEASE NOTE:
-This first chapter is a FLASHFORWARD, meaning it happens in the future timeline designated as NOW.
-The next chapter will go back several years and follow Elsa and Anna through their adolescence to see how they ended up like this.
-This chapter contains SMUT. Enjoy because it won't come again for a while...


~~ANNA~~

What am I going to do with you?

Anna creeps up the stairs to her sister's apartment and presses her ears against the door, expecting to hear the sounds of a party or small gathering. Praying she won't. They're a cute little set of one-bedroom apartments, only two-storeys, in a leafy street running through one of the more gentrified corners of St Kilda. Over to her left, the dark sea crashes into itself in a soothing rhythm. Above her the sky is clear, stars all winking their approval.

Despite the warm evening air, she shivers a little, and rubs the goosebumps on her arms. It's anxiety - nothing new there - combined with excitement, arousal, the frustration of watching her sister on the TV screen all night in that freaking dress. Watching her give smiles and attention and gentle forearm touches to everybody else. She feels the heat already swelling in her body, unsure whether to let it course freely or scrunch it back down into that hidden place inside her. For a rainy day.

To her delight, she hears nothing, and pokes the spare key into the door without bothering to knock.

It's not that she couldn't come over when Elsa has company. She can and does. And it's not that she doesn't enjoy hobnobbing with all these zany entertainment people and even the occasional minor celebrity (no Hemsworth brothers yet, but fingers crossed). But a lot of things have changed in the past year. Anna is growing up in all sorts of ways, ready or not. She is outgrowing her skin, her identity, her pain, her parents, the same way she is outgrowing her uniforms. None of it fits any more.

Tired of playing the sweet, sunshiney role, the moment she steps out into the night, something new comes alive inside her. Something hungry and passionate and sensual. Someone bold and exciting and subversive. Something adult. A creature of the night.

She is reminded of a melody from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and hums to herself, remembering how good Elsa was in that production. How sexy she was.

'Touch-a-touch-a-touch-a-touch me
I wanna be di-i-i-irty'

'Elsa?' She calls out in a playful, singsong voice, 'Where are you?'

'Thrill me, chill me, fulfil me
Creature o-of the night'

A square paper box of noodles sits on the coffee table, chopsticks sticking out, barely eaten. Next to it an ashtray overflows with cigarette butts, smoked right down to the filter. Old habits die hard. Hm. That silly sister of hers had better not be neglecting herself again. Sometimes it feels like they're playing tug-of-war. Anna wants to move forward and Elsa just wants to go backwards. Back into the pain. Round and round in the shadows of the past.

An orgasm or two will set her straight.

Hanging her blazer on the coat-rack, (because of course Elsa has a coat-rack and she expects her guests to use it) Anna creeps into the bedroom to see her sister, deflated on the bed like an empty balloon. Lying there all floppy like a rag-doll, still in her glittering, purple evening gown pinched gracefully around her slim waist. Perfectly shaped legs poking out all lithe and long. Delicious smooth shoulders exposed. Every inch of her looks glamorous, and reminds Anna of those very expensive chocolates in specialty chocolate shops that come wrapped up in a ribbon, and you can tell just by looking at them that they will melt in your fingers and probably leave marks somewhere on your clothes because such decadence does not come without consequences.

She hasn't even bothered to get under the covers. Just collapsed right there with the lights on, apparently. Anyone else might wonder if she was wasted, but Anna knows her only addiction is to work. She numbs herself with the exhaustion of getting up at four in the morning for filming. Sometimes working twelve, fourteen or even eighteen hour days, then probably lying awake all night chewing on her lip, finding things to worry about. This goes on day after day, week after week, until it's broken up with a new production, an awards show, a networking event, a party - even parties are work for Elsa.

She has always struggled a bit with fun. That's where Anna tries to help.

'Anna?' Elsa heaves herself up onto her elbows and blinks her heavy lids, laden down with copious professional makeup. It doesn't hide her bleary, bloodshot eyes. An open bottle of champagne with a big bow wrapped around its neck sits on the bedside table next to yet another overflowing ashtray. She reaches out weakly and calls with a voice full of need, 'Come to me, baby.'

Anna leaps onto the bed and crawls on all fours toward her beautiful, exhausted sister. Her sister whose time and attention is spread so thin. Who is so on display yet so completely guarded. So in demand, yet belonging only to one.

She presses her lips into Elsa's, full of excitement, twisting her mouth and dragging it to the side before pulling back to see the lipstick smeared over her pretty little face with its TV cheekbones. She so loves to make a mess of her perfect sister.

Loves to ruin her and claim her.

And Elsa so loves to be ruined and claimed. She needs it, in fact. She needs to be reminded who she belongs to, or she will drift away into the void like a sad spectre.

Elsa pulls her back down into a kiss that tastes like make-up and hairspray and champagne and Singapore Noodles and guilt, always like guilt. Anna opens her mouth, lets Elsa's needy tongue inside and shivers at the freshly manicured fingernails scratching the back of her neck. The action alone is almost enough to undo her. Every little thing Elsa does is enough to pull her apart, because Anna is a clumsily wrapped bundle of anxiety and desire, that builds and builds and only relents in the safety of her sister's gentle hands. Her safe place. She falls apart for Elsa.

'Geez, couldn't you have at least changed out of your uniform first?' Elsa's words are a little slurred, like she's just woken up. 'I feel like a-'

Her lips clamp shut and she doesn't finish the sentence. She wouldn't dare say something like that. Make light of such a terrible thing. She takes all of this way too seriously.

She takes everything too seriously.

'You feel like a what?' Anna smiles her best mischievous smile to show her she is okay. They both are. There is no need to be neurotic about this. 'Like a horny devil? Like a… fuck machine?'

'Oh my god, Anna, for goodness sake.' Elsa sits up and ties her hair up in a pony-tail - always a good sign. She gives a weak little smile and keeps her eyes locked on Anna's. 'Have some class.'

'Oh I have plenty of classes…At school.' Anna winks, takes a sip of the champagne and shakes her head as she feels the bright, burning sensation tickle her throat and fizz in her stomach. 'You're not into the sexy schoolgirl thing? But it's a classic.'

'Shh.' Elsa is already undoing Anna's shirt buttons, so gingerly with her careful hands, unclasping her bra, pulling her close. As gentle lips come down onto her collarbone and fingers curl around the back of her neck, tender but firm in that sweet spot that always undoes her, Anna feels hot tears in the crook of her neck. Elsa often cries when she fucks. She's intense, like that. 'You're my very own. You know that?'

Anna does know. She melts into the hands running down her back, resting on her waist, cupping her breast, stroking her cheek. Elsa's touches are slow and deliberate, and they leave behind tingling trails on her skin. Pulsing heat that builds and burns and obliterates everything until there's nothing in the universe but their two naked bodies, and their two beating hearts.

'So beautiful,' Anna's lips are needy, and her hands don't hesitate as they grab and squeeze mounds of soft, yielding flesh - thighs, buttocks, breasts. She ends up on top, sucking harder, fingers reaching deeper inside, spurred on by Elsa's throaty moaning, her pleas for more, her eyes rolling upwards, momentarily forgetting to weep.

Elsa's body bends to her every whim. Like liquid, taking the shape of whatever Anna needs her to be. Now and forever. 'You're my hero,' Anna moves her way back up, seeking a kiss to ground herself, but gets sidetracked by the sweet taste of sweat on Elsa's neck, her fragile skin stretched over tendon and sinew. The thundering pulse against her tongue kills the darkness inside Anna like bleach on mould.

Time loses meaning as they tumble around on the crisp white bed, in a strange intuitive dance, a cycle of pressure and release, switching and swapping roles, top to bottom, back to front, one and the same. Two chambers of the same racing heart.

She lets Elsa ride out the last few waves of her climax on her hands and knees, placing tender kisses on her butt and hips, before letting her drop onto the crisp white sheets, limp and useless. The lean muscles of her inner thighs spasm slightly as her ragged breathing calms and softens. Her eyes are glazed from the pleasure, vacant. She can't speak. She can't move.

Anna is not far behind but takes a moment before collapsing to admire the view. Satisfied, totally in love, but as always, a little taken aback. Unprepared for the force of her own excitement and surprised by the rosy pink marks blooming on Elsa's pale, perfect skin. Her own body glistens with a sheen of sweat, saliva and other fluids all mixing together.

The kids at school would never believe it. They would laugh it right off if someone tried to tell them this is how she spent her Friday night. Sweet, dorky Anna with her plaits and her walrus impressions. The girl who wouldn't even put a condom on a banana in health class. Anna herself barely believes it. She couldn't quite tell you how it came to this, if you asked. It probably started in their family. A series of small faultlines, deep within that splintered and cracked into a thousand tiny pieces, and this is the mosaic they've built of it.

Her limbs find their way under the sheets where the floral scent of laundry detergent makes a small dent in the pungent aroma of sex and cigarettes.

She burrows her way into Elsa, finding her own centre in the heaviness of their tangled limbs, the soft skin of her neck, the light tickling of her product-laden hair. She plants little kisses on her nose and cheeks, earning a satisfied purr in response.

'So, you won.'

'Mm,' Elsa finally finds the strength to pull a cigarette from the packet by her bedside and light it. She always says it's the best part of sex. Like an exclamation point. Apparently the sex itself isn't the exclamation point. Again, she struggles with fun. She's better with punishment. 'Yep. I won.'

Anna expects her to say something more, because it's a pretty big deal, after all, but she just reaches clumsily for the champagne and sucks greedily from the bottle like a baby. It's very undignified. Very un-Elsa.

Anna worries her sister is too fragile for show business.

'Where's the trophy?' Anna has always wanted to hold a Logie award. She wonders how heavy it is. They look pretty heavy on tv. It's too bad she can't post a selfie with it. There would surely be someone she would forget to block, and that someone would talk to someone and word would get around that she and Elsa are having contact, and her parents will send her to nunnary in fucking Bulgaria or somewhere. Or worse - expose Elsa to the public. Anna can't wait to turn eighteen and be done with their bullshit.

'I throuagh nararara…' She turns her head to the side, away from Anna, and muffles her words in the pillows.

'What?'

She had better not be saying what Anna thinks she's saying…

She is. 'I threw it in the river. In the Yarra.'

Anna bolts upright and slaps the mattress in frustration, regretting it when a tiny flinch crosses the bridge of Elsa's nose. Two small for the untrained eye to spot. She strokes her sister's hair apologetically and sighs, 'What am I going to do with you?'

Elsa blinks beneath her heavy lashes, so weighed down with layers of thick mascara. Two trails of black make-up snake down her cheeks. Even her tears are neat and tidy. Her voice comes out small and scratchy, battered from the abuse of a thousand cigarettes, 'Love me.'