For Rachel, who prompted "knife, tea, clouds."
A choked-off scream jerks Kristoff awake. In the darkness, he feels Anna's hand scrabbling over his chest, reaching, reaching. "Elsa?" she says, eyes alight with terror, "Elsa?"
"I'm here," Elsa says from his other side, "I'm here, it's alright."
Anna's breath is coming out in small gasps as Kristoff gives her a boost over and into her sister's arms. "Elsa," she sobs, chest heaving, "You were gone—you can't—"
"It's okay," Elsa murmurs again as Anna cries that it isn't, it isn't, shakes apart.
The three of them don't usually sleep in the same room—that'd be awkward no matter what Anna says and rumors, seriously—but sometimes it just happens. Sometimes the two of them have a sleepover and decide to drag him along, and sometimes it's something else; today Elsa had stumbled to Anna's door at two in morning still in her work clothes, mumbled something incoherent about snowmen before faceplanting, and that'd kind of…decided it.
Kristoff's glad that it happened, now.
Elsa keeps holding Anna; strokes her hair in slow, methodical movements; he puts a hand on the small of Anna's back, breathes a steady stream of nonsense into her ear. Every language he knows, all the way down to the few Troll words he's picked up, all the way down to what he remembers of the warm, song-like language from his childhood. All the way down, anchoring her back to them.
Eventually, Anna's sobs subside and she drifts off to sleep again, her hand still a claw around Elsa's wrist.
A short silence as he lets himself uncoil a little, and then he sits up. "Chess?"
There's something almost knife-like in Elsa's smile as she gently extricates herself from Anna's grip. "Yeah, let's."
After losing four games in a row he goes back to sleep, and dreams a confusing mess of night rides, open doors and closed doors, freezing rooms and frozen girls, propelling himself forward so he can get there in time, but he can never, never—
When he wakes with sharp pant, though, it's not to a blizzard but to sunlight streaming through the windows. Not a cloud in the sky, and Anna, snoring in his arms.
The relief is so overwhelming that for a second he doesn't notice Elsa bending over them. "Hmm?"
She hushes him, smiling strangely. He frowns at the teacup in her hands; Anna doesn't drink tea in the morning, neither does he—are those ice cubes?
Dazed, he watches as she very carefully upends the cup of frozen tea onto the back of Anna's exposed neck, closes his eyes again because this has to be a hallucination—
Anna lets out a furious shriek as she starts awake, accidentally elbowing Kristoff in the ribs as she tries to get the cold off and grab her sister at the same time, but Elsa's already gone.
The previously quiet castle erupts with crashes, bangs, and triumphant laughter. Kristoff groans, cramming a pillow over his face. More sleep, he decides. More sleep would be good.