Chapter twenty-two

Drink you away

Elsa danced around the kitchen in a whirlwind of motion. Anna stood at the edge of the linoleum floor, watching her attend to pot, pan, and stockpot, one after the other. "Are you sure I can't help you with anything?" she asked, speaking over the single ticking timer.

"In a little bit, you can," Elsa replied. "Right now, you'd get in the way. I'm kind of in my zone." As she spoke, she removed the pasta ladle from the stockpot and stirred the large mass of unbroken spaghetti noodles. Next, she turned to the pot, stirring a mass of mostly melted butter, heavy cream, and various cheeses with a wooden spoon. Finally, she grabbed a spatula and reached into the pan, mashing the salmon within into smaller and smaller slices.

Anna watched the maestro at work, a mixture of awe and fear on her face. "I can see that," she said.

"Don't worry, it's not as complicated as it looks," Elsa said. "Stir, stir, mash. You can do this yourself, if you like the taste of the recipe."

Anna snorted. "Yeah, like I'd graduate from tacos to this."

"Fair point," Elsa said. "But there's simpler dishes than this. How do you feel about quiches?"

Anna thought about it. "Agnostic," she said after a while.

Beep Beep

The air fryer went off just then, preventing Elsa from asking what the hell that meant. "You can help me with that," she said, gesturing at the mortar and pestle right next to the fryer.

"Okay," Anna said. Opening the fryer, she pulled out the foil-wrapped garlic bulb. She winced slightly as she grabbed the bits that were too hot to touch while unwrapping the bulb. Clumsily, she tried removing the cloves from their skin with her bare hands before noticing the fork laid right next to the fryer. It proved a much better tool for the job, and soon all the garlic was in the mortar, at the mercy of Anna and her mighty pestle.

"The hardest part of this," Elsa said as Anna mashed the garlic, "is getting all three of these to sync up." She looked in the pan, frowned, and turned down its respective burner. "Salmon might come out a little blackened."

"I'll live," Anna said. She mashed the roasted garlic vigorously until it was homogenous in texture, then passed the mortar to Elsa. Elsa inspected the contents, found them to be of adequate texture (with enough surprise in her expression to mildly wound Anna), and dumped them into the pot of alfredo sauce.

Elsa glanced at the timer and jumped when she saw a mere two minutes remaining. "It's almost ready," she said, hurriedly grabbing a pepper shaker and rapidly seasoning the sauce. "Think you could handle drinks?"

"Yeah, sure," Anna said. She reached for the glasses, then had an idea. "Yeah! Sure!" she repeated, with much more enthusiasm, and dashed out of the room, heading for the basement.

"Anna?" Elsa called after her, but it wasn't like she could abandon her post. She dumped the spaghetti into the colander in the sink, scraped the salmon into the sauce, and turned off all three burners. She gave the sauce one last vigorous mix, then poured the spaghetti into it. Finally, she used a pair of tongs to first toss the spaghetti, then deposit two portions onto the waiting plates.

"Anna?" she called again. Soon after, the basement door opened, and Anna stepped out, carrying a dull green bottle.

"Right here," Anna said, slightly out of breath. "We're having fish, so that means…white wine, right?"

"I suppose so," Elsa said. "Good thinking." She read the label. "Moscato…I hear that one's pretty sweet, right?"

Anna nodded. "You have no idea," she said with a grin.

Elsa blinked. "…Okay," she said uncertainly. She set the bottle down and began rooting around in the cupboards for wine glasses.

"Top shelf, all the way to the right," Anna said. She opened the silverware drawer and pulled out a device that looked more like a Swiss army knife than a corkscrew, at least to Elsa's untrained eye. As Anna set about removing the cork, she took a look at the two fancy plates loaded with spaghetti. "Ooh, that looks good," she said. She sniffed. "Smells good too."

"That's because it is good," Elsa replied. "Salmon Alfredo, pour la mademoiselle."

Anna smiled and kissed her on the cheek as she walked past. "Enchanté, ma belle flocon de neige."

"Mmm, this is really good!" Anna exclaimed.

Elsa beamed. "Great," she said. "I'm glad you like it."

"I mean it," Anna said. "I've been living on mostly spaghetti for the last five years, but this is on a while other level!"

Elsa nodded. "It's the Alfredo sauce. The store brands absolutely can't compete with making it yourself. It's like night and day."

"You're telling me!" Anna said.

She dug back into the spaghetti, shoveling it into her mouth and making immodest appreciative noises. Elsa, meanwhile, took a sip from her wine glass, which quickly turned into a gulp. "Holy shit," she said in amazement. "It's so sweet!"

"Isn't it?" Anna said proudly. "So sweet, you could chug it straight from the bottle if you wanted."

"Yeah," Elsa said without thinking. Running the words over again in her mind, she raised an eyebrow.

"I don't," Anna clarified. "But you could."

Elsa gestured with an open palm. "Well, you're not wrong." She took another drink from her glass. "I'll admit I'm not much of a wine connoisseur, but I didn't even know wine could be this sweet."

"Took some trial and error to figure it out," Anna said. "I'll fully cop to that."

She went for another forkful of spaghetti, twirling it against the side of her plate. When she noticed Elsa twirling her own fork against her spoon, Anna quickly followed suit. Elsa acknowledged this belated display of manners with nothing more than one upturned corner of her mouth, but that was still enough to make Anna beam.

"So tell me," Anna asked, "how does the wine pair with the food?"

"What?" Elsa asked.

"That's what it's supposed to do, right?" Anna said. "Accentuate the flavors or some shit?"

Elsa looked at her glass, then shrugged. "This is good, and this is good," she said, raising glass and plate respectively. "That's all I could tell you."

"Really?" Anna asked. "Well, that's disappointing."

"I don't know what to tell you, Anna," Elsa said. "I just know how to cook, I'm not actively French."

Anna raised her glass. "And a toast to that, dear sister."

Elsa chuckled, and clinked her glass with Anna's. "I'm serious," she said. "Nothing I've done so far has been any kind of masterful five course dish you need a degree for. You could cook just as well as I can, if you spent a few months practicing."

"Maybe," Anna said. "Or I could spend the rest of my life having you cook for me?" She batted her eyes at Elsa.

Elsa put a hand to her hip. "What about my birthday?" she countered.

Anna shrugged. "We can go to Cheesecake Factory or something," she said.

Elsa giggled. "Oh, how romantic of you."

They kept eating, but Elsa felt her mind getting called back to what Anna had said. It was a silly line said in jest, but she couldn't help but hyperfocus on it. Given that she was apparently the absolute worst at hiding her facial expressions, it wasn't long before Anna noticed that something was on her mind, and motioned for her to spit it out.

"The rest of your life, huh?" Elsa asked.

"That's the plan, yeah," Anna said. "Right?"

"Yes, of course," Elsa said quickly. "I mean, it's just…I hadn't really thought of it that way."

Anna nodded. "Never thought we'd get this far, right?"

"You can say that again," Elsa said.

"Well, if you were fishing for a confirmation, here it is," Anna said with a smile. "We've been at it long enough by now, and…yes. I'm with you for the long haul on this."

"And you're sure about that?" Elsa asked.

Anna nodded. "Yes, I'm sure," she said.

Unbidden, a smile spread across Elsa's face. "I'm…I'm glad to hear it."

Oh yeah, it's fuckin' great to hear that we passed the point of no return without even noticing it. If she wasn't on board before, guess she feels like she has no choice now, huh?

Elsa quickly raised her glass to her mouth to conceal the smile vanishing from her face. It seemed to have worked, as Anna was still grinning when she lowered it again. Still, the next ten seconds of awkward silence seemed to clue Anna in to the titanic nature of what she'd just tossed out.

"I'm not saying we have to get married right away or anything," Anna said.

"Of course," Elsa said. "We'd have to leave the country to do it, and we could never tell anyone about it anyway."

"Plus, what would it even change?" Anna pointed out. "We're still gonna be living together either way, till death do us part, right?"

Yep, she'll spend her whole life with nobody but you, unable to confide in even her closest friends. No chance she might have second thoughts in the next half a century, right?

In lieu of a response, Elsa drained her glass. "Yeah," she said once it was empty. "If anything, we'd be worsening our odds. They say fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce!"

Anna laughed, which was fortunate, because Elsa had realized mere nanoseconds after the words left her mouth that if Anna hadn't laughed, that joke would've seriously killed the mood. It wasn't the sort of joke she'd ever throw out normally. She hazarded that both the delivery and reception of the joke had been facilitated by the bottle sitting on the table between them.

As she picked up that bottle to refill her glass, she noticed how much lighter it felt in her hands, which saddened her. Not only was it delicious, she could've sworn that voice in her head was getting more and more muffled as she drank.

"Don't you worry none," Anna said. "There's more where that came from."

"Really?" Elsa asked. "How did I not notice a whole-ass wine cellar when I was cleaning up down there?"

"There's a little wine cooler under the stairs," Anna said. "Mom got it right at the start of the pandemic."

"Ah," Elsa said. "I was picturing a fake wall in the side of the craft room, with a massive store of hundred-year old bottles within."

Anna frowned as she tried to picture the geometry Elsa was describing. "That'd be…buried in the backyard, then?"

"Well, I was detecting earthy undertones, now that you mention it," Elsa said, waving her hand over the glass.

Anna laughed. Elsa's lips tingled.

"Oh man," Anna said, slumping back in her chair. "That was good."

"Good," Elsa said. She stood up, gripping her chair for support.

Anna placed a hand on her stomach. "If you keep cooking like this, I'm definitely gonna put on some weight."

Elsa picked up both their plates. "Sorry," she said instinctively. "I'll make you a salad next time."

Anna quickly held up her hands. "I didn't say that!" she said hurriedly, genuine fear in her voice.

Elsa couldn't help but cackle at this. Anna soon laughed as well, but Elsa's laugh felt powerful enough to nearly topple herself over as she hunted for a Tupperware container. When she found one that was big enough, she held it above her head triumphantly in a motion that almost did knock her over, but Anna rushed in to steady her.

"Wow, you really don't drink a lot, do you?" Anna said.

Elsa shook her head. "Didn't know wine could taste that good," she slurred. Her self-consciousness quickly kicked in. "Oh man, am I being an obnoxious drunk? I apologize."

Anna giggled. "You're certainly an apologetic drunk."

"Oh," Elsa said. "Well, sorry."

Anna laughed again. "Maybe I should take care of this," she said, taking the container from Elsa's hand.

"Uh, yeah, probably," Elsa said. "Don't wanna paint this place alfredo-colored."

"True that," Anna said. "I'm picturing you dragging around a mop like this…really ain't pretty, gotta say."

"Oh, you'd make me clean it?" Elsa said.

Anna shrugged. "Your mess."

She dumped the two plates's remaining contents into the container, then headed over to the stove to get the rest. Elsa sat down and pulled out her phone. As she started it up, she took note of the time. "Wow, it's half past eight," she marveled.

"Sure is," Anna said with a shrug. "Figured you'd make something quick if your boss kept you working late, but that's just not who you are, is it?"

Elsa sighed. "And here I thought I was gonna read some stuff after dinner," she mumbled.

Anna put the Tupperware container into the fridge. "Well, as always, I've got a better plan," she declared. "Remember that box set of Mythbusters we've got?"

Elsa turned to her, eyebrow raised. "…Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good plan right there," she admitted.

Anna's original plan had involved three episodes, but they were both yawning like crazy by the end of the second one. When Elsa suggested heading to bed, Anna protested, mainly because she'd been lying on Elsa's lap like a cat for most of their viewing time, but eventually she saw the wisdom in her words.

Getting to her feet, Anna judged herself to be halfway to sobriety already, with just a pleasant buzz left over. The same could not be said for Elsa, who staggered to her feet like a sailor trying to get their sea legs. "Oh geez," she said, leaning on the end table for support. She looked at Anna. "Think I'm gonna have to crawl the rest of the way."

Anna laughed. "As much as I'd like to see that…" She extended an arm to Elsa, palm invitingly upturned.

Elsa waggled her eyebrows, as if weighing up her options. "Sure, I guess that works too."

Elsa took her hand, and Anna lifted her up, slinging the offered arm over her shoulders and flawlessly transitioning into the support carry she'd learned in Girl Scouts. For her party, Elsa made an effort to walk straight to assist Anna in her assistance, even if the concentration required for this task meant it was a mostly silent journey, save for the odd giggle as they nearly swerved into the odd table or chair.

The stairs were an odyssey in themselves, each creak and groan like the bellowing of a new beast threatening to slam them to the floor. They somehow made it to the top in one piece, then set off down the hallway, a far less treacherous leg of the journey. Entering into her room, Elsa felt a surge of triumph. It wasn't enough to overcome her fatigue, though, and she felt the gravitational pull of her bed tugging on her.

"Here we are, ma'am," Anna said, removing Elsa's arm from her shoulder but still holding her hand for support. "You can pay on the Uber app, and if you could rate me five stars I'd – oop!" She yelped in surprise as Elsa tipped forward onto the bed, yanking her down with her. It almost seemed accidental, until she twisted midair to land on her back, head landing on the pillow and Anna landing on her.

Elsa giggled, but the giggle soon faded as she realized the conditions she had just created. Anna was on her, the full weight of her body pressing into her. With the heat of her body and her breath, and the softness of her skin against Elsa's, she had just put both of them into an incredibly stimulating position. The look of surprise on Anna's face was quite understandable, as the mood of the moment had shifted dramatically in mere seconds. Even in Elsa's wine-drenched mind, the implications of yanking Anna into bed with her weren't hard to see.

"Uh…sorry," Elsa said awkwardly. "Didn't mean to go there just yet."

"Yeah, no worries," Anna said, though she visibly relaxed. She moved to get off her, but Elsa tugged on her wrist.

"But, uh, there is some stuff we can do, right?" she asked. "Plenty of ground to cover that's short of that?"

Anna grinned. "Thought you'd never ask," she said.

Without another word, she lifted her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. While Elsa lay there, stunned by this development, Anna gently lifted her upper body off the bed and removed her shirt as well. Then she lowered herself back onto Elsa, and the two kissed.

Elsa wondered if she'd already passed out and was dreaming. She could hardly compute what was going on, only that she was a huge fan of it. Her arms were flat on the bed, so her mouth did all the talking. That came to an end when Anna broke off from her and lifted Elsa's arm to her side. "This ain't a museum, sweetheart," she said with a smirk. "You can touch all you like."

Elsa took the invitation with gusto, wrapping her arms around Anna's waist and pulling her into another kiss. Her hand moved slowly up and down Anna's back, encountering only the resistance of her bra strap as she caressed her body.

She'd seen Anna in a swimsuit before, of course, but this was on a whole new level. To be able to not just see, but touch and admire her body, was incredible. The freckles that dotted her shoulders and upper body were like daubs of paint on a masterful painting. The two of them were closer than ever now, separated only by mere scraps of cloth. Even for a sober Elsa, it would've been overwhelming.

Tears leaked from Elsa's eyes. Anna kept their kiss going, correctly diagnosing them as tears of joy. When they did at last separate, Elsa sank into the bed, panting. She slowly reached up and caressed Anna's face. "Is this real?" she asked in a faint voice. "Are you really here?"

Anna smiled, nodded, and closed the distance between them once again. The night was only getting started.

The sharp headache was what woke Elsa up. Her hand flew to her temples as she hissed in pain. Maybe it would pass.

It didn't pass, and now that she was awake, more and more aches and pains made themselves known. Her eyes shot open.

It was still dark out, and her watch informed her that it was only 3am. Just the glow of the LCD numbers on her watch made her wince, adding onto the headache that wasn't going away. Despite being down to her underwear, she felt like she was burning up, and sweat caked her body. Her stomach was queasy, and her acid reflux was burning like a dollop of lava at the back of her throat. She threw off the covers and sat up.

She'd had a few hangovers before, but nothing she'd experienced had ever been anywhere near this bad. She should've said no when Anna mentioned the second bottle, that was way too-

Anna.

Elsa's heart sank. She looked over at the other side of the bed. Also stripped down to her underwear, Anna slumbered peacefully, the image of beauty and grace.

Look what you did to her.

Memories of their makeout hit Elsa one after the other. Everywhere she had touched her sister's body, she now visualized smeared, grubby fingerprints, like oil stains splattered across a beautiful painting. Her adoration of Anna's beauty now turned in on itself, manifesting as revulsion in her own actions. The sickness in her stomach intensified, drowning out everything else. Her heavy dinner lurched around inside her like a tumble dryer.

Elsa bolted from the room and into the bathroom. Staggering to the toilet, she lifted the lid and retched into it. It was long, painful, and messy, but she kept vomiting until it seemed there was nothing left inside her. Once she was finally done, she clambered to her feet and turned around. She walked over to the mirror and switched on the light.

The blinding bathroom lights forced her to close her eyes once again, and she had to wait a whole minute before she could open them again. Once she had adjusted, she stared at her own reflection. With flecks of vomit in her wild, unkempt hair and dark circles beneath her bloodshot eyes, she looked as bad as she felt.

You see what happens when you lose control for even a moment? You pushed things way too far, and you defiled your sister with your disgusting touch.

No, she wanted me to do it. She was on board with this, Elsa thought desperately.

You saw her expression when you pulled her onto the bed. You swore that if you ever saw that face, you'd stop immediately. But as soon as the opportunity came your way, you just ignored it.

She wasn't scared, just surprised. She was smiling the rest of the time.

Oh, so now you're gambling that you understand what she wants? This all tracks perfectly with her just going along with it to keep you around!

It had been a mistake to try and drown the voice with alcohol. Now it was ten times louder, pounding against the inside of her head, and she couldn't fight it.

You crossed the line, and you know it. Now you know what happens next.

Elsa fell to her knees. She squeezed her fist tight, digging her nails into the heel of her hand so hard that she felt three of them pierce her skin.

Oh no. Clearly that's not enough. You've been doing that for the past month, and it's gotten you nowhere. You need something stronger.

Her eyes locked on the drawer right in front of her. They widened.

Open it.

She opened the drawer mechanically.

Take it out.

She reached into the drawer and pulled out a box. Her body was on autopilot, her mind already trying to dissociate from what she was about to do.

Grab one.

She pulled out one of the disposable razor heads from the box. It was the same brand they'd used for a decade. Which meant she still knew how to take it apart.

If we're going to bleed, let's really bleed.

Something was wrong.

Anna knew it the moment her eyes opened. She sat up and looked around, trying to figure out what had woken her.

Elsa was gone. The bathroom light was on, so that should've comforted her. But it didn't.

Perhaps it was the smell. The acrid stink of stomach acid explained what Elsa had left to do, but there was something else beneath it. It had a metallic tinge to it – had Elsa's vomit been that bad?

Elsa walked out of the bathroom. Anna saw her shadow first, but it still didn't comfort her. She was holding one arm above her head for some reason. It wasn't a long walk from the bathroom to her room, but it still seemed to take her ages to cover the distance. In an instant Anna felt sober as a minister, and she shivered as she waited for Elsa to come back.

When she did enter the room, things became far worse. In her raised hand, she clutched one of the hand towels tightly. It had been white, but was now covered in something dark and sticky, something that looked to be dripping down her-

All the color drained from Anna's face. "Oh god," she breathed.

Elsa's face was morose, full of regret. "I need to go to the hospital," she said calmly.