Because someone over on /r/elsanna was sorely disappointed that a rec/mention of “EVERYTHING by J. Peterson” (thanks, @canitellusmthn! Who I still can’t tag, apparently.) wasn’t a new fic. So now it is, and I have Billy Joel’s Tell Her About It stuck in my head because my brain is essentially one big musical index. (To me, this shows definite signs of me having spent the entire day in written communications training. Not sure if the differences I’m spotting are visible to anyone else, though.)

There were precious few moments that ranked higher in Anna’s mind than the ones like this. Ones where there was just this easy sense of completion; where the air was filled with comfortable silence; where every breath she took came with the scent of warm skin and clean linens; where there was satiny smoothness under her hands and a peacefully resting body in her arms.

“I love you,” she whispered into white-gold hair, and noted once again how those words just weren’t quite enough even as Elsa hummed and nestled impossibly closer.

“I love you too.” The reply was sleepy; easy and sincere as it had ever been while tender arms held her tighter, and Anna never doubted the truth behind it.

She just wished that she had a better way of explaining it. ‘Love’ was too simple a term for what she felt, and she suspected that it didn’t quite convey everything Elsa felt, either, but where her sister had always been content to speak with her actions - and was fluent in doing so - Anna tended to rely much more on her words.

And she hated it when they failed her. The fact that it happened so often around her sister didn’t help, because Elsa could make her heart stutter with no more than a smile, and Anna desperately wanted to ensure that she made Elsa feel as precious - as cherished - as Elsa did her.

'I love you’ wasn’t enough; didn’t carry enough weight to explain. Flowers - even chocolate – wasn’t enough, and neither was kissing. She did feel, at least, that she came close to truly showing how she felt when they were bare together; both like this, and in the way they had been only moments ago. When Elsa’s touch drove her higher than anything ever could, when their eyes locked just as Anna came apart under those skillful, gentle hands, it felt, without fail, as if she almost knew what to say.

Almost.

She pressed her face into soft, wavy hair when the frustration threatened to choke her, and pulled her sister so close that not even a thread of silk could have made its way between their bodies. The warmth she felt in Elsa’s arms had nothing to do with physical closeness or the fine down that shielded them from the chilly night air. Instead, it came from within; from a hole in her heart that Elsa’s love – so freely and honestly given – had filled so completely that it staggered her at times.

And Anna couldn’t even find the words to tell her how much it meant.

Elsa stirred, and Anna swallowed back something that might have been a sob when familiar lips brushed against her throat.

“What is it?” came the gentle inquiry; accompanied by the trace of Elsa’s fingers over her back. “You’re upset.”

She managed a half-choked, wry laugh against the top of the pale head, and shook her own. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Explain.”

There was a shifting of not-even-half light and shadow, and then Elsa’s face was in front of her own rather than tucked against the top of her chest; half-lit by the moon that turned her hair and eyes a pale, ethereal silver, and also cast half in shadows that deepened the faint furrow in her brow.

A touch traced a careful path just under Anna’s eye, and it wasn’t until then that she realized that she actually had tears in her eyes.

“Anna.” Even the sound of her name was pure tenderness on Elsa’s lips, and it was only multiplied by the hands that cradled her face; by the barest brush of a nose against her own; by the gentle press of a warm mouth that tasted sharp and fresh like crushed mint leaves. “Please talk to me. Are you hurt? Did I–”

“No.” She stopped her right there, though her own voice was raw. “I’m— it’s the other way around. I– I’m fine. Great.” Pause, and she swallowed roughly. “This. You, I— it’s perfect. We’re perfect. Like this.”

Elsa kissed her forehead this time, and when Anna was now the one to nestle her face against the crook of her sister’s neck and shoulder, there were long, slender fingers combing slowly through her hair while a subtle tension seemed to drain from Elsa’s frame as she sighed. “Alright,” she murmured, and sounded more than just a little relieved to Anna’s trained ears. “Then those are happy tears, perhaps?”

“Yes,” she agreed, and then sighed herself. “And no.”

A soft sound made Elsa’s throat vibrate faintly against her forehead. “Anna…”

“I know,” she groaned. “I know. It doesn’t make sense.” There was a faint noise of halfway amused agreement that managed to make her smile against soft skin. “It’s–” She took a breath, and stroked her palm over the curve of a bare hip, “I’m happy. I’m happier than I ever dreamed of, Elsa. But I’m also really mad at myself because I have no idea how to tell you howmuch you mean to me.” Those long fingers were scratching gentle circles at the base of her skull now. “Saying that I love you is just— it’s not enough. I mean, I love Olaf, too.”

“And it bothers you to use the same words for a different depth of emotion,” Elsa surmised.

“Yeah.”

“Anna, you don’t have to use other words,” was the soft assurance, with the slow stroke of fingertips over her spine and the sound of a steady heartbeat under her ear. “Even if you couldn’t speak at all, I would know your heart just by looking into your eyes. You don’t have to explain a thing; I promise.”

“I know that,” she insisted; voice low, but intent, as she raised herself onto one elbow so that she could look down into Elsa’s half-lidded eyes. “But I need to, Elsa. Not because I think you don’t know or can’t figure it out or because I think the 'I love you’ isn’t enough for you, but because– because I don’t want you to have to guess or interpret or– or read my aura or whatever’s making the rounds as the popular fortune telling thing right now.” That earned her that small, amused half-grin and soft breath of almost-laughter that always made her heart skip a beat: the one that tugged ever so faintly at the corner of Elsa’s lips; just enough to show part of a single, white canine, and enough to make those eyes slip shut for a bare instant before they were open again and regarding her fondly.

“Maybe you don’t need to hear it because you already know,” Anna continued; now essentially just thinking aloud while she admired the way those blue eyes looked so uncannily like polished silver in the pale light. “Because you do that lot; just know, or seem to, where I’m concerned.” The backs of Elsa’s fingers were brushing over her cheek, and she leaned into the touch and closed her eyes contentedly. “But I think maybe I need to find a way to tell you, anyway.”

“Then tell me,” was the patient reply, with the idle stroking of Elsa’s thumb over her cheekbone. “Don’t worry about making sense, if that helps. Just talk.”

Anna cracked one eye open. “So… ramble?”

There was a brief flash of white when Elsa smiled. “Yes. That should be easy enough, right?”

She pinched her for that. Even if it was true.

“I love you,” Anna breathed, and lowered herself until their foreheads were touching and she could make out every last, tiny fleck of what was now white in silver, rather than pale blue amidst darker blue. “I beyond love you. It’s–” She exhaled slowly through her nose and closed her eyes; focusing on the steady warmth of Elsa’s palm against her cheek; on the faint touch of the tips of her sister’s fingers against the sensitive skin below her ear. “This.” She covered the hand with her own. “It’s more than you touching my skin, or my face. It feels like you’re touching my soul.” The hand under her own twitched once, and she only barely caught the sound of Elsa’s breath hitching. “It’s– warm and… golden, like summer sunshine. It’s a hundred brilliant rainbows and the smell of a meadow after rain.” Her voice was growing progressively uneven with emotion, she knew, but something was unlocking now, so she pressed on. “It’s Christmas and birthdays and starry nights and sunrises. It’s butterflies landing on skin and that feeling of pride after doing something hard for the first time. It’s soft beds and hot nights and cool mornings and new snow. It’s more than sisters, more than lovers and best friends. It’s– its everything. You… are everything. To me.”

When Anna opened her eyes, there were several, sparkling lines on Elsa’s cheeks where tears had traced their way over her skin. But the wide, tremulous smile on her face was quite possibly the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

“I think maybe I did need to hear that,” Elsa told her in a low, wavering whisper.

Anna smiled, and ducked down the little more that she needed to in order for their lips to brush. “Then I definitely needed to tell you.”