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“Your parents are so devoted to each other.”
Wednesday glances at Enid from the corner of her eye. Parents Day was only slightly more bearable this year, and Wednesday can only take so much subjection to her parents’ vile infatuation without vomiting.
“It’s disgusting,” she agrees, and when Enid snorts, she realizes she’s misjudged the tone of her observation.
She doesn’t turn her head, but she doesn’t have to. Enid’s dreamy gaze is blinding. “It’s sweet. You can see how much they love each other.”
Wednesday fights down a shudder and has to work extra hard this time not to scowl. “Try living with it for sixteen years.” Part of her wonders why Enid has sought solace from her. Since she wolfed out, her parents should be happy and thus the conflict resolved. But here she sits, tucked into a window ledge, mere inches from Wednesday. Only Enid can get away with being this close, annoying as she may be.
Enid just hums considerately under her breath. Wednesday sees her parents walk into the courtyard, and Enid leans back from the window to avoid being spotted. Reading cues has never been her strong suit, but a recent fixation on learning human behavior had made her mildly more proficient than last year.
Psychology still appealed to her as much as a sunlit stroll, which was to say, not at all – but even it had its uses in the right context. A broken clock is right twice a day, after all.
“You transformed,” she states, and Enid blinks at her. Apparently, it’s not enough context to prompt a conversation. She hates feelings. “Unless there is another conflict you failed to accost me with, you should have no reason to hide.”
Enid is quiet, a rarity for her, but Wednesday feels something… shift. When Enid meets her gaze, she understands why.
Oh. She’s angry.
“Wolfing out is just the first part,” she says, and it’s in measured, careful breaths. Wednesday is almost impressed by both her restraint and the edge in her voice. “They’ve been hounding me since I got back about finding a mate.”
This time, Wednesday can’t hide her grimace. “Dreadful.”
The floodgates are open, and Wednesday can’t tell if Enid is angry with her or the situation, but she nearly explodes. “It’s a nightmare! It’s not even that I don’t want to find a mate, it’s just that they’ve been on me about it for the past month and they keep trying to get me out to pack meets and–” she growls and throws her head back, nearly smacking it on the window frame. “I thought that wolfing out would be enough to keep them happy, but it seems like now they’re making up for lost time.”
She catches Wednesday’s eyes as her brows lift, and Enid sighs. “My parents met when they were thirteen, and they knew immediately. When I said I was a late bloomer I wasn’t kidding; most werewolves wolf out around twelve or thirteen. Coincides with puberty,” she rolls her eyes. “They knew that they were meant to be early, and that isn’t uncommon for us. I’m still a freak even though I finally wolfed out.”
So that’s why she’s been so touchy lately. “My parents met here.” Enid knows that part – she knows most of the story, actually, since it was cracked wide open last year, but she shuffles and watches Wednesday curiously. “My father is very, very lucky his infatuation was –is—reciprocal.”
Enid tilts her head, and Wednesday likens her to a curious puppy. “I thought you were sick of them.”
“I am.” It’s harsher than she means it to be –something she rarely regrets, but the flash of sadness on Enid’s face dredges it up—and she breaks their eye contact to watch them again. They’ve found Enid’s parents, which can only be a bad sign, but Wednesday is in no mood to shepherd them away from each other. “An Addams’ romance is all-consuming.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be?”
“Not the way that we do it.” She has intentionally stayed away from this topic with Enid, because she doesn’t want to field all the questions that come with it. She isn’t sure why she’s decided to talk about it now. It doesn’t seem like a fitting conversation to comfort Enid, and it’s highly personal to the Addams and, by extension, Wednesday herself. “Addams’ romance is obsessive to the point of danger. Never to the object of an Addams’ affection,” she clarifies before Enid can ask. “But to the self. Unrequited love can, and has, ended the lives of my kin.”
“You mean like – suicidal, or…?”
“Sometimes. Often not.” She pauses, and Enid waits expectantly. It’s rare that Wednesday speaks of her personal matters, and it brings an odd kind of warmth to her that Enid is so vested in hearing about it. “My second cousin, Lydia, had the misfortune of an unrequited heartbreak. It was quite literal for her. Her heart crystallized, and then shattered within her. It killed her instantly.” She watches her father gaze lovingly up at her mother, hanging on her every word, and the soft smile and the way Morticia caresses his hand makes her feel sick.
“Oh,” Enid says, and then falls quiet.
They share the silence for a few moments. It’s companionable and comfortable, something that Wednesday isn’t known to experience with other people often. She generally feels most at ease alone, and it unsettles her that Enid has wormed her way into her heart.
And she usually likes worms.
“Werewolves mate for life,” Enid says after a long while. She’s looking out over the courtyard as well. “And it’s similarly devastating if they lose their mate. We go nuts.”
Wednesday watches her, and Enid keeps her gaze trained on the courtyard outside. It’s actually quite a nice day; the sky is gray and the clouds dark, threatening a storm at any moment. It desaturates the world around them in a way that Wednesday has always found soothing.
Enid somehow escapes being sapped of color. There is still pink in her cheeks and her garish pink snood seems as bright as ever. Her eyes are the bluest of blues, and Wednesday thinks the gloom outside might actually emphasize them.
Wednesday is caught off guard by them when Enid looks at her, newfound curiosity sparkling in them. She hesitates, but finally asks, tentatively, “So… Tyler…?”
Wednesday bristles. Any mention of him still makes her seethe with rage, and nobody knows that better than her roommate. “Enid…” she warns, but it doesn’t have the same effect as usual.
“He must not have triggered that obsessive romance for you, then,” she says. It’s flat and deadpan, and Wednesday admits privately that she’s impressed by it.
She feels defensive and laid bare all of a sudden, like Enid’s piercing blue eyes can see straight through her, and she doesn’t like it. “It’s equally possible that I haven’t inherited that trait.” It’s something she’s considered before. That her father’s curse, or whatever it was, had skipped her. It was impossible to know how many of their lineage had such a trait, because even if they did, it likely never showed once they had found their person – so long as it was reciprocal. “And I have no desire to find out,” she adds with finality.
“Wednesday…” Enid sighs, and when she leans forward, there’s something far too knowing in her gaze. “It’s okay to be scared, y’know? Especially if you don’t normally… feel things.”
“I feel plenty of things. Spite. Disgust. Hatred. Irritation,” Wednesday defends, unsure why she feels like she has to defend herself in the first place. What has this shining beacon of rainbow nonsense done to her?
Enid laughs and rolls her eyes. “You know what I meant.”
She does. Unfortunately, for once. “Tyler was a distraction,” she says before she can think better of it, and immediately wishes the old creaky floorboards of Nevermore would suck her under. There’s a flash of recognition in Enid’s eyes, and Wednesday shrinks from it. “My mother sent me here with the hope I’d make social connections,” she continues, bulldozing past whatever pieces Enid is putting together in her mind. “Regrettably for her, it didn’t work.”
“Or you weren’t looking in the right place,” Enid responds. She leans back to remove herself from Wednesday’s personal bubble, and Wednesday does appreciate the thoughtfulness of it.
She shouldn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know what Enid means by that, she doesn’t want to unravel this thread to its end. It would be far easier, far simpler, to let the conversation die where it stood, instead of bringing obnoxious things like emotions to the surface.
It’s like her tongue has a mind of its own when she asks, “Which is?”
She says it like a challenge, but even she can hear the tremble in it, slight and inconsequential enough to go unheard by all but the most sensitive of ears.
Like Enid’s.
For a long moment, Enid says nothing. It isn’t like her to be silent for so long, and Wednesday would never show it, but it makes her uncomfortable. There’s something distinctly carnivorous in her eyes, whether that is from the wolf or human side Wednesday can’t know, and she isn’t sure if she wants to run or stay and see what happens.
The decision is ultimately taken from her. Enid leans forward, so close that Wednesday feels Enid’s breath on her lips.
She had half-expected dog breath.
“Werewolves mate for life, Wednesday.”
“Yes, you already told me that. I’m not sure what you—” Wednesday stops mid-sentence.
Oh.
Enid doesn’t touch her. Doesn’t advance, doesn’t move. Wednesday thinks she may have forgotten how to breathe. But she’s close, so close that Wednesday can see the individual streaks of pale and dark and saturated and desaturated blues of her irises. She wants to count the individual shades and hues, map them like the oceans and label each with increasingly obscure names.
She knows the second Enid hears her heart race, and her eyes flick down just enough for Wednesday to know the glance was at her lips. Wednesday is a writer, a proficient writer, dare say an excellent writer, and she can’t get a single word out past her lips.
She needs a moment.
“Enid, get out of my face.” She means to say that more gently, and Enid’s face falls, but she does as she’s asked. She doesn’t apologize, though, as Wednesday expected. Simply sits back and folds her hands in her lap.
Her claws are out.
Wednesday sucks in a shaky breath, holds it, and exhales. She hates this feeling, this knot in her stomach where only cold, bitter revenge and spite is supposed to live. Enid seems to have filled it with spiders or worse, butterflies, which Wednesday wasn’t looking.
Her heart flutters, and Enid pointedly ignores it.
It takes a long, long few moments for Wednesday to find her voice without being engulfed by everything that is Enid Sinclair. When she does, she can hear the doubt in her own voice. She hates it, but she also promised to be honest with both herself and her best friend.
“I have no interest in romance,” she states, and Enid just arches a brow.
“I’m not sure you have a choice.”
It’s almost cocky, and she notes that Enid’s teeth are sharp. She isn’t angry, she doesn’t radiate nerves the way she does before a test, but there’s clearly some deep emotion triggering her wolf out.
Oh, fuck.
“And that is exactly why I don’t want to deal with it,” Wednesday spits, trying to clear the acrid taste of love from her heart. “Insanity by unrequited affection is decidedly the most boring way to embrace madness.”
Enid quirks a smile at her, and boldly reaches out to grasp her hand. Wednesday snatches it back, but not before fire runs up her arm to jolt her directly in the chest where Enid touched her. “Yeah, I tried to ignore that too,” she says softly, and there’s so much affection and loyalty and love in her eyes that it makes Wednesday uneasy. She wants to run, she wants to hide, she wants to stay.
Stay?
Her mind has never been so crowded with thoughts, and all of them compete for her attention. This is why she doesn’t do feelings, and while she thinks she knows what Enid means, the assumption terrifies her almost as much as knowing for certain would terrify her.
“Enid, I am not interested in deciphering your social cues right now,” she says, and hopes it will dismiss the wolf from the room so that she doesn’t have to deal with this any longer. Suddenly, death by unrequited romance doesn’t sound so terrible as long as she can just get away from these feelings.
“And I’m not good with words,” Enid replies, and before Wednesday can move, she’s leaning forward again. The tips of her claws scratch Wednesday’s jaw when she cups it, and she pauses a fraction of an inch from Wednesday’s lips. “Just… give it a chance,” she murmurs, almost pleading, almost desperate, before she kisses Wednesday.
She tastes like earth and cherry lip balm and something unidentifiable and uniquely Enid, and Wednesday’s spine doesn’t bend in half with visions the way it did with Tyler. Wednesday grips Enid’s elbows to anchor herself, and the maybe-spiders-maybe-butterflies in her stomach settle.
It still rattles her, terrifies her, to feel something so strong that is so fragile and precious, but Enid breaks away with a contented little sigh, and suddenly it feels a bit less terrifying.
They’re quiet for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, and Enid drops her hands to hold Wednesday’s.
It feels… safe.
Wednesday knows, in that moment, that she would cross oceans for Enid. She would kill for Enid, die for her, cut down armies for her. But worse yet, if Enid so much as asked, she would refrain. She would be meek, she would be soft. She would live for Enid, who herself is so full of light and life and color that most days Wednesday struggles to look directly at her. Enid, who is the sun.
She understands all at once, all too quickly, why her father surrendered to this feeling when he met her mother, why it catches so many Addams in its snare. And why the alternative, of feeling this so deeply and earnestly and never being able to fully realize it, would break even the strongest of them.
Wednesday doesn’t notice that she’s squeezing Enid’s hands until Enid squeezes back. It’s a wordless reassurance, and Wednesday loves her for it.
She loves Enid.
It’s far too soon to get the words out, to flay herself open like that, but some deep part of her thinks Enid already knows.
“The mark you left on me is indelible,” Enid whispers into the air between them.
Wednesday’s heart swoops uncomfortably, but this time it feels just a touch less awful.
She doesn’t have to say anything, not yet.
And she realizes, with relief, that this won’t be what drives her to madness.