Chapter Text
They graduate together, arm in arm. Wednesday thinks it’s akin to a funeral - to gather the drones of Nevermore into a single space before sending them off to the unknown, to adulthood, and the politics that came with the world of the Supernatural.
And the students celebrated it. Unaware, she assumes. Pitifully ignorant of the torment of the wider world that was soon to crush them.
Wednesday finds it not entirely repulsive. With Enid at her side, it made it all the less unbearable.
The wolf had her clawed hands clutched around the wet, beating muscle of her heart. Wednesday’s blood ran through the crevices of her fingers, dripped onto the floor; obscene, for all to see, a dizzying confession in itself.
Enid was entirely in control of her; a bewitchment, a curse, the bliss of drowning and the electric buzz in the back of her teeth.
They will be buried together in the Addams plot one day, to rot side by side for eternity, she knows. She has picked out the plot already, a silver shovel to dig it with, the arrangement of flowers and the song they will croon over the dirt. What will finally join them is left excitingly in question – how Wednesday will finally end Enid’s life. For it can only be her. It will only be.
She carries a silver knife with her, always. A poetic thing, and Wednesday dreams every night of plunging it into the lycan’s chest. An ultimate betrothal, Addams silver and Sinclair gold, married together in a final act.
She is the colour within crowds of grey, noticeable among the pathetic set of human life around her. Wednesday cannot tear her eyes away from Enid Sinclair, cannot stop her thoughts circling back around to a dance atop a rooftop, silver on steel, the whip of gold, blue and red.
Wednesday plans on asking her, in ultimatiatum, to join themselves in blood after their induction into adulthood.
Enid Sinclair disappears three days after graduation.
“Father–”
“No, Enid.”
“I can’t just–”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
Enid stutters in her step. Her father is fast in stride, packleader, and everything in her screams at the dismissal. It sets her teeth on edge.
“I– I didn’t mean… Just– I thought that– isn’t it too soon?”
“That therein lies the problem, daughter,” He turns to face her, golden eyes and golden hair and everything that she is not, “You think. You let your mind run away from your grip, like a fleeing rabbit. You are not my daughter to think, you are–”
“‘My daughter to serve.’ I know. I just–”
“You have more to say?”
Did she? Other than what has already been said, or things that never should be, or shall never be? “No. I’m sorry father.”
He sniffs, saying nothing more, and turns away in a sweep of fine tailoring and pristine shoes.
Enid remains, stuck still in the foyer of the Sinclair manor. Cowed and motionless, she stares at his retreating back. Her first day back, permanently, in California.
This was too early, too late, too much of everything. The Sinclair family was opulence and wealth and too, too much. Finally turning and finally fitting within the ranks had granted her nothing and still the pack demanded more, demanded her, demanded things she did not wish to give.
Enid only knows how to give, regardless. She turns on her heel.
To be a Sinclair was to serve. To be a lycan was to serve. To be the first daughter of the packleader of the Sinclairs was to only know servitude to the family.
Enid has never wanted more than to spill her own blood, drain it like a sieve and cast out everything foriegn, intrinsically not her – name, family, creed. Cast out the wolf, too, for it’s betrayal that in the height of herself, the first turning to save an Addams, it would condemn her too to be a Sinclair. Giving, and greed and gold.
Enid finds her way back to her old room. The walls are familiar, the air within young, almost, with the remnants of her childhood. It is barren, empty, and for the first time, she feels no desire to fill it.
Her mother had always been a sickly woman. They said, though Enid knew not to listen to rampant rumours surrounding the family, that she was afflicted with something rare. An aversion, or a sickness, or a hatred of and to the moon itself.
As a pure blooded lycan, that meant death. Yet her mother persevered.
Enid had always wondered whether her own previous affliction, that late, late transformation, had born its roots under her mother. It ran a remarkable trend within their family if so – the traits of the sick passed to their children.
Esther Sinclair was a vicious woman, too, perhaps festered under this sickliness and the pity it had conjured from the pack. Her daughter's own nature had made her twice as vicious, a hatred turned outwards and lashing. It was difficult, Enid finds, not to revile her own mother outright. Perhaps once she had been less bitter, weakly, and angry. It was not the case now.
It hadn’t been for the nineteen years Enid Sinclair had been alive. As one of her blood-brother’s had said, Esther was not a woman who changed, or was willing to.
Knowing this did not make her mother any less easy to bear.
The first week back in the Sinclair manor was bearable, if only for the fact that her blood family was so busy with the details of her return that she did not see them at all. Apart from her brothers and packmates, the full seven days were blissfully empty and easy.
Then came the family dinner. A tradition insisted upon by her father, and acquiesced by them all in reluctant familiarity. They dined always in the southern parlour, the coldest in the manor. Red meat, cooked so lightly to be bloody and near raw, and always in the presence of their serving staff.
It was near clinical. Enid always sat next to her brothers. Their father at the head.
Before the meal begins, he stands. One hand balances his cane, the other around a crystal tumbler. Whiskey, Enid scents, the same that is always on her fathers breath in some form. They quieten as the lycan clears his throat, casting golden eyes directly to Enid.
“You finally return to us, our wayward daughter,” Her father tips his glass, a mocking gesture in the sneer behind his beard. Enid is not quite sure if there’s something else under his voice, something deeper, “The manor will once again grow heavy with colour.”
The thought is quashed. Her fascination for colour was not a desired trait. She’d indulged obscenely within the room in Nevermore, but that freedom was long gone. Enid had bleached the dye from her hair the third day she was back. Harsh blonde once again. The natural brown of her true hair was yet another disappointment.
“I’m glad to be home, father,” Enid murmurs. The lie is not difficult for her. Enid is good at lying.
Henri, by her side, nudges his foot to hers. The gesture is not returned.
“Can we expect something more from you this time?” Esther calls, “Your last summer here was certainly… tempestuous. I expect you have that nasty little temper of yours in check, hm?”
“My temper is perfectly controlled, mother. I was getting used to my wolven sensibilities back then.” Another lie. They fall from her tongue like sand in an open palm. Easy. Natural. The role of Enid Sinclair is worn like a coat for the cold.
“Ah, yes. Such a late bloomer. It must be difficult when you're older – to get used to the instincts.” Esther cuts her eyes beside Enid. “Naturally, we couldn’t help you there. Your brothers all turned at, hm, six, was it?”
“Yes.” Enid grits out. “I remember.”
“Of course you do. Why–”
Her father is cold in his interjection. “Esther. The food is cooling.”
The woman crumples, just slightly. Air removed from her haughty ramblings, she gingerly lowers herself back into her chair.
Enid reaches for another fork to replace her own. The bronze cutlery had bent under the force of her grip. Bright red imprints remain on her skin as she reaches for it. Henri’s gaze flickers across her palm before his foot nudges hers again. She nudges back, and he relaxes, somewhat.
The meal after that is not quite pleasant, but almost cordial between her parents. It’s a first for their family, at least so far as Enid is concerned. Throughout most of it, her three brothers are a light. She jokes with them, rough housing as politely as possible. Her father interjects when he feels, cold and stern as always, and Esther is blessedly quiet through most all of it.
It’s an indulgence, this warmth of family and knowing, and Enid greedily indulges in it. A remembrance of distant, perfect days as pups and welps, playing silly in the forests of the Sinclair estate.
They reminisce in such a way that she can’t escape the thick ache within her chest.
Alric approaches her on the balcony. His fur is barely moulted from his hunt the previous night, and eyes still burning Sinclair gold. The man lingers in the entryway, heart beats steady and feet shuffling. When he comes forward and wraps a too-warm paw around Enid’s shoulder, she sinks into it readily. The buzz within her chest eases somewhat.
Still, even with that comfort, she misses the flash of black and white and dead eyes so familiar – on a different balcony, in a different country, and now in a different world to her own.
“Esther–” He begins.
A near growl tears from Enid. “Alric, I do not want to speak about our mother. We talk about her enough already.” She snaps.
Her brother hums. A clawed hand squeezes tighter over her shoulder. “Fair enough. Least you left the dinner table on your own terms this time.”
‘Own terms,’ being that she had been near turning with fury, another bout of her mothers needling leaving her raw and vulnerable. The woman knew every spot to make it hurt. The comfort of the dinner had been short lived, though Enid expected that nonetheless.
“Storming out in a rage is hardly ‘leaving.’” She grumbles. “And as if I’m not back here against my will.”
“What prospects did you have outside the pack, huh? Become a barista in a civilian town? A fashion designer in Europe, with all those witch-hunters?” Enid can feel her brother tense beside her. A winding of steel-cord muscle, a growl reverbing through his throat.
This conversation felt age old, worn through time and repetition.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She says, as if she’s said those words a thousand times before.
Alric responds, just the same. “We’re Sinclairs.”
“I wasn’t. Not until two years ago, I wasn’t.”
“And now you are. Which means–”
Enid pushes out of the cradle of his arm, spinning to face him directly. “To serve, I know. Fuck– why does everyone feel the need to spout that at me every second of every day?!” Alric looks tired under her glare. The heat leaves her immediately. “Shit, I’m sorry–”
“We missed you she-wolf.” Her heart aches with the earnestness of him, “Guess we want to just make sure you know what you’re doing.” Ignoring her impeaching gaze, he faces outward from the balcony. Thick arms hang over the railing, bathed in the halfmoon. “Father– the pack, I mean, there’s been trouble brewing up here for a while. You’re good at making people do things. Father knows that.”
The mentioned of their father makes her bristle. Of course, because what was Enid to Murray Sinclair but a tool to serve their pack? An effective tool, granted, to ensure the Sinclairs were still the golden masters of this coast, as they had been since the witch hunts, since before that even. But a tool nonetheless.
Theirs was an exhausting legacy. Enid crumbles, words dying within her throat.
“I know. I did grow up here, dummy.” She joins him, side by side, “You assholes always forget that, y’know, just because I didn’t go on silver hunts.”
“Full moon hunts are stupid and mindless En’, and you would’ve just been running with us dumb boys.” He bumps his shoulder to hers, good humour lighting his eyes, “And we didn’t forget. You just–”
Never fit in, he does not say, Enid knows.
“Yeah, yeah. Well I’m a proper Sinclair now, right?”
“Mhmm. An honour, or so I’m told. And– c’mon, you were always a Sinclair. Whatever shit ma is always going on about, she’s wrong.”
Enid looks to the horizon, breath strangling in her chest. As many times as they said that, it never felt entirely true. Enid was alway pink, and blue, and never, ever gold. She was not a wolf, not a fighter, not her father nor her mother. With her brothers she fit – but that was perhaps the only way she did fit in California.
Her place was in contrast. Her place was not here.
“You mentioned trouble?” She says.
Alric casts her a look. The knowing is there, behind his eye. “Yeah. Business stuff. Father thinks there’s a clan fight looming. Sinclairs keep getting killed, and the pack meetings are getting… well, you’ll see.”
Enid blinks. “I’ll see? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you’re coming to the gathering before full moon. The real deal – all four families are going.” There’s a sharp little smile on his face, “And,” He sing songs, “Father asked for you specifically.”
Something heavy and confusing settles atop her chest. Enid stares hard. So much so her eyes start to water. “Well. Shit.” She tilts her head back to Alric, “Are you- like, sure?" Enid shakes her head so hard her ears ring. "Jesus. I can’t believe he’s actually asking me to do stuff.”
“You’re his only daughter, and now you’re a full fledged wolf,” Alric snorts, “Of course he asked for you.”
“You keep saying that.” She whines.
“And it’ll keep being true.”
With an over dramatic sigh, she pushes away from Alric and turns back to the balcony doors. “You’re not clever!”
“And you’re still not cool!” He shouts back.
Giggling, Enid slips through the doors and back out into the corridor. Her room is a short walk away, and in it she turns over the night within her head.
Of course, as it always does, the maddening vision of an Addams comes to mind. In black and white and dead eyes, it always comes. A raven sat atop her shoulder, haunting Enid’s waking world.
It’s long past the point of crushing the feelings beneath her. They’re a creature of their own, an all consuming fervour forever within her chest.
When Enid left, she left her heart in Nevermore. It bleeds like nothing else can. A single, selfish part of her prays that Wednesday Addams will not hate her for her actions, will not despise her priority.
Because she is Enid, a Sinclair, a daughter. The guarantee of her name and creed is all that she clings to, all that she had before she was a true lycan. Even if it means cutting out a part of her soul, her shadow, her gruesome end in a whispered promise.
She was Sinclair first, even if she aches to be an Addams.