Work Text:
Ena was, by all means, an absolute stranger to work.
She didn’t really have the capabilities to survive in a work environment. Too volatile. A firecracker that took a hair trigger to burst into flame in the sky, spilling her embers down on anything that dared to stand too close.
At least, that’s what Moony told her. And Merci. And just about everyone else, when she mentioned curiosities about jobbing.
It’s why she admired Ǝna so much, who only seemed to know how to work. It seemed to be her life, really.
It is.
Like Ena, she didn’t understand the concept of fun, but she at least put that into something else. Something do-able. It was astounding!
Though, Ena supposes, at the end of the day, they were still cut from the same cloth.
Even with her partner’s enrapturing capabilities came exhaustion. Depths she couldn’t reach.
And were she to reach those points—
"FUCK MY LIFE!" A steely, booming voice sounds, accompanied by the crunch of wood as the front door is suddenly kicked wide open.
For some reason, Ǝna had her megaphone out, and was using it to yell to the heavens.
"Damn pocket-pickers, they don’t know jackshit!" She goes on to howl, storming into their home and moving her foot just a ways before the door.
Without ever making contact, it slams back into place.
"Welcome home, dearest love of mine!" Ena chirps from her place on the couch, a smile on her face despite her beloved’s fuming state. She closes the wordless book she was reading to sit up straight, tilting her head.
"Had a tough day toiling, I presume?"
"Like you wouldn’t fucking believe!" Ǝna snaps, slamming her megaphone onto the ground. "They don’t get me! Nobody gets me!!"
She steadily adds pressure as she goes on, chest heaving, eyebrows furrowed. It was becoming evidently more clear that she was very worked up — at least, beyond the usual. Ena slowly makes to stand from her perch as she goes on.
"Saying things like I can’t change, that I don’t know any better! Like I wanted to serve their ungrateful asses!"
"Oh, dear. Sounds like those fellows just couldn’t recognize your talents."
"Those, and… and…!"
She’s sidled right behind her now, careful to maneuver past her clawed, flailing hand and encircle the other girl’s waist. Her words falter at the sudden contact, having not noticed Ena’s advancing until now.
She feels a softer hand curl around her yellowed wrist. Ǝna breathes, slowly, trembling beneath where her palms connect. Ena nuzzles into her back, needing to press onto the tips of her toes to fully encapsulate her partner.
"…They seem not to understand me," A new voice, the salesperson, whispers into the air. Her voice is choked, less peppered with telemarketing charm and weighed with the daily realization that they—Enas—were never designed to win.
She could throw herself into all the work she wanted.
She could traverse the entirety of the Holy Code.
Perhaps, even, she could make contact with the Great Runas, and stare it dead in the eyes until the world rose to drag her into its core.
But it wouldn’t change anything.
Ena tries not to sniffle. Curse the vestiges of pessimism, and how quick they were to wake her up. Her dearest didn’t need her tears.
She needed death, and as that is impossible, comfort was the next best thing she could offer.
"If they can’t understand you, perhaps, they were not meant to?" The girl says carefully, rubbing her cheek into the small of her partner’s back. Her lips quirk at the way its posture softens at the gesture.
"Which is… not fine, but also, that leaves room for others to try. And some have already succeeded, no?"
Ǝna is silent. Even with her head unturned, Ena knew she was computing her words. In the meanwhile, she toys with her overall straps while awaiting her reply, eyes closed to the feel of her kin’s cold washing over her.
"…Yes," she says at last, twisting in her grasp in a quick, unforeseen gesture. The shorter girl yelps, feeling pulled outside of her control, tripping on nothing before she finds their positions to be adjusted, all of a sudden wrapped in a hug that forces the balls of her feet off the ground.
"You have."
Ena feels her cheeks redden. She quickly forces herself to hide in her counterpart’s chest, words muffled, tears, again, stinging her eyes. "A-And that Froggy fellow. The glasses girl, too."
"Of course, of course." Ǝna affirms, moving to run a silky hand through her hair. There’s a smile in her voice as she goes on.
"But mostly you. And I love you for that."
Her thumb swipes the edges of her bangs, revealing a flushed, cherry ear. She traces it, so docile, a staggering change from her caterwauling rage Ena expected, but felt herself offput by. If only with how her heart felt, staticky and overwhelmed.
"My Ena," comes a whisper, to which she just barely manages a scoff.
"Dearest, that doesn’t work. We are both Ena."
Her partner merely laughs, though, a smooth, drifting sound. She isn’t expecting the now mellowed, tender voice of Meanie to fill the room. Yet it does.
"Sure we are," she huffs, soothed, "but you’re mine, aren’t you?"
Ena swallows, desperately trying to keep herself from crumbling at the softness flooding her veins. She nods her head, hiding impossibly further, desperate to block out the sweet sensation that came with having her ear traced in loving arches.
"…Yes," she answers, voice warbled.
"And I am glad to be."