Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To nobody’s surprise, not even Enid’s own, she came nowhere near close to cleaning everything. In fact, it was hardly on her mind the ride back from the café, even when she pulled up in her driveway and saw her house she couldn’t think about cleaning it.

They were miles away from each other, Enid’s goal was literally in front of her, and yet all she could think about was Wednesday. Wednesday and that absolute idiot, Tyler. 

She huffed and her hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. Who did Tyler think he was?

It was obvious that Wednesday wanted nothing to do with him, so why couldn’t he see it? Wednesday was way out of his league, anyway. Her face was smooth with soft features, gentle freckles dotting her cheeks, deep brown eyes trying hard to look threatening (but failing, only on Enid), plump lips that pursed when she refrained from making a remark.

Meanwhile, Tyler had a lost look on his face, his mouth stuck between a grimace and smirk. And his eyes were a little squinted like he was thinking really hard. But clearly he wasn’t, because if he was he’d understand that Wednesday didn’t want to talk to him, let alone see him.

Wednesday was probably sculpted by gods or something! 

And yet she kissed that monster?

Quite honestly, it was making Enid angry. She hated seeing cute girls with ugly guys (—okay, well, objectively cute girls. Enid didn’t like girls, no matter what Yoko told her, and how many times she’d say it). Thinking about it, she could easily imagine Wednesday being on a slideshow of a beautiful girl with “the guy that traumatized me” trend.

Her hands fell from off the steering wheel, because she was sure that if she thought about them any longer, she would snap it in half. she unbuckled and opened the door quickly, stepping out to angrily slam it behind her and lock it. She was so angry she couldn’t think straight, and she couldn’t even remember to grab her drink.

Tyler literally wasn’t meant to be there!

Yet he was anyway, and he ruined their night, especially Enid’s! She’d stayed up at night thinking about what they could talk about together, and she even took literal notes, and when the time came it was cut short because of a ridiculous boys.

Enid hated boys. They weren’t even cute, and all they did was cause trouble.

When she stood in front of her door, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn’t good to get so angry over something she couldn’t control. She wasn’t an angry person, not in her whole life did she ever really scream. Whenever she was angry she’d get into an arguments that dissolved relatively fast, and even then it wasn’t a long fight.

But now? Now she wanted to scream.

She didn’t know why seeing Wednesday meant so much to her, but she didn’t care to think about that either.

After a moment of deep breaths she unlocked the door and went inside after the few days she’d been gone, and immediately at the sight of her messy living room, a parting gift from Yoko, all she wanted was to throw herself face first onto her bed and yell into a pillow. She didn’t want to do anything anymore. At this point, she was considering taking some melatonin to just pass out for a few hours and not have to think.

Of course she was aware it wouldn’t work out, since whenever she’d try it it’d never help, so she instead closed and relocked the door behind her. She shrugged off her coat and hung it up, and when she leaned down to untie her shoes she took the time to reorganize the ones messily splayed out within a five foot radius of where their spot was supposed to be.

Why did I even own this many shoes? Enid wondered as she had to put the fifth pair onto the top rack of the shoe holder. It took even longer to put them into pairs, one of them being under a hoodie Yoko always managed to forget at her house. Enid hung that up too.

When she stood up her eyes caught the rest of the room and saw at least five messes she needed to pick up, just at first glance and still in the dark.

Enid walked toward her couch and picked up the blankets, folding them neatly and setting them aside on the couch arm as she fixed the cushions. When she finished that she looked behind herself at the coffee table and counted multiple soda cans, some of which being half full, and felt her shoulders sag.

This would take a while.

—————

Miraculously, the blonde cleaned the living room relatively well and then put her keys on the kitchen counter in a place she wouldn’t forget it. Then she put away the dishes from the dishwasher, threw away the cans, replaced the dish towels and put the used ones into the basket to wash later, then wiped off the counters.

That was a lot of work, enough for her to call it a night and wait to do dishes and laundry for another day.

She wandered into the garage next and kicked one of her skateboards out of her way so she wouldn’t trip on it. As it rolled away, she looked at the drum set in the middle of the room, an amp a few feet away that Enid would often use for her bass when they played together, sometimes when she was by herself.

Enid shut the door behind her and walked over to examine the drums, and as she looked at it she only saw a few speckles of paint splattered on the kick drum and symbols, mainly. Mentally she thanked Yoko for having cleaned up her mess for the most part, because the moment she sat down on the amp all her motivation left again.

Motivation came and went really easily for her, but at least this time she was able to use some of it while she could.

Exhausted, she leaned down with her heads in her hands. Now that she wasn’t able to do anything else, the thoughts that she held back of Wednesday came back stronger.

She was tired and so, so angry.

It wasn’t fair.

Tyler shouldn’t have been there at all! The one time she’s seen Wednesday since the concert she only gets to talk to her for a few minutes before the girl is driven away by some weird guy who can’t take a hint. He was stupid and delusional!

She took a deep breath to try to calm herself and rid her of the thoughts putting her in a bad mood—

But Tyler genuinely ruined everything!

Enid squeezed her eyes shut before opening them and sitting back up again to look around and find something, anything, to get her mind off the night. She was even willing to keep cleaning if it meant she’d be distracted, but thankfully she spotted her bass on the ground and decided to play that instead.

Being tired, and it also being three-something in the morning, she doesn’t bother plugging it into the amp. There was no need to make her garage echo loudly when nobody else was there. Besides, she’d inevitably get a noise complaint from one of her neighbors anyway.

She picked it up and held it in her lap, her nimble fingers started strumming the guitar gently while her other hand began tuning the guitar. After a long moment she started to pluck at the strings and play whatever she wanted until it started shifting into Nirvana’s Lounge Act bass intro she instantly loved.

It was nice, distracting.

Distracting enough to close her eyes and let the music overtake her thoughts and memories, at least for a few minutes.

With each passing moment her eyelids grew heavier, her grip on the guitar neck tightening to keep her awake, and her fingers finding new chords to play. She didn’t think too much about whatever songs she drifted off into, she just listened and played what felt nice to hear as background noise.

Suddenly, the darkness of her eyelids were replaced with memories of Wednesday playing her guitar, so vivid, so bright, meant to be on stage.

Wednesday made the skill look effortless, playing Divina’s solos like they were nothing, as if she had written them up herself. Enid recalled the way her hands slid down the frets with ease, her fingers perfectly plucking the strings.

She didn’t make one single mistake, which was better than Enid. Way, way better.

Of course Enid didn’t suck, if she did she wouldn’t even be apart of the band, but she definitely wasn’t the same level as Wednesday. She was convinced Wednesday had practiced guitar her whole life. There was no other way she could be that good.

God, how Enid wanted to perform with her again. Next time she wouldn’t be staring so much. Or, well, if she did stare, she wouldn’t be caught and nearly mess up her parts of the songs.

Eventually her hand fell from the strings and back onto her lap. She shouldn’t be thinking about Wednesday this much. If she did, she would begin to worry this girl was some sort of addiction.

Besides, she better call it a night— she needed to finish the cleaning sometime tomorrow, as well as hang out with Yoko like she promised.

Enid stood up and carried the instrument back over to its discarded case, off to the side and resting near the back of the garage. Once she put it inside and zipped it up, she took a final look at the room to figure out what she had to work on tomorrow, which wasn’t too much.

She walked toward the entryway and flicked off the light switch before shutting the door behind her.

Three in the morning was late enough to go to bed.

—————

She tried, she really did.

But no matter what she did, no matter what songs she put on, no matter what methods she used, no matter what breathing exercises she’d learned, she couldn’t fall asleep. She tried everything, but her stupid thoughts kept drifting over to Wednesday.

Wednesday.

Wednesday.

Wednesday.

At this point, Enid was tired of thinking of her so much. Wednesday didn’t want anything to do with her, right? She shouldn’t have taken up so much room in Enid’s thoughts if that were the truth.

The more she thought about it the more she thought about how little of a reaction Wednesday gave her at their interactions, all three. No smiles, no raised voices, no laughs, she was void of literally any emotions.

How could she be so stoic? Was it a 24/7 thing?

But then again, they’d only had three interactions. Wednesday was most likely just shy.

Enid wanted to be the one to change that. She wanted to see if Wednesday could laugh, or smile. She wondered what it’d look like then. She tried to imagine what she could do to make Wednesday truly feel something besides annoyance.

—————

Sadly, Enid’s thoughts about Wednesday never left her head. She could hardly even sleep more than two hours at a time, and even then she swore Wednesday was in her dreams.

She was restless, tossing and turning, nerves getting the best of her as her stomach twisted into knots. And it wasn’t just about Wednesday, it was about the band, her unkept house, practices, songs, calling Ajax like she’d mentioned last night.

All of it was killing her, it had to be.

At the very least she was being driven crazy.

Her heavy eyelids lifted up after a long time of hearing an aggravating, repetitive alarm assaulting her ears. She opened her eyes to see her sheets, somehow moving down to lay face first at the foot of her bed, sprawled out.

Well, whatever helped her get to sleep.

Half-asleep still, she lazily reached out for a pillow behind her, and once she found one and grabbed onto it, she immediately pulled it over her head. She nuzzled her face into the mattress, squeezing her eyes closed as she pulled the pillow over her ears.

Enid tried her best to ignore the persistent noise, and after a long minute of being unable to fall back asleep, despite how painful her eyes felt and how much she felt like she’d literally melt into her mattress, she gave up. She angrily sat up in bed and scrambled to find her phone.

As she held it and now finally saw her screen, she realized it wasn’t an alarm. Yoko was calling her. For the fifth time.

Reluctantly, she pressed the answer button. There was no way, in any universe and especially not in this one, where she could put up with the stupid noise any longer.

”What?” She snarled, voice raspy from sleep. Yoko couldn’t see it, but she could feel Enid’s angry glare and knot it eyebrows.

“Wow, hello to you, too, Enid,” Yoko scoffed. “Where the hell are you?”

Enid used her other hand to rub her eye, having been exhausted for nearly an entire day. She was having trouble thinking, and now with Yoko asking vague questions, it wasn’t getting any better.

”Huh?”

”I said, where are you?—“ Yoko huffed. “Enid, please tell me you’re ready to go.”

What?

”Go where?” The blonde questioned, trying her hardest to think about something other than how comfy her bed felt, her blankets soft and sheets smooth. Her pillows were cold and the sun wasn’t blinding her. It was perfect the perfect environment to fall asleep to.

Besides, it was way too early for Yoko to be calling right now. With how dreary it looked outside, it was no later than 5am.

There was a long pause that Enid shut her eyes to, concentrating hard to not lay back down.

”Go to the gig, Enid.”

In an instant all of her tiredness vanished. Her heart started to beat faster and her brain went through all of her memories, all of the past conversations she’d had recently. Yeah, the gig was— 

God, it was tonight, wasn’t it?! She wasn’t ready!

Whatever, she had a few hours, it’d be fine—

“I’m coming over right now, we’re on in twenty minutes! How long did you sleep?” Yoko asked, sighing as Enid could hear movement from the other end of the line.

Meanwhile, Enid bolted up quick enough to stumble and fall off the bed, her blankets wrapped around her legs. She honestly didn’t know where to start first. Should she make breakfast, whatever meal it was now? Do her make up? Get dressed?

Ugh!

“Not— not that long, actually,” Enid said into the phone as she picked herself up. She stood in front of her bed, thinking about what she should accomplish, since she could most likely do just one. She realized breakfast could wait, the moment she walked to her bathroom.

”Really? It’s nine at night,” Yoko called out as she listened the the sound of drawers opening and closing quickly from the other end. Enid put mascara and eyeliner on the counter, and just as she began unscrewing a cap, she mumbled curses to herself. She needed to get dressed first. “Enid?”

Enid looked around her bathroom to look for the voice, picking up her phone a moment later.

”Yeah?” She asked as she walked back into her bedroom to shuffle through her closet. She she saw the lack of clothes in her closet. groaned. She needed to do the laundry she put off last night. There was hardly anything wearable to a freaking concert, and her eyes scanned the best possible options.

Unfortunately, she mostly had pajamas, only a few pairs of jeans. As much as she wanted to go casual and comfortable, she had to remind herself that she was performing in front of a huge crowd. She picked out a pair of dark jeans, and when she was figuring out what t-shirt she would wear, preferably a band one, she heard honking from outside her house.

She had to go right now.

Enid tore the shirt off it’s hanger and picked up the folded jeans, hurriedly getting undressed as the car honked again.

”I’m outside your house, hurry up,” Yoko‘s voice whined. “It’s the least you can do right now. I just left the venue to pick up your other bass because I’m just so nice.”

Enid sent the phone an unseen glare at the whining before mumbling a ‘thanks’, trying her best to put her clothes on in less than a minute. The moment she got dressed she went to the bathroom to pocket what little make up she was using, and then ran into the living room to grab her shoes.

She counted off her fingers whatever she’d need, house keys, phone, wallet, and ID. Just in case Yoko somehow got wasted and needed Enid to drive them home.

The door opened a second later, and while locking the door behind herself, she ran outside to Yoko’s car. Even from where she stood she could see Yoko’s hand on the middle of the steering wheel, seconds away from honking a sixth time and getting noise complaints from the block.

When she saw Enid she let her hand drop, leaning over to the passenger seat to open Enid’s door for her. They didn’t have time to waste. 

Enid reached the car, immediately climbing inside and closing the door. Once Yoko heard Enid buckle herself in, she began driving a little too quickly, Enid tightening her seatbelt. She started to dig into her pocket for her makeup, and as she held them both in her hand, Yoko looked over.

”Damn, you look tired,” she commented, glancing between Enid and the road. Enid’s eyes shot open while a worried expression overtook her face. Before she could nervously ask ‘Really?’ Yoko shook her head. “It adds the the whole rockstar look, you’re fine.”

”What?” Enid asked, voice raising as she pulled down her mirror to see if Yoko was telling the truth. She leaned forward in her seat as she tilted her head to examine how bad her eye bags really were. Although they were visible, they weren’t as bad as Yoko was claiming.

Yoko snorted when she noticed Enid freaking out. In return, Enid sent an annoyed grumble her way and lightly shoved her shoulder.

”Don’t mess with the driver. I will crash this car if I’m distracted.”

”You’re so dramatic,” Enid commented with a sigh. “And that definitely doesn’t make me trust your driving skills any more.”

—————

Thankfully the drive was shorter than expected. Maybe it was the fact that it was a new venue and Enid didn’t realize how close it was from her house, or maybe it was because Yoko was most likely speeding, but either way they got there in time.

The moment they parked and unbuckled Enid began putting on her mascara, carefully, as Yoko watched while biting her lip nervously, almost enough to draw blood. They should be inside right now, and she internally cursed while she wished that Enid had woken up sooner to have been able to do this already.

Without a word, she took the eyeliner from her friend. As Enid finished her job, she twisted the cap back on and Yoko grabbed her face and kept her still to properly do the eyeliner without the blonde moving. The latter sighed, but didn’t say anything.

A second later, Yoko was relived she had been holding the girl’s face, because she nearly turned her head to see what was knocking on her window. When Yoko tilted her head, she saw it was an annoyed Bianca with her brows knit together. Yoko completed the look, as straight as it could be with no noticeable mistakes, and let Enid opened her door.

”Um, hey,” Enid said nervously, a small smile trying to form. Bianca reached inside the vehicle to tug her arm and pull her out into the parking lot, shutting the door in sync with Yoko.

”You two are so late! Wednesday’s been here for ten minutes, and it’s so hard to talk to her when she’s always glaring at me,” Bianca said as she let go of her arm and began to walk to inside.

”I think that’s just her face,” Yoko added as she opened the trunk, pulling out the bass before she rushed to reach her other band mates. They hurriedly walked to the building and then through the back door.

Enid didn’t say anything, her heart racing as she thought about the fact that Wednesday was performing with them again, willingly. Yoko didn’t have to beg, because if she did Yoko would’ve complained about it. But why didn’t Yoko mention this until Bianca did just now? Enid didn’t have any time to prepare—

Well, she didn’t know what she’d do to exactly prepare to see Wednesday. Maybe she would’ve set her own alarm to do laundry and get ready with enough time to decide that she looked perfect, rather than her outfit and make up probably looking messy and poorly thought out.

Then she started to worry what Wednesday would think when she saw her, but all of her thoughts vanished when she saw Wednesday yet again dressed in black, a jacket loosely framing her body that made her, again, look ridiculously small. She held her guitar’s neck with it at her side, a man nodding in front of her as she said things Enid couldn’t decipher.

Yoko shoved the bass in her hands as Enid blinked a few times, her head leaning down to look at the instrument in her hands. She took a deep breath. 

She wouldn’t watch Wednesday the whole show. She wouldn’t think about her and be distracted. All she would do was focus on herself, or at the very least the whole band. She’d just have to listen to whatever Bianca said and whatever songs she suggested for forty minutes, then she could… she could…

Enid didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if it’d be best to just go home, or try to talk to Wednesday again. Last night’s conversation had gone pretty well, and there was a possibility that it could be just as good, maybe even better. This time there wouldn’t be Tyler to interrupt them.

Although Tyler wasn’t out there tonight, she might still have to ask Bianca and and Yoko to leave them alone.

She grimaced then. Maybe it’d sound a little suspicious if she asked that. She’d just have to figure that stuff out later, because her thoughts were interrupted when Yoko pushed her forward to follow behind Wednesday and Bianca. She took another deep breath as they all walked on stage.

Everyone found there places and a small round of applause sounded throughout the room. Bianca waved with a smile, Enid doing the same as she looked at the anticipating crowd. Bianca gently pulled the microphone closer, speaking into it to gather their attention.

”Tonight, we were wondering if our audience would want to suggest a song as the opener,” she said as multiple people smiled.

Suddenly, quite a few song names were called out, consisting of popular artists Enid was certain Wednesday wouldn’t even attempt to play for. In the mix was some Weezer, Deftones, and Nirvana, and Sonic Youth, but they ultimately decided to play some of them later.

Instead, they chose Steve Lacy’s Dark Red, the crowd cheering yet again once Bianca chose it.

”Enid, do you wanna sing it?” Bianca asked then, catching Enid off guard to make a confused face and point at her own chest. “C’mon, you’d be so good!“ She turned to the crowd. “What do we think, everyone, can she do it? I think she can, she knows the lyrics by heart.”

Admittedly, it was one of her favorite songs for the longest time. Of course she knew the chords, and with how often she listened to it she was certain the band new just as much as she did. She looked at Wednesday then, a monotone look as Bianca mouthed some words at her.

People clapped, and Bianca spoke. “All right, Yoko. We’re playing Dark Red. Enid, you’re singing.”

Enid reluctantly nodded, and as she and Bianca switched places, she took off her bass and swapped with the singer. She stepped forward and nervously held the stand, watching the crowd as she did her best to keep her cool.

As she stood there, she listened to the symbols hitting, followed by the drums. In her head, Enid counted down the seconds until she sung.

Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

“Something bad ‘bout to happen to me. I don’t know what, but I feel it coming,” she sang with practiced ease. “Might be so sad might leave my nose running.”

A couple people in the crowd hummed along, one person even nodding their head to the beat as they sang in unison. It was obviously a popular song, but Enid was relieved they they knew it.

And that maybe if her singing was considered too bad (because honestly, her vocals were nowhere close to Bianca’s anyway), the crowd wouldn’t hear her mistakes too much over their own voices.

“I just hope she don’t wanna leave me,” she drawled out. Bianca sang the background, wordless chorus while Yoko kept the same beat, hitting the same symbols. Enid closed her eyes, seeing the lyrics in her head. “On my eyes, I belong with you, and only you, baby.”

Now that she had somewhat of a relationship with Ajax, she assumed that her mind wouldn’t instantly think of him at the words. Except she was wrong.

Wednesday was the person that she thought of first.

Her gaze shifted to Wednesday, her jaw clenched in concentration as she played her instrument with nimble fingers and precise movements. As always, she looked effortless, and as always, Enid was impressed by her skill.

Enid sang again, the words wanting to be caught in her throat. She shouldn’t have been thinking of Wednesday, but her eyes couldn’t look away from her band mate, playing with such concentration— her eyebrows close together, posture straight, lips almost a pout—

God, she shouldn’t be looking at her lips. She needed to focus.