Chapter Text
“I didn’t mean to throw up,” Agnes whines as Wednesday is briskly moving her into the bathroom. “My stomach hurts.”
“You have a hangover,” Wednesday replies shortly, helping Agnes to sit down on the closed toilet lid. She doesn’t have Enid’s strength to lift Agnes onto the sink, so this will have to do for now. “Your pupils are dilated. A hallmark of a hangover.”
Agnes winces at the fluorescent light buzzing overhead. “Why do adults do this for fun? Why would anyone do this to themselves on purpose? It feels awful.”
“It feels nice in the moment, I think,” Wednesday tries to reason, although she too doesn’t understand why people willingly put themselves through such horror. “I sincerely hope you think about this very moment the next time you consider accepting alcohol from anyone.”
Looking down at the yellow stain soaked into Enid’s shirt, Agnes pouts. She doesn’t look at Wednesday, maybe because the lights are too harsh and make her head throb, or maybe because Wednesday is staring at her with her expectant yet oddly comforting glare. Wednesday doesn’t mean to be a soothing presence, but clearly Agnes is not running away from her in fear of repercussions, so perhaps she isn’t as scary after all.
“They tricked me,” Agnes defends, pouting pathetically. “It’s not all my fault.”
She looks so much like a child, and Wednesday finds it strange that anyone would offer Agnes alcohol when her age is evident in her cherub face. Even if they didn’t know better, they knew better, and that alone causes rage to flourish inside of Wednesday. Whoever these vampires were, they knew Agnes, and they most certainly knew that she was far too young to drink, but maybe that was the point of it all.
“Maybe not,” Wednesday says as she grabs a clean shirt of Enid’s and holds it out for Agnes. “You still need to give me names. I’m not letting you leave here without names.”
Wednesday is nothing if not persistent, and Agnes seems to understand this about her, her big eyes twinkling under the yellow glow as she stares Wednesday down. Wednesday doesn’t waver, though, continuing to silently demand answers from Agnes despite Enid’s warnings to proceed slowly and carefully with someone so fragile and young. Her silence is, what Wednesday would consider, slow and careful. She’s not nagging or backing Agnes into a corner, even if both of those options sound much more productive than whatever she’s doing now.
“Enid said you can’t give me ultimatums because I’m sick,” Agnes reminds, glaring at a random tile in the floor. “Not fair.”
“I’m not giving you an ultimatum, by definition,” Wednesday says as she runs a cloth under a stream of cold water. “I need names, Agnes. What those vampires did to you was, by no means, okay.”
“You bully and hurt people all the time.” Agnes winces when the cold cloth brushes crusty red flakes from around her healing wound. “Do you think you should be punished for it?”
Wednesday folds the cloth into a clean square and wipes residual vomit from the side of Agnes’s mouth. Her movements are deliberate and focused, her fingers gentle but determined as she cleans the bile until Agnes’s face is clean.
“For someone who has stalked me for so long, you certainly missed something imperative to my character,” Wednesday says. “When I was in kindergarten, a peer of mine shoved me to the ground during recess because I was taking too long on the swing. The teacher saw it and told me to be a big girl and accept his empty apology because that was called being the bigger person. I was angry. It was the first time I’d ever been bullied in school. I told my Uncle Fester and asked him what I should do about it. Any modern parent would call a meeting with the teacher to address it, but my family is far from modern. The next day, I put a dead beetle in his apple juice at snack time and watched him scream in terror when he accidentally swallowed it. The teacher was upset with me for it and called my parents in to discuss my…inappropriate behavior. When we got home, they patted my head and gave me an extra helping of dessert that night.”
Agnes blinks at her, both exhausted and confused. “What’s the moral of the story?”
“That I don’t believe in taking the high road or being the bigger person,” Wednesday swiftly replies as she’s surveying Agnes’s bruises. Unsurprisingly, the contusions are darker and the scrapes on her knees are scabbed over. “When someone hurts you, you fight back.”
“But I tried to fight back,” Agnes whines. “And all it got me was this ugly cut on my head. Vampires are stronger than most of us. And they were older and bigger than me. They threw me around like a ball!”
Wednesday nods, understanding. “You don’t need to worry about your attackers anymore. As soon as I know who they are.”
“You’re not gonna let this go until I give you names, are you?” Agnes sighs, her mood souring quickly as she sulks like a little girl, slumped over on the toilet seat.
“Precisely.” Wednesday smirks with confidence. “Perhaps you have been reading my character quite well.”
Finally coming to the conclusion that she’s come to a dead end, Agnes sniffles and wipes her nose in her arm. She looks a bit more aware now, like the alcohol is starting to ebb away, but her eyes are tired and her cheeks are pink like she’s holding in a big cry.
“I didn’t recognize all of them,” she tells Wednesday, her breathing noticeably tightened. “Just a couple.”
“How many were there?” Wednesday raises an eyebrow. “And I would like the truth.”
Suddenly, the tightness that was only a trapped sigh just a moment ago quickly unfurls into a frustrated, anxious cry spilling from Agnes’s lips. Wednesday freezes in place, one hand lamely clutching the cloth, the other hovering in midair, uncertain of what to do. Agnes’s cries are soft and confused at first, and then they quickly become ragged and panicked.
Enid’s werewolf hearing must have picked up on the crying, because suddenly the door is slamming open and she’s stumbling in, hair in a blonde and baby blue birds nest atop her head and her eyelids barely cracked. Her pastel claws are pointed out to their shiny peaks, prepared to attack, and if Wednesday distracts herself from the sobbing long enough to make her head stop swirling, she could notice the tips of Enid’s ears forming into perfect points.
“Why’s she crying?” Enid asks Wednesday, half demanding, half accusatory. She’s conflicted, unsure if she should be comforting or miffed. “No ultimatums, remember?”
Agnes hiccups, messily wiping her snot on the collar of Enid’s shirt that’s still stained with vomit, and she takes two angry, red-hot breaths before shaking her head.
“It’s not Wednesday’s fault,” she whimpers, exhaustion beginning to sink in. “I just…I don’t like the way they made me feel. They humiliated me! They pretended to like me, and they made me feel like I could be popular like them, but it was all a fluke! They just wanted to make fun of me!”
Wednesday stands there, both looking and feeling stupid for pushing the matter so much, and when Enid notices that her girlfriend isn’t of the capacity to move, she swoops in like a mama bear and wraps her warm, safe arms around Agnes’s trembling body. Agnes doesn’t smell the best, but Enid doesn’t mind the sour stench radiating off her, and even holds her closer when Agnes clings desperately to her like a scared little cub taking refuge in the fur their mother’s belly.
“You told me to be myself,” Agnes mumbles into Enid’s chest. “It didn’t help.”
Enid regrettably winces at the hurt seeping between Agnes’s words. She cups the back of her head and runs her fingers through the silky red hair, making eye contact with Wednesday for the first time since Agnes’s collapse. Wednesday looks positively out of her mind, like she doesn’t know what to do with her hands or her mouth or anything else, really, and while Enid thinks that being frustrated by that would be valid, she can’t bring herself to take anything out on Wednesday.
“Agnes, I do want you to be yourself, even if they did this to you, because it’s not a you problem. It’s a them problem,” Enid says comfortingly, running her hand up and down her back. She frowns at the sob that leaves Agnes. “You know why I love Wednesday so much?”
Sniffling, Agnes pushes her head into Enid’s breast and glares at a loose thread unraveling from her sweatshirt. “Because she’s rich and autistic?”
Wednesday growls, offended, while Enid giggles and pats Agnes’s head like she’s her little puppy.
“No, silly,” she laughs. “I love her because she’s not afraid to be herself. And while you spent so long trying to imitate her, you were totally missing the best part of her. She’s herself, all her, even when society treats her like a disease.”
Wednesday frowns and folds her arms. “I want to be smallpox.”
“See?” Enid says, gesturing to Wednesday. “She says weird shit and it makes my heart feel like it’s gonna explode.”
Agnes worms her way out of Enid’s arms and looks up at her, face stained and nose running like a fountain, and nods in understanding. Enid grabs a wad of tissue and begins cleaning her up properly, and it’s then that Wednesday notices that Enid’s claws have receded into human fingernails.
“No matter what those assholes did to you, there was no reason for it,” Enid promises. “And I know you probably aren’t ready to talk about it anymore, but Wednesday is really hell-bent on getting even, so if you’ll just throw her a bone, she can go fetch and I can finally get some rest without having to hear about it.”
“There were six of them,” Agnes says. “I only know two by name.”
“Six seniors on one eighth grader is insane,” Enid scoffs. “They’re bold.”
“We’ll start with the two,” Wednesday says, her hand curling up into a determined fist. “Names, Agnes.”
It takes a significant amount of courage and a few sobering breaths, but Agnes finally establishes some sort of stability in her breathing.
“Nancy Moore and Jodie Pelletier.” Agnes shudders as if saying their names is calling upon an omen. “They invited me. They were there. They gave me the beer and told me to relax. I didn’t know the other four. Three girls, three boys. I think one of the boys put the bag on my head, because when I kicked them in the crotch, it sounded like something snapped. I thought it was a girl at first, because the scream was super high-pitched, but I’m pretty sure what I kicked was some balls. But it could still be a girl. Pronouns and all that. Balls don’t mean boy. Not all the time. I just know I hurt them.”
Enid snorts, both happily and pridefully, pulling Agnes into her side for a proper hug. “That’s my girl.”
Wednesday nods quietly, a mischievous glint in her eyes. There is a familiar, white sparkle in her irises that eclipses the soft brown, one that Enid knows too well.
“Enid, I will be back soon,” she says. “Take care of Agnes while I’m gone, please.”
“Wednesday, no,” Enid warns. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Jodie has fencing in twenty minutes.” She exhales, doing her best to control her breathing. “I would hate to leave her waiting.”
Enid raises an eyebrow. “You’re gonna fence a senior? Since when is that a thing? You don’t even have fencing today.”
“Don’t worry, Enid,” Wednesday assures, and the way she says it makes Enid think that, maybe, she should worry. “When I’m finished with her, she will wish we were merely fencing.”
She quickly shuffles out of the bathroom, leaving Enid stumped and holding onto clingy Agnes, who wraps her trembling fingers in the fabric of Enid’s sweatshirt in case she has any ideas about letting go at all.
“Wednesday, it’s your turn to clean her up!” Enid calls after her girlfriend, but Wednesday is already far gone, the only thing she leaves behind being the residual scent of rage and hatred creating a trail in her wake. Enid grumbles to herself, still clutching onto Agnes, and sighs and shakes her head as she runs her fingers through Agnes’s soft hair again. “She’s such a deadbeat baby daddy.”
Agnes blinks and, for the first time in awhile, genuinely smiles bright enough to light the whole town. “So I’m the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Agnes replies, suggestively tugging at the soiled shirt and fluttering her eyelashes. “Change me, Mommy.”
“Ugh.” Enid flinches. “You’ve got your father’s humor.”
—
Wednesday slinks into the gymnasium where fencing has been held for some odd weeks. She holds one of Enid’s reusable shopping bags, the ugly one that reads “MAKE EVERY DAY EARTH DAY” in pink letters, behind her back. She stands by the wall, surveying the empty room, still in her loungewear and wearing the first pair of shoes she could easily swipe on her way out the door.
“She’s late,” she mutters to herself, checking her watch. “As I expected.”
As if speaking of the devil, Jodie rounds the corner, in her fencing gear but sans mask, allowing Wednesday a good look at her smug face. Jodie is a transfer from middle-of-nowhere France, a brunette, pale-faced vampire born with a silver spoon in her mouth and satin bloomers to match. Wednesday’s heard, very briefly, of her family and the power they hold in whatever little city they come from, but Wednesday knows all about nepotism, and it certainly doesn’t sway her. To wherever-she’s-from-France, Jodie might be the daughter of a wealthy businessman, but to Wednesday, she’s just another chip on her shoulder to deal with.
Wednesday’s lurking behind a pillar, watching Jodie run her hand through her brown curls before she crosses the room to fetch her sword. Her fencing partner is a senior from Wednesday’s AP English class, a timid and conservative girl who Wednesday could bully into silence if she had to, so she’s not particularly worried about her snitching to the faculty.
While Jodie is preoccupied across the room, Wednesday is plotting. She catches sight of Melanie, the conservative siren from an equally conservative town in the Midwest, and puts a finger to her lips. Melanie noticeably freezes in place, clutching her sword so tightly her knuckles whiten around the silver. Once Wednesday is satisfied that Melanie is pacified—either by fear or understanding; Wednesday doesn’t care—she inches her way up behind Jodie, who’s absentmindedly humming an ABBA song, which is a shame, because Wednesday has taken a liking to ABBA, thanks to Enid.
She wastes no time in bringing the bag over Jodie’s head and pulling the fabric tight towards herself so it’s flush against Jodie’s mouth and nose, stifling her screams for help. Wednesday doesn’t utter a word, not even when Melanie drops her sword with a shocked clatter, and pulls Jodie to the fencing mat.
Jodie is wailing and flailing and kicking, but Wednesday doesn’t let up until she has her pinned safely to the mat, and finally, when Jodie has gone limp but is still visibly breathing, she removes the bag and tosses it aside before taking hold of her chin and forcibly turning her flushed face towards her own.
“Did I scare you?” Wednesday asks, taunting her with that twinkle in her eye. “Were you scared?”
“Wednesday!” Jodie cries, sounding strangled and breathless. “You’re insane!”
“Shut it and answer my question,” Wednesday demands. Jodie’s pulse is deliciously rapid and erratic beneath her fingertips, fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. “Were you scared?”
“Yes!” Jodie gasps. “I was scared! You tried to kill me!”
An odd tingling feeling settles in the pit of Wednesday’s stomach. She smirks positively, satisfied with both the answer and her unorthodox punishment tactics. If the situation weren’t so dire, she might give herself a pat on the back.
“Now you must understand how Agnes felt when that bag was slipped over her head and she couldn’t breathe,” Wednesday says, leaning in impossibly closer to Jodie’s face so her breath brushes the shell of her ear. “Do you?”
Jodie’s breath hitches at the end of Agnes’s name, her eyes blinking wildly. She’s paralyzed, pinned to the mat like a helpless bug being batted around by a cat’s merciless paw, and a desperate cry tears from her throat when Wednesday doesn’t pull her hand away from her trembling shoulder.
“I didn’t do shit to that little psycho!” she wails. “That was Marco! He was the one who thought it would be funny to scare her like that and get even for all the times she’s scared us! Not me! I swear!”
“But you invited her to the bonfire. She is significantly younger than you and the rest of them. Her brain isn’t developed enough to allow her to be tried as an adult in most courts,” Wednesday says. “You provided her with alcohol, which you shouldn’t have had either. You’re underage. If word of this slips out, you’ll be expelled. You and all the other troglodytes who accompanied you. Nancy, even. She was there. I should be pay her a visit once I’m done with you. And then I’ll make my way over to this Marco person, and soon I’ll have all six of you exactly where I need you.”
Jodie grunts, shoving Wednesday off of her. She finds her footing and grasps onto a nearby pillar for support, coming to eye level with Wednesday, who quirks an eyebrow.
“Nancy’s away on a sabbatical! Her grandma died yesterday morning! That’s why we were having the bonfire to begin with!”
“How convenient,” Wednesday coolly says. “Perhaps the school board will politely excuse the incident given the fact that there was grief involved.”
Jodie blinks again, her cheek mottled a fire red. “You can’t be seriously considering telling anyone about the bonfire! That’s so lame!”
“I couldn’t care less about the bonfire,” Wednesday says, halfheartedly shrugging. “I care more about what you did to Agnes.”
“Why do you even care about that little freak?” Jodie asks, throwing her hands in the air. “She’s a pervert! She spies on people and purposely scares them, but the moment she gets spooked, her freak of a pseudo-mommy comes running to save the day! You’re all just a bunch of little freaks with no lives of your own!”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Wednesday snarls. “I’m not even asking you to apologize to her. In fact, I would suggest that you stay far, far away from her, because right now, Enid is not at all pleased, and believe me when I say that her bite is definitely much worse than her bark.”
“Oh great, she has a second pseudo-mommy!” Jodie slams her palm into the pillar, howling in pain when something inside of her cracks. “Fuck!”
Wednesday grabs Enid’s bag off the mat and casually slings it over her shoulder.
“I think I’ve made my point clear,” she says to Jodie, voice leveled out. “You stay away from Agnes, as does your entourage, and if any of you even consider putting her in harms way again, it won’t be me ripping you limb from limb.”
Jodie whimpers, clutching her hand to her chest. “Whatever!”
As she’s walking away, Wednesday throws Jodie a sly look from over her shoulder, eyes traveling down to the sickly purple hue that grows tenfold on Jodie’s knuckles. Jodie scowls, and Wednesday exits the gymnasium with Enid’s bag over her shoulder.
—
When Wednesday returns to her dorm, she immediately puts Enid’s bag where she found it, and then she takes off her shoes at the door. The room is audibly silent but comfortable, and it noticeably smells less of vomit and more of fresh linen. Across the room, under Enid’s blankets, is Agnes, curled into a safe ball.
“She’s asleep,” Enid’s whisper comes from Wednesday’s side of the room. She’s sitting on Wednesday’s bed, a mess of homework scattered about. One of the papers is eighth grade algebra, and Wednesday notices Enid’s handwriting scribbled all over it. “I convinced her to brush her teeth. She’s feeling better now, I think. I gave her more Advil for the headache, and she had some water. She has new clothes and sheets. I’ll bring her something from the cafeteria later.”
Wednesday nods, ever so grateful for an attentive partner like Enid. She moves to perch herself at the edge of her bed, watching Enid gather the disaster of papers into a neat but disorganized stack.
“I’m not gonna ask where you’ve been or why you took my bag with you,” Enid sighs. “Sometimes I’m better off not knowing things.”
“I would say you’re right,” Wednesday agrees, although there is that little part of her that wants nothing more than to simply gloat. “Everything is settled. That’s all you need to know.”
“You’re amazing,” Enid says and leans in to press a kiss to Wednesday’s barely-there dimple that she often tries to jam her thumb into. “Like, truly so amazing. Scary, but amazing.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she tuts. She glances over at Agnes for a moment, taking note of her nose twitching in her slumber, like she’s having a nice dream. “Enid?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m in the mood for a little music to relax my nerves, but my phonograph will wake her. This once, could I use your grotesque glass rectangle?” Wednesday asks, hardly believing the words leaving her mouth. “Just this once. Don’t think I’m becoming one with the machine.”
Enid snorts and picks up her phone. “Sure. What do you want to listen to?”
“The Winner Takes it All.”