Chapter Text
As Wednesday Addams stepped out of the airport, she noticed two things: it was (as promised) drizzling, and— well. She didn’t actually get to notice a second thing, as there was a display of pink crowding her vision that could not be ignored. Which would presumably be Enid.
“Wednesday! You’re here!”
“As expected.” Enid was very visibly holding back from hugging her. Wednesday stepped precisely 6/8th of a foot closer, in order to quell her desires for physical contact. A test. She had read up on werewolves. Not only were they vicious— Wednesday remembered that clearly— but they were pack motivated. A sense of ease was brought to them when closer to pack members. She couldn’t fathom why Enid would consider her part of her pack, but every book had been clear on the signs. Wednesday was very good at signs.
“And Thing? Did you manage to find a way to bring him along? I really do miss sharing a room with you guys!”
“Unfortunately not. The TSA is…elusive.”
“I’ve heard that! Never actually flown, though— too many seats with that many kids, yeah? The family car is just a giant SUV. Speaking of cars, I got my license!” Enid gestured towards a vaguely beat up van, in a shade of purple that Wednesday would describe as ghastly. And not in the good way. “I got it cheaper for the color— would you believe people didn’t want this?”
“Yes.”
Enid giggled, as if she were texting again. “Yeah, I guess you would. Wanna load your luggage? Or—here, wait, I can do it— werewolf perks! Also, the trunk gets stuck half of the time.” The chatter was…soothing. Oddly. Wednesday should stamp that out. Was she supposed to sit in the back? Or in the front? Considering that Lurch tended to drive them all, she wasn’t entirely sure. With Tyler, she had sat in the front, but he had also been trying to woo her. Wednesday opened the front door and sat down. Moments later, Enid slid into the driver's seat, so it must have been the correct choice. Horrible. Wednesday had planned this out for weeks, and
she still didn’t have everything in her grasp.
“Alright! Let’s get going! I know our music tastes are a bit different, so I figure we can just talk! I mean, how have you been? Obviously the letters are something, but—“
“Ah. I have a cellular device.” Enid gasped, taking her eyes off the road for a moment, before presumably remembering that wasn’t something she should do. As she ought to— an automobile accident wasn’t Wednesday’s preferred end.
“You WHAT?! Since when?!!”
“Xavier gave it to me. After you had left.” Enid’s fingers were tightening on the steering wheel. Would her claws spring out? Aside from the colors, Wednesday thought fondly of Enid’s claws. They were sharp— sharp enough to split wood, and rend flesh from the bone.
“Xavier, huh? How’s that going?”
“How is what going?”
“The— well, you know? I mean, he’s totally into you.” Xavier was into her?
“That seems unlikely.”
“Unlike— what do you mean?” Was Enid this dense?
“I have a dearth of likable qualities. I believed Tyler to be a fluke, but he simply wanted to keep an eye on me. Statistically, another fluke should not happen so soon.” Wednesday would have to spell it out for her. That was alright. Enid tended to be faster on the uptake on some other things, so she could forgive her this.
“A dearth of— sorry, are you implying you don’t think you’re crush-worthy?” Maybe Enid needed to get her ears checked.
“No. I was saying that. People dislike me. I like it that way.” Enid’s claws. Intriguing. A werewolf’s claws sprung from their sheaths with intense emotion. What was Enid feeling?
“There is so much to get into there, and I am not going to do it while we are driving, but you are totally likable, Wednesday! Seriously, you might be a bit— or a lot— odd, but that doesn’t make you unlikable. Xavier also obviously likes you. He’s around you all the time, he tries to talk to you, he gives you things— classic crush behavior.”
“You do all of those things.”
“He’s a guy .”
“Fine. If I accept what you seem to believe as true, then there is nothing happening there. I am not interested in Xavier.”
“Huh? Why?”
“How is Ajax doing?” Wednesday was not above a bit of deflection. In fact, she was far, far below it. However, unlike her expectations, Enid did not brighten.
“Uh. Well. We broke up.” Wednesday was silent. Typically, this caused people to elaborate. This time was not an anomaly. “It was– I mean, it was my fault, probably? He just said that I seemed– uh– not that into him. Which might have been– It doesn’t matter. How was your flight?” Enid was capable of her own deflection.
“Long. The ear pressure is…enjoyable. The seatmates are not.” Enid winced.
“Yeah, that might not be your speed,” she said, nails (now sheathed) tapping on the steering wheel. “How bad was it?”
“He looked to be around 12, and spent the entire flight complaining that the ‘on-board wifi’ did not support his…’Fortnight’ usage. I’m not sure what a fortnight has to do with any of this, since we certainly weren’t on the plane for that long.” There we go. That horrid smile had returned. Wednesday was feeling something akin to when it turned out Thing was fine. Terrible, blooming feeling. Wednesday didn’t bloom. She died.
“Fortnite is a video game! One of my brothers is super into it, and he’s so annoying about it. He spent so much money on it too? At least you weren’t sitting next to like– a baby, or something?”
“At least a baby’s wail is appropriately grating.” The car lurched slightly when turning up the driveway.
“We’re here!” Despite the “jazz hands,” as Eugene called them, there was a peculiar tightness in Enid’s smile. Uncomfortable. Turning to the front, the house wasn’t anything interesting– beige, and modern, with an ugly wreath on the front. Enid seemed duller just standing next to it.
“It doesn’t suit you.”
“The…house?”
“My eyes aren’t burning.” At least Enid seemed to understand what she meant.
“Yeah, it’s kinda boring. The interior design is just– eugh. Minimalism should be banned. I’m allowed to keep my room the way I want it, though! So it’s not all bad.” At a closer look, the house was foreboding. The type of house Wednesday would put in an actual horror film. Vinyl siding, in a shade that resembled dead skin in a drain. Usually, she could appreciate the macabre, but this was tasteless. Enid’s colors may be nauseating, but there was an intention to them that Wednesday could respect. No intention lay here. “Shall we go in?”
“Yes.” Enid fumbled in the pockets of her jacket for the key, pulling out the largest keychain Wednesday had ever seen. It seemed to be….some sort of animal? On a rainbow, with a cloud? It was half the size of Wednesday’s palm, and absolutely dastardly.
“Well! I have to warn you. My parents are— or well— my mom, more like— uh. She gets a biiiit judgy. But I won’t let her judge you! I promise!”
“She won’t dare.”
“I’d hope, but you haven’t met my mom!” Enid’s laugh did not sound right, and it wasn’t pleasant. Grating, but not like nails on a chalkboard— Wednesday fell asleep to that. Grating in the true sense of the word. She did not like Enid’s home. Enid looked like she was about to step into the Gates mansion again, and there wasn’t even a monster. Or murders. Enid had taken multiple deep breaths before she unlocked the door. She wished Thing were here. He was better at knowing what to say than she was.
“I’m back!” Enid yelled into the house.
A voice (one that sounded oddly like a 6th grade flute recital— she’d been to Pugsley’s) replied from another room— “In here!”
Enid rounded the corner, as Wednesday followed. The interior decor was hardly worth commenting on. Taupe, beige, white, tan— she had a plethora of color synonyms, and using more than one of them would be an insult. To the color. In the next room was a kitschy dining table— she could hear Thing tapping out his disgust— where five people sat. A tall, bearded man— that was Enid’s father, she’d seen him at Parent’s Weekend. At the head of the table was a pinched woman with grey-brown curls, who was Enid’s mother. Presumably. She could also be any other woman found watching a Lycan Hallmark movie.
“You must be Wednesday!” Ah. Enid’s mother was the one with the headache-inducing voice. “It’s so good to meet you. I’m Esther.” There was a smile plastered onto her face like mortar on the Cask of Amontillado. Like Principal Weems. Wednesday disliked her already. She would waste no words on this woman. “This is Murray,” her husband, “and these are Douglas, Logan and Grant.” The three boys were far too invested in their sausages to look up.
“Hello.” Wednesday directed her greeting at Mr. Sinclair. He was far quieter, but he had smiled at Enid. That would do. Ms. Sinclair had already moved on, past Wednesday. Her hungry gaze was set on Enid.
“Enid, I told you not to wear that out of the house. The neighbors are going to think we’re crazy.”
“Sorry, Mom.” Wednesday could see her shrink, but the fire in her voice wasn’t entirely extinguished.
“Don’t talk to me like that— you know I’m only doing what’s best for you. We all have to grow out of our little phases, honey. Yours is just… years overdue.” Wednesday looked to Mr. Sinclair. He was doing nothing. Enid could fit in the space between the door jamb and the door.
“I— yes, Mom.” She looked like she was about to start again. Even in the worst times at Nevermore, Enid had not looked like this. Refusing to meet Wednesday’s eyes.
“Excuse me. Enid. I must have forgotten my cellular device at the airport. We must go retrieve it.” Her hand was on Enid’s wrist before she knew it. The Sinclairs may have said something— Wednesday couldn’t hear it, acouasm rushing in her ears.
“What—? but you had it in—“ Wednesday dropped her wrist as soon as they were out of the house. Her hand was burning. An inferno of unused nerve endings, unfamiliar to gentle touch.
“Key.” Enid clicked the car open and they sat. “Drive.”
“Wednesday— what?”
“ Drive.”
The minutes passed as Enid drove. The promised drizzle was less visible in the night, nebulous against the windshield.
Wednesday was never quite sure what she was feeling, but the current one was more difficult than most. A tangled emotion-ball, akin to the rainbow yarn Enid would crochet, reading glasses perched on her nose. Tense shoulders and jaw should indicate anger, but she was not harmed. It felt— it felt horribly similar to what she felt for Pugsley, when people other than her stuffed him in lockers, and yet it wasn’t quite the same. And Enid wasn’t Pugsley. What did it matter? Useless, horrible emotions.
The clock ticked to its next number. The clawed silhouettes of Monterey pines were adequately familiar— comforting, if she’d dare name it.
“I think I like driving because it’s all-encompassing.” Barely a whisper, but it screamed in the quiet. “There’s something about it. You have to be focused, all the way there. Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You got me out. My mom is—“ There was no need to finish her sentence. Wednesday already knew. So did Enid. “It’s hard with her. And you made that easier.”
Like shards of glass, the words crawled out. “She bothered me.” Would Enid know what she meant? Could she make it clearer? Enid’s head bowed: the knees of a saint before the rapture.
How could she fix it? What was there to do? Disgust boiled in her stomach, cooking the flesh— she could taste it in the back of her throat, repulsive and maddening. Enid was quiet. Quiet and small.
“Come to mine.” Wednesday could appreciate a good betrayal, but her mouth was not the traitor she had hoped for. The faux leather seats were slightly stained, as a blur of blond in her periphery turned to, and back from her. Wednesday did not look, and she did not blink. Gravel crunched, and the car stopped, bright against the side of some back-country road.
“What?”
“You like to drive. You do not want to be home. The Addams family manor is…adequately sized, and my parents would stop their relentless schemes for me to bring a ‘friend.’”
“I can’t just leave.” Despair. For the first time, she couldn’t stand the sound. Enid’s eyes shone bright under the moon, crystals glimmering from deep, shadow-cut sockets, grain from the chaff.
“You can’t?” The pull of a challenge was irresistible. Enid had not disappointed her yet. Until then, Wednesday hung on the tip of a precipice, teetering over the edge. If she was shackled by such mortal things as fear, she’d call it that.
“Well— I mean—“ Enid considered it, for a moment. Wednesday could hear the gears twisting in her mind, the ones Enid tried to suppress. “I could tell them I’m going to one of the camps. They’d give me the money to pay for it, and then they’d let us go— the camps don’t have cell service, so I wouldn’t need to stay in touch, and—“ she stopped. “I mean. If you were serious.”
“I am always serious.”
“And I wouldn’t…” Wednesday waited. She viscerally knew how difficult it could be to speak your mind. Even Enid must struggle with it occasionally. “I wouldn’t be bothering your family?”
“I would hope so. Unfortunately, they should be overjoyed.”