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It’s the 12th time in 48 hours that Wednesday moves away from Enid. And really, it shouldn’t bother her tthat much- she knew Wednesday’s aversion that had anything to do with physical affection. But she’d seemed so comfortable when Enid had hugged her nearly four months ago. And that was the last time she’d let Enid get even an inch into her proximity.
They’d parted to go their different ways during the break, but they still texted regularly (although Wednesday still didn’t know what an emoji was and why they were created), but as soon as they’d gotten back into the swing of the Fall semester, she’d been ducking out from offerings of hugs and flinching away if she even so much as tapped Wednesday’s shoulder, like she’d been burned.
And God, it shouldn’t be this upsetting. But it is, and everytime she starts to doubt whether or not she’s just overthinking it, she gets a renewed sense of ruddy anger. Because Wednesday had been adamant on keeping in touch, too- and had even had Pugsley teach her how Facetime worked. She’d call Enid when she was doing the most mundane things like dusting her collection of skulls, or show her around the grounds of her house as she walked around. Even when she painted her nails their signature black.
So, really, the only plausible reason Wednesday would be so hell-bent on avoiding touching Enid, was because of the colour. She’d commonly complained about her allergy to bright colours, so, Enid toned it down.
Of course, she didn’t believe you should ever change yourself for another persons approval. But the longer she went without Wednesday touching her, the more she was driven to the brink of insanity. It’s like a drug you can’t get enough of once you have a taste of it. And now, her friends had to practically slap her to get her out of her own twitchy-eyed wonderings, more often than not. And being twitchy and uncomfortable was so not her. So, if Wednesday would just fucking high five her, or brush her bangs out of her face as she had done multiple times leading up to The Great Hug of 2022, all would be right in the world, and her mental state wouldn’t be teetering on a possible need for hospitalization.
It was imperceptible changes. Darker toned sweaters, less cotton candy scented perfume, letting the bright ends of her hair dilute to something softer. And then, the most heartbreaking switch of all, was changing her nails from the Aurora borealis of colours to one solid matte white.
Wednesday noticed the change. But still wouldn’t touch her. And if she could reach into that twitsted, dark brain of hers to find out what it was that made her so repulsed by the touch of Enid, she would.
-
Wednesday, for all her faults and gaps in development that most children and teens underwent during their formative years, was not an idiot. On the far contrary. She found it was plausible that Enid was simply fighting the shadow of depression, and that thought didn’t entice her as much as it should. It left a bitter taste on her tongue she couldn’t swallow down, like the steady rise of bile.
She often stared at the growing trash pile of fluffy, multicoloured sweaters and tie-dyed stuffed animals and felt something with eight legs that used to make her stomach feel coiled at Enid’s prescience, wrap around her throat and choke her with pointed thorns jilting into her neck. Because this was so wrong. And she wants more than anything for Enid to go back to usual, nauseating self. She was obviously hurting- from the grimace formally taking up residence on where a smile used to flourish.
And the worst thing of it all, were those blasted nails. Claws that used to have the most obscenely childish art with colours so sickeningly bright were now transitioning from solid white to grey. She watches, as Enid finishes her second layer of fossil polish application, with a frown pinching her forehead. She hates it, she should love it, but she hates it and doesn't understand it. The dark did not suit her.
It was, in all honestly, angering her. It’s not that Enid looked bad- she couldn’t ever look bad. She was ravishing. But monochrome schemes did not suit her. So, she left the dorm with the slam of the front door and decided to trek into town on foot before lunch began, Thing happily tapping his suggestions on her shoulder.
She would fix this, if it was the last thing she did. A task more trying than hunting down a serial killer Hyde.
She enters the town’s beauty boutique once Thing rattles off instructions from his own frequenting of the shop, and her nose upturns at the assault of pugent scents from something called ‘bath bombs’ (which unfortunately, did not mean a hand grenade that you could use for good old fashioned electrocution), and headed to the blindingly vivid makeup section. She filled her arms with probably three dozen different noxious coloured nail polishes, and scowled at the perky desk clerk that flinched away as she rung her through.
Only Enid could be perky in her presence.
She pays for the nail polish, and has it put into a gift bag for the werewolf. It’s a horrid bag too- silver and sparkly and the paper peaking out is an orange that’s sickening to look at too long.
She leaves it on the werewolf’s bed once she gets back, because Enid always comes back to the dorm with three minutes remaining in the lunch hour before going to Thornhill’s class. She double checks the calendar for Tuesday, and nods to herself to find she has four minutes to make herself scarce to not ruin the surprise.
She’s not sure when she began to care for surprising or gifting things to others, but perhaps that was the side affect of having the blonde as your room mate.
Kindness. God, the bitter bile on her tongue was trying to drown her.
Once she’s grabbed her books, she heads to class early to ensure her favourite seat in the second to back row (coincidentally right in front of Enid) is free. She finds herself looking forward to Enid’s smile again.
-
Enid, is however, fuming. It wasn’t enough to be completely aversed to her, but now Wednesday was leaving her colourful nail polishes to mock her. A silent warning that she isn’t doing enough. So, she misses half of the class to rifle through her closet that’s made up of pastels to find something darker to wear. She can’t find anything, because she hates dark colours, and makes a mental note to do some online shopping later, as she heads for Wednesday’s side of the room that’s oddly colder than hers, and rifles through her closet to steal a grey and black colour-block hoodie. She hesitates a second, before stealing one of Wednesday’s black polishes to paint her extracted claws.
She had to play scientist to make the grey that lays dull on her claws. Mixing an ultramarine blue and ochre yellow to get the desired shade. The black makes her nose curl- because Wednesday’s nail polishes are home made and pungent and don’t come off with acetone, and she’ll be stuck with the black until her nails grow enough to clip the remaining dregs of polish.
She hesitates a second time, the brush a centimetre away from her thumb. Then, she thinks of the smell of Wednesday’s neck, black coffee and leather, and exhales with a growl, starts applying it in deliberate strokes.
-
Wednesday thinks she did well, when she had angrily (and mildly concerningly) stomped out of Thornhill’s class (and nearly over some freshmen) to find Enid in the dorm, sitting on her bed with her laptop on her thighs. She’s wearing Wednesday’s hoodie- which makes her stomach flutter. Dark colours didn’t suit her the way brighter ones did, but something about Enid taking her clothes for her own was making the eight legged creature dance around her chest.
She shuts the door, moving to her typewriter only for her smile to falter when she catches sight of black nails. Her face fully cements into a sneer when she notes it’s her mostly permanent polish, too.
She spins on her heel and barrels forward, grabbing Enid’s laptop and tossing it beside her.
“Hey!” Enid pouts, her hands flailing. “Why’d you do that for?”
“Hey.” Wednesday huffs, crossing her arms. “You were not in class. And you are wearing my sweatshirt.”
Enid rolls her eyes- and there’s something clearly tampering with the chemicals that usually pump by the gallon into Enid’s brain. Because she’s acting even less like herself, and more like Wednesday. Perhaps, a year ago, that would satiate her. But now it does nothing but upset her further.
It reminds her of when they were worlds apart, and that thought alone makes something painful lodge in her throat. Swallows it down.
“Well?”
Enid stands, moving for her desk. She’d thrown out all her makeup palettes, too. Wednesday makes her way to grab for the bag that Thing had gotten at a five finger discount, because they were arbitrarily priced.
Holds it out. Enid takes it- her eyes are heavily rimmed with black eyeliner, she finally notes. And it’s pretty, and dramatic, but it’s not right. Not when the fire that had set Wednesday’s skin aflame everytime they so much as brushed shoulders had dwindled so.
She doesn’t know how to put it back. Thinks she might have to kill her own dark side and become the light to appease her, when Enid throws the pallets down with a growl ripping from her throat.
Wednesday’s eyelid twitches, moving back from the broken powders covering the wooden floor.
“I didn’t go to class because I was busy trying to make myself into something you’d like, but there’s no point, is there? Because no matter what I do, you’re so disgusted by me!”
Wednesday frowns, incling her head to the side in a question that doesn’t go answered, because Enid is storming out of the room now.
She looks down at Thing, who shrugs his pinky and thumb and taps out we need a new plan.
Wednesday nods, moving for her desk with a determined hum and crack of her knuckles. “Yes. Come help make me a list of possible ideas to make Enid feel better.”
If Thing had eyes he’d roll them. Because these two were as thick in the head as they were completely in love. But that was for them to figure out, as he perches on the desk and listens to Wednesday prattle on.
-
Enid wakes up groggily the next morning after having spent two hours running laps on the track to get out her frustrations, and stretches her sore muscles out. Makes a satisfied noise in the back of her throat when her body pops. Flickers her eyelids open, and blinks twice at the sight of her nails perfectly painted rainbow. There isn’t even a stain of black that had been there on her cuticles the day before. She flexes them curiously, and even the length of her claws had been painted- but how they’d been extracted when she wasn’t awake, was weird.
Nearly screams, when she turns her head to find Wednesday looming by the side of the bed, watching her.
“Jesus, Wednesday! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
Clutches at her chest with nails that Wednesday hums, nodding at. “I painted your nails.”
Enid sits up, stifling a yawn and shaking her head to wake herself up. Her face feels hot from Wednesday’s rare proximity- and she smells like the bitter coffee she drinks every morning, and it’s intoxicating. “I-I noticed! How did you… get my claws to extend?”
Wednesday shrugs, sitting flush beside her and it’s the closest they’d been in months. She pulls Enid’s hands into her own, inspecting her handiwork with a hawk eye. “I didn’t do anything special. I touched your hand and they did it on their own.”
She blushes- her own traitorous body got so obviously excited at the simplest touch from Wednesday, who seems none the wiser as she runs her thumb over one of her claws.
Then suddenly, she’s pinned to the spot by dark eyes meeting hers. Swallows the flurry of butterflies that are desperate to escape her with babbling nonsense.
“I am not disgusted by you, Enid. And I know colour makes you happy, and I would like for you to be happy. Perhaps, I thought you were in a rut. Therefore, I did it for you.”
She’s very Pavlovian in the way she speaks- as if it were a common ritual between the two of them for Wednesday to paint her nails. Enid scratches at her neck, because this is too clinical sounding.
“… did you rehearse your explanation?”
Wednesday bobs her head in accession. “Yes. I wanted it to be perfect so i did not say anything that could possibly offend you.”
Enid barks a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand at Wednesday’s curious expression. Her hand falls, the smile still in place. “God, Wends. You’re so painfully oblivious.”
Blinks. “Oblivious? I have never been called that. I am usually hyper aware of my surroundings. How unusual.”
Enid moves to stand, because it’s cold and she’s in a tank top. She pulls open her closet, just for the newly bought black apparel to be missing. Quirks a brow over her shoulder. She sighs, turning to lean against the door with her arms crossed.
She imagines Wednesday and Thing standing over a fire pit, sending her clothes into spirals of ash and smoke.
“Wednesday, it’s not the colours that are upsetting me, and I’m not depressed.”
She hums. “So, why have you thrown away everything you like?”
“Because!” She tosses her hands up, disbelief colouring her words at their concisely crossed wires. “I thought you didn’t want to be around me because of all the colour.”
“Oh. Well, I do not like colour but it’s perfectly okay on you. More than. You look quite pretty in your outfits.”
Enid flushes, and it’s the first trace of colour aside her nails she’s seen on herself in weeks. “Then.. why have you been avoiding me?”
“I haven’t been. I am in this dorm with you, and I do not avoid you in public spaces-“
“-I meant, touching me. You’ve been avoiding any kind of contact with me.”
Wednesday tilts her head, and hums again. “I do not like touch. You know this.”
“I thought we were getting closer after everything that happened.”
“We have been.”
Enid thinks, for all her intelligence and wit, that Wednesday is the most out of touch person she’s ever met. In terms of reality, and emotional breadth. Sighs, as she moves closer to Wednesday that’s eyeing her warily like a skittish dog. “See? That. Right there. You look terrified of me getting too close to you.”
Wednesday casts her eyes to the side, and then after a moment finds Enid’s gaze again. It’s sharp, and it feels like it’s peeling every layer of her skin back just to see the very fabric that makes her who she is. And it’s unnerving, but she doesn’t hate it.
“I am terrified of you getting too close. Because when you touch me…” she looks down to her fuzzy black socks, swinging her legs back and forth, Enid notes she’s nervous, and it’s the most adorable sight that makes Enid want to squeal and kick her feet and twirl her hair and tell all her friends about the little worry lines by Wednesdays eyebrows.
“I feel it like wildfire. And I’m not sure what it means, but I do know that it makes something beastly crawl around in my stomach and up my chest and stunts my ability to think or speak. It’s frustrating, and so I figured not allowing you to be near would help.”
Enid snorts, bending down to be eyeline with the girl that refuses to meet her gaze once again, focusing on an interesting spec in the floorboard. “And has it?”
A shake of her head. “No.” Voice barely above a murmur. “Because you are still you. And it is intoxicating as it is suffocating.”
Enid reaches out, tentatively like if she moves too fast Wednesday will bolt out the door- or, more likely, the nearest window for the quickest and most painful death. Wednesday watches her movements hawkishly, inhaling sharply when Enid interlocks their hands.
“I get nervous too, you know.”
It feels like talking to a child- the way Wednesday flits her eyes up under her eyebrows and a prominent pout plays at her lips. Shrinks into herself like she might make it all go away. But it’s the most tender thing to experience, and she smiles encouragingly while squeezing cold hands between hers.
“You make me nervous. You give me butterflies and make me blush and I think about you all the time. Like, it’s seriously hindering my ability to even tie my shoes- it’s that bad.”
Wednesday meets her eyes, rolling them with a quirk of her lips. Squeezes in acknowledgment. “I’m surprised you’re able to tie your shoes in the first place, Enid.”
“Oh haha.” Enid goes to actually grab a hoodie, because her arms are bare and freezing in the early morning chill. She settles on a pale yellow one that’s two sizes too big, rolling up the sleeve and pulling her hair from the neckline.
“You look good in my clothes. You can borrow anything you wish. Or take them as your own, should you be so inclined to.”
Enid bites her lip until it’s swollen and turning violet to stop herself from howling. Her chest feels sticky with excitement, and needs to do something so she doesn’t start running in circles.
She becomes so fixated on putting herself back to who she is, with the jumbles of bracelets and rings to feel Wednesday’s gaze tracking her every movement.
“Thank you, Enid.”
That makes her pause. She looks up from the desk to Wednesday, quizzically. “For what?”
Wednesday cocks her head to the side, her fingers twisting in the fabric of her long sleeve shirt.
“For… Helping me. I couldn’t…I don’t know what I would’ve become if we’d never met.”
Enid’s face is blazing now. Her heart flutters uncomfortably in her chest. This- this is what she finds so endearing about Wednesday. It must be. That underneath that self-assured, brusque facade, she’s uncertain and sincere and so, so kind.
Underneath her flaws is the kind of character that Enid always wished he had. She doesn’t get many glimpses of it- and no one probably ever has, but she must have seen just enough the day they met to make her care more than she ever wanted to about this silly, gorgeous girl.
And before she can lose her nerve, she stalks over as soft as she had when theyMd held hands. Gives Wednesday the chance to move, or to signal in any way she was uncomfortable. But she doesn’t. Even as Enid traps her between each thigh and settles on her lap, she doesn’t. Her dimple shows, her hands quick to stable the abnormally shaky werewolf.
-
Enid leans in. One hand curves around the back of Wednesday’s neck to draw her closer. She sees Enid’s eyes flutter closed right before their lips press together firmly, and only then do hers shut. It’s a sloppy kiss, desperate and eager, but nothing has ever set Wednesday on fire like this before (and she had once played the role of a flaming canon ball personified). She hadn’t realized just how hungry she’d been for physical contact, after avoiding it for painfully long. And judging from the way Enid is kissing her back, she feels the same way.
They’re anchored to each other in this moment, both physically and emotionally. Twenty-four hours ago, Wednesday might’ve dug herself a very deep ditch to lay down and rot away in, if she’d known she would ever have to be vulnerable and touching for the second time with Enid Sinclair. But now, she can’t think of anyone she’d rather be stranded with in this emotional clusterfuck with, and she never wants to stop having her touch for the rest of her life, even if it makes her skin burn from the slight prickle of an allergic reaction to the colours touching any sliver of bare skin.
She’d happily undergo anaphylactic shock, so long as Enid was by her side, in her truest and purest form.