Work Text:
Wednesday winced the moment she woke up to a long gasp. Nothing good ever followed Enid’s long gasps. “Thing,” she murmured, rolling over and burying her head in her pillow, “take care of whatever it is.” Cold air hit her the moment she moved from her warm spot. Not a pleasant, blistering cold, as in one that brought you a step closer to death. It was an annoying cold instead, one that started in her feet and slowly spread up the rest of her body, leaving her to cope with maddening shivers that reminded her of her humanity rather than her impending mortality. Enid squealed from her side of the room,
“Wednesday, oh my god, look! Okay, you might actually hate this. But you won’t believe it!”
“If it’s visual then I will,” Wednesday said, “seeing isn’t necessarily believing, but -”
“-Sshhh, come look,” Enid walked over, pressing a finger to her lips. Wednesday blinked, getting out of bed. She immediately started to tremble. Enid stood in front of their large window, bouncing on her toes. Wednesday stood beside her, crossing her arms to her chest.
Fresh snow coated the ground, burning her eyes as the sun shined against it.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Enid asked, pressing her hand against the glass.
“Yes, in an eye-burning sort of way.”
“That’s what you always call the best kind of beautiful,” Enid said, her voice resembling what Wednesday imagined an excited child would sound like. Thankfully, she didn’t have any excited children in her life. Just Enid. Wednesday shivered again, stepping to the side to hide it, her arms still wrapped firmly around herself. “We have to go out.”
“We don’t have classes today,” Wednesday said, going back to her bed and laying on top of her covers. She had personally planned to spend the day lurking around the school. Her mother would be proud. The thought both disgusted and vaguely excited her. She looked out the window again, snow still lightly falling. Of course Enid loved the snow. It was disgusting and annoying. She glanced over at Enid.
Annoying things could sometimes be good.
“We need to go out right now. Come on, before everyone else is out!”
“Considering the age range of our school I highly doubt people are going to be -” she paused, looking out the window. There were people outside already, “- never mind, I stand corrected.”
“I love it when I heard those words from you,” Enid dug around a multi-colored mess of clothes, pulling out mittens, a hat, and a jacket. Wednesday watched her put them on, not moving from her bed,
“I don’t have the necessary clothing to go outside for extended periods of time in this weather,” she said.
“I know. I’ve gotcha covered. I knew you probably didn’t have anything suited for the weather after I went through your clothes -”
“- You went through my clothes? When?” Wednesday didn’t mind the fact that Enid had been digging through her things, Enid didn’t have the authority required to lock Wednesday up in a psychiatric hospital. She was more curious about how Enid had done it without her knowing. Perhaps the girl was more slippery than she knew.
“Doesn’t matter, I bought you this,” Enid held up a pair of black gloves, “and another jacket, that will actually keep you warm. And, tada, a hat!” She held up the most ridiculous black beanie Wednesday had ever laid eyes on. “And they’re all your size too. Tiny.” Wednesday didn’t grace that with a response, getting out of her bed and walking over, examining the articles of clothing. She slid on one of the gloves, her eyes almost widening as she noticed it was a perfect fit.
“Enid…”
“No need to thank me. This really all works out in my favor anyway. Now we get to go outside. You’re coming, right?” Wednesday shifted to hide another shiver. The jacket really did seem to be of good quality.
“Alright. But I still don’t see a good reason to go outside, it’s already freezing in here enough.” Enid tilted her head,
“Willa, it’s really not that cold. Not if you’re wearing a sweater, anyway.”
“I’ve never been this cold in my life,” Wednesday muttered. That was almost true. Pugsley had locked her inside a freezer once when they were children. That hadn’t been the most enjoyable experience. But it hadn’t been the worst either… she’d felt like she was actually being frozen for preservation. She’d only been somewhat happy to be scooped into her father's warm arms after.
“If you’re cold we can stay in -” Enid started, Wednesday shaking her head and putting on the jacket and the gloves,
“No, let’s go.”
“Put on the hat too. Or else your ears will freeze.” Wednesday put on the hat too. They left the room and headed out of school, near the edge of the woods. Enid had enough common sense not to lead them directly beside the woods like Wednesday absolutely would have. Said girl almost felt invincible sometimes.
And then moments like that one, where she was standing shivering beside her roommate who was rolling up a snowball, made her realize that she was most definitely a mortal. Enid rolled the snowball in circles until it picked up all the snow in the area, waving for Wednesday to follow. Wednesday did, her feet becoming wet as snow soaked into her shoes.
“How big do you think I can make it?” Enid asked, a sigh to behold in the snow, wearing bright pink.
“3 feet tall,” Wednesday said, leaning against a bare-leaved tree.
“Oh, come on, that’s easy.”
“7 feet.”
“That’s better.” Enid continued rolling the ball, until it was taller than her, continuing to push. Somehow, she didn’t seem to grow tired at all. Her eyes remained bright and focused. Wednesday zoned out, another tremble coursing through her body. She gritted her teeth. “Here,” Enid rolled the largest ball of snow Wednesday had ever seen after about twenty minutes, a stupid grin on her face, “I think it’s at least 7 feet tall.”
“Yes, it's greater - How did you,” Wednesday paused, “right, werewolf. Strength.”
“Yep,” Enid said, “are you sure you don’t want to try rolling one? Even just a little one?”
“My efforts would be pathetic.”
“You’ve got to start somewhere.” Wednesday reached down into the snow, packing together a tiny snowball,
“That’s somewhere.”
“Yeah, it is Wednesday,” Enid smiled, taking the tiny snowball and giving it a soft look. Wednesday shivered again, Enid furrowing her brow and reaching out, touching her cheek. Wednesday stiffened. “Oh, wow, you’re freezing. Even more so than usual. Let’s go back inside.”
“But I thought you wanted to be out here,” Wednesday said, kicking at a snowdrift. It was deeper than she expected, her knees buckling at the misconceived depth. She was about to fall on her face in front of her roommate.
But she didn’t.
Right before she could hit the ground, Enid’s arm wrapped around her chest, attempting to keep her from plummeting to the unfortunate fate of humiliation. Enid was Enid though, happening to slip on the ice at that exact second. They both went tumbling into the snow, the wind knocked out of Wednesday as Enid landed on top of her, their faces inches away. She opened her eyes once she was aware that she had tightly closed them. She was looking directly into Enid’s.
Suddenly she wasn’t quite so bitterly cold. She wished she could say that they didn’t lay there like that for a minute, Enid’s eyes wide and Wednesday’s face expressionless as she screamed on the inside.
Enid finally cleared her throat and stood up, pulling Wednesday up with her, “you’re not hurt, are you?” She asked. Wednesday shook her head, shaking snow off of herself by spinning in a circle. It had seeped into every crack of her winter clothes. Enid covered a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh.
“Don’t mock me, Sinclair,” Wednesday said, Enid grabbing her hand in response. Wednesday didn’t tense for once.
“Come on, icicle. Wenscicle.”
“Enid.”
“Sorry! Let’s go back. Hopefully, that wasn’t too torturous. The bad kind, anyway. Hopefully it was a good kind of torture.” Wednesday found it harder than usual to suppress a smile as she walked beside her roommate. Her friend. Her best friend. And also her only friend, but that wasn’t relevant.
She’d almost had fun.
Enid Sinclair was the only person in the world that could make her almost have fun.