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Wednesday has a very vast vocabulary.
There are words inside her very marrow. She's confident enough in her vocabulary to say that there are an above-average amount of them, though she can't always remember which one is the right one to use during sensitive moments. They're all there though, she has access to them.
Today, there are two.
Exquisite pain.
Exquisite pain. When the school is overflowing with the very enraged bees that escaped their hive, pricking and buzzing all over skin and beneath clothing— the symphony of screams from apiphobics near deafening.
Exquisite pain, is what that group she has slowly grown to be apart of feels when they are being chased by a murderer on a non school-sanctioned camping trip.
Exquisite pain, when a beast with Tyler’s face but body something biblical escapes its confines and comes back to finish off his mission. The romantic homicide of long, gangly claws peeling the flesh of her chest apart like petals of a blushing flower, cold fingers like the kiss of death wrapping around her heart and tugging until it punctures.
She lays there— bleeding out, slowly. She can feel her pained gasps wet against her cracked lips, laying in her own puddle of gore. There’s no fear of God, or wondering if the afterlife. No regrets, or hopes tarnished.
She does however, think of Pugsley. Growing up alone— colours dulling from grief. Pubert, slowly forgetting his big sister as he emerges into childhood. Gomez, weeping into the balled up fabric of her baby blanket inconsolable. Morticia— oh, she would hurt beautifully. Would adorn her finest, and lay herself to a slow death that no one can stop. Lurch who no longer drives because there is no family to care for- and Uncle Fester who cannot even summon a spark. Thing would be left to her dear uncle, but he would be as just any other disembodied limb. Lifeless, useless.
Like her corpse, that will rot in these woods filled with husks from leaves, slowly until weeds sprout through her wilted flesh. Wednesday watched as the life drained, quite literally, from the future version of herself lying on the ground at her bare feet; the blood running in rivers between the cobbles from the wound in her gaping chest.
She can make out the ghost of a genuine smile on the lips of a skin she’s not wearing. This is pure bliss. She has achieved it all— darkness, chaos and despair wrapped up in this school her parents had promised would enrich her.
But Wednesday— prone on her bed can feel the cold shackle of realization grappling her neck like a witch’s bridle. The name is on her lips but forced down in her vision by the piece of metal in her mouth that is her heavy tongue.
Wednesday should like it. Should enjoy dying alone, suffering, and leaving pain in her wake. She should enjoy witnessing the downfall of those she loathed in life and cherish their finite existence in her eternal glory as Satan’s second hand.
… but Enid isn’t there. As though she never existed. As though she wouldn’t be around as the seasons turn.
There’s no colour in this world. Only exquisite pain. She'd never fully understood the meaning of those words. Pain by definition was negative. Exquiste was lovely and tender and excellent. How could someone hold both of those at once? What arms are large enough? Enid was exquisite pain. Enid was biting into the lemon and drinking the juice for that flash of sweet before the burn. Leaving Wednesday all rind and seeds. This feeling pricking her finger tips was both heaven and hell. Exquisite, perfect pain.
How could you experience exquisite pain without the subject of such a bewitching horror?
She doesn’t even allow the idea of letting the comfort of chaos unfold. She will not lose Enid— even if that’s far more terrifying than any gruesome premonition.
-
“Eugene. You have to get rid of the bugs.” Wednesday asserts without any preamble, marching into the apiary with a wary eye side longing the fluffy bees, which she knows to be insects.
But they are the enemy. So they are bugs.
“H-hey Wednesday!” Eugene is red in the face, clamouring unsteadily to his feet off the ground to meet Wednesday when she stops short of him. She eyes him warily, his hands in his pockets as he sways back and forth.
Sniffs at him. His chest deflates and eyes widen when he realizes Wednesday is on a bit of a warpath. “Eugene. I am deathly serious. This is a matter of national emergency.”
He pushes his glasses up awkwardly beneath the bull of his helmet, a frown prominent beneath his net. “But… they have nowhere to go!”
Wednesday’s patience is running thin, her foot tapping against the dirt to the beat of the pulsing anger in her ears. “My family home.” Snaps. “They may stay there under the caring affections of my Lurch.”
“What’s a Lurch? And for how long?”
She stifles her frustration— because this is draining her social battery rapidly. “He is my family friend. Quite the handler of all living creatures.” Eugene smiles. “And dead.” Frowns.
He takes a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot before groaning.
“…okay, okay! For you I’ll do it- but.. h-how long, exactly?” He flushes and averts his gaze to a hive, and he looks so gentle.
Wednesday feels her heart soften at the show of love between a boy and his bees. But, she still wants to a shove a sock down his throat so he would stop talking.
“I will let you know. Lurch is in the parking lot, I will send him your way.”
“…it’s lunch on a Tuesday. Why is your butler here?”
She twists on her heel, calling over her shoulder as she goes from the muggy shelter. “Because this is incredibly important.”
And it is. Which is why she willingly crashes into the base of outcasts not 10 minutes later, confused when Yoko starts shouting and nearly impressed as Ajax’s scream borders a high F
“Jesus, Wednesday!” Yoko barks, but calms at the glower Bianca is levelling her way. Because the Nightshades were known for being sly and unscrupulous, clearly. “Knock next time..”
She blinks. “Yes. I should knock on the secret passage door because I might catch the group of socially awkward, emotionally inept children doing something bad. Please.”
Ajax snickers. “What!?” Winces when Bianca hits him. Joy; also a forbidden fruit of the secret society. Perhaps she should join. “It’s funny!”
Bianca rolls her eyes, facing Wednesday with a huff as she peels her mask off.
“We mean it’s a secret society and you just barged in on one of our meetings.”
“Ah, business. Good. Then I’m just in time.” She meanders into the middle of the room, the other teens tired but mostly amused at the carefree antics of their resident goth. “I’d like to bring the matter of your upcoming secret camping trip to the table.”
“How did you even-“ Bianca blinks, shaking her head as she circles Wednesday. “On what grounds?”
“Section 4, regulation 16.” Pauses for effect, and notices how Ajax is shooting her a thumbs up and Yoko smirks. Bianca, as usual, looks particularly miffed. “Willfully endangering a creature you are sworn to protect.”
Xavier roars. “Hearsay!” And everyone just stares at him. He shrugs sheepishly, leaning back against a pillar with his arms crossed. “Just wanted to be included..”
“Okay- pray tell, Wednesday, how are we endangering one of the outcasts?”
Wednesday has never been prouder of her memorization of the lunar calendar. “You will be departing on the 15th- with Enid. The full moon will be coming on the 17th, and you would not make it back in time to spare her the painful transformation that being in direct moonlight will cause. Moreover, the woods are dangerous for a new wolf as her senses will be enhanced nearly primordially.”
Wednesday looks to the boys. “It’s similar to a woman’s PMS cycle.”
“Okay! I’m all in favour of postponing!” Ajax exclaims— too fast. “What? I’m a feminist!”
“All for forgoing the trip, say I?” Bianca sighs, and she smiles thinly at Wednesday when everyone agrees with her.
She nods her thanks— for more than they know, as she departs with two clicks of her fingers into the hall.
And the blight of asking favours and being remotely nice to people seems to work.
Days pass. Nothing occurs. All is right in the world and— Except, no, it’s not at all. Wednesday is itching still, to have Enid. To hold her and feel her— because then it’s real. Then Enid won’t leave, if Wednesday has her wrapped up tight.
She can't help but find sympathy for all the deer to ever get caught in headlights, when she’s standing in front of Enid. Her feet are over the tape she’d put down, and the air around her carries the smell of lavender and coconut that is sanctimonious with the wolf.
But no, that's not quite right. Because Wednesday isn't an innocent deer and Enid isn't headlights, she's the fucking darkness enveloping everything else.
“I want you, Enid.”
Her voice is flat. Because, this way, it will not startle nor alarm Enid. Quite like showing your palm to a skittish animal and letting it come to you— it is a trick to protect both human and animal.
But Enid looks anything but mollified. Tilting her head the way a dog does to understand better. “Huh?”
“Yes. I want you. Come with me.”
Her lips curl into a frown, eyes flashing brilliantly ochre. Wednesday feels a thrill at it.
Most certainly not a deer.
“I’m not your personal TaskRabbit, Addams.”
So many animal metaphors.
Flashes of brutal cruelty come to bat in the front of her conscious- and oh. If Wednesday was self aware for once, Enid must believe she is to be a part of some evil plan, to serve as a body guard or perhaps be the scapegoat if it all goes wrong,
her brain helpfully supplies.
Enid just stares at her with an amused, almost pitiful expression and Wednesday can feel her face burn beneath the thick layer of pale skin.
She had said it with such conviction, that she truly is at a loss for words and looks helplessly at Thing but he is suddenly enamoured by the vinyl collection on the shelf, so she just has to stand there, silently praying that a hole will suck her into the floor, or a car will smash into the glass windows and hit her.
Enid is still staring at her, so, she tries again.
“I want you.”
“For the love of God!” Enid groans, her hands flying wildly. “I don’t know what that means! And I have to get to class! Goodbye, you little weirdo!”
And she’s yelling but sounds affectionate, and her hands come to squish Wednesday’s cheeks as a kiss is press to the crown of her head and it’s all so jarring, Wednesday even flinches when the door slams shut behind her.
Wednesday looks at Thing. Her mouth is gaped and face feels hot. It’s odd. Blinks. His body racking in silent laughter and she wants to shiv him, but that would probably be the chain reaction to her devastation. “You enjoy watching me suffer.”
He flips up a thumb, skittering over to get a better seat to watch her struggle with the intricacies of friendship and adolescent pining.
-
There is something intricately horrible about love. Being someone who runs a little warm, meeting someone who runs a bit cold. Burning or freezing. Wednesday knows this, this is established.
Because love was pink, warm, light. Infecting you until you, too, rot from the saccharine core out. And painful. So, so painful.
Just like the fire alarm that goes off at 11:05 am during the middle of Mr. Manning’s— Thornhill’s replacement— class.
Wednesday can feel the vision scratching at her neck like an irritating gorget
Mr. Manning’s eyebrows scrunch beneath the frames of his thick glasses, a frown marring his lips. “That’s strange…” glances to his watch, like it held all the answers. “There’s no fire drill scheduled.. okay- students, make your way to the courtyard in an orderly fashion-“
Ajax is the first unsuspecting victim, running into the room wailing. “WERE UNDER ATTACK!” With a bumblebee that seems inordinately angry as it revs back and goes catapulting into his raised arms over and over like it’s made of a tiny piece of sheet metal.
The snake beneath his hat is the frog to the fly, but seems terrified in its own right as it tucks away to hide upon seeing the forming bruises on pale skin.
The class burst out into a rumble of discontented sound, Wednesday glancing toward Enid who’s got her claws sticking out to defend herself, but has her feet glued to the floor and eyes wide.
Enid Sinclair has a fear of bees.
How could she forget Enid is terrified of them?
Wednesday thrusts her hand out overtop Xavier’s head, who’s frantically sketching out swatters to protect himself with.
“Enid— come with me. I will get you somewhere safe.”
Enid stares blankly ahead, like Wednesday isn’t even there and it’s a grappling issue as the windows start to shadow with the looming warning of a swarm in the sky.
Eugene did not have this many bees to begin with— how was this possible?
“Come.” Wednesday gripes as the buzzing becomes near deafening the faster the swarm approaches, and she yanks Enid along closely while they part through the body of students to reach the apiary itself.
Enid’s hand is cold and clammy, but squeezing tightly which is a relief, considering they have to quickly rear themselves off course to avoid being flattened by a herd of football players charging toward a bee hive that’s popped out of the ceiling, armed to the teeth with bug zappers and bottles of sprayable pesticides.
They close in on the apiary— conspicuously empty aside from a frantic Eugene that’s tearing apart the room in a frenzy of frenetic energy.
“Eugene!” She shouts, wincing at the whimper from the wolf behind her.
They come to a stop in front of him, Wednesday reluctantly letting go of Enid’s hand to grab Eugene when he doesn’t respond, firmly by the shoulders and shaking. His head wobbles comically, like a very big bobble head.
“Eugene! Calm down man!”
Slaps him for good measure. He blinks wildly, swallowing some mouthfuls of air and reaching up to cup his reddening cheek. “Wednesday! I’m so sorry— I don’t know what happened! I had them all loaded in the back of Lurch’s car like you said but then the engines vibrations made them mad I guess, or it was all so black in there and they hate that colour- and then more showed up from nowhere and- oh, I’m so sorry I never meant for this to happen!”
Wednesday sighs, her thumb rubbing soothing circles into the junction of his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she mumurs. “You didn’t know this would happen. But how do we make it stop?”
Hes damn near inaudible as he dissolves into blubbering once more, and she feels her patience waning the more unstable Enid becomes with whimpers and low growling.
She reaches back blindly, grabbing Enid’s hand and biting her tongue to stop the innapropriate smile from forming when she wraps her free hand around Wednesday’s bicep to anchor herself.
“Eugene,” she speaks soft- slow, like he couldn’t possibly understand the gravity of language. “You’re the only one who can save us.” Punctuates the depth of her words with a raise of her eyebrows, nodding once to assert it as true. And he is gaping, nodding wildly. “How do we stop the bees?”
He goes to grab his mask for protection against the invasion, pacing back and forth as he hums to himself.
“Uh- oh!” Snaps his fingers like a eureka moment. “Smoke. Yes! Smoke. Burlap, pine, wood- I have a smoker in the shed we can use!”
Then, in a breath, Eugene is deploying himself with a renewed purpose into the world with an ear-piercing screech on behalf of Wednesday, the soldiers of Nevermore stop their attack and come flocking toward their fearless leader in the form of a 5’3 boy.
And what happens next is a a communal blur- jocks and species intermingling as they move through the school in a wave of smoke and conservancy. It’s actually quite emotional to watch, banded as one united front in protecting their school.
But at the end of it all, with more students needing epi pen shots then bees dead (luckily for the planet), Enid still won’t move from her stance cradled like a baby koala to a tree.
And Wednesday isn’t complaining for once about the physical affection- but she misses blinding smiles and word vomit far more, and her arm is sore from being pulled taut around her own back for too long.
Which is why she is crouching low, prying Enid’s hands off of her with formidable strength and warming them between her own. Enid’s eyes are downcast, her chin tucked into her chest like a little kid who just got into a fight and it takes several calls of her name until cornflower blues are looking dazedly through Wednesday.
“Hey, there you are.” She smiles, her hands squeezing Enid’s in recognition. “You’re safe. It’s okay now- there’s no more bees.”
And Enid won’t say anything for a few hours- (Wednesday reminds herself of her therapist mentioning the processing period after a traumatic event)- but she launches herself forward and knocks them both onto the ground in a splay of limbs and choked laughter to wrap her room mate up in a hug.
Wednesday just wraps her arms around a strong back, holding Enid close to her chest. They’re in the middle of a high traffic hallway, but Wednesday can’t find it in herself to care when Enid starts murmuring quiet gratitudes she can’t quite understand, but it’s something. And it’s special.
And the apiary may be on a temporary shutdown, but Enid seems happier than she was before the invasion and that’s something.
-
Wednesday is sat up in her chair, her spine sore from a night of rigid stature and eyes blinking rapidly against the darkness to try and relieve the tired spots plaguing the edges of her vision.
When she had crashed the Nightshade meeting it was for all intensive purposes to cancel the camping trip. Not be invited out on it.
But Enid had pled- (because the full moon had decided to hide behind thick fog)- and had promised it would all be just and dandy. Had given Wednesday that half smile and looked up beneath her eyelashes and leaned close enough their noses brushed and her eyes had no choice but to fall to that smile that Enid uses when she’s already won, and—
It was fine. So far. It had only been a night with one left to go, but for those solid 9 hours where the world was quiet Wednesday hadn’t let her guard down.
Watching Enid from a camping chair she’d dragged into their 4 person camping tent (it was stuffy and Ajax had ended up half on top of Yoko and half on top of Xavier. They’d outright refused the chair and barricaded the zipper for the tent. But Wednesday had made idle threats and suddenly the accommodations were made. How genial of them.)
Enid slept on her side with her hands tucked beneath her face, in the mixed dawn as the crickets and songbirds seemed to switch their guards. When it’s twilight and everything is wrong. Wednesday does not know who is the ruler of this early world, she just knows that morning is coming and something will happen. Things happen, of course, naturally and unplanned. Morning will come and it will be the end and she has to memorize this moment.
There is no glow here. No light slipping in through the blinds, or outpour from a kaleidoscopic lens. She can’t see Enid, but she feels her. She always feels her. Even in a room of people, she can feel, hear, and sense Enid.
She fakes her own breaths, so she can count Enid’s. Steady, strong, a rumbling purr thick in the air and it’s soothing… almost disarmingly so.
And then she’s thrusted back into time, when the toe of her boot is sliding from the dirt into the fire pit and it’s unbearably hot. She slides it away, puffing air out and looking over at the other campers around her that sit tucked beneath woolen blankets with drinks and snacks in hand.
“Okay! Horror stories! I got one, I got one!” Xavier proclaims around a crumbly bite of a s’more. Wednesday twitches at the string of sugary snack that clings to his lip like a tightrope. “It’s about a killer.”
Waggles his sticky fingers for effect. Yoko makes a mocking ghost noise that has him cuddling into himself and flushing in chagrin. “Hey! It’s a really good one!”
Yoko relents with a tilt of her cup of blood in an inconspicuous beer cozy. “Fine. Go on.”
He steels himself with an exaggerated breath, eyes darting around and lips curling into a mischievous little grin. Wednesday already wants to kill herself as he starts.
“Creak”, a sound, faint, distant, but still heard “Crack”, something snapping, or being trampled on.
The man sits in his room, reading. The room is silent except for the quiet fire burning.
“Creak”..Just the the house settling, nothing more.
“Crack”, Perhaps some small animals outdoors.
“Whoosh”, Was that the wind?
The man stands up and peeks out the window. A clear night is all he sees, the full moon brillent in the sky. Laughing at his nervousness, he returns to his book.
“Creak”, the man now silently chuckles at the sound.
“Crack”, how could he have been scared of some sounds.
“Whoosh”, must be breezy out tonight.
“Thump”…did that come from within the house?
The man stares into the fire, trying to calm his jangled nerves.
“Creak”…
“Crack”…
“Whoosh”…will the sounds never cease?
“Thump”…”Thump”…”Thump”…
Closer, he thinks, the sounds are getting closer. He shuts the book and closes his eyes, and thinks of something besides his wild imagination.
“Creak”
Thump”
“Crack”
“Thump”
“Whoosh”
“Thump”…”Thump”…”Thump”…a pause? The man moves quietly, slowly, towards the door with a nervous gait. “Thump”…a step back…”Thump”…yes, it’s getting closer. “Thump”…he stares at the door, trying to somehow see through it…”Thump”…he reaches slowly for the doorknob, hand shaking, no longer able to take not knowing…”Creak”, a loose floorboard, near the door outside…”Thump”, he slowly opens the door…”
A scream.
Xavier’s mouth is gaped but it’s Bianca’s who’s echoes around them, shrill and tortured.
Wednesday doesn’t hesitate to move. Because Bianca had been grabbed and tugged to the ground- as Yoko valiantly fought by her side against Tyler. That thing of nightmares— with daggers for nails, rows of teeth in a maw the size of a grown man and gangly beastly wings sprouted gruesomely from its back.
Wednesday had been dreading this moment. She has Enid up and running alongside the rest of the group, the wind howling in their ears and thick underbrush whipping at their skin.
They may all have powers- but it isn’t enough to fight a winged beast with a body larger than them all.
Maybe in an opening, a clearing of some sorts they could stand a chance.
But it doesn’t come- instead it’s a fork in the forest diverging them into equal dark halves. And Wednesday can feel the beast licking at their heels as its scent carries on the wind. If they didn’t move soon, they wouldn’t escape.
Turns to Enid who’s flushed and panting, her fangs and claws bared and eyes shifting around the forming circle of Nevermore students. “What was that thing?!” Ajax yelps, bending at the hips to brace his knees and gasp for air.
Yoko has a viscous grey sludge she tries to clean from her fangs, and Bianca watches intrigued and mortified. “Tyler. Or some ‘roided out version at least, that will gobble us all whole if we don’t move.”
Her ears prick, eyes slanting in panic. “Like- now!”
Wednesday turns to look down the trampled path to the creature that’s pushing itself from tree to tree like a glorified primate. “Okay here’s what we do,” she snaps her head to face the anxious and dry heaving (Xavier) group that nod. “I’m going to make for the left. I will let it follow me and you guys escape- find help. You’re all faster, stronger- sure; but I’m an Addams.”
“-Not to be fucked with!” Yoko professes, holding her balled fist out to Wednesday who blinks down at it, curious as to why Yoko was presenting her with it.
“Yes. Exactly right. Go then, I will see you all shortly.”
She wouldn’t, not really, if the event of her vision came to pass just as the others had. But Enid would be safe. Alive. And that’s all that mattered.
They give each other wishing well’s and take off in their own direction, but Enid catches Wednesdays wrist when she’s turning to go and tugs, growling low. Almost commandeering. “You’re not doing this.”
Wednesday shrugs out of the grasp. “I am. And you’re going to get out of here.” Shakes her head to fight the stubborn wave of fear that wishes to rain down her cheeks.
“No, Wednesday, I’m not leaving-“
“Enid please.” She cuts in, not caring if she’s begging or sounds pitiful because Enid can’t watch her die. And Enid can’t die in her place. “I can’t- I won’t let you get hurt. I couldn’t bare it.”
Enid is crying. Fat tears rolling down her ruddy cheeks and Wednesday feels her heart dislodge into her throat.
Reaches forward when she still can’t say anything, to press the pad of her thumb against the apple of Enid’s cheek.
Anxious tears threaten Wednesday and she tries to hold them back. She feels changed. How can they retreat after this battle? How can the boundaries lines be redrawn when they've stormed each other's castles. Set fire to the fields. Scorched the earth, ruined each other for any other.
“I love you. Enid, I love you and I want you and I need you.” Swallows the storm of emotion she feels filling her lungs. “So I need you to run. To go— be safe. Please. For me, you’ll go.”
And Yoko is waiting by the outskirts of the path the others had disappeared down. Wednesday gives her the cue with a nod of her head, and doesn’t linger when Yoko uses her super speed to force the blonde down the diverging lane.
The forest moans with the brute force of beastly feet charging after her— because it wants her. The Hyde is here to kill her, and she won’t resist it.
But she’ll try and fight.
She’s sure she’s wearing a look of sheer terror once she’s on her own, glancing back to shout for The Hyde. And then she turns, taking off as fast as she can down the thickery of the road less travelled, her breathe condensing in front of her in the cool evening air.
She ran until her legs were burning and her skin was bloody and bruised from the assault of branches and tumbles over the legs of trees and uprooted earth.
She ran as if the hordes of hell were chasing her, and for all she knew they were.
Admittedly, one person does not make a horde, but she knew the killer that wore the face of a kind, gentleman type that had been her first kiss. And if her vass expanse of knowledge were even vaguely accurate, murderers didn’t stop until their prey was caught and stripped of its life.
Conscious that her heavy legs acting as dead weight were making a lot of noise, she stopped. She wasn’t diluted enough to think she could carry on, no matter how much she willed herself to live. So she veered herself off the path into the woods, until she was completely coveted by shrubbery and hid herself into an alcove of tall trees.
She fell to her ass, head lolling and pulling her knees up to her chest and breathing sparsely between them. It had felt far too long since she began running, and it felt far too quiet for a beast its size to not make itself known.
But it was near. Wednesday felt its eyes on her.
Peering cautiously from her hiding space she looked back the way she had come but couldn’t see anyone following her.
Because he was behind her, the saliva from his great jaws the precursor to the snap of her tailbone and she’d be dead.
But that wasn’t her vision. No; instead he lifted her by the collar of her jacket like the scruff of a baby animals neck, walking her over to one of the thicker stumps of a tree and reering back before slamming her painfully into the body of the tree— her ears ringing and knees giving in to gravity as he holds her up by the neck. He was making sure she was facing him, eyes that were flirting with their human ones and this wasn’t the Hyde- no, this was Tyler, who liked to see the fear in people’s eyes when they realised what was about to happen.
His mouth gave a whine like metal on metal while it spread itself into a Cheshire wide grin, before wrapping his hands around her throat and squeezing. He had to give her credit for struggling and trying to get free but they both knew it just wasn’t feasible. He watched as the light slowly faded from her eyes, and this time, Wednesday thought of Enid. A soft smile, gallant loyalty, fearsome strength. Soft lips that brushed the conch of Wednesday’s ear when she’d lean in to ask a question, or a brush of their pinkies that would link in the hall. Soothing words whispered when Wednesday wound come back wounded.
Wounded, back. She was dropped to the ground forcefully, and Wednesday gasps hoarsely for oxygen, trying to fill her lungs as fast as she can. In for four, out for four. Squints to make her eyes adjust to the thick blanket of darkness this deep into the forest night.
Four paws pounding on the ground, four monstrous roars. Enid.
Wednesday scrambles onto her knees, ignoring her body’s protests to watch as Enid barrel rolls the Hyde into the trees, the earth denting at the force of them. She has one back paw balancing on his stomach, the other keeping her balance while her hands and mouth move to clamp around him. She misses, and he uses his own strength to throw her across the forest floor.
She lands miraculously on all fours, scraping her nails into the ground and using it to vault herself forward.
A growl of frustration escapes him, tired and broken as he starts to move towards her— only for Enid to bear down.
Wednesday wants to scream as they collide.
Some horror stories are romantic. Her own vision of death— traumatizing to others, but poetic to her.
But she hadn’t seen this scene. Like the hump at the top of a rollercoaster before you barrel down. A plot twist that rips away your sense of comfort that can never be mended.
There is nothing romantic about Enid with the Hyde’s maw around her throat. There’s a nest of snakes in the pit of her stomach balling themselves into a knot and it reminds her a bit of the blonde, and how she felt around her in the beginning.
But she doesn’t want Enid to hurt now. She would lay down her life to spare Enid, and maybe, the other outcasts she’s come to know as family.
Their eyes meet— tearful black and tired blue. Wednesday can’t speak, her throat compressed from the creature and she thinks she might dig into her own chest and use the blood to spell out encouragements.
And she’s 75% sure Enid is psychic, and it’s not the first time she’s thought of this percentage when those sullen eyes flash determinate.
And with the power of a child of the moon, Enid sends the Hyde into the air. She rolls herself onto her hind legs and presses up, colliding with the beast like the clash of the moon and the sun.
It’s a rainfall of bloodshed, before they both come crashing down to the ground once more. Wednesday isn’t sure what happened, other than the Hyde is prone and lifeless being tossed like a rag doll into the bushes by the werewolf.
Who’s staring. At her. She stands, and then the werewolf is transforming, and those blue eyes flash once more to something akin to unbridled rage.
Wednesday doesn’t know that her mind has ever really ‘raced’ before. She’s been overwhelmed, sure, unable to pin down a single thought and focus on it, yeah. But she’s being bombarded right now with a million different things and words, and thoughts and feelings, and it seems a little bit like her brain is about to shut down.
And then the werewolf is moving toward her, speeding up and shoving Wednesday until she has to forcefully dig her heels into the dirt that she’s skidding against before a flurry of fists begin their barrage against her.
Enid is banging her fists against Wednesday’s chest— her incoherent cussing muddled by the breaking sobs and Wednesday is helpless. Allows Enid the space to feel while she blinks back her own tears. Her chest is sore and throat raw, Enid’s hands faltering to weak palms that do nothing and that’s when she catches her wrists.
“Enid.”
And then Enid has her arms wrapped around her neck, “Don’t ever do that to me again, you silly silly martyr- you could’ve lost your life.”
“Don’t sacrifice yours for me— again— then, silly silly wolf.”
Wednesday smiles to try and defuse the situation , and it hurts her entire body tondo it but Enid smiles softly back, and it’s worth it.
Enid chuckles dryly, running a hand through her dirty hair and tugging at the mats there.
“At least give me the opportunity to respond to what you said all cavalier, before, then.”
Oh.
Swallows against the pricking blank of the vision that didn’t have this much film in it. “What is your response?”
A beat. And then; “This.”
In the shadows, they’re kissing. The bitter ropy smell of blood, dirt and grime staining Enid’s skin heavy as it’s pressed into Wednesday’s aching body. He’s everywhere up my back and over my arms and suddenly he’s kissing me harder, deeper, with a fervent urgent need I’ve never known before. Wednesday’s lblood is turned treacle.
Wednesday isn’t gentle, or careful when she’d been all that and yet suffered the same fate predestined. Knots her fists into Enid’s torn up shirt, pulling her harder against a body that’s bruising and healing all at once when a groan, low in her throat and soft is swallowed by her own lips.
Unutterable visions cross Wednesdays mind like a galaxy of stars, the terminus is white gowns and floral bouquets and her friends raging down the beaten path with Principal Weems at their flank and oh-
Pushes Enid away, smiling sympathetically. “The Calvary is arriving.”
Enid flushes, nodding but doesn’t move away. She peppers kisses, one against the hallow of her temple, to the ridge of a high cheekbone, on the junction of a defined jawline.
And Wednesday thinks Enid’s kisses break open the earth, if it’s able to make her feel both oddly bashful and joyful.
Wednesday has a very vast vocabulary.
There are words inside her very marrow. She's confident enough in her vocabulary to say that there are an above-average amount of them, though she can't always remember which one is the right one to use during sensitive moments. They're all there though, she has access to them.
Usually.
Right now, every single one of them has shrivelled up and evaporated, wilted away to literally nothing under the playful heat of Enid’s scorching gaze. There isn't so much as a solitary “thanks” left, not even an “uh” - which is just two letters thrown together, but Wednesday can't even manage sounds – and all she can do is stare a bit crazed and dazedly at the blonde who still somehow keeps a grin on blood stained lips slightly parted and panting from exertion, and every other likewise synonym that Wednesday can't recall at the minute. Her face, she's sure, is the same colour as that delightful rouge of Tyler’s blood.
Another one of the multiple ways her Addams blood betrays her when it comes to Enid and Enid alone. Blushing; like a frivolous school girl.
She does not blush. Because blushing equates embarrassment, shame, nerves. Three characteristics Wednesday does not possess, but it's like her body doesn't take that into consideration and just jumps on the chance to make her feel even more like an idiot and creates a placebo effect.
Not that she's really thinking about what her personality is made up of now, she's more concerned with other things.
Like the way Enid is looking at Wednesday like she wants to swallow her whole.
And the way Wednesday’s battered body and oxygen-deprived brain have simultaneously started firing on all cylinders.
And what, exactly, she's supposed to do with all of... that, newfound realizations.
She's halfway through taking a breath and trying not to hyperventilate when Enid lurches forward and pecks Wednesday on the lips. Her sultry dissolving into sweet in the blink of an eye that is so rapid, it almost gives Wednesday whiplash.
“You are so adorable.” She gives Wednesday’s cheek a fond pat and shuffles back towards where their friends are trailing behind an infuriated and worried Weems, who is screaming about breaking school rules and how she wants to keep them all in her pocket for safe keeping.
A handful of officers break off from their group to apprehend Tyler, who’s unconscious in his human form.
Ajax rushes her, trampling her in a hug that she can’t quite bother to resist, asking if she’s okay and everyone around them are none the wiser.
The only indication that anything out of the ordinary has transpired—aside the usual prevention of homicide— being the sly slant to Enid’s smile. She’s waving off Yoko’s fussing, enveloping the blanket tight around herself and clearing her throat to grab everyone’s attention. “I’m starved. How do you feel about Chinese food?” Like nothing has happened.
“Mierda.” And finally, Wednesday regains a word.