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The foreboding clock in the library had hit the half hour mark, when Xavier finally snaps. Blows his top, spins off his rocker- whatever metaphor you want to use and whatever passage of time you so wish it to happen during.
He had had enough of trying to work on a mutually split project which was rapidly ending up as him trying to glue down strips of printed paragraphs to photos he didn’t feel too sure about connecting on their poster board map of the 9 circles of hell.
Wednesday’s idea, of course, for the topic of the project: A Complete History of Life After Death.
And it had been going well in the beginning- the goth attentive and diligent in her studies as she’s always known to be, at least until down below Enid and a few friends had come strolling into the library- quietly talking amongst themselves but evidently, Wednesday had a finely tuned ear for all things Enid.
Then, all bets were off. And so were the crafts stationary to the floor as she angles awkwardly to lean over the hand railing, eying the werewolf who decides to sit in an inconvenient enough area that the eldest Addams actually gets up and abandons her friend in totality. And sort of just looms there. Watching.
“Oh my god, Wednesday, take a photo why don’t you!”
“Hm?”
And she blinks, a rare picture of humanity when her neck slowly twists to face him. Her eyebrows are creased in the middle, and there’s a divet of space between her lips where she inhales shakily.
His eyebrow furrows, reaching out to snap a few times. When he retracts his hand that’s still connected to his arm, that’s when the worry sets in. “What’s up? You’re like almost catatonic and it’s freaking me out.”
Wednesday sucks her teeth, her shoulders rising to her ears and dropping in a silent sigh. “What is a she wolf? And why is it in the closet?” She asks as she moves to sit back down.
Wednesday wasn’t a genius. No, as much as everyone liked to think she was- she was just a 16 year old girl who was trying to make it through the throng of hormones and existential dread relatively unscathed the same as anyone else. But she also wasn’t a complete idiot, which is why Xavier isn’t quite sure if he’s meant to laugh or worryingly placate the woeful thing.
“She wolf? Like… the shakira song?
She hums noncommittally, because Wednesday wouldn’t comprehend pop culture if the fate of humanity depended on it, instead appraising the mess of a poster board without so much as a snide comment.
So, mildly concerning it was.
He twiddles with the straw of the slurpee he’d smuggled in, knocking their shoulders together in a show of comraderie or support or… something. They both weren’t great at friendship.
“Why?”
She exhales long and slow, like she didn’t have all the right screws in her head and is trying to knock them into spot. “Enid.” She supplies like it would help, her eyebrow twitching inconspicuously like the thrumming of a prominent vein should she have anything warm and living within her catalyst of a body.
He waits for her to go on. She doesn’t continue, so he prods her with the capped end of his pen until her skin is turning white before fading back to its rigor-mortis gray.
Relenting. “She has been playing it a lot. She likes to add her own howl in, which I do not find nearly as insufferable as I should. But-“ she sighed heavily. “why is the wolf in the closet? Shouldn’t a female wolf be empowered? Strong and diligent in her efforts to better their race? I ask Enid, but she does not answer. She turns a pale red and trips over air.”
And it’s all said in a breath, her only movement the steady rise and fall of her arched brow and a stilted twitch of her shoulders when she needs to inhale.
Xavier can’t help it. The smile he’s been chewing back is making his cheeks ache, so he lets the laughter pour out in peels. It simmers to a couple well-placed chuckles, eventually, and he’s so high on this feeling of knowing something that Wednesday can’t figure out to care for whatever look she’s shooting him the prelude to a funeral pyre.
“Oh you sweet, sweet naive Wednesday. Does your brain hurt from using it?”
“Haha. You’re funny.” She says flatly, picking up the glue stick and looking at it with a glare. Unsure of what to do with it, she jams the sharp end of a pencil into the gooey part.
He grimaced at the sight.
“Serious, though. You couldn’t have buzzfeed’ed this? Listened to girl in red about it?”
Wednesday puffs air out of the seam of her lips, her eyelids fluttering in a roll. It looks like a pragmatic way to flip him off but keep her emotions flat. “I am not that stupid. Ajax has briefed me on the terminology used by the LGBT community.”
Humming, Xavier slaps a cut out paragraph he’d sleepily written the night before to the board. It’s awkward and slanted, but it’s more for the principle of the thing. “You know, gay guys always have to have a lesbian friend. It’s just like, science. And I will eat my hat if you aren’t gay, too. “
“Nonsense. You like your hats too much.” She reminds him, sagely.
“Fine, then I’ll eat Ajax’s hat.”
Xavier amends smoothly.
“You mean the hat that stops us all from turning to stone? That hat?”
“That hat! That should tell you just how serious I am. You, my friend.” He puts a hand on her shoulder, patting in a way that should be comforting if she wasn’t eyeing it like it may carry disease. “Have a crush.”
With her heart pounding in her ears Wednesday really hopes she’d imagined the last five seconds. Or 16 years. Whenever her heart had beseeched her so.
“What?” She chortles nervously. She was vaguely aware of snorting completely over dramatically at the same time. Actually, honest to God snorted. Honest to god laughing, to top it all off too.
Though the dangerous look she shot Xavier afterwards said he should probably never bring it up if he liked living. Xavier chose life over a quick and merciless death, and said nothing about it as Wednesday turned the glue and pencil weapon over in her hands. . “That’s… ridiculous. And completely unlikely. I mean could you imagine?” More fake laughter. She was actually struggling to stop. “That’s just…. It’s just…” The laughter dies under the pressure of Xavier’s unconvinced expression.
Shoulders sagging, her lips twitched in a minute frown. “Is it obvious?”
“To anyone with eyes, yes.”
For a second, he thinks Wednesday might hit him under the revelation. It wasn’t his fault, but Wednesday was known to do stranger things (see: the time she stapled all his clothes to the ceiling for insulting the practicality of a typewriter.)
She has that unmistakable murderous glint in her eyes, her eyebrow twitching like some universal ‘shut up Xavier’. But then, suddenly and soundlessly, Enid is standing at the end of their table with that warm smile that reaches her eyes and Wednesday is putty. Helpless to do anything but melt for the blonde werewolf that had thrown her world through a loop time and time again.
He and Enid share pleasantries, before an awkward silence befalls them where Wednesday just sort of stares with glassy eyes and it’s making the entire library at large uncomfortable. Probably. Finally, the artist kicks her beneath the table. “Say hi, Wednesday.”
“Hi Wednesday.” Then, eyelashes fluttering. “Enid. You’re Enid. Im Wednesday.”
Enid bites her lip, but she’s smiling still. “I am. Hi, όμορφο κορίτσι.”
Xavier can’t help the laugh he lets out, even if there’s a high probability his tongue will be cut out. Because Enid is as obvious as the day is long and Wednesday is as oblivious as the night is.
“WOW, you’re perceptive today Wends!”
She glares at him from her peripheral, never once looking back at the amused blonde.
“We were just leaving.”
Their project was t even half finished, in fact, the pieces of paper on the board were curling at the corners from the half-assed job. He casts a sidelong glance Wednesdays way, frowning.
Shes back to staring, wide eyed, at the table. Xavier fumbles for something witty to say when he catches sight of Wednesday’s hands shaking beneath the table. Scared, and defensive. Posturing like she always did when she didn’t want to deal with something exceptional to her.
Enid is staring at them both suspiciously, her nose twitching like a curious dog’s whenever she isn’t quite sure what to make of a situation. And he starts to laugh- obnoxious and nervous and stands all too abruptly, banging his knee in the process.
If Wednesday had pushed herself so far into the closet she couldn’t meander her way out without clipping her self on the shelves, well, he’d hightail it with her in the face of true love.
Clearing his throat, he packs up what he can of their work that’ll fit back into the stupid non-stretchy material of their fabric bag (because protecting the fucking environment was important, or whatever), smiling as warmly as he can manage at Enid.
“We’ll catch you later, Enid, we’re off to..”
A glance at Wednesday, who helpfully supplies with a muted smile of her own. “See the wizard.”
And they interlock arms when she pushes herself up, and it’s all so weird— the entire day but Wednesday is still trembling and he’s not exactly sure how to get her to stop short of smacking her.
Which would truly have his tongue cut off. Likely from Enid’s neon orange claws, too.
Thankfully, the blonde just smiles amused, tilting her head. “Okay, bye you weirdos.”
Wednesday is groaning when they leave the quiet hollow building for the cool and bustling hallway, “I want to be shot execution style.”
Xavier narrowly misses being flattened by a broad jock, holding the poster board out like a shield in front of him.
“Oh spare me the melodramatics! Just tell her how you feel this isn’t a rom-com.”
She eyes him askance. “Yes because confessing your….emotions to someone who does not reciprocate is much more of a tragedy.”
“You don’t think she’s into you?”
They duck into their classroom, settling down at the back of the room together. Wednesday toys with the strap of her backpack, before begrudgingly tossing it and herself down beside the artist. The room smells like mold and damp air.
“I know she isn’t.”
A beat passes, where he just looks at her like she’s an idiot and she slowly starts to believe she might actually be.
He’s throwing open a drawing pad and grabbing a pen in a beat, sketching out a Venn diagram and speaking in tones slow enough for a preschooler to comprehend.
“She… wolf. She- Enid. Enid- Wolf. Wolf in the closet- Enid in the closet. Closet slang for being queer and not out. Enid is queer. Enid is subtly coming out to you.”
Wednesday is no less aggravated when he finishes speaking then when he has some sly little smirk going. “Did you not just out her to me?”
His eyes widen, and he shakes his head with vigour. A hand is raised like a white flag. “No- she’s come out to all of us! Dude, she wears a lesbian flag pin on her jacket.”
“She does?” Wednesday murmurs with eyebrows furrowed. He nods, google imaging a photo of a lesbian pride flag to show her.
Wendesday hums. “Oh. She wore a sweater like that when we met.”
Their classmates turn and look mildly frightened when Xavier starts to slam his head against the desk, making noises in his throat like a feral cat that’s extremely frustrated. Wednesday doesn’t even blink, sliding his sketchbook out from under him so he meets the cold metal of the table.
He straightens ram-rod at the sudden pain blistering his forehead, swearing beneath his breath and huffing at the girl that looks as overjoyed as her stoicism can allow.
“Just- can you just tell her you like her, or something?! Flirt or whatever. If she flirts back she’s for sure into you and you can live your happy gay lives together doning even gayer apparel.” he finishes with a grumble as he rubs at the goose egg forming.
“Enid. Enid Sinclair. My friend and my biggest source of eternal loathing. As though I could ever know where to start doing… that.” She replies, grabbing the necessary material out of her bag for the class.
Let it be known, Wednesday Addams refutes admitting her feelings, or any subsequent affiliation with them.
It neither worsened the ache in her heart for cobalt eyes nor completely risked herself being possibly trampled over by the object of her obsessions.
“Have you ever considered maybe just being nicer to her?”
Wednesday regards him with the same look she might have given if someone had wiped their dirty shoes on her bed sheets.
“Nice?” She said the word like it tasted of something disgusting.
Xavier snorts, nodding in hello as more students file in.
“Yeah Wends, nice. It’s what people usually try to be to their friends.”
“Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, does she look like Mother Theresa?” Came Ajax’s eloquent cut in, slipping into her seat behind the pair with a broad grin.
Wednesday bristles at the intrusion, but nods in agreement. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t do ‘nice’,” she sneers.
Restraining laughter - because really, how was Wednesday Addams even a real, functioning human being? - Ajax elaborates. “All he’s saying- all we all are thinking, if you were nicer maybe she’d like you back.”
Wednesday blinked, nonplussed. As if the thought had never occurred to her before. A grimace formed on her lips, before she sighed and rolled her eyes, completing her face journey to enlightenment. “I’ll think about it.”
-
And by think about it, it means fully isolating herself from the grand populace for the following six days and five nights. She’d headed home to her big house (mansion, her friends would begrudgingly correct) to try and fit her clusterfuck of feelings into a neat and clean box.
It did not work. If anything they overflowed more and more until she was drowning in the mess of blue, blonde and bubbly, and all she got was a step closer to digging her own grave. Not in a metaphorical fashion. Genuinely, to slowly rot and escape this hell scape.
But then come Tuesday, her parents had sent her back once they no longer felt bereft of their only daughter’s darkness. She made it in time for the last half of the day, just as her friends would predictably be piling into the courtyard for their mandatory -ritualistic- movie night.
It took away what must be special about the mind-numbing torture to do it every single day, but alas, who was she to argue with the vampire overlord of their group.
They used Xavier’s projector on the barren wall of the gym, with Ajax on snack detail, Bianca on comforts and Yoko sweeping the area for any working personnel, as well as ensuring everyone was there.
When they had banded to form this tradition, Enid had asked what she could do and Ajax had winked and said just to be pretty. That was before he turned out to be gay, and right around the time Wednesday absolutely hated him.
He connected Enid to the reasoning pretty fast. Wednesday was far from ready to accept it herself, so he’d sought out Xavier to form the Lovers of Wenclair Support Group.
They had 24 members so far.
Filing out of last period, Wednesday moved with the speed and agility of a jungle cat. The fact that others jumped out of her way as soon as they saw her coming probably helped the speed of her approach, because in a matter of seconds she had caught up to the two boys, and co-presidents of the group she was blissfully unaware of, who were lazily trotting along and tugged them back by the straps of their backpacks.
“Failures.” She says in lieu of greeting,
Ajax snaps his head back to look at her, grinning. “Wednesday! My favourite mythic bitch- how are you!”
She ignores him, her eyes fixated on a point past Xavier’s head. “If you water a plant too much it will die.”
Xavier cocks an eyebrow, shooting a curious glance Ajax’s way who shrugs helplessly. “Uh… okay?”
“And like most things, love is merciless. Violent and cruel. So if I try and engage in such behaviour, I would be only harming the one I care for.”
“Yes sing me the song of your overdramatic and pessimistic people!” Ajax thrusts his fist into the air like he’s charging into war, garnering a few odd looks.
Xavier chuckles, and sighs heavily as she slips into the space between them. “So. You’re not going to do anything about your feelings for Enid then.”
She nods her agreement. “It is best to stay as friends. I am sure these… feelings will fade on their own so long as I do not give them attention.”
“We’ll see how well that works out for you, then.” Xavier starts, then snaps his fingers, giddily bouncing on his heels. “In fact! I bet 20 bucks you can cough up your feelings in some super elaborate romantic way.”
Ajax scoffs. “No way, dude. It’d be like pulling teeth getting Wends to do anything involving humanity. Although…” he looks warily to the goth who blinks at him. “I think she’d probably enjoy that more.”
She surveys him through narrowed eyes. “You’re not betting on my love life.”
Xavier takes on a mocking tone, flailing his arms around oddly. “You don’t have oneeee.”
“But I do have a predilection to murder you.”
“Yeah yeah, the sky is blue, the grass is green, you threaten to kill me. Get some better lines.”
And really- Xavier is pushing his luck every day. An insult to Wednesday’s verbal arsenal is worthy of firing squad at minimal. But she’s caught sight of Enid already situated in the courtyard, laughing at something Yoko’s saying with her head tilted back and it’s all she can do to dig her feet into the ground to stop herself from crumbling to a pile of dust.
“I’m not going.”
Ajax snorts. “Oh my god- you’re not a child! Come on-“ and he tugs on her arm but she stays the picture of solid Teflon.
She’s shaking her head slightly, a sort of frantic look in her eyes that of a new born animal might have. “No. I am not a child, I am a fully independent individual with complete autonomy over my self. I will not go.”
Xavier groans, and lets his knees give in so he can lobby his weight close to the ground in an emotionally exhausted heap. Though, really, he should be greatful he’s able to get so many licks in without being permanently maimed just because Enid exists and distracts the homicide-happy girl.
“You can’t ignore her forever! And I’ll tell Yoko on you!” He says, a pout on his lips at the thought of the $20 he could potentially lose to his numb-skulled room mate.
And for the happiness of his two closest friends, too, of course.
“You would be surprised how well versed I am in ignorance. And you will not tell her, if you enjoy having tonsils.”
He rolls his eyes.
“You literally have to walk past her to get to your room, anyway!”
“… the air ducts are far more comfortable then most would believe them to be.”
The boys share a look of disbelief, Ajax shaking his head and taking off down the hall once the courtyard doors grow closer and he’s pressed a kiss quickly to the crown of raven hair faster then Wednesday can react. Xavier slings an arm around Wednesday, already bracing for the punch thats doubled in force that shoots out at his stomach.
Enid’s turning to where Ajax is barreling forward to hug her, her eyes settling on the spot where Wednesday had stood, but is now using the taller boy as a personal shield to hide behind.
Awkwardly paused in the middle of the hall, Xavier sports a grimace and wave of his fingers. Enid quirks a brow, but is distracted by the assault of kisses to her forehead from the gorgon boy just enough for Wednesday to slip away.
Xavier feels her move. “You can’t hide forever!” He sing songs. She gesticulates something crude at him, before slipping back into the shadows of the student herd.
-
And she can’t. Not really- not even at 1 am the following night, when she had so idiotically forgone her keys in the grandiose return to school. The keys which, not only let her into the dorm, but also let her into the building when the moon was up and there was no one patrolling the entrance way. So, the only logical option aside screaming until the Sirens could hear her, was to climb her way to the 6th floor.
The weather wasn’t so nice today, and Wednesday wondered if it was some form of pathetic fallacy, a way for the Gods themselves to get some amusement out of her situation. Perhaps making the trellis slippery from the sporadic sprinkling was her cosmic justice for avoiding the golden retriever of a human being.
Oh well. If she died, at least it would be from illegally scaling the side of her school and breaking in through the window.
Wednesday coped out a sturdy enough looking piece of trellis that led up to Enid and her’s balcony. She decided it was her best option as she sighed and began the slow and relatively graceful trek up.
(If she nearly fell on multiple occasions and was sure that everyone and their mothers heard her random scream when her hand had slipped, no one needed to know.)
She may be covered in grime and a thin layer of sweat, but she rather lamely didn’t die and at this point, Wednesday would take that as a grudging success.
Once she reached the underside of the balcony, she glanced and saw the light was off inside. Which meant the window was also likely locked. Thing hadn’t returned with her, and she wasn’t quite confident in picking the lock that withstood a rampaging werewolf.
Why was it the flaws in a plan never became apparent until they were already in motion? She growls lowly to herself as she somehow manages to force her jellified arms to work and get her over the handrail, and sluggishly over to the circular kaleidoscopic window, trying and thankfully finding that her room mate left it unlocked like an absolute fool.
The same room mate, who stood clad in her flannel PJ glory and bathed in the bedside light, held a hair brush in her hands brandished above her head like she’d been holding her breath expecting to use it as an hilariously ineffective weapon. Wednesday couldn’t help but find it the tiniest bit endearing.
“You know you really shouldn’t leave that unlocked,” Wednesday grouses earnestly as she clambers to her side of the room, pointing a thumb back at the window she had just crawled through. “Any creep could just climb in here.”
“You don’t say?” Enid lowers the brush in her hand, relaxing now that she knew her intruder wasn’t some inept burglar. “Well, any particular reason you decided to not knock, or-“
She exhaled in a slightly irregular and loud manner, something someone else might have interpreted as Wednesday's version of a sigh.
“Yes, Enid, because I willingly chose to get covered in all-“ she motions to her black and white clothes that are covered in the sludge of what’s existed on the side of Nevermore since the start. “-This for fun. I had no key, clearly.”
Enid is gripping the hairbrush handle until her knuckles are turning white. Wednesday is unsure as to why the werewolf is enraged. “God- why do you have to be such a jerk?!”
“A jerk? Fascinating. Perhaps it’s because I’m stuck with someone as insufferable as you.” She counters, grabbing a clean pair of pajamas to change into and heading for the bathroom.
A growl stops her in her tracks.
Enid looks murderous.
And what should delight her, is something heavy and thick worming it’s way from the pit of her stomach to her throat.
Was that guilt?
Huh. Even if the emotion was strange, Wednesday's more rational side understood that Enid’s unbridled rage was the appropriate answer to this slight, this thievery, this provocation of her peace.
But guilt was displaced. Because she had decided to ignore her feelings. Even if Enid’s mused half-awake state hits Wednesday like one of those dense foam baseball bats to the gut. A solid punch that she feels, but that doesn't do too much physical damage. Just sends a shock wave rippling across her whole body, leaving her to shiver without consent and then bite down on the inside of her cheek in an attempt to chide herself.
She swallows whatever apology is flooding her mouth along with the copper from her wounded buccal.
“Goodnight, Enid.” She says with a softness she can’t quite force away. And when Enid relaxes, though something non-discernible flickers across her face, Wednesday lets that feeling fester and blossom in her chest.
Warm, and all encompassing even as she soaks in her ice cold bath water.
-
It tempers, when she greets the mob of losers she has come to love at lunch the following morning. A morning she had snuck out a bit embarrassingly from her own room like a perverse walk of shame, and continuing to skirt around during their shared morning classes.
If she ducked into the boy’s bathroom during the five minute break before bell because Enid had been standing in all her painful beauty at the end of the hall, well, no she didn’t.
“Wednesday’s alive.” Bianca announces semi-cheerfully when she spots the gothic girl arriving at their table, Davina bouncing over to tackle her in a hug like a lamb on unsteady legs too excitable for its body.
She stares at her friends unblinkingly in the face of their affections as though they had brutally murdered someone in front of her.
And Enid is smiling brightly, practically slobbering at her presence despite how frosty she’d been, and Wednesday briefly considers carving up a space in her chest for her to take up a physical permanent residence.
She had been a welcome tenant for longer than she could remember.
“Can I talk to you?” Enid asks once their friends have finished teasing her for her abrupt disappearance, and her voice is a bit off-kilter but Wednesday doesn’t
allow herself the time to think about why.
Her eyes drop to where Enid is tugging on her fingers, anchoring herself and fires back almost immediately. “We are.”
Enid flushes, her attention suddenly drawn to the toe of her sneaker.
Wednesday notes the toe cap is still littered with her own doodles she’d done bored during study hall a few months ago.
“I meant alone?”
The boys are both watching her with a keen eye, almost hawkish in nature, and when she barks out a growl at them they have the decency to cower in their seats embarrassed.
She feels oddly vindicated at that and scratches the bridge of her nose with a muted smile.
“Okay. If you’re so insistent.” She drawls with a slow blink, and Enid’s forehead pinches in irritation the same way it had the night before.
And it's striking in it's undeniability, how much she wants to drop what she's doing and turn back time where she could sneak into Enid’s bed grumbly and tired from her expeditions and Enid would hold her without comment. Wants to venture Into her non-existent personal bubble and press herself so close that they fall onto a half black half pink cloud in a pile of limbs and lips, and not move until Wednesday absolutely has to. Hell, maybe she'd even call in sick for the rest of eternity. Who knows.
Enid’s eyes are incredibly grey today, she notes with a swoop of her stomach and follows blindly in the colourful girls stead.
They’re standing a few feet away beneath the awning, Wednesday’s arms wrapped firmly around herself while an array of feelings that look disturbingly complicated play out over Enid’s features.
“How are you?”
Wednesday’s lips part in quiet surprise, clearly having expected reprimand from the random outburst from the night prior. “Oh.” She folds her arms tighter, which anyone else might have read as a power move of fury or displeasure. But she was protecting herself. Holding herself together so all the broken pieces didn’t come tumbling out.
And fuck what Wednesday thought before about not thinking about her feelings because, in that moment it was all she could do not to blurt it out loud.
“I think I love you.”
No wait, that was totally out loud.
“What?” Enid asked, eyed wide. The confession had been barely a whisper, but Enid must have at least thought she heard correctly from the alarm in her voice, if her superhuman hearing had unlikely failed her.
Wednesday stammered, a rare occasion but fuck it- her heart was literally in her throat.
“Uh, I said how long have you? I mean, how long have you known?”
“Known what?”
“That you like girls?” Wednesday asked, improvising on the spot but also genuinely curious from the ordeal that took place not a full week ago. “I asked Xavier what She-Wolf meant. Perhaps I am wrong.” She clarifies when Enid’s face is still twisted up in adorable confusion. She chooses to omit the confession of sexuality he’d told on Enid’s behalf.
Enid swallows a quiet ‘oh’, accepting the lie and Wednesday hopes her sigh of relief isn’t audible.
When did she become so foolish? Or, love-sick, rather. The thought makes her squeamish, arms folding even tighter until she feels the squeeze in her ribs.
Enid raises her brow and shrugged like it was no big deal, when she confessed to always because it was easy. For her.
Wednesday is shaking, she thinks. And she’s been doing it a lot in the face of messy teenage emotion. And the words leave her before she can fully think about them. “I like girls too.”
Enid smiles- warm and gentle and all encouraging, and shuffles half a step closer until the smell of lavender is filling Wednesday’s lungs like a tranquilizer.
Just enough for her minor cardiac event to subside, in time for another curiosity to occur to Enid. “Do you- and stop me if I’m over stepping, but- do you even like boys?”
“Obviously!” Wednesday says sharply. A small crease formed between her brows. “I guess.” She corrected, unsure. Then she shook her head and frowned. “Whatever. If you’re done asking stupid questions, we need to go so we have time to eat.”
Wednesday is turning when a hand is pressing against her bicep, tugging her back gently. And she looks up into Enid’s soft face, her eyes almost sparkling cobalt and looking at her so intensely it’s choking her in its severity.
And then, she’s pressing a kiss to Wednesday’s cheek. Chaste and barely a brush of lips to skin, but Wednesday feels her cheeks flush with heat either way, forcing her typical bored expression until Enid is skipping back to the table in a whirl of colour and giggling.
And when she decides the moths in her stomach can’t standstill, disappearing off into the halls does she finally lift a hand to press her knuckles against the cheek marred with peach chapstick, as a text chimes in and the memory teases her lips into a rueful smile.
There's an entire saga on her phone screen from Xavier waiting for her just as she settles down for her next class, something that could rival the great Greek epics of old, both in length and, she suspects, subject matter.
She mulls over the conversation they shared earlier in the week… perhaps feelings and actions were worth it, if they could make someone feel this… much.
-
Feelings and actions.
The two things that had spurred her forward two days later on a Friday night, standing outside her dorm (the key returned by a thoroughly relaxed Thing) in a black dress he’d gotten her on a five finger discount.
Apparently, a mid-day long weekend spontaneous spa trip was more important that being Wednesday’s right hand.
Ha.
Her three furthest fingers are fanned out, her thumb and pointer wrapped around the neck of rose stems that perfume beautifully around her, the vibrant pinks and desolate blacks complimenting each other in the mix bouquet.
The loose stone flooring outside their dorm crunches beneath Wednesday’s boots as she twitches and runs a hand through her unbraided hair. She’s been planning what she could say. She didn’t much like the idea of grovelling at Enid’s feet with a grand profession of love, really she didn’t like the idea of grand proposals at all, but she would do what had to be done. Xavier knew best, after all. (His words, not hers.)
She reaches out for the door and knocks, stilling her frantic breathing for a moment. From her liminal reading into the romance genre, knocking and flowers were deemed cardinal rules in a budding relationship.
Or ‘soulmates’, as Xavier calls them, or a ‘situationship’, in Ajax’s opinion. And it’s not very elaborate, but it’s the best she can do when her head is spinning and she thinks she might throw up from the weird influx of humanity that’s been shaking her core as of late.
The room could be empty, and it occurred to Wednesday that Enid might not have even gotten home yet, if she even intended on coming home at all. The werewolf could have been at the dorm of one of their friends, or out on a night in the town.
In contrary to the first, it wasn’t the most elegant of entrances when she pushes on the doorknob just as it’s pulled open on the other side. With her foot caught in the uneven splitting between stone and carpet, she ends up with her knees planted firmly beneath her weight. In complete juxtaposition, Enid Sinclair choose that exact moment to practically float around her like an ethereal Goddess fresh from the shower, and Wednesday nearly chokes on her tongue.
Enid puffs her cheeks out to stop from laughing, offering a hand to her room mate. Wednesday blinks at it; marvelling the soft skin and then blinks when she realizes she’s being creepy.
Clears her throat, and accepts the hand. Enid, ever the strongest, tugs her up in one fell swoop but seems to forget the fact Wednesday weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet, when they end up flushed together.
Enid has freckles. All over her cheekbones, melting beneath her eyes, smattering across her nose and dotted near her lips. She smells like her body wash, and… Wednesday’s shampoo?
She clears her throat, after a moment of lavender haze.
She pulls away, ignoring the ache from the lack of warmth and offers the flowers to the blonde who beams brilliantly, the roses completely safe from the collision to the ground.
She summons the confidence that at some point had left her, when a few minutes pass of Enid admiring her arrangement and patiently awaiting what Wednesday has come to say.
“Enid Sinclair,” Wednesday says, and the worst part of this is the way her eyes bore right into Enid’s, or maybe the worst part is that she looks at her with so much love, to the point where Wednesday almost wants to believe (well, not wants to believe, definitely not ‘wants to believe,’ but – but something) that she means it, “will you go to prom? With me.”
A beat passes.
Maybe another 5 minutes worth of beats.
It took all of a second for Enid to recover her composure. Her hesitation likely seemed nothing more than a momentary lapse of concentration to anyone that wasn’t keenly aware of Enid’s every movement and the minutiae of her every expression. As it was, Wednesday saw it all. The shock. The excitement. The confusion. And after all that, a smile entirely too big to fit on her face, bright and flawless, and likely to kill a dozen men. And her.
“I’d love to more than anything, πολυαγαπημένος.”
Wednesday brings a hand to her chest, absently scratching at the spot just below the dip of her throat as something rattles behind her ribcage, jostled by the term of endearment. She may not know much Greek- but she knows from the up tilt of lips and the soft lilt in her voice.
“Sorry… that I’ve taken forever.”
“Hey.” Enid shrugs, moving closer to brush some wayward strands of hair off Wednesday’s cheeks. “Everyone has their own pace they go at discovering who they are. And I’ve enjoyed watching you try and deny your gayness for me.”
She’s grinning broadly, and Wednesday wishes she could find an insurgence of irritation for it but she can’t. Not when two hands are cupping her cheeks and a kiss is being pressed to her forehead, with such a reverence she feels entirely unworthy of.
“Besides.” Biting her lip thoughtfully, Enid pulls back to fix Wednesday’s dress straps. “I think the entire school thinks you’ve been in love with me and pining, since, like, you got here.”
Enid stared, ever the serious one until her lips are visibly wobbling with the effort of containing her amusement. It was a valiant effort that Wednesday would have found commendable if the amusement wasn’t at her expense. Eventually Enid broke, and the laughter spilled out, loud and long enough to almost be offensive.
But it’s not. Because Enid is frighteningly adorable. Whatever Godlike facade Wednesday had always carried had been dropped and dismantled, as much as she tried to cling to it. She was too human now. Flawed, fierce and endeared.
Enid relents, her shoulders rising and falling as she lets tension flow out of her. “You don’t know how hard it’s been to not want to murder everyone that looked at you.”
Wednesday’s chest swells with pride, a smile on her lips and eyelashes fluttering. “Oh? Murder, you say?”
Enid winks, setting the roses she clutched close to herself on the desk, jogging around adorably to get back to Wednesday as quick as she can. Her arms twine around her waist, fingers splaying against her lower spine.
“it makes me want to leave bite marks on your neck where everyone can see them?”
Enid hums.
Wednesday sighs, content as her own arms wrap around Enid’s neck and pulls her close. “And I want everyone to know it was your teeth that made them.”
Wednesday’s voice had dropped an octave, her eyes hungry.
Enid wet her lips, her eyes flashing ochre and claws lengthening enough to pierce through the fabric of her dress.
Wednesday can’t bring herself to care, but something presses at the forefront of her mind.
Which is why, she sends a rapid text to the groupchat of Outcasts with the one name.
‘Xavier’
And she swears she can hear scream-cheering from the floor below, a fond roll of her eyes that brighten under Enid’s fingertips that trace reverent patterns against what exposed skin she can find, before lips press to lips and she can taste that insufferably soft smile at last.