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As the crowds holler and hoot like barely-evolved primates, a watery heat lays heavily in Wednesday Addams' belly, sloshing about in great rolling waves. Every inch of her is sticky like she's perspiring, and she bakes within the layers of her dark clothing that insulate her from the world.
The sensations are thick and syrupy, like an overly-sweet and sadly unburnt molasses poured over her brain, clogging up the gears so that she can hardly think. Flames flicker upwards from her palpitating heart, seemingly on the verge of bursting, licking at her cheeks. They feel dangerously warm.
Perhaps she's dying of a fever.
That would be a relief, and leave a well-preserved corpse for embalming.
"Thing, I am highly disturbed." Wednesday declares this fact with her arms firmly folded as she broods in the least enjoyable fashions that she can recall in her life, waiting in the darkest corner of the Nevermore Academy gymnasium. Although she's tucked in the shadow of the packed bleachers, it's not dark enough.
"And not in the enjoyable and ingenious sense of a Montresor," she concludes while surveying the action taking place on the court before her, remaining placid despite the cheers of the imbecilic crowd of dullards who are eating up this trite, juvenile entertainment like Roman citizens in the Colosseum.
And there aren't even any disembowellings-by-lion or crucifixions.
Bread and low-quality circuses to pacify the masses.
Thing does not respond.
Even more aggravating.
"Do you have any idea what this-" she doesn't wish to stoop so low as to use the word, but she must, for she is nothing if not precise – "feeling is?"
Revolting again in an unenjoyable sense. Turning to the severed and stitched-up hand who's waving a miniature rainbow flag with the Nevermore school insignia – a craft courtesy of Enid – between his thumb and forefinger, she cocks her head and clears her throat in an exhortation to respond.
Thing is too distracted, like the plebeian and intellectually-deficient crowd whose attentions are consumed by the sporting event, to answer.
To her horror, when the cheers rise to an even more ear-splitting decibel level, she actually looks too.
Enid just scored a "three-pointer."
Showing off a mouthful of pearly fangs that glisten in the harsh gymnasium lights, the woman is snarling and smirking in a most feral fashion while jogging back towards her side of the court to play defence. Flying and tussled, golden curls of hair are collected together in a loose ponytail that she's long since ceased trying to tame since her successful transformation into her werewolf form. Always growing out so quickly that she can barely keep pace, the tresses stream behind her, juxtaposed against the black and purple uniform that's tight across her shoulders and chest. Armless, the jersey should be loose, but it's not. Enid's still in the midst of a growth spurt that has left her shorts clinging on for dear life, desperate, to the robust, flexing globes of muscle in her bouncing rear, above the pumping thighs, apparently as thick as Wednesday's rather svelte torso.
As her rangy arms extend to pick off an attempted shot at her team's basket, massive biceps flex and twitch.
Wednesday purses her lips slightly and then swallows because, for some reason, there's an excessive amount of saliva building up in her mouth.
Another symptom to add to the list, which seemed to put to bed the possibility of a flu because she'd have expected dry mouth.
The fever, whatever its cause, amplifies at the thought of putting something to bed.
Obviously there's a psychosomatic component to this illness.
Not the way that Wednesday had wanted to go insane.
Apparently, after awakening, werewolves experienced... side effects. As Enid told the tale, she'd consumed three whole deer by herself over the span of one weekend, plumping up and lazing about in the entrails and blood of the corpses of her innocent woodland victims.
Wednesday would have paid good money to see that.
A feel-good scene, like the death of Bambi's mother.
Over the break between semesters due to Nevermore shuttering her doors for several months, Enid had put on what appeared to be two feet and a hundred pounds.
Which made her a darling for the basketball teams that they were organizing, and that she was willing to join because she had gained an affinity for team, or pack, based sports and was always quite competitive. Granted that they only had matches between intramural squads, but school spirit was at an all-time high after the successful defense against Crackstone. The more "normie" and plebeian competition seemed to appeal to the youths at the school, especially freshmen welcomed in this term.
Wednesday is distracted from her thoughts by a jump shot and landing that has Enid crouching slightly, her glutes bulging as tight shorts ride up her thighs, exposing pale skin.
Clearly Wednesday's developing a fascination with werewolf maturation and physiology which would be better served by retiring to the library in order to perform a detailed review of available literature.
During a break in the play, Enid hefts up the edge of her jersey and flaps it in the air, trying to cool off and thereby exposing the rivulets of sweat that are lazing their way across her glistening abdominal muscles.
Wednesday does not retire to the library in order to perform a detailed review of available literature.
This is a rare opportunity for field study.
Also, she doesn't trust her legs as her head swims, overcome by another wave of feverish heat that seems to radiate off of the gymnasium floor.
In a sprint while dribbling the ball, Enid bounds across the court, muscles rippling in waves before she soars, limbs outstretched to their utmost. As if frozen in time, sweat trailing down her brow and eyes wide with the vision of triumph before her, she seems to hang there for one, long, lingering moment.
Like Wednesday's stomach, time lurches forward and the blonde wolf smashes the ball through the hoop.
“I just don't understand what's causing this illness.” Wishing that she could crawl back into one of those mortuary cold chambers that proved so relaxing, Wednesday scratches at her cheek absently and then realizes that she has to wipe sweat from her own brow. Her eyes remain focused, with detached yet predatory academic curiosity, on Enid's stomach, though the blonde has pulled down her shirt again.
Sweat and bulk cause the fabric to cling to the contours of her breasts and lean waist.
After waving a few times to catch her attention, which takes a little bit longer than Wednesday would care to admit, Thing mimes an aggressive series of stabs, thrusts, and cuts with his index and middle fingers like the blades of a pair of scissors.
Which are strangely open for some reason.
Pointing in one direction.
And then the other.
"Yes." Wednesday nods, leaning her back to the wall, brick cool and stable against her bony shoulders, and watching the hulking Enid fend off an opposing player. Then, according to her research into this ridiculous sport, the wolf plows through defenders in a fashion similar to that of someone named Shaquille O'Neal.
"You're right," she admits. "Enid is quite cut, to use a colloquial expression."
For some reason, Thing, dropping his Nevermore flag, claps his fingers to his palm like a man slapping his forehead.
“Though that does nothing to help me.”
Thing is being less than useful today.
Later that evening, Wednesday has returned to her dorm room along with Thing. Bathed in clear moonlight that pours in through the spider-web latticework of her side of the window, she struggles to compose the next few lines of her short story, working on the crystalline distillation of a single focused sensation for which the short story, as Poe declared with his focus on Unity of Effect, is the perfect vehicle.
The problem, however, lies in the fact that she cannot focus.
Enid is out late.
Too late.
With friends who are reveling in their victory.
So much ink has been wasted on aborted sentences and spelling errors that spoil an entire page. Fingers slip as Wednesday's mind drifts to the cluster of teens surrounding their star player and hoisting her up, with no small amount of difficulty given her size. They paraded about like dolts, Enid's arms up in the air, before spiriting her off to the locker rooms to change and head out for whatever debauched and infantile amusements might catch their vapid fancy.
Speak of the devil and she shall appear.
Sadly, that didn't prove true during the black sabbaths that Wednesday had attempted to orchestrate as a child, but its veracity appears to be proven now as distinctive now-heavy footfalls resound down the corridor beyond her room, coming to a quick stop at her door where the floorboards creak ominously.
They were insufficiently portentous for the horrors that awaited.
“Oh my gosh, Wednesday!” comes a grating and preppy voice, piercing right through Wednesday's skull like a stiletto as the door to her room bursts open. Why couldn't second puberty and werewolf transformation have given Enid even a slightly deeper voice?
That's the question on Wednesday's mind as she turns her head towards the doorway like the gears in her neck are rusty.
Grinning wildly and vibrating like a puppy wiggling its hindquarters with the force of her wagging tail, Enid drops her bag beside the door. A floral-print top strains over her shoulders, the petals all different colours in a sickening smear that nearly blinds Wednesday and works like a hypnotic pinwheel, drawing her eyes to the level of Enid's biceps and chest.
Of course, that's about where her head reaches, so it's an area she's familiar with.
The shirt is one of the baggy ones that Enid used to sleep in because it reached her thighs and spread out around her legs like a dress. Now it's rather tight, one of the few that she was able to keep after her growth spurt. She thus treasures it.
“You have to see these Insta pics!” Cell phone in hand, Enid closes the distance between the door and Wednesday's writing desk in only a few strides, though she can't quite use the full range of her gait because her jeans are so tight.
Yes.
For once Wednesday agrees with Enid's assessment. She must see these pictures in order to ascertain the affairs of those teammates who were clinging on to Enid so fervently as they hauled her off to the locker room.
The locker room where they stripped, exposing every inch of themselves, and showered, soaping and lathering up to wash away the grime, and changed together.
Yes.
Wednesday needs faces, names, and dorm room numbers.
She's just not certain why.
Of course, her desire to murder people never requires justification or explanation.
“Here, take a look.” Enid slides into place atop Wednesday's desk, right beside her typewriter so that her abs are at head-level. Tasteful application of perfume, just a subtle hint that mingles with the naturally earthy musk of Enid's skin, causes the scent of roses to reach Wednesday's nose.
Roses and fresh earth.
Like a funeral.
So much more... tolerable since the “wolfing out” as Enid's nose is too sensitive for her to veritably bathe in perfume any longer.
Enid is, however, too close, all that muscle and flesh and ... girl just sitting right there on her desk, legs kicking absently. From the sheer, stifling heat wafting off her, it feels like they're touching – actually touching, Enid wrapping her up in those bulky arms and squishing her, which is actually climbing higher and higher on the list of Wednesday Addams' Top Ten Ways to Die list at this very moment.
For whatever reason, it has just pushed “Great White Shark Attack” out of the top five when Wednesday is snapped out of her reverie by Enid shoving a cell phone under her nose.
“First it was pizza, and then when we got back to the dorm, we played, like, fifty minute-to-win-it games!” Enid almost squeals, bouncing in a very distracting fashion because the movement of all that muscle in Wednesday's peripheries makes her subconscious believe that she's about to be crushed.
That's why she starts breathing so quickly and, as the heat begins to bubble up again, the illness reasserts itself.
She did always get excited about the prospect of a good death.
Over the next five minutes that drag on and on, Enid giggles and rambles her way through meandering stories about her experiences this evening. Half-told, constantly interrupted anecdotes flow out from her maddeningly loquacious roommate as the heat and pressure build up in Wednesday's belly like a fomenting volcanic eruption. Enid is getting closer and closer. Leaning in. Nostrils flaring. Eyes alight. Rambling and vibrating excitedly.
Wednesday can barely pay attention to the images when the other girl reaches down, thick forearm veritably consuming Wednesday's entire field of vision, and scrolls through the shots from the restaurant and on to those taken in another girl's dorm room. Everyone there is laughing and engaging in horseplay.
Another swipe right to the next image, and Wednesday's eyes widen. Not by much, but considering who she is, it's extreme:
Enid in the middle of that bedroom.
Yoko plastered to her back, arms around her neck, smiling.
Some anonymous girl clinging to Enid's bicep and being lifted off the ground as the wolf flexes.
A gout of lava bursts forth in the form of a guttural snarl that resounds through the room's high and distant ceiling.
“Whoa!” Enid rears back as if only now realizing how close she had gotten. She licks her lips and gives her head a shake, tossing it like she's about to snort. “Uh, are – what was that?”
“It was a cough,” Wednesday explains, fingers tight on the cell phone screen as she memorizes the features of the girl who is frozen there, her tiny little hands curled around Enid's muscular arm, fingers to the grooves. It will be easy to find that face in the school year book. “I have been sick.”
“Uh, yeah, well-” Her face pink and tone strangely squeaky, Enid musses up her curly hair with those wicked claws that have already grown out since she cut them before the game. “W-were you bitten by a werewolf or something?” She laughs and it sounds as awkward and unnatural as if it came from Wednesday herself. “'Cause, like, that was some growl!”
“No.” The response is offered immediately but somewhat absently because Enid is being annoying and distracting her from the important process of envisioning what this strange girl's face will look like as she's drawn and quartered. “But I have no objections to being bitten by a werewolf.”
A thick, high-pitched whine, like that of a dog begging for table scraps, is what finally draws Wednesday way from the phone screen.
Enid's legs are tightly crossed, the muscles of her thighs bunched. Shock appears to have her pupils dilated.
“I-” Enid stumbles, her tongue seeming to have betrayed her before her nostrils flair once, then twice. She licks her lips again, slowly this time. An unfathomable array of emotions passes over her face, ranging from shock to confusion, to... victorious smugness for reasons that are as baffling to Wednesday as anything that Enid deigns to do.
“I'm going to go change.” Setting her palms to the table, she hoists herself to her feet, Wednesday side-eyeing those muscular arms because they're in radically close proximity and clearly dangerous. “Get ready for bed.”
With that Enid turns and saunters off, the sway of her hips emphasizing the pert and perky and prodigious curves of her ass.
It is at that moment, watching as the massive wolf peels off her shirt in a languid roll, exposing the rippling panoply of muscles along her back and shoulders, each one as finely sculpted as those of a Michelangelo masterpiece, that Wednesday Addams has an epiphany.
She now understands the phrase I hate to see her go, but I love to watch her walking away.
Given that Enid is a naturally messy person, a condition exacerbated by her transformation, she lets the shirt drop to the floor as she slinks off to the adjoining room to change into her sleepwear, closing the door behind her with a wink.
A wink that feels... knowing.
Tossing Enid's cell phone back on her bed, Wednesday sits back at her desk and, as she often does, mulls and contemplates and broods. As she is so engaged, Thing clambers up the side and waves to catch her attention.
She looks down at her compatriot and frequent co-conspirator, who seems to be sighing, slightly exasperated.
Spelling things out for her directly using ASL, he explains: You are gay.
“I am not gay,” Wednesday retorts without hesitation, her nose actually wrinkling ever so slightly, probably the most emotion that she's shown in years outside of that snarl. “The very suggestion is revolting.”
Thing gives her a rather judgmental middle finger which is utterly baffling.
She folds her arms, cocking her brow at him. “I would never permit myself to be ... gay.”
Just imagine Wednesday Addams being... jolly!
Perish the thought.
“I am however a lesbian, it would appear.”
Thing takes that declaration in higher spirits, seemingly rather pleased.
“Or at least bisexual.”
So too, as it turns out, is Enid.
Both pleased and bisexual.