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The flowers last far longer than she expected them to.
Thing insisted she get them, deciding apparently that her perceived allergy to colour was less important than impressing some girl she happens to like, and so she made the mildly disconcerting march down to the greenhouse in her Valentine’s dance dress to steal someone’s lavender, stuck it in a vase, and now Wednesday is here, four weeks later, watching it start to wilt on Enid’s dresser and waiting for her to come and collect her for whatever a ‘Pottery Barn date’ is.
Lavender is a horrendously predictable choice for a favourite flower. Wednesday would rather die than admit it, but it suits her well. Enid wears a stem with her everywhere she goes — tucked behind her ear, in the pocket of her jacket, pinned to the lapel of her blazer — and in return, Wednesday’s hair ties are neon pink. Exclusively on Wednesdays. (It makes Enid laugh, so she allows it.)
She wears the same hair ties tonight — one in her hair, one looped aimlessly around her wrist. Part of her enjoys the outright refusal to conform to symmetry. Another part of her wonders, foolishly, childishly, if Enid will like it.
“I’m losing my mind,” she says aloud. Thing, scuttling happily across the floorboards, taps in agreement.
As if on cue, the door swings open, and the soft light of the hallway seeps into the room. Wednesday, who makes a habit of keeping it reasonably dark inside, shuts her eyes — does not blink, thank you very much — against the sudden change in brightness.
This means she misses the soft way Enid smiles when she sees her, sitting with her hands folded in her lap on the side of her bed.
It does not mean, however, that she misses the nervous breath she sucks in, the anxious sound of her ballet pumps tapping against the wood. It does not mean that she won’t file that information away against her heart for later. It does not stay tangled up in belladonna where Hyde claws can’t pierce it, it loops up and down Wednesday’s ribs in a spray of thorns, it tears holes in her skin and spills out of the hollow of her throat and she can’t believe she’s losing her composure over the slightest hint that Enid is nervous.
Wednesday rises to her feet, keeping her hands clasped neatly together. She has been raised to associate formality with public romance — courtship — whatever, but formality feels oddly out of place here. Maybe it’s the pink hair tie.
Enid, thankfully, does not point this out. Her feet keep up that incessant nervous tapping, but she does not point that out, either.
These moments are the kinds that force Wednesday to remember that they are — impossibly — children. Battle-scarred children, but children nonetheless. Still both sixteen. Still both, wondrously, barely murderers.
“Hi,” Enid says awkwardly.
Wednesday doesn’t know how to respond to that. This is a first.
“Um. Ready?”
She can hear her heartbeat start to pick up, even through that many layers of obnoxiously pink fabric. She is attuned to Enid’s heartbeat like she is attuned to the moon. “Ready,” she affirms, and it feels like a confession.
The smile this earns her is radiant.
Enid reaches out, looping her fingers around Wednesday’s wrist, and pulls her gently towards her. She smells strongly of lavender and pine and vanilla, Wednesday notices dimly. It’s hard to think around that sole point of contact, tugging her in like the centre of a supernova, and then Enid leans over and kisses her cheek and she freezes up entirely.
She doesn’t process whatever she says as she pulls away, blushing slightly, grip on Wednesday’s wrist loosening. She does not process anything except the soft buzzing of static in her ears, and the look on Enid’s face when she realises that Wednesday is staring at her with wide eyes.
“I —” she flushes a darker shade of pink, ducking her head. “Sorry. I don’t — was that too weird for a first date?”
Wednesday opens and closes her mouth several times in a vague attempt to answer her, but nothing comes out. Her entire body feels pleasantly numb, as though immersed in freezing water, and she can’t do anything except awkwardly shake her head in response and hope it conveys anything remotely close to no, it wasn’t weird, I want you to do that again, please keep doing that every day for the rest of our lives .
“Okay, cool” Enid says happily, swinging their linked hands between them, any and all trepidation forgotten, “Do you — want to get going?”
Wednesday nods, drawing in a deep breath to steady herself. She is not truly afraid , far from it. She can handle a date, just like she could apparently handle pulling Enid into the woods to kiss her on the night of the Valentine’s Dance, and just like she could handle suggesting that they go on this date in the first place. She is not an awkward child stumbling through their first real interaction with romance, she is Wednesday Addams , and she is capable of acting normal around a girl she likes.
This is why, when Enid hesitates halfway to the door and turns back to take a new stem of lavender from the vase on her dresser, Wednesday manages to get out, “Lavender suits you,” and privately enjoys the flustered reaction this earns her.
“I — yeah, I mean, you got it for me, like you gave it to me the other day so I thought — it’s been here for weeks and it’s only just started to wilt so I — you know — thank you, I — Pottery Barn —”
“Yes, that,” Wednesday says. They’re still holding hands, so she tugs gently on Enid’s arm, prompting her to move back towards the door. She isn’t particularly interested in whatever the fuck a Pottery Barn is, and she isn’t interested by the prospect of staring at furniture for an hour, but she is interested in Enid, and the way her eyes light up when she sees Wednesday listening to her talk, and she wants this date more than she’s wanted anything in a long time. ”Shall we?”
“You keep distracting me,” Enid huffs. Wednesday does not correct her, but allows herself a close approximation of a smile when she isn’t looking.
They’re standing on the balcony outside their room, tentatively holding hands, when Enid kisses her.
Wednesday doesn’t expect it at all. She never knows what to expect from Enid. Even when she turns her towards her, even when she takes Wednesday’s head in her hands and pulls her in, the thought doesn’t cross her mind.
Enid, however, says “Thank you for indulging my bullshit today,” in the kind of soft breathless voice that does something funny to Wednesday’s lungs, and when she finally tilts her head in and kisses her, it is like the sun unfurling over cold dark earth.
Wednesday lets go of Enid’s hand, forsaking the warmth, and wraps her arms around her shoulders instead. It seems appropriate, seeing as Enid’s own hands have found their way to her waist now, and each new point of contact is a burst of light over her skin.
She has always thought of beauty as something venomous, dangerous — the wrong side of too sharp, the silvery shade of blood in the moonlight, the heady scent of datura, and so on. Little touches that complete the killing blow.
But now there is Enid, and Enid is none of those things. She is beautiful in the same way as the sickly, oversaturated colours of their bedroom; she clashes and fights and does not fit together the same way other people do; she is bright and she is kind and she hides the little glimmers of darkness that do not belong. She is dangerous because she is powerful, and protective, and because she loves too fiercely to be anything else.
Wednesday is, irrevocably, in love with her.
This is the first kiss they’ve shared since the night of the Valentine’s dance. They are shyer, now, but less afraid. Wednesday keeps her hands on Enid’s shoulders, and Enid keeps her hands firmly on Wednesday’s waist. It is, objectively, perfect.
Enid is the one to pull away first, much to Wednesday’s annoyance. She steps back, but does not let go, giving them both room to breathe. Practical, but frustrating.
“So, uh — hi?”
She has a habit of rendering Wednesday incapable of producing responses. “Hello.”
Enid beams at her, seemingly without reason. “I — is it okay if I hug you?”
Wednesday sighs, faking exasperation, and nods.
The rest of the night was shockingly normal. Wednesday walked Enid back to their room, vanished to do — something — and crawled back in through the window at around 3 AM, carrying something suspiciously small and still under her arm. Enid decided she didn’t want to know, and now she’s lying here, staring at the ceiling and listening to the concerningly slow sounds of Wednesday’s breathing.
Wednesday kissed her .
She asked her out, gave her flowers, and then she kissed her . On Valentine’s Day .
It’s perfect. Almost too perfect. Like they’re in a shitty rom-com or one of those awful dating shows. It has the same brittle feeling to it that most of Wednesday’s plans do — the same hook, rise, and fall. She would start to doubt her own sanity if she wasn’t so caught up in the feeling of it, the memory of Wednesday’s hand in hers.
Enid rolls onto her side. The moonlight filtering through the window catches the side of Wednesday’s face as she sleeps, illuminating the soft hollows of her eye sockets, the slow rise and fall of her chest, the outline of a hand resting neatly over her stomach where the scar of a stab wound should be. (Should be, but isn’t.)
She’s beautiful. She’s invulnerable. She’s the most dangerous person Enid has ever met. She kissed her under the stars for the first time tonight and when she smiled, it looked almost shy .
Enid reaches up instinctually to hide her blush, remembers that Wednesday is asleep until proven otherwise, and drops her hand.
She can feel the ghost of Wednesday’s fingers on her cheek if she thinks hard enough. The thought alone is something beautiful.
“I really, really like you,” she whispers. It’s easier to be vulnerable like this in the dark, where she knows Wednesday can’t hear her. “I like you so much, Weds.”
There’s a brief lull, and then, “The feeling is mutual, Enid.”
Enid nearly falls out of her bed.
“I — you — you heard that? Did I wake you up? Oh my G-d, I woke you up! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to — and you just got back from — whatever it is you were doing —”
Wednesday sighs and sits up, and the sight of her, peering over at Enid with dishevelled hair and darker bags under her eyes than normal and a scowl too fond to be intimidating, is enough to make Enid clamp her mouth shut and stop rambling like an idiot.
“You didn’t wake me up. Don’t think yourself into a hole; it’s less entertaining when it’s someone I actually care about.”
“I — okay. Good. I think.”
She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and turns to face Enid, the scowl disappearing from the corners of her mouth. “‘Good’ is an adequate term.”
Enid scrambles for something to say in response. Hopefully something to steer her away from the whole I like you so much, Weds thing so neither of them never have to deal with it again.
She doesn’t get very far, because before she can get anything else out, Wednesday has stood up and crossed the room and is sitting next to her on her bed, wincing at all the colour being in such close proximity to her skin. She can’t have been asleep for very long, and the scent of the forest is still clinging to her hair, and —
“You’re overthinking again,” Wednesday says, and, apparently entirely ignoring her colour allergy and her whole thing about touch and the fact that Enid was just staring at her in her sleep, gets under the covers and shuts her eyes.
“I — why are you in my bed?”
“You have previously expressed an interest in — whatever this is — several times, and since you keep staring at me and sighing —”
“Sighing?!”
Wednesday sits back up immediately, looking mildly electrocuted. “If I made the wrong assumption —”
Enid swallows, ignoring the sound of her heartbeat growing faster in her ears. “No, it’s just — surprising, is all. Like, I’m fine with this — so totally fine with this, you have no idea, I just — what about your colour allergy?”
“Oh, that,” Wednesday says, and lays back down.
“ Wednesday —”
“It was mostly a joke at your expense, and I apologise for that, but I also genuinely do have —”
“Sensory requirements?” Enid guesses, also ignoring the face Wednesday makes when she cuts her off again. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You’re taking this rather well.”
“Well, I just really want to cuddle, so —”
“Of course.”
They don’t share a bed ; they cuddle.
Wednesday detests it, but sometimes Enid buries her nose in the back of her neck and breathes little sighs into the collar of her shirt, so she allows it to continue. Even if the idea of calling something so soul-bearing as sleeping in the same bed as your partner cuddling is, truthfully, laughable.
“We’re the most pretentious 16 year-olds in the world,” Enid says one night, burrowing into the back of Wednesday’s sweatshirt. “I mean, I interview Thing for blog content, and you own, like. 40 knives —”
“Somewhere upwards of 60, actually,” Wednesday corrects.
“ — like, over 60 knives. And a hearse. And you call films ‘motion pictures’. That’s pretentious as shit.”
Wednesday hums noncommittally, wrapping her hand around Enid’s arm tucked against her waist. They fit together rather neatly, she thinks. It’s not often she can bear the touch of human — werewolf — flesh. Less often that she allows herself to be held . Enid is the exception, the outlier.
“I am nothing if not grandiose.”
Enid giggles. “It’s cute.”
“It’s not cute . I am not cute . I am terrifying.”
“Yeah, okay, sure.”
bestie yoko at 6:43 PM [30/02/23]
not yet gotten over the novelty of having you around
now lol
LMAO
you and wednesday both
gross
HAHAH
get used to it!!!!!
im having the time of my life djgfggjfdj
gayass
you two are so disgusting <3 <3
which is so weird bc wednesday doesnt have any
emotions aside from hate and anger
and she also doesnt have facial expressions
like
it’s impressive how sappy she gets without moving
her face
I KNOW RIGHT
you two are so funny
“This is unbelievably ridiculous,” Wednesday informs Thing casually, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling shifting in the bottom of her lungs, “I have no clue as to why you’re making me do this.”
Thing, perched subtly on her shoulder, taps out something noncommittal and mildly passive aggressive in response.
“Yes, I know it was my idea, but I don’t see why it has to be now —”
He taps her shoulder again, stopping her right before she can walk directly into a wall. “You’re not paying attention.”
Wednesday grits her teeth. “You’re the one giving me directions.”
“You should know where the Jericho flower shop is,” he remarks. “I don’t know why you need me to give you directions.”
“I have long since given up paying attention to the minutiae of daily life in a town I hardly care about,” Wednesday hisses back, keeping her voice low enough to avoid attention. She stops at a crosswalk and makes a point of pulling out her phone to find the flower shop in question on Google Maps to annoy Thing, who taps irritably at her shoulder once he realises what she’s doing. “I don’t know why we couldn’t just break into the greenhouse instead.”
“Too easy.”
Annoyingly, he’s right. Stealing flowers from the greenhouse was entertaining, but not nearly rewarding enough for her. Not nearly worthy of an actual gift to Enid, much less one intended for an upcoming date.
It doesn’t take her much longer to find the flower shop, hidden away as it is. She climbs through the window easily, avoiding the singular alarm on the door and both security cameras, and is back outside on her way to the school in under two minutes with a bouquet of roses under her arm.
When she crawls back in through the window to her room, Enid is asleep, sitting on the floor against her bed with her laptop still open beside her. She must have stayed up late waiting for her.
Wednesday smiles, half out of fondness, half out of exasperation.
Thing hops onto Enid’s bed and tugs at what he can reach of the bouquet. “Shall I hide this somewhere?”
“Preferably somewhere she won’t find it,” Wednesday says, kneeling down beside Enid on the floor. She doesn’t quite know how to get her into her bed without waking her up, so that’s what she does, shaking her shoulder gently until she opens her eyes.
“Τι κάνεις αγάπη μου?”
Wednesday, who’s knowledge of Greek is shaky at best, shrugs and says, “You’re asleep on the floor.”
“Mm. Maybe.”
“Do you want me to get you into bed?”
Enid smiles sleepily and sticks her arms out, clearly expecting to be lifted onto the bed. “Can we cuddle?”
Wednesday sighs. “Yes, whatever. But I’m not picking you up.”
“Aww.”