Chapter Text
Orphic /ˈɔːfɪk/ — (adj.) mysterious and entrancing; beyond ordinary understanding.
If she had to choose, then Enid would most definitely NOT waste her time away trying to understand how magical potions were supposed to be created. Literally, doing anything else would be much more interesting!
She was a werewolf for crying out loud! Nature had intended for her to run wild and sniff pretty flowers, not rot inside on an uncomfortable wooden stool and glare into a pot, where each added ingredient changed the liquid inside to a different shade of rainbow. (It’s probably not supposed to do that…)
Why did she need to know how to do this anyway? It felt like useless knowledge if anything.
“Gosh, I so don’t get this!” Enid groaned quietly, dropping her head into her palms. “Why is it still green!?”
“Well, it was supposed to be in a lime shade on the second stage, E, but— oh.” Yoko’s voice suddenly disappeared, but Enid still felt her presence behind her, where she’d leaned closer. “Yea.. it’s not supposed to be that green..”
“Oh, gee, tell me something I don’t know!” She replied sarcastically, resisting an eyeroll at her best friend. Enid rubbed the bridge of her nose and straightened out to look at Yoko, who seemed to be holding back a laugh. “I totally messed this up, didn’t I?”
Up to this point, the day was going so wonderfully!
(In a sarcastic sense, obvi.) Enid had skipped a whole dance lesson for this. THIS— some totally stupid lab work, which she would forget about after graduating and never use this knowledge ever again.
Yoko fixed her glasses slightly before taking another glance in Enid’s pot and replying: “I don’t think you were supposed to add glitter, pup.”
“Hey— it wasn’t my fault the Shrek vomit was lacking shine!” She answered, gesturing to the green liquid swirling around in the pot, while holding back a grimace at the same time. “If anything, it’s totes prettier now.”
“Did you even follow the steps on the worksheet?” Yoko subtly raised an eyebrow at her and even through the sunglasses, Enid could feel the judgy stare.
The worksheet?
Enid looked around her messy desk, lifting her sparkly notebook and a few more pages along with it, before fishing out a clean, untouched page from underneath the pile, full of empty chemical reactions.
“Oh.. this?” She held it up to Yoko’s face, trying to mask her own mistake with an awkward smile. “Wait, wait— honestly, in my defense, I thought it was totally like homework or something!”
Yoko exhaled heavily. “Ah, you poor soul.”
“Help me?” Enid pouted, trying to put her puppy eyes to work. “Please?”
“Okay, don’t kill me for this, E,” Yoko raised her arms in mock surrender, a grin on her face. “I don’t think whatever you’ve got brewing there is savable.”
Yeah, honestly that seemed like a fair take.
Thirty minutes of the class had gone by and everything Enid had done— nevermind, she had done practically nothing. Enid heavily doubted that throwing a few dried flower stems and whatever else she had dumped in the pot, counted as useful potion making. Clearly, she had just made colorful water.
“Το μισώ αυτό.” Enid mumbled and reached for her pot, taking it on both sides by the handles. “I’ll go see if Mr. Rimmer can get me out of this hellhole.”
She took the pot, slid off of the stool and slowly made her way toward the front of the class to the teachers desk, where a few of her classmates were already waiting in a line. Not really in a rush, Enid set the pot down on a nearby table, solely not wanting to hold it while the line in front of her hadn’t cleared yet.
“Astonishing.” Suddenly a flat and dry voice came from next to her. Enid didn’t even have to turn around to know who was standing there. “It’s beyond me how you manage to screw up something so simple, Sinclair.”
Enid bit down on her tongue then exhaled, mentally preparing herself to turn around and face probably the most annoying person in this whole school. If she didn’t know, then Enid would most likely think that being annoying was Wednesday Addam’s day-job, because there was totally no way that she was being mean for any other reason besides her own sick and twisted pleasure.
“Wow! Thanks for your helpful input, Wednesday!” Enid replied, trying to keep a smile on her face, even if it was quite hard to do when all she wanted to do was escape and not be anywhere near Wednesday Addams. “Sorry, I totes sometimes forget that all of our EGO’s are not that high and some of us actually need help in certain subjects!”
She glanced up and down, giving Wednesday’s checkered sweater and plaid skirt that seemed to be at a flawless length judging by her visible skin to clothes ratio, before adding: “Y’know, you’re standing in the same line though!”
Wednesday didn’t even seem to react to that in any way. Her brown eyes kept staring right into Enid’s soul and her eyebrow rose just a touch and then she spoke again. “I wonder how many useful brain cells of yours said observation took.” Which only aggravated Enid a bit more. “Then again, a common mistake, seeing as you’ve probably never asked for extra work.” The corners of Wednesday’s red lips slightly twitched. “Happens, when you’re failing a subject, Sinclair.”
“Y’know what—no, whatever.” Enid smoothened out her blazer, before shaking her head once. “I can’t deal with you, not today anyway.”
She turned back around, and surprisingly, Wednesday didn’t push, which Enid was somewhat thankful for.
Unfortunately, once Enid had gotten to the front of the desk, the teacher hadn’t been able to help her and he had sent her three houses down, by telling Enid to remake the whole thing, to which she’d just mumbled a quiet ‘fine’.
Turning around with a quick step, Enid slammed her pot right into Wednesday, who apparently had been standing closer than she’d realized, with something in her hands as well. It was already too late, when from the sudden impact, the liquid in her pot poured out right over the edge, most of it dousing Wednesday and her in the process and half of whatever Wednesday was holding also got on her.
If that hadn’t been bad enough and embarrassing for her, then the scent from the liquid mix entered her nose—too sharp, too strong—completely overwhelming her and momentarily Enid lost balance, (or perhaps she slipped?), but the next thing she knew she was falling right to the ground.
Then everything went black.
“Enid!”
Everything hurt.
Enid tried to blink, but her vision didn’t clear, only throwing random colorful, blurry, moving shapes at her.
“I think she’s waking up.” Yoko. Most definitely. Enid could tell her apart by the scent of her perfume. “Phew, you scared me for a moment, pup.”
Enid coughed a bit, then blinked again, her vision slightly clearing up, to find that indeed, Yoko was there, kneeling next to her side, along with Mr. Rimmer.
“Am I dead..?”
“Unfortunately not.” Came a deadpan voice, a second later. Wednesday. “As much as one could’ve hoped.”
She groaned quietly as Yoko helped her in a sit up position, then pinched the bridge of her nose, slowly coming back to reality. She blinked a few more times, looking at Yoko, then at the pool of liquid she’d been laying in; half of it already soaked into her uniform, which was sticking to her like second skin.
Wednesday too, while seemingly in a slightly better situation, was dripping from her hair and clothes.
“Shit, sorry!”
Yoko shook her head. “Enid, don’t apologize, it’s important that you’re oka—”
“You will be sorry.” Wednesday bit back, boring holes into Enid’s head, before turning to the teacher with a slight now. “I will now be taking my leave to somewhere, where people actually are able to walk straight.”
The shorter girl only got a few steps out when suddenly a searing jolt of pain shot through Enid, so sharp that it felt like someone had stabbed her with large shards of jagged glass.
“Ow—” Enid clutched her head in agony, pain flaring up a bit more.
Through her blurry vision, she could see that Wednesday also pressed a hand against her head, supporting herself on a nearby table.
“Enid?”
“Hurts!” She yelled, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to breathe through the spikes of sudden pain. “Yoko— help—”
Suddenly some of the pain subsided, and Enid shakily exhaled between coughs, wiping away her glassy eyes.
She lifted her head to find that Wednesday was standing near her again, glaring at her with the type of intensity that told something along the lines of: ‘you’re already dead’.
“What. Did. You. Do. Sinclair?” Wednesday choked out, not taking her eyes off Enid, which only made her want to crawl into the ground and never pop back up again.
“She’s hurt, for god sakes Addams, this isn’t the time to interrogate her!” Yoko spoke up, glancing between both of them.
“I have a hypothesis.” Wednesday stated, before she took a slow step back and just like before Enid could feel the pain rush back into her with a swarm of small knives piercing her skin.
Then Wednesday stepped closer again.
The pain immediately stopped.
It suddenly struck Enid like a bucket of cold water, as to what Wednesday was referring to. For a moment, she stared back at the other girl with wide eyes, trying to hold in the tears and the choking sob that was climbing up her throat.
“Shit,” Enid echoed again, not even bothering to filter her language anymore.
This couldn’t be happening!
Someone was gonna die! Probably starting with her. No doubt about that.
In the matter of seconds, Wednesday somehow managed to pull out a hunting knife, (no doubt silver) and lunged toward Enid without warning.
“Well, this is most certainly a very interesting situation!” Weems remarked, glancing between the both of them, with a smile on her face that couldn’t possibly mean anything good. “So, as I understand, you’re unable to leave each other's side, yes?”
That was about it, yea. Obviously, besides the agonizing pain.
For a few moments silence followed, only sounds of the crackling fireplace, disturbing it.
“Mhm,” Enid nodded, wiping the last of her tears, before clutching the fluffy blanket tighter around herself. “I really am sorry—I never meant for any of this to happen—”
“Apologize one more time and your name will be written in my suicide note. In blood.” Wednesday spoke up, glaring into the side of her head, before turning to Weems—sitting behind her large desk—with a neutral expression. “I tested it. If I stand more than ten feet away from Sinclair, I am overwhelmed by immense pain. Usually which I'd welcome, however, sharing it with her makes me gouge my own eyes out.”
Weems momentarily tapped her nails against the large wooden desk, slowly spinning in her chair a bit, before speaking again. “I had a word with Mr. Rimmer, your potions teacher. From what he could say, the effect you both are experiencing… is not found anywhere.”
This was just getting better and better. Wednesday was totally going to maim her.
“What.”
“In other words, Ms. Sinclair, you’ve just created a new potion effect.” Weems continued, in a tone that could only suggest she was being sarcastic, which didn’t help Enid’s situation. Like at all! “But—the good news is, all potion effects usually don’t linger for long and disappear after five to seven days.”
“A week!?” Enid quaked, fearing to even look at Wednesday and what that meant for her.
Weems nodded. “Correct. As of now, there’s really nothing we can do about it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have people looking for a cure.”
Yea, Enid wasn’t surviving the week.
She doubted that they would find her body in an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere.
“Atrocious.” Wednesday dryly remarked, standing in her doorway, hands crossed over her chest as she surveyed Enid’s messy room. “Looks like a rainbow vomited everywhere.”
“Wednesday—please don’t!” Enid replied, face heating up as she shoved random clothes, underwear and things into her red duffel bag. “I— can’t physically argue with you right now! I’m literally.. Magically stuck to you! For a week! Gosh, what is Bruno gonna think? I’m a total toolbag…”
Wednesday didn’t react. There was no indication of what she was thinking in her midnight-black eyes, just an endless, cold void; it scared Enid.
“And who’s fault is that?” Wednesday replied after a few moments of silence. “Last I checked, you tried to assassinate me with your cauldron.”
“Geez, it was a mistake okay! Just drop it, Wednesday!”
“Fine. You’re not forgiven though.” She acknowledged, which made Enid’s heart slow down a bit and let her breathe easier. “For the record: I’ve decided that you’re sleeping in my room. On the floor preferably. I for sure am not touching anything here.”
Sleeping.
Right.
Shit.
They were totally going to have to sleep really, really close together. Enid had completely blocked that out of her head until now.
“I— sure.. Yea, whatever!” Enid replied, cheeks heating up at the thought.
“Hurry, Sinclair. I do not have all day.” Wednesday commanded, not making any effort to help. “Take your clothes and we’re going to shower.”
“Wednesday?” Enid asked in a tone that perhaps could be taken as desperate. Maybe because she was desperate. “Are we good?”
Silence.
The water kept running and Enid could still see Wednesday’s feet where the shower stall ended. Perhaps she hadn’t heard Enid due to the water hitting the tiled floor.
“Wednesday?”
“Define good.” An instant reply came from the other side of the wall.
Enid squeezed out some conditioner in her palm and closed the cap, putting the bottle down. “Um.. I guess not wanting to murder me ‘good’?”
“I’m still considering it.” Wednesday deadpanned, which didn’t ease Enid’s suspicions of the fact that she’d end up six feet in the ground.
It was weird. This was. Being so close and knowing that Wednesday was one stall over, probably very… clothes-less. Enid didn’t know what to do with that. She dreaded doing something wrong, which would probably result in Wednesday doing something to her.
Enid finished washing her hair, then turned the water off, dried herself and put on her fluffy pastel pajamas, with little cat faces all over the set. She exited her stall, ready to leave, but didn’t get too far when the soaring pain shooting throughout her body reminded her of the fact that she couldn’t go anywhere without Wednesday.
Surprisingly for her whole goth-girl, emo aesthetic, Wednesday simply left the stall in shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Now that Enid was thinking about it, she hadn’t seen Wednesday go fully ‘goth’ at her time in Nevermore; there were no chains, spiky bras or ripped fishnets—Wednesday just wore black. Kinda like Batman.
After drying her hair, both of them left the bathroom. Going up to her room felt like a walk of shame.
Enid avoided the stares of students, who no doubt would gossip later, as she followed Wednesday close behind to not get hurt and fall over again.
Wednesday shoved her key into the lock and twisted it, then pushed on the door that slid open with a small creak.
She didn’t know what she had expected, but Wednesday’s room was very her. All black throughout, clean, spotless. (Kinda like what she’d imagined it to be.) Even all of her windows were tinted in a darker tone. Needless to say, currently, Enid was the only splash of color in her room. In the corner was a dark wooden desk and in the opposite a single bed, made with black sheets and a pillow.
Of course there was a single bed. Why would Wednesday have two beds? That was a dumb thought.
“Leave your bag where it won’t make me throw it out.” Wednesday instructed, making her way over the room to open the window.
Enid stood there for a few seconds, before slowly setting her bag in the corner by a chest of drawers, then paddled over to Wednesday’s bed and sat down on it, hands folded in her lap.
The whole thing wasn’t even funny, because two days ago, all of this would’ve seemed surreal. Anything that had to do with Wednesday would’ve seemed surreal.
She lifted her eyes to see Wednesday already staring at her with the type of look that couldn’t exactly be interpreted as good. “So um.. We’re sleeping—”
“On the bed. Yes, Sinclair.” Wednesday replied dryly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and not a complete crisis for Enid. “As you see I don’t have many options for sleeping arrangements.”
Obviously.
“Yeah—no, I just.. I meant like on the bed, like—”
“Are you usually that awful shade of red?” Wednesday asked, which didn’t help Enid’s case or face. “On the bed. I sleep here—” Wednesday pointed to the pillow. “And you’ll sleep on the opposite side, where my feet end.”
Enid nodded. “Yea, um, kay. Cool!”
She stared at Wednesday for another few awkward seconds, before the shorter girl moved closer to the bed and lifted the edge of the blanket, which Enid took as her queue to also get in bed.
Settling next to Wednesday felt like poking an angry bear. Enid could literally feel her—feel Wednesday’s bodyheat and the weird material of her bedsheets, which enveloped Enid in Wednesday’s scent from head to toe. One of the weirdest things ever. Enid especially hoped that Wednesday wouldn’t say anything about how hot it got, due to the fact that she was literally like a walking furnace.
“If you hog the blanket,” Wednesday suddenly began, speaking into the darkness. “It will be the last thing you do.”
This would be a long week.
If anyone asked, which hopefully no one would, Enid would tell them that the morning routine had been a DISASTER!!
Firstly, she hadn’t slept too well, tossing and turning all night and she was sure that at one point she even touched Wednesday's legs. (Luckily, all of her belongings were safe and not destroyed the next morning). Not to mention the fact that she literally had to dress in front of Wednesday, obviously after getting her to turn around, but it had been traumatizing enough!
Unfortunately, Wednesday hadn’t allowed her to blast k-pop music at full volume while she got ready, like Enid did usually every morning. Bummer. Also, Enid had completely forgotten to charge her phone, which had ended up in her missing like sixteen text messages from Yoko.
Dragging Wednesday down to the quad to get coffee had been another challenge in itself.
“Kay, so I’ll have a towering unicorn rainbow frappuccino with layers of electric blue, neon pink, and lime green whipped cream, topped with rainbow sprinkles, glittery edible stars, and a giant rainbow marshmallow! Also don’t forget to drizzle it with iridescent caramel syrup, finished with a splash of edible gold leaf and a gigantic swirl of rainbow cotton candy!” Enid finished, out of breath completely, earning a bewildered look from the cashier and a somewhat shocked expression from Wednesday. (if she could feel anything similar to shock, Enid wasn’t sure.) Then she turned to the shorter girl. “Want anything?”
Wednesday glanced at the menu then back at Enid. “A bullet to the head.”
Enid turned to the cashier with a smile. “Oh and one black coffee, please!”
Wednesday would probably like that. Black—like her soul.
Surprisingly she didn’t object, which Enid considered as a win in her book. However when Enid reached out with her card in hand, Wednesday had beaten her to it and shoved cash forward, saying that ‘I can pay for myself, Sinclair’, then ended up paying for Enid’s ‘monstrosity’ as well.
“So you sat together in class? And then slept together too?” Yoko asked, after the third period when they were sitting outside, turning to Enid with a grin on her face and even before she said it, Enid could see what was coming from a thousand yards away. “Oh, this is golden.”
“Refrain from making this a discussion topic, Tanaka.” Wednesday interjected from the other side of the table, glaring at the vampire. “If not, you’ll find garlic powder in your bloodbags.”
That effectively shut Yoko up.
“Oh c’mon, Wednesday, it wasn’t that bad?”
Wednesday was silent for a few seconds.
“It was.” Her heartbeat jumped. Lie. Enid smiled. “You snore in your sleep, Sinclair.”
“So, Addams, anything you want to share with the class?” Bianca smirked, picking up Wednesday’s foil from the ground and throwing it over to her. Suddenly Enid found that the ground was very interesting. Very interesting. The ceiling too. “Or is Enid here just for moral support?”
The rumors shouldn’t affect her as much as they did.
The stares.
The hushed whispers.
Enid hated all of it. She was the one who was supposed to run Nevermore’s gossip blog, not be the topic of their gossip.
“Opposed to you, Barclay, I don’t require moral support to win my own battles.” Wednesday bit back, putting her helmet down on the ground, slightly away from where Enid was standing. She’d never been to a fencing lesson, (mainly because she was failing), but watching Wednesday go against Bianca, and win, somehow made her the joy of winning as well.
“Then.. you wouldn’t be opposed to taking the tip off.”
Probably the same as Wednesday did, Enid recognized it as a clear challenge.
“You’ll be the one bleeding in the end.” Wednesday deadpanned, reaching at the top of the foil to pull the tip off.
And before Enid knew it, they were going toe to toe again, moving around the room like a whirlwind, which Enid had to follow, because when Wednesday got too far away, Enid would start to feel the pain in her chest, which then spread and she couldn’t think very clearly after that.
One thing had led to another, and before she knew it, Wednesday had ended up with a bright red scratch on her neck.
“Are you sure you’re like totally not a vampire or something?” Enid asked for the second time in like fifteen minutes, partly out of curiosity and partly just to annoy Wednesday. “Y’know, I think only like old people still use typewriters. And gosh—the sound it makes is like horrible!”
The clacking of the typewriter keys stopped and Wednesday slowly lifted her fingers from them, head lazily turning to look at Enid, where she was sitting right next to her, doing her own homework.
“I’m an Addams. I’m a lot of things.” Wednesday simply answered, not sparing Enid more than a few seconds of her stare. “Since you’re comparing, then the sound of your treacherous music is way worse. Besides, I am actually benefitting from this.”
“Hey!”
Wednesday subtly shrugged and Enid almost missed it. “I’m stating a fact. Get over it.”
Enid rolled her eyes, but went back to doing her history homework, trying to focus on the pages of her notebook instead of Wednesday’s ancient machine from the nineteen hundreds.
A few minutes in, Wednesday stopped writing and lifted her fingers from the keys again, then turned to glare daggers into Enid’s head, clearly irritated.
“Cease the tapping.”
Exhaling, Enid lifted her eyes from her notes, raising an eyebrow. “What?”
“The pen. It’s annoying.”
Enid straightened slightly, staring back at Wednesday with an offended expression. “Oh c’mon! It helps me think, Wednesday! We have to try and co-exist here, which includes my freedom to think!”
“It’s annoying. When you do it, I can’t think.” Wednesday retorted instantly. “How would you feel if I banged you against the table?”
“W—what!?” Enid sputtered, dissolving into coughs, face instantly heating up. “I— I’m.. Yea, okay, I’ll stop.”
“Here,” Enid turned to Wednesday, a large grin on her face. “Look at this!”
Wednesday stared at the piece of paper hanging on her wall with the type of glare that Enid had seen a few times in the past twenty hours.
“A calendar?”
“Mhm!” She nodded enthusiastically. “I found this one in my room! Sorry, didn’t have a black one, to match your—gloomy aesthetic. Anyway, as you see, this is a countdown of sorts,” Enid pointed to a date, which she’d crossed off with a pink sparkly pen. “Each day, I’ll cross the day off until I’ll be free of you!”
The pigtailed girl stared at the calendar for a few more seconds, then at Enid, but seemed to give up on the idea to fight.
“If I don’t throw it out beforehand.” She mumbled, moving to her desk.