Chapter Text
10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love with a Werewolf
Wednesday Addams had never trusted love.
She trusted arsenic, because arsenic was consistent. She trusted gravity, because it punished everyone equally. She trusted a well-sharpened blade, a locked door, a dead language, and the particular silence that settled over a room after someone realised they had underestimated her.
Love, by comparison, was sloppy.
Unreliable.
Humiliatingly organic.
It made people softer in the head and weaker in the knees. It encouraged poor judgement, public displays of sentiment, and poetry written by people who should have been legally separated from ink. It turned otherwise functional minds into pudding. It caused giggling. Hand-holding. Emotional dependency.
Worst of all, it made people vulnerable.
Wednesday had seen vulnerability. She had dissected it in others with the clinical fascination of a child pulling wings from flies. She understood its structure perfectly. It was the exposed throat. The unlocked window. The soft place beneath the ribs where a clever enemy could slide the knife.
She had no intention of offering anyone such an obvious target.
Especially not Enid Sinclair.
Especially not Enid Sinclair, who had already become an irritatingly persistent variable in Wednesday’s life. A splash of colour in a room that had been perfectly content in monochrome. A werewolf with terrible taste in accessories, an alarming relationship with optimism, and a smile so bright it bordered on an act of psychological aggression.
Wednesday sat at her desk, posture rigid, pen poised over the page of her journal.
Outside, Nevermore breathed in its usual nocturnal manner. Pipes creaked. Distant laughter slithered through the corridors. Somewhere on the grounds, something inhuman howled at the moon, either in pain, triumph, or adolescent incompetence.
Across the dorm room, Enid was asleep.
Not elegantly.
Never elegantly.
She had managed to occupy three quarters of her own bed while also somehow threatening Wednesday’s personal space from several feet away. One arm dangled over the side. Her hair, a treacherous riot of colour, spread across the pillow. Her blanket had surrendered at her waist. Her face was pressed into a stuffed wolf she claimed was ironic, despite all available evidence.
Every so often, her fingers twitched.
Once, her nose wrinkled.
Then she made a small, pleased sound in her sleep.
Wednesday stared at her for exactly three seconds longer than necessary.
Then she looked back at her journal with the expression of a condemned woman refusing the priest.
This was not infatuation.
This was not longing.
This was certainly not love.
It was an intellectual disturbance. A chemical aberration. Possibly a curse. Almost certainly Enid’s fault.
Wednesday dipped her pen into the ink.
If the problem could not yet be eliminated, it could at least be documented.
At the top of the page, in her smallest and most severe handwriting, she wrote:
10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love with a Werewolf
She paused.
Then, beneath it:
A necessary preventative exercise by Wednesday Addams, who remains in full possession of her faculties despite recent evidence to the contrary.
She considered that.
Added:
Mostly.
Then crossed it out so violently the nib scratched the paper.
Reason one came easily.
1. The shedding.
Werewolves shed.
This was not prejudice. It was biology. Enid’s hair appeared everywhere with the persistence of a vengeful haunting. On uniforms. On bedding. In books. Once inside Wednesday’s cello case, which Wednesday had taken as a declaration of war.
Falling in love with a werewolf would mean accepting a lifetime of finding blonde and pink strands in places no hair had any legal or moral right to be.
The thought was intolerable.
Wednesday glanced toward Enid’s sleeping form.
A strand of hair had fallen across her cheek.
Enid’s nose twitched again.
Wednesday looked away.
Violently.
2. The excessive warmth.
Werewolves were warm.
Offensively warm.
Enid carried heat with her the way others carried perfume. She radiated it through sleeves, blankets, the shared space between chairs. Sitting too close to her was like being lured into a trap lined with soft fleece and questionable emotional consequences.
Wednesday preferred the cold. Cold was honest. Cold did not ask whether you had eaten lunch. Cold did not fall asleep against your shoulder and make trusting little sighs.
Enid did both.
This was a problem.
3. The tail.
The tail was an abomination.
Not because it was physically repulsive. It was not. Wednesday was not dishonest enough to claim that. Enid’s tail was expressive, inconvenient, and devastatingly undisciplined.
It wagged.
It curled.
It betrayed every feeling Enid attempted to hide and several she had not yet noticed having.
Worst of all, it had recently taken to moving whenever Wednesday entered the room.
This created a deeply unscientific sensation in Wednesday’s chest.
She objected.
4. The growling.
Enid growled when people insulted Wednesday.
This was unnecessary.
Wednesday was perfectly capable of defending herself. She had ruined reputations with less effort than it took most people to sneeze. She did not require a werewolf to bare her teeth on Wednesday’s behalf because some fool had mistaken pale skin and pigtails for fragility.
And yet.
There was something obscenely satisfying about watching Enid go still and sharp-eyed, all colour and claws, because someone had spoken to Wednesday with insufficient fear.
It was barbaric.
Primitive.
Deeply concerning.
Wednesday wrote the next words harder than necessary.
Do not enjoy this.
Then she crossed them out.
5. The sense of smell.
Werewolves could smell too much.
Fear. Blood. Rain. Lies. Apparently also emotional instability, which Wednesday considered an unforgivable invasion of privacy.
Enid had once looked at her during breakfast and said, “You smell stressed.”
Wednesday had replied, “You smell close to death.”
Enid had smiled and passed her a piece of toast.
This was unacceptable.
If Wednesday fell in love with a werewolf, concealment would become difficult. Possibly impossible. Enid would smell affection before Wednesday could suffocate it. She would know things. Soft things. Weak things.
Wednesday would rather swallow a live scorpion.
Probably.
6. The moon.
The moon made werewolves ridiculous.
Enid became restless before a full moon. Too bright. Too alert. Too inclined to pace, nest, reorganise blankets, sharpen pencils with her claws, and insist that Wednesday “look tired” in a tone that implied consequences.
The moon had no such effect on Wednesday. Wednesday respected the moon. It was dead, distant, scarred by impact, and reflected light without producing any of its own. Admirable qualities.
Unfortunately, Enid looked beautiful under moonlight.
This was not relevant.
Wednesday underlined the number six twice.
7. The pack instincts.
Werewolves collected people.
Enid, in particular, collected them like abandoned buttons. Lost freshmen. Crying sirens. Gorgons with exam panic. Vampires with dramatic friendship troubles. Small injured animals. Large injured animals. Ajax. Wednesday.
Especially Wednesday.
Enid had somehow folded Wednesday into the category of “mine” without permission, paperwork, or a formal duel.
Wednesday should have objected more.
She had objected verbally.
Several times.
Enid had ignored the objections and continued leaving snacks on her desk.
Wednesday had eaten them.
For tactical reasons.
8. The nicknames.
Enid had a deranged habit of naming things she liked.
Objects. Animals. Outfits. Minor emotional episodes. Wednesday.
Wednesday had been subjected to Willa, Wends, spooky girl, storm cloud, murder muffin, and, most recently, “my favourite nightmare,” said while Enid was half-asleep and therefore legally unreliable.
Wednesday despised them all.
Particularly the last one.
The last one had crawled beneath her skin and taken up residence like a parasite with a lease agreement.
She had not written it in the margin of her novel.
She had written something that resembled it.
There was a difference.
9. The eyes.
Enid’s eyes were a problem.
They were too open. Too bright. Too capable of looking at Wednesday without flinching. The wolf in them should have made her more frightening. Instead, it made her more honest, which was far worse.
Wednesday did not like being seen.
Being observed was tolerable. Being studied was acceptable. Being feared was preferable.
Being seen by Enid Sinclair was like having a locked room discovered by someone carrying a blanket and a plate of biscuits.
Repulsive.
Effective.
A catastrophe.
10. The loyalty.
Wednesday stopped writing.
The pen hovered above the page.
Across the room, Enid shifted in her sleep and murmured something unintelligible into her stuffed wolf.
For several seconds, Wednesday listened.
The room settled again.
She looked down at the blank space beside the final number.
This was the reason that mattered.
Not the hair. Not the warmth. Not the tail, the growling, the moonlit restlessness, or the intolerable nicknames.
The loyalty.
Werewolves stayed.
Once they chose, they chose with their teeth, their bones, their whole foolish, inconvenient hearts. Enid loved that way already. Not romantically. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. But she gave pieces of herself with a reckless generosity that made Wednesday want to lock every door in the world and stand guard outside them.
Enid stayed.
Even when Wednesday was cruel.
Even when she was distant.
Even when she turned herself into a locked mausoleum and dared people to search for the door.
Enid stayed anyway.
That was the danger.
Not that Wednesday might fall in love with a werewolf.
That was merely embarrassing.
The true danger was that Enid might love her back.
And then Wednesday would have something to lose.
Her hand tightened around the pen.
Ink darkened at the tip.
Finally, she wrote:
10. The loyalty.
Beneath it, after a moment, she added:
A werewolf’s love is not a passing infection. It is a bite. A claim. A permanent wound.
She stared at the words.
Then added:
Avoid at all costs.
Another pause.
The room was quiet except for Enid’s breathing.
Wednesday closed the journal with a soft, decisive snap.
There.
The matter had been handled.
Ten reasons.
Ten perfectly rational, well-documented reasons not to fall in love with Enid Sinclair.
Wednesday placed the journal in her desk drawer and locked it.
Behind her, Enid made another small sound in her sleep.
Wednesday did not turn around.
She did not soften.
She did not smile.
And she absolutely did not sit there in the dark for another seven minutes listening to Enid breathe.
That would have been absurd.
Wednesday Addams was many things.
Absurd was not one of them.