Chapter Text
Most high school students might attempt flirting once or twice to try and put themselves out there without doing anything so bold as explicitly voicing their feelings. It was a way of communicating through subtle hints. The majority of them do it clumsily. Most never achieve the desired effect due to no reciprocation or their own lack of skill. It is not as though they can practice, who spends their time flirting daily? No one.
No one except for Enid Sinclair. Gazing around Nevermore’s quad whilst her two friends chatted and openly flirted with each other, Enid could see plenty of furs, fangs and scales whom she had practically taken out of commission with her weaponised eye-contact, lip-bites and hair-twirling. Few girls had not found themselves under her blue gaze, staring at pink lips and blonde hair being twirled between colourful nails. It was not because any of them particularly made her hope for a longer relationship, they were all cute but didn't manage to keep her interest. That was how it was. Flirting was Enid’s hobby. Even if she wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, Enid liked to prove to herself that she still had it, that nothing and no one was immune, out of her reach.
It felt pretty good, Enid couldn’t lie. The sun was softly painting the benches and academy walls as it fell between the cottony clouds, and she felt as if she was on top of the world, or on top of this school at least.
Students’ heads all suddenly turning to the southern entrance announced to Enid that a certain dark cloud however had come to ruin her sunny day. Wednesday Addams - student of Nevermore for all of one month, colourless uniform, sour expression, perfect braids - strided across the quad in a perfectly straight line. Everyone knew better than to get in her way. Once the pint-size goth was safely away from their table, Enid let out a groan load enough to earn a stare from both Yoko and Divina.
“Girl, you have to get over this,” Yoko started, levelling her eyes at her from behind her sunglasses. “That chick can’t even handle roy-g-biv, it shouldn’t be surprising that your whole…deal can’t get under her skin.”
“It’s the principle of it, Yoko!” Enid whispered-shouted back. “Who does she think she is, all untouchable and holier-than-thou, when she looks at you, you can see her silently calling you stupid before you even say anything.”
At this point Divina intervened. “I’m pretty sure that’s just her measuring you for a grave and guessing what cause of death she could pass off as an accident.” Yoko laughed into her hand. “That girl is just plain crazy, accept that when you compliment her dead, soulless eyes doesn’t do anything for her.”
Enid huffed and then spotted the goth in question sitting down at a bench as far as possible from any living thing.
“I love you both but I can get her, watch this.” Without waiting for a response she picked up her lunch tray and began confidently walking over.
“I feel like one of those people who watch car racing just for the accidents” Yoko whispered, earning her a chuckle from Divina.
“Forreal though, Enid may be a ladykiller or whatever, but Wednesday Addams is probably an actual killer.”
-
Seeing the black and white goth draw closer only fazed Enid a tiny bit. She had tried before and completely missed the mark, but there’s no way this girl was resistant to everything. Enid knew at least that Wednesday could hypothetically be into girls, should the right one come along. In Wednesday's first week at Nevermore a gang of boys tried bullying a pair of yearn eight girls whose make-out session they randomly stumbled into. To this day no one knew how Wednesday had intuitively sensed the threat, spending much more time discussing the three broken ribs, two broken noses and entirely broken spirit of the bigots once Wednesday was done with them. That and also Wednesday’s single comment: “I protect my own kind” when demanded why she chose to demolish the boys on behalf of the pair she had never even talked to, before or after the incident.
It was pretty badass, Enid couldn’t deny it. It was shortly after the incident, and the implicit revelation it brought, that Enid had made her first advance of many against Wednesday. Enid regretted reminding herself that the girl she was approaching was capable of all that violence and more, but she was too close to back out now.
Ten paces from reaching the table where Wednesday was sitting with her back to the wall, chewing mechanically without looking up from the tome open in front of her, Enid felt a second shiver of fear. Enid was pretty popular, not the most popular girl in the school, but she ran a very highly patronised blog, talked and listened to everyone, and managed to be likeable and friendly without becoming a sycophant. The girl approaching Wednesday’s table from the opposite direction to Enid however, was the most popular girl in the school. Bianca Barclay was probably the only person who could claim to have engaged Wednesday in prolonged conversation. They had started off as rivals in pretty much everything imaginable, and as weird as their relationship looked from the outside, Enid thought that Wednesday at least seemed to respect Bianca and come as close as possible to appreciating her company. Not to mention that she was the only person to have ever entered the dorm room of the Queen of Darkness herself and live.
Enid’s plan had gone from slightly stupid and maybe pointless (according to Yoko and Divina at least) to very much risking social suicide due to embarrassing herself trying to flirt with the queen bee’s emotionally void friend in her company.
“...and so I wanted to get your opinion on it, obviously the most sensible reading is about the body/soul dialectic, but by writing something a bit more unexpected I think the essay would wake up the marker a little bit more. Even if yours’ll be flawless either way of course.” Instead of responding to Bianca’s question about a who-knows-what assignment, Wednesday stiffened at Enid’s sudden presence. Bianca stared Enid down and narrowed her eyes. Was she surprised? being protective? The siren’s eyes felt piercing and cold, and the curiosity slowly spreading over her face made Enid feel even more out of her depth.
As Enid slid along the bench towards Wednesday, still being eyed amusedly by Bianca across the table, Wednesday’s head turned like some possessed voodoo doll from a horror movie and pinned Enid to the bench with her emotionless brown eyes.
If Enid felt out of her depth before she was now treading water whilst being circled by hungry orcas. Achromatic, intelligent, deadly. As Wednesday restrained her from scooting closer using her gaze and silence alone, not a millimetre of her face shifted or hinted at even the slightest emotion within her. Enid tried to frantically remember how exactly she planned to flirt with a girl who had all the emotion of a guillotine?
Enid could feel the centimetres between them, but she was still physically closer to Wednesday than during any of her previous attempts. Enid could count the constellation of freckles she had never noticed before, she noticed how Wednesday’s lashes were perfectly still over her unblinking eyes and how her bangs perfectly curled to end just above those two voids of brown opal.
“Sinclair, why exactly are you here?” Bianca’s amused and mellifluous voice cut in, breaking Enid from her small-goth-induced panic attack. Enid shifted to meet Bianca’s gaze, more confused than predatory like she usually appeared. Bianca was probably wondering why the goth she usually monopolised was being approached by rainbows and sunshine personified. Answering Bianca without looking at her, Enid turned towards Wednesday again and titled her head forward so that batting her lashes slowly looked as dramatic as possible.
“I saw something cute, dark and brooding from across the quad and figured it’s a crime that someone so fun-sized didn’t have a girl to protect her.” Aspirating the rolled r in “protect” to put emphasis on the word, and giving her sweetest smirk to seal her statement with some flair. Bianca raised her eyebrows, Enid had given up hoping to elicit the blush she desired from Wednesday and just prayed instead that she wouldn’t be verbally demolished in front of Nevermore’s queen bee.
“I am not in need of protection, I keep enough weapons on my person to dispatch a sizable armed mob, so long as they are only using impromptu weaponry and have not had formal training. Also the courtyard we are occupying is a pentagon.” Wednesday responded in a clipped monotone, before returning to her salad.
“Okayy,” Enid continued, feeling somewhat off-kilter being dropped from Bianca's saccharine voice to Wednesday's monotone knell of a voice, “I also thought that the girl I saw might be interested in me showing her a good time, she seemed,” Enid paused to bite her pink bottom lip as suggestively as possible, “...lonely, like she could use some company.”
Wednesday let out a small huff before turning back to Enid with the same unreadable eyes.
“The girl is not interested, in you or in anyone else trying their luck. She is dark, eats alone, and appears unapproachable because she is dark, prefers solitude and does not like to be approached.”
Wednesday flicked her eyes to Bianca for a moment who was trying to wait discretely whilst someone else was subject to the venom she and the goth traded amicably every day.
“I have observed you Enid Sinclair,” that brought Enid out of her wincing shame for a moment because what? “I know you find a girl practically each week for your fun before swiftly moving on-”
At that Enid felt she had to defend her character even a tiny bit, forgetting her obsession with getting under Wednesday’s skin for a moment.
“Woah woah, you make it sound as though I lead people on maliciously. No one I’ve gone out with was unaware that I wasn’t looking for something long-term. It’s mutual, we both enjoy it. Are your views stuck in the Victorian era just like your aesthetic, little Miss Stoker?”
Wednesday’s face flickered for a moment into something Enid couldn’t recognise before being brought back under control.
“I am not… unfamiliar with the concept that a relationship can be short and lacking deeper emotional hooks,” her eyes flicked to Bianca once again who smirked, what the hell was that about? “whilst still being mutually beneficial and pleasant.” Wednesday looked like having the word pronounced by her own mouth tasted like biting into rotten food, causing Bianca’s smirk to deepen as she hid her face behind her hand, what was going on? "Also Bram Stoker's relationship with Walt Whitman undermines your point about my supposed views."
“I am not interested in being the next in your line of…partners.” Wednesday monotonously intoned, maintaining the same eye contact which had nailed Enid in place the moment she sat down. Wednesday moved for the first time, leaning in so that Enid could feel her cold breath on her nose when she spoke and so that the two brown orbs staring into her made her gulp and her school shirt's collar suddenly feel tight and entirely too warm. “In my observation I have also come to know that you never exhibit caution when rounding corners, walking routinely through the shelves in the library where the light doesn’t reach when you are in a hurry to return to your dorm and that you have an almost fatal allergy to licorice. Leave now before you give me a reason to use my knowledge.”
Enid jumped onto her feet in a single movement and made for the archway halfway between a walk and a run where she could see Yoko and Divina leaving to go to class. She didn’t even bother with the tray she had left next to Wednesday on her table, and she was too confused, petrified and hot to feel guilty over it.
What in the world did those looks between Wednesday and Bianca mean? And why did the implications her imagination was conjuring and the full-body sensation of being threatened by the goth make her feel entirely too… hot under her uniform?