Chapter Text
Loath as she was to admit it, having a phone was quite practical. Wednesday still stays off social media, primarily, aside from the TikTok account Enid forced her to make. She refused to have a profile picture, and the username wasn’t something easily traceable. Enid said it made her look like a “bot,” which was just fine by her.
She uses it almost exclusively to further her education into a variety of macabre things, such as taxidermy. Kinbott apparently had an account before she died, and while Wednesday won’t admit it, she finds it nice to have some connection to the woman.
Really, the largest benefit of having a mobile device is for its research and musical capabilities. While she always preferred the needle of a record player to vinyl rings, the small device had proved itself as a worthy and portable substitute. Sometimes Wednesday even jots down notes for her novel, which she references from at a later date when she feels stuck for ideas.
She purchases headphones over the break. They’re noise-canceling ones, and she has to admit that technology really has come a long way. It’s not quite noise-cancelling, but it is proficient in noise-dampening and that’s just as useful, though she has enough space at home that if she craves silence, it isn’t difficult to find.
That isn’t true of Nevermore, of course, and the headphones truly prove their worth the first day back at school. Enid is on some kind of K-Pop kick mixed with the most grating electronica, and Wednesday would likely have driven a screwdriver through her skull without the ability to block out some of that sound.
She would almost admire Enid’s sadism at subjecting her roommate to such ghastly noises if it weren’t for the fact that she genuinely likes that wretched garbage.
Wednesday sticks to her staples, and while it’s slightly more difficult to write with the melodies of Apocalyptica’s rendition of Nothing Else Matters in her ear, it isn’t nearly as torturous as Enid blasting BLACKPINK from her side on a stereo.
The fact that Wednesday even knows the band’s name displeases her.
They carry on like that for some time, in relative peace. Enid largely respects Wednesday’s boundaries and need for space, and with the headphones, there’s little cause for conflict over musical taste. If she has to remove them for any reason she catches snippets of Enid’s playlists, but it’s brief enough to be survivable. Tolerable, even.
Until the headphones go missing, that is.
They live on the top-right-most corner of her bed frame, close to the wall, and she hangs them there every night before she falls asleep. And she ensures that she charges them, because Wednesday has found that while she can’t control the entire world, she can control her experience of it slightly more, and she prefers having access to that sound dampening should she feel uncomfortable.
It doesn’t seem like something Enid would do, taking her things and hiding them. She might give points for devious intent if it was Enid, but when she confronts the other girl, she is met with confusion and offense at the suggestion Enid would even think of touching her things.
So then… where have they gone?
It frustrates her to no end. She’s irritated over the fact of them vanishing in general, of course, but more disconcerting is the way it forces her to engage with the world again. Spring is bringing color back to the world, and that’s already far too much for her to handle most days. Combining it with the incessant shrillness and constant drone of student chatter makes for a wholly unpleasant experience, and much as she hates to admit it, Wednesday has grown to rely on her ability to block out the noise.
She makes it through one night of Enid’s bouncy pop without slamming her head through a wall, and in the morning wakes to the sound of some version of EDM blasting through her cranium. Enid’s off-key singing from the bathroom doesn’t help matters, and Wednesday grits her teeth the entire time as she tromps over to the stereo to shut it off.
Enid’s singing halts abruptly, and when she pops her head out of the bathroom, there’s a toothbrush hanging from her lip.
Wednesday ignores the way her gaze settles on the strip of creamy skin between Enid’s cropped sleep tank and sweatpants.
“Wednesday,” Enid whines, jutting her lower lip out like a petulant child. “You know I hate silence!”
“Perhaps you should consider making use of your earbuds, then,” Wednesday bites back. She’s awake a full half hour earlier than she’d like to be, and disruptions in her schedule are never appreciated. Nor is the full pout Enid has now donned, puppy-eyes included.
“I can’t use those while I’m showering, though! They’d get wet.”
“Waterproof ones exist.”
Enid crosses her arms and leans against the door frame. “How about this,” she starts, and Wednesday has a terrible feeling she’s about to suggest some compromise. “We play something I like, then something you like. At least til you find your headphones.”
She wants to say no. To tell Enid to exercise some level of control and use her own headphones, the way that Wednesday has been, and let her enjoy some semblance of peace and quiet. But Enid is being nice, and Wednesday has been trying to avoid upsetting her enough to send her flying from their room again. She’s grown used to –and even fond of—Enid’s presence.
Even when it comes with this racket.
Wednesday nods, a tiny little incline that would be nearly imperceptible to anyone else, but Enid sees it and beams at her. It’s slightly superior to the current setup, and she does somewhat miss hearing her own music, which she refuses to play aloud from her phone’s speakers. The one time she had tried, the distortion of it made her want to chuck the device into the nearest wall.
She turns, and is about to retrieve her own phone when Enid calls her back. “Just make a playlist on mine!” she chirps, and Wednesday just manages to catch Enid’s phone as she tosses it to her roommate.
It’s disgustingly decorative. The case is bright pink with sparkles, and there is a ridiculous little cat charm hanging from the corner of it. It hardly looks protective with its flimsy silicone, and her judgement appears to be accurate based on the crack that spider-webs out from the top corner.
It’s also locked.
“You didn’t unlock it.”
Enid doesn’t even look at her before she says, “Oh, the password is stormcloud, no spaces.”
Wednesday enters the code, and it unlocks for her. For a moment, she simply stares at it. Does Enid not understand how much sensitive information these little devices contain? Wednesday could find out information about her that she would never willingly tell –if there was any—or start rumors, text people false things about her. She could torment Enid in so many ways just by having access to her phone.
Wednesday does none of those things, of course. She navigates Enid’s hundreds of apps and games to finally pull up Spotify, and the sheer amount of playlists Enid has make her curl her lip in disgust. How does she have so many? What could possibly need a playlist called storms and pink things? She leaves them alone, navigates to the search bar, names a playlist simply “Wednesday” and adds a few songs to it.
She sets it on the sink when she’s finished, and Enid gestures at it. “Put something on. We’ll switch off.”
And they do, for a while. Enid takes over switching songs after the fourth because Wednesday refuses to walk over every three minutes to select a new one, but they end up with an easy mix. And forced to listen to Enid’s music, Wednesday notices something new.
It’s still just as horrible and it makes her ears bleed (she wishes it was literally, because then maybe she could drown the sound out with blood, but alas) but there is something different in the songs. She isn’t sure what it is at first, but finally Enid puts on what was very clearly a cover of a song that she loved.
It’s also leagues… mushier… than the original.
Enid hums along under her breath, and Wednesday pauses in pulling her socks up to analyze the lyrics. The voice is still feminine, but instead of Romeo take me it says Baby just take me. It’s a small change, but significant enough to alter the song.
Wednesday has heard Love Story blasting through the stereo enough times that it’s nearly drilled into her skull, much to her chagrin, and this is definitely not how it goes.
Interesting.
The playlist continues with Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters, and Wednesday relishes the break in sappiness.
Enid finishes the last touches of her makeup just as the song ends, and Wednesday watches her pop her lips to fully incorporate the color on them before she turns to Wednesday with that too-bright, too-chipper smile.
“See? Not so bad, right?”
Wednesday slips her other shoe on and arches a brow. “If I didn’t know you genuinely like that cacophonous rubbish, I would assume you’re trying to give me a lobotomy without touching me.” Enid grimaces, and Wednesday pauses, before adding, “However, I did appreciate the ability to hear my music as ambient noise.”
It makes Enid smile, and Wednesday ignores the sensation of a thousand spiders crawling around her entrails. “Any luck with the headphones? Maybe Thing saw them?”
There’s an insistent tap on the floorboards, and when Wednesday glances over, Thing is denying any involvement in the missing item. She doesn’t really think it’s him, anyway.
Thing knows better than to tamper with her possessions.
Classes are uneventful, thankfully, but Wednesday notes her hair-trigger annoyance at any and all things around her. The greenhouse has been closed down following Thornhill’s arrest, which gives her an empty bock during the day. She uses the time to retreat to her room and search for her headphones again, hoping they might have shown up mysteriously while she was out.
They haven’t, and she attends her next class with increased annoyance.
Xavier sits far too close, and when his hand inches too close, she drives a knife into the desk just beside it. He yanks it back and grumbles something –she can’t tell if it’s an apology or a comeback—but scoots to the other end of the desk and stays there.
It’s possible that she overreacted, but Wednesday is in no mood to entertain socializing.
She’s drained by the time she returns from class. Enid is already back, changed into a set of shorts and a sleep tank for comfort, and Wednesday eyes her for a moment. She will never understand people who can tolerate the ever-changing texture of things against their skin. Bare skin feels air, and fabric, and who knows what else. Truly horrifying.
Enid nearly falls off her bed as she lunges toward her nightstand to slam one hand onto the stereo, fails to shut it off the first time, and scratches at it again before succeeding. The room falls quiet, Enid staring at her with a hand still on the stereo, and Wednesday staring back in utter confusion.
Enid’s claws are out.
“I don’t believe a serial killer will care about your horrendous taste, Enid.”
Enid usually has some kind of reply, but she’s silent. Wednesday hears the scratch of her claws against the plastic, and the creak in her bed frame as she retreats into it again, but she remains silent.
It takes three minutes for it to bother Wednesday. She likes silence and she likes solitude, but those words have never fit into the same sentence as Enid’s name, and she doesn’t like it now. She doesn’t know how to address it, nor does she want to.
But the thought distracts from her writing, and she finally glances over her shoulder. Enid is doing a very poor job of pretending to read, and she starts when Wednesday speaks. “I thought you hate silence.”
She can hear Enid’s exhale from where she sits, and she can see from the corner of her eye the way Enid sets her book down and fidgets with her hands. She still says nothing, and Wednesday turns back to her typewriter. Something feels… off, with Enid, and she doesn’t have nearly enough clues to parse what it could be. She doesn’t even want to care, but damn it, the werewolf had crawled into her brain and heart and made a nest of the shredded blackness in it that Wednesday had so carefully cultivated.
When Enid puts music back on, it’s not her own. It’s Wednesday’s playlist.
After the fourth song in a row that is just Wednesday’s music, she turns again. It should be soothing.
It’s not.
Enid is silent the rest of the night, and Wednesday finds it unsettling enough that she ends her writing session early.
When she tucks into bed, hands crossed over her chest, Enid still has her playlist on repeat.