Chapter Text
Enid Sinclair thought it would take at least a week or two of begging her roommate to come as her ‘date' (or…more like ‘mate’) for the big Sinclair Family Reunion—to her surprise…it took like five seconds.
“Wednesday, you don’t understand!” Enid howled. “If I don’t bring a mate to our family retreat at my uncle’s cabin—my mom will kill me! I can’t go by myself—I need a date.”
Enid was very proud of herself for not crying this time, and she was also prepared to bribe, bargain and beg her friend to come with her if that’s what it took. While finally hitting werewolf puberty was awesome, it came with baggage. Bringing someone to her annual family reunion would help distract her parents from trying to set her up with every single wolf in the surrounding San Francisco area. (Something Enid was totally not ready for.)
But it turned out Wednesday didn’t have to be showered with gifts or tricked into coming. In fact, she looked… kind of shy about the whole thing and she agreed to it without another word. Enid gave her a heartfelt proposal and laid out the plan she’d been working on for weeks on the table and Wednesday looked at her shoes and did not say much but nodded.
“These advances are not…unwelcome.” The girl had said, and Enid was thrilled.
When she woke up the next morning there was a vase of black flowers and a book of poems sitting on her desk addressed to her. Enid saw Thing sheepishly twirling his fingers nearby and accosted him.
Thing pointed a single finger towards Wednesday’s bed. Wednesday was still asleep.
“She went out in the dead of night and bought me flowers?” Enid marveled. “She really is method.”
Ajax had been her actual boyfriend once and he never did anything sweet like this. Actually…no one ever had bought her flowers or gifts before ever. Enid went to go wake Wednesday up (just this once,) and thank her. She jumped on her bed and Wednesday’s eyes flew open wide at the same time as she jerked up from her sleep in silent horror at the pink-clad werewolf staring down at her.
“I can’t believe you bought me flowers! That’s amazing, Wednesday!”
Wednesday’s state of frozen horror subdued (a little) when she realized who had woken her up. Enid wiggled her arms and waited until her roommate finally collected her thoughts together enough to talk.
“So gifts… are welcome?” She asked, softly.
“Very welcome.”
Her roommate looked pointedly away from her eyeline and at the flowers on the desk instead.
“My aim was not licentious flattery. I was unsure what kind to buy,” she said, shakily, “But the dahlia symbolizes attributes such as commitment and steadfastness due to their ability to bloom after many other flowers have died.”
Of course the flowers on her desk also had something to do with death but to Enid, it didn’t matter. Her pretend girlfriend seemed absolutely pained while explaining any of it but Enid couldn’t help but beam down at her. This is so cute.
I bet Wednesday will make someone a very good, ‘real’ girlfriend one day, she thought.
“What about the poems?” Enid asked, eagerly. She shook Wednesday’s arms. The girl was restrained like a mummy under all her sheets but she didn’t flinch this time at her touch, though she did look overwhelmed by it.
“A book of poems passed down from my family once written by my great-great-great-grandfather to his first true love…it’s stupid.”
“I like stupid.”
Now Wednesday did squirm.
“It’s traditionally passed down from heirs to their partners…it has been in my family for centuries. Members of the Addams family are notorious for dying for love or from heartbreak so the book has exchanged many hands.”
“So romantic.”
“So…embarrassing.” Wednesday argued back. “My family tree is addled with simpletons who died young from broken hearts.”
“So romance is kind of a big deal in the Addams family?”
Wednesday’s mouth twitched.
“Addamses transform into terrible monsters when they fall in love. They run naked in the woods and scream at the night sky in fits of madness. My grandmother always said: to love is to be cursed.”
Enid smiled. That sounded a whole lot like her own family. Enid moved back enough to let her pretend girlfriend crawl away and free herself from her bed but when she looked back, Wednesday had not actually wriggled away but was staring up at the ceiling like a lifeless corpse. Enid gave her a playful shove. “Wednesday, we have to get going.”
“I was ruminating.” She said back. Her voice had gone all quiet and still again. Enid never knew how to react when it did that.
“Are you backing out now?” Enid asked. Did Wednesday regret saying yes? It was a lot to ask. Enid’s family wasn’t as cool as Wednesday’s. The Addams were always so nice to her when she walked in on her roommate crystal ball-ing them to talk. Enid’s own parents barely acknowledged any of Enid’s friends or…well, her. Sometimes.
The girl sat up rod-straight and stared at her with a strange, fierce expression.
“I do not take back my promises.” Those dark eyes were burning into hers. Enid took a second to think. To catch her breath, and then she nodded.
“Then you’ll meet me at my house in a few weeks?”
Wednesday nodded.
***
Enid Sinclair should have known that asking Wednesday Addams to fake date her wouldn’t necessarily ‘change’ anything between them. Yes, there was the method acting gifts the day after she had asked for this pretty huge favor, but Wednesday didn’t preform some big, romantic serenade on her cello in her parent’s living room, she didn’t bring a boom box to their front lawn and she absolutely did not ask Thing to deliver her hand-written love letters that said mushy stuff like my dearest Enid, or my lycanthropic love—or even really hug her again (that had happened just the once.) And that was okay. Enid was totally cool with space. When people ask for space you give them space, of course you give them space and telling her family was enough. She said she was bringing her girlfriend and her brothers asked her about a million questions: “Someone’s dating you? Is she blind or deaf? Or both?”
“Is she a ghost?”
“Is she even real?”
“Is it that girl who tried to kill everyone at her old school?”
“Yes.”
“So you brought home a lunatic?”
After that, she wrestled her brothers until they were quiet and of course that’s when her roommate—she means girlfriend—walked in and saw them. She had Trevor wrapped in a headlock under her arm and Kyle underneath her feet. Wednesday scanned the situation, wrapped her fingers together and waited for them to stop.
Kyle’s mouth gaped. Trevor punched him in the mouth. “Egh!”
“Let me go, Enid!” Whined Trevor.
“Shut it, Trev!” Grunted back Enid.
Wednesday cleared her throat then turned to address Enid. “Do you require my assistance? I have industrial strength handcuffs and wolfsbane in my suitcase should you need it.”
Enid laughed. Her brothers fell down, terrified. (They just didn’t get Wednesday’s humor yet. And they were idiots so they probably never would.) Enid helped her youngest brother, Kyle, up and then gave Trevor a light ruffle on his head.
“Good boy.”
Trevor tackled her again.
Wednesday moved out of the way just in time not to get hit.
Her mouth went open then closed again, then her hand seemed to go out without her meaning to—to help Enid up. Enid accepted it and somehow she was holding Wednesday Addam’s hand (her brothers still grunting and growling somewhere on the carpeted floor beneath them in her living room.) Wednesday stared at her with her usual…dead, piercing stare and Enid awkwardly tried to fix up her now mussed-up hair. Her sweater was all covered in dog hair from being on the ground. She wrapped her arms behind her back and moved onto her tippy toes.
“Welcome, Wednesday!” She leaned forward and gave her the quickest of pecks on the cheek and her roommate froze. That was probably too much. Enid scrunched her nose together, apologetically.
Wednesday did not respond. She did not move or even breath. Enid felt even worse. She reached out to touch her then stopped herself and gave another apologetic smile instead.
Wednesday blinked.
Enid pointed to each of her brothers and gave Wednesday their names.
“Kyle and Trevor Sinclair, nice to meet you. I am Wednesday.”
“Where’s Thursday?”
“Is your nickname Hump Day?”
Enid grappled them again. “Apologize now, idiots, or I claw your X-box apart until it turns into Y and Z.”
“Agh! Let go psycho or we’ll tell mom!”
“Tell her what?”
“That you’re the one who destroyed the house last full moon—agh!”
“I will change the passwords to all your Roblox accounts, don’t try me!” Enid said back. Kyle groaned and punched her. Wednesday jumped up, but Enid was pretty tough and being punched in the stomach barely moved her. She threw Wednesday a look like ‘everything is okay.’
“Kids!” Said a voice. “Stop fighting now, you’re scaring off our guest.”
Enid’s dad came over and gave her a short hug. Enid pulled him back in for a longer one, and squeezed him tight until she heard her dad whisper out oomph.
He offered Wednesday one too but she shook her head, so Mr. Sinclair reached his hand over to Wednesday and she reluctantly shook that instead. “Wednesday Addams.”
“Nice to meet you, Wednesday. Enid has told us so much about you.”
“I have heard nothing about you.”
Enid’s brothers made sounds at that. Her dad nodded, shyly then he was bringing them to Enid’s room and helping them get all their stuff in.
One giant black trunk with skulls on it, and a Hello Kitty tote bag for Enid since she had a lot of stuff at her house already. Wednesday looked around the room, then turned to Enid and frowned.
“We are sharing a bed?”
Enid hadn’t thought about that. She almost always shared a bed during sleepovers or when Yoko and Divina came to visit, but Wednesday was different. That kind of stuff freaked her out, and her roommate was already doing her a huge favor at the moment. Saving her life, really.
“I can sleep on the floor!” Enid offered. She patted a set of beanie chairs she had too. “It’s comfortable enough for me. I probably will have to go out on full moons anyway you know how it is—” Enid did claws at her.
Wednesday looked at her like she had grown two heads.
“Your parents would allow your paramour to share a bedroom with you?”
“We already share a room. There’s not much they could do at this point. But it’s okay…I’ll sleep on the floor or in my brothers’ room if it bothers you. The bed is all yours.”
Her roommate said nothing but looked around the room again.
“Enid, I am an Addams.” Wednesday half-announced. “We have questionable morals and no inhibitions. If my parents knew I was here, if they knew we were going to…” the girl blinked maybe more than Enid had ever seen her blink in her life, “They would accuse me of destroying your impeccable image and… virtue. And they would be absolutely thrilled by it.”
The werewolf didn’t know what any of that meant. She tilted her head sideways at Wednesday.
“They would mistake us for hormonal teenagers.”
“I’m technically more of a hormonal ‘teen wolf’ actually,” Enid joked back.
Wednesday did not laugh. She was clearly thinking some difficult equation through in her mind right now. Enid decided to be quiet and let her—though being quiet was hard. She took a seat at the foot of her bed and waited patiently.
“Is that my visage?”
Wednesday pointed to a framed photo of her and Enid that sat on her nightstand. Enid nodded.
It was them at the Poe Cup. She had her trophy here too, but on her dresser. They weren’t supposed to take it with them but there was no way Enid was leaving without it.
Enid jumped up and picked up the framed photo and offered it to her best friend.
“I like to look at all the stuff from Nevermore when I’m stuck back here at home…makes me feel less lonely, plus, you looked so cute as a cat,” said Enid. She hadn’t really been thinking about what she said. Just said it. Wednesday was staring at her again in shock.
“Sorry. You looked spooky.” Enid lied.
She thought the girl’s brow had furrowed just the slightest.
A beat later.
“Is that a picture of me in a snood?” Wednesday asked, horrified. Enid nodded.
“And here’s a little bit of stitching that fell off of Thing once.” Enid opened up her nightstand drawer and pulled out the tiniest piece of thread. Wednesday took it from her hands gingerly, then examined it up by her eye.
“I’d recognize it anywhere.”
“I have this piece here and then,” Enid pulled up a bright pink scrapbook bigger than her head. “This is from our first year together at Nevermore!”
There was an outline of Thing’s hand traced with a purple glitter marker on top. The pale girl went through the pictures of Enid taking selfies with Xavier’s hyde art in his shed, Enid crying at the Laurel House alone in the dark, Enid and Yoko posing in front of Wednesday after she had passed out in front of her type writer.
“Is this a lock of my hair?”
“It’s Yoko’s,” Enid lied.
Enid took her book and piece of Thing back and put it somewhere it wouldn’t get lost. She liked to pick it up every time she missed Thing. Which was…all the time. She sometimes wished she could pack him up in her suitcase and take him home with her over the holiday breaks. Thing would never approve though. He needed to watch out for Wednesday, and Enid was glad he did.
“Honey! Dinner!” Yelled a voice from downstairs.
“Coming!” Enid yelled back.
But when Wednesday was about to turn around and go Enid took her arm. She took it very lightly and let it go before Wednesday could get weirded out. Her roomie peeked back over at her.
“My mom’s probably going to freak out.”
“I have a bottle of mercury in one of my boots. A couple of sips and they’ll have to rush us to the emergency room.”
“What? No. I’m just trying to prepare you. She’s the worst. She’s awful.”
“I enjoy awful.” Wednesday said.
“Not this kind.”
Her roommate shrugged.
“She’s feral.”
Wednesday gave her another, ‘I like that too,’ face so Enid let out a sigh.
“She’s going to try and…break us up.”
“I implore her to try.”
“She will. And she’ll be good at it. My mom’s always had a way of getting under my skin and I don’t want her to get under yours too.”
“As if anyone could.”
More shouts happened downstairs and they had no choice but to go down and greet her family again.
“Coming!”
***
Enid’s brothers were off on the couch playing video games and mostly ignoring them. Her dad was quietly smoothing down his sweater vest—it was the pink argyle one Enid had bought him for Christmas a year ago.
And her mom…
As her mother got closer, Enid felt like transforming and running off in the opposite direction.
“Enid, look at you. You brought a mate.” She sniffed the air with a scowl. “A human?”
Wednesday shrugged at that.
“Not a normie either though, I see. Why are you in all black, dear? You look like a silent movie. Isn’t this the girl I told you to stop being friends with at your school? The bad influence?”
“I tell her that all the time.” Wednesday agreed.
Her mom was not happy with Enid for bringing home Wednesday as her gf. Enid knew it would be like that, but she still felt herself moving in front of her friend like she might be able to shield her from her insufferable mom’s cutting words.
Wednesday didn’t seem phased though.
“Mom.” Enid warned.
Enid’s mother laughed at that. “Not a normie, but not one of the pack…Enid…I thought you’d find a mate a little more…compatible. Like us.”
Enid was quiet. Enraged to silence.
Her mother looked at her clothes with distaste and combed a few strands of blonde hair away from her ear but stopped at the scars that nearly reached her eyes.
Her mouth turned into a thin line.
“Oh honey, don’t you think it’s best you cover that up?”
Enid felt like shoving her face inside a paper bag.
She should have known her mom would say something….she felt fresh tears well up at the corner of her eyes before she could stop them. She reached out to touch the side of her face self-consciously.
“I find them… quite beautiful.” Wednesday said, nearly inaudible, beside her. Everyone in the room somehow heard and looked at the two of them anyway.
“You don’t have to say that,” Enid whispered. She felt the tips of her ears burning.
“But you were such a pretty girl before…don’t you want to look like that again?” her mom went on. Wednesday stiffened up beside her and Enid had been around her roommate long enough to know when she was about to enact violence on somebody.
Enid took her roommate’s hand in hers quickly. She squeezed it tight and it somehow held Wednesday back from going all attack dog on her mom.
“Mom—”
“Sweetie, you must tell me everything about how you wolfed out. I need all the details.”
Her mom gestured for them to come sit at the table and so they did. The dinner was mostly passive aggressive comments about her looks, her grades, her extracurriculars—and of course, the fact she had chosen a human as her mate, not a wolf. Enid stomached it all, and she spoke up for her best friend (and quickly) when her mom tried to make it sound like Wednesday was somehow…lesser than. And why? She was one of the smartest people Enid had ever met. And nice. So nice.
No one really understood how nice she was. They all thought she was scary but those people had all misunderstood—-Wednesday Addams was one of the sweetest people Enid had ever met. Wednesday may have said funny things sometimes, but she was also brave…and strong. Really brave. Brave enough to save the school when Enid would have been too scared to.
She was too good for Enid really.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to dinner with the Pfeifermans? Their son Brian is around your age…and he’s studying to become a doctor!”
“Gross, I know who Brian Pfeiefrman is.” Enid said back.
“Brian’s a ‘straight A’ student and a wolf…unlike,” Mrs. Sinclair pointed to Wednesday. Wednesday didn’t move an inch. She put her fork down, politely, and waited to be insulted.
Enid cut in.
“Mom, you don’t know anything about her. She’s—she’s better than any wolf in our pack.”
Her mom nearly choked on her piece of pot roast.
“What are you saying?”
“She saved me. She saved the school. She’s a powerful psychic…”
Her brothers snickered. Her dad took a big sip of his glass of water.
“She’s amazing… and she says she’s going to hurt people but she doesn’t really. She protects them. She’s braver than a lot of wolves I’ve met—no, Mom, l-listen.” Enid stood up and took Wednesday’s hand. Wednesday allowed herself to be yanked up, out of her chair.
“I’m not going on all those dates. I don’t like them! So you can just—you can just…shove it, Mom!”
And with that, she was stomping off with Wednesday in tow. They got back to Enid’s room and locked her door and she tried to shove the panic down because now she was kind of totally freaking out. Enid had yelled at her mom in front of everyone at dinner…Enid had been honest—Enid had spoken up for herself.
Enid was screwed!
Wednesday was not freaking out. Wednesday was Wednesday-ing. She walked over to her, quiet and just staring at Enid while she lost her cool.
“I can’t believe I told my mom to shove it. She’s going to hate me forever now!”
Silence.
“I’m probably beyond grounded I can’t believe it.” Enid wiped away some tears with the back of her sweater and the black-haired girl stared at her. “She’s going to lock me in a cage and throw away the key!”
“Would you prefer to become an orphan?”
“Wednesday!”
“Alright, not yet.” Wednesday looked thoughtful again. “We will just have to survive this the best we can, we’re stuck in a house full of shapeshifting monsters but I’ve been in worse spots.”
“God, Wednesday. I’m the worst for bringing you here. I’m a terrible friend.”
“Girlfriend.” Wednesday corrected.
“You could be home right now with your family…I’m sorry. I’m sorry they’re like this—they’re s-so, so rude!”
Her roomie took a seat beside her on the bright pink bed. She took a moment to be repulsed by it, shaking away the itch of color, but then she spoke up.
“My own family,” she stated, quietly, “Are entirely unbearable to be around. You are doing me a favor, I’ve always been interested in the socio-dynamics and political structures of lycanthropes in their natural environments, and I expect to leave here truly informed on the subject matter…plus I’m sure someone else is showing Pugsley how to use our bedroom guillotine while I’m away.”
Enid nodded. She wiped away the stubborn tears from her face. Now her skin was all blotchy on top of scarred. Humiliating. She felt her mom’s unkind words ringing in her head again. I must look like a mess…get it together, Sinclair.
“Wednesday…”
“Yes?”
Her roomie turned to look at her again. This time meeting her eyes with that intense stare again.
Enid lost her trail of thought.
She coughed and coughed. “I-I forgot what I was going to say.”
Wednesday brow moved the tiniest bit, her eyes concentrating on Enid’s face with a laser focus the werewolf would only describe as deeply unnerving and intimidating. She was staring at her face…then her scars one by one. Enid went to cover them again, like maybe she could hide them from sight but then a hand was on hers stopping her from doing so. Wednesday coughed uncomfortably and removed her hand from Enid’s.
Wednesday seemed to think something over again.
Always retreating again into those cloudy thoughts…Enid watched, captivated. Wednesday waited… reached out a hand again…snail’s pace, but this time Enid just nodded quickly and encouragingly. The dark-haired girl took in a deep breath, readying herself…then Wednesday’s finger was tracing the first scar on her cheek.
She lined the small cuts on her bottom cheek first (probably felt the heat rising from Enid’s skin, her cheeks suddenly felt hot enough to burn her roommate’s finger tips off.)
Wednesday paused and looked at her again. Careful. Like she might transform into a wolf or snarl at her.
Enid took a shaky, nervous breath and then Wednesday was back to it, gently weaving her way up, evaluating the longest scar above her forehead with her eyes first before touching. Her roomie traced it with such great care as if she could still hurt her, and it didn’t hurt, but Enid felt like she was holding her breath the entire time, until Wednesday was done tracing the last jagged line of the flesh above her eye.
Wednesday pulled her hand back but her eyes stayed glued to hers.
“They are lovely, Enid.” She said, softly.
Enid let out a nervous laugh and looked away from those dark eyes and she felt the flush creep around her cheeks… like she could jump out of her skin at any moment.
Why…why was this—
Why was she—?
“They suit you.” Wednesday whispered. “Like poison suits a scorpion, like a dagger suits a ribcage. Like the night suits a black-footed cat.”
Enid was struggling to think with her friend so near, but she at least knew one of those didn’t fit. She blinked and asked, incredulously, “Those adorable cats on the internet? I thought you didn’t like cute things.”
Wednesday gave her an affronted look. “There are things in this universe that are both cute and lethal. The black-footed cat is the world’s deadliest feline. They stay up all night tracking and killing their prey…they remind me of…”
Enid.
Enid reminded her of an adorable murder-cat. She smiled. Of course she did.
“If you were to hide them, I would be disappointed,” Wednesday said, pointedly. “They are just as beautiful as your fangs, fur, and claws. Not to say you weren’t beautiful before you found your werewolf form—” Wednesday winced. Her voice dropped low all the sudden, worried about hurting Enid’s feelings: “I think…you would be physically appealing even if you never transformed. Do you understand?”
Enid nodded, blankly.
She didn’t. She was trying to, but she was a hundred percent lost. She didn’t feel as cool as Wednesday was describing her. She felt like a disappointment.
“It would be easier if I was just the person my mother wanted me to be. I could make her happy and then I’d be happy.”
“Maybe she’s the one who should change. With a lobotomy.”
“Wednesday!”
“I’m sure werewolves make for good taxidermy projects. We could bring her to my Mom and Dad as a gift for their foyer and you could live with us.”
“As if.”
Enid hit her with her pillow. Wednesday almost fell off the bed.
“Sorry…I kinda forget my strength.”
Wednesday sat expressionless and covered in a feather or two. Enid tried to get her to pillow fight back, but Wednesday said she only played with nails in her pillow cases and she couldn’t do that to her ‘paramour.’
It was getting funny that most of their pretending seemed to be when they were alone. Enid wasn’t sure Wednesday Addams understood what ‘fake dating’ actually meant.
She was doing everything in private where no one could see it. Which was sort of against the point of the whole thing.
And in public they weren’t acting all that different. Yeah, Enid had told everyone they were dating beforehand but now that her fake gf was here they were walking around and talking to each other like they always did. They always stood like one inch apart, that wasn’t different.
Though, Enid guessed it was fine. Because no one was saying they didn’t ‘believe’ it.
Even if they weren’t kissing or holding hands and being lovey-dovey all over the place no one was accusing them of lying either.
Enid had been afraid someone would realize it was an all an act and then they’d tell everyone at school that Enid Sinclair was the kind of loser to make up a fake date.
“Maybe we should get ready for bed?” Enid hopped up. She would offer they watch something on her computer together normally, but she was exhausted.
Enid went and brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas, and came back and saw Wednesday had changed into her own pair. She still looked at the werewolf’s bed like it was one of those spike-filled coffins used to impale people to death. Enid pointedly acted like nothing was wrong. She pulled out the covers and hopped in and stared at her dazed roomie, daring her to protest.
“It’s just a bed.”
Wednesday seemed flustered. Doubtful.
“I won’t touch you. Promise.”
The girl slipped in from the other side but she stared up at the ceiling, not blinking. She looked like a black blur shrouded in multi-color quilts and pink stuffies. (“It looks like rainbows puked all over it,” her roomie had said earlier.)
Enid tugged on her sleeve.
“You can tell your mom and dad that—” Enid yawned. “Your virtue is safe here too, or whatever it is you said to me earlier.”
Wednesday huffed at her.
After a few moments.
“Thank you. I’m sorry I dragged you into this, but I’m grateful you are here.”
Enid squeezed Wednesday’s hand (for just a moment!) and let it go. The other girl said nothing but looked down at her hand for a few seconds.
Then Enid turned over on her side and closed her eyes. She thought about their last few days together, she thought that Wednesday was a pretty good fake girlfriend and someone would be very fortunate to date her one day. Probably Xavier, she reasoned. Enid Sinclair went to sleep thinking about how that normie Tyler kid was an idiot for not locking her friend down when he had the chance, and then she fell asleep—dreaming about cemetery flowers and poetry books filled with ravens and wolves.
She slept well. Feeling less like a lone wolf, for once.