Archive of Our Own

This definitely isn’t the first time Enid has caught their daughter sitting by the pots in the parlor, toying around with the spiders that took their home in the houseplants. And it probably won’t be the last.

Goody’s fist is entirely in her mouth, and she’s giggling uncontrollably as the black spiders crawl up and down her arm, almost as if they’re trying to amuse the baby girl while her mother is gone.

But that momentary bliss is all broken when her mother finally returns to the parlor and catches her.

Enid yelps, scooping Goody up and dusting off the remaining spiders that remained on after the sudden airborne state.

Wednesday would have let this play out. It was a beautiful thing to see her daughter so happy, especially over something she, too, loved.

“Goody—why?!” She says with a groan, gagging when a spider traipses onto her arm.

She flicks it away. “Disgusting,” she murmurs with an irritated shake of her head.

There’s only one person in the house who would tolerate something as gross as spiders crawling in the living room.

And while it could be Goody, she’s not the real one to blame.

Whoever it was has hell to pay: and Enid always has a sneaky suspicion Wednesday is in on it if it’s mischievous.

“Willa, I told you not to let her around the spiders anymore!” Enid calls from the hallway, where she rushes to Wednesday’s study—Goody in tow.

The estate is sprawling. It’s no easy task to go through, but when the werewolf is dedicated to finding her wife, she surely will.

Wednesday pauses on her typewriter, turning when the creak of the floorboards announced Enid’s arrival. She didn’t smile. She just blinked.

“Why would I deprive her from something she enjoys? Those spiders have always been for her enjoyment, anyway.”

Enid huffs through her nose. “Because she shouldn’t… like spiders! That’s disgusting. You’re lucky I let you keep those things in the first place,” she hisses.

Her wife’s eyes narrow. “Well, you didn’t have to. I told you I would sacrifice anything for you. Something as small as spiders won’t be a deal breaker.”

“Ugh! And what do you plan to do with them when I finally decide I want them gone?”

Their daughter just looks between the two of them, blinking. She’s seen them argue over worse things, and she picked up Wednesday’s sense of absolute stoicism at all times. Even as a baby.

“Then I’d move them to the greenhouse, where they’d continue to flourish.” Wednesday replies smoothly as she rises from her seat and pushes her chair in.

Goody reaches out for her, to which Wednesday pulls her into her arms.

Before Enid notices, she plucks off a spider crawling on Goody’s skin even after the dramatics Wednesday assumes she exhibited.

The baby isn’t bothered by any of this, so she doesn’t see why Enid should be.

She tilts her head up and places a cool kiss on her cheek. She wasn’t the affectionate type like her brother or her father, but she did just enough to prove that she loved her.

Even despite how long they’ve been married, Enid’s never going to be immune to Wednesday’s subtle charms.

Her cheeks flush just a pinch, and she immediately whips her face out of vision.

“Fine, keep them. Just… don’t let her have them,” she says with finality. “I keep telling you that. You just refuse to listen.”

Because you always think you’re right, she wants to add.

But she doesn’t.

“Well, I don’t let her have them. She likes them. She wants them. And she finds them. She’s an intelligent girl,” Wednesday murmurs affectionately. “But she’s also stubborn like her mother.”

Which one of the wives she’s referring to is undetermined, but probably Enid.

Enid gasps with a dramatic flourish. “Willa, you are going to drive me insane one of these days!”

“And you are going to distract me from my work.”

The small twitch of Enid’s eye is everything Wednesday needs to backpedal. If it were anyone else, she wouldn’t bother to try and go back on what she said.

But this isn’t anyone else: it’s Enid. And Enid has feelings, unlike Wednesday. She has to accept that.

And take it into consideration with the way she decides to speak to her.

She wouldn’t tone down her sarcasm or change her demeanor entirely, she would just… sugarcoat.

Tell what she actually thought without being entirely negative, because god knows the last thing either of them needed was negativity.

“Happily, of course,” Wednesday added, gauging her reaction.

Enid broke out into a grin before she could stop herself.

In the rare moments Wednesday said something mildly affectionate or not laced with malice and irritation, Enid ate it up.

Since Enid finally got Wednesday up from clicking on that typewriter all day, she decides now is the time to make some kind of conversation.

Wednesday’s writing time used to be just an hour or two a day, but now that she’s officially signed by a publisher who has deadlines, she spends most of her time cooped up in that study of hers.

And Enid bustles around the house with the baby girl, who never objects to spending time with her mother, no matter what she’s doing.

Goody is an easy baby, she barely cries, and Enid says that comes all from Wednesday. She’s never seen Wednesday cry, even at their wedding and afterward. She was the perfect picture of nonchalance.

“How did you sleep?” Enid asks warmly.

“Fine,” Wednesday replies.

She huffs through her nose. “I haven’t seen you since morning. The least you can do is tell me something other than fine.”

Her wife tilts her head.

“I’m tired of begging you for emotion. For a sign that you care about me. You only seem to enjoy the presence of the baby,” she hisses.

Wednesday blinks. “I do enjoy your presence. And the baby’s, too. I’m sorry if I haven’t made that crystal clear, but I didn’t marry you because I didn’t care about you.”

“Then don’t act like you don’t care.”

She furrows her brows, and takes a step forward. Wednesday’s about a head shorter than her wife, but it doesn’t stop her from being bold.

“That’s just who I am. And you’ve known this. Please don’t act like I’m ignoring you or trying to hurt you, because I’m not,” she says lightly.

As much as she doesn’t want to admit it, Wednesday is slowly breaking up at the thought of Enid being upset with her.

Even though there always seems to be something Enid is upset about. She’s a drama queen, but she’s usually rightful in her emotion.

And the only reason she even came down the hall to talk to Wednesday was so she could reprimand her for the whole spiel of Goody playing with spiders.

Because she was upset.

Wednesday didn’t want to be the reason she was upset.

“Well you are. Even if you aren’t trying,” Enid looks away.

Wednesday shifts the still quiet baby to her other arm, balancing her carefully before using her hand to grab her wife’s jaw and bring Enid’s attention back to her.

“Enid, don’t do that. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

She thought she made it obvious with as much as she showed slight improvement in her sarcasm and her tone, but clearly not. She was still doing something wrong.

And if she was being honest, she would do almost anything to give Enid whatever she wanted from her.

But Enid wouldn’t voice what she really wanted: she’d just pretend like the question wasn’t at hand. Or she’d say Wednesday was perfect, even when she was frustrated with something she was doing.

It was tiring, for people to pretend that you did no wrong even when they got annoyed with you constantly.

Stiffly, she nodded. “You just don’t… show it.”

The baby whines between them, clearly not enjoying the tension between her mother’s. Their petty little arguments about things like the baby being around spiders weren’t like this one.

Enid takes Goody before Wednesday can move to begin comforting her.

She turns around and shuffles down the steps without another word, leaving the space around Wednesday cold. Surrounded by herself.