Chapter Text
A persistent ray of sunshine pulls her eyes open, and the first thing Wednesday sees before the piercing headache – a mix of hangover pain and nicotine craving – squeezes them shut again are golden, blue and pink curls, tangled on top of her pillow like a nest.
She takes it as an opportunity, as if the universe had been so kind as to give her another chance to at least wake up properly before it starts fucking with her like it seems to love doing on Sunday mornings. Those were the days her parents had ridiculous ideas such as family picnics, adventurous last-minute trips and activities that made them all smiles all day – Pugsley would get to the point of wagging an imaginary tail sometimes – and took them to crowded places. Sunday mornings seemed to make the sun shine brighter, and people out there always looked like extras in a godawful romantic movie, all happy and tanned and active. She hated these days. Mondays. Sweet, cold, grumpy Mondays. Those were the best days.
Apart from Wednesdays, of course.
She rolls over, away from the person next to her, and sits up on the bed, coming out naked from under the covers (like she suspected she would) to light up a cigarette, pulled from the pack on her nightstand. She takes in two long drags and open her eyes again, looking down at her body. It looks like she has been mowed by a bear or some other violent creature, although the pattern of the cuts and bites and scratches – her inner thighs, her stomach, her breasts – and the fact that she doesn’t have her clothes on both suggest she wasn’t attacked: far from that, she probably had one hell of a fun night. However, it becomes a terrifying thought once she turns her face to look at the sleeping body next to her on this specific Sunday morning.
Enid is sound asleep, endless inches of creamy skin peaking from under the sheets wrapped around her (she has always been an agitated sleeper), fists balled up next to her face like a child. Wednesday takes another long drag, and stands up from the bed. Closely analyzing the events of last night, something like this was bound to happen, she thinks. But why is it always Sunday mornings that bring the worst things to life?
“Enid, wake up.” Wednesday holds the cigarette between her teeth and steps into some underwear she finds thrown on the floor. Enid stretches herself, growling, but doesn’t open her eyes. “wake up."
She opens her eyes, and immediately breaths in a gasp of horror, sitting up on the bed with her hand over her mouth, look at a half-naked, covered in scratches Wednesday holding up a lit cigarette.
“Oh, my God.” She quickly accesses all the things Wednesday noticed before – how bruised Wednesday is, how she doesn’t have her clothes on, how she is not in her own bed to begin with – before turning back to Wednesday “this is totally fucked up.”
“For the first time, I very much agree with your assessment of the situation.”
“I feel like throwing up…” Enid’s still covering her mouth, leaning forward like last night’s dinner asking permission to run back up her throat, and Wednesday cocks an eyebrow.
“For someone who enjoys sexual jokes as much as you do, it’s surprising how disgusted you are by the real thing.” She takes in the last drag, and smashes the cigarette down on the coffin-shaped ashtray by her bed.
“No, it’s not that, it’s… that last bottle was a mistake.” She pulls the covers over her body and looks around, then at Wednesday, and they both seem to agree it was a mistake in more ways than one.
They have a moment of silence, Enid’s eyes blinking nervously but glued to Wednesday’s black, frozen ones. It’s sharing that look – like they’re having a mental conversation – that they both seem to come to the realization of what that awkward situation really means, and Enid’s face gains a deep shade of pink around the cheeks. Wednesday, however, was never one to be bothered by nudity – even if its her own. She’s still standing up next to the bed, holding her wrist in front of her body, and strongly feeling like lighting up another cigarette. She shuffles through her mind, through foggy memories of just another Saturday night at home, but fails to catch even a glimpse of anything after they started playing one of Enid’s stupid drinking games.
“I hate to ask you this” she begins, looking away because the simplest flaw in her mind – unlike nudity – did make her extremely embarrassed “but do you remember anything?”
Enid’s eyes shoot to the side, as if it had only occurred to her that she should be trying desperately to think about it, but – to her horror – she can’t find a single memory after opening that last bottle of wine. “I don’t even remember going to sleep. Or… not… going to sleep? Jesus.” She pulls her knees closer and lets her head fall on them, and Wednesday frowns, frustrated.
Always fucking Sunday mornings.
Wednesday’s parents were some of the biggest wine enthusiasts she knew. The Addams mansion had an enormous cellar, countless bottles of the finest beverages lining up through the whole room, where Wednesday would sneak in as a kid and set mock wine tastings with the sole purpose of seeing how drunk she could get Pugsley before he would throw up. It was one of her favorite games as a child. Once she got old enough – maybe 10 or 11, she can’t remember properly – her parents taught her everything about wine. The right combinations, what the scents and tastes could tell you about what you’re drinking, and specially how to pick the best bottles, a precious knowledge she would apply at any given opportunity, and had every intention to do so when she followed Enid into the deli near their apartment in a mission to return home with a few bottles of wine.
Yet here she is, torn between two different mediocre brands that don’t give her any useful information apart from their names and alcohol percentages. She sighs.
“This is fucking ridiculous.” She says after minutes of silence, and Enid sighs, loudly, her shoulders dropping in a dramatic way that might make someone watching from the outside think she’s actually upset.
“Just pick the bottle, it’s been almost 10 minutes.” She runs her fingers through a few bottles of Tequila on the shelf in front of her. “You’re already making me miss a party tonight.”
“Well, I thought my birthday was supposed to be a special day, when all my desires and demands are met to keep me happy and convince me to love through yet another year of human misery.” Wednesday pulls a bottle from the shelf, picking blindly between her pathetic options, and Enid breathes a sigh of relief. “At least that’s what you said.”
“I know. How awesome am I?” Enid pulls two more bottles with the same label from the shelf, and walks behind Wednesday to the cashier.
“Bearable, at most.” Wednesday looks back at Enid while she pulls her card from her wallet and hands it to the man behind the counter, and Enid beams at her, like she has just been called amazing.
“You know we are still having fun tonight, right?” Enid shoves the bottles in her bag (a reusable bag with her name hand-painted on it that – to Wednesday’s horror – she would bring along every time they needed to buy something). “Like, at least a movie, a game or something. I’m not letting you sit, drink and play music out of things that were invented before Bluetooth.”
“You have absolutely no taste. But I’ll compromise.” They fall into the night air when they leave the deli, and Wednesday comers her mouth with one hand to light a cigarette with the other – a habit she picked up still in her teenage years, but college freed her from having to avoid her mother at home and teachers at school all the time.
If high school for outcasts was all about Nevermore, every single Nevermore student would get to the end of school dreaming about a Lenore University acceptance letter. Wednesday, unfortunately, was no different. After all those years at Nevermore, a normie college just sounded so goddamn boring, and a school for outcasts offered her way too much reading material to give up on that. So, she applied to Lenore, and conveniently convinced the Addams family to purchase a nice two-bedroom apartment off campus, instead of a much cheaper one with just one bedroom, right around the time Enid told her that she had also gotten accepted, but money might be problem. Wednesday couldn’t risk having to go through everything it took to tolerate the presence of a new roommate all over again. She did the math, and decided Enid was necessary, so she would come along.
Something she didn’t decide, couldn’t predict, let alone control, was when things with Enid started becoming… peculiar. It started as playful banter, in quick, sarcastic back-and-forth dialogues they would have around the apartment, both making great advancements in the journey it has been since high school to adjust to each other’s sense of humor. Actually – now that she thinks about it – it was Enid who started it, with her infuriating ‘honey, I’m home!” every time she would enter the apartment, joking that Wednesday was like a 50’s housewife, locked inside waiting for her all night. Soon, that particular inside banter started evolving: Wednesday was now her housewife, with jokes being exchanged between both of them about their supposed marriage.
However, Wednesday can’t remember exactly when it was that things started getting weirder. Jokes were becoming way too graphic – way too funded in truth, as well –, exchanged and stolen glances seemed to last just a little too much, way longer than they did before, and Wednesday found herself having to snap out of intrusive, horrifying thoughts more often than not. She started paying attention to Enid, noticing things she had never noticed before, like the way she licked her canines when she was thinking too much – a newly acquired habit –, the way her hips moved when she would do yoga in their living room (the only room in the apartment that received proper sunlight, she argued, as if Wednesday hadn’t picked that floor of the building precisely because of that), or even little changes in her physique, like how her back muscles became stronger and visible when she went through that gym phase.
And it all sparked way more interest in her than it normally would.
Now, as weird as it could possibly get, it was important to her that things did not get confusing. Wednesday had pledged to never distract herself with romantic debauchery again after the Tyler Disaster. But the pleasures of the flesh were something she didn’t see a point in depriving herself from, specially when she found out she had something of a natural talent for it. Her father always told her she was a natural hunter when they would go shooting, and finding and catching sexual partners was nothing but a different type of hunt. She also found it enticing how sex would sometimes feel like electroshock therapy, and funny how a lot of her torture tools would come in handy in the bedroom. But above all, what she liked the most was how most people she knew, that did everything to run away from their dark traits, or at least disguise them in public, wouldn’t shy away from whips and chains and the pleasure that could sometimes be found in pain – something she knew like the back of her hand. It was something that made other people almost like her, and made her feel almost normal.
‘Almost’ being the key-word.
“Compromising is the least you can do. I had a very good shot at Bryan Campbell tonight.” Enid swings her bag over her shoulder as they walk back to their apartment, just a few streets away from the deli. Wednesday takes a long drag and notices, when the smoke hits Enid’s face, that she doesn’t crinkle her sensitive nose as much as she did when Wednesday first started smoking. Just one of the many things they had gotten used to around each other, like two creatures bound in a Darwinian way to evolve and adapt to one another.
“The freshman?” Enid nods in her peripheral vision while she fishes in her pockets for her keys. “Hm. I’ve done him. He surely does not live up to his fame, or his good looks.”
Enid widens her eyes, her jaw dropping. “Oh my God, you hooked up with Bryan?” Wednesday simply blows smoke in her direction, a silent confirmation. “Okay, why didn’t I know that?”
“You did, for a while now. Who did you think was the siren football player from two weeks ago?”
Enid shrugs. “I don’t know. Someone else?”
“He’s the only siren in the team, dummy. How come you don’t know that, that’s the question you should be asking.” Wednesday takes in the last drag from her cigarette, and tosses it on the sidewalk in front of their building. “Besides, I didn’t know you were interested in him. I would have warned you sooner.”
“Well, at least you saved me from a wasted night, I guess.” Enid picks up the cigarette, puts it out and throws it in the trashcan by the sidewalk before following Wednesday up the front stairs.
“I guess I did. How awesome am I?” she smirks, and Enid rolls her eyes. It’s only Saturday, but she can already tell it’s going to be a pure and simple Wednesday night.
Their building was probably one of the oldest buildings in town – perhaps even the oldest – but straight out of Nevermore, Enid didn’t mind having all that old stuff around. Wednesday gave her plenty of decoration rights in common areas, and the ancient elevator was always working, so there wasn’t much to complain about. She always imagined herself living in the dorms, always surrounded by noise, new people and college chaos, but that apartment felt so much like home (it had old windows and brick walls and the sound of Wednesday’s typewriter) that she never regretted accepting moving in there. Despite being one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for her – even with Wednesday repeatedly denying that the extra bedroom was intentional – it was just one of those things Wednesday was right about.
At home, despite Enid’s promise at the deli, they down the first bottle drinking directly from it to the sound of Wednesday’s record player, trying to get on with a clumsy game of chess in her black and white marble board (‘that’s not what I had in mind when I said we should play a game’ Enid would say when she lost her third piece in a row) while they wait for a pizza. The second bottle washes down said pizza, properly devoured while they watch the end of a singing competition Enid loves watching in the rare occasions when she’s at home on a Saturday night. Once the show ends and they open the third bottle, Wednesday tries getting Enid to learn how to properly sharpen a pocket knife, but it lasts all of 5 minutes before she gives up and stands up. It was often fun having to come up with things to do together – it required a lot of creativity and sharing of ideas, which Wednesday had become far better at – but Enid was agitated, drunk, and she wanted to entertain herself with more conventional things.
“Ok, enough of this. How about never have I ever? That’s a good party game.” Enid beams at her brilliant idea, but Wednesday’s face scrunches once she hears the words ‘party’ and ‘game’. There was no point in arguing though, she knew that, so she simply pulls a cigarette from the pack and lights it up, bracing herself. “I’ll start. Never have I ever… drunk texted my ex.”
Wednesday cocks an eyebrow, leaning back on the couch. “Here’s what I don’t get about the point of this game. Not only I already know you have drunk-texted a couple of exes before, mostly because I have seen it happen.” Enid rolls her eyes and sits back on the soft, cream-colored carpet, getting comfortable for one of those good old Wednesday lectures “but also you already know that it is unlikely that I have drunk-texted my pseudo-ex before, for the very good reasons that A, I don’t use phones and B, that fucker is dead.”
Enid presses her lips together. “You couldn’t just say ‘pass’, could you?” she takes a large swing from the bottle, and hands it over to Wednesday. “Your turn.”
Wednesday takes a drag from her cigarette “I have never-”
“No! Absolutely not!” Enid waves her arms around, outraged. “You have to start it the right way. Those are the rules, Addams.”
Wednesday sighs, smoke coming out of her nose. “Fuck… fine.” She thinks for a second. “Never have I ever caused someone a third-degree burn.”
“Come on, who has ever done that?” Enid frowns, but her eyes roll back when Wednesday takes a huge gulp of wine, and a long drag from her cigarette like she’s trying to remind Enid she almost always has something burning in her hand. “Yeah, my bad. I should’ve known. Now, let me see…” she holds her chin like she’s thinking deeply, an adorable little expression taking over her face and making Wednesday almost smile. “Never have I ever went skinny dipping.”
Neither of them drink, and Wednesday cocks an eyebrow. “I’m surprised. That certainly sounds like something you would talk someone into doing.”
“Never found a clean enough pool.” Enid answers, and Wednesday chuckles. “You.”
She takes in a deep breath, like saying the typical phrase of the game is a physical effort, and takes the last drag from her cigarette before smashing it into the ashtray on the coffee table. “Never have I ever spend a night in jail.”
“What about that time you got caught robbing a grave?”
“First of all, I wasn’t robbing a grave, I was re-appropriating a beautiful piece of artwork." she answers, a serious expression on her face, talking about the time a police car drove by while she was trying to take home a souvenir – a beautiful sculpture of a rose made in stone – from a nearby cemetery she used to jog in. “and I didn’t spend the night in jail, I spend the afternoon. My father’s lawyer is as quick as his sword play.”
“Ok, fair enough.” Enid’s smile is wide – this story always seems to cheer her up – and it distracts her just enough for the next question to come quickly, and unpretentiously to her mind. “Never have I ever kissed another girl before.”
Without hesitation, Wednesday takes a quick and large swing from the bottle, swallowing the wine in just one gulp, and Enid’s smile vanishes just as fast. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“What?” Enid stands up in a single move, hands on her hips like Wednesday just confessed to murder. “Have you kissed a girl before?”
Wednesday’s eyebrow shoots up “it surely wasn’t just a kiss, but yes, I have.”
“This is insane! We don’t keep secrets.” She throws her hands up in disbelief, and Wednesday narrows her eyes. “Why am I just hearing about it?”
“I’m… discreet, I guess.” Wednesday answers, and the worst thing is, she’s being honest. She doesn’t know if it’s the fear she fairly strikes in some people, but no one will say a thing about her private life or her secrets unless they’re looking for some trouble with her. Surprisingly, some people actually do, but college has been gentle with her so far.
“We’re not talking about discretion right now, you’re my best friend!” Enid raises her voice, something she only does when something really gets to her, and it surprises Wednesday that a small detail such a sexual partner’s gender could be such a big deal in this situation.
Unless she’s missing something.
“Why are you being weird about it?” Wednesday stands up to match her height, taking a sip from the bottle of wine in her hand, and Enid seems to come to her senses once they’re on the same eye-level.
“I’m not, it’s just…” she lowers her voice, realizing she is perhaps making an unnecessary fuss, and reaches for the bottle Wednesday holds “why didn’t you tell me?”
“We don’t exactly give full reports on people we kiss to each other.”
“Yeah, I know you don’t, but I like to hear about it.” Both her eyebrows are raised as she goes from her angry face to her sad, puppy-eyed face that makes Wednesday want to return her to the adoption shelter. “And I’ve always asked you about it, and you never mentioned any girl.”
“I’ve answered all of your questions about my sexual life with way more honesty than I like to admit.” Wednesday sits back down, no longer needing to confront Enid. “And you have never asked for a gender.”
“You… actually have a very good point” Enid also sits back down on the carpet, bottle on her lap, all that feeling of anger and betrayal giving room to a kind of embarrassment she was used to feeling with she did what her mother loved to call ‘a storm in a teacup’. “After Tyler, I just assumed, I guess. Am I the lamest best friend in the world?”
Wednesday chuckles “Certainly not.” And just like that, Enid’s smile is back on her face. “How about you? Will you drink or not?”
She lowers her eyes, cheeks lightly pink. “I’m not…”
Wednesday pulls another cigarette from the pack, and lights it up, feeding the insatiable nicotine monster that wakes up inside of her when she’s drinking. “Yes, I know you won’t, because you mention so many things about the people you sleep with, their gender surely wouldn’t be left behind.”
Enid rolls her eyes. “Stop it.”
Wednesday smiles, smoke coming out from between her teeth, and thinks about how it is such a nice feeling the way alcohol softens her face muscles, makes them more susceptible to their own will. They would pull up a smile, and she’d sometimes forget to push them back down, and it always made Enid smile too. ‘I love it when you show weakness, Addams’ was something she would often say when Wednesday smiled in the past few months, a cheeky grin on her own face. Deep down, she hates proving Enid right, but after this perfect blank space in the conversation, she allows herself – and blames it on the shitty wine and sexual talk – to show weakness.
And fucking flirt with Enid already.
“And why’s that, miss Sinclar?” she cocks an eyebrow, Enid’s attention back to her, face tensed up like she’s about to be interrogated. “Oh, come on. We don’t keep secrets from each other. Or at least that what you said.” Enid drinks from the bottle, and Wednesday smirks, because she knows how much it drives Enid crazy when she uses her own words against her. “Is the temptation just absent?”
“No, it’s pretty much here…” Enid crosses her legs under her body, kneeling on the carpet. “I guess I… I never figured out if I wanted to kiss girls in general, or… you know… specific ones.”
Wednesday frowns, her eyes shooting to the side then back to Enid in a false display of oblivion. “Specific? How?”
The bait’s out, and somehow, she knows Enid will bite it.
“Well… a girl, specifically…” her cheeks go back to the reddish tone they had before, and Wednesday can almost smell her embarrassment, as well as her adrenaline levels getting higher.
Oh flirting – it was a different type of torture than the ones she used to play with as a kid, one Wednesday delighted herself even more in inflicting upon people she wanted (wanted, like prey). She would almost get a different, metallic taste in her mouth when she realized she was making someone nervous – just because they wanted her too – and the more she exercised her skills, the more brilliant she became at it, like at any other type of torture. She was a natural, her father kept telling her. And father was always right.
“Look who’s full of secrets. How come you never told me who this girl was?” she takes a drag from her cigarette, and Enid holds back a laugh.
“Oh, come on!” she shoots her head back, closing her eyes, cheeks on fire. “You’re doing it on purpose.”
“Of course I am” Wednesday leans forward, her forearms on her knees, and blows smoke in Enid’s direction, making her open her eyes to find Wednesday face to face to her. “Tell me, puppy, who’s your special girl?” she tilts her head to the side, eyes piercing into Enid’s own in a way that makes her whole body shiver. “Does Enid Sinclair, the rainbow wolf, wants to kiss her creepy roommate?”
Enid looks at her with wide eyes, smiling like she can’t believe they are really being this predictable. “I mean, how cliché is that?”
"Pretty fucking cliché" Wednesday chuckles, taking the last drag from her cigarette before putting it away “but not enough to keep me from admitting…” she curls her fingers around the collar of Enid’s shirt, pulling her closer, and she can almost hear it when Enid swallows dry with nervousness “… it may be a reciprocal feeling.” Enid lets go of the bottle, leaning back as Wednesday leans forward, slowly kneeling down on the carpet in front of her. “What do you say we give it a try?”
Enid doesn’t answer – she doesn’t have to – and Wednesday pulls her by her collar until her face is inches away from hers. She bites down on Enid’s bottom lip, sucking on it, and Enid gasps, closing her eyes, pulling Wednesday by her arms to the floor with her, falling on top of pillows spread on the carpet. Wednesday’s tongue slowly traces Enid’s lips, tasting them, as Enid wraps her arms around Wednesday’s neck, patiently waiting for a proper kiss, breathing heavily and loudly, stomach turning with anticipation, but Wednesday loves a slow kill. Her nails scratch Enid’s bare stomach under her t-shirt, slowly reaching out for her breasts – as she allows Enid to kiss her and devour her mouth with a ferocity fit for a fur – but as soon as she grabs them, the sound Enid’s nails make when they suddenly shoot up takes them both by surprise, and Wednesday’s reflexes have her sitting up on Enid’s stomach in a fraction of a second.
Her wide eyes inspect Enid’s sharp, long nails as she takes one of her hands in her own. “Did you bring these for me?” Wednesday smiles, a shiny, evil smile Enid has only seen in her most competitive – or creepy – moments. “Is that my birthday gift?”
“They do this when I’m… enjoying myself?” Enid sits up, Wednesday on her lap, and watches her bring her fingers to her mouth, and lick one of her nails, like she’s testing how sharp they are. By the way her smile widens, she is more than satisfied with what she finds out.
“And do they stay out all the time?”
“Yeah…” she mumbles, still uncertain despite Wednesday’s clear expression of amusement. In response, Wednesday takes one of Enid’s fingers, presses the long nail firmly to her own throat and uses it to scratch a line from side to side of her neck.
“Nice.” She says, and Enid smiles, surprised by Wednesday’s dark excitement. “Fucking nice.” She grabs Enid by the throat, and they’re back on the carpet again.