Chapter Text
The Fleurs du mal library of Baudelaire University was silent but for the scratching of pens on paper and the occasional hushed whisper. Wednesday’s eyes were cast down to the mock exam in front of her, the words on the page blurring into one as she answered a question on telling the time of death based on lividity. It was not burnout from the relentless hours of study in the build-up to finals that caused her to gradually slow to a halt; rather, it was the dread that snaked up her spine and wrapped itself tightly around her throat. The finals looming over her in the next couple of weeks didn’t phase her, as she had never been one to struggle with studies, and university had been no different. Most of the mock exams she had completed were only a few marks away from perfect, so she felt confident in her ability to graduate; it was that which lay beyond that caused her mind to become clouded with worry.
Her gaze flicked to the blonde sitting next to her, whose blue eyes were glued to her own paper as she absentmindedly chewed at the end of her sparkly pink pen, her head subtly nodding along to whatever music played from her earphones. The last three years had been a period of relative calm for the pair, especially when compared to those prior. Since they’d moved to Baudelaire to continue their studies, there had been no hydes, no murders and no visions of doom. Wednesday was still struck by the occasional premonition but, rather than omens of death and destruction, they were warnings of potential inconveniences. Bumping shoulders with other students in the halls and seeing food poisoning, missing homework or heartbreak, were far preferable to being plagued by prophecies of Enid’s impending death.
And yet dread made itself at home in Wednesday's gut and coiled its tendrils around her insides, squeezing a little tighter with each passing day. It was not the exams that concerned her, nor was it any imminent threats of death; it was what came after. When university was finished, they would go out into the world and decide what to do with their lives, but one question rattled around her head like a record skipping back to the same verse, caught in an eternal loop. “Where does that leave us?” It was one which echoed in her mind endlessly, only increasing in volume when she glanced at their hands mere centimetres apart on the desk in front of her. Perhaps the question she should really have been asking was “Is there even an us?”
After breaking Enid out of a Parisian circus and ensuring she was no longer in danger, the pair had decided not to return to America and instead enrol in Baudelaire University for Outcasts located in the forest near Marines, France. The Headmistress, Ms Duport, who had aided in Enid’s rescue, had agreed to assist them in enrolling and finding some shared accommodation so they would be comfortable. That meant – excluding school breaks and circus kidnappings – they had been living together for the past five years. Half a decade of being the first person the other saw in the morning and the last they saw at night. Of sharing space, secrets and, most recently and unexpectedly, intimacy.
After so long being trapped in her wolf form, Enid struggled to adjust back to human life. Crowds became too much to handle, loud noises sent her into a near-instant panic, and the only thing that seemed to soothe her was proximity to Wednesday. Her request to hold hands as they walked the halls came with a great amount of shame evident in how she meandered around the question and how her voice became so very small – barely filling the space between them – when she finally found the words. It was clear to Wednesday that Enid felt embarrassed about her newfound apprehension towards everyday life, and she would have done anything within her power to mitigate it. Without hesitation, she agreed to the request and began to escort her to and from classes even if her own were on the other side of campus. A few minutes late here and there were worth it if it meant Enid would feel more at peace in this new home. Wednesday told herself that she was only doing it to pay Enid back for saving her life, but she couldn’t ignore the flares of warmth that radiated from her chest whenever their fingers found each other, or how she felt the need to seek them out regardless of the presence of others.
Every time the full moon made its monthly approach, Enid’s anxieties would reach a fever pitch and leave her unable to sleep at night. When she couldn’t, she would pace the room hyperventilating, her claws involuntarily unsheathing themselves only serving to deepen her panic. However, when she did manage to get some sleep, it was almost worse. She was plagued by night terrors that left her dripping sweat, screaming bloody murder and unable or unwilling to attempt to go back to sleep afterwards. Wednesday quickly began to awake, having detected that a nightmare was taking control and would intervene before the screaming began, shaking the blonde free of the clutches of sleep. She would then attempt to calm her with conversations about the insipid drivel that Enid called entertainment, or by regaling her with some of the tamer Addams family tales. One night, after a particularly visceral nightmare about being hunted down by her own family, she had asked – once again using a voice that sounded so small it made Wednesday’s chest ache – if they could sleep in her bed together. Once again, Wednesday agreed without deliberation. They spent the night mere millimetres apart, and when the next evening rolled around, they wordlessly kept up the routine, as if waiting for the other to raise a complaint that never came.
Initially, they lay next to each other completely separate, Wednesday on her back with her arms crossed over her chest as always, and Enid curled up in the fetal position next to her, but with each night, they moved ever closer together. Enid’s head would find Wednesday’s shoulder as she dozed, her eyelids drooping in the blissful space between sleep and consciousness, a space that Wednesday would’ve rather died than pulled her from. One night during a particularly nasty storm, Wednesday lay in the dark waiting for sleep to claim her, when an arm snaked around her waist. She looked over to the blonde to find her apparently asleep, her eyes peacefully closed and face in a serene expression. She simply chose to ignore the noticeably elevated breathing rate that very much indicated consciousness, and allowed them to remain in that position as they slept. Wednesday never protested any of these actions, once again mentally writing it off as simply a means to help the blonde sleep. She couldn’t bring herself to admit that she secretly craved that closeness and began to silently look forward to crawling into bed far earlier than she usually would, just so she could spend a few hours reading whilst Enid snored softly on her shoulder with one arm locked around her middle. The fact they continued doing it every night regardless of the lunar cycle went unmentioned, as they settled into their new routine as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
They had never put a label on things, but their relationship had undoubtedly evolved. At Nevermore, Enid had spent most of her time chasing boys and spending time with the pack or any one of the rest of her army of friends. At Baudelaire, she certainly wasn’t a loner, but her pool of friends was significantly smaller than it once was, and her infatuation with the opposite sex had ceased to exist entirely. A few boys had tried to get her attention during their first few months, but she had always politely declined, using the excuse that she was already busy with Wednesday. In truth, they never had any real plans outside of their regular excursions to Marines, and yet they ended up spending the majority of their free time in each other’s company. Be that in the isolation of their room, Wednesday typing away at her novel, and Enid scrolling social media or watching movies on her laptop. Or as they were doing now, studying in the library, a comfortable silence effortlessly falling over them. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but it still brought Wednesday a not insignificant amount of peace to sit in total silence with someone that didn’t feel the need to constantly fill it.
Movement caught Wednesday's attention as Enid once again reached for her phone, her pen abandoned in front of her. Whilst Wednesday usually had no problem focusing on the task at hand, Enid was a little more prone to distraction, especially given just how much they’d been studying recently. Wednesday had noted that her phone breaks had become greater in both frequency and duration, and a small part of her worried about the potential impact they were having on her studies. Another part of her argued that Enid was not hers to worry about, and that she should mind her own business unless asked to do otherwise. Enid had previously asked for her help staying on task, even handing over her phone in the days leading up to an exam, but today, had asked for it back so she could listen to music, a choice which was clearly having some unintended side effects.
Blue eyes met Wednesday’s, and she realised she’d been staring at Enid for a little too long. The other girl removed an earphone and leaned in close to whisper, “Did you say something?” She felt the girl's breath dust her cheeks, causing her own to hitch as she shuffled slightly in her seat.
Wednesday simply shook her head and forced her eyes back down to the work in front of her, continuing to elaborate on a long-answer question regarding blood spatter analysis. She could feel Enid’s gaze lingering on her, like a ray of sunlight slipping through a gap in the curtains, burning her skin with its warmth, before she returned to her phone to begin scrolling once more. It was not the first time the blonde had caught her staring, yet every time it happened, she felt a familiar burning radiate up the sides of her neck before coming to settle in her cheeks.
Since getting Enid back after so long apart, she found herself unable to pull her eyes away for long whenever they were in the same room. She told herself it was a safeguard; simply a habit to ensure that she was safe after being through so much pain already, but that didn’t explain the level of detail with which she examined the other girl. How she attempted to memorise the ever-changing curve of her lips and how they shifted when she smiled, or how she would find herself unable to pull her eyes from the dimples that formed when she laughed. How she traced her eyes along the faint outlines of scars shamefully hidden beneath makeup, that she believed only added to her ethereal beauty. But more than anything, she longed to gaze into those empyreal blue eyes and truly absorb every single detail.
Wednesday had never been partial to any colour, but if she had to pick one, blue was the closest she got to having a favourite. It was the colour of melancholy and the night sky and hypothermia and deep water, but her favourite shade of blue was undoubtedly the one that resided within Enid’s eyes. They sat like two pools of cerulean, swirling in a maelstrom, speckles of green decorating their surface like tiny islands in a vast ocean. At night, the light of either the stars or the fairy lights that decorated their bedframe seemed to be pulled into them as if the light itself were bending down to take in their beauty. Observing the reflections dancing across their surface instilled Wednesday with a profound tranquillity, as though sitting across from Enid and gazing into her eyes was exactly the place she was always meant to be, and wished to never leave.
Her mind continued to wander as she stared at the same page of her work for far longer than necessary, when a sensation pulled her from her daydream. The lightest touch brushed against the back of her palm that rested on the desk between them. Her gaze flickered once again to the girl sitting next to her, whose fingers now absentmindedly danced across the back of her hand as she scribbled away on the page in front of her. The action seemed to occur without thought, her fingers occupying themselves with Wednesday’s hand just as easily as they would her own. Regardless, it elicited a shudder from Wednesday, who stifled the sensation and forced her eyes to bore into the page in front of her.
The act carried with it a disproportionate amount of weight for something so seemingly insignificant, as it dripped with a casual domesticity that she felt far exceeded the boundaries of the platonic. It was an action not unlike those she had seen her father perform for her mother countless times over the years, crinkling her nose in disgust at the sight in every instance. But seeing Enid doing the same to her did not elicit those familiar feelings of repulsion; rather, she felt an overwhelming need to preserve it. To ensure that, no matter what else life threw at her, she could always rely on the blonde's soft fingertips grazing the back of her palm, her cheek resting against her shoulder, her arm slipping around her waist as she drifted away from consciousness. Whatever they were, she wanted, no, needed to be more. She flat-out refused to lose something so effortlessly precious, and the fingers dancing across the back of her palm acted as a catalyst for profound change within herself.
It caused that question to evolve into a declaration so deafening that her mind had no space for anything else. She no longer asked herself where graduation would leave them, and instead asserted that she would not let it bring an end to whatever it was that they shared. A plan formed in her mind that seemed so thoroughly insane that, were it about anyone else on earth, she would assume she had lost her mind, but as it concerned Enid, it seemed the only logical solution. The resolute focus she once had on the work in front of her evaporated as her mind became entirely occupied by what she believed to be the one chance to ensure Enid’s continued presence in her life. All she had to do now was act on it.