Work Text:
Enid had woken up to a nightmare. Only, she couldn’t remember what she had dreamed about. The only thing she was left with was a normal, crushing sense of failure. She sat up in bed and took a few deep breaths, taking a Squishmallow from her large and ever-expanding stuffed animal collection. She squeezed it to her chest, looking out the window. It was still dark out.
Enid laid her head back against her pillow, trying to smile. She looked around the room. Right. She didn’t have to smile for anyone else. Wednesday was the only other person with her, and said girl was asleep. But she had to smile for herself. She closed her eyes, trying to fall back asleep. It was pointless, though, and she opened them again twenty minutes later, very much still awake.
Wednesday moved in her sleep, shifting from her back to her side. Enid looked over, furrowing her brow. She’d never seen the other girl move while asleep. She was usually deathly still the entire night. Or not in bed at all, too busy trying to sneak around and solve a mystery or something. Enid watched as she pulled the blankets tighter around herself, then settled down. Enid settled down as well, closing her eyes again in another futile effort to sleep.
She lay there until the sun began to rise four hours later, looking out the window at the pink and orange sky. Wednesday abruptly got out of bed from across the room, getting ready for her day. Enid took this as an invitation to talk,
“I had a bad dream last night. But I can’t even remember what it was about.”
“Not at all?” Wednesday asked, her voice still rough from sleep.
“Nope,” Enid sat up in bed, then got out of it entirely, watching Wednesday briefly take her hair out of her braids to brush through it. “I have that test today.”
“I went over everything with you, you will be fine,” Wednesday said, her attention focused on a piece of paper that had been at her desk. Enid smiled. Wednesday had indeed gone over everything a few days before, the two girls having sat side-by-side at Wednesday’s desk for hours. They’d brushed shoulders. It had made Enid surprisingly happy. Happier than usual, that was. Enid fiddled with the end of her sweater, the sinking feeling from the dream still in her stomach, “have you ever had a bad dream before?” Wednesday paused, then said,
“Sometimes I dream I’m a housewife.”
“That’s bad?” Enid asked, taking off the sweater she had slept in and putting another on. She was aware of Wednesday’s eyes on her the entire time. She assumed the other girl was trying to find an ideal point to stab her, should the occasion ever arise. That was okay, if she was going to get stabbed by anyone she wanted it to be Wednesday.
“It is the expectation society has already set into place for us.”
“Yeah, fair,” Enid said, looking for the essay she had written the previous day. It was then that she heard what sounded distinctly like a kitten. She slowly turned around, “Willa. Are you hiding another black kitten?”
“No,” Wednesday said.
“I heard the meow. It’s okay, we can take in another -” she started, Wednesday turning away from her and sneezing into her arm. And she sounded like a kitten. “-Oh. Oh. Oh my god.”
“Don’t you dare comment, I have been hand-raising tarantulas,” she actually had, Enid would never try and dig through her roommates' desk again, “they’ve been responding well to basic commands. Such as bite, attack, and maul.”
“I think those are all the same thing,” Enid said, continuing to get ready, pausing as she heard the kitten-sneeze again, “you do sound kind of stuffed up.”
“We are going to be late to class if you don’t hurry up.”
“Awwww, you’re not just leaving without me,” Enid smirked.
“Hurry up,” Wednesday said, sneezing into her arm again, sniffling loudly after, then frowning,
“I fear there may have been a breach in my immune system,” she said, sitting down on the edge of her bed.
“You mean you have a cold?” Enid asked, Wednesday grabbing a book from the pile beside her bed. She lifted it up to read it, Enid squinting at the title, “Deadly Diseases? Wednesday, don’t read that,” she walked over and took the book from her, shutting it.
“I have tarantulas -” Wednesday started, Enid reaching out and touching her cheek. Wednesday neither leaned into it nor pulled away, staring directly into her eyes.
“Just a little warm. You’re okay,” she said, “probably just a cold. It happens.” Wednesday pulled back, Enid’s heart sinking. She tried so hard to respect her boundaries, but it was difficult sometimes still. She wanted to be close to Wednesday. Wednesday proceeded to sneeze yet again, Enid’s wrinkling her nose at the snot that ran down her face. “Not your finest moment, I gotta tell you.”
“Tarantulas -” Wednesday started.
“- I made friends with them five minutes ago.” Wednesday pulled a knife from underneath her mattress in response. “That’s great Willa, let’s go now. Like you said, we’re going to be late.” Wednesday nodded, taking a piece of paper from her desk and quickly folding it up for most likely deadly top-secret reasons. That was fine, Wednesday could have her secrets and Enid could have her own. Like the fact that she’d named the tarantula's Sparkle, Glitter, and Bob and fully intended to teach them how to dance. If Wednesday had successfully trained them to kill, how hard could it be?
Enid got the delightful experience of listening to Wednesday sniffle. All. Fucking. Day.
“You can just go back to the room if you’re feeling bad -” Enid started during lunch, Wednesday fixing her with a glare. Okay. Enid backed off, eating and talking with other students, Wednesday sitting silently by her side. Other than the constant gross sniffling. Enid pulled her aside after, looking around to make sure no one was near them. “Seriously. You can go back to the room and sleep or something.”
“I have no interest in sleeping.”
“You can just rest, then. Anything’s better than sitting through another boring class and trying to hide it, right?” She said, cupping Wednesday’s cheek again. Wednesday leaned into her touch. “Still a little bit warm.”
“In my family anything other than a cold, corpse temperature is scorned,” Wednesday said, looking at the space beside Enid instead of directly at her, leaning against the wall. Her nose was running and there were shadows under her eyes.
“You can’t help it,” Enid said, wincing as the other girl hacked into her fist, “that is pretty gross, though.”
“Not nearly as disgusting as cholera. Did you know that cholera resulted in bloody and watery -”
“- Please don’t finish that sentence.”
“Infecting someone with it on purpose would be an effective torture method considering the mortality rate. It was mainly due to dehydration. So you shrink their fluid intake until they tell you what you need to know.”
“That’s horrible,” Enid said.
“Yes, I know. I was reading about it in the disease book -”
“-Don’t read the disease book, you’re going to freak yourself out,” Enid pulled out her phone, “here, watch this. I’m going to google your symptoms. Running nose. Watery eyes. Low-grade fever. Wow, look at that, common cold.”
“That could be written by anyone, the internet is not trustworthy.”
“Your books could be written by anyone.” Wednesday froze. Enid laughed, putting a hand on her shoulder and leading her back up to their room, “I’ll take a million notes, I promise. Please don’t go monster-hunting in the woods, it’s raining really hard.” Wednesday mumbled something in response that Enid didn’t catch, sneezing four times in a row and going to her desk. She would probably be fine. Probably.
Enid hurried to the next class, taking notes for Wednesday. She did her best not to draw unicorns on the borders of the papers, but some appeared anyway. Clearly a work of magic. That’s what she would tell Wednesday, anyway. She tried to pay attention, her mind drifting back to her roommate.
Wednesday was more than capable of taking care of herself, she had made that quite clear since the moment she had stepped foot on Nevermore’s grounds. But Enid knew what it was like to be sick and alone. It always sucked for her. And even though Wednesday didn’t seem to desire the same levels of interaction she did, she was still human. And she was uncomfortable.
Okay, yes, she was self-projecting some. But as far as she knew, Wednesday Addams was probably a human. And humans needed other humans. Or werewolves. Whatever.
“Wednesday!” She went back to their room after class, “I brought you something. It’s not candy, I promise, I know you hate that. And it’s not colorful either. And it’s not another white cat!” She got no response. Enid stepped into their room, looking over at Wednesday’s side.
She was curled up, her bed a tangled mess of girl and blankets. Half of which were Enid’s. Wednesday had stolen Enid’s blankets. Enid had never smiled so widely in her life. She put the black flower she had found on Wednesday’s desk. It was probably terribly cursed, but Wednesday seemed pretty into that sort of thing. She smiled as Wednesday opened her eyes, “hey, sleeping beauty.”
“Call me that again and the snakes will slide out from under my mattress and bite you. And I will watch as their venom turns your brain to mush.” Enid quickly jumped away from the bed. She wasn’t afraid of venom, just snakes. They had no right being giant scaly worms.
“I brought you a flower.”
“It’s probably terribly cursed,” Wednesday said after looking over at it.
“Oh, I know ,” Enid grinned. Wednesday gave her the faintest hint of a smile. Then sneezed four times.
“Why are our bodies so feeble?” She asked.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s just you,” Enid laughed, dodging the pillow and the needle that was thrown at her and taking Wednesday’s blanket. Wednesday gripped the end of it. “Willa. Let go, it’s all tangled right now.” Wednesday did so, Enid laying it back across her neatly, smoothing it out. Wednesday stared at her as she set a tissue box on the other girl’s desk. “There you go,” she said, taking some of the books from the floor and putting them beside her, “I’m serious about what I said earlier. Do not go in the fucking woods. Not to mention that people have died there.”
“I won’t die,” Wednesday said.
“That’s the kind of spirit that gets you killed.”
“Or it’s the kind that helps you stay alive.”
“I’m not debating this with you,” Enid said. They were quiet for a couple of minutes, Wednesday finally asking,
“How did you get so good at this?”
“Good at what?”
“Taking care of people. Making them… happy,” Wednesday lifted up one of the books Enid had set down on the bed, Enid realizing with a flash of horror that it was Deadly Diseases. She quickly replaced it with another book. The last thing they both needed was Wednesday convinced she was actually dying. It was always one of two extremes with her. Either she was invincible or she was in mortal peril.
“I don’t actually know,” Enid said. She hadn’t really had anyone take care of her in a long time. Maybe that was why. She didn’t want others to experience the loneliness she did. She took Wednesday’s hand, Wednesday meeting her eyes,
“You aren’t disgusted? I am disgusting right now, Enid, it’s okay to stay away,” Wednesday said, her eyes unfocused. She hacked into her arm immediately after.
“Yeah, you definitely are. But I don’t care,” Enid said, squeezing her hand, “I’ll take my chances, you’re worth it. Friends aren’t only friends when things are good.”
“I think you’re making up friendship rules.”
“I think you need to go back to sleep.” Wednesday surprisingly listened to that, leaning her head back against her pillow, her breathing loud and hoarse. Enid stayed beside her.
As she carried on a long conversation with the other girl’s tarantulas and listened anxiously to her breathing, she knew for certain what she had said.
Wednesday Addams was worth it.