Chapter Text
As if dealing with a pack of imbecilic students wasn't daily punishment enough, Wednesday had recently acquired a new torture ritual: enduring the pleas that erupted from Enid in the dead of night—slurred words that seemed like a delirium from her unconscious mind, usually starting in the wee hours and stretching into the next morning. For roughly a week now, these nightly incidents had been tormenting her.
Although this disturbing and inconvenient event was interesting to observe, watching Enid suffer with her ragged sobs and stammered words she failed to contain was ceasing to be amusing. Initially, Wednesday found these events hilarious. Her eyes would glaze over, fixated on the way Enid, unconscious, stumbled over slurred words. The sight of her half-open eyes was fascinating. Like a haunted Renaissance painting.
After a few days, she suspected they were night terrors—nightmares plaguing her fragile, delicate roommate's mind. Later, she suspected it was some form of witchcraft. A curse, a supernatural spell hanging over the werewolf. Yet, there was no omen, no vision to confirm her theory.
She would never dare admit to her roommate that she could hear her sharp, muffled moans in the dead of night. Confessing that they robbed her of sleep was absurd. It would undermine her integrity. Sentimentality had no place in her code of conduct. The day it does, she'll be pale, cold, and laid out on a morgue slab with a tag on her toe.
The most revolting part was that wrath, her favorite cardinal sin, was useless in this situation. All it took was hearing a "God, I can't take this anymore," or a "please, not again," for a pathetic feeling of irrational empathy to radiate through her chest, preventing her from taking any action against Enid. The logical course was to let whatever was happening to Enid resolve itself.
• ────── ✾ ────── •
The book in her hands failed to distract her. She had long lost count of how many times she had restarted the same paragraph while trying to manage the wave of intrusive thoughts about what was plaguing Enid's sleepless nights. Even as she persisted and reread, there inevitably came a point where she had to start over from the beginning.
The moment she heard the doorknob turn, Wednesday made no effort to lift her gaze and stare at the girl in front of her.
"Hey! Wed—" Her speech was cut off abruptly, her face seeming to grow paler by the second. "My god, what is that smell?" Enid began to sniff the air. Then again, tracking a scent shouldn't be a difficult task for someone who was literally part dog.
"You must be delirious again, or it's your own scent, and you can't even tell the difference." A mental smile formed after she uttered the words, though her face remained a perfect mask.
"Since when do you think you can talk to me like that?" Her expression changed immediately, her voice thick with impending emotional imbalance.
Addams fell silent. She didn't know what to say; Enid had never acted so explosively before.
"I have never changed my way of communicating. You are the one who is apparently out of orbit, which doesn't surprise me in the least."
Crazy girl, she thought.
Enid walked toward Wednesday, and the closer she got, the more apparent the sweat on her face became.
"I'm tired of you thinking you're more important and superior to everyone else. You're unbearable." Her flushed face and darkened eyes radically shifted the room's atmosphere. Wednesday could feel involuntary chills running down her spine.
Under normal circumstances, Wednesday would have reprimanded this sudden proximity immediately. However, the scent emanating from the girl was utterly intoxicating, unlike anything she had ever encountered. Not even in the face of classic medieval torture (her preferred category) would she admit that it had left her… unsettled. A mix of shame and disgust churned in her stomach—emotions she normally equated with what ordinary people referred to as happiness, but not this time.
Lately, everything was upside down; nothing made sense. Especially this aggressive and uncontrolled behavior from Enid.
"Don't speak to me like that again, or you will learn to respect me," Enid said monosyllabically, her index finger pointed at Addams's face. Her eyes were locked on Wednesday's. After a few seconds of this strange visual standoff, she simply turned and left.
The whole situation was so strange that Wednesday just watched her go with a furrowed brow, understanding nothing, and, as always, judging Enid's eccentric manners. Nothing out of the ordinary, really; this lack of emotional control fit perfectly with her extremely adolescent and soft conduct.
Once the door closed, Wednesday realized she had been holding her breath the entire time. An absurdity. Another fact that would not be revealed, even under extreme torture. She turned and found Thing near the crack in the door, hidden, just absorbing the entire situation. She closed the book in a single, fluid motion and headed for the door, certain of her destination—until Thing stopped her midway.
Where are you going?
"None of your business."
We need to talk.
"Not now, Thing. I have unfinished business to attend to."
She descended the stairs and walked toward the Nevermore library, ignoring everything and everyone that dared to distract her from her goal.
• ────── ✾ ────── •
The moment she stepped into the dimly lit room, she felt at home. The smell of mold and old books was fascinating, almost intoxicating. But her objective was greater: to understand more about the behaviors of an alpha werewolf.
It was funny how, just a few weeks ago, Addams had been ready to suffocate her with one of her own colorful pillows, and now, one of her biggest concerns was understanding what tormented her.
Studying, analyzing, and interpreting scientific articles was like a hobby to her. Especially if the main subjects involved the dissection of corpses or the analysis of blood spatter patterns. However, she never imagined she would be so immersed in a topic as seemingly frivolous as this. The dynamics of this universe were highly intriguing, and despite being popularly known facts, at Nevermore she had never seen anyone who fit those descriptions.
After carefully scouring some—many—dusty shelves in the school's vast library, Wednesday finally found something she could consider the light at the end of the tunnel: a not-too-thick volume on studies about the hormonal and behavioral mutability in individuals classified as Alphas. That was the one. She took the opportunity to also gather a few more articles on Omega physiology, theoretical studies on biological designation, and the nature of the dynamic class system. There, she would have the research to back up her theories with greater confidence and precision.
• ────── ✾ ────── •
The wind tugged insistently at her bangs and whipped against the book's pages, and even though the gusts left her shivering, nothing could dull her intense focus on absorbing the information before her. She couldn't remember the last time research had filled her with such rapture—perhaps when she had flayed that serial killer… Using his own modus operandi against him had been profoundly satisfying. The memory brought a brief smile to her face.