vice-grip vision
Wednesday awoke on the deck of a ship, the damp wood floor rocking beneath her body. She sat up, looking around to see a man running around her, pulling down sails and adjusting ropes. When he caught sight of her form, her jumped in excitement, a smile on his face. He laughed, but the sound was off.
Walking briskly to the other side of the deck, he hauled out an anchor before tossing it in the water with a deafening splash. He looked down at it before approaching Wednesday quickly. His fingers moved in a flurry of signs, and Wednesday watched his hands as he looked at her, expectant.
Wednesday was familiar in a peculiar kind of sign language; the kind with one hand. Thing tried his best to teach her both, but his distinct lack of digits was an issue.
“Slower,” Wednesday tried to sign back, only to earn another odd, loud laugh from the man.
Speak, I will see, the man signed, slower. Thing has taught you his ways.
“Who are you?” she asked, watching as his hands fingerspelled the letters.
D. A. V. E. N. P. O. R. T.
His hair was messy, windswept by the sea as he chuckled at her surprised expression. His eyes were jet black, and Wednesday suddenly noticed that he bore an uncanny resemblance to her little brother.
Davenport Addams, he signed, this time to clarify. It’s nice to meet you, Wednesday.
--
Wednesday gasped to life before Enid’s eyes, and she’d never felt so much relief. When Wednesday had convulsed and passed out, Enid had dragged her form towards her, leaving Wednesday frozen in Enid’s arms as the vision passed. She hadn’t known what to do, so she had looked to Thing for assistance.
Just let it pass, the appendage signed.
So Enid didn’t move a muscle, hearing her best friend’s usually quiet heartbeat roaring through her ears as she held her close.
Wednesday relaxed for a few moments before seeming to regain her bearings, wrenching away from Enid. Her breathing was ragged, heartbeat slowing so rapidly that Enid was sure it would have killed anyone else.
“Oh my god, Wednesday,” Enid gasped, her hands instinctively reaching out to up Wednesday’s face, the back of her hand on the black-haired girl’s forehead to check her temperature. Cold and dead, her mind echoed back to her, but all she felt at that moment was relief. She barked out a laugh, pressing their foreheads together. “You’re okay!”
Wednesday paused, unblinking eyes seeming to burn through Enid’s before a hand on her chest gently pushed her away. She felt hurt sear through her body for a few moments before she looked at Wednesday again. She was turned away, flushed.
Personal space, Enid! the voice in her head screamed before she finally registered that this was Wednesday and nobody touched Wednesday without her permission.
“Shit!” Enid scrambled away. “I am so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Wednesday murmured, and Enid heard her heartbeat speed up slightly once more. Another wave of worry washed over Enid as she heard her best friend muttering to herself. “Dios mio.”
“Was that a vision?” Enid asked.
“Yes,” Wednesday looked back at her, eyes piercing. “I met yet another ancestor of mine; Davenport Addams. It seems that my predecessors aren’t done with me yet.”
She got up from her position on the bed, glaring at Thing accusingly. “You made me look like a fool, Thing. Your sign language is a disgrace.”
“Sign language?” Enid tilted her head, and Wednesday shot Thing another dagger-sharp glare as he scuttled to hide behind Enid.
“Davenport is deaf, and he signs with two hands,” Wednesday said, looking at her own thin fingers. “Considering I’ve only learned from one…” she pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “It was confusing. We barely had any time to converse because he was… laughing so hard.”
“Pfft,” Enid snorted, but it was quickly quelled by Wednesday’s expression. “Sorry.”
There was a pause as Wednesday checked her watch, presumably for her writing time at 6:13, when the remembrance suddenly struck Enid.
“I know sign language,” Enid exclaimed, surprising herself more than anyone. “We used to talk to my γιαγιά in it when her hearing started getting bad. It’s how I got the hang of talking with Thing so fast.” Wednesday stared as Enid fumbled with her fingers, finding the language coming easy to her. “Two hands. I can teach you, if you’d like.”
Enid broke out into a conspiratorial grin as she saw Wednesday look down, thinking.
“What would you like in return?” Wednesday asked.
“You need to teach me Italian,” Enid said. Wednesday was about to argue, shaking her head before Enid spoke once more. “No negotiation.”
“Absolutely not,” Wednesday replied, crossing her arms.
“Well, good luck talking with Davenport any other way,” Enid turned away, making a motion to leave. “Unless…?”
There was a brief silence. Wednesday mutter something again in Italian before she spoke again.
“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “On one condition.”
“And what would that be?”
“A favor,” Wednesday said, walking toward her typewriter. ”Any time. No negotiation.”
Enid thought on it, but… she couldn’t really see any downsides to the idea. “Okay. So long as it isn’t murder.”
“You’re limiting my options, Enid,” Wednesday frowned, continuing. “I don’t know when I’m going to see him again, but it’s only a matter of time. He seems to be able to read my lips well enough, but his… humor seems to be getting in the way of a productive conversation.”
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be a little bit amused at someone’s broken language,” Enid teased. “It’s right up your sadistic alley.”
“It’s not the same when it’s me,” Wednesday replied, en eyebrow quirking up. “It just reminds me of my own inadequacy.”
“Aw, Weds,” Enid chuckled, settling back down on the bed, pressing their shoulders together. “Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed.”
“Absolutely not,” Wednesday turned away, crossing her arms. Enid noted the distinct pinkness in her ears quietly.
She heard her mother yowl for them from the dining room, and Enid felt her hackles rise.
“Enid! Dinner!”
--
Wednesday didn’t particularly like family dinners.
In the Addams family manor, it was always a competition of who could sour the other’s appetite the most before Grandmama’s grueling food was even brought to the table. It was hell, in the way only Wednesday could find charming, but even hell couldn’t compare to the tight grip the Sinclair family held each others’ gaze with as they dined.
She could compare it to a battlefield, one where she was a simple bystander to a war that had clearly been waging on for years.
Enid’s mother sat at the head of the table.
“Sit straighter,” she told Reed, eyes boring into the boy as he did so almost instantaneously. “Chew quieter,” she told another of Enid’s siblings.
The hierarchy was quite clear when it came to werewolves. Murray sat at Esther Sinclair’s right, with her sons (oldest to youngest), sitting across from each other, with Wednesday joining them.
Enid sat dead center, straight across from her mother as if it were to be some morbid interrogation.
“Where were you on the full moon, Enid?” her mother tore into a chunk of meat on her plate, eyes still fixed on her only daughter.
“I don't remember,” Enid shot back. “I’m not conscious when it happens.”
“Seemed lucid enough to me,” Esther replied. “You came back with your little friend unscathed. In her coat.”
“Hey, she—” Enid’s face flushes pink, anger in her eyes.
“Though I suppose it’s understandable, your defection,” Enid’s mother continued, cutting through Enid’s defense like a knife to weak skin. “Werewolves are supposed to be a pack, and your botched instincts clearly haven’t gotten the memo yet.”
The others’ heads were down, fixed on their plates. Even Murray Sinclair looked mournfully at the treatment of his daughter, but didn’t intervene. Wednesday caught Enid’s eye to speak up, but Enid merely shrugged, her eyes saying that it was always this way. Her food remained untouched until Esther looked away from her, focusing now on Wednesday.
“What did you do when she ran?” she asked with a glare, and Wednesday fought down the urge to shoot back a dagger-sharp remark about her parenting. It would only make things worse for Enid.
“She tore up a deer,” Wednesday deadpanned. “Buried some, ate the rest. Then she shifted back and I gave her my jacket to save her some dignity.”
A bare-bones explanation, but that was all Esther Sinclair would get out of her.
“You did nothing else?” she narrowed her eyes, and Wednesday saw Enid flush again.
“Mother,” she growled, the noise deep within her throat sending an imperceptible shiver up Wednesday’s spine. The growl was chilling, the rest of Enid’s family seeming to straighten.
“Oh, come off it, Enid,” Esther snapped back with a snarl. “Our customs are important. You’ve been sinful enough as it is.”
Wednesday tilted her head to the side, this time confused. She glanced at Enid, who had buried her face in her hands, the tips of her ears pink.
“Seriously,” she ground out with more intensity. “Stop it.”
“I’m just making sure—”’
“I’m done,” Enid stood up abruptly, pushing her plate away. She turned to Wednesday, angry red blush on her cheeks. “I’ll be in my room.”
Wednesday nodded as Enid stalked away, running a hand through her hair.
“Enid! Don’t walk away from me,” Esther called after her, but sat back down exasperatedly as she heard the door slam. “Entitled brat.”
Wednesday finished her plate in the silence that followed, noting that Enid’s share was untouched as she deposited the dishes in the sink.
Murray let out a sigh, and Wednesday found it increasingly difficult to hold back her distaste for this compliance. If Esther were Wednesday’s mother, she’d have found herself at the bottom of the ocean years ago. Perhaps with Murray to join her for his complacency.
“Siete tutti terribili,” she muttered from the kitchen, feeling Thing crawl up to her shoulder. The hand squeezed Wednesday’s arm, as if holding her back.
--
{enid and ajax}
hiss: enid
hiss: please answer
you have six missed calls.
hiss: forget about what i said it wasn’t serious
hiss: it was a joke
you have blocked this number.
--
There were footsteps at Enid’s door, and she bit back a snarl as she heard the familiar rapping of knuckles on the wood. Her mother wouldn’t have bothered to knock, and her father was much taller than where the knock came from, so Enid sighed in relief and invited Wednesday in.
“It’s unlocked,” Enid said, and the door swung open after a few moments of silence.
Wednesday stood in the doorway, sunglasses on her face, and Enid was convinced that she was there simply to make her laugh.
“Your family is terrible,” Wednesday strode into the room, searching for the least colorful item of furniture in the room (in this case, the piano stool Enid had yet to paint in pastels) and taking a seat. The food swung closed as Thing closed the door behind them. “Your mother, especially.”
“Are you wearing sunglasses?” she asked, sitting up.
“Your room is… brighter than the one in Nevermore,” she replied. “Call it precaution.”
“Pfft,” Enid chuckled. “You know, I was starting to doubt your allergy to color.”
Wednesday shook her head, pushing the glasses up her nose subtly.
“It’s more an intolerance,” Wednesday said, and Enid couldn’t see the expression on her face. Wednesday expressed her emotions in small ways. A quirk of her lip, a twitch of her eyebrow. But her eyes, swirling pools of browns and blacks, were what helped Enid translate those emotions. She'd gotten quite good at it over the last few months.
Wednesday’s eyes would darken if she were thinking about something particularly morbid, widen slightly in surprise. If her right eye twitched, it was intrigue. Her left, annoyance. She rarely blinked, but when she did… her eyelashes would flutter shut.
Enid didn’t really remember when she’d started to clock all of these microexpressions of Wednesday’s surprisingly real feelings, but it felt like there was a cloth over her eyes as Wednesday’s sunglasses reflected Enid’s face back to her.
“Don’t avoid the question,” Wednesday turned away briefly, and Enid could have sworn she saw a splash of pink on the tips of her ears.
“You came into my room to tell me that my mom is terrible,” Enid said, falling back on her bed. She closed her eyes, searching for her mother’s rapid heartbeat nearby to indicate her presence, but it wasn’t there. She breathed a little easier and let herself speak her mind. “No shit.”
“Do you want me to get rid of her?”
“Wednesday!” Enid flew up from her position on the bed, and Wednesday seemed to shift away from her reaction even from the other side of the room, back almost against Enid’s piano.
“I’ve never dealt with terrible mothers, Enid,” Wednesday said, a hand reaching up to adjust the sunglasses once more. “Even my own is merely a thorn in my side.”
“You’re lucky,” Enid sighed. She laid back down, covering her eyes with an arm. She could feel the hot sting of tears on the back of her eye sockets, and she’d already been too emotional in front of Wednesday earlier. So what if Wednesday didn’t think her mother was amazing for supporting her no matter the path she chose? So what if Wednesday thought of maternal affection as an annoyance? So what if—
“Peut-être que je me trompe à ce sujet, maintenant,” Wednesday said quietly in French. Enid didn’t bother to ask for a translation.
They fell into silence as Enid tried to compose herself. Surprisingly, the next few words that cut through the quiet came from Wednesday.
“What does she think is going on between you and I?” she asked, and Enid didn’t even have it in her to be surprised. Wednesday was perceptive, and Esther Sinclair was not known for her subtlety. “Why does she think it sinful?”
Enid was suddenly very glad for the arm draped over her face as she felt heat rush to her cheeks.
“It’s complicated,” she said, her breath hitching as Wednesday moved to sit on Enid’s bed with her. “Werewolf traditions.”
“I’d still like to know what she’s holding over your head,” Wednesday said. “Blackmail is a specialty of mine.”
Enid shook her head, opting to cover her burning face with her hands instead. “She just wants to embarrass me. She’s been doing it for a while. It’s fine.”
“Don’t lie to me, Enid,” Wednesday said, offended. “It’s unbefitting.”
Enid sighed, turning her body to press her face against the side of Wednesday’s thigh, hoping the girl would shift away and she could be left alone to her embarrassment. But this was Enid’s best friend, so the response she got was Wednesday’s freezing fingers in her hair once more.
“But if it’s uncomfortable, I won’t interrogate you further,” Wednesday said quietly. “I just want to understand.”
Enid grumbled against Wednesday’s leg. How could she say no to anything Wednesday ever asked of her?
“I’m different from werewolves,” Enid murmured, relishing the way Wednesday’s fingers brushed through her hair and against her heated ears, a cool respite from her obvious flush. “Even aside from the fact that I’m a really late bloomer. I dyed my hair, I like girly things like piano. My mom always wanted a tomboy of a daughter so she’d fit right into the pack, and I just wasn’t it.”
Wednesday hummed in acknowledgement, the noise seeming to urge her to continue.
“And she wanted me to find a suitable mate and have like twenty cubs because that’s the way werewolves need to be,” Enid whispered. She pressed closer to Wednesday, draping an arm over her legs. “I’m the only she-wolf in my pack to succeed her, so I should have been better. I needed to be good at sports and shift early and learn to hunt with a pack. I needed to let her find me a werewolf mate who she could force me with to breed with and give her as many grandchildren as she wants. But I’m not that. I like piano and dresses and… well.”
“Well?”
“W-werewolf ethics, ancient ones, say that she-wolves can’t be with… other she-wolves,” Enid said under her breath. “And my mom thinks I’m that sinful type. Because I’m different in all those other ways.”
Wednesday was silent, and Enid shifted to be able to see the girl’s face. She could see wide eyes in the space between the sunglasses and the girl’s black lashes, as if she’d finally realized what Enid’s words mean.
“Ah. I… see.” she said, contemplative. Enid felt heat rush to her face again.
“Shit. I messed it up. I’m sorry,” Enid shifted away, the hand in her hair drawing back slightly. A hand covered her mouth. She felt nauseous. “This is- this is why I didn’t want to talk about it. Now you’ll see me differently and I’ll be alone again.”
“Enid—”
“I shouldn’t have said anything—” Enid sat up, scrubbing a hand through her hair, interrupted by Wednesday’s hand on her leg.
“This doesn’t change the way I see you,” Wednesday said. Her other hand came up to take her sunglasses off, and Enid found herself lost in Wednesday’s dark eyes. She searched her face for any indication of deception, but this was Wednesday and she’d sooner throw herself in a lake than lie to her, so she found nothing.
Her jaw was set, face slightly flushed (perhaps from Enid’s outburst?) and she patted Enid’s leg awkwardly. Her lashes fluttered and her eye contact broke abruptly.
“I promise. We’re still friends.”
Enid paused before tackling Wednesday in a hug, mostly to hide the tears that burn her eyes and threaten to streak down her face embarrassingly.
“Thank you,” she sighed, burying her face in Wednesday’s shoulder, grinning like an idiot. She felt Wednesday nod against her back.“I’m so glad.”