Chapter Text
"Hold still or it won't scar properly."
Enid scowled at her but stilled. Her pained expression smoothed out only lightly, which meant it continued to crease the skin around her eyes, but today Wednesday was taking the small victories too.
Nothing about this particular day was regular in any way. Least of all the irritating way all the delicious dark red on Enid’s face made her feel. Surely she should be comforted by the metallic smell, delighted by the color, ecstatic about something so easily sublime as an open wound.
And yet she wasn't.
In fact, even worse, she experienced a quite unusual sensation in her lower arms which could only signify a sudden onset of muscular deterioration and the appearance of, maybe several, blood circulation preventing clots. This, of course, could have been a comfort too, if only she had been in the habit of lying to herself. As it were, she knew exactly that the sudden queasy feeling of weakness in her arms and the unusual stiffness in her fingers had very little to do with her current state of health and everything with the current state of Enid’s face, and, maybe even more so, the pained glim in her puffy, red eyes.
Wednesday would have killed anyone, who would even so much as think she would ever not find any pleasure in watching someone being in pain, but on this horrendous day she found she actually didn't. Instead, she tried to be as gentle as possible, as she closed Enid’s cuts with flimsy band aids, bringing the edges of ripped skin as close together as she could without hurting her too much.
Originally, she had proposed stitches, but the cuts seemed to heal at an unnatural speed, making them soon too shallow to bother. So she offered a clean and this instead. Although this too, was probably unnecessary. She just couldn't stand to do nothing.
This silent admission, she thought, might have just caused her an instantaneous ulcer.
Unfortunately, it was still true.
For once she just couldn’t find it in herself to bask in the torture of watching Enid suffer. And so, she unstuck another band aid and pressed it carefully to the irritated skin, her thumb accidentally grazing over the edge of the cut.
Enid hissed at this, grasping for her elbow out of reflex, but Wednesday didn't feel any of it. Her world had already tilted over in a violent convulsion and fell backwards into the stream of time.
In honor of the already highly peculiar day, the sudden vision immediately outranked any other she had experienced so far in the categories of ‘most unnerving’, ‘atrocious’ and ‘deeply perplexing’.
First of all, she could feel soft warm sheets against her back.
Her naked back.
But this would be only mildly curious if not combined with the far more bewildering fact, that she could feel the warm and heavy weight of a body resting between her legs. One of her feet was propped against what she only assumed was a corresponding thigh, radiating with the same increased temperature as the body.
And yet still. All of this was merely secondary to the truly monstrous fact that she was smiling. Wide and unguarded.
'Oh torture here I come’, she thought, dully noting how her thoughts sounded a tad hysterical.
She would have loved for the accursed vision to just end here, to be a blip she could purge from her brain with a well-placed utensil to the socket of her eye, but one's wishes mattered only little when living a memory not yet happened. And so her eyes sank, against her will, from where they had rested safely on an unfamiliar wall downwards.
She wished she was surprised by what she saw but - mortifyingly - she wasn't.
Enid was grinning at her, lounging on her lower body with the ease of someone, who was not only eager to be there but also already comfortable with it. Her hair was long, Wednesday noted absently, most of it held by what seemed to be a pencil in a more than messy bun at the back of her head. It made the strands cascade out like a fan. There were still streaks of color in them. The morning sun, falling over one half of Enid’s face, made them shine brightly, rendered the blond gold, cast one of her eyes a brilliant light blue, while its shadowed sibling remained a pleasant dark in striking contrast. The cuts, so fresh just now, had faded from angry red flesh to thin silver lines. The way Enid grinned left the tips of her fangs barely visible behind reddened lips, the expression still that of a playful delight. There was something different about her face. More defined, as if she had finally fully grown into her features.
In an event, which should have surely caused Wednesday's immediate demise due to brain haemorrhages yet somehow didn't, Wednesday found Enid – revolting as it was - achingly beautiful.
"Oh bullshit, Wednesday. I know you love me."
Wednesday wanted to choke on the air and be done with this immediately but her respiratory system remained mercilessly unobscured and even worse: She felt her hand lift itself by its own volition to Enid’s face, making her grin grow tenfold. Wednesday's thumb gently touched the tail end of one of her scars, in a gesture that seemed sickeningly familiar, as if she had done it countless times before.
Wednesday desperately wanted to stuff all memories of this vision in the impenetrable safe in the back of her head and ignore their existence until the heath death of the universe.
Instead, she had the monumental misfortune of having the quite literal front seat to Enid leaning a little closer. The gentle tickle of her breath caused goosebumps in its wake. Enid’s eyes didn't leave Wednesday's up until she was close enough to bow her head and kiss the knife scar on her side - open mouthed and searing.
Wednesday could feel only part of it, the sensation broken up by spots where the scar tissue had lost all nerve endings, but for some incomprehensible reason it made the whole experience worse. Her breath hitched in her throat and a whole new kind of disturbing shiver ran up her spine and along the edge of her chest.
Her stomach dipped with a heavy, shuddering exhale and Enid’s eyes turned up again, peering at her from behind the pale lashes, made luminous by the fall of light. Or maybe by the fierce and playful fire burning in them. By the hunger, Wednesday had never seen in them before. Even her smile was positively wolfish as she moved just a little bit to the side and, very deliberately, placed another kiss right over Wednesday's navel, her tongue cast-iron-hot against the cooling skin.
The vision ended with a snap leaving Wednesday in the awful predicament of wide-eyed panting while clutching at Enid’s underarm and shoulder.
"Wednesday? Are you alright? What happened? What did you see?"
Enid sounded panicked, her voice a little horse and way too high. A long shot from the deep and languid drawl it would be one day.
Wednesday's eyebrow creased slightly.
A tiny gesture, which would have been inconsequential, barely noticeable, in anyone else, was the screaming sign of uttermost, baffled despair in her.
Unfortunately, Enid, of all people, knew her well.
And would know her even better one day.
"You saw me die.", she whispered with a strange graveness, stilling next to Wednesday.
It was alarming in much the same way as the sudden death of all noise in a lively room was.
"No, I didn't.", Wednesday said as matter of factly as possible. Her voice was firm and steady, even if her eyes were still unfocused, staring into thin air somewhere between here and the wall, while she tried, and failed, to wring her heartbeat and breathing in some sense of normalcy, just to spare herself this burning embarrassment of her current state. Although, she reckoned, there was not much of her dignity to save, considering how she was practically pressed into Enid’s side again.
The fact, that Wednesday was, somewhere deep deep inside, grateful for her close proximity, made her absentmindedly schedule another lobotomy on top of the at least five others and wonder, if removing her brain entirely, wouldn't be the simpler and faster solution at this point. Especially now that she was aware of how the warm scent under all the blood, mud and cheap perfume was Enid herself and that she had been associating it with 'save' and 'home' for what must have been at least several months now. This, in turn, could only mean she was going insane. A tumor maybe?
"Then.. But what else… Oh my God, you saw me kill you!"
Enid’s voice broke mid-sentence, going from high to shrill in an unpleasant manner, although the - it seemed unintentional - cut of her suddenly expanding claws was a welcome one.
Wednesday blinked. Once. Twice. And then, finally, slowly turned to face Enid.
Her blue eyes were wide in mortified panic, quickly filling with shocked tears. Her upper lip quivered; the half-healed cuts jostled back into bleeding.
"Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you won't kill me. But you certainly will be the death of me." Wednesday stated as evenly as she could, trying to raise her volume from the pathetic half whisper she started out with and gently cupped Enid’s face with both hands.
It had a curious effect.
Wednesday assumed it would be soothing, and after a moment Enid did settle into the touch, but it also made her squeeze her eyes shut and sob in a helpless, hiccupping manner.
Disgusting.
Or so it would be. On any other day.
Today, Wednesday simply pulled her closer, guiding Enid's head to her own shoulder, and threw her arms around her. Her fingers sank awkwardly, unsurely, into the matted blond on the back of Enid’s head. It was soft. Warm.
Wednesday had not the slightest idea how to deal with any of this. So she didn't. She just leaned her head against the side of Enid’s and tried not to think about how right it felt: “Congratulations though. The cuts will scar. You will look… distinguished.”
Wednesday was not quite sure if the sound Enid made was a laugh or just another sob.