#wenclairangst

“I’m fine,” she rasped. A lie so transparent Wednesday refused to dignify it with response.

Instead, she guided Enid into the chair by the desk, retrieving her medical kit from its place beside her violin case. It was odd, one instrument to mend the body, one to soothe the mind. however , Wednesday had long since accepted her attraction for contradiction.

The buttons of Enid’s torn blouse resisted at first, gummed together with blood. Wednesday’s fingers worked them open one by one with clinical efficiency, though the heat beneath her skin reminded her she was dismantling far more than fabric. Enid flinched when cotton peeled back from the wound.

“Hold still,” Wednesday instructed. Her tone carried the same sharp edge she might use with Eugene when he fumbled a hive frame, but softer beneath it, tempered for Enid alone.

She cleaned the wound with iodine. Enid hissed. A sound equal parts pain and defiance, and for reasons unfathomable, Wednesday found herself cataloguing it alongside Enid’s laugh, Enid’s whines, Enid’s ceaseless chatter.

The first stitch went in clean. Wednesday’s hands were steady, she had never been anything less. Thread pulled skin together in a neat, uncompromising line.

“You do this a lot?” Enid asked, voice watery but curious.

“More than you would expect,” Wednesday replied. “Less than I would like.”

Enid managed a laugh, weak but real. The sound vibrated in Wednesday’s chest like a dissonant chord. She found herself irrationally relieved when it did not stop.

When the last stitch was tied, Wednesday pressed gauze into place and taped it down. “You will shower,” she said. “Now. Your current state is unsanitary.”

Enid blinked at her, then nodded. Compliance, though exhaustion had stripped her of her usual bite. She swayed when she tried to rise. Wednesday was there instantly, her hand braced against Enid’s back, guiding her toward the bathroom.

Steam curled around them, rising thick enough to blur the mirror. Enid stood clutching the towel as if it were armor, her shoulders hunched forward. For once, she wasn’t babbling. Her silence told Wednesday more than words ever could.

Her voice fractured. “I don’t look good.”

Wednesday tilted her head. The observation struck her as absurd. Enid was covered in bruises and half-healed claw marks, yes, but the wolf wore her wounds as evidence of survival. Wednesday found them honest. “You are alive,” she said. “That is sufficient.”

Enid laughed weakly, but she still twisted the towel tighter around herself, knuckles blanching. Wednesday’s gaze lingered, not on the exposed skin, but on the way Enid’s hands shook. She recognized the gesture for what it was: shame, misplaced and corrosive.

“Turn around,” Wednesday ordered, tone flat but not cruel. When Enid obeyed, hesitant, Wednesday took the cloth and began with her back, scrubbing away blood in careful, measured strokes. She kept her eyes on the task, not the body. To look too long might have humiliated Enid further, and Wednesday—though she loathed to admit it—found the thought intolerable.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” she said finally. “Nudity is biology. Biology is clinical.” A beat passed. “I don’t see you as diminished.

The wolf let out a shaky breath. Some of the tension bled from her shoulders.

Enid shivered as hot water sluiced over her. Blood spiraled down the drain in pink rivulets, diluted but insistent. Wednesday rolled up her sleeves further and again took the cloth in hand, scrubbing gently along Enid’s spine, over her shoulders, down her arms.

When the grime had lifted and only raw skin remained, she shut off the tap. Steam clung to them, curling Enid’s hair in damp golden ropes that stuck to her cheeks. Without hesitation, Wednesday wrapped her in a towel, tucking the edges with soldier’s precision.

“Lift your arms,” Wednesday instructed. Enid obeyed, pliant with fatigue, as Wednesday guided her into the waiting flannel top. Buttons slipped easily into place beneath deft fingers. Wednesday smoothed the collar down, then maneuvered Enid’s legs into the soft bottoms, pulling the fabric carefully over bruised knees.

By the time she had settled Enid against the mattress, the wolf’s eyes were glassy, half-lidded from exhaustion. She clutched the blanket when Wednesday drew it over her, and for a long moment, neither spoke.

Then, haltingly, as though daring herself, Enid whispered, “Will you… stay? Just tonight?”

Wednesday regarded her in silence. A dozen retorts lined up in her mind, cold, precise dismissals that would have been true to her nature. And yet, the sight of Enid trembling in her bed, stitched and still bleeding in places unseen, made cruelty feel dishonest.

She compromised. Without a word, she perched at the edge of the mattress, back rigid, hands folded in her lap. She remained upright, alert, eyes fixed on the dark corners of the room as though she might will the Hyde into reappearing simply to destroy it again.

Enid exhaled softly, satisfied. Her eyes drifted closed, breath evening into the rhythm of sleep.

Enid’s , no, her own eyes burned. “Agnes told me. She thought she was talking to you. She mentioned it like it was nothing. Said you’d already seen it in a vision. Me. Dead. And you never told me.”

Wednesday’s stomach coiled, though her borrowed spine stayed rigid. “That information was not meant for you.”

“Not meant?” Enid’s voice cracked, raw in Wednesday’s timbre. “That’s your excuse? You watched me die in your head, and you didn’t think I deserved to know?”

“The vision did not come to pass,” Wednesday replied, forcing calm into words that wanted to tremble. “You remain alive, however determined you are to waste my lungs on theatrics.”

Enid flinched, then snarled. It was jarring, watching her own face twist in fury. “Do you hear yourself? You kept it from me! You decided what I could handle and what I couldn’t. Like I’m some child you have to protect from bad news.”

Wednesday narrowed her eyes. “Calm down. Seeing my body unravel in a fit of hysteria is unnerving.”

The cruelty landed. Enid’s — Wednesday’s lips trembled, but her rage only sharpened. “You’re unbelievable. Do you know what it felt like, hearing that from Agnes instead of you? Like I’m expendable. Like you already wrote me off.”

Her voice rose, unsteady. “And don’t even try to deny it, because I’ve read your stupid manuscript. Evelyn. Your tragic little Evelyn. She’s me, Wednesday. She’s everything you see when you look at me, helpless, silly, disposable. A body for your detective to step over while she solves the puzzle.”

The claws in Wednesday’s borrowed hands dug crescents into her palms. “Perhaps you mistake narrative utility for personal reflection. Evelyn is a character. She is not you.”

“That’s such crap!” Enid shouted, eyes wet. “You think you’re hiding it, but you’re not. You see me as weak. As a liability. And now this? You didn’t even think I deserved to know I was supposed to die. Do you have any idea how small that makes me feel?”

Wednesday’s voice cut cold. “If I thought you were truly weak, Sinclair, I would not have fought harder than I ever have in my life to prevent that vision.”

Enid’s breath hitched. “What are you talking about?”

Wednesday stepped forward, looming in Enid’s body, her borrowed claws flexing at her sides. “Do you think visions simply vanish if I ignore them? I saw you butchered, Enid. Torn open like an offering. I woke every morning with that image seared behind my eyelids. And every moment since, I have watched. Calculated. Intervened. All to make certain you drew breath beyond that night.”

Enid stared at her — at herself , stunned, trembling.

“I said nothing,” Wednesday continued, tone sharpened by the effort of control, “because I will not hand you a prophecy and watch you collapse beneath it. Better for me to bear the certainty of your death than to see you live like you were already gone.”

Tears broke down her pale cheeks . Enid’s tears, carried on Wednesday’s features. “You don’t get it. You never do. I don’t want you deciding for me. Not about my life, not about my death. All it feels like is proof that you never trusted me enough to fight alongside you.”

Wednesday’s chest ached with words she could not speak. The silence pressed, thick and merciless, as Enid glared through the tears with her borrowed dark eyes.

And for once, Wednesday Addams had no retort sharp enough to cut through the truth.

The silence between them gnawed, and for once Wednesday could not break it.

Enid’s voice cut through like glass. “You always do this. You hide things, you twist them, you make decisions for both of us without ever asking what I want. And then when I finally find out, I’m supposed to be grateful you ‘protected’ me?”

Wednesday tightened her grip on the wolf’s claws, blood pricking her palms. “I protected you because I had no other choice. You could not have carried it.”

“That’s not your call!” Enid stepped closer, her face pale and furious in Wednesday’s body. “It’s mine. You’re not the only one who gets to fight, Wednesday. I’ve been fighting my whole life. Against my parents. Against my instincts. Against every single person who thought I wasn’t enough. And now you. The one person I thought saw me differently.”

Wednesday forced her expression blank, though her borrowed lungs burned. “You’re overreacting.”

Enid barked a humorless laugh. “Of course you’d say that. You always act like feelings are weaknesses, but they’re not. They’re proof I care. They’re proof I matter. And you—” Her voice cracked. “You make me feel like I don’t. Like I’m nothing but dead weight you drag around because it suits your agenda.”

Wednesday’s throat clenched. “If that were true, I would have let the vision play out. I didn’t.”

“You didn’t tell me either,” Enid shot back. “You wrote me off the second you saw it. You made peace with losing me, and then you didn’t even bother to let me in on it.”

“That is not peace,” Wednesday snapped, the words sharp enough to echo through the trees. “It was torment. Every day I looked at you, I saw you bleeding out in front of me. Every smile, every ridiculous outfit, every petty argument. I saw the end. And still, I fought it.”

Enid’s jaw clenched, her borrowed dark eyes glistening. “Then why does it feel like you’re ashamed of me? Why does it feel like Evelyn is the only version of me you can put on paper? Pathetic, doomed, disposable.”

“Because fiction demands sacrifice,” Wednesday retorted. “Because I know too well that people like you—bright, loud, unyielding—are the ones fate is most eager to crush. I write it because I live terrified of it.”

Enid stared at her. Her own voice trembled, fragile even in Wednesday’s cold cadence. “Then why couldn’t you just say that?”

Wednesday had no answer, not one that would matter. The air between them was thick, and Enid’s shoulders shook with the effort of holding back sobs.

“You don’t trust me,” Enid whispered. “Not with the truth. Not with your visions. Not even with myself. And I can’t keep being the one who begs for scraps of how you really feel.”

Enid’s shoulders sagged, the fight draining out of her. Her, Wednesday’s, voice came out quiet, flat in a way that was more painful than her shouting.

“You know what? Forget it. I’m tired. Let’s just… go back to Rotwood’s grave and switch back.”

The words hung in the air like smoke. No fury, no demand, only the dull finality of surrender.

Wednesday’s borrowed claws flexed at her sides, useless against the ache building in her chest. She could see it in the slope of Enid’s posture, in the way her dark eyes, her own eyes, refused to meet hers. Enid had stopped fighting. She had stopped expecting anything better from her.

For the first time in years, Wednesday found herself longing for the fire of an argument. Rage she could parry. Hurt she could dissect. But this silence, this resignation, was something she could not undo with a sharp phrase or a cutting truth.

“Very well,” she said at last, her voice colder than she intended. “Let us return.”