Work Text:
There wasn’t enough room.
There was never enough room.
She panted, each hiccuped breath elevating the already abusive heat sweltering along her face and neck as it bounced back at her, incessant, the noise grating in the otherwise benign quiet of the room.
Everything was just so suffocating. She hated it. She hated herself. She hated herself.
“Wednesday.”
A fleeting tick of relief came at the familiarly forbearing tone, but it sputtered out just as quickly. Consumed, she huffed again, louder this time, the sound labored with a faint wheeze at the tail end, her sweaty, scrunched brows concealed poorly by an unsightly black mop of bangs.
There was a garbled murmur from above, and in a feverish, last-ditch effort, her body tensed, the plane of her stomach contorting as scrawny thighs squeezed soft sides. Her hips even lurched, her muscles clenching frantically around the fingers inside her, but it all had the opposite effect, only driving her further away instead of closer. It was all wrong. She was doing everything wrong, and it was happening again.
“Wednesday.”
Chipped midnight nails dug into fair, supple skin, the dirty smatter of freckles pressing insistently into the slender throat—breaths never slowing, fever never dulling. In this moment, she refused to be studied. Stubborn; spineless. It always went like this.
The fingers slowly receded, leaving her sex with a tacky squelch. She was already drying up. The fervor from moments ago became nothing but a nauseating memory, leaving a gaping hole in her core, the wound real and complete even with the absence of severed flesh or gushing blood. A frigid chill wracked her naked form.
“I’m sorry.” The words exited her in a rehearsed monotone. She barely processed the tender graze of lips against her clammy fringe, the caress of wet digits over the puny swell of her belly.
“Don’t,” was all Enid said. A patient, loving admonishment.
Wednesday hated how broken it made her feel.
“Need you to talk to me.” With her hands, Enid leniently coaxed the legs bracketing her waist to relax, allowing her to roll onto her side and gather Wednesday’s lifeless remains to herself, holding them as if they were something precious. Repulsive. “The truth, please.”
Even in the face of repeated malfunctions, Enid never wavered. Her care, her love, was utterly reliable. Steadfast, against all odds. Not once did she pull away. And it horrified Wednesday, to be the recipient of such consistent mercy, almost to the point that she wished she would relent. But what was worse was her insistence that it was all warranted. That simply because Wednesday existed, she somehow deserved it. Love so unconditional it was disorienting. She didn’t know what to do with it all.
There wasn’t room for it. Not in her shriveled, shell of a heart. She couldn’t take it.
“Hey.” Enid’s voice was a gossamer, melodic thing, and it disarmed her immediately, without permission. Large, round eyes found blue in the darkness, heart thumping uncomfortably in the side of her neck at the next question. “Where’d you go?”
On instinct, Wednesday shook her head, her own voice an abrasive rasp. “Nowhere. Just tired.”
The excuse worked often enough for her to feel reasonably safe. At least, until the next time. But then—
“Why do you always shut me out?”
It wasn’t phrased as an accusation, which would have been easier to stomach. No, Enid’s tone was thick with longing, as if Wednesday’s reticence served no other purpose than to injure her. And it cut.
Someone stronger, more competent in matters of the soul, would have rushed to explain, to reassure. They wouldn’t have hesitated to lay down their arms and let go of the inclination to shield the other from reality, however ugly. But that wasn’t Wednesday.
“Why do you always assume there’s a reason?” Packing down rising bile, she swallowed, forcing an indifferent tone even as her limbs were still threaded with the other’s. Inescapable. “I just can’t.”
Come. She never has. And because of Enid’s selflessness, her rigid maintenance to unfailingly put her first, Wednesday was keeping both of them from it. As if she didn’t hate herself enough already, putting Enid in the line of fire was completely unacceptable.
But she didn’t know what to do.
“Do you even want to?” Enid asked then, the fear lacing her tone enough to cause another inward spiral.
“Of course I do,” Wednesday whispered, having the gall to sound affronted. She grew disturbingly nervous under the sapphire stare, the silent pleading in those eyes nearly undoing her, so she choked out, “I always want you, Enid.”
Blue eyes dimmed further, which induced panic. “That’s not what I asked.”
Clinging to her, Wednesday breathed in a tight, high timbre, “I can’t explain it.”
“Try.”
It was excruciating—the need to please her but being incapable. It could drive her to madness, such agony. Likely would.
“Please, Wednesday?”
Every bone felt full of lead, the weight of her ribs closing in, crushing her organs; her own skin was claustrophobic. The raven whined lowly, distress spidering her brow as she squirmed out of tangled limbs and sweat-soaked sheets. Something splintered inside of her at the way Enid reached for her, but didn’t follow. Letting her retreat, watching her recede into the shadows, the raucous bang of the bathroom door severing what strenuous connection they had managed tonight.
And Wednesday mourned.
Privately. Silently, as she sat naked on the shower floor, begging the icy spray to eradicate her self-torment. But she did. She grieved the woman she never knew, the woman she could be—if only she were strong enough. Good enough. God, she wanted to be. Not even for herself, but for the one person who had earned it, irrevocably. For Enid.
She wanted so badly to pry herself open, to spread herself wide for the taking, because that was what Enid deserved from her. After all she had done for her—after saving her, forgiving her, loving her, without reluctance or shame, apart from any obligation—she deserved to have her. All of her. But Wednesday refused. And she kept refusing. Again, and again, and again. And every time, she trembled at the thought of it being her last opportunity to try.
She knew she couldn’t do this forever. Enid would grow tired, weary of patience. It was inevitable, the way she would leave her. And that was terrifying. But so was being vulnerable.
She would have to pick her poison sooner rather than later. But she didn’t know if she could bear living either way.
As she hugged her knees, the water numbed her. She could almost imagine the life oozing out of her, circling the drain and vanishing entirely. She didn’t hear the soft click of the door, nor the rustle of movement outside the curtain, the dim silhouette sitting back against the wall beside the tub. Waiting for her.