Chapter Text
Wednesday spends the night before her birthday getting drunk at a bar and then having very mediocre sex with a random guy. After the regretful ordeal is done and the man whose name she thinks is Daniel (or maybe Marc) falls asleep, she sneaks out of his apartment and sets out to do the walk of shame back to the sad little shared house she calls home.
The cold is harsh, biting her face and hands, and clubbing heels and thin black stockings do little to protect her from the cold. She’s starting to shiver already, and tries walking faster, hoping that will help, but her blistered feet stop her from achieving any real speed.
Christmas is approaching, but there are no lights or decorations in this part of town. It’s depressing, much like her life. A single tear falls down her cheek, hot against her freezing face, but it stops at that. Wednesday was never one to cry about her own fate. If this is how it must be, she will endure it with as much grace as she can muster.
She walks for a while. The blisters on her feet have turned bloody and her toes hurt from being squished into the heels for far too long, but it’s too cold to go barefoot. She can barely feel her fingers, frozen from holding her phone and following the route on Google Maps.
A weird feeling is brewing in her stomach, and it isn’t quite self-pity. It’s like something on her tongue, something bitter she can faintly taste, or perhaps remember from a past life. It reminds her of something, but she can’t quite place it.
She’s almost made it to her street when she hears a familiar voice.
“At least you still have the good sense to use protection, even if you don’t know how to dress for the weather.”
The pang of joy she feels upon hearing that smooth and velvety British accent once again is quickly drowned out by the deep sense of abandonment Larissa Weems triggers in her.
“I thought you’d left,” she says angrily, mist leaving her mouth, but her words lack venom as she’s by now shivering quite violently.
“To my great misfortune, I am contractually bound to you and my future depends on you getting your act together. Imagine how thrilling that must be for me as I watch you run your life into the ground.”
Wednesday wishes she knew how to say something that would make her more inclined to stay, but much like Larissa, she too bathes in bitterness, and it spills out of her mouth like vomit.
“Maybe it isn’t about you, Principal Weems,” she utters through clattering teeth. “It’s much easier to comment on someone’s life than to live it.”
“It’s not a picnic to be trapped as a ghost, either. I can’t live, I can’t move on; I can only watch you make terrible choices without any say in it. It’s incredibly frustrating. But then again, you never cared about anyone except yourself, so I don’t suppose my suffering would tug on your heartstrings.”
Guilt swirls in Wednesday stomach, mixing with the alcohol and making her sick. She stops walking, worried she might retch.
“I think about your suffering more than you know,” she says after a moment of silence.
“And what good is that to me when you’re not doing anything?”
Wednesday feels lucky there isn’t anyone around at this time of night, for she must look like a madwoman to an onlooker, arguing with thin air.
“Why are you back?” she asks accusatorially, turning around to face the voice that she knows so well.
If she were less cold, she might revel more in the sight that is Larissa Weems. Inhumanly pale and unaffected by the cold, she stands there in a midnight blue dress worthy of a Hitchcock heroine, a pendant in the shape of an eye around her neck. Her lips and nails are painted dark red, and her hair is almost as white as her glowing skin.
“To dissuade you from any further self-harming, melodramatic escapades.”
Somehow, the whole scene makes Wednesday think about Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol — a ghostly apparition of her traumatic past coming to haunt her and urge her to stray from the path leading her to her own demise. She blinks several times. Perhaps she has already passed out from hypothermia and all of this is just a bizarre hallucation.
"And to urge you to walk. You’ll get hypothermia," Larissa adds as if reading her mind.
Feeling unreal, Wednesday stares at her red lips as they move, slowly and deliberately. There is poise to Larissa that death somehow accentuates. She is in no hurry, unbothered by the earthly constraint of time, free to craft an outfit, move a hand, respond to a question without any urgency.
“I’ll walk,” Wednesday blurts out, “if you promise you won’t leave again.”
She doesn’t know why she says it. Perhaps it’s the remnants of alcohol in her system, or the cold making her delirious, or simply because Larissa looks like an angel bringing her salvation in this lonely winter night.
Larissa looks at her silently, light in her eyes flickering like candlelight and coloured by emotion Wednesday can’t quite read.
“I can’t leave even if I want to,” she finally says, cold and final like death.
Wednesday doesn’t respond. She turns around and walks back to her apartment, aware of the ghostly presence behind her the whole way through.
Larissa keeps her promise, and doesn’t leave. Her company, however, comes with downsides.
Wednesday is incredibly annoyed by the perpetual lurking over her shoulder. Larissa’s presence is a very strong one, much to no one’s surprise, and Wednesday constantly feels its bitterness in her mouth. It tastes of a life not fully lived.
And there is also the fact that Larissa is astonishingly nosy.
“What are you making?” she often asks when Wednesday makes dinner. Sometimes she point to a dirty sock from the floor. “Why is that there?”
She regularly comments on Wednesday’s roommates and their lack of tidiness. “Tsk tsk,” she tuts, eyeing the dirty dishes in the sink and piles of dirty clothes on the floor. Sometimes she stands in the bathroom doorway, sighing at the sorry state of the toilet.
Wednesday is playing a video game, trying to focus on the sword fight she is in the middle of, when Larissa finally decides to speak after sighing dramatically for the seventh time in the last two minutes.
“Is this truly how you prefer to spend your time? Letting your brain rot in front of your computer?”
Wednesday makes a mistake and dies. She angrily pushes the keyboard towards the wall and gets up.
“Can you stop commenting on my life?”
“I’m your spirit guide,” Larissa states matter-of-factly, sitting down on her bed. “It’s my job to comment.”
“No, your job is to help — but so far you’ve only lurked, tutted, and provided live-commentary on my daily life.”
“It’s far less riveting than one would have thought. You were such a promising mind when you were a child. Nowadays, you only play video games, work a boring job writing drivel, and hook up with losers to feel something. It's depressing to witness."
“My job pays the bills. I’m being self-sufficient,” Wednesday retorts defensively. “And I don’t hook up with losers to feel something, I do it to fulfil my physical needs without getting involved in emotional drama.”
“And how’s that working out for you so far?"
"Good," Wednesday lies.
Larissa raises an eyebrow. "I wouldn't bet. The sex you have is genuinely painful to watch.”
Wednesday blinks. “To watch?”
“Trust me, I don’t enjoy it, but I’m unable to look away. As your spirit guide I see everything you do.”
Wednesday feels her cheeks rapidly getting hot. “Everything?” she asks, fearing she knows the answer.
“Even if I don’t watch, I have a knowing about what’s happening that I can’t erase,” Larissa shrugs. “I got used to it. If you want my advice, I'd suggest to try actually dating someone. Your sexual escapades reek of repression.”
“Hah!” Wednesday exclaims. “And what would you know about repression?”
“A whole lot, I’m afraid,” Larissa says, her face suddenly serious. “In fact, I’m giving you some friendly advice as someone who was an expert in repression when I... when I was alive.”
Wednesday leans against her desk and crosses her arms, hoping Larissa would reveal more, but she doesn't.
“Care to elaborate on that?”
“There isn’t much to it. I never let myself do the things I wanted, and then I died. So now I can’t do much of anything, except watch you make eerily similar mistakes.”
“I do what I want,” Wednesday snaps back. “I always have.”
Larissa waves a perfectly manicured hand. “It’s the other side of the same coin. You fulfil every impulse of yours so that you don’t have to think about what you actually want, because that would require being emotionally vulnerable in a way you’re desperately trying to avoid.”
Touché.
“Trust me,” Larissa continues. “It’s easier to self-actualise while you’re still alive. Otherwise, you might become doomed to watch your only chance for salvation run her life into the ground.”
They stare at each other for a while across the room.
“Is there any point in asking you to leave?” Wednesday finally asks.
“If it makes you feel better,” Larissa shrugs. “But I think it might do you good to have me here. You’re losing touch with your powers, Wednesday.”
“I know," she says with dread coiling in the pit of her stomach. It's the first time that she acknowledged the fact out loud.
“I can’t be free until you activate your powers again -- that is the purpose of my spiritual contract.”
“I know,” Wednesday says. “I just…”
“You’re not even trying."
“I don’t know what else to try! I tried everything! Maybe I just lost them!” Wednesday finds herself yelling.
“I’ve been telling you since you were a teenager, Wednesday, it’s your emotional body that controls your powers!” Larissa yells back exasperatedly. “You’re going about it the wrong way!”
“And what am I supposed to do? Hold hands and talk about my feelings with everyone I meet?”
“You could do a myriad of things, such as reflect on what you actually want to be doing with your life. You could call Enid, who you’ve been ignoring for a year and a half now. You could think about what kind of a person you’re actually attracted to instead of hooking up with random men you don’t even like. You could answer your mother’s texts.”
“I’m sorry that my efforts aren’t good enough for you, Principal Weems.”
“You’re not trying, Wednesday. I know what it looks like when you try. You solve a murder and make reality bend to your will. Right now, you’re avoiding your problems,” Larissa says, pointing a manicured finger at her. “And stop calling me Principal Weems. It’s been decades since I’ve been anything, let alone a principal.”
“You know what, Larissa, I’m tired of this conversation. I’m going to bed, so if you could kindly remove yourself from my room before I come back I’d appreciate it.”
With that, Wednesday storms out towards the bathroom, feeling very, very sorry for herself.
Larissa lets out a frustrated huff and disappears in a cloud of silver smoke.