The ink on Wednesday Addams' journal was still wet when she closed the book.
She had not written so much, so quickly, in years.
Her quill lay discarded beside her as she sat at her desk, candlelight flickering across her pale face. The violin leaned in the corner, untouched, forgotten. Normally, after a failed experiment, she would dissect the error clinically, cataloging each mistake with surgical precision.
Tonight was different.
Tonight, her hand had moved with a fever she did not recognize.
---
The Journal
Entry:
Sanchez survives without effort. He defies traps, both physical and psychological, as though they are made of paper. I should feel humiliated. Instead… I feel sharpened.
Note: His eyes do not flinch. They do not tremble. They see without seeing. He is an abyss in human form, and I have never wanted to leap into something more in my life.
Wednesday's fingers traced the ink, her expression calm but her pulse betraying her. She snapped the journal shut, irritated at herself for writing with such emotion.
Emotion was a weakness.
And yet…
---
The Mirror
She stood and crossed the room to the mirror. Her dark dress blended into the shadows, her braids neat and severe. She stared at her reflection, unblinking.
"You are not fascinated," she told herself in a flat voice.
"You are not drawn."
"You are studying a specimen."
The reflection gave no answer.
But deep down, she knew she was lying.
---
The Recollection
Her mind replayed the conservatory—his figure breaking her ritual like it was nothing. The way he stood there afterward, calm, patient, looking at her as though she was both predator and prey.
The words he left her with echoed in her skull:
"You're clever. But cleverness isn't the same as dangerous."
No one had spoken to her like that. Not in years.
Not ever.
And worse still… he wasn't wrong.
---
The Decision
Wednesday sat back down at her desk, her expression cooling to steel. She dipped the quill again, this time deliberate, her strokes sharp.
Entry:
Dirk Sanchez is not invincible. Nothing is. The harder the surface, the more satisfying the crack. He has simply not yet met a blade sharp enough. I intend to forge it.
But why?
Her hand hesitated over the page.
She hated hesitation.
Finally, she pressed the quill hard enough to blot the paper.
Because if he cannot be broken… then perhaps he is worth keeping.
---
The Shift
The candle guttered low. Wednesday closed the journal once more, her lips curving—barely, faintly—into something between a smirk and a scowl.
She extinguished the flame and lay down on her bed, eyes wide open in the darkness.
Sleep would not come.
Only the echo of his voice.
Only the question she would not admit aloud:
What are you, Dirk Sanchez?