Chapter 11 - You've Got the Magic Touch by Talik_Sanis

Summary:Wednesday is certain. It's beyond a shadow of a doubt, now: Enid is no longer touching her.

This, of course, is a good thing. There's no way on Earth that Wednesday Addams wants her roommate to touch her! Even if the werewolf is going around getting pets and pats from everyone else like some promiscuous golden retriever puppy.

Wednesday has two solutions to this ... absolutely positive development:

1. Investigate to determine the reason.

2. Kill everyone.

Wednesday is leaning towards option one, but she could still be swayed...

Notes:The Magic Touch, by the Platters

I didn't know too much

And then I felt your touch

And now I've learned I can return

The magic touch

Chapter 1Chapter TextWednesday Addams was intimately familiar with the manifestations of psychopathy.

Reading about psychopaths put the fun in fundamental when it came to literacy skills.

Poe, Machen, Maupassant, Lovecraft, Blackwood, Shakespeare, Bronte, and Bloch had rendered her a keen student of aberrant and morbid psychologies of all sorts.

That said, her upbringing did leave her somewhat bereft of (meaningless) social graces and any insight into so-called "normal" people her age.

From what she could glean, they were obsessed with sports (Enid loved something called the San Jose Sharks, which was tolerable because sharks were soulless killing machines, the pinnacle of predatory design for millions of years), insipid videos that mostly revolved around revolting kittens doing equally revolting things like batting at feathers rather than slaughtering small vermin (Enid preferred puppies, especially golden retrievers), and hormonal nonsense that deprived them of what few wits they possessed (Enid had dated Ajax, bringing her IQ down to his level as they engaged in their repugnant physical dalliances).

They were still something of a mystery, but Wednesday was adept at identifying patterns, tracing them down to their source and noting variations even when it came to the comportment of people.

Which was how she knew:

Enid was hiding something. 

That much was obvious.

After her initial transformation, the werewolf had almost become touch-starved, always pawing away at people. Casual touches abounded. Hugs were disseminated with alarming frequency and regularity, setting Wednesday's teeth on edge when Enid would veritably hurl herself at other girls in their dorm for a quick cuddle like some kind of ... promiscuous puppy always looking for head-pats no matter their source.

Dogs' loyalty had been exaggerated, obviously.

A shoulder bump with Yoko. Just a little harder and she'd take a tumble down a flight of stairs. 

The squeeze of Bianca's bicep as the other girl preened like a peacock, needing to be plucked and stuffed, at fencing practice.

Fingers brushing a lock of hair behind Divina's ear while Enid shot Yoko an eyebrow wiggle and a line about "her little sea urchin," which made for delightful dishes when you cut them open and scooped out the insides.

Disgusting. All of it. 

Enid's head, so close that it could be felt, resting against the leg of Wednesday's chair at her writing table, the girl just wanting to be close to her, sitting there on the floor like a good dog. So close that, over the clack of typewriter keys, Wednesday could hear her breathing and humming as she swiped and tapped at her cell phone screen. The warmth of her body soaking into the small of Wednesday's back.

A flutter of clothing, caress feather light, as she eased passed a deskmate like Wednesday in one of their classes, pressed tight for so long that Wednesday reeked of floral perfume after class. The price to pay to make certain that Xavier wouldn't try to sit next to her again.

So much touching!

Wednesday should have known that the ... odious – yes, odious allowance of a hug was just the beginning. It had been so repulsive, turning Wednesday's stomach like it was being infested with crawling, skittering vermin as Enid wept and clung to her, heavy with the intoxicating scent of blood on her radiant, relieved face and gore-endowed claws. Caked into Enid's skin. A dribble of crystalline tears streaking her cheeks...

Yes. It was terrible.

The hug was terrible.

No doubt.

But if the hug was the beginning, she asked herself as she brooded and sulked and plotted out the best way to murder Yoko (just in case), who was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Enid at their lunch table this very moment, what, exactly, was the ending?

Because Enid was no longer touching her.

At all.

Or so it seemed.

This situation merited more thorough investigation.

As part of the experiment, Wednesday deigned to join her compatriots for lunch, removing an apple from her pocket and shining it on her shirt as she walked over. Rumour had it that apples were supposed to keep doctors away, which sounded as if it would increase the number of deaths that occurred in Wednesday's proximity. The table was cramped and bustling, surrounded by Enid, Yoko, and a collection of other pupils unworthy of being mentioned.

The student not actually touching Enid had been seated to her left. Without saying a word (though she did scream slightly), she'd departed when Wednesday brandished her carving knife – just for the apple, since the faceless girl was wise enough to take the hint.

A proliferation of details stabbed into Wednesday's eyes, raked over her brain as the dark cloud about her intensified when she slipped in next to her roommate.

The shift of a rear, legs folding awkwardly and posture tucking inwards in a flagrant display of guilt or shame or consternation that usually gave away an anxious suspect in a mystery novel. Unhealthily flushed cheeks, as if she was catching ill. A slight lean and resettling of weight onto the opposite elbow, chin-in-palm and revolting rainbow fingernails drumming nervously against a cheek, when Wednesday settled at the table.

More than suspicious.

Confirmation.

Enid had shifted over to avoid touching her.

Intentional refusal to do so, dopey grin on her face as she laughed uproariously at something Yoko had said while the vampire gave her an incredulous and longsuffering look, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

Not even a touch of her hip, rump to rump, could be permitted.

This, of course, was a good thing.

"How do you do, fellow young person?" Yoko called out, sagging against Enid's shoulder as if in an attempt to press her back into Wednesday's space. Enid did not appear amused, if the rumbling, savage growl that bubbled up in her chest was anything to go by.

It sounded like the seductive, whispered promise of impending death.

Lovely.

Her fangs as well. Enid had lovely fangs, pearly white daggers accented by the pinkish scar tissue along her cheek, obvious when her lips peeled back in a snarl.

Yoko, who was apparently in her 'I'm actually a hundred years old and have been repeating grades at Nevermore for a century' phase again, gave Enid a suspicious nudge in the ribs, ignoring the feral grumbling.

"Don't talk back to your elders," she chastised, flicking Enid's nose.

Wednesday would like to cut off that finger.

She didn't have a vampire index floating in formaldehyde as part of her collection. That was all.

"Greetings." Wednesday examined her carving knife before dissecting her apple, contemplating the cuts necessary to sever Yoko's digit at the knuckle and observing the werewolf carefully. "Enid."

It merited direct statement that the only person she was actually eating lunch with was Enid. The others were merely sadly-warm bodies in her general proximity.

"Hey, Wednesday!" the wolf barked so loudly, the greeting drawn out and rising upwards into a near high-pitched howl, that it drew stares from a few of the other lupines around the courtyard. They appeared to be feeling the urge to join in and bay at the midday sun. Shoving Yoko away, Enid threw an awkward and somehow preppy wiggling wave with her fingers.

Then she winced and broke eye-contact, squirming.

"Was just going to go try to track down Mr. – uh – Mr. Pickman to discuss his figure drawing class next term, so, uh, gotta-"

"Professor Pickman's visiting his in-laws this week," Divina noted while rearranging her cutlery. "Ms. Karabekian is handling his classes."

"Oh, right, then-" clawing at the back of her neck and leaning into Yoko's space, so much so that it almost appeared that the wolf thought that she was a puppy and wanted up on mistress' lap, Enid averted her lustrous blue eyes. "I should probably go finish that makeup tutorial about that rainbow smoky eye technique I was telling you guys about! Can't let my subscribers down!"

The assembled collection of girls looked upon her as if she was insane.

But it made perfect sense to Wednesday.

Caustic multi-hued colours, slathered all around your eyes.

If Enid hadn't just unveiled her intentions, Wednesday might have thought that the other girl's strange behaviour was due to her hiding her effort to perfect the technique in anticipation of Wednesday's next birthday. What a malicious and cruel way of blinding her, melting out her eyes with a few firm strokes of a makeup brush.

Wednesday would have been touched at the thoughtfulness and personal touch.

That wouldn't account for Enid's current unwillingness to touch her, though.

... She had just used the word "touch" thrice in two sentences. That did not bode well.

"I don't think so, girl," Yoko interjected before Enid could rise and, it seemed from the quivering of her legs and jaw, bolt. A firm tug on her arm forced her to remain seated. "You don't have time for that before class, so you just sit down-" The vampire pressed down on Enid's shoulder, keeping her firmly in place- "here next to me and Wednesday and relax."

Enid smiled.

It was, perhaps, the most fetching smile that Wednesday had ever perceived, as she seemed to be in the midst of shifting into her werewolf form, if the sheer number of fangs displayed was any indication.

"Yeah," Enid gritted out through her teeth, causing her vampire friend to reciprocate the rather dangerous smile. "No time, and can't be rude and antisocial."

"So what brings you over to our table?" Divina asked almost conspiratorially, leaning in to share a queer glance with Yoko before, noting the little smear of blood on the side of her cheek, she clucked her tongue and reached out with a napkin to wipe it off her girlfriend's face.

"It is a lunch table." With a deft twist of her knife, Wednesday speared a hunk of apple and raised it up, showing off the precise cut. "I am eating lunch." She thought for a minute, and added, "And practicing my dissection skills."

Speaking of which, she pulled out a paring knife from her pocket, testing the flex of the blade against the table, and began peeling her apple, trying to avoid nicking the flesh.

Like skinning a cat.

"Right." Yoko pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, pushing up her black sunglasses to rub at her eyes. "Not much of a lunch."

"I am not particularly hungry." As a matter of course, Wednesday enjoyed the perfectly miserable sensation of her body wasting away and consuming itself.

Apparently to her girlfriend's consternation, Yoko chortled, looking out above the top of her sunglasses to glance around the table. "Some girls are thirsty, though."

What a bizarre assertion considering the circumstances. Wednesday brought the now nude slice of fruit to her mouth and chewed, cheeks pinching at the tartness of the baking apple. For some reason, Enid was squirming more intensely now, apparently staring at Wednesday's grinding teeth.

Wednesday swallowed and patted her lips with a monogrammed handkerchief, a gift from her father, withdrawn from her pocket. "If you've consumed an insufficient amount of blood, I can offer you some of mine. Anemia is a heady experience."

A grinding, prolonged rasp rose up from the table, rough and gritty, like the sweet symphony of nails on a chalkboard. When Wednesday glanced downward, she found that a series of deep claw-marks had been gouged into the tabletop next to Enid's empty tray, peppered with the remnants of what appeared to be a bloody blue-rare hamburger.

Lips pursed and spine rigid, the wolf was raising up her popped claws to pick out wood shavings.

"Yeah, no. I... don't think that your blood would sit well with me" Yoko slapped her friend on the shoulder once, twice, and was going back in for a third strike when Wednesday glowered at her. The vampire's hand froze in the air mid-clap, and then drooped to her side. She sighed, setting her chin in her palm. "And I'm really not the one who's thirsty here."

Whatever that meant. Everyone in this school spoke in such strangely mysterious fashions.

Enid was now scratching away at the ruination that was all that remained of her multi-coloured nail-polish, eyes fixed on her clawed fingers and face red.

Really, though, there was nothing to be embarrassed about when you had claws like that. After all, they looked quite fetching when they'd been torn up. Messy. Like she'd just rent through human bone.

Sadly, that was the high-point of the lunch period. While it did seem to improve Enid's mood, her voice regaining that sickeningly sweet bubbly tone as opposed to phlegmy growls, an ensuing flighty conversation about something called k-pop bands was of no help in Wednesday's quest to ascertain that which had, now, been confirmed unequivocally.

Enid was acting strangely.

The lack of touching was just the tip of the iceberg into which the Titanic of their friendship was apparently destined to crash, metal hull shearing and boltholds bursting, taking on water and sinking to a watery grave.

She'd always loved that movie. All that death. The perfect feel-good film that always soured her mood and inspired her.

Capped off with Rose killing her lover by refusing to move over half a foot to let him use all that space on the wide raft, offering him the sweetest kiss of betrayal and said watery grave.

But, in this case, Wednesday would not countenance Enid's betrayal... whatever form it might assume.

Considering her utterly miserable sleeping schedule, one had to wake up very early indeed to pull the wool over Wednesday Addams' keen and perceptive eyes.

Enid would absolutely go back to touching her both in public and in private.

Which was a bad thing, of course, and not in a good way.

But at least everything would be perfectly, miserably normal again.

Chapter 2Summary:Wednesday seeks out the assistance and advice of Thing, and invites Enid on a date.

As friends.

It's the perfect way to lower her guard and find out exactly what's been bothering the wolf!

Notes:(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter TextThat evening found Wednesday seated at her writing desk, the ancient typewriter before her silent as she dragged her quill over the edge of a notepad. Sadly, she was out of vellum, even the animal stuff, never-mind the sheets made from human skin that would have disturbed Enid's sensitive nose, anyways.

The sneezing and revolted gurgles of Enid's belly distracted Wednesday from her writing. That was all. It wasn't because of Enid's squeamishness or teary-eyed expressions.

Thing was currently curled up by the silent typewriter, making a valiant attempt at twiddling his thumbs when he had only one.

Enid was by nature a genuinely affectionate and effervescent person, which was noted as her most charming feature by many of her followers on something known as "TikTok." That was the only social media platform whose title Wednesday could easily recall because it reminded her of both the beating of that hideous heart under the floorboards and the swish of a bladed pendulum ready to disembowel a helpless victim in the Inquisition torture pit.

Everyone loved a feel-good story.

How many times had Wednesday had to remind Enid that touching was off the table?

Too many.

Why should she start to listen now?

With a slight huff, Wednesday turned to stare at her only ally. Once again, it was her and her right-hand hand against the world.

"Have I done something to offend her?" she asked, the words tasting a little rotten on her tongue. Perhaps she needed to floss and brush her teeth.

Thing merely threw open his fingers in a gesture of helpless paralysis before clenching so that his knuckles rose like shrugging shoulders.

Lips pursing as she glanced down at her blank notepad, Wednesday wrote out the possibility in thin cursive script.

"You would tell me if I had?" she questioned of the animate, severed hand.

Thing threw her a thumbs-up.

"I should hope so."

She presumed that the for your sake was implied.

A quiver raced through him before he jerked a finger towards Wednesday's bed, and then Enid's, the sheets a tangled mass, like rainbow vomit.

Fitting.

"No," Wednesday replied, thoroughly unimpressed by the suggestion. "I do not care if she's taken some ridiculous form of offence because of her perception about something that I've done. Enid is far too squeamish and needs to become inured against the common grotesqueries of life."

Thing did not look particularly credulous, rising up to display his palm and the heavy white scar that ran its length.

"It's merely that this ... interruption to our regular patterns has become-" Wednesday did not blink, but she felt the urge to – "a distraction. A certain order has to be maintained in things."

Wednesday Addams did not miss the effortless and vexing tactile way in which Enid engaged with her up until roughly three days ago. Initially infuriating, it had simply became normal. Not tolerable by any means, but tolerated. Like the musk of Enid's flowery perfume that wafted over and clung to Wednesday's clothes and pillow so that when she breathed at night, or hugged said pillow instead of using it to prop up her head because she wanted to wake up with a crick in her neck, it was almost like Enid was right there in her arms again.

The sight of her face caked in blood and twisted in fear, misery, and relief was imprinted on her memory, after all.

Enid's incessant touches were like the prismatic splotches of colour that danced along her side of the dorm room floor as moonlight sluiced through the faux stained glass, reminding her of the colour of Enid's hair highlights.

Something you learnt to live with.

Truly, Wednesday's steadfastness and stoicism in the face of abhorrent tortures was akin to Satan in Paradise Lost:

The mind is its own place, and it in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 

But it was obvious.

Enid wasn't touching her any longer.

And, as she lay in bed that evening under the moonlight, categorically not staring at her roommate, Wednesday resolved that she was going to find out why.

The fire ants creeping under her skin, nipping and pinching at her scalp where her braids usually began, would not permit her to sleep for the next hour.

Despite Thing's apparent confirmation of Wednesday's suspicions, more research had to be carried out. The very real possibility that Wednesday was merely going fully insane – oh miserable, joyous day - and imagining things did exist.

Fortunately, circumstances conspired to assist her.

"A carnival?"

With Wednesday extending a slip of paper, Enid blinked up at her as if bewildered.

"Yes. I have procured this brochure and they will be arriving in town tomorrow." Waggling the flyer under Enid's nose like she was trying to help the wolf catch the scent, Wednesday leaned in over the other girl's bed. A scuttle backwards seemed yet more confirmation of Sinclair's strange new antipathy for Wednesday. "It opens on Saturday."

Granted that was later than Wednesday would have liked, but as she held out the flyer to Enid, who sat surrounded by stuffed animals on her bed, she was content to be patient.

With a broad and crooked smile, showing off those now-elongated canines that could rip out a girl's throat, the wolf reached out gingerly.

Wednesday licked her lips as Enid plucked the colourful slip of paper from her hand, clearly avoiding any possible brush of their fingers.

The carnival would be an ideal testing ground for various techniques of manipulation. Interrogation when Enid's guard – feeble as it might have been – was up would be folly, but an Enid distracted by carnival games and pretty lights like the panoply of colours from her window?

Overly-talkative putty in Wednesday's hands.

This mystery would be resolved by Saturday night.

"That sounds great!" Enid cheered, clutching her clawed hands together in a gesture that Wednesday judged to be only half affectation. The flyer was crushed between her palms. "I can get a bunch of shots for my blog, and since I don't have to worry about breakouts now that Ajax and I are splitsville, I can pig out on so much carnival food, it's not even funny."

There was a certain appeal to the prospect of watching those fangs rend apart some helpless victim.

Even if it was a corn-dog.

"Good," Wednesday noted completely absent any affect before she spun on her heel and summarily attempted to go to bed, already quite tired of this day and seeking to get one night closer to the date... of the carnival's opening.

Unfortunately, Enid was apparently dissatisfied by the brevity of their exchange.

"Wait a second!" she called, forcing Wednesday to come up short, just before the boundary line between their sides of the dorm.

On turning, she found that Enid was perched on the edge of her bed, clawed hands massaging a small stuffed rabbit. Its pink head deformed and popped back into place under the pressure of the wolf's flexing grip.

"Yes?"

"Well, carnivals are great, and we're going to have so much fun with the snacks and games and going on rides because the Tilt-a-Whirl, if they've got one, is amazing and not all that scary, and maybe you might be interested in the haunted house if they've got one, I don't know, even if that's, like, nothing compared to the pictures of your mansion that you shared with me over the summer break, but-"

"Enid, you're prevaricating, rambling, and gushing all at once," Wednesday spat out, hefting up a hand to stop the wolf in her mental tracks. "It's positively revolting and an affront to sound communication, particularly for a novelist with an incisive yet baroque prose style."

Enid blinked, well, wolfishly, her foot starting to tap against the wood floor. The little stuffed toy in her arms looked like he was about to pop under the strength of her grip.

Normally decapitating and detonating pink stuffed toys would be all in good fun.

"What?" Enid squeaked.

Today, it didn't seem so.

"Get-" Wednesday reconsidered the sentiment, filtering it through several layers of propriety, wracking her mind for some useless tidbits about proper manners she'd picked up from the dull sections of Wuthering Heights. "Would you kindly speak more directly... please."

"Oh, uh, like-" The wolf shrugged as she set down her stuffed toy and walked to the window, staring out into the terrace through multi-coloured panes of glass. "Why would you want to go to a carnival? With, uh- with me?"

While Wednesday was thoroughly grateful for not being slave to her emotions like Father, as they reduced him to a simpering ninny before mother, or given to fits of heated pique and pride like the Addams' matriarch, there were times when the inability to feel ... anything as others did was something of an impediment to her investigations.

Because she had no idea what the slight part to Enid's lips, a curved smile that only twisted up her cheeks, and narrowing of her glassy eyes, actually entailed.

How was one to answer such a question? At this moment, the entirety of her most recent investigation was on a knife's keen, Wednesday-sharp edge, depending on her ability to devise some suitable, believable excuse for her aberrant behaviour.

"A performer at this carnival is renown for his knife-throwing act," Wednesday explained as if this was something that Enid should have known, since she had, in fact, just been given a pamphlet that said exactly nothing about this supposed attraction. Foolish to present a lie so easily unraveled.

The disruption to the normative schedule of touches from Enid had clearly thrown her off her game.

"You're taking me to see-" Enid turned to face her, hands working together. "A knife-throwing act?"

Sadly this carnival did not provide the positively uplifting experience of witnessing repulsive human beings torturing animals and engaging in showmanship that could result in grievous bodily injury or death by errant knife toss, sword swallow, or high-wire acrobatic performance sans a safety net.

Like a little taste of home in the Addams' mansion.

"Yes," Wednesday affirmed while crossing back to her writing desk, making it seem as if she was busy by rearranging pages of her novel. "I hope to ascertain whether he is my superior. Perhaps my heckling will cause him to impale someone."

A carefully-tailored ruse that Wednesday had intended as a deflection. Enid's weak stomach would have her turning green, possibly lurching towards the bathroom to vomit at the thought of such an accident. The girl couldn't even handle a few photographs of dead bodies without nearly fainting.

Instead, in contravention of Wednesday's well-reasoned expectations, Enid's smile just grew broad and fat, like a larva gorging itself on rotting meat and excrement.

"Cool," she blurted out, a tremor to her lips the only sign of distress at the prospect of witnessing the exsanguination of a helpless victim tied to a target board in the midst of the big-top. "Right. Yeah. Sounds like fun. I- I'd love to go with you to a- a carnival, Wends-" She blinked and amended "Day! Wednesday!"

Queer in the extreme, and equally so as the wolf slunk off like a beaten puppy, her shoulders slumped. Flopping onto her bed, she fished out her ipod and stuffed the earbuds in to drown out the silence of the room with preppy bubblegum pop music.

It reached a decibel level that Wednesday, based on a quick calculation, was certain would damage the wolf's ears.

All she could do was retire to her own bed, though.

Leaving Thing to clamber over to the girl, wrench the ipod from her grasp, and turn down the volume for her, before perching on the bed-frame to stroke her hair.

It was worse than Wednesday had imagined.

Hiding something and disrupting schedules was one level of deception, but Enid appeared almost revolted at the prospect of going to a carnival with her, when in the past, she'd doubtlessly have leapt at the chance.

Surely, this was a mystery worthy of Wednesday Addams.

Once she ascertained the cause of this strange behaviour, she'd ... eliminate it, her, or him swiftly.

And then everything would be back to normal.

While exhaustion did wonders for a bad mood, a sharp mind was required to delve into the bowels of this mystery regarding Enid's reticence. But Wednesday had a positively hideous time trying to fall asleep regardless, her thoughts plagued with maggoty smiles.

Notes:Much obliged for your kind attentions and comments. They mean a great deal, knowing that others enjoy the work enough to engage with it.

Happy reading, wherever your travels take you.

Chapter 3Summary:Wednesday and Enid enjoy the experience of a fair, with, to Wednesday's consternation, Yoko invited along as a third wheel.

She'll simply have to ... excise this interloper like a malignant growth.

Yoko is so done with these useless bisexuals.

Notes:This one as crack comedy involves... a moment of utter self-indulgence. You'll likely be able to spot it.

Thank you for your time and attention, and I do hope that you enjoy the chapter.

Chapter TextThat Saturday evening, Wednesday and Enid, suitably attired for their sojourn at the fair, emerged from their dorm. On account of the cool evening that they anticipated, the wolf had donned the pink bubble wrap jacket she'd worn for Ajax, setting it over a high collar light purple vertically stripped shirt. The ensemble, each member at the other's throat, was topped off with a darker blue skirt and pink leggings. Those led down to fuzzy black checkered socks – the only remotely reasonable part of her garish attire – and converse chuck shoes.

It was loathsome.

But Wednesday suspected that was the intention.

Clearly Enid had her suffering in mind when selecting an outfit with that colour lack-of-coordination.

For her part, Wednesday wore a soot jacket, sable undershirt, obsidian slacks, ink leggings, and midnight running shoes over onyx socks.

Complemented by plain everyday black shoe laces for a little bit of class and some flair.

It was quite daring of her, really. Almost avant-garde.

At first it seemed as if Wednesday's plan was coming to fruition. The best way to hide the knife was to ensure that your victim was thoroughly distracted. Surely with Enid veritably yipping as she scrambled back and forth between various carnival stalls, stuffing her face with corn dogs, cotton candy (which reminded Wednesday of Enid's pink jacket), she'd be lulled into a sense of security and could be persuaded to let something slip.

Wednesday just had to make the experience repulsively delightful, rather than delightfully repulsive, as it was to her. Ensure that Enid had the most marvelous time.

Everything appeared to have been orchestrated perfectly to facilitate Wednesday's investigation. The chessboard was set, the queen in place, boxed in, ready to be knocked off the board and into the Wednesday's metaphorical prison-house, ready for the chains, clamps, and bladed whips.

Until they stepped out of their dorm room to find-

"Hey, girl!" a cheery, waving vampire crowed in what felt like an insult hurled at a defeated and spiritually-broken victim of a serial killer. 

Yoko was waiting for them, back to the balustrade that ran the length of the upper floor above the stairwell.

When she caught sight of Wednesday, trailing behind Enid, her expression fell. "Wait," she began dubiously. "Wednesday is coming with us?"

"I wouldn't miss it," Wednesday responded. "I very rarely miss things: arranged meetings, other people, targets."

Yoko just clucked her tongue and sucked in a hissed breath. 

So began a nightmarish evening.

Oh, Enid was more than enthused about the entire affair. As Wednesday had foreseen, the preppy and perky puppy puttered about preciously, pestering proprietors of the panoply of provision pavilions, pounding pogos and pop.

Wednesday was also running through the alphabet, letter by letter, engaging in mental alliteration, having just reached the letter 'P.'

First as a distraction from the torture inflicted by all the garish lights, colours, and the cacophony of the throngs of people, carnival games, and upbeat music from the rides.

Even her ability to enjoy pain had its limits.

And, secondly, to stave off the desire to gut Yoko and asphyxiate her with her own entrails.

Because the vampire was everywhere, like some bloodless, fanged, Japanese mobile bulwark that Enid had erected to keep Wednesday at a safe distance. Every ride for two was shared between them, while Wednesday had to stick a massive stuffed panda bear beside her when she was ... required to ride the teacups.

Said bear had brought an enthused grin to Enid's face, perhaps the first interaction between them that had seemed saccharine soft and somewhat sincere (Wednesday had reached "s")

"Thanks, Wi- uh, Wednesday," Enid had stuttered, her eyes to the ground in a possible display of disgust that had Wednesday grinding her teeth silently. The wolf received the stuffed bear that Wednesday had won at a dart-throwing booth – one of the many games at which she excelled, as it turned out – with a queer smile, the pinching of her cheeks, combined with a hint of pudge, wiping away the moderately dangerous air afforded by her scars and making her look even younger.

Over the next ten minutes, she cuddled the gaudy, happily-grinning thing that was, in Wednesday's estimation, taunting her, as the trio of girls made their way between various different stalls, Wednesday collecting yet more tokens and deriving some moderate satisfaction from lambasting Yoko in several carnival games.

While somewhat squeamish about the prospect of using the makeshift facilities at the fair, Enid had been imbibing a substantial amount of sugary cola throughout the evening as Wednesday won her the various multi-hued stuffies that were now searing the Addams girl's back, right through the black satchel she'd brought along.

She may have begun plying the wolf with those caustic carbonated drinks early on in the evening for precisely this purpose.

Enid's departure was a prime opportunity to address the matter of this overly-familiar interloper who'd disrupted Wednesday's plans.

There was no need for a "good cop" in this interrogation, which began the moment that Wednesday, through the sheer force of her glare, backed the vampire, hands raised to ward off a predator, into the shadow of a stall.

Back to the fabric tent, glancing over her shoulder as if to assess the feasibility of ripping through the pinstripe material in an attempt to flee from the darkness coiling around her, poised to encircle her throat and garrote her, Yoko grinned while shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot.

"Uh, Wednesday," she began, swallowing thickly to clear a croak from her voice before continuing. "Can I help you with anything?"

She could help by no longer touching Wednesday's things.

Yes.

That was it.

Wednesday did not share her toys, writing utensils, or ... pawns in potential future plans with any woman.

Her eyes narrowed, not that she was actually conveying emotion, but she found a deft, if subtle, control over expressions did help to inspire terror.

"Enid is touching you."

Yoko looked around frantically, perhaps searching for a kindly police officer, who'd be more likely to violate her civil rights than assist her, anyways, or a guard werewolf.

"Uh, Enid isn't even here," she said in something of a lament, as if that fact was convicting and irrefutable testimony presented at her trial.

"I am speaking generally," Wednesday clarified, taking out her paring knife. She wasn't usually so brazen, but sometimes expediency demanded a more forceful approach. "Enid touches you but she no longer touches me. Why?"

Yoko's finger rose up and waggled, making her look like a 'normal' parent scolding a child, the girl somehow finding her courage. "Oh, shit no! I am sonot getting involved in this mess. I've learnt my lesson after tonight."

If that was the way she wanted to approach the matter, Wednesday could accommodate her.

"I am an innately curious person," Wednesday admitted to the vampire who appeared to still be judging her. She began to press the point of her knife against the pad of her index, testing the way in which it deformed her flesh, on the verge of piercing it. "It is among my few foibles."

Behind her thick sunglasses, still, offensively, worn at night, the Japanese girl blinked. "Uh, non sequitur?"

"I have heard that vampires are immortal unless one decapitates them." Wednesday rolled her wrist in a casual, slow circle, the point of her blade directed towards Yoko's convulsing throat. "This theory merits empirical verification."

A shudder raced down Yoko's entire body as she began to hug herself as she might if she could actually feel the cold and had been struck by a hurricane-force fell breeze off a fetid swamp. "Holy shit you're creepy."

That felt like a blow to the gut. Well struck by her opponent.

"Only creepy?" Wednesday lamented, shaking her head at herself. "This school has made me soft."

Yoko sighed. "You're half right."

Wednesday passed her tongue over the roof of her mouth, mulling. "What?

"Ugh. Useless. Both of you. Never-mind. Look. Enid touches everyone!" Yoko threw her arms out to the side in desperation, as she would shortly on the cross to which Wednesday was planning to crucify her. Delicious double agony. "What? Are you going to kill eve-"

The vampire's eyes blew wide behind her dark sunglasses as she coughed, and then quickly covered up the sound by laughing in a fashion that was just about as horrifying and awkward as Wednesday attempting to giggle. "Ha! Ha! No! Never mind! F-forget I said that."

Wednesday felt the flesh around her eyes pinch up. She really was being rather overly emotional today. "I am losing patience."

The vampire slumped against the fabric of the stall behind her, dragging a hand through her hair.

"Catch 22," she mumbled.

"A delightfully gruesome piece of psychological torture." Wednesday arched a brow. "Relevance?"

"Me." Jabbing a finger into her chest, right where the stake would go in about sixty seconds, Yoko grimaced. "See, Enid told me something and made me promise not to say anything to anyone. So, either I'm a good friend and you stake me right here for clamming up, or I'm a shit friend and betray her trust and you kill me for that. Which would you prefer? That I stab Enid in the back? That I hurt her just for you? Because you creep me the heck out?"

Catch 22 indeed, for more than one person.

More being caught between a rock and a hard place, but she would forgive the vampire for her illiteracy. It wasn't as if most teenagers had even read a single book in their lives, let alone one that was well-written.

"I..." In quite a uncharacteristic experience, Wednesday found that she didn't have any means of undoing that Gordian knot of a problem, and her good gladius was on display in her bedroom at the Addams' mansion. Curse her lack of foresight. "Did- did I do something wrong?"

With an unsteady hand, like she was being exposed to a seeping puddle of blood under a freshly mauled corpse and on the verge of losing control of her human faculties, the vampire reached up and slowly plucked off her sunglasses, exposing mud-brown eyes, so dark they almost became red in the moonlight.

"What?"

"Is-" It felt like she'd taken another knife to the lung, almost robbed of breath as she glared at the vampire. How dare the little leech draw this out from her. "Is Enid ... angry with me?"

The uncomprehending quirk of Yoko's head, almost doll or corpse-like, which made the motion quite fetching, was accompanied by a flurry of blinks.

Then, she smiled in a most loathsome fashion. Not in predatory glee or even sardonic smugness that oozed out of her on an all too frequent basis.

No.

A far worse kind of smile, and utterly incomprehensible because Wednesday couldn't fathom what it implied.

A gentle one.

"Oh, sweetie," Yoko breathed as if speaking to a little girl, face smeared up with snot and tears, rubbing pitifully at her eyes as she gazed down at the filthy remnants of the ice cream cone she'd dropped on the sidewalk. "Damn, no - No. She's not mad at you."

For a second before she thought better of it at Wednesday's still-fierce deadpan glare, Yoko almost looked like she was going to try to put a hand on Wednesday's shoulder.

"I didn't realize you had it this bad, too."

"If you call me sweetie again, you'll have it far worse." That threat did raise her spirits, Yoko throwing up her hands, palms out, once again in an attempt at placation.

"Heard," the vampire demurred. "She... You just have to talk to her. Tell her that you miss her. What you used to have. And you'll work it out."

"I do not miss Enid touching me," Wednesday clarified immediately, leaning into the Vampire's space so that she could catch a whiff of the garlic on her breath, courtesy of the souvlaki platter she'd eaten at one of those food trucks, heavy on the garlic, to make the night as unpleasant as possible and potentially drive off the bloodsucker so that Wednesday and Enid could have the night to themselves.

That plan had had likewise been a failure, sadly.

"It was a necessary capitulation to the inevitable and a sacrifice on my part."

Yoko rubbed at her temples before slipping her sunglasses back on. "Riiiight. Jeez. You two deserve each other so bad it's crazy."

"But," Wednesday insisted, "she's not mad?"

There was that repulsive pitying smile again for no reason, and Wednesday would not stoop so low as to ask when she was already snapping her spine in the limbo contortions she'd made tonight.

"I am totally sure that she's not mad at you." Yoko grimaced as she crossed her heart, which seemed a rather painful action. "Furthest thing from it."

"Good." Wednesday spun on her heel, but, before stalking off, tossed over her shoulder, "Don't let Enid touch you again. Garlic poisoning can happen by accident so very easily."

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Yoko swallow thickly.

"... Heard."

At least that was one person whom Enid would no longer be touching.

As expected, companionship in her ... negatively blessed and happily miserably state of isolation only rendered the experience more unendurable.

And by this point, even Wednesday wasn't certain if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

They rejoined the girl in question, who actually found them first by sniffing them out, her button nose twitching as she bounded up to them, much like some kind of golden retriever puppy, as they left the shadow of the stall.

Excitement was tempered by a transient flicker of something grim and tempestuous behind eyes that were otherwise the colour of clear blue skies as the wolf glanced back and forth between Wednesday and Yoko.

For some reason, she began fiddling with her claws over the next half hour, putting on a delightful show of popping and retracting them, while filing them to sharp points and showing them off to Yoko at periodic intervals. During that span, Wednesday was frankly baffled by the wolf's decision to interpose herself between the vampire and herself.

Of all times, why would she seek Wednesday's proximity now, serving as a wall between her and Yoko? Had she perhaps overheard Wednesday's threats and was trying to protect the vampire? Was that when she was keeping them so far apart?

What could possibly have triggered such a baffling inversion of behaviour, with Enid almost, almosttouching her, chuffing and glaring openly at Yoko?

That didn't make any sense whatsoever. If that was the case, Enid should have been bearing those glistening, pearl fangs at Wednesday, trying to scare her off!

For her part, the vampire looked thoroughly exasperated before the end of the night and continued to make strange, evocative facial expressions in Enid's direction. Finally, when it appeared that Wednesday wasn't looking, feigning interest in a dunking booth while muttering about the fact that the contraption would be vastly improved by the inclusion of piranha, barracuda, or electric eels, Yoko gestured at her back, then to her own chest, before dragging her index over her throat.

Enid seemed inordinately pleased, and appeared to again deem Yoko a fit human shield, slipping to her left and keeping the grimacing Japanese girl firmly between herself and Wednesday.

Utterly baffling.

At least Yoko was shying away, refusing to be touched.

The werewolf was indeed an infuriating subject, worthy of Wednesday's fixation and admitted curiosity. That was the only reason that Wednesday found herself staring with murderous intensity at Enid as she guzzled her coke thirstily, throat undulating and lips glistening and sticky with dark, saccharine fluid as she licked them in a fashion that made her look like a slobbering puppy

Yoko, as repugnant as the thought might be, was correct in her assessment of the situation.

Speaking forthrightly was the solution here.

But certainly not to Enid.

That would just be insane, and not in a respectable way, either.

Wednesday needed to appeal to experts. Seeking out the opinions and perspectives of others, when unfamiliar with a given subject, was only rational – coolly and dispassionately so, as Wednesday was when, on the walk home, Yoko snapped her fingers in consternation, patting at her pockets in an exaggerated show, and stated that she had forgotten her wallet at one of the vendors.

Her rapid absconding from the scene left Wednesday and Enid alone.

Coolly. Rational.

For safety's sake, considering that the last time they had visited a fair such as this one, Wednesday had been stalked by a telekinetic attempted murderer and a Hyde, it was only prudent for her to draw close to Enid. Close enough for her to discern the utterly stomach-churning bouquet of her perfume, feel the heat of her scalding, lupine body soak into Wednesday's all too distant arm, and fixate on the crooked smile, all jagged fangs, that the other girl offered her.

"I guess we're going home alone – I mean, together, but not really together because it's more like we're just going to the same place at the same time on the same road," she rambled on, making vague gestures with her hands that suggested that she might be losing her fine motor control due to some kind of degenerative neurological disorder.

Hmm.

Willowy and fair, Enid would make a lovely victim of some kind of chronic or consumptive disorder, wasting away in bed, a flower withering on its stem.

"Of course we're going home together," Wednesday said as she struggled slightly to keep pace, given her short stride, with the wolf who was almost starting to lope back to Nevermore. "We share the same room."

"Right. Yep. Just girls living together like friends – good friends." Enid gave an affirmative nod in time with the waggle of her hips, something between a power-walk and a dog's tail wagging. It was revolting in its cuteness. Both her agitation and the hips for some reason. "Totally friendly living together in the same room but with different beds and – and... styles."

That conclusion sounded like the verbal equivalent of a lame dog staggering on two paws.

Which was a feat, to be sure.

"Are you feeling feverish?" Wednesday asked. "You're rambling more than usual."

"Oh, yeah!" Enid assured with a hasty grunt, scratching at her fringe hard enough to look like she was going to rip open her own flesh with those bewitchingly deadly claws. "Just tired. Lots of work. Late night."

"You do appear to have bruises around your eyes."

Enid withdrew a compact mirror, apparently intent on checking her appearance in a fumble.

"The signs of degradation, wear, anxiety, and pain are quite-" Wednesday sought out the correct word before hitting on the obvious - "fetching, are they not?"

The compact snapped shut as Enid, in something more familiar, more natural, mustered a moderately incredulous, and comfortably warm, expression. "Was that a dog pun?"

"It was an appropriate term," Wednesday dismissed the ridiculous nigh-accusation. "I don't make jokes or puns, or engage in wordplay."

The brief return to normalcy ended shortly thereafter, when, halfway to Nevermore, Enid's puffy jacket just brushed against Wednesday's arm.

Their near-jog that turned into one, Enid fleeing like a beaten puppy as gooseflesh crept up Wednesday's arm.

Clearly she had grown quite unused to physical contact.

Such reactions were... a weakness.

All the more reason to uncover the source of Enid's strange behaviour, she resolved as she tried to catch up with the wolf.

And why she'd have to turn to an expert in the matter of physical contact, rather than relying on innuendo, observation, insinuation, and even her own well-practised guile.

Unfortunately, she knew of no one more obsessively and repulsively tactile than...

Mother and father.

Chapter 4Summary:Under duress, Wednesday seeks the advice of her parents on how best to get Enid to start touching her again.

Of course, her parents appear to have completely misread this situation.

What oblivious fools they are.

Notes:(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter TextUnable to keep pace with her roommate's lupine stride, Wednesday had retired to her dorm room that evening to find Enid already asleep, tucked under her fluffy multi-coloured blanket. Completely under, in fact, little more than a lump within the rainbow comforter.

Wednesday had, thus, only needed to wait one more day to contact her parents using her crystal ball because Enid was out of the dorm as early as possible, again trying to escape Wednesday's presence before she rose to shower the next morning.

Curious, Wednesday noted as she stripped off her towel and changed into her uniform.

An hour before class would be sufficient time to contact her parents, however, so there was some benefit to having the room to herself.

Nonetheless, it was demeaning in the extreme. Wednesday Addams, subjecting herself to distractable and execrable parents, whose adolescent libidinal impulses rendered every interaction with them repugnant. She could only thank ... the inexorable, mindlessly turning gears of the godless universe that she would never, ever be subject to the manifest emotionalism and.... horniness (that was a word the teens around her were using, and it seemed more trite and derisive than a variation on libidinal) on display before her.

Revolting in addition to demeaning.

Like the image on the crystal ball, mere seconds after the initial greetings were exchanged.

"Mother, father," she ground out through gritted teeth while struggling against the natural impulse to avert her eyes from sight of father's kisses running up and down Morticia's arm and getting caught up in the crux of her neck, "cease this repugnant display of rampant emotionalism at once. There are serious matters with which I regrettably... require your assistance."

Now appearing suitably chastened, if still flushed and dopey as they shared doe-eyed expressions, they turned to look at her. Cascades of miniature stars like snowflakes washed over them, while a haze of smoke churned around the edges of the orb that sat before her on her desk.

Mother looked rather pleased at the admission of weakness. Of course. Good to know where to sink the dagger. She put a hand to her pallid bosom, licking lustrously red lips that father was still eyeing, his arm out of frame and likely curled around her back, hand .... touching her just beyond Wednesday's vision, tormenting, teasing, mocking.

How dare her parents insist on touching each other.

Right in front of her, too.

It was unusually insulting.

"Oh, it must be serious if you'd come to us so openly," Morticia noted, brow pinched and folding up.

"Whatever you need, my little scorpion." With a quick glance towards mother, which Wednesday interpreted as one of shock, Gomez extended a hand towards his viewing globe. "We're always here to lend you a hand."

"Several, in fact. Lurch just has to drive us into town to collect them," Morticia added. "We'd want them to be fresh, after all."

The prospect of receiving a shipment of severed body parts by courier did bolster Wednesday's mood slightly. She leaned towards the crystal ball, speaking almost conspiratorially.

"Very well. I would hope that we will all be sufficiently mature not to gloat over such things."

As if offended by the mere suggestion, Gomez put a hand to his heart, right under his cravat. "Perish the thought," he assured.

"In the torture chamber, my dear," mother added, tapping a finger to the crystal ball's screen.

At least they were being magnanimous in their victory, but it would still behoove her to finish this abominable task as quickly as possible.

"How does a girl go about ..." Wednesday paused, taking in the eager and attentive expressions of both her parents while trying to find the words, before settling on the obvious, "getting someone to touch her."

A quick gasp hissed through mother's lips, her cheeks actually tinting a shade darker than their usual wan tone as ruby-red lips curled.

"Oh, my!" Shifting in her chair, she clutched Gomez' shoulder, seeming to become distracted for an instant by groping him, before continuing. "I knew that our little nightshade would blossom at Nevermore, but I couldn't have imagined her flower would bud and spread so quickly."

"You know just as well as I that the passion of an Addams' can't be bridled, Cara Mia," father responded, plucking up Morticia's free hand to plant a kiss to her knuckles, gazing up into her eyes.

Disgusting and smitten.

"Oh, that's what you always say, my love," mother, pulling her hand away, responded in a coquettish lilt as Wednesday tried to refrain from gagging, or possibly swallowing her own tongue. Morticia flicked her husband's bow tie and veritably fondled it. "I'll have Lurch fetch the reins and mullen from the basement."

"I-

"Mother, father." Wednesday interjected, quite done with this display of infinitely infuriating infatuation and intimate interaction.

With an inordinate amount of touching.

Which she hated, as a matter of course.

With clear reluctance, the pair return their attentions to her.

"Ah, sorry my little scorpion," Gomez apologized, by all appearances genuinely contrite, though he was grinning broadly. "It's just that this is a most joyous occasion."

Her parents were utterly unfathomable.

"I fail to see why," she retorted, lacing her fingers together on the tabletop and squeezing them, which gave her the vague impression that someone was holding her hand.

"You're right." Morticia nodded slowly. "A girl in your position can't afford anything scandalous."

"We Addams do sometimes ... get carried away." Gomez gave his wife a fiery look, half directed at her bosom and accompanied by a flash of teeth in a mock bite at the air that conjured an image of a wolf-Enid snarling and snapping her jaws at Tyler.

There was an appeal to such savagery, Wednesday supposed. She could at least grant her parents an allowance in that regard.

"Not even one as cold and pragmatic as you can resist the smouldering embers that rest under the stake on which you're to be burned alive," Morticia noted, though she seemed to be speaking to father. "So many-" She licked her lips. "Little deaths along the way."

"Cara Mia," Gomez breathed, lavishing sloppy kisses in a most repugnant display over the back of mother's hand.

"If you two could cease acting like hormone-addled teens for sixty seconds, perhaps you would be able to provide me with something resembling a coherent and sensible sentence, let alone advice."

Eyes shifting with some reluctance from the expanse of Morticia's arm, Gomez smiled faintly, and then withdrew, scratching his cheek. "You're right. This is about your needs, now. My apologies, my little man-trap."

Man-trap. That was a new one. Vastly superior to a mere fly-trap, too sweet smelling and responsible only for killing insects, rather than people.

Of course, considering the fact that Wednesday was currently in a female dorm-space, woman-trap might be better, locking onto Enid's leg, bringing her to ground, pinning her so that she could be imprisoned and tortured for the vile crimes she'd been inflicting on Wednesday, categorically refusing to touch her although that was entirely a good thing.

"Oh, my little storm cloud! You look like you're veritably bursting," Morticia cooed, drawing Wednesday back to stare at her expectant parents, who were smiling at her as if she'd just carried out her first lobotomy.

"I have no idea what you mean, mother."

"So tell us," mother enthused. "Who's the lucky young man?"

Wednesday's head cocked as she examined her parents' features. "Lucky man?"

"Oh!" Morticia gasped, hand to her chest, before turning to look Gomez in the eye. "We've been so presumptuous. I mean, it's terribly unfortunate that she'll miss out on all the benefits, but-"

"But the heart wants what the heart wants, Cara Mia." Gomez's gaze smouldered as he raised Morticia's fingers to his lips for yet another kiss and nibble in one of their ceaseless repugnant displays. Imagine! Being emotionally compromised. Smitten. Weak. Infatuated. Loathsome to someone with Wednesday's proclivities and good sense.

And, worst of all, they were interrupting her efforts to get Enid to start touching her again!

"Focus," the teen chastised her addled parents, who at least had the decency to appear slightly bashful.

"Yes. Of course. How you get a ... girl?" Morticia let the apparent question hang until Wednesday nodded. At least they were getting back on track. "Yes – a girlto touch you? Well, the Addams' charm is simply irresistible. She's probably shy. Just make your intentions known."

Her father, seemingly reluctant to let go of mother's hand, managed to wrench himself away to raise a finger into the air. "Who is this girl, by the way, my little woman-trap?"

Well, father was always her favourite parent, despite his ardour for mother and other emotional weaknesses.

"Enid Sinclair," Wednesday explained in monotone.

Morticia's hands clasped together before her bosom. She appeared positively gleeful. Wednesday almost wanted father to go back to trying to bite off her fingers. "Oh, bringing home a werewolf puppy! A few years too late, but so wholesome."

"Opposites attracting, roommates unable to restrain the whelming passion that threatens to overcome them at any moment, drowning them – suffocating," father breathed out the last word in a sigh like he was being asphyxiated.

"It all makes sense," mother noted, eyes turning heavenward in the little crystal ball, as if she was getting lost in meaningless memories that almost had Wednesday huffing. "After transforming for Wednesday, savaging that Galpin boy. Love at first blood."

"Mmm. On her claws." Father sounded so wistful. He tugged lightly at his collar as if suffering from the heat of a muggy day. "So much like the blade you pulled from Garrett Gates' dying body, all to save me."

"It was-"

"If you are not going to assist me, we can conclude this call immediately," Wednesday interjected before the perpetual embers smouldering between her parents could ignite and burn down the family estate.

"Sorry, my little woman-trap," Gomez, seemingly chastened, extended the apology like a contrite child, grinding his foot into the earth. "Honesty would be the best policy, as they say."

"And don't forget that gifts can make your intentions obvious as well," Morticia noted with a flash of her of her fingers, showing off her simple white gold wedding band which was, Wednesday supposed, the only "gift" she had on hand, "even if the words don't come easily."

She was about to respond, when father cut her off, dragging mother into his arms as she nearly seemed to swoon at being clutched to his breast.

"How can they when your beauty leaves me bereft of words, Cara Bella?" Whereupon, words did, indeed, seem to fail him as he dove in to plaster wet, squelching kisses along mother's shoulder.

"Oh!" Morticia gasped hotly, fingers carding through father's hair and clutching at him like the bony, unbreakable clasp of Death. "Mon Cherie, you slander that skilled silver tongue of yours."

Morticia appeared to be approximately five seconds away from sucking said skilled silver tongue.

Which was precisely why Wednesday terminated the connection before she was inflicted with yet more trauma about which she would be forced to speak in mandatory therapy sessions.

Still, her parents were not entirely incorrect in their assessment of the situation, and the suggestion of an abstruse and distant parallelism between their revolting teenage infatuation, which had lasted well into the couple's forties, and the interaction between Wednesday and Enid was not without merit.

She said as much to Thing in passing as she retired to her bed, folding her arms over her chest to stare at the distant cobwebs that clustered in the ceiling corners. Ignoring Thing, who appeared to be face-palming which was quite a feat for several reasons, she mulled over the matter.

Gifts to make evident her intentions. Like sacrificial offerings to a distant, murcurial, and scalding hot deity of the sun with spun-gold hair and a radiant complexion and smile.

There was a certain logic to that. Perhaps her parents, despite their foibles, did indeed know something about which Wednesday was completely oblivious.

Honesty, however, was completely out of the question, because the honest thing was that Wednesday Addams categorically loathed being touched and was – insofar as she was capable of experiencing the emotions – quite pleased and even, dare she think it, happy that Enid was no longer touching her.

It was just the distraction and disruption that were problematic.

She couldn't very well tell Enid that she hated the sensation of her fingers on skin, the whispered breath against her cheek as the girl clung onto her, settling the tumult of rage and horror after Crackstone's second death. Embracing in the darkness, the press of Enid's bosom against her own, warmth building up between the two girls amid the scent of floral perfume nearly washed out by acrid smoke and coppery blood. Fingers knotted up in the coarse fabric over Wednesday's shoulders and tremulous, suppressed sobs rocking the other girl's form, held so tight and close in her arms...

No.

Wednesday couldn't tell her that.

If she wanted to -

Uh.

To control Enid and use her as a pawn and- and bodyguard in case of Tyler's escape from psychiatric confinement. It would just take consenting to allow Enid to touch her again, once she had learnt the cause of the fracture in their relationship.

Which was where the parallel between her and mother factored into the situation. That was what was important.

If Wednesday couldn't extract the truth from Yoko forcefully, was stymied by her parents' ceaseless amorous distraction, and knew that actually talking like a human being (because Enid was not human) to her roommate was out of the question, there was, in fact, another option to explore.

Like mother, Wednesday was a seer, after all.

Perhaps less mundane, and more supernatural, means of ascertaining the cause of Enid's flustered withdrawal from all physical contact would bear fruit. Of course, deploying her powers consciously would be both harrowing and dangerous, requiring some research into their potential application. Which meant hours and hours of solitude in the grim and musty shadowed dankness of the Nevermore library.

What a positively dreadful thought that carried her through the remainder of the day.

Notes:You have likely noted the expansion of this work from four to five chapters. Intially, I had believed that the conversation between Morticia, Gomez, and Wednesday would take less space, but it expanded outwards to the point that that scene seemed sufficent for a short chapter in itself, considering the length of the conclusion.

My apologies for the delay in continuing this work, and anyone who reads this piece has my sincere gratitude.

Chapter 5Summary:Wednesday takes liberties with Enid's slumbering form.

And the pair enjoy more touching in ten minutes than they have in the past ten months.

Notes:(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter TextIn the end, the most expedient solution was a rank violation of her ... roommate's trust. Wholly justified by the fact that Enid was the one who'd started keeping secrets in the first place. It was necessary, even, that Wednesday avail herself of her abilities as a Seer to ascertain the cause of this... incredibly welcome cessation of physical contact.

The events surrounding the case of the Hyde murders had proven that... allies could be useful on occasion, and it thus behooved her to resolve the matter. If ensuring that Enid could be called upon in the future should Wednesday need – that is to say – could be assisted by her, well, a little bit of touching, now and then, was the price to pay.

So, late one evening after having made her preparations through careful study of the relevant texts from the Nevermore Academy library and meditating in that sensory deprivation chamber that she'd brought with her from home, having it fashioned after spending a few minutes in the chill confines of a mortuary cold chamber, she was ready.

Ravens' abilities to perceive past events, or receive portents of the future, were typically both triggered and limited by dour emotional states. As it turned out, there were ways of conditioning the mind through force of will. A degree of focus had been developed over the months between semesters at Nevermore, leaving Wednesday confident that she could hone in on the cause of Enid's novel behaviour with only a few moments of physical contact.

Which meant touching her while she was asleep and vulnerable.

The perfect time to effect a crime upon another's person.

Thing would have objected, but she'd used Enid's computer and credit card to order some specialized home manicure kits that came highly recommended.

That would keep him out and occupied for half the night.

Crossing the now-effaced boundary between her sensible side of the room and the offensive spew of coloured fabrics, posters, stuffies, and other assorted paraphernalia on tip-toes, Wednesday focused her mind and sought to draw upon the arcane powers that even she didn't understand fully. With a pillow under her knees, she sat by Enid's bed, gazing at the girl's face. Slack with sleep and drooling a little bit like an over-tired puppy, her features were almost cherubic.

Disgustingly angelic, really.

It made Wednesday sick.

The thought of touching her as she slept, indeed, left Wednesday violently ill, so much so that she shuddered with the tumult in her gut, hesitating as she raised up a hand. It hovered there between them, and then withdrew halfway to making contact with the other girl's soft, plump cheek.

Worse yet, there was an oddly ... doggy musk, a little bit like oil, but also flowers in an amalgamation that was all uniquely Enid, absent some of her revolting perfumes.

Pale shadows and prismatic light from the moon filtered through the colourful half of the window. The dull rainbow cut across Enid's body as she shifted slightly in her sleep, murmuring something that Wednesday, though she held her breath, couldn't quite make out. Lips, pink and slightly moist even without her lipstick or gloss, fluttered. A voice from beyond the conscious. Such a strange and wondrous thing to see someone puppeted about by dreams.

She was being a foolish child.

With a burst of deeper self-loathing, she jabbed her finger forward before she could think to question herself again and brushed over Enid's temple, the-

An electric shock and thunderclap.

Eyes rolled back.

A carpet-bombing campaign raking her mind with nitroglycerine and napalm.

And in the throes of convulsions, Wednesday toppled backwards.

Then the images came.

Not images.

Flashes and impressions.

Jet-black lips.

Airy giggles.

Softness and the savor of strawberry lip-gloss.

Melting saccharine heat that turned her stomach, sent it churning and churning until it nearly consumed her, warmth bursting upwards and down.

Vertigo and a kaleidoscope of exploding colours.

Piercing blue, stabbing right to the heart like the softly romantic kiss of a slow dagger, sinking into her warm guts, heart pounding furiously, bleeding out.

A fall through infinite distances, lengthy fishtail braids coiling around her throat, asphyxiating so sweetly, bringing her down into the cool dark of oblivion.

Such a sweet seizure.

Wednesday snapped back to consciousness on the floor, staring up at the ceiling that blurred in her vision. Heavy oak boards, peppered on this side with fluffy trinkets and some dangling papier mache figures, the intended shapes of which were vaguely animal in outline but otherwise wholly amorphous, swam in and out of focus until she was given a proper object of focus.

Enid's tussled locks, now hanging in golden curls just past her shoulders and framing her rounded, flushed pink cheeks. Her claws were extended as a natural threat response, the noise of Wednesday's collapse clearly having started her awake. Concern veritably dripped like spring rain from those blue eyes.

Wednesday hated spring rains. Not nearly biting and cold enough, hardly able to soak through your flimsy jacket. No fell, howling wind to slice through to the bone and leave you suffering from hypothermia.

For some reason, this spring rain was particularly warm.

And cutting right through her skin anyways.

"What happened?" Enid gasped, taking a quick stutter step backwards as Wednesday jerked upwards and then started to half-crab walk away. It was a good thing she had practice mimicking the contortions of a possessed woman. "Are you okay?!"

"I'm perfectly fine," Wednesday stressed, licking her lips as she rose because she could still taste the lingering hint of phantom strawberry lip-gloss and it disgusted her in the extreme.

"You don't really look fine," Enid noted with some dubiety, replacing the high-pitched notes of concern, that pinched up her cheeks cutely.

Not cutely.

Uglily.

If that was a term.

And not in the positive sense of ugliness.

It felt like there was no correct adverb here as Wednesday rose and dusted herself off, straightening her nightshirt. She was able to pass off the quick glance towards the mirror, assuring herself that she remained completely stoic and impassive, as an attempt at checking to see if her sleepwear was in proper order.

"It's late," Wednesday retorted, rubbing her cheeks. "And you're probably imagining things."

Shaking her head as if to wake herself fully, Enid blinked and looked like she wanted to put a palm to Wednesday's forehead to check her temperature and that wasn't where Wednesday wanted Enid to palm her-

"Are you... blushing!?" Came Enid's squawked question.

"Preposterous." Still dusting herself off, which was becoming ridiculous at this point, and not looking in her quivering, wide-eyed dorm-mate's direction, Wednesday began to retreat to her bed. A tactical withdrawal that felt like a rout.

"Oh em gee, you are!" Enid's hands clasped to her mouth, hiding luscious pink lips. Rainbow claws ran under her eyes and over her cute nose. "You're blushing! Are you dying? Is it scarlet fever or something."

"Scarlatina, like many other diseases, was sadly almost completely eliminated in this country due to the proliferation of vaccines and antibiotics." Setting her back to the sight of everything on display behind her, Wednesday began fluffing her blanket to make it seem as if she was getting ready for bed.

"So you're not dying?" Enid nearly growled, crossing the boundary between their sides of the room on slightly shaky legs, all traces of sleep except the crust along her radiant blue eyes gone.

"We're all dying, Enid." Wednesday set her back to the wolf, but her presence was like the sunshine, beating onto the Addams girl's naked shoulders and neck. It would be wise to invest in thicker nightwear, obviously. "Just very slowly."

The raspberry Enid blew with her lips was almost visible, even though Wednesday refused to look.

"Okay, now you're just being obtuse."

Wednesday flexed and twiddled her fingers, which felt terribly bloated and itchy just like her chest and back and lips and pulsating brain.

"I'm surprised that you know what that words means," she retorted by way of deflating insult.

A rhythmic tapping filled the room, a slap of flesh on wood punctuated by scrapes and clacks which were probably Enid's foot claws, which Wednesday had not actually seen.

Which was why she glanced at her roommate, who stood with her hands to her hips as she tapped her foot, face marred up with gorgeous indignation and ire.

Her toe-claws were painted all the colours of the rainbow, too.

...

Disgusting.

Enid cocked her head. "I'm surprised that you're being so obvious about trying to distract me."

Worrying one of her braids in her hand, Wednesday grunted, "I'm surprised that you noticed."

"Well, I'm not surprised that you're being such a pill about this when I just want to know what's wrong because I-" Her flushed complexion shifted into an unhealthy lividness that made her look like a gothic heroine dead of consumption before her time, laid on in her open bier, which was, as Poe noted, the most poetical subject for Wednesday's future literary endeavours-

...

Blast.

Having recovered, Enid continued in a plaintive, doggy whine, "I want to help!"

"And I'm not surprised that you're such a hypocrite." Wednesday folded her arms over her chest and upturned her chin, in part so as to place Enid's nightshirt-cald bosom at the peripheries of her vision and not at its focal point.

Like an unhousebroken puppy with a chew toy, Enid tossed her head. "What?"

"You're the one who has been phlegmatic regarding your feelings," Wednesday explained, tone formal as she conveyed that simple fact that, with her lips and hands and heart still tingling from the outre vision, seemed particularly galling to her.

"I-" Enid's gaze shot towards the heavy door, and then back to the balcony as if she was attempting to ascertain the most rapid means of egress from the room.

Defenestration was a novel way to die, if it could shave a half-second of time in getting out of the room.

Wednesday empathized.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she growled, quite literally, the sound echoing off the high ceilings like she was about to tear out someone's throat – probably Yoko's for no reason.

If that was the way that Enid wanted to obfuscate the actual issue here, she was doing a terrible job of it, feet shuffling backwards in a show of weakness and uncertainty that would only have a predator or rival dog lunging at her.

That was obviously the instinct driving Wednesday to take a step forward. One should always press the advantage on a helpless victim, even one snarling as viciously as the wolf whose gleaming teeth shone in the moonlight, a panoply of spider-web shadows crisscrossing her features.

"I think that you know precisely what I'm talking about," Wednesday, her tone oily, insisted, stepping forward though she had no idea why.

It would be so much wiser to let the conversation die. So many things needed to die, and were lovelier for it. A room-change request would do. She could find another dorm-mate. "What you've been attempting to conceal from me – poorly, I might note given the obvious alteration to your behaviour patterns."

The wolf was backing down, nearly baring her throat and whimpering in submission as Wednesday stalked her across the room, right to the edge of her bed.

A comical expression of terror passed over her features, teeth clamped and grinding, sweat just starting to collect along her hairline, as the backs of her knees made contact with her mattress, nearly causing her to topple.

Instead, the wolf braced herself against the side, both hands clapping to the surface of her mattress so that she was vulnerable. Fully exposed and unable to defend herself.

"I- I haven't been acting any differently!" Enid insisted, almost begging, which was a tone that provoked the most ... sensual feeling of blood coursing through Wednesday's veins, hot and thick and racing.

Like Enid was touching her, without even brushing a finger to skin.

"Is that so?" Wednesday asked as she stopped just inches before the wolf and was, this time, actually the one to initiate contact, extending a finger to prod the girl just above her breastbone.

Yelping pitifully, Enid fell backwards, right onto her rear, so that she sat atop her mussed sheets, now staring up at Wednesday because her head only reached the other girl's bosom.

For whatever reason, that seemed like a fit place for the dog, not that Wednesday was of a mind to consider why that might be as she was slightly distracted by the electric tingle that raced up her finger. Momentary contact with the fabric of Enid's nightshirt was enough to conjure a whole host of phantasms from that ... striking vision of lips and fangs and hair and skin.

When it came to the inflicting of toments and tortures, sometimes, you just had to set aside all of the education and studied practice and simply go with your gut. Naturally depraved, the human animal was instinctively disposed to inflicting pain.

"You haven't been avoiding me?" Wednesday asked, head cocked like a carrion bird, surveying an animal in its death throes. A mutt crushed under the wheels of fate, breathing its last, nearly ready to be ripped apart so that all that tender flesh could be swallowed up.

"N-no," Enid assured with a toothy smile, hands fisted violently in the sheets.

"Eschewed touching me?" Wednesday pressed even further, leaning in so that the entire hideous concoction of scents could fill her nose as she breathed in steadily.

Enid blinked, raising a wobbly finger to reveal puncture marks in her mattress, and asked in a shaky, juvenile tone, "What does eschewed mean?"

"It means-" Wednesday closed the gap so that the faint flutter of Enid's breath washed over her nightshirt. "That you refuse to touch me."

"Oh-" Nearly on the verge of drooling by all appearances, Enid appeared to process that for a moment before brightening and barking out, "Oh, yeah! I mean, that's totally a good thing because I'm just respecting your boundaries and since you have – uh, I wouldn't want to cause a vision because I don't want to bother you and it's rude to just- asumph"

The prattling dog was properly silenced by Wednesday as she drew her finger upwards and sushed her, the pad of her index firm to the other girl's soft lips.

"Be quiet."

Moist, tongue flicking between them as if to catch a taste of Wednesday's skin, those pink labia fluttered against the pad of Wednesday's index finger. They clung and scraped as if they were trying to purse and pucker together. A fluttering sensation raced from those quivering lips, through Wednesday's arm, all the way to her belly as the wolf shrunk down, curling into herself.

The poor puppy looked so scared.

There would be time for that later.

After putting the puppy down, both to bed, and euphemistically in the sense of taking her life.

Yes. That was always the impulse that drove her behaviours towards Enid.

Wednesday just wanted her life.

And she would have all of it.

Dragging her finger along the wolf's upper lip, Wednesday rotated her palm to take the other girl firmly by the chin, tilting her pretty, empty puppy head upwards to force Enid to look her in the eye.

That proved somewhat more difficult than anticipated because the blonde's eyes were almost rolling, gaze cast about anywhere but Wednesday's direction.

A chastising squeeze corrected that, Wednesday's firm, precise fingers squishing the delicate flesh along Enid's jaw, pinching up her cheeks and eliciting a snarl and glare from the blonde, eyes narrowing and lips slipping away from pearly fangs.

"What the heck?" Enid grumbled though her voice was distorted by the continue pressure on her cheeks.

As she raised a hand to clamp down on Wednesday's wrist, grip almost bruising tight, and pull the hand away from her chin, Enid's face was almost mauve between the blood and shadows that were a delicious reminder of the interplay of both as Enid, in her werewolf form, grappled with Tyler, exchanging yowls and yelps.

"You ever heard of personal boundaries?" she grunted.

Wednesday permitted her dorm-mate the sense of victory that came with removing her hand. A little spunkiness in a lapdog was to be tolerated, even indulged, which was precisely what Wednesday did by clasping their fingers together.

Whereupon Enid seemed to lose her nerve and simply start staring.

"A social convention." Stroking the other girl's palm, Wednesday arched a brow. "I rarely heed such things."

"You – you hate being touched." Forcing Wednesday to take another step backwards by lurching to her feet, Enid wrenched her hand away and retreated to the far wall, standing in the shaft of moonlight that poured in through the wide grated window.

"What – what even is this?" Her voice was cracking, split right down the middle of emotions that Wednesday could not discern or process. "If this is you just- just taunting me, you can fuck off."

Enid said fuck. 

Directly.

It was a bafflingly pleasant sound, though it could stand to be more breathy and guttural.

Comforting other human beings in their respective times of need was not something with which Wednesday was familiar, let alone adept. That seemed the correct course of action here as she watched Enid hugging herself, face set to the chill and dim forests beyond their dorm.

She marched forward, extending a hand to Enid's upper back, fingers meeting the curve of her spine just between her shoulder blades. The faint touch, digit slipping down the notches of bone, had Enid starting as if she'd been tazed – an interesting method of controlling a dog, perhaps with a shock collar – and turning to glance back at Wednesday.

"I am not taunting you," she said, splaying out her palm, conforming to the faint, flexing folds of female muscle – the alliteration this time was to maintain mental discipline lest she do something unseemly. "That is the opposite of what I wish to do, but finding the proper expression is challenging. This is a novel experience."

Enid blinked slowly, her breathing evening out as she straightened up, mulling.

"Was that a pun about your writing?" Enid offered at last, her lip curling, giving her a faint air of hopeful frivolousness. The connections that girl made. The labyrinthine contortions of that hideously warped brain filled to the brim with the horrors that Wednesday had seen only minutes earlier.

"Perhaps," Wednesday admitted, running circles over the other girl's back. It wasn't but that might actually work considering Viper was, perhaps, not going to be a solitary detective.

Every Holmes needed a Watson.

Perhaps a pet werewolf would do.

"I thought you didn't make puns." That was a challenge, and Wednesday, however unemotional she might be, did not shy away from challenges. Quite the opposite.

Yes. The shock collar would be necessary.

"Apparently, however, I do make exceptions." Wednesday pondered the alterations in Enid's expressions, the creasing of flesh around her eyes, and the potential shifts in disposition and appearance that might come with varied, experimental physical contacts.

"Oh?" The question was also a barb, something to lance Wednesday's chest, right down to the heart, trying to suck out all of her vital fluids, leave her a desiccated husk. Enid vibrated, possibly with excitement, like the day that she'd received Wednesday's gift of a date with Ajax at Uriah's Heap.

"Yes." Once again, Wednesday's hand rose towards Enid's chin, but missed, instead, curiosity driving her, traced her jaw, just to ascertain the sensations that might be provoked by the variations in the wolf's skin texture. "For you."

"Oh." Eyes watery blue, Enid turned so that they were facing one another. Again she licked her lips, this time after loosing a strained giggle and tucking her hair backwards, playing with the dyed-blue fringe.

"I should hope that you understand how-" Wednesday blinked, questing for the correct term as Enid drew even closer so that the heat of her form was positively scalding. The opposite of a mortician's cold chamber. Not relaxing. No. "How rare that is."

"Yeah- um, yeah!" Enid yelp-giggled, her voice pitching upwards like she was only just restraining herself from howling up at the moon. "That's really rare – really... special?"

The touch initially tentative and accompanied by several glances towards her carefully schooled, expressionless face, Enid slid her palm over the back of the hand that Wednesday still had to the wolf's shoulder.

"Not special," Wednesday corrected, and added, on seeing Enid's face begin to darken, "Unique."

Fireworks burst underneath Wednesday's skin – not, though, everywhere that Enid made contact, but throughout her entire body as Enid smiled a fat grin like a huffing and panting wolf who'd just run down all three of the little pigs in the happiest ending to that fairy tale. Slivers and shards of multi-coloured metal washed over Wednesday in a cascade. The most violent and grotesque of tortures - having every inch of you detonated and melted and shredded all at once, from the inside out.

"So," Enid began slyly as she raised a claw towards, but did not touch, Wednesday's cheek. "Are you asking me to touch you?"

Insufferable dog.

"No." She leaned forward, close enough that she could see Enid's pores. Close enough that Enid was almost all that she could perceive while wondering if this was what father witnessed every day when he woke up.

Someone looming infinitely large beyond sleep-hazed eyes. Coming back to consciousness like being born, taking the first breath, and seeing the entire world before you.

Insufferable Addams genetics.

"Enid," she said darkly, grasping hold of the other girl's wrist and drawing her hand forward. "Touch me."

Werewolf claws were sharp needles against her cheek.

And grinning pink lips on her own melted her flesh in the most gruesomely torturous ways.

For which she blamed the faintest remnants of colourful caustic lip gloss.

When Wednesday Addams, under great duress and only due to the necessity of correcting the outlandish rumours that Enid had perpetuated among their classmates, spoke of her first kiss with a girl, she framed it, with meticulous accuracy, as a response to her officious and imperious command which brooked no disobedience.

Enid had to be corrected and chastised, after all.

Because the wolf, preppy and prancing and giggly, bragged about it being begging.

Notes:Thank you most kindly for joining me on this little venture; I hope that you've found it amusing and ultimately worthy of your interest.