You’d been… something… with Wednesday Addams for months now, a label that danced elusively on the tip of your tongue, refusing to settle.

Girlfriends? Certainly not in the conventional sense. Wednesday Addams, by her own declaration, did not "do love." Love was for the weak, the sentimental, the doomed. And yet, she let you drape yourself over her, allowed your fingers to brush hers for just a beat too long, endured your most saccharine affections with only a barely perceptible twitch of a brow.

Now, she had summoned you again. The message, delivered by Thing, was succinct: "Meet me by the old arboretum’s carnivorous plant enclosure. I have something to discuss." You knew what 'discuss' meant. It meant she would start, stop, and leave you hanging. But not this time.

"The human heart," she began, her tone clinical, "is a fragile, inefficient organ. Prone to irrational impulses, inconvenient affections, and a host of debilitating emotions." She paused, her gaze unwavering. "And yet, despite my most fervent efforts to maintain an optimal state of emotional sterility, I find myself... compromised."

Her eyes flickered away, towards a particularly large pitcher plant humming with an unseen insect. "However," she continued, her voice regaining its usual steel, "the precise taxonomy of this particular 'compromise' remains elusive. It is not pain, per se, nor is it the saccharine affliction commonly referred to as 'joy.' It defies my intellectual categorization."

She was doing it again. Retreating. Dissecting the feeling rather than living it. Your patience, already a threadbare thing, finally snapped.

"Wednesday," you interrupted, your voice firmer than you’d intended, cutting through the humid air.

She turned back to you, a flicker of genuine surprise in her eyes. "You intrude upon my soliloquy."

"I am tired of your soliloquies," you said, stepping closer, until you were standing well within her personal space, something you rarely dared. The air between you crackled, thick with unspoken truths and the scent of exotic decay. "And I'm tired of the 'elusive taxonomy.' I want honesty. From you, and from myself."

Her expression remained impassive, but you saw a subtle tension in her jaw.

"I love you, Wednesday Addams," you stated, the words out before you could second-guess them, raw and unapologetic. "Not in the way people love sunsets or puppies. I love the sharp edges of your mind, the way your humor is a grave dug with precision, the dark, beautiful storm of you. I love how you see the world, even the parts that scare others. And I'm tired of guessing what we are, and what this... compromise of yours means."

Wednesday stared at you, her eyes wide, unblinking. For a single astonishing moment, her stoic mask faltered, revealing something akin to vulnerability, a raw, exposed nerve.

You took another step, your hand reached out, gently cupping her jaw. Her skin was always cool, a constant against your own warmth. Her gaze, usually so impenetrable, was fixed on yours, searching, perhaps for the lie, perhaps for the truth she couldn’t articulate.

"And," you whispered, leaning in, your heart hammering against your ribs, "I'm going to kiss you now."

And you did.

It was firm, perhaps a little desperate, and completely challenging. Her lips were cool, tasting faintly of high-quality ink and strong coffee, and utterly stiff beneath yours. For a moment, she was statue-like, the breath catching in her throat.

She didn't kiss back, not in an active way, but she didn’t pull away, either.

You pulled back just slightly, breathing hard. You searched her face for the familiar disgust, the sudden reassertion of stoicism.

Wednesday’s gaze was intense, burning. She didn't look angry; she looked like someone who had just witnessed a perfect, catastrophic event.

“That,” she whispered, her voice husky, “was a violation of established personal space. And highly inefficient.”