Wednesday discovered that loving you activated a peculiar internal dialogue, one she did not invite and would never acknowledge aloud.

Your relationship became a dance, measured, deliberate, and faintly dangerous. Words were weapons you both wielded expertly, barbs traded with the understanding that neither of you struck to wound permanently. Wednesday’s insults were precise, almost affectionate in their creativity. Yours, when you dared to return fire, earned the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. A smile, in her language.

So, her mind mused coolly, you enjoy this.

Not pain exactly. Not suffering in the crude, amateur sense. But the exchange. The deliberate push and pull. The way your pulse quickened when she cornered you verbally, the way you pushed back with equal precision. Consent, after all, was the difference between torture and intimacy. A distinction most people failed to appreciate.

Fascinating, she thought. I sharpen my words. You lean closer.

There was an unspoken agreement between you: pain was only acceptable if it was chosen. Control passed back and forth in subtle ways, who spoke first, who looked away last, who confessed vulnerability and who dissected it. Wednesday trusted you with her sharpest edges because you never asked her to dull them.

Not cruel. Never that.

She watched you from across the room, expression impassive, cataloging every reaction the way a scientist observes a controlled burn. When she was distant, you followed. When she was cutting, you smiled undeterred, unbroken.

I warn you repeatedly, her thoughts continued, dry and almost amused. I outline the risks. I explain the consequences. And still—you stay.

There was something almost romantic about your refusal to flee.

Perhaps, she considered, this is what compatibility looks like: two people fully aware of the damage they’re capable of, choosing each other anyway.

When she spoke aloud, her voice was calm, razor-smooth. When she thought, though—when her gaze lingered a second too long, when her fingers twitched with the impulse to reach for you, her mind danced dangerously close to confession.

*If I bruise you, you bruise back+, she reasoned. If I test you, you rise to meet me. A perfect equilibrium.

“If at any point this becomes too much,” she added coolly, “you are free to leave.”

You didn’t.

Wednesday reached out then, not hesitantly, not unsure, and took your hand, fingers cool and steady. Her grip wasn’t tight, but it was intentional. Claimed.

She did not crave submission, nor did she offer it. What she wanted, what she had found in you, was participation. Someone who understood that devotion could be biting, that love did not need to be gentle to be sincere.

They call this unhealthy, she thought with faint disdain. They are unimaginative.

Stay, her mind whispered, not aloud, never aloud. Stay, and let us hurt each other carefully.

Wednesday Addams did not believe in love as salvation. She believed in it as a beautifully negotiated exchange.

And you, inexplicably, had agreed to the terms.