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Puddles of mud and water splash around your feet. You’re running, or more so walking really fast. You don’t want to look desperate, even if you feel it.
The woods are awfully nightmarish with the pouring rain, big drops of water hitting the leaves create sounds that get you on edge. But Wednesday is nowhere to be seen and last you knew she was looking for some old abandoned meeting house in the woods.
She can take care of herself, you know it. However, it doesn’t ease the incessant beating of your heart.
You find her following footprints that you were unknowingly walking over. She greets you with a scowl, hair clinging to her forehead and raindrops trickling down her chin.
It’s a little awkward, your hands rise to touch her but you stop yourself midway. For a beat, you thought Wednesday seemed confused as to why you stopped, but the look is gone before you can fully register it.
“What are you doing?” You ask a little breathlessly, tasting the rain on your lips as you speak, subtly checking her over for injuries, “the statue dedication is happening soon, you should be getting ready and not… walking in the rain.”
That was a good enough excuse, right?
“I’m alright,” Wednesday reassures you first, and you mentally curse the way she can read you like an open book, “I was trying to learn more about Crackstone, and following a monster.”
You sigh in relief, falling into step beside her as you start walking back to town. Only then do you open your umbrella, it won’t do much now that you’re already soaked, but it gets Wednesday walking closer to you.
“Without me? I’m hurt,” you smirk, though not as confidently as you wanted to.
“Not my fault if you were preoccupied handing out fudges with Bianca,” Wednesday huffs with a bite to her tone.
She refuses to look at you, choosing instead to focus on the immensity of the trees around her. You, on the other hand, follow the path of a rogue droplet of rain with your gaze; it drips from her hair and goes all the way to the corner of her lips. You can’t help but notice her sullen eyes, the purplish lips, the trembling of her hands.
She’s cold. She’s been out in the rain much longer than you had.
“You could’ve said something, I would have come with you,” you tell her quietly, feeling the rain soak through your sneakers.
“I didn’t need you.” Wednesday is still looking away when she mumbles it, so you don’t catch the turmoil in her eyes; the fact she’d rather say that, than admit she would never willingly put you in danger.
You’re used to the pain that comes with loving her, “yet I’m here anyway.”
—
Weathervane’s bathroom doesn’t offer much in terms of helping with the wet clothes that cling to your body, but it would have to do.
Yours and Wednesday’s coats are draped over one of the bathroom stalls, still dripping; while you do what you can to dry the rest of your clothes and your hair with paper towels.
Wednesday sits on the sink’s counter, her hands clasped together on top of her lap. She’s only in her white shirt, a few buttons undone; her hair is free of braids, cascading over her shoulders in black waves to dry faster.
It’s unnerving how she still refuses to look at you.
This happens sometimes, you’ll do something or say something that you can’t exactly pinpoint and it’ll get Wednesday distancing herself.
Casting a glance at her rigid figure, you bunch up a few paper towels, dampening the edge of it and moving closer to the raven-haired girl. It’s only when she looks at the general direction of your face, that you speak; “may I?”
With her nod of consent, you stand between her legs and raise the damp paper to her eyes; she closes them before you even touch her cheek, you can feel her tensing under your touch. Her skin is still cold to the touch, but not as much as it was before you got out of the rain. You refrain from wrapping her body in a hug.
You’re gentle with the way you clean the smudged eyeliner from below her eyes. You can feel her breathing fanning over your lips; unsteady, heavy.
Wednesday is gripping tight onto her skirt, and you don’t think she realizes the way she starts to lean into your touch.
“Maybe you don’t need me,” you start in a hush, not sure where you’re even going with this, “but you don’t need to be alone, you can choose to have someone if you want.”
You turn your attention to her hair next, separating one side into three strands and carefully placing one on top of another.
“Either way,” you bite your tongue, wondering if you’re digging your own grave, “you can tell me to go anytime, and I will.”
At last, Wednesday’s midnight eyes finally find yours. She looks at you for a long time.
You’re close, so close you can count each of her freckles. It feels intimate. And you don’t know Wednesday realizes it too. You don’t know she’s never had this with anyone; that it terrifies her.
She reaches out to you then; nimble, cold fingers tracing the edge of your jaw as if you’d crumble under her touch, “I can’t ask that of you.”
She tugs at the lapel of your shirt before you can ask why, pulling you to her until you have to brace yourself on the edge of the counter she’s sitting on. You’re warm on her, a warmth she’s grown obsessed with — how foolish, to think she’d be able to escape the Addams family curse.
“As much I’d prefer otherwise,” Wednesday pecks the corner of your lips, a kiss that’s barely there at all. You feel her words on your skin, “I need you all the time.”