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The thing is, touching other people has always been unpleasant.
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exposition
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Wednesday does not believe in warmth, homeliness, or proximity, or any notion or word that renders itself a synonym, substitute, or equivalent.
That is to say, she entirely rejects their existence. It is not a polite defiance of societal norms due to her metaphysical aversion. It is a bullet to the face.
There are penalties, marked by strikes. These are formally documented in the cornerstones of her mind.
Trying to hug often results in the loss of two fingers, or three, depending on how distraught it makes her. Attempting to shake hands costs four hundred dollars in medical reparations, on the lower end. And she’s never been one to hesitate doling out her punishments in spades.
As much as affection itself is a social farce founded by deceptive compassion of nefarious intentions, the spoken aspect of it is avoidable.
Striking conversation is an offense of a lower degree, and can be forgiven if she finds herself sufficiently intellectually stimulated. (Often, weariness is the outcome, since navigating inanity is draining.)
Physical adoration is much more constricting, as demands a response. A bodily betrayal.
And Wednesday does not like answering on someone else's whims.
A nod when kissed on the hand or a giggle when nudged on the knee feels like the surrender of conformity. And that cannot exist without complicity.
The simplest solution is to radiate isolation. It is also the most ineffective.
It apparently congeals the brainwork of stupid teenagers to see a girl with murderous eyes and stiff affectation, topped with a book and lone corner, even if the nook is situated inside a library or morgue. Like a broken magnet their poles attract towards her, a fascination of oddities. Exotic. (The smarter ones are terrified of her.)
It irks them, to be rejected and dismissed. (Rich, coming from people who call her idiosyncrasies immaterial.)
Wednesday refuses to let anything baffle her, even their stupidity. She needs new subjects for her physiological experiments, anyway.
~*~
Wednesday picks fencing as her choice of legal knifeplay. It is the only school-sanctioned activity that allows her to stab someone.
Not that she required their approval, but it’s enticing, the blade in her hand even as cameras reign overhead and teachers wind around her.
Her parries and ripostes allow her the dignity of distance; unlike the hoards of other sports that require skin or sweat in the service of teamwork. She is content with never having to push or fall over another human being.
Fencing is, alas, a ritual that has Addams written all over it. Her mother presumes legacy drives her choice. Her father is proud. She deems the concession of not being in a team of twelve against her parents’ fawning worth it.
The first time her maîtresse d’armes clapped a hand on her shoulder, Wednesday had aimed her épée at her throat. She accused Wednesday of an outburst. Perhaps she even considered her a mentally unfit student; it would not be the first time.
From then, her instructor watched her practice past a one metre radius. She was cautious even while praising.
In the locker room, Wednesday was only assaulted by bright-eyed admirers for the first two days.
They tried to bundle her in a ‘group hug.’ One girl reached out to help plait her hair.
A broken nose later, none of them bothered. They sneered when her back was turned, and the occasional buffoon was unimpressed by her prowess and taunted her to her face. That, too, was preferable.
Wednesday thrives in the field, in the singularity, in the self-reliance. But they don't compare to the detachment fencing awards her.
~*~
The boy who killed Nero ends up with a bite mark on his forearm.
He should be grateful she didn’t go for a more vulnerable area, but instead he cried and sniveled about hysterics, claiming he would get an infection and die, like someone who had never opened a biology textbook. She didn’t even break his skin.
Wednesday spent an hour by the graveyard, where her head was clearest, pondering at the thickness in her breathing. Mist coddled her.
She’d never hesitated to hurt anyone before. But it had never crossed her mind to kick or punch or bite to maim; there was always a trusty weapon with her.
But.
Teeth.
Flesh.
It was more intimate than a needle to heart or screw to elbow. Her animalistic instinct was meant to protect her, but it only made her feel… queasy. She mentally filed it under the One-Time Occurrence category.
From them on, as she strolls through the headstones and the suns falls in bloodied ribbons over the still hanging-fog, she resolves to keep a pocket mace.
~*~
She cannot recall the finer details of having her hair braided or head cradled in a lap.
Theoretically, Wednesday is scholar enough to explain how it is meant to feel. She’s read enough articles on skin and cartilage and dead cells, although most of them involve skinning or amputation.
Regardless, she can infer and surmise.
But she cannot tell you how her mother’s hands feel. She cannot explain the size of her father’s frame. She cannot explain the warmth of her little brother.
There is a shape of a memory that hums with discord between her ribs. It lingers without substance.
It itches her; she doesn’t need to know these useless tidbits. Wednesday belongs on the far end of the dining table.
A traitorous part of her–that cannot be suppressed, no matter what, because it is as stubbornly and obstinate as the rest of her–wonders how it would feel to be held.
It makes her curdle with discomfort. Empirically. If that were what she truly wanted, she would’ve gotten it long ago.
And yet, it whispers. Scratches. Disturbs.
And Wednesday is someone who values her concentration too much for the invasive buzz. She locks it in the deepest marrow of her bone.
It has the gall to protest.
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The problem is, Enid disagrees with Wednesday's supposition.
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conflict
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It's obvious, from the first twenty seven failed attempts at wrapping her arms around Wednesday as if she were trying to strangle her, that Enid enjoys disrespecting personal boundaries.
She regularly hosts ambushes and surgical strikes against the walls of Wednesday’s defense. Wednesday has half a mind to suggest a siege, if only to buy herself temporary respite.
Usually, Wednesday values consistency. It shows dedication and belief.
But with Enid, it’s an annoyance. Every day Wednesday tiptoes in her dorm room, she’s greeted with the same offers to scroll a horror (and not the pleasant kind, like ghouls or ghosts) by the name of Tiktok with Enid, or to record a dance with her, just this once.
Worse, Enid does not see her losses for what they are. She tends to look at them like delays or obstructions. Wednesday has never seen a woman more mulish.
It is hideously appalling.
Then again, Enid’s blustering friends don't seem to mind. Wednesday's eyes burn from the long evenings she spends glaring at them patting each other's backs or heads, or pressing cheeks and arms together.
They hobble in lots of fives under one bed canopy. They laugh and jeer and titter as they paw at each other. Wednesday stares at them with the moral superiority of restraint. It’s hardly a problem when Thing scuttles closer to Enid’s side of the room than hers’.
They-aformentioned cults of friends-consider Enid and Wednesday a juxtaposition. Supposedly, Enid has never had such a standoffish friend before. Enid tells them Wednesday's still a great friend.
(They aren’t friends, Wednesday wants to supply. But she doesn’t want to talk, and swallows her words quietly.)
Wednesday's astute. She sees Enid's fingers hooked into skirts or teeth clamped down, all to avoid pushing her. She always stops herself at the last second from flinging herself on Wednesday.
And it's the bare minimum, she tartly informs Thing. Wednesday doesn't want to be touched. Enid doesn't touch her. The End. The treaty is fair to both parties.
(But then Enid growls at the classmate telling Wednesday she'll never be normal, and nearly backhands the senior mocking her uniform, and.
She doesn’t need someone to defend her on her behalf.
But she doesn’t instruct Enid to break off.
~*~
Enid frowns from her corner of the room. There is glitter on her lacey sleeves; Wednesday doesn’t want to know how it got there. “They were wrong, you know.”
The clicking of her typewriter resounds, as striking as a guillotine. “I rarely find other people to be correct to begin with, especially specimens fueled on half the required sleep quota and questionable cafeteria sustenance.”
“I’m one of them too, aren't I?” It's the teasing that prompts Wednesday to reply as she does. It’s the insecurity that makes her typing slow down.
“No.”
It’s small, maybe even unsatisfactory. But Enid blossoms all the same, jumping with her mismatched socks as she lunges in the air and holds up a victory signal.
As wide as Enid smiles, she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t commemorate or celebrate. It’s the first time their dorm room is absent of both Enid’s rambling and the bubbly noises from her phone while its owner’s still inside it.
She halts her typing entirely. The words have stopped flowing smoothly. Wednesday understands the concepts of multiple drafts but refuses to allow a single one of them to be subpar.
Words simply are not equipped with the audacity to disobey her.
“You have glitter on your sleeves.”
And as Enid begins a medley-something about her art professor and Yoko and illicit notes-Wednesday is able to continue her writing.
~*~
The séance requires a minimum of two people.
Wednesday looks at Thing and questioned how malleable the rules were and if he would quality, but she’d always been meticulous.
She sets the candles and the circle by herself to prevent mishap from her roommate’s generally zealous demeanour. Then, as the clock’s shorter hand hits seven, Enid skips inside, just like every other Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.
When she notices that Wednesday isn’t on her cello like usual (it takes her over a minute, with her head buried on the screen of her phone that’s adorned with a new pink-and-white charm) she squeals.
It’s probably with terror. Wednesday pays that no mind. “Enid. You will help me with a séance.”
“Wow. You are insane. What do I have to do?”
“Sit there,” Wednesday points, “And don’t make a sound until, while, and after I chant.”
Enid pouts, removing her blazing jacket. “That sounds boring. What do I get?”
Wednesday folds her legs, setting the last candle aflame. “We have to hold hands,” she offers like a bitter candy. It should hold no appeal.
Her roommate shrieks. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re actually doing this. “ Enid’s phone lands among her extensive plushie collection. Wednesday notes exactly where, lest Enid cry about it in the morning with circles under her eyes.
And if it displaces from between the lilac unicorn and one-eyed cat, Wednesday will have something more haunted to look forward to.
She disapproves. “Do not take it as a symptom of mercuriality. This is necessary."
~*~
Enid’s fingers are calloused. Wednesday hadn’t expected hers’ to be, and briefly deduces her roommate must’ve played a string instrument like her, or dabbled in gardening, or have visited the gym or the like. She’s rather partial to the first conclusion.
Enid’s hand is warm–werewolf genetics. But even if it wasn’t, Wednesday can’t think of Enid as anything but. She has wristbands in neon and a bracelet with selective hues of blue, purple, and pink that she always wears.
There are also rings of both silver and gold tint, and lacerated nails with jaunty extensions.
Despite her color allergy, Wednesday doesn't pull away, or hear the thrumming of her heart. It’s been a decade since she’s held hands with anyone. It makes her ill.
It makes her weak.
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The issue builds up when Wednesday accepts and reciprocates.
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climax
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Her kingdom breaks under immense opposition. It is the only thing she can be proud of, because Enid had the respect to recede when she finally defied her own philosophy of active cognition of Wednesday’s wishes.
But it was Wednesday who closed the gap the second time. It was her who spread fingers on Enid’s back and burrowed face into scapula.
It went against everything she took great acclaim in.
After the dreaded hug, Wednesday falls against the wall of the hospice, silent as the hours tick by. She's seen too many deathbeds to be excited, but someone, she doesn't think she would've liked Enid's even if she hadn't.
It would be a violation to enclose her gluttonous frontal extremities around Enid’s shallow form, pipes and tubes weaving through. She cannot touch Enid without permission, and cannot beg when she’s halfway to a comatose state.
But she wants to-feel that burn again, the stinging scent of perfume and blood mingling as the expanse of flesh where they meet heat and corrode. The incineration is accompanied by light.
Wednesday will recoil and flinch and wince. Her body would sooner accept another thrashing than another hug. She knows her limits and has known she’s never taken any appraisal of them.
Heedful of avoiding any contact, she siddles up on the edge of Enid’s bed, much like the friends she’d mocked not so long ago. It is an awkward mimicry without their love and awe, a facetious facsimile.
Except Wednesday makes home in the corner, where cheap wood juts against her thigh disagreeably. She is very, very careful of maintaining a handspan betwixt them.
It is a truce so fragile that no resistance could stop it from breaking.
Her counting had reached three thousand--and even Thing had dozed off--when she heard a low mutter.
“Wednesday? Is that you?”
“You should be asleep,” she says curtly, as relief echoes through her bloodstream. She’s never been more glad to hear someone speak.
A hand wraps around her swarthy hospital garb. “C’mere, then.”
Bile rises up.
“You should sleep, too,” Enid slurs, tugging Wednesday horizontally with the barest force, enough to prevent, if desired.
Wednesday falls sidefirst. Her hair musses up. She’s never slept like anything but a corpse before, but if she rotates to her back, Enid and she will be definitely touching. And that might stop her heart.
(Don’t get Wednesday wrong, she’s mildly interested in becoming a vampire, but it seems like an unsuitable series of circumstances as of present.)
Wednesday has never fancied being lulled to sleep by angels or fairies.
But she might just take it over what she was undergoing. It was an excellent torture method for sleep desprivation. If Enid hated her, she could end Wednesday without even trying as long as she kept this up, and soon she would be worn rugged like paper under rain.
“I don’t like this,” she breathes, brittle, when Enid places an arm across her ribcage, just at her underbreast. The pressure sings to nerves already drawn too thin.
“Mmmm.” Enid sighs tiredly, mouth half dwelling inside her pillowcase. The sweet concern would be nice, if Wednesday weren’t particularly fond of arsenic as a drink. “You could’ve stayed in your bed.”
“I didn’t want to.”
It’s just the two of them. That has fractured some filter in one of Wednesday’s lobes. The damage is irreparable.
With a newfound streak of patience, Enid whispers, “But you don’t want this? Either?”
“No,” It’s never been hard to understand herself before. Enid has most certainly ruined her. “I want to.”
“But?” She probes.
Her strength thinned. “It hurts.”
“Should I move away?”
Wednesday wants to admit that would hurt even more. She only manages, “...No.”
Enid layers the quilt like the meat of the sandwich between them. From beyond it, she jabs every part of them together.
Their limbs entangle and heads brush each other. But the sheet is always there, Enid makes sure of it.
It isn’t technically touching, Wednesday justifies. And it doesn’t make her want to claw out eyes or cut out nails, so it’s
“Better?”
How had Enid known exactly what Wednesday needed?
“Yes.”
~*~
She wakes up with the fabric still held firmly and wonders if Enid had to stay up at night fixing it in place. They're pasted together like a virus to a host cell.
Stoically, Wednesday makes herself peel herself off.
Bloodshot eyes and messy hair push her buttons even further. She's never looked this undignified and unrefined. Her murder sprees have left her in better conditions, for fuck’s sake.
She ducks out of the hospice before one of the nurses pinpoint her or Enid gets up. It would be a disaster either way, but only one of them will require her to be violent.
Wednesday gets rid of the hospice garb by burning it in a makeshift stove. The last of the vestiges of Enid's touch evaporate into toxic fumes with it.
But as she redresses herself, Wednesday feels a phantom ache resonate.
She doesn't know of a balm or poison in the world that could fix this remedy.
Wednesday runs circles in her room like a restless viper. There has to be a solution to the sickness. If there isn't, she'll invent it, because she cannot live like this anymore. (It's been half a day.)
Wednesday fetches Enid's phone and with gloved hands slides her way through the password–she’s known it since the first day–and opens the browser within seconds of invasion.
She opts to ignore the Wednesday-and-Enid shaped backdrop, decorated with what Enid calls ‘custom icons’ for the applications.
She'd asked Wednesday before using the picture. Wednesday had not cared at that time. Now, it spikes her chest like a bed of needles.
Wednesday researches her symptoms. The results are less than satisfactory; Enid requires a better source of information than this.
To this Google-man’s credit, they're rude as they inform her she is ‘touch adverse’ and ‘touch starved.’
If phone charms could be nooses, this phone would be long dead.
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Wednesday is not a coward, and yet she avoids the wound until it infects.
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resolution
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Wednesday has always known that if there's one thing Enid is proficient in, it's the topic of Wednesday. It should come as no surprise that Enid knows Wednesday's avoiding her.
Her method of healing doesn't even work. She's no closer to not wanting to touch Enid after a week of isolation than she was at the beginning of it, and worse, it bubbles.
Like wisps over venom, it simmers toxically. Wednesday's answers are shorter than a syllable now-a-days. She doesn't invite Enid to midnight incursions or séances. She doesn't jealously acclaim over Enid's affectionate friends.
Enid notices. She must.
Wednesday busies herself with studying, writing, and playing her cello. It is not enough.
Thing tells her she's hurting Enid. Wednesday tells Thing she knows.
And then it finally bursts.
“I don't get it,” Enid yells. Her hair is fraying and hasn't been dyed in at least a week too long. Her nails require trimming. Her sweater's faded. Her phone charm’s missing a bead and probably will entirely break.
Wednesday struts the other way.
“No.” Enid stands on the door with all the gait of a soldier. Her eyes are angry.
“Enid, get out of my way.”
“No. You're going to stay here and talk to me.”
“You can't hold me hostage.”
“Watch me.”
“Thing, help me.”
“Hah! See, even he knows you're being a bitch, Wednesday.”
“Enid, I will not repeat myself: move out of my way.”
“Not until you tell me what's wrong.”
“No.”
“Then I'll move out of our dorm and you'll never have to see me again! Would you prefer that!?”
Their rhythm splinters.
Wednesday wrings her hands together. “You can't do that.”
“You can't control everything,” Enid says accusingly, “Least of all me, Wednesday.”
Her tongue is bitter as she conceded, “Fine.”
Enid doesn't even do a victory dance. It makes Wednesday's chest constrict. She's never wanted Enid to be a hollow version of herself, even when she didn't know what she wanted.
They sit on the ground and wait for the other to begin.
Of course, Enid gives in first. “I don't understand why you've reverted back to your old self. I thought we were becoming friends.”
“We are,” she says, “Friends.”
If Enid starts crying, Wednesday will kill herself and then her ghost.
“Then why do you,” Enid gestures vaguely. “Not like me anymore, huh?”
“I do.” Truths are easier to confront. They are unchangeable. She holds onto the feeling of constants as a lifeline.
“Is hugging the problem? I promise I won't do that again.”
“I don't…” Wednesday curls her fingers tightly. “I don't want us to hug too often.” She reminds herself that Enid might leave her if she doesn't say it. “But I want it right now.”
“Sheets?” Enid offers as she tearfully comes closer.
Wednesday shakes her head.
Trying to hug is hard, with no hormone pumped brain to make the experience any easier. She almost quivers as they narrow the gap.
In the end, Wednesday gives up with a quiet ‘no.’
Enid jerks away instantly. “It's okay,” she states, assuring.
Wednesday doesn't want to be steered with gentleness. But Enid's eyes are soft, and they're not touching, and heat radiates off of her roommate, making her feel like they are.
~*~
Their knuckles brush when Enid hands her her pen back.
~*~
Their knees plot erringly when they sit down together.
~*~
Their foreheads tease when she studies Enid's new lipgloss.
~*~
“Can I try hugging you again?”
Wednesday closes the zipper of the cello's cover, tempted to settle herself inside too. But her skin still thrums. She sets aside her sheet music and stand. “Fine.”
Enid's head inclines. “Do you want me to? Or are you just letting me?”
Her throat is parched, used to adequate amounts of water intake, it scrapes her voice like sandpaper. “I want.”
Enid joins her on the balcony. She's regained her shimmer. Her eyes glow. Wednesday swears she'll never let her lose it again.
Enid takes the first step; Wednesday takes the second.
Her sweater is fuzzy and patched with figures of crocheted hearts. Enid’s scent is rich and melodious. She tangles herself slowly, like she's afraid Wednesday will abandon her again.
Wednesday raises a hand to the small of Enid’s back. There's screaming in her solar plexus.
Her body adheres to her commands and accepts the touch. It makes her mouth cloister.
Wednesday shuts her eyes, and does not feel the need to run away.
~*~
Finally, it's Wednesday who initiates.
She sees the way Enid blooms at the prospect. She'd like to do it again, and again, and again.
~*~
“I can't do it anymore,” Wednesday rasps, tucking herself into her knees as she pushes Enid away.
“Shh, don't cry.”
She hisses, “I don't cry.”
Enid wordlessly brushes away a tear forming just underneath her eye.
~*~
They don't touch often, and never obviously. She doesn't care about the crowd’s opinion, so it's never secretive. But it's always small.
Despite everything, Wednesday will never want to. That's not a point of contention. She knows herself. Enid knows her. And Enid likes who she is.
But the sparse moments that they do, Wednesday collects like stars and maps them out in constellations.
~*~
“Enid. How is it so easy for you?”
Enid traced a star in her wrist. “I’ve never wanted to be alone.
“I see,” she intones, and neglects to mention she's always wanted to be alone, but doesn't anymore.
~*~
At some nondescript point of time, Enid starts to sleep more in Wednesday's bed than her own.
~*~
They hug one last time, in front of an empty dorm and packed bags.
“So,” Enid has a skip to her step, “I know you have a phone now and everything, but we won't see each other until after vacation.”
“You can visit my house.” Her lips twitch upwards. “I know you won't be satiated with just phone calls.”
“Oh my god, you're the best, Wednesday.”
~*~
Wednesday loops their pinky fingers together as they tread to the school’s foyer.
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The end.