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Chapter Text

Xavier headed to his shed the morning after graduation before the sun rose. He packed up the few remaining supplies, leaving a few easels, his worktable, and the futon behind for the shed’s next occupant. Then he locked the padlock and slipped the key underneath an empty pot for Elowen to collect later.

There was a lump in his throat as he turned to go. The shed had been his retreat and sanctuary throughout the painful and dark times that dotted his Nevermore experience. He’d tried to exorcise his dreams of the Hyde in this shed. He’d been arrested in this shed. It had also seen some of the happiest moments of his life. He and Wednesday had lain together so many nights in that shed, talking about the past, present, and future. He’d held her in his arms, surrounded by his work, not realizing how precious their time at Nevermore was until now. He felt guilty leaving the shed behind as if he were abandoning a long-time friend. Xavier reminded himself that Elowen planned to continue the shed’s use as a sanctuary for Nevermore’s tortured artists. He had to have faith that the old man would preserve his legacy.

Wednesday waited outside the boys’ dormitory for him, Draven and Hamish flanking her. The sky was growing gray with the approaching dawn. They headed for the parking lot; Wednesday sensed Xavier’s mixed emotions and let him process them silently. She still wasn’t good at helping with these sorts of things, so she let him sort it out in his head whenever possible.

The motley crew climbed into his car, and the engine roared to life. Soon they were winding through the wooded roads toward Burlington, where the Thorpe’s jet awaited them. When they arrived at the airport, a driver took Xavier’s keys and left with the car. It would be put on a ship and delivered in a few weeks. They’d rented a car to use until it arrived.

A cool rain began to fall as they walked up the steps and into the plane. Draven and Hamish trotted up the stairs last, neither seeming particularly emotional about leaving Nevermore. It made sense; Hamish had hardly spent any time there, and Draven wasn’t really attached to any particular location.

Wednesday felt strange about leaving. There were plenty of things she wouldn’t miss about the school. Graduating freed her to pursue her interests full-time without the tedium of homework and exams. At the same time, she would miss the cutthroat competition of the Poe Cup, the fencing team, and even parts of Jericho itself. She might even miss Weems a little after a while.

The plane screamed down the runway and took off into the slate-colored sky. Soon, they were over the Atlantic, the water stretching as far as even Wednesday’s superior eyes could see.

Hamish wandered back to where the flight attendants sat to beg for food. Draven transformed into a cat to fit better in one of the seats and fell asleep. Xavier was drawing various things in his sketchbook. Wednesday could tell he was distracted by the way he’d give up halfway through one sketch, flip the page, and start another.

After about an hour, she huffed and asked, “Do you want to talk about it?” hoping he’d say “no.”

No such luck.

“I feel like I don’t know what to do with myself!” he began. “Nevermore’s been my whole life for, like, years. Since I was a kid. And now it’s just over – like ‘poof!’”

Wednesday drummed her fingers on the table between them, thinking of an appropriate response.

“Well, what did you imagine would happen when you graduated?” she finally asked.

“I tried not to think about it very much, honestly,” Xavier replied, gazing out the window. “I think I dreaded it, in a way, and all I cared about was staying far away from my dad.”

“That was rather short-sighted of you,” she replied.

“Thanks for the support,” he said sarcastically.

Hamish returned from his quest for snacks and settled his massive head on Xavier’s lap. Xavier scratched the hound, thinking about the irony of receiving more comfort from a Hellhound than his girlfriend.

“You don’t have to know what to do with yourself right now. There’s plenty of time to agonize over your life’s purpose. In the meantime, you can paint to help keep the lights on at home. Manor houses are notoriously expensive to keep up, so I expect you to pull your weight,” Wednesday said, looking at him.

He turned away from the window with a slight smile. “Don’t worry, we won’t end up in the streets on my account,” he promised.

“We would never end up in the streets. You might, though, if you go into one of your moods and don’t work!” she teased.

He finally laughed at her dark joke and felt better for the first time all morning. If nothing else, he had Wednesday; she was his home more than any school or house would ever be.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Xavier said, pushing himself out of his seat and walking toward the back where the jet had enclosed sleeping pods.

Wednesday said nothing but followed him, ducking inside the pod behind him. Each pod fit one person comfortably and two cozily. They weren’t terribly roomy, but they were dark, soft, and better than sleeping upright in a traditional seat.

Xavier pulled Wednesday into his arms, his larger form enveloping hers. Wednesday lay awake for a few minutes, listening to the engines whine and thinking about how strange it was to leave Nevermore for good this time. Unlike Xavier, she didn’t feel lost in the slightest; however, she did feel a mix of excitement and nostalgia. She let the thought drift away as she fell asleep.

When Wednesday woke a few hours later, she felt Xavier’s hardness pressed against her lower back. She pressed back into him, causing him to make a low sound that vibrated through his chest. His hands ran up her bare thighs (she’d removed her leggings before sleeping and tossed them into the corner of the pod) until his fingers found her warm center, already dampening for him. He pushed his sweatpants and boxers down his legs before pulling her panties to the side and positioning himself at her entrance.

“Do you think you can be quiet?” he teased in a low voice.

“I’ll do what I can,” she whispered, knowing she’d need to shove her pillow into her mouth when the time came.

In response, he pushed into her, pumping from behind. With her legs together, she was exquisitely tight around him, and he didn’t know how long he could last. Xavier reached around to find her clit and began rubbing in the rhythmic way that he knew would produce the desired results.

Xavier was quickly rewarded with a muffled shout that she drove into her pillow as he rode her through the orgasm. Then he let himself cum, releasing his tension and the past inside of her.

It was morning when they landed in Scotland, and it was raining. Wednesday had looked forward to the weather, and her anticipation was duly rewarded. They collected their things, and Xavier stepped out of the plane first to put up a black umbrella large enough to shield them both from the rain. It was purely a gesture of chivalry, as he knew that Wednesday had no qualms about being soaked and freezing from the weather.

They proceeded down the stairs to the tarmac, where a driver with a black SUV awaited them. They’d rented a car while they waited for Xavier’s to arrive, but that was already at the house, and they didn’t yet know the way. Xavier had offered to use GPS, but Wednesday hated the technology, feeling like it was presumptuous in telling her where to go and how to get there. Some battles weren’t worth fighting.

Xavier and the driver loaded their carry-on baggage into the trunk as Wednesday, Hamish, and Draven (still in cat form for convenience) slid into the back of the car. There were three rows of seats, so Hamish hopped over into the last one, followed by Draven, who settled his lithe form atop the Hellhound to continue his nap.

Xavier slid into the seat beside Wednesday, and soon they were driving through the heather-covered Scottish countryside. They’d flown into a regional airport to avoid the chaos of the large international ones. Wednesday gazed out the window at the gray and rocky surroundings, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

After about an hour, they pulled off the main road onto a country lane lined by fir trees. Soon the main road disappeared behind the hills that the route wound through, obscuring the path whence they came. The low fog made it hard to see anything more than a few yards in any direction, but Xavier could tell they’d entered some kind of lowland surrounded by mossy hills.

Suddenly, the driver slowed, and a stone moss-covered carriage house appeared out of the mist. It had an arch barred by a wrought-iron gate. Two statues of hooded-robed figures flanked the entrance, each at least eight feet tall and disconcertingly sinister in appearance.

“That’s a vibe,” Xavier said as the gates swung open to admit them.

“It’s important to make guests feel welcome,” Wednesday replied, gazing at the statues affectionately.

“Right,” Xavier said as they passed under the arch and into the inner courtyard.

A gravel drive circled a statue of a winged skeleton bending down to kiss the upturned face of a robed woman on her knees. He imagined Wednesday found the motif quite romantic and based on how her eyes lingered on the visage as they circled it to the front of the manor, he guessed correctly.

The courtyard was surrounded on all sides by high stone walls, obscuring the front of the manor from view from the road. It was certainly private; they’d have no trouble hiding from the world here.

The manor’s façade was gray stone flecked with lichen. It had massive wooden double doors carved with reliefs of hooded figures, angels, and forlorn-looking humans in robes.

Xavier stepped out of the car, relieved to see the rain had stopped for now. Mist swirled around his feet as he crunched out of the way so Wednesday could alight behind him. He scanned the front of the house, taking in the details of their new home – a home that he technically now owned.

It was two stories plus the attic that Wednesday had ordered renovated for him. On each corner was a circular tower peaked by a pointed roof. He assumed that two similar towers were on the back of the house. The roof came to points in several places, and he could see stone chimneys poking out here and there, indicating an abundance of fireplaces.

Xavier withdrew the heavy key ring from his backpack and slid the largest key into the door on the right. Metal ground against metal as the key turned in the ancient lock, and the door groaned in protest as he pushed it open. Wednesday smiled. The sound was so comforting.

Xavier stood aside to let her enter the house while he returned to the car to help with the rest of their things. Hamish bounded past Wednesday and disappeared into the house. Draven slunk inside behind him, also disappearing into the gloom. Wednesday stepped inside and took in the front hall.

The floor was made of polished black stone, complementing the deep mahogany detailing on the walls. Portraits of austere gothic scenery and family members cluttered the walls in ornate gold and black frames. There were doors on either side of the hall leading to other rooms, and a massive black marble staircase with ornately carved ebony handrails dominated the hall. An ornately carved wooden raven topped the polished mahogany sphere capping the end of each handrail.

The space was drafty but pristine, as the Addams’s had the residence cleaned from top to bottom in the previous weeks. Wednesday’s only complaint was the lack of cobwebs adorning the corners.

Xavier entered the hall, followed by the driver with their luggage. The driver seemed skittish and scampered out of the house as soon as Xavier tipped him. The door closed behind the retreating driver without prompting, plunging the couple into semi-darkness.

“Um, Wednesday?” Xavier said hesitantly.

Wednesday whispered a soft spell, and the gas-style lamps on the walls glowed to life. Candelabra lining the staircase every few feet sputtered and lit themselves, casting a warm glow throughout the space. Xavier looked around the hall, feeling uncertain about their new home. It was all well and good to imagine living in a gothic manor, but actually being here made him uneasy.

It was a feeling that Wednesday clearly didn’t share as she shouldered her backpack and opened the door to her left. Another spell lit the lamps around the burgundy-carpeted room, and a fire roared to life in the hearth. Xavier followed her into what was the library.

The walls were lined with books wherever there weren’t windows. A black baby grand piano was tucked into the far right corner of the room. There was a mahogany desk against the front windows that looked back out onto the drive, and the circular tower alcove featured a cozy, semi-circular leather couch. Two leather armchairs faced the hearth opposite the door they’d entered through, and an ornate oriental rug and another leather sofa dominated the center of the room.

Wednesday briefly scanned some of the titles, verifying that all her books had arrived no worse for the wear and had been properly added to the house’s collection. A few titles seemed out of place, and she made a mental note to reorganize them when she had time.

A door against the back wall apparently led further into the house. Wednesday crossed the room to push it open and disappeared. Xavier jogged to keep up with her, realizing she planned to explore the entire home before anything else.

They entered a wood-paneled billiards and smoking lounge that featured the same semi-circular alcove in the back left corner. The lounge had its own fireplace and leather furniture, and it was the first time Xavier felt an air of coziness in the house. He realized that the smoking lounge must have been a holdover for when men would excuse themselves from the dining room to smoke and entertain themselves without the company of ladies. He thought he might convert the space to include his TV and Xbox so he could game late into the night without disturbing Wednesday. Being able to game with his friends would undoubtedly help him feel more at home.

The lounge had double doors on its right wall that Wednesday opened to reveal the formal dining room. Wednesday strode into the dining room and admired the gleaming ebony table that sat at least twelve. Windows overlooking the rear grounds lined the back wall, and like the previous two rooms, it had its own hearth. The chairs were ornately carved so that each leg was a hooded figure holding up the seat. Wednesday was delighted at the aesthetic and made a mental note to thank her parents for their design choices.

Wednesday walked the length of the room to open a door on the other side, which led to the kitchen. The kitchen was surprisingly light and airy, much to Xavier’s relief. It also had all new appliances and a massive island in the center. Poking around the kitchen, he found a large pantry in addition to a small room dedicated to drying and preparing herbs. In the circular tower alcove, stairs descended to a closed door. He figured that the basement could wait until he felt a little braver.

The kitchen had a back door that led out to a sizable garden. He knew Wednesday had plans to grow herbs for her various potions, but it was spacious enough that he figured he’d have plenty of room to plant some vegetables of his own.

Proceeding past the pantry, they opened another door that led to a formal sitting room looking out on the front drive. This room had another grand piano, this one white, in the circular tower alcove. Paintings lined the damask-papered walls, and the furniture and wood detailing kept with the mahogany theme of the house. The room had a second door by the hearth that led them back to the front hall.

“Satisfied so far?” Wednesday asked.

Her question startled Xavier since she hadn’t spoken during their impromptu tour.

“It’s…it’s different than anywhere I’ve ever lived. And older. It’ll take some getting used to. I like the kitchen,” he concluded.

“Good, because I don’t have aspirations to learn to cook,” she said. “Now, let’s find our room and our things. They should all be here by now.”

They returned to the front hall and took the stairs to the second floor. A long corridor with rich burgundy carpet and mahogany wainscotting ran lengthwise from one end of the house to the other.

“I had them remove the paintings from this hallway and store them in the attic studio. You can decide which ones you want to put back and which of your own you want to hang instead,” Wednesday explained, gesturing to the unadorned walls. “You can change out any of the ones downstairs as well. I’m not attached to any of them.”

She turned right at the top of the stairs and proceeded down to a set of double doors on the left side of the hall. Wednesday pushed open one of the doors, revealing a stunning master suite. The four-poster bed was carved from ebony and supported black velvet bedcurtains. There was a fireplace with two armchairs before it to the right of the doors. Next to that, a door opened into the circular tower room containing a black claw-footed tub with a shower attachment and a large mirrored vanity. A sliding door led to a private room with a toilet and sink.

After examining the bathroom, Wednesday crossed to the other side of the room, which had two closed doors. The left led to a spacious walk-in closet, where Wednesday was satisfied to see their clothes, shoes, and other accessories hanging and neatly arranged on shelves. There was a dresser outside the closet that she discovered was already filled and sorted. Xavier felt a bit disconcerted that unseen hands had delivered and unpacked their things before they arrived.

Wednesday, unfazed by this revelation, proceeded to the other closed door. Behind it was a small boudoir decorated in black with a black chaise long below the window, her ebony dressing table from home with a black velvet chair, and a black marble sink. It was a perfect space for her to relax and get ready in privacy.

As she rummaged through her things in the boudoir to ensure they were all accounted for, Xavier sat down on the massive bed and gazed out the window that looked out on the back of the house. This day felt surreal, and he felt dwarfed by the house’s size, age, and antique grandeur. Despite his lavish upbringing, he would have preferred to live in a quaint cottage or at least a more manageably-sized house. Living here was going to take some getting used to.

Sensing his discomfort, Wednesday came and sat beside him on the bed. She wound her fingers between his and kicked her feet absentmindedly in the air.

“You’ll get used to it,” she said. “Besides, we have Draven and Hamish here too, and they’ll certainly liven the place up with their nonsense. Once you start painting and get your studio situated, it’ll start feeling like home.”

He kissed her forehead, appreciating her attempt to comfort him, knowing how much she despised doing so. Then his stomach growled, breaking the silence and the tension.

“Any chance the creepy movers filled the fridge?” he asked hopefully.

“Probably,” Wednesday replied, hopping from the bed and heading for the bedroom door.

Xavier followed her back to the kitchen, where he was delighted to find that the fridge and pantry were bursting with local and high-quality ingredients. After a few minutes of rummaging, he produced mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, balsamic, and olive oil. Then he buttered and toasted slices of bread in the oven and whipped up a bruschetta topping from the other ingredients. They sat on stools at the kitchen island, munching on fresh bruschetta and sipping tea that Wednesday had located in another cabinet.

It was raining again, and Xavier liked the pitter-patter on the old kitchen windows. Until he got his studio set up, he knew that the kitchen would be his sanctuary. He took their empty dishes to the sink and gazed out at the budding garden outside. Perhaps, he thought, while he got used to the inside of the house, he’d spend nice days outside finding solace in the soil.

Chapter Text

The pair resumed their exploration of the house after lunch. They poked around the three other upstairs bedrooms, all furnished in a gothic style to suit Wednesday’s tastes. Across from their suite was a large study that Xavier recognized from the vision Wednesday had asked him for on the beach following the Poe Cup.

“I’m planning on doing my writing in here,” she said as she took in the massive mahogany desk and the walls lined with books.

Xavier nodded. It was a perfect space for her.

“And now, let’s go look at the attic,” she said, leading the way from the room.

They proceeded up the stairs that were hidden behind a door at the end of the hall. When they opened the door at the top of the staircase, Xavier was shocked to see a white space glowing with sunlight. The peaked roof was filled with windows that let in copious sunshine, and the whole length of the attic had been whitewashed.

Reading Xavier’s expression, Wednesday explained she had it painted to serve as a blank canvas for however he chose to decorate it. His supplies were already in the room; three trunks of brushes, paints, and other items, along with easels and drop clothes neatly stacked against the back wall.

At the other end of the massive studio were two doors. One led to a bathroom, and the other to a sizable storeroom where Xavier found the paintings he’d sent over a month ago, plus the ones Wednesday had removed from the hall downstairs. Setting up a space this massive was going to be quite a project, and he was glad for it. Having something to do would help him adjust to their new home.

“Is there a basement?” Xavier asked, thinking back to the stairs he’d seen in the kitchen.

“Yes. With a wine cellar, a laboratory, and a dissection room. For me, obviously,” she explained.

“Yeah, obviously,” he said, running a hand through his tousled hair and catching it up in a bun. “I think I’ll take a tour of that some other time.”

“Fine by me,” Wednesday agreed, not terribly eager to share her spaces with him.

They went back down to the library and found Draven and Hamish curled up beside the hearth. Xavier sank onto the couch in the center of the room and looked around. This experience felt surreal. First, the idea of being finished with school hadn’t quite sunk in yet. Beyond that, he was in a country he’d never been to, in a massive home that he owned but that felt so incredibly foreign to him. All of it felt so overwhelming.

Wednesday sat primly beside him on the leather couch and observed his face as if she were interrogating a suspect.

“Sorry,” he said, catching her eye. “It’s just…a lot right now. I’m not sure how to feel about anything.”

Wednesday nodded silently. She was overall unaffected by the move, never attaching particular sentiment to any given place. The weather pleased her and the house suited her aesthetic tastes. Yet, Xavier seemed on edge, as if he expected a ghost to emerge from a nearby painting. Wednesday assumed he wouldn’t enjoy that experience as much as she would.

“I think I need some time to process,” Xavier said, breaking the silence and standing up. “I’m going to take a walk around the grounds.”

He headed for the front hall, and Hamish pricked up his ears. Wednesday gave the hellhound a curt nod, and Hamish bounded after Xavier. Xavier scratched the dog’s head, secretly glad for the animal’s company, as he stepped out into the misty afternoon.

When she heard the front door clang shut behind Xavier, Wednesday sighed and sat back against the couch cushion. Draven opened an eye and transformed into his human form. He sat down on the couch a little ways from her and eyed her closely.

“He’s so damn sensitive,” Wednesday said, exasperated. She’d been trying to be patient with Xavier’s mood, but it was difficult after a while. “It’s his fault we’re here, I don’t understand why he’s so off.”

“Change is hard for many humans,” Draven offered. “You must give him time to adjust. He is used to being among his peers all of the time, so he probably feels alone.”

Wednesday muttered something about Xavier having too many feelings for anyone’s good before saying, “There’s no use wasting time while he’s out. Let’s go through the tomes I managed to collect and the ones that came with the house and decide what’s worth spending time on.”

They headed for her office and began scanning the spell books and other volumes that lined the shelves. Draven wrinkled his nose at a few that contained particularly baneful magic, which Wednesday added to her mental list of “must-reads.”

Xavier and Hamish set off across the expanse of lawn, garden, and hedges in the back of the mansion. It didn’t take long to arrive at the back gate, which was far less imposing than the front one. Xavier pushed it open and wedged a rock in it, having forgotten his keys. He wasn’t sure how far their land went, but he knew it was hundreds of acres and more than he could expect to cover in an afternoon’s walk.

Hamish padded happily alongside Xavier, and Xavier was thankful for the company as they set out over the moors. He imagined himself as a tortured Heathcliff, bemoaning his many woes, and found the idea quite entertaining. He’d hated Wuthering Heights when he’d first read it, but now he wondered if he should give it another go.

The wind was punishing once they were away from the protection of the rolling hills. Hamish ran around, returning to Xavier’s side every so often before dashing off again. When the rain began to fall more heavily, Xavier called the hound and turned for home. He took a slightly different route, staying within the fir trees that lined the estate once he got off the moors. They provided a bit of shelter from the storm and held in the day’s meager warmth. The ground was soft underfoot with decaying pine needles, and Xavier hardly made a sound as he walked. Every so often, he thought he caught sight of shadowy figures in his periphery, but when he looked straight on, there was nothing to see.

He wandered through the trees with only a vague idea of where he was going. As the wind picked up, he noticed a strange shape just a ways ahead of him and started for it. Soon he came upon a circle of standing stones covered in lichen and weathered by thousands of years. He gaped at the sight, awed by its mere existence and on his land, no less. Hamish snuffled softly and nuzzled Xavier’s hand as they approached the circle. Instinctively, Xavier slid his fingers into Hamish’s fur, feeling a need to keep contact with the hellhound as he reached his other hand out to touch the nearest stone.

As his fingers made contact, the world around him began to blur and darken. He gripped Hamish’s coat as five robed figures appeared within the stone circle before him. It was suddenly night, and candles burned in clusters on the ground at the base of each stone.

The tallest figure held a chalice in both hands and spoke. “Are you prepared to join with this family for so long as the gods may deign that you walk upon this earth and then after beyond the veil?” the deep voice asked the cloaked figure beside him.

“I am,” said the respondent’s silky deep voice.

It was a woman, and the voice sounded strangely familiar to Xavier. She held out long-nailed hands to take the chalice from the first speaker. Then she drank deeply. As she lowered the chalice, she looked up directly into Xavier’s eyes.

Morticia! Xavier realized with surprise. She seemed a bit younger, perhaps, but it was clearly her.

The world began to shift around him again, but Morticia kept her eyes locked on his. Before the vision faded away, he heard her ask, “Are you prepared too, Xavier Thorpe?”

It was nearly dark when Xavier and Hamish returned to the house. Hamish went immediately to the library to resume his fireside vigil. Xavier headed upstairs to shower.

The warm water felt heavenly on his skin after spending hours in the cold. The grounds surrounding their home were quite extensive, and so far, he felt more at ease outside the house than inside of it. He closed his eyes and let the water run down his body, feeling like it was washing away the last chapter of his life.

He heard a noise and then felt Wednesday step into the shower with him. He kept his eyes closed as he felt her fingers trail down his body and come to rest on his hips. He breathed sharply when he felt her lips brush his growing erection and her tongue take a tentative lap at its head. He slid his hands into her loose, wet hair as she opened her mouth for him, pulling him in until he felt himself hit the back of her throat.

Wednesday hummed, sending vibrations of pleasure coursing through his body. She encouraged him to move his hips, driving into her mouth as she sucked and lapped at him, until he came for her, gasping and panting with effort and sensation.

Xavier sank to the floor of the tub, opening his eyes when he reached his knees. Wednesday was staring at him, face unreadable as she observed his expression. He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, thankful for the relief from his thoughts.

When they were dry, Xavier headed to the kitchen to start dinner. Wednesday sat gazing at her reflection in her dressing table mirror. Xavier’s distance over the past few hours had caught her off-guard. She expected him to become even clingier than usual when they arrived; instead, he seemed like a ghost of himself drifting through the house without purpose.

Wednesday focused her vision in the mirror until her reflection blurred and shifted. In its place, she now saw Xavier perusing the contents of the pantry, long fingers tracing labels and ingredients. Nothing out of the ordinary, but she still felt uneasy. He was prone to depression, and she hoped his current mood wouldn’t last. She banished the image before gliding from the room.

Xavier heard the dulcet tones of Wednesday’s cello as he chopped vegetables mechanically in the kitchen. He paused for a moment to listen to the sound, losing himself in her music.

They ate mostly silently in the oversized dining room, Wednesday observing Xavier throughout the meal. Something had to be done. A wild wind blew outside, and rain lashed the windows. It was perfect for the magic she intended to use.

Wednesday excused herself after dinner to retreat to her library and scan the books she and Draven had neatly piled earlier that day. She sought one that she hadn’t imagined using ever, much less tonight, but Xavier seemed on the precipice of one of his depressions if she couldn’t recall him to himself.

She ran a pale finger down the table of contents written in ornate script on time-yellowed pages. Then she found the item she was looking for; a glamour spell with a side of obsession. She gathered the candles and incense that she needed before whispering the Latin incantation that would achieve her desires. When she finished, she summoned Xavier telepathically to their candlelit bedroom.

Xavier pushed open the door to the bedroom, not understanding why she’d called him rather than simply coming back downstairs. Then he saw her and stopped in his tracks. The room was lit by the fire and candelabra. A record played deep cello music and crackled. Wednesday lay propped against the black pillows at the top of the bed, clothed in only a black lace negligée. More than that, she seemed to emanate a sense of dark beauty that pulled at his deepest carnal desires.

Xavier pulled his shirt over his head as he approached the bed. Wednesday followed him with her eyes as he stripped naked before her without her having to instruct him to. He could feel the magic surrounding her as if it were an electric field.

“What did you do?” he whispered to her as he climbed up on the bed and her hand settled around his erection.

“Just a trick to remind you what’s important,” she replied, stroking him and guiding his lips to hers.

Her kiss felt electric, sending shockwaves through his body. Whatever magic she’d used, it was working. He had to have her, to lose himself in her. Nothing in the world was more important than her in this moment. He knew much of it had to do with her magic, but he didn’t care; he needed her; he had to get his hands on her and in her.

Wednesday gasped as his fingers slipped inside her wet, warm center, stroking her from within and beckoning her closer to the edge. He broke away from her lips to reposition himself and latch on to her clit. A desperate moan escaped her lips, and her eyes fluttered closed.

Xavier watched her face as he licked her; her back was arched, and her hips pushed into his face, urging him onward. She protested weakly when he withdrew his fingers and his mouth, though he quickly settled himself between her legs and pushed himself into her. When he did, a wave of relief broke over him. It was like a fog lifted and he could see clearly for the first time in eons. Her body was the only thing that existed for him in this moment. It was the only thing that he lived for. She met his every thrust with eager hips, and she raked lines in his back with her nails. He brought her to orgasm again and again before he finally spilled into her, gasping and trembling.

Xavier watched Wednesday as she slept, her face illuminated by flickering candlelight. Her spell had worn off by now, but the magic had quieted and focused him. There was no use dwelling on the fact that they would never be students again, and that they were in a foreign country far from everything and everyone he knew. He thought about the ring tucked deep in one of his bags. That was what he should be focusing on, he realized. The past was the past, for better or worse. Wednesday was his future.

Chapter Text

“We need to go to the village,” Xavier declared a week after they’d arrived. “There’s stuff I need to pick up if you want to continue enjoying my gourmet skills, and I need to get out of this house.”

Wednesday looked up from her typewriter.

“Fine. Get the car. I’ll be right out,” she said, turning back to her page.

A few minutes later, Wednesday appeared from the house and slid into their rented car. Xavier hit the gas, and they were soon roaring down the country lane away from the manor.

The village was only a few miles down the road and home to about a thousand residents. Xavier found its rural shops charming and quickly charmed the various shopkeepers in return. They all gave Wednesday a fairly wide berth.

Before returning to the manor, Xavier suggested they stop at the pub for a drink. Wednesday nodded in agreement, recognizing he needed social activity even if she could go centuries without it.

The pub was low-ceilinged and constructed of rough-hewn wood. They slid into bar stools, where a ruddy bartender shuffled over to greet them.

“On holiday?” he asked, his accent thick.

“No,” Wednesday said.

“We just moved up the road,” Xavier clarified.

“In the ol’ manor house?” the bartender asked.

Wednesday nodded.

“I’d heard rumors, but dinnae think anyone was crazy enough to actually touch the ol’ place,” he chortled. Then he nodded to Xavier and added, “You look like a regular enough lad. I assume the house suits the wee lassie more than yourself?”

“That obvious?” Xavier replied with a sharp laugh.

The bartender laughed as well and plunked two frothing pints in front of the couple.

“It’s a small town, you’ll find the rumor mill is often churning out regular inaccuracies. This time, though, it seems to have dropped a spot of truth!” he said. “Perhaps you’ll dispel the folk’s fears about the ol’ place being haunted.”

“I hope not,” Wednesday muttered.

The bartender shuffled off to serve another patron before returning to their conversation.

“So what’s a pair of weens like you doin’ all the way out here?” he asked, leaning across the bar.

“Self-imposed exile,” Wednesday replied. “I don’t like people. And normies don’t like us.”

“Well, I dunno,” the bartender replied. “The lad seems likable enough. You’re one of those acquired tastes, I imagine. You’ll find the folk here don’t have much opinion about outcasts so long as they mind their business and don’t cause trouble, same as anyone else.”

A few of the other patrons took interest in the newcomers as well, and the bartender, whose name they learned was Craig, made it a point to introduce them to the pub’s regulars. Xavier was delighted in their interest in them. Wednesday, less so.

It was a few hours before they left, Xavier brimming with extroverted energy.

Xavier spent their first weeks in Scotland working in the kitchen garden when the weather allowed. When it didn’t, which was frequently, he worked on organizing his studio space. It was only a matter of time before he’d need to get to work on commissions. Wednesday was already hard at work on her next novel, much to her editor’s relief.

They were due to return to the States for Itt’s solstice ball at the end of June, and Xavier was looking forward to it immensely. They’d arrived in Scotland in mid-May, and by the first week of June, Xavier had decided that he wanted Wednesday to attend the ball with a ring on her finger. The conundrum was how to ask her and how to get her to say “yes.”

Wednesday would not want an overly romantic gesture. Anything she considered too sappy would earn him an immediate rejection. He was in the kitchen prepping vegetables for dinner, watching Draven and Wednesday spar outside, when an idea struck him. He smiled and congratulated himself on his truly inspired plan.

It took Xavier a week to prepare for his macabre proposal. In the end, he had several nagging doubts about whether he could actually pull it off; anything involving Wednesday came with unique challenges.

Xavier leaned against the doorframe of Wednesday’s office, watching her type furiously at her typewriter.

“Have you ever once considered using your laptop for this?” he asked, pushing off of the door and walking into the room.

She looked up and appraised him as he approached.

“Of course not,” she replied. “This is how I write. This is how I will always write.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you do you. But take a break, I want to show you something I’ve been working on,” he said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“An illusion.”

“I thought you were focusing on painting, not psychic tricks,” she said.

“I think it’s more than just a trick,” he protested.

“Just because you’re better at it than anyone else doesn’t negate the fact that it’s a trick. That just means it’s a good trick,” Wednesday countered, crossing her arms.

Xavier sighed in frustration and mirrored her pose. “Okay, fine, it’s a good trick. Now can I please just show you?”

“Yes.”

Xavier threw his arms up and turned toward the door. Why did she make things so damn difficult?

“Because it amuses me,” she replied, guessing his thoughts.

Xavier led her down to the library and to chairs before the unlit fireplace. It was dark, and moonlight spilled into the candleless room. Wednesday sat across from him and watched him intently. She hadn’t known that he’d been working on his psychic powers since they’d arrived in Scotland, but she did appreciate unexpected surprises. Her curiosity was certainly peaked.

“Close your eyes,” Xavier instructed. “I’ll tell you when to open them.”

Wednesday was familiar with Xavier’s illusions from the Poe Cup. He was masterful at creating them; a normie wouldn’t even be able to tell that what they were seeing wasn’t real. She could only tell because she knew his mind as well as she did. She drummed her fingers with expectation, interested to see what he’d created.

“Okay, you can open,” Xavier said after a few moments.

Wednesday blinked her eyes open and looked around. She was at the base of a crumbling staircase in a crumbling round tower. Wind whistled through the cracks and chilled her to the bone. Drifts of snow were piled here and there against the walls. She was impressed at the realism of the illusion; all of her senses told her this was real, and Xavier was nowhere to be seen.

Clearly, he’d hidden from her for some reason, and she hoped his little puzzle didn’t disappoint. She tested her weight gingerly on the first stair, not quite trusting it. When it didn’t crumble away beneath her, she began to ascend into the darkness above her. At the top of the stairs, she encountered a rough wooden trap door. She braced her shoulder against it and threw it open. When she clambered up onto the turret roof, the wind caught her cloak and hair, and snow blinded her momentarily. It was dreadful. She loved it.

Wednesday looked around. She was on top of a crumbling castle in the middle of mountains that she’d never seen and wasn’t sure even existed. This whole place might be a figment of Xavier’s imagination. The wind howled through cruel jagged peaks, and whatever vegetation might grow on the valley floor was hidden under drifts of snow. She pulled the fur cloak she wore tighter around her as she circled the perimeter of the tower, unsure what to do next.

She caught sight of a single rune on one of the stones near the turret’s edge and strode over to it to examine it closer. When she touched the stone to brush off the snow, it began to glow and then exploded in a ball of fire. Wednesday felt herself falling through the air, hurtling to the ground at terrifying speed. She grinned. This was impressive.

Just when she should have hit the rocky ground, she felt something close around her body. When she looked up, she saw that her rescuer was a massive black dragon like the ones her mother used to tell stories about when she was a girl. It’s powerful wings buffeted her with gusts of air as it roared and soared toward one of the jagged peaks. When it reached a large outcropping atop one of the peaks, it dropped her, causing her to fall several feet and roll to recover. She looked longingly after the mythical creature as it wheeled and disappeared into the gray sky.

“What do you think?” Xavier said as he emerged from behind a large boulder.

He was dressed in the same style as Wednesday; a fur cloak, sturdy travel clothes, and heavy boots.

“It’s impressive,” Wednesday admitted. “The dragon is an especially nice touch.”

“I figured you’d enjoy that,” Xavier grinned. “Now, I’d like to propose a friendly competition. You’ve been working a lot with Draven, but it’s been a minute since we’ve tested our powers against each other.”

Wednesday smirked, “Interesting play, bringing me into your territory before proposing a test of strength.”

Xavier’s mischievous smile widened. “I thought it was pretty clever. Are you saying you don’t think you can win on my turf?” he asked.

Wednesday scoffed. “Of course, I can beat you here, or anywhere for that matter. But I want to know the stakes.”

“The winner gets to make a request of the loser, and the loser must fulfill it,” he said simply.

“Any request?” Wednesday asked, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

“Anything,” Xavier clarified, certain she’d take the bait.

Wednesday mulled it over. What would she do with carte blanche? The possibilities were delightful, and she was certain that she’d win, even if they were in his illusion. She’d beaten him at the Poe Cup despite his illusions, and she was certain that she could do it again.

“Done,” she decided. “Now, what are the rules?”

“This illusion is our arena. Don’t shatter it. Otherwise, anything goes,” Xavier replied as he pulled a leatherbound sketchbook from beneath his cloak.

He pulled a gleaming black sword from the pages, its hilt glistening with dark rubies. Wednesday grinned and released the clasp of her cloak, kicking it out of the way when it puddled to the ground. She summoned her phantom scythe in one hand, and a shade appeared at the other. This was turning into a very romantic evening.

Wednesday sent her shade for Xavier, testing his resolve and checking for traps laid between them. The shade’s spectral sword clashed with Xavier’s, sending sparks through the frigid air. Xavier bounded back before leaping at the shade and banishing it with a single stroke. Wednesday frowned. She’d hoped her magical apparition would have held out longer against him, but apparently, Xavier had anticipated her initial strategy. She’d have to subdue him herself.

Wednesday circled him, the wind buffeting her as she neared the edge of the outcropping. Her plan was to fool him into thinking she was vulnerable close to the edge, then take the upper hand. She felt rock crumble beneath her heel and saw a flash of opportunity cross his face, just as she predicted.

Xavier jumped toward her, swinging his macabre sword. Wednesday smiled and stepped backward off the edge and into the waiting arms of two shades she’d conjured to catch her. The apparitions threw her up over the edge, where she flipped over Xavier’s head and landed behind him.

He barely had a moment to jump as she swiped at his feet with her scythe, sending tendrils of death magic in all directions. She was grinning maniacally, thrilled with her trick, and continued raining blows upon him. Xavier fought back hard, casting illusions of himself attacking from different angles to confuse her.

They stood across from one another, panting and sweating. A trickle of blood ran from Xavier’s temple, where Wednesday had nicked him during one of their clashes. Wednesday licked her lips, waiting to see what he would do next.

Suddenly, the black dragon from before appeared over the mountaintop, raining fire down toward Wednesday. She rolled out of the way just in time. The dragon grabbed her in its claws, wrenching her scythe from her grasp. She muttered the dead weight spell that she’d used on the sirens during the Poe Cup, and the dragon shrieked and dropped her before flapping off again.

Xavier was on Wednesday in a moment tackling her against the rockface. Stone chains formed from the rock and wrapped themselves around her body. The more Wednesday struggled, the tighter they became until she could barely breathe.

“Concede?” Xavier said, smiling as he watched her struggle against his bonds.

Wednesday glared at him. He tightened the stone chains against her again so that she could only take shallow, gasping breaths.

“Fine!” she gasped as the stone bit into her skin and blood trickled down her back.

The chains dissipated, and she fell to her hands and knees, gasping for air. The wind died down to a gentle breeze, and snowflakes fell lazily around them. Xavier knelt before her, waiting for her to recover.

“I want a rematch,” she panted.

“Fair enough, but first, I get my winnings,” he said, voice low.

Wednesday glared up at him as he crouched in front of her. “Fine. What’s your request?” she spat.

“Marry me,” he said, green eyes boring into her gray ones.

“What?” Wednesday stammered in surprise, eyes wide.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the black diamond ring he’d had made for her months before. She gaped at him.

“That’s my request: Wednesday Addams, will you marry me?” he said.

She pushed herself up to her knees, eyes flicking from his face to the ring he held in his gloved hand.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

The scene around them began to blur and shift, and the library came back into focus. Wednesday looked down at her hands in her lap and saw the diamonds glinting in the moonlight on her finger. She looked up at Xavier sitting across from her.

He stood, crossed over to her, and knelt at her feet, taking her trembling hands in hers. He pressed her cold fingers to his warm lips as she watched him.

“You are my everything. My world. My love. My life,” he murmured against her skin. “All I want is for you to be mine forever.”

She looked at him with her impassive unblinking stare. “I already was,” she whispered at last.

He rose and drew her to her feet, then kissed her. Wednesday felt the weight of the ring on her finger as she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him pick her up and carry her to their bedroom.

Chapter Text

Viper delicately tied the ribbons of her masquerade mask behind her head, carefully positioning the mask to avoid smudging her carefully drawn makeup. Tonight, everything had to be perfect.

She slipped from her unassuming apartment building into a waiting Uber, her evening gown clashing with the atmosphere of 20-somethings pub crawling on this warm Friday night. Soon, she left that scene behind as the driver plunged them into the din of downtown.

They pulled up to a stately old hotel. She thanked the driver and stepped out of the car, walking up the red-carpeted stairs to the doors. Viper handed her thick ivory invitation to one of the doormen, who checked it against his list.

“I.D.,” he demanded, and Viper provided one (fake, obviously, to match the name on the invitation).

Satisfied, the doorman handed her back the I.D., and another opened the doors to the hotel lobby.

A white-tux staffer offered her champagne upon her entrance, and she wandered the lobby observing the other guests. This was her chance to discover the identity of “The Kid,” an up-and-coming mafioso who’d somehow brought the city’s major crime families under his thumb.

Viper found the nickname wholly unoriginal, but given the brain power of the organized crime perps she collared, unsurprising. Apparently, the name was simply a reference to the Kid’s youth in addition to being a nod to the infamous Billy the Kid of the Old West. She’d rolled her eyes at the revelation; she’d wanted, but not expected more, from the old crime families of Chicago.

Paltry nickname aside, the Kid himself had proven to be highly effective at subduing crime in the city. That’s what worried her. Anyone with the ability to bring the often-feuding crime families to heel was a bigger threat than the families had ever been. Unfortunately, the police didn’t see it the same way. As long as they could report lower crime numbers to the press, they didn’t care what was going on behind the scenes.

That attitude had culminated in this thinly veiled charity gala that everyone knew the Kid had organized. The mayor was in attendance, as were several of the city’s most notorious crime bosses. The party was a trophy case of influential individuals that the Kid had brought under his power, and it made Viper’s skin crawl. She was going to do something about it, politicians be damned.

Xavier was pleased and a little surprised that Wednesday actually wore her engagement ring whenever she wasn’t engaged in hand-to-hand combat or some other equally rough activity. She’d warmed to the idea of marriage more than he’d anticipated, given her general disregard for social conventions. He hadn’t broached the topic of wedding planning yet, preferring to let someone else do it for him at the Solstice Ball.

One afternoon shortly before they were to leave, Xavier popped into her office, having just returned from collecting their mail in the village.

“Something for you,” he said, crossing to her desk and handing her a plain envelope.

Wednesday took it and slit it open with the dagger he’d given her as a gift. Her mouth twitched into a half smile as she read the page, then she handed it over to him to read.

“So it’s official!” he said, grinning. “You’re a real doctor now! Congrats!”

“I expected to pass, of course,” Wednesday replied, turning back to her writing.

Xavier rolled his eyes and set the letter back on her desk. “Your humility is overwhelming,” he said sarcastically. Then, changing the subject, he asked, “Have you started packing yet?”

Wednesday looked up again. “No. We don’t leave for three days. I’ll pack the day before. No need to waste more time than necessary on that.”

“Uh-huh,” Xavier said. He was gleeful about returning to the States for the ball and seeing their family and friends. Wednesday seemed to think it was an unnecessary interruption to her writing. He shrugged and headed for his studio. He was working on a commission that he’d like to complete before they left, and she clearly wasn’t in the mood to chat.

When Xavier was gone, Wednesday pulled out her phone and continued scanning an article that she’d been reading when he’d interrupted her. It was a short piece about a break-in that had happened last night in the village. It was rare for there to be any news at all about the small hamlet, so it had attracted her notice. Additionally, there was something odd about the break-in; no one was seriously injured, and it didn’t seem that anything of real value was stolen. Something itched at the back of her brain, urging her to investigate further.

Wednesday stood and walked over to the window. She gazed out over the grounds as she mulled over the news. Then she headed downstairs, grabbed Xavier’s keys, and went out to the car.

Xavier heard his car engine roar to life and shook his head. God knows where she was going or what she was up to now. He was used to her impulsive actions and decided to focus on his work rather than trying to figure out what wild hair idea she’d latched on to this time.

Wednesday pushed into the pub and slipped onto a bar stool. A few old men huddled around one of the tables and eyed her suspiciously when she entered. She glared back at them until they turned back to their cards.

Craig approached her from the other side of the bar.

“Little early for you to be indulging,” he teased before setting a pint of her favorite ale in front of her.

“I want to know about the break-in,” she replied.

“Ah, that. You one of those true-crime junkies? Got a daughter-in-law like that,” he said.

“I have an interest in crimes that don’t make sense,” Wednesday said.

“Hmmm, seems to be a run-of-the-mill burglary to me,” Craig said, scratching his chin.

“Don’t lie. You’re not good at it,” Wednesday challenged him.

“Heh,” Craig laughed coldly. “S’pose that’s true. No one’s supposed to know, but I heard nothing was taken,” he told her, voice low. “Whole house ransacked, but nothin’ missing. Somehow that feels creepier to me, anyway.”

Wednesday considered the information. “There has to be something more,” she decided. “Ransacked the house, didn’t take anything, but…what else?” she asked, mostly to herself.

Craig shrugged. “You could try and get something outta the police, but I doubt they’ll talk. Damn excited to have a real crime to work on, you see.”

“I have ways of making people talk,” Wednesday assured him as she drained her pint.

As she headed for the door, Craig looked after her and muttered to himself, “I’m sure you do.”

Wednesday’s next stop was the police station. Calling it a “station” was generous; it was a converted two-story house with a main area, three offices (converted bedrooms), and a single holding cell.

Wednesday marched up to the woman seated behind the front desk in what was obviously the home’s living room.

“I need to talk to someone about the break-in,” she demanded.

The woman looked at her suspiciously. Most of the village had at least heard of the strange girl who’d moved into the old manor house, yet they all seemed to be caught off guard when they actually met her.

“Do you have a tip?” the woman asked. Wednesday was surprised to hear that she was English rather than Scottish.

“Something like that,” Wednesday lied.

“Wait here, please,” she said and headed for a back room.

Shortly, a harried-looking young officer followed the receptionist back into the front room.

“Come with me,” she said to Wednesday.

She narrowed her eyes at her but followed her to her bedroom/office. Wednesday sat on the opposite side of her desk and scrutinized the room. The nameplate on her desk read “Elspeth Stewart.”

“Bonnie said you have a tip on the break-in,” Elspeth began, dropping into her wooden chair.

“I have questions about the break-in,” Wednesday clarified.

Elspeth threw up her hands, “What are you, from the media? We already told your like there’s nothing to report at this time!”

Wednesday was insulted that the officer would accuse her of being a reporter. “Of course not. I’m…an interested citizen,” she clarified. “With unique areas of expertise.”

“Great,” Elspeth replied. “Well, answer’s the same. Nothing to report at this time. Now please be on your way.”

“What’s unusual about the scene?” Wednesday pressed, not budging from her seat. “House ransacked, nothing taken, but no statement from your lot. There’s a missing piece. What is it?”

Elspeth eyed the slight goth girl sitting across from her. “I see the rumor mill’s churning,” she said.

“Always, but not about the missing information. These people are too focused on burglary to observe that there’s something you aren’t saying,” Wednesday countered.

“It’s confidential,” Elspeth retorted.

“Fine,” Wednesday said, standing up from her chair. She dug into her bag and tossed one of the new business cards she had made in preparation for receiving confirmation of passing her board exams onto the officer’s desk.

“When the next one occurs, and you all don’t know what to do, call me,” Wednesday instructed and walked out of the office.

Elspeth picked up the ivory card on her desk and read it:

Dr. Wednesday Addams

Private Eye / On-Call Coroner

It also listed her phone number and the address of the manor house. Elspeth snorted. Pretentious little rich girl, she thought and tossed the card into a drawer.

Chapter Text

Viper entered the stunning ballroom and took in the masked crowd. Given the notoriety of many influential attendees, the masks were more of a formality than a real attempt to conceal identities. Fortunately, no one was likely to notice a nineteen-year-old private eye among the illustrious guests. Everyone was too busy currying favor with more important people.

She accepted an invitation to dance from a man she didn’t know and used the opportunity to scan more of the room as they circled the floor. Most importantly, she wanted to know if the Kid would attend his own party, or if he’d pull a Gatsby and observe the revelry from afar. As the night wore on, she definitely began to think it was the latter.

Close to midnight, she accepted what she decided would be her final dance. She’d mentally cataloged many of the attendees, now knowing which players the Kid had in his silk-lined pockets. That much, at least, had proved useful this evening.

The man led her to the dance floor, and they took their position. When she glanced up at him, she saw he had arrestingly blue eyes that showed no signs of intoxication like she’d seen in her previous partners that evening. The dance began, and she found that he was a more competent partner than her previous ones that evening. It would be a good note to end on.

About halfway through the dance, her mysterious partner spoke, “You shouldn’t be here, De La Muerte. Though I do admire your persistence in the face of everyone’s acceptance of my authority. People who challenge me intrigue me.”

Viper’s eyes shot to her partner’s. “You,” she hissed through her clenched polite smile. “I didn’t think you’d make an appearance.”

“I know this guest list like the back of my hand, and I also know that the lady you’re impersonating is currently on a yacht in Croatia,” he said. “So I had to see who had the balls to try and deceive me.”

“In my experience, balls are very sensitive,” Viper replied.

“Touché,” he admitted. “However, I must insist you follow me,” he said as the music ended.

Viper rapidly considered her options. In the end, she knew an opportunity to get this close to the Kid might not come again, and she couldn’t pass up the chance now. What irritated her is that the smirk on his face told her that he knew it too.

The engines droned as Wednesday paced the aisle of the Thorpe jet. She was beginning to hate international travel. Hamish trotted back and forth behind her, confused as to why they were retracing their steps so often. Finally, he gave up and went to rest his head on Xavier’s lap.

Xavier looked down into the hellhound’s trusting eyes. “Yeah, I know. She’s exhausting,” he said to the dog, patting its head. Hamish whined.

Draven was in reaper form, sitting with his legs crossed and reading some kind of correspondence from his reaper brethren. Xavier chuckled, seeing Draven look more akin to a hassled businessman than a harbinger of death. After Draven got to the end of the page, he tossed the scroll away, and it dissipated into tendrils of gray smoke.

“Would you please sit down,” Draven pleaded to Wednesday. “This pacing is beyond disagreeable. We will arrive when we arrive, no matter how many times you cross this plane.”

Wednesday flopped into a chair across from Draven and huffed.

Draven ignored her irritation and continued, “I have received notice that there is some unusual spiritual activity near our home,” he said. Wednesday sat up at that information. “Given the relatively high level of activity typical for that part of the world, this spike has raised concerns. When we return, I suggest we investigate the reports. In all likelihood, it is merely some prank of the Fair Folk, but it is good to be thorough regardless.”

Wednesday’s mind immediately shot to the break-in and the missing piece that the police weren’t sharing. If this was related, it would certainly be a helpful weapon in her informational arsenal. When it came down to it, the police would have to involve her necromantic expertise if there were paranormal aspects to their case.

Lurch was waiting with the family hearse on the tarmac when they finally landed. Wednesday relaxed a bit, sliding into the familiar velvet interior. Draven transformed into a black cat for the journey and settled himself on Wednesday’s lap for a nap. Xavier wound his fingers through Wednesday’s and held her hand as they pulled away from the airport.

“Have you told them yet?” he asked, looking out the window at the familiar landscape.

“No. I don’t enjoy calling home, and it seemed logical to tell them in person since we were coming so soon,” she replied.

In truth, she wanted to delay the deluge of tears and emotion that she knew would follow sharing the news of her engagement.

Xavier smiled slightly. “Just let them gush for a few minutes and get it out of their system,” he told her. “It won’t be nearly as bad as you’re imagining it,” he said reassuringly.

“We’ll see,” Wednesday replied skeptically.

They soon pulled through the Addams’ gate and into the driveway. Gomez opened the door and jogged out to greet them, beaming. Xavier exited the car first and shook Gomez’s hand, wondering how he had such a crushing grip. Wednesday slid out of the car behind him and allowed her father a few-second embrace before turning to ensure Draven and Hamish followed them.

Hamish trotted up to Gomez and nuzzled his hand lovingly. Wednesday rolled her eyes at the affectionate hellhound.

“I see your menagerie is growing again,” Gomez said, patting the enormous dog cheerily.

“Hamish isn’t quite as terrifying as I’d hoped, but a dog’s a dog, I suppose,” Wednesday sighed, heading for the house.

Thing scurried out onto the porch and perched on the railing. Wednesday paused to greet it.

“Have you kept them out of trouble without me here?” she asked.

Thing gestured that everything was running just fine without her.

Wednesday turned to enter the house when Thing snapped twice, recalling her attention to it. Then it pointed at her left hand and tapped its fingers expectantly.

“Oh, yes. We’re engaged,” Wednesday said simply and then stalked into the gloomy mansion.

Xavier had reached the porch just behind her. Thing looked at Xavier questioningly.

“Believe it or not, I think she’s actually excited about it,” Xavier said. “But she’s paranoid of people making a big deal out of it, which is kind of inevitable.”

Thing tapped its understanding and hopped up onto Xavier’s shoulder to ride into the house with him.

When they entered, Morticia was seated in her peacock chair when they entered the family room after Wednesday. Morticia smiled and set her knitting aside, rising to embrace her daughter.

“Darling! It’s wonderful to have you home so soon! You’re father hates not having your sinister presence around to liven up the place,” Morticia said in her syrupy voice.

“And, Xavier!” she continued, “It’s wonderful to have you hear as well.”

Draven slipped by them all and took up residence in Morticia’s recently vacated seat. Wednesday shook her head, thinking that his cat form tended to make him think and act like a true cat.

Thing, still perched on Xavier’s shoulder, tapped out a message to Morticia and pointed at Wednesday's hand.

“Just gonna rip the bandaid off?” Xavier said quietly to the hand. Thing tapped its confirmation.

“Darling!” Morticia exclaimed. “It appears a lot has happened since you left us! Let me see!”

Wednesday reluctantly placed her hand in Morticia’s and allowed her mother to examine the ornate black ring. While she was scrutinizing it, Gomez and Pugsley came into the living room.

“Gomez, my love! We have a wedding to plan!” Morticia said without releasing Wednesday’s hand from her firm, icy grip.

Wednesday rolled her eyes as her father and brother scurried over to gawk at the diamonds. She finally wrenched her hand away from her family.

“I hope you’re not expecting any kind of traditional or over-the-top wedding tropes,” Wednesday warned as she stalked toward the stairs to follow Lurch to her room.

Morticia smiled after her daughter before turning to Xavier, “I never thought our little viper would ever get married, but here we are! We’re so delighted to have you officially join our family!”

Morticia hugged Xavier, then released him at arm’s length. “Why don’t you go get settled? I’m sure the time change wore you two out. We’ll see you at dinner.”

Thing hopped down onto a nearby end table, where Hamish came to examine it. The hellhound snuffled and sniffed before soaking Thing with a lick from his gigantic tongue. Thing expressed its irritation, and Pugsley laughed.

“Can I take him outside?” Pugsley asked Xavier.

“Sure. I’m sure he could use it after the long plane ride,” Xavier replied. Then he turned to follow Wednesday upstairs.

Xavier opened the door to Wednesday’s room softly. Aside from a few things she’d sent over for their new home, her room was unchanged. Xavier heard water running and headed for the bathroom. He stripped off his clothes and tossed them into a pile on the floor, then he got in the shower with her. Wednesday’s eyes were closed, and her head tilted back to let the water run through her hair. He put his arms around her naked waist and brought his lips down onto hers.

Wednesday let her armor start to soften and melt into Xavier’s body. She hated being the center of attention, and being the focus for something romantic was even more dreadful. Fortunately, Xavier’s roving hands were making it impossible to think about any of that at the moment.

He reached behind her to shut off the water and led her back into the bedroom by her hand. Xavier pushed her onto her stomach on her bed, wet skin dampening the comforter. He gripped the back of her neck with one hand as he slid two fingers into her with the other.

Wednesday moaned, fingers twisting into the velvet comforter as he slid his fingers in and out of her with increasing speed and force. She whimpered when he withdrew them, protesting the loss of friction.

Xavier draped his upper body over hers and used his feet to spread her legs further. “I’m going to fuck you until you don’t have the energy for anxiety,” he growled into her ear. She breathed sharply with anticipation and need. Before she could reply, he stood up and slammed himself into her, jerking her forward and eliciting an involuntary cry.

Xavier’s hands gripped Wednesday’s hips as he plowed into her from behind, forcing her to orgasm through a delicious combination of pain and pleasure. When her whole body trembled with overstimulation, he relented and let himself cum, pushing into her fully before collapsing over her back.

Chapter Text

The Kid led Viper into an elevator and pushed PH. She glanced at him as the elevator whisked them away from the revelry and drunken guests. A “ding” announced their arrival at the hotel’s top floor, and the Kid held the elevator door back as Viper stepped out onto the ornate carpet. Then he led her to a nearby door and held it again for her to enter. She found the chivalric display deeply ironic coming from the city’s most successful criminal in decades.

With a gesture, the Kid invited her to sit on a red sofa in the suite’s sitting room.

“Drink?” he asked.

“Do you think I’m foolish?” she spat.

“Do you think if I wanted you unconscious or dead, I’d resort to such… juvenile methods?” he retorted.

Viper pursed her lips. She had to remember she wasn’t dealing with a common crook; of course, he wouldn’t poison her – that would spoil his fun. Instead of replying, she removed her mask and set it on the coffee table in front of her. He knew who she was, and the mask chaffed her nose. No point in being uncomfortable during whatever was going to happen next.

The Kid walked over and offered her a vesper martini, which she accepted. It was the first drink she’d had since champagne upon her arrival. She sipped the cocktail. It was smooth and crisp – excellent by any standard.

Viper set the glass delicately on the table in front of her as the Kid settled into an armchair facing her.

“So, since you know who I am, I believe you should return the favor,” she said, scrutinizing him.

The Kid laughed. “Awfully bold of you to tell me what to do on my turf,” he asked playfully.

“You’re bored, and you want a worthy adversary. A sentiment I am deeply familiar with, in fact,” Viper replied calmly.

She was betting that the Kid rarely encountered anyone that interested him, and like her accepting his invitation to his suite, he would be powerless to resist giving her more information than was wise, just to see what she’d do with it.

In response, the Kid pulled the ribbons at the back of his mask and removed it from his face. His blue eyes stood out against his dark brows and olive skin.

“And the other thing?” Viper asked expectantly.

“The other thing?” the Kid replied, feigning ignorance with his expressive face.

“Your name.”

“Oh, that. I’m a little disappointed that you don’t already know it,” he said, sipping his cocktail.

“Perhaps I’m simply looking for confirmation,” Viper replied, unwilling to admit that she had no idea what his name was, despite her digging. It clearly wasn’t something he shared willingly with others.

The Kid smiled. “You can call me ‘Leo,’” he replied.

“Is that your real name?” Viper challenged him.

He shrugged. “It’s a name. People call me many things, they run together after a while. You can’t tell me that your real name is ‘Viper,’” he countered.

She scowled. Of course, “Viper” wasn’t the name her imbecilic parents had given her at birth. She renamed herself as part of her work, but it was the truest name she’d ever had. Instead of answering, she sipped her drink and waited for him to make the next move in their mental chess match.

Morticia kept dinner to the usual level of formality despite Gomez’s pleas to celebrate the engagement.

“We must let them settle in first, my dear,” Morticia cooed to her adoring husband. “You know how much Wednesday hates being the center of attention, and I’m sure she’ll be swamped with it at the Ball in a few days.”

Wednesday silently thanked her mother when she realized dinner would be a typical affair. Pugsley regaled them with the adventures he and Hamish had gone on over the afternoon and bemoaned his summer homework woes. Morticia and Gomez filled Wednesday in on various family affairs and happenings. The evening was surprisingly relaxing for both Wednesday and Xavier.

Gomez steered Xavier into the dungeon for some train track demolition, having literally blown through all of Xavier’s constructions already. Wednesday began to head upstairs when she heard Morticia call to her from the conservatory. She found Morticia feeding leftovers to Cleopatra.

“Yes, Mother?” Wednesday asked, perching on the table beside Cleopatra. Cleopatra turned to Wednesday and bopped her head affectionately before turning back to its meal.

“Now that your father and brother are occupied, I want to hear all about the proposal!” Morticia said. “Your father proposed to me in a cemetery under the darkness of a new moon. It was magical!” Morticia’s eyes shone with memory.

“Well…it was different than that,” Wednesday said. The story came tumbling out, surprising Wednesday with her own excitement and fondness for the memory.

“That sounds perfect for you, my little viper,” Morticia said. “I’m so happy for you. Are you ready to start talking about wedding plans, or do you want some time to think it over?”

Wednesday considered the question for a few moments. “I think I’d be open to talking about it a little,” she said.

“How about the basics?” Morticia suggested. “The when and where that is.”

Wednesday hadn’t really given thought to any of this before now, but some of the answers seemed obvious now that Morticia broached the topic.

“Here. And Samhain,” Wednesday decided. “Midnight, obviously.”

“Obviously. What other time of day would one get married?” Morticia asked. “This year?”

“Yes. I’m allergic to waiting,” Wednesday quipped. “I think I might also be allergic to wedding planning.”

“I’ll handle the details, darling. You know how I adore planning a party!” Morticia assured her.

“Not too many guests,” Wednesday warned.

“Of course not, darling. This day will be about you two,” Morticia said, spooning the last mouthful to Cleopatra. “Leave it to me.”

Wednesday hopped down from the table and left the conservatory, feeling accomplished. When she reached her room, Xavier sat in an armchair sketching a new set of trains for Gomez. He looked up when she entered.

“We’re going to get married here at Samhain,” she announced, taking the chair opposite him.

Xavier smiled, “I kind of assumed as much. I don’t care where or when. The sooner, the better, in my opinion!”

Wednesday shifted her gaze away, feeling color rise in her face. The sooner, the better, indeed. All of this involved an awful lot of emotions. “My mother has offered to handle the details,” she said without looking at him.

“Fine by me. We’ll be abroad, so I’m happy to let her handle the party planning aspect,” Xavier said. “But, more importantly, where do you want to go for our honeymoon?”

Wednesday looked back at him. “Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Somewhere remote and cold, preferably.”

“I’ll have to think about that,” Xavier said. “You know, most people go to the beach and lie in the sun for a week or so.”

Wednesday grimaced, and Xavier laughed loudly at her expression.

“Don’t worry!” he said. “I wouldn’t dare take you somewhere tropical!”

“Good.”

They enjoyed a few days at the Addams’ home before it was time to travel to Itt’s mansion for the Solstice Ball. One particularly warm day, they hiked out to the swimming hole and dove to Wednesday’s secret cave. They made love by a crackling fire, shadows dancing over the cavern walls and voices echoing with otherworldly ecstasy.

When they arrived at Itt’s mansion a few days later, Wednesday led the way to her usual Dracula-inspired room. Xavier enjoyed being back in the ostentatious surroundings of Itt’s home, thinking of their time there a few years ago when he and Wednesday had first danced together. Now she was his, forever, and everyone would know it tonight.

Wednesday fixed her hair in front of the vanity mirror while Xavier showered. She told herself that she didn’t do “nervous” as she glared at her reflection. The idea of her family and friends fawning over her ring made her stomach turn. Not in a good way.

Xavier emerged from the shower, hips slung with a black towel. Wednesday was in her silk dressing gown, fixing her braids into a crown around her head. As he watched her, she fumbled a bobby pin and cursed as it fell to the carpet.

Xavier walked over and knelt to pick up the pin for her. He took her hand and put the pin in her palm then, still on his knees, he closed his hands around hers.

“If it’s too much,” he said, “you don’t have to wear it. We can tell people some other time.”

She blinked at him. After a moment, she said, “No. You’re mine, and I want everyone to know it. Even if they do insist on making insipid comments about engagements, weddings, and marriage.”

Xavier smiled as she turned back to the mirror and stabbed the pin into her braided hair. Then she stood and crossed to the wardrobe to retrieve her dress bag. She lay it on the bed to unzip it and reveal the gown within. It was long with sheer split sleeves that nearly reached the floor. The gown was beaded with silver glinting crystals that looked like stars against the black background. An ornate print of the moon and clouds dominated the bottom of the dress, completing the night sky effect.

“That’s one of your best yet,” Xavier commented, peering over her shoulder to examine the gown.

“It felt thematic for the solstice,” Wednesday explained. “Besides, Etan always knows what I will like. That will save me from ever setting foot in a bridal shop.”

“I would pay so much money to see you in a bridal shop!” Xavier laughed, turning to retrieve his black suit.

“Never going to happen,” Wednesday assured him. “Now help me.”

Xavier obeyed, zipping her into the gown and assisting with her jewelry. He kissed her forehead.

“I love you,” he said softly.

“I love you too,” Wednesday replied. “Now let’s go.”

Wednesday took a deep breath as she swept out of the room. She set her face in her characteristic impassive expression, hoping the mask would deter too much interest in her. With any luck, friends and family would fawn over Xavier, who was much better equipped in the social arena than she was.

At the top of the grand staircase, Xavier offered Wednesday his arm, and she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. They descended into the din of laughter, clinking glasses, and tinkling jewels. Upon reaching the bottom, Wednesday spotted Enid in a flowing pink gown across the room and steered Xavier in her direction.

When they reached Enid and Ajax, Enid characteristically threw her arms around Wednesday as the boys clapped each other on the back.

“How’s New York?” Wednesday asked when she untangled herself from her former roommate.

“OMG, it’s, like, paradise!” Enid exclaimed. “I am learning SO much about fashion, and Ajax has started writing plays, and everyone loves them!” She paused to catch her breath before asking, “What about you guys?”

Xavier smirked and glanced down at Wednesday. Wednesday sighed and offered Enid her hand in response.

“OMG! WEDNESDAY! Why didn’t you text me the minute this happened? I will NEVER forgive you for keeping me waiting! Ugh! You’re the worst bestie ever! I’m so excited for you! Eeeee!” Enid ended her explosion with a squeal and forced another hug on Wednesday.

“Congrats, dude,” Ajax said, grinning at Xavier.

Enid bombarded Wednesday with questions about all of the planning that Wednesday hadn’t done.

After a moment’s thought, Wednesday said, “My mother is doing most of the planning for me. Perhaps you could offer to help her so long as you promise not to run away with any of your more….colorful…ideas.”

“Can I really?” Enid asked, eyes gleaming.

Wednesday shrugged. “I’m too busy writing to focus on cake tasting or whatever it is people do for weddings. I’m sure you’ll excel at those kinds of activities.”

“Eeeee, this is going to be the best goth wedding EVER!” Enid declared before skipping off to find Morticia and leaving her three friends behind.

“Well, that should keep her busy for a few months,” Ajax said.

“What about you, then?” Wednesday asked, fixing her stare on the gorgon. “When should we expect to hear of your impending nuptials?”

“Oh, well,” Ajax blushed and adjusted his beanie, “I’m actually just waiting to see if my most recent play gets picked up. If it does, I’m using the bonus to buy a ring. If not, I guess I’ll write a better play.”

“I’m sure she’d say ‘yes’ to a ring pop, man,” Xavier said encouragingly.

“Yeah, I know, but I want to give her everything she wants, over-the-top ring included,” Ajax replied, looking in the direction Enid had run off in. “It’ll be worth the wait in the end. And she has your wedding to plan in the meantime.”

A gong rang out through the hall, announcing dinner. They proceeded into the dining room, and Xavier found he was seated beside his mother, whom he hadn’t had a chance to greet.

“Xavier, darling!” Victoria approached him, arms wide to embrace her son.

“Hi, Mom,” Xavier said, hugging his mother before pulling out her chair.

Victoria turned to Wednesday. “I heard a little rumor…” she said, smiling mischievously.

Wednesday thrust her hand at Xavier’s mother to allow her to ogle the ring. Part of her hated the obsession people had with a shiny rock and its symbolism. On the other hand, she did like to show off the fact that Xavier was hers permanently. It was a whirlwind of emotions, which, in and of itself, was wholly miserable. Fortunately, Xavier took over answering question about the engagement and their upcoming wedding, allowing Wednesday to down several glasses of wine and steel her nerves.

Following dinner, they danced several waltzes and endured the congratulations of more family and friends. Wednesday plucked a glass of champagne from a passing server and downed it in two gulps following a particularly onerous conversation with a distant relative. She left the ballroom and traded her empty glass for a full one, which she also quickly finished.

Wednesday felt hot, and a pleasant tingling sensation coursed through her. She headed for the patio, hoping the fresh air would clear her head. She managed to polish off yet another glass of wine before she reached the patio that looked out over Itt’s impressive maze, and grabbed a cocktail as she slipped out into the garden.

She wandered into the maze, hoping to catch a few minutes of solitude before returning to the ball. Her gown trailed behind her, the dust from the white pebbled path creating little clouds around her feet. She followed the familiar path of the maze to the center, where she sank down on a bench beside a bubbling fountain and finished her cocktail.

Setting the crystal glass on the ground, Wednesday reclined lengthwise on the stone bench and watched the stars spin in the sky above her. Was she drunk? Yes, she was definitely drunk, she decided. But she didn’t care. In fact, the dizzying night sky was entertaining to observe. Far more entertaining than her nosy family and friends inside the mansion.

Wednesday didn’t know how long she lay there, watching the sky change as the Earth rotated (or perhaps it was her vision that rotated. She couldn’t be sure). She heard a voice calling her name, but when she tried to respond, she found her throat was raspy and dry. She cursed herself for not thinking to grab a glass of water in her dash for the maze.

The voice called again, closer this time. Wednesday kept her gaze on the sky. They’d either find her, or she’d just sleep right here. It wasn’t ideal, but she liked sleeping under the stars well enough.

“Wednesday!” Xavier called, emerging through the hedges into the center of the maze and spotting his fiancé lying awkwardly on a bench. “What the hell are you doing? I’ve been looking for you for over an hour!”

Wednesday started to sit up, but the ground pitched, and Xavier caught her just before she fell face-down into the gravel.

“Oh my god, Wednesday, you’re trashed!” Xavier exclaimed, pulling her to her feet, where she stumbled against him.

“Am not,” was all Wednesday could get out in reply.

“Um, yeah, you are,” Xavier said, eyebrows raised.

“Stop moving,” Wednesday commanded, willing her face into a withering glare.

“I’m not moving, Wednesday. C’mon, we need to get you to bed. You’re a mess,” Xavier scolded lightly.

Wednesday mumbled something incoherent, but in her current state, she had no choice but to let him steer her through the maze and back to the mansion. Xavier led her up a back staircase that he’d discovered while searching for her earlier. When they reached their room, Xavier dropped Wednesday into a chair and ran his hand through his hair, thinking of what to do next. Currently, Wednesday was occupied by attempting and failing to remove her shoes.

He stripped off his suit and started the shower, letting the water warm up while he went back to the room to help Wednesday out of her finery. Then he pulled her into the shower with him and disentangled all of the pins from her elaborate hairdo, which was much worse for the wear after her time spent prone on the stone bench outside.

When they were sufficiently clean, Xavier helped Wednesday dry off as she attempted to tell him that she was perfectly sober and he was babying her. Considering that her words ran together like a mudslide and she was leaning against the wall for support, Xavier wasn’t inclined to believe her. Instead, he carried her to the bedroom and dropped her in bed. Then he filled a glass with water and thrust it into her hands.

“Drink this,” he said. Then he grabbed his phone, sent Morticia a text, and put on sweats.

He watched Wednesday drink to ensure she actually finished the glass. After a few minutes, there was a knock at the door, and Xavier opened it to Morticia holding a vial of greenish liquid.

She smiled at him. “Here you go. Give it to her when she wakes up, and she’ll be put to rights in under an hour. She needs to sober up before it will do any good,” she advised.

“Thanks,” Xavier said, relieved Morticia had thought to bring some of her miracle hangover potions with her. Wednesday was gloomy at the best of times, he didn’t want to imagine how she’d be burdened with a hangover of her own making.

“Have a good night,” Morticia said, waving cheerfully as she turned to return to the party.

Xavier closed the door behind her and sighed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. When he returned to the bedroom, Wednesday had dropped the empty water glass on the floor beside the bed and, thankfully, fallen asleep. He stashed Morticia’s concoction in the bathroom and then climbed in beside Wednesday. He chuckled as he kissed her head and turned out the light.

Chapter Text

Leo watched Viper like a cat assessing whether the creature before it was a threat or prey. Viper didn’t shrink under his scrutiny like most people did. It was irritating and fascinating.

“I’ve decided to let tonight’s little intrusion slide, Little Miss Detective,” Leo said condescendingly. Viper glared at him.

“However,” he continued, “Your little game must end here. I have crime in the city fully in hand; your services, while valiant, are no longer needed. Rest assured that the good people of our little town are safe from harm so long as they stay on the straight and narrow and don’t go venturing into less savory activities.”

Viper stood, setting her martini glass on the coffee table with a delicate “clink.” Then she strode toward the door without replying to the Kid’s warning. As she opened the door, she paused.

“There’s something you should know about me, Leo,” she began. “I don’t care about the safety of this city or the peons who live here. I care about victory.”

Viper closed the door softly behind her and headed for the elevator.

Leo took a sip of his drink and smiled at the silent, empty room around him. She was going to be a serious problem, but he was looking forward to it.

Wednesday woke to a pounding headache and a mouth that felt like she’d sucked on sandpaper all night. Altogether, it wasn’t too unpleasant until she swung her feet to the floor and was overcome by a wave of nausea. She barely made it to the bathroom in time to empty the contents of her stomach into the toilet. When she was done, her body was slick with sweat, and she leaned back against the side of the bathtub for support.

What had happened last night? She remembered dancing, then going out for air, but nothing after that. Had she gotten drunk?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Xavier coming into the bathroom. He smirked irritatingly down at her, crumpled on the bathroom floor.

“Shut up,” she ordered.

He shrugged and grabbed the vial of green liquid from the counter.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said, offering her the concoction.

“Your face makes my head hurt worse,” she said before downing the liquid in one gulp.

“Sorry that I’m such a liability to you this morning,” he said sarcastically, heading back to bed and leaving her to her misery.

Wednesday rested her head back against the tub and let Morticia’s potion do its work. After some indeterminate amount of time passed (no doubt far less than the agonizing amount of time it felt like), the nausea and throbbing headache began to abate, and she was able to push herself off the floor and into the shower. The cold water cleared her foggy mind as she violently scrubbed the scent of alcohol from her skin. She had a feeling that she smelled like a back-alley pub.

When her skin glowed red from punishing scrubbing, she washed her hair, then shut off the water. By the time she toweled herself dry, the worst of the hangover had succumbed to Morticia’s ministrations; however, she was exhausted from a night of poor sleep.

Wednesday headed back for the bedroom and peeked through the heavily drawn curtains. The sun was barely above the horizon, indicating it was still quite early. No one would be up for hours; she wouldn’t be the only one doing homage to the porcelain gods this morning, but not everyone had her mother’s potions to cut their vigil short.

Xavier held the covers open for her as she crawled back into the warm bed.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied. “My mother is an expert potion brewer.”

“I was asking out of politeness, not questioning your mother’s skills,” Xavier clarified, rolling his eyes. Why was everything so literal with her?

“Oh. Well, then, yes, I’m feeling better, thank you,” she said.

Wednesday still felt less than ideal, so she allowed herself the indulgence of curling into the curve of Xavier’s warm body as she drifted back to sleep.

When Wednesday woke again, she reached for her phone to check the time. It was almost noon – a waste of a day, in her opinion. Xavier slept soundly beside her, his chest rising and falling like a slow tide. Wednesday sighed. If the day was going to be wasted, she might as well commit to truly wasting it. With that thought, she placed her phone face down on the nightstand and went back to sleep.

The pair finally emerged from their room sometime after 2:00 in the afternoon. They headed downstairs to the dining room, where Itt held an all-day buffet for his guests as they trickled back into consciousness. Some of the other diners looked rather worse for the wear, in Wednesday’s opinion. She was dressed in a simple black dress with a pointed white collar, black tights, mary-janes, and perfectly braided hair, as always. There is no way she’d ever appear disheveled in public; it indicated weakness.

Xavier watched her curiously as they ate, admiring how she went from draped over a toilet to sitting ramrod straight, delicately eating bacon within the span of a few hours. It was a hangover recovery like he’d never seen.

To their surprise, Enid and Ajax entered the dining room soon after they sat down. Enid fluttered over and immediately peppered Wednesday with inquiries about just where she’d gone last night. Ajax rolled his eyes and decided it would be more efficient to get them both food than try and pull Enid away to fix her own plate.

“I overindulged a bit and decided to wander the maze,” Wednesday said simply.

Xavier snorted, and Wednesday shot him a glare.

“OMG, you got drunk?” Enid asked, face contorted with shock. “And I didn’t get to see it? Xavier: you are officially on my shit list.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Xavier asked defensively. “Text you and let you know Wednesday’s smashed; you better come see?”

“Um, Yes!” Enid exclaimed, completely oblivious to the facetiousness in Xavier’s tone.

“I’m not some kind of zoo exhibition,” Wednesday said darkly.

“Oh please, you’ve gotten to see all of us wasted,” Enid said. “I am dying to see what you’re like!”

“Defiant,” Xavier answered.

Wednesday narrowed her eyes at him.

“She’s basically the same as when she’s sober but more obstinate if you can imagine it,” Xavier continued, ignoring his fiancé’s death glare. “Thank goodness she’s small, or I’d never have gotten her upstairs.”

“While this conversation is nothing short of riveting,” Wednesday interjected. “We need to discuss the rest of our day. My parents plan to leave for home around 4:00, meaning we need to pack and be ready by 3:30 so that Lurch can fetch our belongings. I suppose that leaves us enough time to wander the maze together if that would appease all of you.”

Ajax had joined them, and Enid had tucked into a shockingly rare piece of beef. Ajax nodded, mouth occupied. Xavier smiled. That was the closest he’d ever heard Wednesday come to saying she wanted to spend time with friends. Wednesday grimaced.

After they each finished eating, they stepped into the afternoon sunshine to wander the impressive gardens. Miraculously, no traces from the night before remained, inside or out. Despite the length and complexity of the maze, Itt’s staff had located any rogue glasses and bottles and raked the gravel path clean of footprints. Inside, the house gleamed as if the floors had been newly polished and never danced upon, certainly not the night before.

Enid pointed out almost every blooming flower to Wednesday’s irritation. Xavier grasped her fingers and squeezed, smiling down at her. She hated how the gesture softened her, even if it was just a little. She sighed and watched Enid skip ahead to the next rose bush before burying her nose in bloom and sneezing from the pollen. Wednesday let out a short laugh, making Xavier grin widely.

When they eventually returned to the mansion, Morticia and Gomez were standing in the front hall.

“Good morning, my little storm cloud!” Gomez said upon seeing his daughter. “Are you almost ready to go?”

“We just need to collect our things from upstairs,” Wednesday replied, heading for the extravagant staircase.

She and Xavier ran into Uncle Fester on the way to their room. They paused to listen to his semi-inane ramblings for a few minutes before continuing on their way. Before long, the family was loaded into the hearse and headed for the Addams’ house.

When they arrived, Wednesday headed straight for her room. She still felt like she could smell the alcohol on her skin and proceeded to scrub herself raw for the second time that day.

Dinner was a relatively tame affair compared to the previous evening’s gala, and Wednesday decided to avoid the wine. Just the thought of it made her stomach churn, and she enjoyed reminiscing on her earlier nausea.

After dinner, Wednesday stood in front of the fire, brushing out her hair as she stared into the flames. She let her vision relax and absorb the dancing flames. Suddenly, she felt like she’d received a jolt from her electric chair, and the flames consumed her vision.

Wednesday stood on an empty moor that stretched as far as she could see in every direction. A woman in a pale blue dress walked toward her through the short grasses, picking her way between lichen-covered boulders. When she reached Wednesday, she stopped and stared at her.

That was when Wednesday realized the woman’s mouth was sewn shut. There were tears in her eyes, and her face was a mask of anger.

They will pay, the woman said inside Wednesday’s head. Every one of them will burn for their sins.

Wednesday heard someone calling her name as the wind whipped through the woman’s blue dress. She ignored it.

“Who did this to you?” Wednesday asked the apparition.

They will burn, the woman repeated. Then she said it once more as the wind began shredding her visage. The wind howled until there was nothing left of the woman, and Wednesday was standing alone on the barren moor. She heard her name whispered in the wind and looked around her. Silence.

“Wednesday!” Xavier shouted as he saw her body seize up and begin to fall. He caught her before she pitched head-first into the fireplace.

Within moments, she gasped, and her eyes shot open wide. Her eyes moved wildly, trying to comprehend where she was before finally focusing on Xavier’s concerned face.

“What did you see?” he asked. He was kneeling on the ground, holding her head on his lap between his hands. Her skin was colder than usual following her vision.

“See for yourself,” she rasped, her throat inexplicably dry.

Xavier closed his eyes and dove into her memory. Wednesday watched his eyes darting behind closed lids as he watched her vision play out in his mind. When it finished, he opened his eyes slowly and looked down at her.

Wednesday pushed herself up to sitting and waited for him to speak.

“You think this has to do with the break-ins, don’t you?” he asked.

“Don’t you?” she challenged.

Xavier ran a hand through his hair and stared into the fire. “I don’t know. Your spontaneous visions are unreliable, and this could mean almost anything. I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

“Fine. You’re the all-powerful seer,” she said accusingly, “use your powers to figure out what it means.”

“I kind of need to know what I’m looking for, and your vision didn’t give much context to go on,” he said.

Then, seeing her expression, he relented, “Tell you what. When we get home, I’ll do some scrying and see what I can find out about the break-in and anything else that might be going on. If I do that, will you promise not to get in over your head?”

Wednesday considered his request for a moment. Getting in over her head was her modus operandi, but she would at least try for his sake.

“I’ll do my best,” she agreed. “As long as you’re willing to help me, I shouldn’t need to do too much extra leg work.”

Xavier rolled his eyes. She was impossible to live with sometimes.

“Can we go to bed?” he asked with a tinge of exasperation.

“I’m wide-awake thanks to my vision,” Wednesday replied. “Perhaps you can think of some way to wear me out first.”

Xavier smiled slowly in response. Wednesday crawled over him, pinning him to the floor by his wrists as she bit his lower lip. He groaned as she ground her hips against his growing hardness. He pushed her back so he could pull his shirt over his head, allowing her to bite a line from his neck to the waistband of his pants. She hooked her fingers in them and yanked them and his underwear off, throwing them behind her.

Wednesday returned to straddling him, rubbing his length along her warm center. She’d neglected to put on underwear under her semi-sheer Victorian nightgown, and Xavier sucked in a breath as he felt the skin-to-skin contact.

He could see her dark nipples grazing the sheer fabric and lay mesmerized by the vision of her, eyes closed, head tilted slightly back, pleasuring herself against his hardness. He held her hips as she rocked herself to climax, moaning and shouting with her release.

Then, to her surprise, he flipped them both so that he loomed over her, his hair a curtain around their faces. He slid his hands beneath the nightgown, desperate to get them on her bare skin. Finding her breasts, he squeezed before pulling the nightgown over her head and throwing it aside. She tried to pull him into her using her legs, but he grinned and refused to be guided. Instead, he slapped one of her pert nipples, causing her to arch her back and yelp. He repeated the blow on the opposite side before closing his mouth over the first nipple and grazing it with his teeth.

Wednesday didn’t want to be teased. She wanted him inside her now. But he wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, he alternated between sucking and slapping her, creating a barrage of pain and pleasure that melted together and made it hard to think clearly.

Xavier buried his face in her neck, biting her where he felt her pulse thrumming quickly beneath her skin.

“Tell me what you want,” he growled at her.

“You,” she gasped. “I want you. Be brutal,” she commanded.

His low-pitch laugh rumbled through her chest.

“As my lady requires,” he said sarcastically before slamming into her body, causing her to scream and dig her nails into his shoulders.

He pushed himself up onto his knees and hooked his arms under her legs to pull her hips flush to his. Then he began to crash into her at the brutal pace she’d demanded. She came twice in quick succession, her mind buzzing with pleasure and her walls clamping down around him as if she would trap him inside of her. The pressure around his erection was too much, and he shuddered as he released deep inside of her before collapsing.

They lay unmoving for several minutes before the flickering flames, letting the shadows and silence wrap them in comfort. Finally, Wednesday grew impatient, and Xavier pushed himself off of her upon feeling her wriggle beneath him. She stood and headed for the bathroom, drawing them a bath and silently inviting him to join her.

As Wednesday closed her eyes and leaned her head against Xavier’s firm chest, she was overcome with memories from their first days together in this house. So much had happened since then, and part of her wished she’d savored those moments more. She’d been in such a hurry to learn and gain power back then, barely thinking of anyone but herself. Now she was an author, a doctor, and well on her way to becoming a married woman. That last one surprised her the most, but so long as things continued like this, she decided that it would be an acceptable condition.

Chapter Text

Viper slept late the next day, having arrived home in the early hours of the morning. Fortunately, New York wasn’t the only city that never slept, and she was able to call a ride without any issue despite the late hour. The towering skyscrapers stood tall in the darkness, their lights illuminating the late-night stragglers emerging from dark doorways and leaning against brick walls, their cigarettes punctuating the darkness with small orange circles.

When she finally rose the next day, Viper made herself an espresso and sipped it, leaning against her kitchen counter. She couldn't stop thinking about Leo, aka "The Kid," telling her to back off, which had the effect of further motivating her to find out more about him. Although he had decreased petty crime in the city, Viper was convinced that he posed a much greater threat in the long run - even if the police were blind to it.

Ignoring both the police and Leo's warning, Viper vowed to uncover the truth about him. She wanted to know who he really was, where he came from, and most importantly, what his endgame was. In the meantime, she continued sipping her espresso, lost in thought about her next move.

Wednesday and Xavier stayed at the Addams’s home for two days following the ball. It gave Wednesday the opportunity to engage with her mother in a full moon ritual. For Xavier, the two days spent with the Addams family were a welcome change from his usual life of solitude and isolation. The days flew past for him, and soon they were boarding his jet back to Europe.

As the plane descended through the thick clouds, the green hills and jagged peaks of the Scottish Highlands came into view. The sky was a deep shade of grey, casting an eerie gloom over the landscape as the plane touched down on the rain-slick runway. It was raining, per usual, when they landed in Scotland. The drops pounding against the metal exterior created a haunting melody that soothed Wednesday’s soul.

The gloomy weather seemed to breathe life into Wednesday following the long flight. As she walked from the plane to Xavier’s car, she breathed in air thick with the scent of damp earth and peat. The past week full of sun and socializing had drained her, and she was delighted to return to solitude, where she could work on her novel and the mystery of her vision without interruption.

Wednesday discussed the vision with Draven at length on the journey home. He found himself as stumped as she was regarding whether it was related to the local break-in, the information he’d received from his Reaper brethren, or if it was something altogether unrelated. He agreed that leveraging Xavier’s powers was their best bet in making any kind of headway. Xavier felt sure that he was about to be pulled headfirst into one of Wednesday’s obsessions, whether he liked it or not.

When they arrived at the house, Hamish trotted off toward the back of the property to roll in the familiar grass and wander through the woods as he tended to do for hours on end. Wednesday headed straight upstairs for the shower, needing the clarity of cold water to plan her next move. Xavier decided to give her space to think and headed to the smoking room, which was now fully converted into his gaming lounge.

As the cold water rolled down her body, Wednesday ran through the facts in her mind. First, she revisited her conversation with Elspeth at the police station, thinking about what the cop hadn’t said more than what she had. She considered the directive Draven received to investigate suspicious activity in their area and how it could be related to the tortured woman in her vision. The greatest sticking point was that she couldn’t decide how, or even if, these events were related.

Wednesday sighed and shut off the water. At least two of the three pieces had to be connected. They were in too rural of an area for three strange events to occur simultaneously by coincidence. Xavier was the key to finding the strings that connected them, but she didn’t want to push him too hard or too fast, lest he burn out and become unhelpful. He was a resource that she would need to use strategically, despite her impatience to learn as much as she could immediately.

Tired from the long flight, Wednesday decided to take a nap. If she was lucky, she might gain some psychic insight from her dreams.

It was dark when Wednesday woke a few hours later. Frustratingly, her dreams had been mundane and useless in terms of gaining any additional insights into the mysteries plaguing her.

She wandered through the dark halls, magically lighting the lamps as she went, until she arrived in the brightly lit kitchen where she found Xavier humming and sautéing something savory on the stove.

“Hello, sleepyhead,” he said, smiling when she entered.

“I was trying to have one of your psychic dreams. No luck,” she explained, sitting down at the kitchen counter and watching him cook.

“You can’t just will a psychic dream to happen,” Xavier told her. “They’re spontaneous.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t try. It’s a rather useless ability, as it turns out,” she said.

Xavier rolled his eyes. “Just because you can’t control or command something doesn’t mean that it’s totally useless,” he said.

“Debatable. What are we having?”

“Trout! I went into the village earlier when I saw you were passed out,” Xavier said. “We were basically out of food.”

“Oh,” Wednesday hadn’t even considered their fridge situation when she returned. Basic homemaking was definitely not her field.

Xavier chuckled. “What would you do without me?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Doordash, I suppose.”

“Do you know where we live?” he asked, shaking his head.

“I could manage,” Wednesday countered as he set a full plate of fish and vegetables in front of her.

“No, you couldn’t,” Xavier said as he sat beside her and watched her eat hungrily. When she was obsessed with something, she tended to forget to eat, but that didn’t mean she lost her voracious appetite when he put something in front of her.

After dinner, Wednesday played her cello in the library, and Xavier lay on the couch listening contentedly. He had a pile of commissions to work on upstairs, but they could wait until tomorrow. Tonight he wanted to settle back into their quiet home life before Wednesday got swept up in her detective work and dragged him with her.

Wednesday sat near the glistening black piano, surrounded by towering shelves filled with ancient volumes. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and leather bindings. She was playing from memory, not wanting to disturb the silver cast of moonlight across the room. The melody made Xavier nostalgic for the first night he had heard her playing above him on the balcony of Ophelia Hall. It alternated between rich, dulcet tones and punctuating high notes.

Wednesday’s fingers moved deftly across the strings, coaxing a complex and mournful arrangement of notes from her instrument. The last few notes trailed off and hung in the air before soaking into the pages of the surrounding tomes. She put up her bow, stood, and stretched.

“Bed?” she asked and turned to leave the room without waiting for his answer.

Xavier pushed himself up off the couch and caught up to her before she reached the door, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. She looked up at him quizzically, gray eyes piercing him through the semi-darkness.

He leaned down and nibbled on her ear. “We haven’t done it in here yet, you know,” he growled, nuzzling her neck.

“Do you intend to christen every room of this house?” Wednesday asked, closing her eyes as his hands traveled down her body.

“Of course,” he replied, finding the hem of her dress and pulling it up until the dress came over her head.

Wednesday turned to face him. The room was dark, lit only by the beams of the full moon streaming through the windows. Her black bra and tights contrasted against her unnaturally pale skin and oil-black hair. In the moonlight, she almost looked like she was her own light source, illuminated by an ethereal inner glow.

Xavier shuddered with need as he raked his eyes over her body and pulled his shirt over his head. He pushed her against the back of the couch. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her tights and pulled them down as he knelt on the floor. Wednesday stepped out of them, and he grabbed her hips, and pushed his face against her panties, inhaling her familiar scent. She let out a low moan as he brushed against her most sensitive areas and gripped the back of the couch for support.

Xavier pulled her panties down and off before coaxing her legs further apart and drawing his tongue from her dampening hole to her eager clit. Wednesday thrust one hand into his hair, pulling as he latched his lips around her clit and began to suck torturously. Her body trembled, and she feared that she would collapse before he could bring her to orgasm.

Suddenly, Xavier stood and roughly spun her around so that her front was braced against the couch instead. He grabbed the back of her neck and bent her forward as he lined up behind her and thrust violently inside. Wednesday howled and clamped down around him, body shuddering with the onslaught of an unexpected climax.

He began pounding her from behind, twirling her braids around one hand to use as reigns. Bright pain spread across her scalp, and she lost all ability to think in the bliss of the sensation. She reached between her legs and began rubbing herself as Xavier continued his barrage, cumming twice more in short succession.

“Xavier…” Wednesday moaned, sending him spiraling into his own blissful climax.

Both panting, Xavier slid to the floor and pulled her down into his lap. Wednesday rested her head against his chest, body trembling and sore but buzzing with satisfaction. She must have fallen asleep in his arms because when she woke, he was setting her gently into the cool water of the bath.

Wednesday lay awake after Xavier had fallen asleep. Something she couldn’t name pulled at her to get out of bed. She set her bare feet on the floor, the hem of her black nightgown grazing the tops of her toes as she walked to the window. She touched the glass of one of the windows beside the bed, cool against her fingertips. As she scanned the expansive lawn below, she glimpsed a figure moving in the moonlight.

A woman stood on the lawn below, looking up at Wednesday. Wednesday recognized the vintage blue dress as the same worn by the woman in her vision. Her eyes seemed to pierce the darkness, and Wednesday’s Reaper vision cut through the gloom to meet the ghost’s gaze. She could see the cruel stitches trapping the woman’s mouth and frowned, puzzling once more over the meaning of the apparition.

Movement in the trees caught Wednesday’s attention. Hamish came loping out of the woods, stopping to sniff the air as he neared the figure on the lawn. He let out a low growl, and the woman looked at the hellhound before slowly fading from view. Hamish trotted to where she had stood and sniffed the ground before looking up at Wednesday’s window.

She turned away from the window and silently glided down to the kitchen to let Hamish into the house. The hound quickly disappeared into the darkness of the mansion. As Wednesday made her way back through the sitting room, she found Draven sitting on the couch reading a Reaper scroll.

“I assume you saw her,” he said without looking up as Wednesday approached from behind him.

Wednesday sat delicately on the adjacent couch and scrutinized him for any clue into his thoughts.

“Yes,” she said at last. “She’s the one from my vision.”

Draven finally looked up from his reading. “I assumed as much,” he said.

“Who is she?” Wednesday asked.

“I have an inquiry into the council on that subject,” Draven said. “I should be able to tell by looking at her, as should you, but somehow her identity is concealed from our eyes. This concerns me deeply.” His face was graver than Wednesday had ever seen it.

“Well, there is no point in worrying about it tonight,” Wednesday concluded. “We will reconvene tomorrow and see what Xavier can discover for us.”

“Good night, Little Witchling,” Draven said affectionately as Wednesday left the room and headed back to her warm bed.

Chapter Text

Viper began the next stage of her investigation in the usual place: the dark web. She frequently dug up all sorts of dirty laundry on her targets online, saving herself hours of surveillance and gumshoes work. Unlike the police, she didn’t worry about keeping on the right side of the law when it came to her investigation techniques.

She grew increasingly frustrated as the hours passed without learning anything of substance. There should be something about a notorious crime boss, but it was like any reference to him had been scrubbed from the internet. It made no sense; how could he possibly be that thorough?

After several hours, Viper retrieved an energy drink from her fridge and sat on her couch to think. All she’d concluded from her search is that Leo was definitely the most dangerous criminal she’d ever tangled with during her illustrious career to date. Additionally, she disliked how much space he occupied in her thoughts since the previous night. It made it hard to focus on her objective evaluation.

She needed to find out where he spent most of his time. Surely he had some kind of swanky apartment stuffed with soulless art that served as his HQ. It looked like she would have to resort to old-fashioned detective work after all.

Viper stepped out into the afternoon bustle. She knew the frequent haunts of some of the Kid’s associates. Tailing them would be easy enough. It might be tedious, but she was persistent.

She was also lucky, as it turned out. One of the Kid’s associates was leaving a favorite Italian joint just as she passed by. Viper followed at a distance. Her hood was up, and she wore headphones to make herself appear younger than she was. Teenage girls were far below the notice of mobsters.

She tailed the rotund man to a newly constructed apartment complex and watched him enter the elevator through the complex’s glass doors. She snapped a mental picture of the address so she could do some snooping about who lived in the building. She should be able to illegally obtain a list of residents relatively easily. If she could verify their identities, she could cross this building off her list. If not, she’d know the Kid was in residence.

Viper had to tail several known associates to several buildings in the city before she finally found a listed resident whose identity was unverifiable. It had taken two weeks to get this far, and she grew more impatient by the day. At last, it seemed like her work had paid off.

Wednesday rose early and headed out to the garden to review the progress of the herbs she’d planted before the ball. She ran her fingers along soft stalks of rosemary, but her mind kept returning to the ghost from her vision.

Wednesday wasn’t afraid of the ghost, obviously, but this one was different than specters like Aunt Calpurnia and Penny, who were affable and helpful. This spirit seemed to want Wednesday to do something for her but was being irritatingly vague about what that was.

Draven appeared in his fox form, slipping through the rows of herbs and vegetables until he arrived at Wednesday’s feet.

“I’m thinking we start by holding a séance bolstered by Xavier’s psychic powers,” Wednesday said, looking down at the fox. “If we can’t get answers that way, we’ll go back to the drawing board.”

That seems like a logical plan, Draven agreed telepathically.

Wednesday looked up into the gray sky, then said, “I’ll summon a storm. The lightning will enhance my magic.”

The downside to summoning a witch’s wind was that it took considerable power. She could rely on Draven for reserves, but it would still likely reduce her strength for the séance. Wednesday puzzled over how to reserve her strength as she headed for the kitchen.

Xavier was standing in front of the stove, frying eggs in a pan.

“Coffee?” he asked when he heard her enter.

“Please,” she replied, sitting down at the counter and drumming her fingers against the stone countertop.

Xavier placed an espresso in front of her and raised an eyebrow. “A little early for you to be this lost in thought, don’t you think?” he asked.

“I want to conduct a séance this afternoon if you’re willing to lend a hand,” she explained.

He shrugged, “I said I’d help you, didn’t I? I’m not great at communing with the dead, but I’ll help however I can.”

“You’re an overpowered psychic,” she explained with a sigh. “The dead won’t be able to resist your pull.”

“Oh,” he said. There was still a lot about his powers that he didn’t quite understand. Then, changing the subject, he said, “I meant to tell you before we left, but totally forgot until you brought up powers just now. There’s one of those mini-Stonehenge circles out in the woods. I had a vision when I touched one. Do you think that it could help with the séance or our resident ghost?”

Wednesday blinked at him, then stared. “There’s a standing stone circle within walking distance, and you forgot to tell me?” she said emphatically.

“Um, yeah, I didn’t think much of it. I have lots of visions, and this one wasn’t particularly spe- wait, where are you going?” Xavier called after Wednesday, who was already halfway out the door, Draven at her heels.

“Did you know about this?” she asked Draven as she marched across the lawn and out onto the moors.

No. I felt the presence of a Source but had not yet had a moment to investigate thoroughly, he said.

“Can you guide us there now?” Wednesday asked, realizing she rushed from the house without asking about the circle’s location.

Draven paused, sniffed the air, and made a movement akin to a nod. Follow, he said and trotted ahead of her.

They made their way across the moors and into the trees. Mist swirled and crept along the forest floor, and the trees loomed over the macabre duo like sentinels guarding an ancient secret. Before long, Wednesday caught a glimpse of a lichen-covered monolith through the trees and headed for it.

When she reached the stones, she could see that they were weathered and worn and were of varying heights and shapes, each with its own unique persona. The stones were circled by grass and wildflowers, which swayed gently despite the lack of breeze. Wednesday closed her eyes and let the pulsing energy emanating from the stones wash over her.

This will make our plans considerably easier, Draven said, walking in and out of the stone circle and pausing every so often to examine a barely visible rune or symbol.

Wednesday felt a sense of calm and stillness encompass her. She could hear soft whispers in the air, indicating the presence of unseen beings. It was rare to find a Source so easily accessible; this was a development that would allow her to exponentially increase her power.

Draven sat down within the circle and watched Wednesday, waiting for her to act. After a moment, she entered the circle and sat down with her back against one of the stones. It emanated warmth even though the day was cool. She closed her eyes and reached her mind out to the stone. When she opened her eyes, the forest was gone. Draven was still sitting beside her, but they were facing a golden pool. The world around them was swathed in darkness.

Wednesday pushed herself to her feet and walked to the water’s edge. She knelt before it and saw that the golden light appeared to come from deep within the pool itself. Dipping her fingertips into the water, she felt the hum of power coursing into her body. As she gazed into the pool, Wednesday saw that the light was not static but rather acted with a life of its own, shapes and forms moving within its depths.

She withdrew her fingers and looked to her familiar for guidance.

You have never drawn from a Source before? The fox asked.

Wednesday shook her head. She understood how it worked, in theory, but had never actually done it nor witnessed it.

Put your hands into the water and allow your body to be a conduit for the magic. When you feel it flowing through you, perform your spell as you always would, but allow the magic to carry the effort, Draven instructed.

Wednesday followed his directions, slipping her hands beneath the glistening surface. She closed her eyes in concentration as she drew the magic into her until she felt it filled every cell of her body. Satisfied, she whistled softly, summoning a thunderstorm to the moors. She felt the magic inside her glow in response and add power to her spell. When she felt confident that she had summoned a gale of adequate violence, Wednesday opened her eyes and withdrew her hands from the Source.

We should go. We are getting quite soaked, Draven said.

Wednesday nodded and returned her consciousness back into her body. Her eyes shot open as thunder crashed and shook the ground around her. Her braids ran with rivulets of cold water, and her clothes were soaked through. Despite the storm’s ferocity, she didn’t feel drained at all. The Source had powered her spell and summoned a more intense storm than she could have ever hoped to call on her own.

Wednesday smiled and nodded to Draven before they began running through the forest and across the moors toward home.

Xavier frowned as he looked out the window into the sudden rain. He had a suspicion that this wasn’t a natural storm and that Wednesday was up to something. He turned back to his TV as a new match queued on screen. If she brought rain down on her own head, it served her right to get soaked.

He was unsurprised when she showed up in the doorway to his lounge twenty minutes later completely drenched. Pine needles and mud clung to her pants, and two symmetrical puddles formed on the floor where her braids dripped.

“I’m going to take a shower and dry off,” she announced without ceremony. “Then I will prepare for the séance. I’ll let you know when it’s time.”

She turned and squelched away without waiting for him to respond. He laughed quietly to himself as he took out an on-screen opponent. It wasn’t worth chastising her; this would certainly not be the last time she got up to such nonsense.

When she was clean and dry, Wednesday headed for the library, which she determined was the best location for the séance. Hamish had appeared shortly after she returned home and observed her preparations with interest. Draven insisted on taking a nap after he dried off, so was decidedly unhelpful in her work. She didn’t particularly need his assistance, it just amazed her how an immortal being could be so incredibly lazy.

She brought up crates of candles from the basement, where she stockpiled magical supplies. She dragged the coffee table aside to make room for a circle of candles large enough to fit her, Xavier, and Draven (provided he woke up in time).

The storm raging outside had shrouded the manor in darkness so that the only light came from the circle of flickering candles casting shadows on the walls. Wednesday stood back and reviewed the setup to determine if she required anything else. Xavier’s power was the key ingredient, so she decided that the circle of candles and the witch’s wind were sufficient; additional magical artifacts would be redundant.

Satisfied, Wednesday slipped back into Xavier’s gaming lounge to summon him to her séance.

Chapter Text

Viper selected the night of a massive gala that she had reasonable intelligence that the Kid would attend. That gave her two weeks to prepare her equipment and craft a detailed plan for entry, exit, and bail-out (if need be).

She kept a complete stock of breaking-and-entering gear and tools, so much of her preparation was dedicated to going through her equipment and deciding what was most appropriate for the job.

The night of the break-in, Viper waited for the sun to set before setting out for the Kid’s lair. She wore skin-tight black clothing and had a pair of sturdy gloves and a black beanie stashed in her backpack once she rounded the back of the building.

Viper slipped into the alleyway leading behind the luxury condo complex where she had found they kept an access ladder. The ladder was about eight feet above the ground, but the building staff naively kept the dumpster right beside it, making it the work of mere seconds to hop to the first rung. Gloves and hat snuggly in place, Viper scaled the ladder to the roof ten stories above, crouching and listening for any recognition of her disturbance when she alit upon the roof. Only the ongoing noise of the city below greeted her.

She swung her pack around to her front as she slipped into a vent shaft to access the building. It had been easy enough to procure the blueprints from the city’s permitting office and plot her way from the roof into the powder bathroom of the Kid’s apartment. It took a few minutes to wriggle through the HVAC shafts to the appointed fan vent. Within another minute, she removed the fan and slipped through the ceiling opening that was just wide enough to squeeze through.

Viper landed almost soundlessly on the tile floor of the bathroom. She held her breath and listened for any sound indicating the condo was occupied. Silence.

Viper stood and slipped her backpack around to her back, checked her gear, and softly turned the bathroom knob to open the door. The apartment was dark, but the dim light cast through the sheer curtains from surrounding buildings illuminated her way.

Viper’s first observation was that she’d been incorrect in her assumption of the décor. The Kid had decorated his secret condo with elaborately framed paintings (several of which she recognized as being missing for decades), antique furniture, and crystal chandeliers. The sheer opulence was staggering, and Viper snapped pictures of several pieces with her phone. She’d stumbled on evidence of his crimes simply by walking into his home.

Viper moved silently from room to room in the massive condo, looking for anything that she could turn over to police that would force their hand in making an arrest. She made her way to his study, where his laptop lay unguarded on the mahogany desk. It made her pause for a moment. Was he really so secure in his secret home that he would leave his laptop out in the open? Something about it bothered her; when she’d met Leo, he hadn’t given her the impression that he left loose ends, no matter how layers of security he might have.

She tried to push the thought away. Everyone slipped up sometimes. Viper walked around the room and opened the laptop. She pulled a flash drive from her pocket containing her specialized code that would copy everything on the computer without a trace.

There was a soft noise behind her. As she turned, a rag covered her nose and mouth, and her world went dark.

Xavier followed Wednesday into the library, prepared to offer whatever support he could. In the short time Wednesday had been gone from the room, Draven had slunk downstairs and waited for them within the ring of candles. Wednesday was half-surprised he’d shown up at all. Hamish lay with his head on his paws just outside the circle, observing the goings-on with mild interest.

Wednesday took Xavier’s hand and led him into the ring of candles. She gestured for him to sit down on the floor facing her. She removed the amulet given to her by Morticia on her first day at Nevermore and began using it as a pendulum. Eyes closed, Wednesday began speaking the traditional Latin incantation for summoning spirits from beyond the veil that she’d memorized in childhood.

Xavier sat quietly, not sure what he should do. He glanced at the fox to his right, hoping for some kind of hint from Draven, but the Reaper was focused on the swaying amulet and paid Xavier no mind.

Wednesday felt a chill creeping into the room as she intoned the final words and opened her eyes. Any nearby ghost would feel the summons. Now she would use Xavier’s powers to draw them into her trap.

She slipped the amulet back around her neck and held her hands out to Xavier. He placed his warm hands in hers and waited for instructions. Her eyes gleamed like quicksilver in the dark room, and he began to feel nervous about what came next.

Suddenly a gust of air surged through the library in concert with a particularly violent thunderclap outside, extinguishing the candles surrounding them. Xavier couldn’t quite tell in the near-darkness, but he thought that he saw the corners of Wednesday’s mouth twitch into a brief smile.

Suddenly a book flew from the shelves and landed on their outstretched arms, breaking their grasp. Xavier yelped with surprise as the book fell open between them, and the pages seemed to turn of their own accord.

“Yes, we’re all very impressed,” Wednesday said dryly, unfazed by the supernatural flying volume. “But if you want something from me, I suggest dispensing with the jump-scares and communicating in an effective manner.”

The air behind Xavier shimmered and swirled as the form of the ghost woman with stitched lips materialized. Xavier shivered as her presence intensified, and he whipped his head around to find himself mere feet from the ghost. He delicately scooted himself around to face the specter and move closer to Wednesday and Draven, both of whom appeared unnaturally calm.

The ghost’s eyes were fixed on Wednesday, who met her gaze with equal coolness.

“Much better,” Wednesday said casually. “Now, you spoke to me in my mind before, but I need more details if we’re going to be of any use to one another,” she said.

Then, turning to Xavier, she explained, “This is where you come in.”

The ghost’s eyes darted to fixate on Xavier, and she scrutinized him with an intensity that made him shiver.

“He’s a powerful psychic,” Wednesday explained. “Show him whatever it is that you want me to know. Then I’ll decide if I’m interested in helping you.”

She is a lost soul, and you have the powers of a Reaper. It is your duty to assist her, Draven reminded Wednesday.

“But I’m not a Reaper, so technically, I don’t think I’m duty-bound to do anything. You’re welcome to, however, if it would ease your conscience,” Wednesday replied.

Draven made a sound that Wednesday thought was a sigh but didn’t reply.

“Well, let’s get on with it,” Wednesday said, her attention back on the ghost. “I don’t have all day.”

That wasn’t true; she did have all day, but that wasn’t the point.

The ghost woman glided around the circle of candles until she floated just on the other side of the barrier from Xavier. She bent and brought her face as close to his as she could without crossing over the wax barrier. Wednesday had created a ring of black salt beneath the ring of candles to protect them should the spirit turn out to be malevolent.

Xavier suppressed the primal fear bubbling in his throat and met the specter’s accusing glare. Then he heard a voice in his mind.

What could a man possibly understand? Psychic or not, you are useless to me, she said.

“Rude,” Xavier countered aloud, mildly offended.

“What did she say?” Wednesday asked.

“She said I’m useless because I’m a man,” Xavier replied without taking his eyes off the ghost.

Wednesday sighed before addressing the woman. “He’s quite a bit more useful than most men, and I don’t have any female psychics at my disposal. You can either work with him or continue wandering the grounds for all eternity. It makes no difference to me.”

Wednesday had no objection to a ghost haunting her residence, so it was in the specter’s court as to whether she would accept Wednesday’s aid.

Xavier’s eyes darted from Wednesday to Draven to the ghost. He was having one of those moments where the reality of his chosen life sank in, and he questioned how he ended up here in this place with these companions. As he pondered this situation, the ghost returned her attention to him.

Very well, she said, sounding unconvinced regarding Xavier’s psychic qualifications. I suppose I don’t have other options available to me. As you can see, they stole my ability to speak.

“Who did that to you?” Xavier asked, his eyes resting on her brutally sewn lips.

Local boys. Decades ago. They’re all old now. But I haven’t forgotten. They will pay for their sins.

“So why are you haunting us?” Xavier asked, still fighting the tremor that threatened to creep into his voice.

Haunting you? The specter cocked her head. I’m not haunting you. I’m appealing to you. I want you to help me get my revenge. I want you to murder them just as they murdered me.

“Absolutely not!” Xavier exclaimed with a start.

“What?” Wednesday asked calmly.

“She wants us to murder her murderers!” Xavier half-shouted despite the near-silent atmosphere.

“What’s in it for us?” Wednesday addressed the ghost.

“Wednesday!” Xavier shouted. “You can’t be serious! We’re not going to go on some…some killing spree because a ghost asked nicely!”

Xavier waved his hands wildly. Wednesday frowned. She knew he was prone to hysterics, but that didn’t make it easy to endure.

I didn’t ask, the ghost woman clarified. I’m commanding you.

“Oh, great!” Xavier said, standing up within the circle and running his hands through his hair. Wednesday had to pull him back down to the floor before he accidentally broke her protective barrier.

“Now she’s commanding us to go on a murder frenzy,” he clarified.

Wednesday crossed her arms. “My question stands,” she addressed the ghost. “What’s in it for us?”

The ghost seemed to ponder the question for a moment before turning to Xavier to reply.

You will do as I command, or I shall truly begin to haunt you. I shall ensure you never sleep soundly, and that your nights are filled with terrors until my wishes are fulfilled.

Xavier conveyed the reply in halting sentences. Wednesday’s frown deepened.

“And here I thought we might get on so well,” Wednesday said, sounding disappointed to Xavier’s disbelief.

“I’m not opposed to gratuitous murder; however, I am opposed to threats. So no, I will not help you, pestering spirit. Go back to lurking on the lawn until someone more malleable comes along,” Wednesday commanded.

With that, the ghost screeched, her mouth contorting into a gaping abyss. Xavier gave up all pretense of bravery, covering his ears and shutting his eyes against the horror. Wednesday didn’t move but glared back at the specter, who was doing her best to terrify the present company.

Hamish got to his feet and growled as Wednesday pushed herself to stand. She summoned her spectral scythe into her hand and stepped out of the circle to face the ghost.

“Get. Out.” Wednesday demanded.

Laying eyes on the scythe, the ghost let out a final screech before fleeing through the far wall.

“Well, that made for an interesting afternoon,” Draven said, having assumed his Reaper form during the chaos. “We will have to force her to move on at some point, or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Xavier sat huddled in the circle looking from his fiancé to her familiar, agape at their nonchalance.

“Not yet,” Wednesday replied, allowing her scythe to disappear into the ether. “I want to get to the bottom of her murder and if it has anything to do with what’s going on in town. Then we can cast her into the abyss or whatever you suggest,” she said to Draven.

“Hold on!” Xavier said, standing shakily. “We just had a ghost come in here, ask us to murder several people, threaten to haunt us if we don’t, and you’re both just fine with that?” He was shouting by the time he finished.

Wednesday glanced at him. “The house does feel a bit empty without a proper haunting spirit. I can put wards around your studio if you think she’ll bother you.”

Xavier just stared at her, mouth open.

“Clearly, it will bother you,” she concluded from his expression. “Hamish! Keep her off of Xavier,” she ordered.

The dog woofed softly and sat down by Xavier’s side, nuzzling his hand.

“I live in an insane asylum,” Xavier muttered to himself. Then he turned and stepped over the unlit candles of the circle and headed upstairs, Hamish trotting happily alongside him.

Chapter Text

The first thing Viper noticed was the percussive throbbing in her skull. Her eyes felt like someone had superglued them shut, and her entire body responded with a frustrating sluggishness that showed no signs of abating. When she finally wrenched her eyelids open, the room shimmered and blurred around her. Nothing had definite shape, though she could tell by the position of her body that she must be looking up at a ceiling.

Slowly, the room came into semi-focus to the extent that she perceived that she lay on a chaise lounge in the center of a small sitting room. She could move her head from side to side, but her body was otherwise too heavy to respond to her commands. She heard a door open and then shut again, followed by soft footfall muffled by the carpet.

“Drink this,” a soft male voice commanded as an arm wrapped around her shoulders and lifted her upright.

Viper pressed her lips together in resistance. She wouldn’t be caught twice in one evening.

The man propping her up from behind sighed exasperatedly. “It’ll help with the headache. You don’t have anything to lose; you can’t get more vulnerable than you already are,” he pointed out.

Viper acquiesced and let a few drops of liquid pass from the ceramic cup to her tongue. It was bitter, and she winced, but even those few drops had helped clear her vision. She drank the rest gratefully, feeling the pain recede into a dull thrumming.

Viper was finally able to push herself to sit up on her own and immediately turned to face her captor. She had assumed his identity before she saw his face. It was Leo, sitting beside her in fashionably ripped jeans and a fitted white t-shirt.

“You were awfully easy to trap,” Leo said, leaning back against the chaise and watching her with a casual demeanor. “All I had to do was publicize that I wouldn’t be home, and trust your skills to figure out where ‘home’ is. I hope you’re pleased; there are several people that paid a pretty penny to get close to me at that gala tonight. They’ll be very disappointed I’m not present.”

“I’m awash with remorse,” Viper said dryly, eyes narrowed.

“I told you to stop meddling,” Leo replied.

“Knowing full well I wouldn’t,” she snapped back.

Leo shrugged. Viper forced herself to gaze into the mug she still held in her hands. She’d caught herself admiring the way his shirt stretched over his toned chest, and wondering what it would feel like to touch him.

“So, now that you’ve won this round, what do you plan to do with me?” Viper asked.

She was running through possibilities for escape in her mind, but her reaction time was still sluggish. She needed to buy herself time. Keeping the Kid talking was her best bet for the moment.

“I’m open to suggestions,” he said.

Viper’s eyes snapped to his. His mouth twitched upward in one corner in a half-smile, half-smirk. Then, seeing her surprise, the smile spread across his face.

“Don’t tell me the city’s most esteemed detective has never been flirted with before…” he said teasingly trailing off.

“I won’t dignify that with a response,” Viper scoffed. Of course, she’d been flirted with before; seduction was one of the easiest ways to coax information out of someone.

Leo leaned in toward her and tilted her chin up with his forefinger.

“Then why are you so red?” he asked.

To Xavier’s surprise, their ghostly visitor primarily relegated herself to stalking the garden and rattling the windows at night. Contrary to her bluster and threats during the séance, she apparently wasn’t eager to test the resolve of a Reaper, a witch with Reaper powers, and a Hellhound. Still, her presence around the grounds unnerved him, and he hoped Wednesday had a permanent exit strategy for their guest.

One afternoon about a week after the séance, Wednesday’s writing was disturbed by a phone call. She reluctantly answered, seeing Enid’s name splashed across the screen.

“Hello, Enid,” Wednesday droned.

“Wednesday! I have some critical wedding questions that I absolutely need your input on!” Enid bubbled.

“Wasn’t the premise of your involvement in my wedding to leave me out of it?” Wednesday asked rhetorically.

“Wednesssdaaaay,” Enid replied. “I can’t do everything with just your mom’s help. You are kind of the main event here.”

“What do you want?” Wednesday asked shortly.

“Wedding party! Who are your bridesmaids going to be? I can’t really decide for you!”

“Gender-segregated wedding parties are an archaic concept,” Wednesday protested.

“I don’t care about the gender, Wednesday!” Enid shouted through the phone, causing Wednesday to hold the device slightly away from her ear. “I just need a list of names! By the end of today, please!”

Enid hung up before Wednesday could reply. She’d made it to July without pestering Wednesday about anything wedding-related, and Wednesday did give her some credit for that.

Wednesday tapped her black nails against her mahogany desk, thinking for a moment before typing up a list and texting it to Enid.

<<You, Eugene, Matilda, Bianca>>

Then she added:

<<Is that sufficient?>>

A few moments later, her phone buzzed in reply.

E: <<Obvs I’m included! You didn’t have to put me on your list!>>

Wednesday rolled her eyes and shut her phone in a bottom drawer. That was enough wedding planning for one day.

Chapter Text

As Leo’s lips met hers, Viper felt the last dregs of heaviness evaporate from her body. She could move if she wanted to, but she felt rooted to the spot by his touch. Her entire body burned as she opened her mouth to permit him entry. She didn’t know why she was kissing him back; it was like she had boarded a train headed for a ravine, and there was no slowing it down. She could see disaster ahead, but that didn’t stop her from running her fingers up his chest and circling his neck with her arms as he pulled her into his lap.

A cool midsummer rain spattered the high windows of Xavier’s studio as he painted. He was working on a commission of swans floating in a serene pond with weeping willows framing the scene. It wasn’t an ideal subject, but it paid well. With the recent supernatural distractions, Xavier wasn’t much in the mood to paint from his soul anyway. He didn’t like the idea of their resident ghost going through his work and peering into his psyche through his paintings.

Downstairs, Wednesday sat at her desk reviewing the latest round of revision requests from her beleaguered editor. By and large, Wednesday rejected these requests, but every once in a while, her editor had a decent suggestion. She was deep in thought about her response to a suggested change when the booming doorbell interrupted her reverie.

Draven was curled up in an armchair by the window and sat up, ears pricked, at the sound. He cocked his head as Wednesday glanced at him before pushing away from her desk and heading downstairs. When she opened one of the massive double doors, she saw Officer Stewart standing on her doorstep. Wednesday crossed her arms and tried not to smirk at the police officer’s furrowed expression.

“So, who’s dead?” Wednesday asked before the officer could get a word out.

Elspeth tried to retain her official demeanor, but Wednesday could tell the officer was way out of her depth. Why else would she darken Wednesday’s door?

“I’ll have you know,” Elspeth began, “that it is not the practice of this department to seek outside assistance.”

Wednesday waited, face impassive as marble.

“But, our local coroner is… not practiced in crimes of this nature, and the Yard can’t send someone up for a week at least. We’ve decided to make an exception, just this once, and consult,” Elspeth concluded.

Wednesday allowed one corner of her mouth to twitch upward. She knew the local department would come knocking; she just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Perhaps their ghostly friend had found someone else to do her dirty work after all.

“Fortunately for you, I’m in the midst of a rather disagreeable task that I would like to postpone. I suppose you need me to come now?” Wednesday asked.

Elspeth nodded, hands akimbo.

“Wait here,” Wednesday instructed, shutting the door quickly.

She practically skipped as she hurried back upstairs to collect her coroner’s tools and her familiar. She shot a quick text to Xavier:

W: <<Dead body. My expertise is required. May be back late.>>

Shoving her phone in her pocket, she nodded to Draven, who hopped down from the chair and trotted after her.

Wednesday opened the front door again and stepped out into the rain, fox on her heels.

“The animal can’t come,” Elspeth said, laying eyes on the fox.

In response, shadows swirled around Draven, rising into the air until he transformed into a towering man.

“Is this preferable, officer?” the Reaper asked in his quicksilver voice, angular features and eerie yellow eyes boring into her soul.

Elspeth couldn’t hide her shock and muttered something in Gaelic that Wednesday knew to be an old folk spell against evil.

“Don’t worry; he’s not here for your soul. Yet,” Wednesday assured. “He’s much more transportable in fox form, though. I suggest you allow him to stay that way for the drive.”

Elspeth nodded, clearly lost for words, and quickly turned toward her cruiser. Draven shifted back into a fox and hopped onto Wednesday’s lap after she slid into the front seat.

“Don’t tell me anything until I’ve examined the body,” Wednesday ordered. “I’ll hear its story first. Then I’ll listen to your version.”

Elspeth didn’t respond, clearly relieved not to have to speak to her disconcerting passenger more than absolutely necessary. They soon arrived at the station, and Wednesday followed Elspeth past the reception desk, down a long hallway, and then through stainless steel double doors that led to an awkward addition serving as the morgue.

Wednesday took a deep breath, welcoming the smell of sanitization and death into her lungs. Draven transformed into his human form beside her, shadows licking the empty gurney beside him.

“All yours,” Elspeth said, then hurried from the room.

At the end of the small room was a black bag on a gurney situated beside an autopsy table.

Wednesday walked around to the head, which was nearest to the back wall, and nodded to Draven before unzipping the bag. Her eyes widened with delight upon seeing the man inside. Already she could see this crime was a symphony of rage and violence, and she couldn’t wait to get started.

Back at the house, Xavier wiped paint from his hands onto his shirt before scratching Hamish’s head. A rouge drop of yellow paint had dropped onto Hamish’s snout at some point, severely detracting from the Hellhound’s menacing visage. Not that Xavier found the dog menacing at all anymore, anyway. He’d received Wednesday’s text and assumed she’d fill him in on more details than he wanted later. In the meantime, the rain was letting up, and he wanted to check the garden.

Hamish plodded after him downstairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door. They’d barely made it to the garden when the ghost woman materialized just feet in front of them. Hamish growled, hackles raised as Xavier stumbled back in surprise.

Your hound has no need to be so defensive, the apparition said in Xavier’s mind. I’ve come to offer a warning, not a threat.

“You sure have changed your tune,” Xavier said, not trusting her assurance. “Let’s have it then.”

Something has changed. Something lurks in the darkness that is a much greater threat than I, the ghost warned. I am not responsible for their deaths, as much as I wanted them dead. This thing will not stop with them. It grows stronger with each feeding. You must tell her to stop it before it consumes them all.

Xavier frowned at the ghost. “Could you be a bit more specific? Who’s dead? And what is this thing? Do all ghosts have a penchant for being obnoxiously vague?” he asked.

The ghost shook her head, hair flowing around her face as if she were underwater.

I do not know what lurks in the dark, but I fear it. It knows not the boundary between living and dead and will claim not only their bodies but also their souls. Be watchful.

With that ominous message, she faded away into nothing. Xavier looked down at Hamish and sighed.

“Never a dull moment, eh bud?” he asked. Hamish rumbled in response. “One of these days, you and I are gonna take a vacation away from Wednesday’s weirdness for our own sanity.”

Xavier ran a hand through his hair and went to inspect his tomatoes.

Draven helped Wednesday move the body onto the autopsy table and watched her meticulously lay out her tools on a sterile tray. She’d already donned a mask, gloves, and gown. Her eyes glittered behind clear safety glasses. He was chagrined at how much she enjoyed death; it was disconcerting, even for a Reaper.

Wednesday almost squealed with delight when she pulled back one of the victim’s eyelids to reveal an empty socket. The man had been flayed open from sternum to navel, exposing his innards to the world. She opened his mouth and found, to her delight, that the fiend had also removed his tongue.

“Brilliant work,” she whispered to herself. “So clean and precise. Our perpetrator truly has a talent for this type of work.”

“May I remind you that our role here is to solve this man’s murder, not to admire the murderer’s handiwork,” Draven admonished.

Wednesday glared at her familiar. “Always ruining my fun,” she said. “Very well, then. What are your initial thoughts?”

Draven’s yellow eyes swept over the body several times before he replied.

“Look at the soul tether,” he said at last.

Wednesday adjusted her vision to take in the ethereal aspects of the body rather than the physical. Upon doing so, she saw that the gossamer tether that extended from the head and once tied his soul to his body was frayed.

“Sloppy work,” Wednesday observed. “You should tell your colleagues to be more careful,” she advised her familiar.

Draven sighed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling – a gesture he’d picked up from spending so much time with Wednesday.

“Is that the best you can offer, Little Witchling?” he prodded.

Wednesday frowned. “Have you forgotten that I’m finished with school?”

Draven smirked slightly. “The path of learning for witches and Reapers alike is a long one. There is no graduating from the way you have chosen.”

Wednesday muttered something obscene in Latin as she turned back to the corpse and began scrutinizing the soul tether more closely.

“Other than Reapers, what kinds of entities can several a soul from a body?” she asked begrudgingly.

Draven smiled at last. “Now we are making progress –“

He was interrupted by the double stainless steel doors banging open as a gurney made contact with them. Two EMTs rolled the gurney bearing a black bag into the morgue.

Wednesday grinned maniacally. “Today is turning into a wonderful day!” she exclaimed.

Chapter Text

No one in the petite police station was willing to tell the strange consulting coroner to go home, so Wednesday worked well into the night. Draven never left her side and continued to point out spiritual oddities while Wednesday assessed the physical ones.

Sometime near dawn, Wednesday set down her scalpel with a definitive clink, indicating her work was finished. She snapped off her bloody latex gloves and deftly tossed them into a nearby stainless steel hazardous waste receptacle. Finally, she switched off the tape recording app she’d been using to record her notes for later analysis.

After washing up, she banged through the double doors back into the main portion of the station, jolting the officer manning the desk awake. Wednesday strode over to him.

“I’ll review my notes today, and will contact Officer Stewart once I draw a definite conclusion,” she stated firmly.

The young office gaped at her and nodded. Wednesday turned and strode out of the station, Draven as a fox on her heels, without waiting for the startled policeman to answer.

It was dark and drizzling outside. Draven shook droplets from his ears in irritation.

Did you not think of how we are to return home? He queried, annoyance evident.

“We’ll walk. It’s not that far, and the weather is beautiful. Don’t ruin it with your sulking,” Wednesday ordered. Draven made a huffing sound in response, but trotted after her as she set off toward home at a brisk pace.

It took the better part of an hour to trek home, and Draven was positively soaked through with rain and sourness by the time they arrived. He dashed into the dark house, and disappeared from view as soon as Wednesday opened the imposing front door.

Upstairs, Xavier stirred hearing the massive door slam shut followed by Wednesday’s heavy-footed trod up the stairs. He heard her start the shower and caught a few notes of dirge that she was humming softly. Clearly, she’d had a wonderful time with the recently deceased. He rolled over, allowing the rain to lull him back into a deep slumber.

Cold fingers running across his chest woke him again a short time later. He rolled onto his back and Wednesday slipped a bare leg over his torso to straddle him. She was naked and silhouetted against the graying light in the room.

Her nimble fingers found their way into his boxers, where he was growing hard for her despite his drowsiness. She wrapped a small hand around him and began to stroke gently at first and then with increasing speed. Xavier groaned, his body awakening to the sensations one sense at a time. Then he felt her mouth warmly encompassing him, taking him into her throat. He shoved a hand into her loose hair, pulling on the tresses as she lapped at him with her tongue.

“Wednesday…” he gasped, unable to finish the thought.

He felt her smile against his cock before straitening up and positioning him at her warm, wet center. She teased him, slipping him back and forth along her slit but barring him entrance until he begged for relief. Then she allowed him to slip inside slowly, and he found her clit with his practiced fingers as she did. Her head tilted back, eyes closed, and her long hair tickling the tops of his thighs behind her. She was a radiant being – starkly pale against the dark backdrop of their gothic bedroom. Were she not moving and he not nestled inside her, he could have believed she was carved from the smoothest stone by the most talented artist.

Her eyes shot open as she came for him, clamping down upon his cock and milking every drop from his engorged member. He felt himself coat her inside before she draped herself forward over his chest in exhaustion.

After a few minutes, he rolled her gently off of him onto her side. Then he stood, walked to her side of the bed, and scooped her up to take her to the bathroom. She murmured some unintelligible protest into the skin of his chest as he drew her into the shower and washed her body.

When they were both clean, Xavier wrapped his large black plush robe around her body and lay her back in bed. She was asleep before her head touched the ebony pillowcase.

Chapter Text

Leo’s hands seemed to burn her as he slipped them beneath her shirt. A voice in the back of her mind begged Viper to get ahold of herself, but she pushed it aside. This was exciting because it was dangerous, and she wanted to see where it went.

Viper pushed her leg over his so that she straddled him before pulling her face away. Then she pulled her shirt over her head, smirking as his pupil dilated slightly and his gaze took in her nearly nude upper body. After all, she still had the upper hand – there was no need to worry.

After a pause, Leo grasped her upper arms and yanked her toward him so he could bury his face between her breasts, nipping at them as she panted.

It was past noon when Wednesday finally stirred. She blinked, then glared at the sunlight streaming into the bedroom. The audacity.

She stretched and slipped from the bed into her small boudoir to refresh herself. Once dressed, she headed straight for her office to begin evaluating the transcript of her notes from the autopsies.

A few minutes into her work, Xavier appeared in the doorway bearing a plate and espresso cup.

“When’s the last time you ate?” he asked knowingly.

Wednesday shrugged, not looking up from the transcript on her computer screen.

“Here,” he said, putting a sandwich in front of her.

“Thanks,” she murmured, totally enraptured by her work.

Xavier rolled his eyes and let her be. There was no use in trying to communicate when she was like this. He’d talk to her once she’d solved the case, or whatever it was that she was attempting to do.

To his surprise, Wednesday ascended to his studio about an hour later. She rarely came up there, preferring the gloomy atmosphere of their home’s other rooms to the light and airy space where he painted.

He chucked his brush into a nearby water cup and wiped his hands on his paint-stained jeans.

“What’s up?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“I need to brief you on where we stand,” she explained.

“We?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“Yes, we,” she replied, gray eyes flashing with annoyance. “The murders weren’t the work of a human. We’re dealing with something much more interesting.”

“About that…” Xavier said, running his hand through his hair, knocking it out of the tight bun he’d put it in to paint. “Our houseguest stopped by again yesterday to warn me… us… about something sinister. By the way, are ghosts always ridiculously vague or is it just this one? I never had a hard time communicating with Penny or Calpurnia, but this one…” he trailed off.

Wednesday blinked at him. “I suppose it depends on the ghost. They’re just people, you know. Some are better at communicating than others,” she said.

“If you ever become a ghost, there’ll be no making sense of you then,” he said quietly.

“I’m choosing to ignore that jibe,” she informed him. “Now, tell me what she said.”

“Nothing useful,” he sighed. “Something about a lurking darkness that’s murdering the people on her personal hit list. Not sure why she’s so concerned – that’s basically what she wanted us to do. Now some supernatural entity is doing her dirty work for her. Seems like a good deal, if you ask me.”

“Maybe, but this thing steals souls. Presumably to consume them to increase its own power. So typical it’s almost boring,” Wednesday commented. “Draven and I discussed the possibilities at length yesterday. Most likely it’s a rouge Reaper or a run-of-the-mill demon. So uninspired, and barely worth my time.”

“Your altruistic spirit is overwhelming,” Xavier said dryly.

“I find altruism to be uninspiring, too,” she said, crossing her arms. “But no one else in this backwater is capable of handling the situation, so it looks like it’s up to us.”

Hamish, who had been asleep at Xavier’s feet, opened his eyes and looked up at Xavier.

“Look, my only caveat is that you wrap this up before the wedding. I’m planning a honeymoon, and it doesn’t involve dead people. Or undead people. Or ‘run-of-the-mill demons,’” he said.

“Unfortunate. Very well. I can aqueous to that requirement. I’d be embarrassed if it took me that long to solve this, anyway,” Wednesday concluded. “With that in mind, I have a call to make,” she said and left as silently and suddenly as she’d arrived.

Hamish whined, and Xavier shrugged. “No doubt we’ll be dragged into her web at some point. No use protesting – I learned that lesson the hard way.”

Back in her office, Wednesday dialed Officer Stewart. When the policewoman picked up, Wednesday dove in immediately.

“It’s supernatural in nature,” she said shortly. “There’s not much police work to be done aside from preventing additional casualties. I’ll handle the rest.”

Officer Stewart unsuccessfully suppressed a sigh of irritation. “And do you have recommendations for preventing such casualties from occurring?” she said coldly.

“Yes. Find out which men in this quaint, wholesome village murdered a girl in the 50s and sewed her mouth shut. Those are your prospective victims,” Wednesday said casually.

“WHAT-“ Officer Stewart shouted just as Wednesday hit the red button to end the call.

Wednesday smiled. That should keep the cops occupied while she dealt with the more interesting perpetrator.

Chapter Text

Viper’s body hummed with need. She grasped the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Then without warning, he grabbed her waist and flipped her over onto her back on the couch so that he was settled between her legs and hovering over her. She looked up at him.

“Was this your ingenious plot then?” she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Catch me breaking in so you could kiss me?”

Leo huffed, eyes dancing between lust and laughter. “Plans change,” he said. “My original one wasn’t quite as satisfying as this one is turning out to be.”

“Perhaps I don’t feel quite satisfied yet,” she teased dangerously.

“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” he replied as his fingers deftly popped open the button on her pants.

Wednesday and Draven conferred in her office the following day regarding the malevolent entity stalking the village. Draven quickly abandoned any effort to create a sense of moral concern for the victims; Wednesday clearly felt no empathy for them. He also tried not to think too hard about whether her lack of empathy was due to the victims’ crimes or her lack of empathy altogether.

Wednesday poured over her notes, asking questions pertaining to the supernatural as she did. She pulled dusty tomes down from the shelves, consulting them for various rituals and spells that might be useful.

“You cannot simply bind the thing and be done with it,” Draven warned. “It is our duty to smite the entity and free the souls it has consumed.”

Wednesday looked up from a leatherbound volume that had seen better decades and gazed impassively at the Reaper.

“Don’t you mean it’s your duty? May I remind you once again that I am not a Reaper?” she replied.

“You can’t just let their souls be tormented for eternity,” Xavier said, walking into the room with Hamish behind him.

“I don’t see why not,” Wednesday scoffed, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.

“Because we are not the authority on the fate of souls. It is our job to harvest them and move them into the next stage of existence,” Draven scolded softly.

Wednesday huffed but decided against protesting her adherence to Reaper code yet again. “You’re both soft,” she admonished, looking from her fiancé to her familiar.

“Since you’re here,” she continued, fixing her gaze on Xavier. “I’d like you to See for me. I want to know what this thing is so we can be done with it.”

“I’m not one of those 1-800 psychic services,” Xavier replied.

“No,” she agreed, “You’re far more useful than that. I’m not asking to have my fortune told; I need actual information.”

Xavier rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine. But I’m only agreeing because I want this case wrapped up with plenty of time to spare before the wedding.”

He left the room, presumably to fetch one of his scrying tools, and Wednesday tapped her fingers on the mahogany desk as she impatiently waited. When he returned, he carried the mirror that Wednesday had given him to scry with and settled into the chair opposite her.

Xavier rested the mirror on his knees and let his gaze soften as he poured into the depths of the black glass.

“Wait,” Draven commanded before shifting into his fox form and curling himself around Xavier’s feet.

Show me what you see. Then I can identify it, the familiar instructed.

Xavier nodded before resuming his journey into a trance. A forest began to appear before him with curls of mist playing about each tree trunk. He didn’t recognize the exact location, but the trees and landscape were clearly local. There was a presence that made him uneasy. He felt like he was being watched instead of being the watcher.

There were no sounds of birds or other animal life. Aside from the swirling mists, everything had an eerie stillness to it. Xavier looked around, peering through the trees trying to catch a glimpse of anything moving or simply out of place.

A cracking stick alerted him to a presence on his left. Xavier held his breath, not sure if the entity could see him. He anxiously watched as a dark, bulbous entity appeared through the trees. It looked like an oil slick come to life, leaving bits of its sticky black body on the trees and rocks it brushed against.

He could smell the creature’s foul odor, and it took all his concentration not to retch. Xavier didn’t think it could sense his presence, but he wasn’t about to take the risk.

Enough. Draven’s voice echoed through Xavier’s consciousness.

I know what we are dealing with, and you are at risk observing it.

Xavier gratefully obeyed the Reaper and retracted his mind. He blinked against the sunlit room as he came back into his body. Wednesday was staring at him impatiently.

Xavier looked down at Draven, prompting the Reaper to shift back into human form, which he did, and settle into the adjacent chair. Draven let the silence settle around them before explaining.

“Essentially, it is an entity of pure animosity and malice,” Draven began.

“Sounds like a delightful neighbor,” Wednesday interjected. “Should keep trespassers off our property.”

Draven ignored her and continued. “It is rare, but human pain, anger, and other emotions can coagulate into a sentient mass of malevolence and hunger. They are initially weak entities and seek evildoers' souls to increase their strength and lifespan. Those souls will be lost forever if not properly extracted from the being before it is destroyed.”

“I’m not particularly moved to extract the souls, given who they are,” Wednesday replied. “Can’t we just smite the thing and be done with it?”

“While I am also in favor of a quick conclusion to this…” Xavier searched for the right word, “episode. We have to free the souls. It’s messed up not to.”

Wednesday glowered, shifting her gaze between her fiancé and familiar.

“Fine,” she conceded at last. “I’ll contrive a trap, and we’ll get this over with.”

Chapter Text

Viper’s mind railed against her as she felt his fingers press inside her, but she ignored it. She was simply gathering information, pulling Leo into her web, that’s all. There was no cause for concern. Sure, she’d never taken seduction as a tactic this far, but she deserved a little fun, considering that the police wouldn’t be cutting her a check for her work this time around.

Her thoughts evaporated into the ether as his thumb coaxed her to the brink of ecstasy.

Xavier lay in bed, watching the waning moon through the parted bedcurtains. He could hear Wednesday shuffling around her office across the hall, moving tomes and star charts from one overburdened chair to another as she laid her plans. He rolled over, away from the moon, and let drowsiness creep over him. There was no use in waiting up; she’d be at it all night at this rate.

Dripping candelabra set throughout the room cast the ideal lighting for Wednesday’s work. Electric lights distracted her with their piercing whiteness, and she preferred to work by the soft glow of firelight, especially when the task at hand was this important. She may have begrudgingly agreed to use a laptop for her novels, but that was as far as she was willing to compromise on technology.

The new moon was conveniently only a few days away, which would lend to her banishing powers. She’d appease Xavier and Draven by trying to push the souls through to the other side, but she wanted a backup plan that would destroy the entity regardless of whether the souls made it through the veil. Battles had casualties; if these souls were lost in the process, so be it. Not that she’d ever say as much to her morally peerless companions.

Wednesday consumed numerous cups of the blackest coffee while she scoured each of her inherited spellbooks for just the right formulae to banish her foe. Her Reaper powers should be more than enough for the job, but she had learned never to underestimate a rival during her junior-year Poe Cup loss. Perhaps Nevermore had taught her one or two useful things, she conceded.

Wednesday stood upright, stretching like a cat to reverse the compression of countless hours hunched over scrolls and musty books. She focused, summoned her scythe into being, and lay it across the mess of papers strewn over her desk. Then she left the room and headed for the cellar, where she stored a continually expanding stash of potions, poisons, and ingredients.

As the heavy wooden door clanged behind her, plunging her into a darkness so deep that only the eyes of a Reaper could penetrate it, she took a deep breath of stale, musty air. She could feel the spores of deadly fungi dance in her lungs, which refreshed her more than any amount of caffeine. Xavier avoided the dank dungeon, and she never could quite reason why; it was a delightful retreat from the tedium of the world above.

Her black lacquered nails tinkled along rows of bottles and jars as she searched for the ones she needed. She settled on Belladonna, nettles, sage, rue, and a sticky concoction that she’d developed that was excellent for binding ingredients to any surface. Wednesday took the jars to her worktable and began to grind and mix them together with the tacky paste. Every so often, she paused to return to her stock and collect another ingredient. She was accounting for any and all possible outcomes.

Once pleased with her sticky mixture, she carried the mortar upstairs and coated her scythe. In theory, the scythe should slice through spirit flesh like a hot knife through butter; however, she liked to be extra prepared.

When she was satisfied with her application, she looked out the window toward the shadowy forest beyond the house. After a few minutes of contemplation, she returned to her dungeon and mixed up a second concoction in a small spell jar. She sealed the vessel with wax and tucked it into the pocket of her dress. No point in alarming Draven with a backup plan that she would probably not even need.

Wednesday’s anticipation thrummed irritatingly the day of the new moon. She’d long since prepared and re-prepared everything needed for the night’s work, and now she was eager to get to it. Patience was never going to be one of her virtues.

Xavier tried to distract her with food and chatter about his work, but he could tell there was only so much he could do. He was desperate for tonight’s banishing to work so that they could return to their lives and focus on their wedding. He knew that mysteries would inevitably crop up that would draw Wednesday’s attention, but he’d hoped that they’d make it to the wedding before she got sidetracked. This was supposed to be a giddy, happy time, and she was full-throttle into a supernatural battle instead. Not that he expected her to truly partake in wedding planning, but he’d hoped she’d be a bit more engaged than she was capable of being at the moment.

“I’m going to organize our travel back to the States for the wedding,” he prodded as Wednesday sipped her quad. “How long beforehand do you want to go?”

Wednesday set her cup down in its saucer with a clink and considered the question.

“At least a week. That should give Enid adequate time to barrage me with irritating details without overwhelming me,” Wednesday decided.

Xavier smiled. That was more time than he expected her to agree to. “Done!” he said enthusiastically.

Then he added, “I’ll be relieved once this whole thing is over with.”

“The wedding?” Wednesday asked skeptically.

“No! The banishing!” Xavier laughed. “I’m looking forward to the wedding!”

“And I’m looking forward to the banishing, so that puts one of us in each camp,” Wednesday concluded.

“This is not the sort of event to look forward to,” Draven said entering the kitchen in a swirl of mist.

Wednesday rolled her eyes, and picked up her cup for another sip.

“I don’t critique your motives and methods,” she said under her breath.

Draven ignored her and went on, “Are you prepared, Little Witchling?”

“Obviously,” Wednesday retorted. “I am always prepared. For every possible scenario.”

Draven eyed her suspiciously but dropped the topic. Wednesday seized the moment and slipped away into her dungeon. She had just a few last items to take care of before night fell.

Chapter Text

Wednesday finished her breakfast hurriedly, wanting to escape the wedding talk and Draven’s admonishments regarding her enthusiasm for tonight’s work. She silently promised that she would focus on the wedding once she concluded the far more interesting work of smiting their supernatural foe. Xavier couldn’t really fault her for that, now could he? She was looking out for their mutual well-being and future happiness after all. Apparently, those were components of a lasting marriage.

Having convinced herself that she was being helpful in the long run, she descended the dungeon stairs to re-inventory her supplies. While she’d assured Draven of her preparedness, it didn’t hurt to ensure the matter for herself. She’d never hear the end of it from the Reaper if she went about annihilating the entity in a manner outside of the Reaper code and his personal ethos. Better to play this one by the book if at all possible. That said, she would have plenty of alternative options should they be needed when the time came.

Her plan was to lure the entity to the standing stones that Xavier had discovered early in the summer. They would enhance her powers and, hopefully, dampen those of the entity. It was a gamble, and she knew there was a chance that the standing stones could end up augmenting the entity’s power instead, but she was reasonably certain she could handle the situation either way. Tilting the game in her favor was preferable, but not necessary.

Wednesday gathered a myriad of mixtures and potions into her black shoulder bag. She ran through a list of spells that she identified as the most likely ones to use. She certainly knew them by heart, but a refresher was never a waste of time in her opinion. With a full suite of powers, her familiar, and Xavier’s psychic abilities all at her disposal, tonight’s work looked to be disappointingly easy.

Dusk was long in coming on the moors at this time of year. Wednesday paced the mahogany halls of her mansion, frowning at the still-light sky. There was no use in setting out until the sun began to go down, and the afternoon wore on relentlessly.

Xavier had sequestered himself in his studio, taking advantage of the copious daylight for his work. Wednesday had a hunch he was avoiding her, but she would not condescend to confront him about the matter when there was important work at hand. He had an annoying habit of destabilizing her emotions at the most inconvenient times.  

The house felt smothering, the hallways too narrow, and the air stale. Xavier’s avoidance itched at her brain distractingly no matter how violently she suppressed the thoughts. It was imperative that she keep her focus on the night’s events and that he do the same. She lectured him in her mind about the severity of their work, imagining herself impressing her will on him if only for tonight. She stewed in these thoughts as the hours ticked by until the light outside finally paled and she heard Xavier’s tread on the floorboards above her.

Finally, she said to herself. Time to get this done.

Xavier appeared in the library doorway, arms crossed, hair lightly brushing his shoulders.

“Ready?” he asked succinctly.

“Always,” she replied curtly, diverting her eyes from his angular features and busying herself with collecting her bag.

A live elephant in this room would be less intrusive, Wednesday thought sarcastically to herself as she heaved the bag onto her shoulder, jars clinking against one another inside of it.

Wednesday strode from the library to the front door, which she wrenched open with more than necessary strength. Draven slipped out beside her legs in his fox form and padded out of sight around the right side of the house. Hamish loped behind him, and Xavier followed last, closing and locking the heavy door behind the party.

Wednesday didn’t slow her stride to allow him to catch up with her. She was questioning involving him at all at this point. Would he constitute a distraction to her work with his presence bearing down upon her like this? She shook her head to clear the thought. It was too late to adjust the plan now.

Xavier crunched behind Wednesday on the gravel drive, observing her ramrod posture and determined gait. Part of him wanted to catch her, drag her back into the house, and plead with her to forget all of this supernatural nonsense. Damn the town and everyone who lived there. They would be fine, just the two of them, holed up in this house. He wanted to lock her up away from the world and all of the oddities that tempted her to obsession. He wanted to be her only obsession. It was selfish, but his mind spiraled down this dark path regardless of common sense and logic.

She rounded the corner of the house and Xavier paused to catch his breath. It was the strain of all of this that made him think this way, he told himself. He tilted his face toward the dimming sky, hair falling away from his shoulders as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. This had to be done. Then he could worry about everything else.

Chapter Text

Xavier breathed in deeply, closed his eyes, and tilted his face to the gray sky, sensing the threat of rain on the breeze. He wrestled his thoughts under control, then opened his eyes and resumed following Wednesday and the others toward the woods. When he rounded the corner of the house, he found Hamish waiting for him, head cocked not unlike a golden retriever’s signature pose. Wednesday was already past the garden and well into the field beyond the house with Draven trailing slightly behind her.

When he reached Hamish, the Hellhound pushed his wet nose into Xavier’s palm to nudge him onward. The pair paused at the garden to inspect some vegetables. Xavier knew he was stalling, but he didn’t care. It was about time Wednesday waited for him, just as he had always waited for her.

By the time Xavier reached the standing stone circle, Wednesday was already sitting cross-legged in the center in a meditative pose. Draven sat beside her, his tail twitching at every minor noise from the surrounding trees. Seeing the Reaper himself so on edge was unsettling. For the first time, Xavier put aside his personal grievances about their upcoming endeavor and wondered if they had taken on more than they could handle this time. He didn't want to spend eternity as a tormented soul trapped inside some dark entity's bowels.

A thick fog was creeping out of the trees on the west side of the circle and began to tangle itself around their small party. The sun had fully set, and the only light came from little clusters of wax pillar candles that Wednesday had set up around the perimeter of the circle.

Gnarled trees, their limbs twisted like tormented souls, loomed ominously at the circle's perimeter, made more haunting by the flicker of candlelight that was too weak to reach their shrouded tops. The haunting moan of an unidentifiable bird echoed through the oppressive silence, accentuating the heavy sense of dread that hung in the air.

Xavier shook his head, trying to dispel the dark fantasies that threatened to consume him, and hesitantly stepped into the arcane ring of stones. The ground felt unnaturally cold beneath his feet as if he were treading upon the very bones of the earth. Wednesday, her pallid skin appearing ghostly in the dim light, opened her eyes. They glittered with their typical intensity but in the dim light and swirling mists, it struck him like a chilling touch from the grave.

Wednesday had watched Xavier’s approach from a distance with irritation. She felt deeply comforted by the flickering candlelight and fog slipping around her like a beloved cat. Xavier’s stalling was the only thing that marred such a perfect evening. His emotions of late infuriated her, causing resentment to creep into her mind like ichor. For all that they’d been through together, she thought they had moved past the need for sentimentality, but Xavier clung to his feelings like a baby blanket worn through from years of desperate snuggling. Wednesday abhorred such weakness, but she knew she needed his psychic prowess tonight more than ever so she bit back a spiteful retort and waited patiently as she could for him to join her.

Xavier settled down onto the frigid grass facing Wednesday and waited silently, meeting her stark gaze with his own.

“Now what?” he snapped more harshly than he’d meant to. Wednesday seemed unfazed.

"We wait," she replied.

"How do we know it will come?” he asked.

“I’m gambling that the draw of our combined powers will be too appetizing for this entity to pass up,” she explained calmly.

As the last words passed her lips, the crickets and birds that had hitherto been chattering among the ancient trees suddenly went silent. An uncanny stillness began to settle around them. The animals clearly recognized the shift in the air and retreated, their instincts screaming of an eldritch terror that didn't belong in their world. Wednesday’s lips twisted into the dark smile she wore when she was truly pleased. Her eyes glittered despite the dim light. Her dark, ethereal beauty cracked Xavier’s resolve to be angry with her; seeing her this way always carved a path straight to his heart.

The ground began to hum and vibrate with a tone almost too deep to hear naturally. Xavier’s head snapped to the eastern side of the circle just in time to perceive a thick, viscous blackness begin to seep from the earth, spreading and pooling like an oil spill across pristine ocean waters. The scent of decay and death almost overwhelmed Xavier, but Wednesday filled her lungs with the rot feeling fortified.

The surface of the entity shimmered with an otherworldly iridescence, giving fleeting visions of the murderous souls it had consumed. Their faces were distorted in agony and despair, their screams silenced yet forever imprinted in this miasma. The ooze moved with a purpose, an insatiable hunger driving it forward, seeking more lost and unredeemable souls to feed its endless appetite.

As it emerged into the glade from the forest's edge, the surrounding vegetation withered and decayed on contact, the life essence of the plants absorbed into its malevolent mass. The air grew colder and thick with dread, a palpable sense of despair suffocating all hope. Wednesday thrilled with excitement – this was an adversary after her own heart and it took everything in her to stay put and not rush from the standing stones to embrace such a foe.

Patience, Little Witchling, came Draven’s deep voice in her mind. Do not overestimate your skills.

“This is an enemy that I understand,” she retorted. “I should be able to outmaneuver it easily.”

Draven made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a bark before nipping her ankle in warning.

You are not so strong as you believe you are! He scolded. Stay alert, and remember our objective is to reap the souls this thing has stolen. Don’t get caught up in your private fantasies!

Wednesday pushed his warnings aside and placed her palms on the earth, which had grown unnaturally sodden in the past few moments. She looked up at Xavier.

“Create walls around us. I’ll manage the rest,” she commanded.

Xavier opened his mouth to protest but shut it again realizing the futility of arguing. He conjured up his psychic defenses, shrouding their small party in mental armor. Wednesday cast a protection circle around them using each standing stone as an anchor for the deep purple magic.

The entity slurped and slid toward the circle from the edge of the primordial trees. When it reached the circle it paused, seemingly surveying the situation. Xavier shifted uncomfortably. He was cold and wet and the evil miasma that radiated off of the eldritch entity made him nauseous.

He dared a quick glance at Wednesday who was grinning and focused intently on their enemy.

“Excellent show,” she complimented the iridescent blob. “Very clever use of stench and fog; however I’m afraid such a display is wasted on me. I rather enjoyed the spectacle.”

Draven growled a warning at her lightheartedness.

“Unfortunately,” she continued without heeding her familiar, “I will have to cut this meeting short. You have become something of an inconvenience.”

She pushed herself from the damp ground and conjured her scythe into her hand as she walked to the edge of her circle.

“Shall we dance?” she asked cheerfully.

In response, the scent of decay redoubled and Xavier retched, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the earth. Hamish whined sympathetically.

When Xavier looked up, the entity was at the boundary of the circle, only inches from Wednesday.

“Wednesday!” he shouted, but then everything went dark.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s eyes snapped open at the sensation of a fluttering breeze against her cheek. She stood stock still as her eyes slid around the room analyzing her surroundings. It took less than a heartbeat to determine she was in the cadaver lab at Nevermore. Her methodical mind checked off every possible logical explanation before concluding that the entity must be responsible.

The likeliest scenario was that this was an illusion, but she was not ready to rule out teleportation. In theory, Xavier’s protections should have prevented a psychic attack, but as her research into the entity (or rather the lack of information about such an entity) demonstrated, anything was possible, no matter how unlikely. The more significant concern was that if this was an illusion, what had happened to Xavier to allow the entity to create this vision?

Odd, she thought as she reaffirmed her grip on her spectral scythe.

“Illusions. How juvenile,” she mocked aloud to the entity, wherever it was, hoping to prompt it to confirm or deny whether she was trapped at Nevermore or merely in her own mind.

Her voice bounced off of the stainless steel appliances and gurneys before fading away into nothingness.

The sound of the door on the far end of the room opening caused her to whirl in place poised to strike.

Ester Dalia entered the room clad in her typical dissecting garb and snapping on latex gloves.

“Jumpy this morning, are we?” Ester said cheerily.

Wednesday tensed further.

“Once again, I’ll point out that illusions are juvenile. You got her eye color wrong. If you have something to say to me, spit it out before I rip whatever passes for your intestines out of your globulous shell of a body,” Wednesday sneered.

The thing posing as Ester twisted its mouth into a mocking smile.

“Very good,” it said derisively. “I knew you’d be a worthy ally.”

Wednesday scoffed, pleased to find that she was, in fact, in her own mind and hadn’t been mysteriously transported thousands of miles to Nevermore. Her mind was her territory, and they were playing on her turf.

“No, no. Don’t write me off so easily,” it went on passively. “I’ve studied you as you’ve studied my trash. I think we have a lot of potential to work together.”

“If you’ve studied me so thoroughly, you know I don’t play well with others,” she shot back.

A rumbling cackle bounced off the sterile walls. “Oh, but you do. Or at least you try to. You didn’t come to face me alone, after all.”

“It’s wise to use the strengths of others when they suit my ends,” Wednesday retorted.

“Perhaps,” the entity replied. “Or perhaps you’ve gotten weak. Perhaps you have to rely on others to achieve your goals. I can offer you relief from that. Give you the power you need to do everything yourself and disregard the rules constraining you. You’re a powerful witch – why should you have to bend to the pathetic needs of others?”

“Enough,” Wednesday said curtly and sprung at the thing wearing Esther’s face.

The entity hopped lithely out of the way, chuckling.

“So eager to dismiss me!” it teased. “I must have hit a nerve!”

Wednesday struck at it again, this time slicing a gash into its arm. Midnight black ooze spilled from the wound before the illusory skin knit itself back together. The entity laughed again.

“That was rather painful. I’ll forgive the indiscretion just this once, but my offer is getting stale. Just imagine: writing without distraction, conducting experiments without the fear of repercussion or interruption. Such bliss!”

“I want no part of any deal you’re peddling,” Wednesday sneered.

“No? Well, that’s too bad. Perhaps Xavier does,” it prodded.

Wednesday screeched and brought her scythe down on the entity’s head, cleaving the illusion of Esther in two. It fell away into whirls of black smoke leaving her standing in the lab alone.

The first thing Xavier noticed was the stinging pain in his knees from the cold stone floor beneath him. He blinked rapidly, trying to grasp his surroundings in the steely gloom. Pushing himself to his feet, he became aware of the musky scent of aging paper and leather – a scent he knew well. As his vision adjusted, he found he stood in the familiar leaden light of the Nightshade’s library at Nevermore.

Xavier’s mind raced, trying to grasp how he’d arrived at his old stomping grounds, which should be thousands of miles away from where he last stood in the stone circle. His protections should have prevented any kind of psychic attack, yet here he was.

A light step on the stairs alerted him to the presence of another. He whipped around, braced to fight with all of his psychic might, but relaxed upon seeing a low-heeled black Maryjane on a small foot.

“Wednesday,” he gasped in relief, stumbling toward the bottom of the staircase to meet her.

Upon seeing him, she smiled warmly and reached for him.

“Xavier! I’m so glad you’re all right!” she beamed, practically skipping down the last few stairs to meet him.

She threw her arms around his neck and craned for a kiss. Xavier didn’t lower his head to meet hers, instead staring down at her in a mix of confusion and disbelief.

“What is it?” Wednesday asked, looking wounded.

He pushed her away.

“Who are you?” he accused.

“Whatever do you mean, Xavier?” she replied, a note of pained betrayal in her tone, like an admonished child.

“You’re not Wednesday. Wednesday would have scolded me for not being prepared for whatever illusion this is. She would have mocked me for allowing us to get trapped when I’m supposedly the most powerful psychic in the world. She would have started an escape plan immediately, not thrown herself into my arms. I’m not going to ask again: Who are you?” his words were like ice.

The not-Wednesday before him grinned. “Oh, but I could be,” it said. “Just think about it: Wednesday would be free to pursue her interests unencumbered, and you can be with the perfect version of Wednesday. This Wednesday will never disregard your feelings, hurt you with her indifference, or drag you on fools’ errands to challenge anyone she sees as a foe. You could both have what you want!”

The warmth of not-Wednesday’s demeanor disconcerted Xavier. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to imagine a life where he was the center of Wednesday’s world. One where her obsessions ceased, and they could build a life together focused around each other.

He frowned. That wouldn’t be Wednesday, though. That wasn’t the Wednesday he loved. The Wednesday he loved was prone to brooding obsessions and perilous quests. She thrived in the gray spaces between right and wrong, forming her own often questionable moral code.

Xavier backed away from the illusion of Wednesday, putting his hands in front of him in a gesture that indicated pushing something away.

“Try your party tricks on someone else,” he said flatly and unleashed the might of his mind against his foe. There was a thunderous clash and the illusion split into millions of shards.

Rain pelted the side of Wednesday’s face that wasn’t pressed against the dank, sodden forest floor. The first thing she saw was Draven’s shadows whirling around his black boots.

She sprang up, braids sending sprays of rain in all directions. Her clothes were soaked through and sticking to her body uncomfortably. Drave stood up from his crouched position, his face grave.

“How long was I out?” Wednesday demanded.

“Too long,” Draven replied. “I reinforced your wards around the circle, but there is no time to waste. That,” he indicated the gelatinous oozing form just outside of the stone circle with a gesture that sent shadows whirling around his arm, “will not be held back for much longer.”

“Xavier!” Wednesday almost shouted, whirling around as reality interjected itself into her mind.

Xavier lay prone on the damp earth, Hamish crouched low over Xavier’s body, teeth bared at the entity just feet away.

Wednesday rushed over, and Hamish moved just enough to allow her to flip Xavier onto his back. Rain dripped down her braids and splashed onto his unconscious face. Wednesday shook him violently and slapped his face to try and wake him.

She shot a glare at Draven.

“How did you wake me up?” she demanded.

“I did not,” Draven replied. “You came to on your own. Whatever happened in your mind, is likely occurring in his. You will have to wait for him to come through this on his own.”

Wednesday pushed herself upright.

“Protect him,” she ordered Hamish, though the Hellhound needed no such prompting. He responded with a low rumbling growl that made the earth vibrate ever so slightly.

Wednesday turned to face the entity circling them outside the standing stones.

“I guess it’s you and me,” she said to Draven as she summoned her reaper scythe into being.

“Forever and always,” Draven said with a hint of a smile before his face returned to placid determination.

Chapter Text

Wednesday conjured her scythe into her palm and ran her tongue along her teeth in eager anticipation as she approached the edge of the stone circle. The scent of decay and rot emanating from the entity strengthened her as she approached it. She inhaled deeply, letting the odor awaken every cell in her body to this delicious moment. Perhaps it was better that Xavier be unconscious for this little dance. He would surely be retching from the smell.

Circling her wrist to adjust to the weight of the scythe, Wednesday stepped over the invisible line that connected her wards. She barely had her whole weight on the grass on the unprotected side of the circle when the entity emitted a garbled roar and rose like a black tidal wave above her. Wednesday bared her teeth and rushed for it, slicing for its middle as the oily wave crashed over her.

For a moment, Draven was certain that if he had a heart, it would have stopped. She'd freed herself of the thing's mental trap only to rush into its physical one. Breaking out of the momentary trance, he sent a wave of death magic toward the entity as he strode over the protective barrier toward the fray.

The entity howled as it split in two, Wednesday sliding out behind it on her knees. The entity shrunk back to avoid Draven's spell as it scrambled to rejoin its halves. The spell glanced off its left side, leaving a smoking hole in its globulous form.

Wednesday was already on her feet, creating a violent orb of necromantic power in her free hand. Before she could unleash the spell, the entity enclosed her again.

Draven gritted his teeth. Wednesday may be having the time of her life, but his concern was freeing the souls trapped within the monster. Her attacks had been reckless thus far, insinuating that destruction was foremost in her mind.

He ran to the entity just as a blade of violet magic cut through it. Draven thrust his hand into the entity, fumbling blindly for any part of Wednesday. He latched onto her arm, yanked her out from within its inky depths, and pulled them both back several yards.

Wednesday was panting and covered with ooze, grinning maniacally.

"Have you forgotten your objective?" Draven hissed through clenched teeth. "You are here to reap the souls it has eaten, not blast it full of holes."

Wednesday sneered. "I don't tell you how to do your job," she shot back. "If you're so concerned about the souls, reap them yourself. I don't see why I have to do your dirty work."

"We are a  team,"  he chided. "We will do this together."

"Fine," she snapped. "Then you better give me some idea of how to deal with this other than shredding it to pieces."

The entity hadn't moved to attack them again, instead focusing on regaining the shreds of itself dispersed by Wednesday's last necromantic blast.

Xavier coughed and sputtered as his eyes shot open. He inhaled damp earth and spit violently to rid the taste of mud from his mouth. His knees slipped against the wet soil as he scrambled to his feet and wiped rain from his eyes. Locating Draven and Wednesday outside the circle's protection took him only a few moments.

Draven looked grave, but Wednesday was beaming maniacally at the thing before her. Typical.

He squelched toward the pair to join the fray, not trusting Wednesday not to obliterate the entity and damn the souls within it. He saw her bend her knees slightly, indicating she was about to pounce, and threw an illusion over her, arresting her movement.

Wednesday cursed as she leaped forward and found herself standing in her childhood bedroom. Apparently, Xavier had woken up.

She allowed her scythe to evaporate and crossed her arms.

"Very cute," she said. "Now let me out so we can finish this thing."

Xavier's voice echoed off the walls of her bedroom.

"I think it's only fair I get a crack at it. You can just take a little rest," he teased.

"That suggestion doesn't merit a response," she snapped. "Release me. Now."

There was no reply except for a sense that he shored up the strength of his illusion. Clearly, he had no intention of letting her out without a fight. Clearly, he needed to remember who he was engaged to. 

Wednesday uncrossed her arms, flexed her fingers, and closed her eyes, focusing her own powers within her mind.

Xavier shoved Wednesday to the back of his mind as he collected his psychic power and thrust it within the entity's depths. He closed his eyes in concentration as he felt for the devoured souls within the creature. A solid warmth appeared at his right side, telling him that Hamish had taken up a defensive position so that Xavier could focus on his mental battle. 

At first, Xavier felt nothing but inky blackness stretching infinitely into a void of pure evil. He pushed forward, sure that no matter how evil the trapped souls had been in life, they had to have some glimmer of humanity that he could grab hold of if he pushed hard enough. 

He heard Draven unleash a burst of power, and Hamish growled in warning. 

Just a little further,  Xavier thought.

Suddenly, he saw something in the blackness: a tiny silver thread of something. He grasped it with his mind and pulled violently, dragging the feeble light violently through the darkness. 

His eyes snapped open, and he jumped backward, seeing a mangled ghostly figure floating in the air in front of him. 

"Excellent," Draven said with characteristic non-enthusiasm as his own scythe conjured from the misty air. He raised it high and cleaved the soul in two. The soul dissipated into a million silver particles, quickly blending in with the rain. 

"That's one down," Xavier panted, glancing at Draven. 

The entity roared in frustration. It was now visibly smaller and probably weaker, without one of the souls that had fed its mass. It slimed quickly over the damp earth toward Xavier, and Hamish lunged for it, shredding pieces of black icor from its body with his otherworldly fangs.

In the same moment, Wednesday broke through her stasis and lunged at Xavier, tackling him to the ground.

"Traitor," she spat as she pushed herself off him, spraying him with mud from her clunky boots.

"I couldn't let you have all the fun," Xavier protested, grinning and wiping mud and rainwater from his eyes.

Wednesday had already turned her attention back to the enemy.

"We will do this together," she said without turning to look at him. "Since it appears you will do your best to thwart me if I don't allow you to participate."

Xavier smiled. "Together," was exactly what he wanted them to be.

Chapter Text

Wednesday and Xavier stood side-by-side, facing the diminished entity. 

"Do it again," Wednesday commanded.

Xavier looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. "Do what?" he asked.

"Pull the soul out, obviously," Wednesday snapped. "Draven insists we do this the  moral  way, so let's reap these bastards and send them to whatever eternal hellhole awaits them."

"You have such a cheery way of motivating me into action," Xavier replied as he smiled, closed his eyes, and sent his consciousness toward their enemy. "I suppose I don't have to ask you to watch my back," he added.

Wednesday snorted in reply as she stepped forward. Xavier might be able to pull the souls out of the thing, but she planned to have her fun while he was at it.

She felt Draven's severe gaze pressing on her but pushed his consciousness aside. She'd reap the souls like he wanted, but he hadn't said she had to make it comfortable for the entity or its prisoners.

Wednesday jumped into the air, coating her scythe blade with necromantic magic and cleaving the entity in two. The being howled in agony as its gelatinous body split, and there was a "pop" as Xavier yanked the second soul from its depths. 

"Wednesday," Draven said in a warning tone, seeing her tense for another strike. 

She sighed, turned her attention to the mangled soul, and reaped it with a flick of her wrist. 

"One more," Xavier said, closing his eyes once again. 

"Pity," Wednesday said. "I was just starting to feel warmed up."

Xavier sighed and concentrated his psychic vision on finding the final soul trapped within their foe. He located it quickly and snatched it from the being before Wednesday could do more damage. She reaped it quickly but reluctantly, then stood back and watched the entity shrink to the size of a shoe. After a moment's thought, she jogged back to the stone circle and ripped open her backpack to retrieve a glass jar. Sprinting back to the entity, she scooped it into the jar and murmured a sealing spell as she snapped the lid down.

"What are you doing?" Draven demanded.

"Research," Wednesday replied. "I want to study this in my laboratory. Find out what makes it tick."

"It is a being of pure evil," Draven warned. "Not to be trifled with by a mere witchling."

"I will try not to be offended by that statement," Wednesday said, bringing the jar to eye level and examining her victim. "I freed the souls as you requested; now I get my reward."

She turned, squelched back through the muddy ground toward the circle, and stowed the jar in her backpack. She hoisted the bag onto her shoulder and turned back to her companions. With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the iridescent protective wards surrounding the stones.

"I've grown tired of being wet. Let's go home," Wednesday said. She pushed briskly between Xavier and Draven en route toward the manor.

Xavier exchanged a glance with Draven, who deftly shifted into a raven and flew off out of sight into the imposing trees. 

"C'mon," Xavier sighed to Hamish, who made a relieved huff and trotted after him through the drizzle.

When Xavier entered the kitchen, he heard the old pipes shudder and groan as Wednesday turned on the shower upstairs. He'd stalled to examine the garden, which showed the first signs of baby gourds, squashes, and tomatoes they'd enjoy later that summer. Xavier hoped the cold rain wouldn't be too much for the budding plants and debated covering them with tarps before entering the house. After a moment, he disregarded the plan, thinking that if they could survive Scotland's wet Spring weather, they'd be stronger for it in the long run.

He made his way upstairs as Hamish headed for the library to shake himself and warm up by the fire. Draven hadn't yet returned, and the house was silent except for the patter of rain on the leaded glass and the creak of old pipes.

Wednesday let the cold water soak into her skin and felt the mud and supernatural muck slide off her body and down the drain. Her mind calculated the various experiments she intended to conduct on what remained of the evil goo currently residing on a shelf in her basement dungeon. There probably wasn't enough of it left for both experiments and torture, so she'd have to prioritize science, unfortunately.

She kept her eyes closed as Xavier stepped into the shower behind her and reached around her body to turn the water up to warm.

"Being in the cold rain for hours wasn't enough for you?" he murmured into her hair.

"Science continuously demonstrates the beneficial effects of cold water on the body," she replied, leaning back against his firm chest. 

"We both know that's not why you take cold showers," he chided, a lukewarm hand dipping between her legs.

Wednesday's lips parted in a soft moan as he slipped two fingers inside of her and began circling her clit with his thumb. The water grew gradually warmer, but her body burned even hotter as he teased her to the brink, removing his hand just as she was about to climax.

Wednesday opened her eyes and shot him a devastating glare over her shoulder. Xavier grinned.

"I thought it better we finish this elsewhere. Preferably somewhere dry," he said.

"Just because you said that," she began, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the shower into the chilly bathroom.

Their bodies dripped rapidly cooling water as Wednesday dragged Xavier through the house, into his attic studio, and through the half-sized door that provided roof access. 

Goosebumps raised along his entire body, but Xavier was too enamored to protest. God knows what she was thinking, but he was determined to find out. 

The stone roof had a narrow walkway with a low spiked iron railing on the left side and stone rising to the roof points on the right. A frigid wind whipped around the turrets and chimney pots, chilling them both to the bone. Wednesday relished the frigid air on her naked form as well as the discomfort she knew it caused Xavier. Revenge was always best-served cold. And wet, if possible.

The rain had picked up again, pelting them with icy drops that threatened to turn into sleet before long. Darkness was creeping in around them as the world teetered toward nightfall, and the rough stone scraped against their bare feet.

Wednesday pulled Xavier along until they reached the west turret above the library, which provided a wide enough surface that they could stand side by side. Without wasting a moment to speak, Xavier thrust Wednesday up against the low wall of the turret scraping her bare back against the rough-hewn stone. The corners of her mouth twitched upward at the pain as he brought his mouth down on hers and felt her open to him. He grasped the back of her thighs, hoisting her up around his waist, and pushed roughly into her, her warmth enveloping him as the rest of his body was pelted by cold from the unrelenting clouds. 

The wind began to howl as he thrust against her, drowning out the sounds of their pleasure. She dug her short nails into his shoulder as she tilted her head back and shouted her bliss to the dark, angry sky. 

Xavier sat awake staring into the bedroom fire from the bed as Wednesday slept soundly beside him. It had taken a scalding shower, a dinner of hot soup, and an hour before the library fireplace before he finally felt warmth seep back into his bones. 

Wednesday had grumbled at the imposition of another warm shower but tolerated it nonetheless. Xavier had a sneaking suspicion that by the time they had made it back inside, even she was colder than comfortable. Now that her belly was full and carnal needs satisfied, Wednesday had dropped off to sleep without another word. Xavier brushed her bangs aside, admiring her porcelain face as she slept before sliding further under the covers beside her, enveloping her in his arms, and drifting off himself.

Chapter Text

The entity's defeat allowed Wednesday to return to her latest novel. She'd turned off her phone for the last few weeks, not wanting her editor to distract her from the critical work at hand. When she finally turned it on, dozens of increasingly desperate voicemails and texts from her editor pleading for a draft update greeted her.

Wednesday sighed and typed out a brief reply, saying she would return to writing today and that the draft would be ready when it was ready.

Without removing the fingers pumping inside her, Leo used his free hand to roughly rip Viper's pants and underwear down her legs. She gasped as the rough material burned against her skin while his fingers pushed her toward her climax. Leo extracted her underwear from the tangle of pants and shoved them into her mouth right as she began to scream with pleasure, muffling the sound. Viper's eyes widened as she bit down on the soft fabric. Now, this was something new.

Leo pulled his wet fingers out of her body and stood, towering over her prone form as he licked her juices from them. His eyes flashed hungrily, flaring new desire in Viper. She was not nearly satisfied, and she wanted more of him. All of him.

Viper spat her underwear from her mouth and licked her lips as Leo pulled his pants and boxers off, freeing his cock. Yes, she thought, she'd be taking all of him before leaving tonight, regardless of whether she got the information she came for. 

She rolled over and stretched like a cat before standing to her feet before him. 

There was a calm beat like the eye of a hurricane. Whatever happened next, there would be no going back. Viper studied Leo, trying to intuit what he would do. For a moment, she thought he might turn and leave her, claiming the upper hand by not satisfying her need. The thought dissipated as Leo seized her neck and thrust her across the room with a few strides, slamming her against the beautifully papered wall. 

The freezing storms of Spring soon gave way to the warmer rains of Summer. The sun even deigned to appear occasionally, allowing Xavier to spend hours pruning and weeding in the garden while Hamish dozed in the nearby warm grass. On such days, Wednesday descended to her dungeon apothecary, where she concocted various remedies and poisons and experimented with substances that Xavier could not identify but made his skin prickle with unease. He kept to the daylit portions of their home and reveled in the chance to be outside after weeks of gray weather.

Consumed by her experiments on the much-diminished entity she kept in a magically sealed jar, the date to return to the States for their wedding encroached upon Wednesday with irritating haste. She kept her thoughts to herself, knowing Xavier would inevitably take her dismay as a criticism of him and not at being interrupted when she was on the cusp of making significant discoveries in the area of malevolent magic. In her opinion, he consistently failed to perceive the larger picture.

One aspect of the trip she was glad for was a break from Draven hovering about her laboratory, muttering vague warnings and protests about her work. He hadn't prevented her from proceeding, but his constant "supervision," as he termed it, irked her more than Enid's insipid musical taste.

When the day to depart finally came, Wednesday threw a few dresses into her bag before carefully packing her typewriter, notebooks, and other writing supplies for travel. She presumed her mother and Enid had managed all the details for her wedding attire, so she left all her fine clothing and jewels in her boudoir.

Satisfied with the security of her typewriter case, Wednesday summoned a shade to transport her things to the car waiting in the gravel front drive. She followed it downstairs and found Draven sitting on the library sofa, engrossed in a well-worn copy of  Frankenstein . 

"The car is ready," Wednesday said, interrupting his peace.

"Ah," Draven replied without lifting his eyes from the page. "I have decided it is best I remain here, given your in-progress work in the dungeon. Best not to leave evil unguarded."

Wednesday smirked. "At some point, you will recognize that I always have everything under control."

"Perhaps," Draven replied, looking up at her. "But I am not inclined to take such a risk as of yet. You have centuries to go and much to learn before I will leave you to your own devices. Besides, I can count a number of occasions when you did not have 'everything under control,' as you claim."

Wednesday glared. "Suit yourself," she said. "I give it three days before you're crawling up the walls with boredom."

Draven sighed, "Apparently, it has not occurred to you that there are activities I might prefer to overseeing your various ill-advised projects."

Wednesday snorted and left the room, heading for the doors flung open to allow the shades to bring luggage to the car. 

"Enjoy your solitary vacation!" Wednesday called without looking back.

Draven made a grunt of assent, clearly already reinvested in his novel. 

Wednesday stepped out into the sun and flinched at the warmth gently brushing against her skin. She'd rigorously applied sunscreen before getting dressed, but she detested the feeling of a warm breeze and gentle sunlight caressing her skin. She couldn't understand how Xavier could bear all those hours in the garden. 

A footstep on the flagstone steps behind her made her turn to see Xavier and Hamish approaching. 

"Draven?" Xavier asked when he reached the car.

"Staying here to enjoy some peace and quiet," Wednesday stated. "Apparently, my work causes him undue distress, and his delicate nature requires a respite to recover."

Xavier bit back the smile that threatened to betray his complete understanding of Draven's feelings. 

"Well, his loss," Xavier said simply, not wanting to engage in yet another debate over Wednesday's activities. So long as she didn't disturb his work, he left her to hers. 

They climbed into the black Rolls Royce, with Hamish settling at their feet for the trip to the small airfield. It wasn't long until they were in the air, the Atlantic Ocean spreading beneath them in every direction. Wednesday's Reaper eyes allowed her to pick out occasional shipping vessels en route to ports throughout the world. 

Xavier variously sketched and napped the flight away. Wednesday went to the effort of setting up her typewriter to work on her novel, oblivious to the irritation the clacking caused the flight attendants. The relief on their faces, when the captain announced they were less than an hour from their destination, made Xavier choke back a laugh. Wednesday cocked her head and blinked at him in response to his stifled giggle. 

When they landed, the sun shone fiercly in a cloudless sky; Wednesday frowned at her bad luck. She found it inauspicious that the sun shone brightly on both ends of her journey. She detested Summer.

Wednesday conjured shades to manage their baggage with a flippant wave of her hand, directing them to the family hearse. She was relieved when she slid into its black interior to see Lurch was alone and that her parents hadn't insisted on coming along to greet them.

"Lurch," she said by way of greeting as she buckled her seatbelt. He grunted in response. 

Xavier slid into the car beside her, Hamish on his heels as ever.

"Hello, Lurch," he chirped. 

Wednesday watched Xavier as his eyes danced with joy. The only redeeming bit of summertime was that it made Xavier come to life. He reminded her of a wildflower: delicate but thriving under the sun's rays. It was fortunate he had her to protect him from life's hardships, she mused. 

The hearse swooped into the Addams' family driveway, tossing Xavier roughly against the car door. Wednesday didn't so much as sway through any of Lurch's abrupt swerves or turns, though it amused her endlessly to watch Xavier pitch against the sides of the car as they drove. 

The door to the mansion burst open before the hearse rolled to a complete stop, and Gomez awkwardly jogged down the steps, arms outstretched and beaming sinisterly.

Wednesday slid smoothly from the car and braced herself for her father's affectionate onslaught.

"My little viper!" Gomez exclaimed. "How I have missed you! It has been practically joyful without you around the house!"

Morticia glided to his side and kissed Wednesday's forehead as she tried to extricate herself from her father's embrace.

"We have suffered terribly without the threat of impending violence that you bring to our home," Morticia added. "But,  ma cher ," she added, running a black-tipped fingernail down her husband's cheek, "We agreed that we must learn to live without our darling's ominous presence. It is the fate of parents to watch their hatchlings leave the nest."

Gomez frowned momentarily before clapping his hands and pushing everyone toward the house. Pugsley waited just inside the door with Thing perched on his shoulder.

Wednesday held out her hand for Thing to scurry over to her and affectionately tap her pale cheek in greeting.

Lurch followed with the luggage, clomping up the porch steps and slamming the door behind him once he'd entered. Wednesday watched him scale the stairs to her room, debating whether to follow him or accompany Xavier, who was being hauled toward the library by her beaming father. 

Seeing her consideration, Morticia suggested Wednesday go to her room and decompress before joining the family for dinner.

Wednesday gratefully trailed after Lurch, desiring solitude after a day of interacting with other humans. Xavier didn't seem to mind the company of others so he could fend for himself. No doubt Gomez was already shoving a cigar and whiskey into Xavier's hands and peppering him with inane questions about the last few months. Wednesday had no desire to be part of that conversation. 

When she entered her room, she saw that Lurch had already deposited their baggage and shuffled off to tend to some other task. After months of being closed off from the rest of the house, the room felt dusty and stale. Wednesday breathed deeply, allowing the stagnant air to fill her lungs. With any luck, there'd be some toxic mold spores floating in the air. 

She crossed the room to her bathroom, dropping her clothes haphazardly as she went. The pipes protested and shuddered as she turned the tap to release frigid water into the tub. She needed to wash away the day, and a near-freezing bath was the best cure for numerous imposed social interactions. 

A wave of exhaustion crashed over her as she slipped into the water. Wednesday tipped her head back to rest against the tub and allowed herself to drift into sleep.

Chapter Text

Xavier regaled Gomez, Pugsley, and Thing with tales of their recent trials with evil in the Scottish Highlands, amusing his soon-to-be-in-laws to no end. Gomez insisted they would visit at the earliest opportunity, lamenting that his daughter was far from home. He quickly clarified that he bore Xavier no ill will for their self-imposed exile, instead embarking on a monolog about the world's rejection of anyone even moderately interesting .

They sat in the Addams' library while Lurch appeared on cue with round after round of rare bourbon followed by scotch. It was only 3:00 in the afternoon, but Xavier's head buzzed pleasantly from the drinks and the everpresent tobacco smoke spiraling from Gomez's perpetual cigar. He settled further into the worn leather chair, content to spend the afternoon half-listening to Gomez expound upon the merits of regularly engaging in fencing and other combat sports.

As the afternoon glided into the evening, the room's shadows grew more encompassing, and its various candles blinked to life without visible prompting. Lurch prowled around the house in a dainty apron, dusting the various taxidermy and weaponry that adorned the walls. Xavier slipped into something of a trance, lulled by the booze and the cigar smoke wafting through the library. Gomez rambled on about wedding preparations and his excitement about the upcoming nuptials, further soothing Xavier’s anxieties about wedding logistics.

Odd smells emanating from the kitchen finally shook Xavier into consciousness. Morticia glided into the room on a cloud of funeral lily perfume, her sleeves trailing gently along the plush carpet. She slithered over to her husband, alighting gently on his lap. Gomez wrapped a large hand around her slim waist and began planting a line of kisses from her long fingers to  her shoulder.

Morticia, seemingly oblivious to her husband's attentions, peered around the dimly lit room before resting her dark gaze on Xavier.

"N ow where is our little morbid bride-to-be? " she asked, her long hair shifting over her shoulder.

"P robably sticking needles into her eyeballs, " Pugsley offered.

"I do wish she would prioritize family time over her hobbies," Morticia sighed.

" C ara mia , " Gomez chimed in , " You know our little viper needs time to decompress. I imagine the rack will get quite a bit of use over the coming days with all the family and friends descending on us ."

"S elf-care is so important, " Morticia agreed solemnly. " Especially for a bride seeking that near-death pallor that photographs so well ."

" I 'll bring her down, " Xavier offered.

" D on't take too long, " Morticia called after him, " Lurch has made his delightful electric eel stew !"

Thing pattered up the stairs after Xavier as he ascended to Wednesday's bedroom. Despite his efforts at silence, the door creaked violently as he opened it. Hearing nothing as he stepped softly into the dim room, Xavier padded across the thick rugs toward Wednesday's ornate bathroom. He was unsurprised to find her asleep in the frigid water of her bath, her long lashes sweeping over the purple beneath her eyes.

Taking a breath to brace himself against the cold, he dipped his arms into the water, scooping Wednesday from the bath and carrying her into the bedroom. Thing had disappeared, intuiting that privacy was in order.

Xavier laid her prone form on the black linens of her ornate bed, allowing himself the luxury of taking in every inch of his slumbering fiancé. Her nipples were peaked from the cold bathwater, and his cock pressed hungrily against the zipper of his jeans. He had intended to bring her down to dinner, but his appetite for food had utterly deserted him, replaced by a much stronger need.

Running a hand through his tousled hair, he climbed onto the bed, hovering over the sleeping Wednesday, and captured one of her hardened nipples between his lips and then his teeth. He stilled for a moment , holding his breath to see if she would stir from the contact. Wednesday merely let out a small sigh while her eyes remained closed.

Smiling as he swirled his tongue around her nipple, he reached a hand between her thighs to find her warm and wet for him. He slipped one finger in and then a second, pausing again to see if she would wake. Instead, he was rewarded by a low moan of slumbering need, encouraging him to begin sliding his fingers in and out of her core.

Kneeling back between her open legs, Xavier removed his fingers and sucked her unconscious need from them, closing his eyes at the familiar sweetness that would never fully satiate him. Then he popped the button of his jeans and freed himself, aligning with her center and then slamming himself inside her to the hilt.

Wednesday's eyes snapped open as she gasped. Xavier didn't give her a chance to speak, smashing his lips against hers as he pumped violently into her. His feverish kiss swallowed Wednesday's cries of surprise and pleasure, and she raked her blunt nails painfully down his back.

Releasing her mouth, Xavier hooked his arms under her knees, pulling her further into him and thrusting into her as he felt her walls tighten around him. Wednesday's eyes rolled up and then fluttered close as she keened with her release. The sound caused Xavier's balls to tighten, and moments later, he exploded into her, coating her with his pleasure.

Panting, Xavier sank onto the bed beside Wednesday, whose eyes were still closed as she rode out the aftermath of her orgasm. Minutes passed before either of them spoke.

"W hile I dislike surprises as a rule, " Wednesday said at last, " I will accept similar ones in the future. And I do expect you to deliver them ."

Chapter Text

Xavier watched from the bed as Wednesday slipped on a long-sleeved black dress that fell just below her knees. After adjusting the white collar, she shot a glare over her shoulder, wordlessly summoning him to zip the back. Xavier ducked his head to hide his smile as he crossed the room to assist her.

"I presume dinner is prepared," Wednesday said, turning to face him.

"Something involving electric eels," Xavier replied. "I should be scared, but your family hasn't murdered me with a meal yet, so I'm actually looking forward to this."

"Yet," Wednesday repeated ominously, striding from the room.

Downstairs, the family was already seated around the mahogany table, chatting amicably as Lurch ladeled gray soup into their bowls. Little sparks of electricity danced across the surface of each bowl, ignored by the gathered Addams.

"Wednesday!" Morticia declared as the couple entered the dining room. "We were wondering if you two had decided to fling yourself from the roof rather than join us for dinner."

Turning to Gomez, she said , "Do you remember how we used to cast ourselves from the balcony of my parent's manor during the most ferocious storms?"

"How could I forget?" Gomez crooned. "You look loveliest when cold, drenched, and invigorated from tumbling through the air!"

Wednesday ignored her parents' romantic banter and silently took her seat.

"Your dress fitting is tomorrow, darling," Morticia said, reluctantly turning her attention away from her adoring husband.

"Time?" Wednesday demanded without raising her eyes from her crackling soup.

"3:00. Enid should be here by noon."

Wednesday frowned and spooned some more of the gray liquid into her mouth. Sparks danced along her tongue, temporarily distracting her from the table chatter. She stayed silent for the remainder of the meal, ignoring Xavier's concerned sidelong glances.

When she finished her soup, Wednesday abruptly stood, scraping the legs of her antique chair against the floorboards.

"I'm tired and need to rest," she declared.

Xavier shoveled two more bites into his mouth before dabbing it with his black napkin and stumbling after her as she swept from the room.

Gomez shook his head, and Morticia smiled thinly.

"Don't worry, my darling," Morticia soothed her husband. "Our little viper will come around to all of this soon enough. She just needs to decide for herself that declaring her love isn't the same as acknowledging weakness."

Upstairs, Wednesday slammed her typewriter case down on her childhood desk and threw back the lid.

"I need to write," she said to Xavier without turning around.

Her frown deepened as she heard him settle into an armchair instead of walking back out the door.

"Don't you have something to do? I'm sure your studio is still set up upstairs," she said through her gritted teeth.

Normally, Xavier's presence didn't irritate her, but between Enid's impending arrival and the looming dress fitting, Wednesday wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Her bedroom was suffocating now that she'd become accustomed to their cavernous Scottish manse, where she could easily slip away from the others to nurture her hobbies without interference.

"Fine," Xavier snapped, pushing himself violently from the chair.

Hamish, who had been napping happily in front of the fire, raised his head and let out a low whine.

"Come," Xavier ordered the hellhound, who looked briefly between Xavier and Wednesday before standing and padding after Xavier.

Wednesday flinched slightly as the door slammed behind them before rolling her neck and resting her fingers on the typewriter keys.

Xavier slashed the canvas with his paintbrush, a red line marring the already chaotic symphony of dark colors splashed haphazardly across it. He channeled his fury into his work, each color representing a perceived sin committed against him by Wednesday.

He'd painted late into the night, collapsing into bed in his old room across the hall from his studio, not bothering to go downstairs. This morning, he'd swung through the kitchen for some toast before retreating to his studio again to paint out his grievances. He knew he'd have to speak to her eventually, but first, he wanted to pour his emotions onto canvases.

Hamish whined as a growl rumbled from Xavier's chest as he surveyed his art. How could she be so cold towards him after everything he'd done for her? Sure, she'd moved to Scotland for him, but it wasn't like it didn't suit her just as well, if not more so, than him. The rainy weather, the gloomy mansion, and the suffocating isolation made her bloom like jasmine under a full moon.

A thunderclap shook the roof as if in response to his mood, preceding a torrential downpour that battered the high windows. Xaver plunged his brush directly into the pot of red paint, disregarding his palette in favor of a more aggressive technique. Losing himself in his rage, he allowed his art to consume him as the storm raged outside.

The morose doorbell sounded, prompting Lurch to lumber toward the door. He opened it to reveal a grinning Enid bouncing on her toes underneath a rainbow umbrella as a rental car pulled away behind her. Lurch bent to retrieve the sparkling pink roller bag by her feet as she went to collapse her umbrella before stepping into the hall.

"Stop," Wednesday said, clomping up behind Lurch. "We only put our umbrellas down once we're in the house. Can't let all the potential bad luck of having an open umbrella in the house go to waste."

Enid squealed and bounded into the house, discarding her open umbrella on the ornate rug inside the hall as she threw her arms around Wednesday. Wednesday accepted the hug as Lurch picked up the umbrella and closed it before lumbering off to take Enid's items to Wednesday's room.

"Where's Ajax?" Wednesday asked as she extracted herself from Enid's embrace.

"Oh, he went to drop off our things at the hotel. He texted Xavier, and Xavier said he was busy and would see us later," Enid replied.

"Is everything okay with him?" Enid's brow furrowed with concern. "He's never not down to hang."

Wednesday shrugged dismissively. "Cold feet, probably. He's been lurking around me since we got here, and I haven't had a moment to think until he went to his studio last night."

Wednesday turned and led the way to the stairs as Enid skipped behind her, deciding that Ajax could worry about Xavier's mood later. When they made it to Wednesday's room, Enid tipped her bag onto its side and unzipped it with a flourish.

Wednesday arched an eyebrow.

"Ta-da!" Enid declared, pulling a flouncy, deep maroon dress from the bag.

Wednesday crossed her arms and waited.

Enid sighed and rolled her eyes. "It's the bridesmaid dress, Wednesday! What do you think?"

Wednesday considered the dress for a long moment before saying, "It's passable, I suppose. The color compensates for all the ... unnecessary fabric."

Enid beamed. "Wonderful! I knew you'd love them! Now, most importantly, we need to get ready for your dress reveal! I saw Etan's sketches, and the design is to die for!"

"Hopefully," Wednesday muttered under her breath. Then she said, "We have a few hours until the fitting, and I don't expect much preparation is needed on my part aside from my cooperation."

"Ugh, Wednesday!" Enid groaned, "This is a whole thing ! First, we're getting lunch; then, we have to go get your hair and makeup done. We have to make sure you get the dress's full effect, obvs ."

Wednesday groaned, but Enid ignored her, pointing to Wednesday's purse on the bedside table. "Get your things, and let's go!" she demanded.

Wednesday grabbed the black, coffin-shaped leather bag and trudged after her enthusiastic maid-of-honor as Enid took up her skipping gait once again.

Lurch drove them into town through the rain to Kim's Tea Parlor, where Enid assaulted Wednesday with an array of teacakes and finger sandwiches. Fortunately, Kimmy took pity on Wednesday, and dropped a bit of nightshade into Wednesday's teacup while Enid was enraptured by a particularly adorable macron. Kimmy winked at Wednesday from behind the counter, and Wednesday gave her a nod of thanks.

Once they had eaten, Enid swept Wednesday back into the car and to the salon. Wednesday balked as they walked into the salon, and two gleeful beauticians descended on them.

"I will tie you to this chair if you don't cooperate," Enid hissed.

Wednesday smirked, "Do you promise?"

Enid rolled her eyes and prodded Wednesday forward.

The two women chattered with Enid for over an hour as they worked on Wednesday. They had initially attempted to draw Wednesday into their gossip, but one flat death glare had dissuaded them from speaking to her for the rest of the appointment.

When the pampering finally desisted, Wednesday prepared for the worst as they spun her to face the mirror, anxious smiles on both beauticians' faces. Her eyes widened slightly as she took in her hair and makeup.

Wednesday's hair had been styled in the way the young Queen Victoria had favored - pulled into a braided bun in the back, parted in the middle, and with a braid looped below each ear and pinned back into the bun.

Her eyes were deeply lined with kohl and shadowed with deep black. Her lips were also lined with black and colored such that the black faded into a deep maroon toward the center.

Enid clapped with delight. "It's perfect!" she gushed, pleased that her instructions had resulted in a look that Wednesday couldn't possibly find fault with. No one was more gothic than a Victorian, so the hair had been an easy choice. The makeup simply had to be dark enough that Wednesday would allow it residence on her face, and the artists responsible had executed the look precisely as Enid had envisioned.

Wednesday said nothing, but Enid knew her lack of protest was the highest compliment. She'd just need to explain that to the nervous beauticians later.

Generally pleased with the outcome of being assaulted at the salon, Wednesday walked to the car slightly less reluctantly than before and allowed herself to be taken to Etan's studio.

The rain was still pouring down, lightening Wednesday's mood. As they approached the studio, Wednesday almost felt a twinge of excitement before she clamped down on the irritating emotion.

The girls stepped into the store, and Enid rushed to embrace Etan, who kissed the air over each cheek. He did the same to Wednesday without embracing her. He'd only made that mistake once, back when she was only a child.

He clapped twice and spun on his heel. "Now, mademoiselle, follow me and behold my piece de resistance !"

They followed Etan into a back room, where he'd dressed a mannequin in his most incredible creation. He stood aside as Wednesday circled the mannequin, seeking some fault with the design before relenting and agreeing it was certainly his best work. It was different than the wedding dress she'd seen in her vision long ago, but Wednesday knew now that the particulars of visions tended to shift over time. In a way, she was glad of it, as the dress before her was a pleasant surprise.

The dress was black, of course, and took inspiration from true Victorian fashion and steampunk trends. The tight, high-necked, long-sleeved bodice was embroidered with sprigs of black belladonna berries. Six delicate silver chains were strung from one side to the other, stacked the length of the bodice from collarbone to waist. The sleeves were sheer black lace patterned with black roses, and a pair of black silk gloves with three onyx buttons at each wrist sat on a small table to the side.

The full skirt had multiple layers of ruched black silk, revealing the underskirts from which a small dagger, a carved onyx pocket watch, and a black-painted raven skull hung from silver chains of varied lengths.

Three stacked chains were looped along the bottom of the skirt except for at the front, where Wednesday would need freedom of movement to walk and dance.

After she circled the dress once, Etan clapped again, and a harried female assistant scurried into the room.

"Dress her," Etan commanded before turning and striding from the room.

Wednesday marveled at herself in the mirror as the assistant helped her step into the gown, then laced up the corset-style back. As if on an unheard cue, Etan paraded back into the room to supervise the assistant slide Wednesday's hands into the black silk gloves.

"Now, mademoiselle , ze final piece of my masterpiece," Etan declared, waving the assistant away to fetch a hatbox from another side table.

Enid bounced on her toes, jittery with excitement but trying to contain her gleeful noises until the look was complete.

Etan removed the lid from the box with a flourish, tossing it aside and scooping out a black silk top hat with a trailing black veil. The hat was adorned with black roses, each with a glistening black diamond nestled in its center. He placed it on Wednesday's head, the gauzy veil falling down the back of her dress and brushing its hem. Finally, he unrolled a black fascinator veil from behind the front brim to cage the right side of Wednesday's face.

Etan stepped back to admire his work.

"You are a vision, mademoiselle ," he declared, and Enid squealed with delight.

"OMG, Wednesday, this is , like, the darkest, most beautiful dress I've ever seen! Xavier is literally gonna die when he sees you."

The corner of Wednesday's mouth twitched upward at that. "I certainly hope so," she replied before turning back to the threeway mirror to admire her transformation into a bride of nightmares.

Chapter Text

Xavier's attic studio reeked of paint thinner, sweat, and simmering rage. Wednesday stepped inside without knocking, the door creaking pleasantly on its hinges. Xavier didn't turn around to face her, keeping his back to the door and focusing on his canvas. The air between them pulsed, sharp enough to cleave bone and sinew.

The scratch of his brush was vicious, slashing at the canvas with angry, seemingly sporadic strokes that formed a violent abstract collage of red, gray, and black. Wednesday crossed the room and stopped beside Xavier, cocking her head slightly as she appraised his afternoon's work. She appreciated the feral nature of the brush strokes, no two quite alike in width, length, or shape. Wednesday preferred many things to be orderly, but she could appreciate this piece all the same.

"You're back," he said, his voice flat and low, suspiciously void of its usual emotional range. Considering the viciousness with which he had attacked the innocent canvas before him, Wednesday's hackles rose, and her pupils dilated. There was no armor between Xavier's emotions and the world, so this calm demeanor, which gravely contrasted with the mood in the studio and the chaos of his work, piqued Wednesday's interest.

"I am," she answered, tone detached. "The fitting was... adequate."

Wednesday wouldn't admit her feelings about her dress and everything it symbolized. Eager anticipation for something so mundane as a wedding was something she would never own, even if it were true.

Xavier scoffed. The brush snapped in his hand. Wednesday's eyes widened ever so slightly with surprise, but she quickly schooled her face into apathy.

"That's it?" he said, voice rising as he finally turned to face her beside him. "You've acted like I barely exist since last night, completely blow me off, and all you have to say is 'adequate'?"

Wednesday tilted her head to meet his glare, studying him as if he were a particularly unstable specimen under glass. If only she were so lucky to be in that scenario instead of this one.

"You allow me to affect your mood far more than is healthy," she observed cooly.

Xavier's eyes turned molten with something she couldn't quite place — something raw and too close for comfort. It was an expression she'd never seen on him before today.

He tossed the halves of the broken paintbrush aside and wiped his paint-smeared hands on his jeans. The unfinished canvas behind him twisted, the chaotic strokes of color writing to life. Wednesday tensed nearly imperceptibly, not in fear but in anticipation.

"You want cold?" Xavier said, stepping toward her. "You want distance?"

A rope of red paint slithered across the floor, sinuous and alive. One snapped around her wrist before she could react, pulling her arm up, holding it suspended.

"I'll show you cold," he promised.

The second rope snaked from the canvas, thick and sure, coiling around her other wrist. Wednesday remained still as the ropes tugged, pulling her forward, her arms stretched taut between them.

Xavier's eye flicked behind her to the carpenter's horse where he draped his drop cloths, and a tight smirk tugged at his lips before he forced it from his face. Its rough wood and iron braces, slicked with age, would be perfect for this lesson. Another flick of Xavier's fingers — the ropes yanked, dragging her backward until her thighs bumped against it.

"Xavier," she said, maintaining her deadly calm demeanor, even as her pulse hammered in her throat.

"I didn't say you could speak," he snapped.

A fresh coil of rope shot from the canvas, wrapping around her waist, spinning her around to face the carpenter's horse, and forcing her down. The horse caught her midsection, angling her hips perfectly — vulnerable, offered. Mine, he thought.

More ropes pinned her ankles to the legs of the horse, spreading her wide. She wore her simple black dress from the fitting, but it hiked indecently high under the strain, exposing the pale skin of her thighs.

Xavier stepped in front of her, chest heaving, color still smeared across his forearms like war paint. His hand gripped her jaw, jerking her face to the side to meet his furious gaze and smearing streaks of red paint across her alabaster skin.

"You think you can keep pushing me away," he said, leaning over her back so she could see him, his voice low and shaking. "You think you can pretend you don't care."

Her mouth twitched into her characteristic amused smirk.

"I don't pretend. I simply don't require the emotional support that you do on a daily basis," she said in an amused tone.

His fingers tightened painfully on her jaw.

"Liar."

Behind her, the abandoned canvas shivered. More shapes rippled at the edges — promises of more bindings if they were needed. So far, Wednesday hadn't resisted, but he knew her well enough to be ready with additional restraints at all times. She was a viper and would strike just as fast and with as little warning as the snake she loved.

"You want cold?" he repeated, voice savage. "I'll give you fucking frozen."

He shoved her dress higher with a rough hand, tearing through the fabric of her underwear and tossing it aside, baring her completely to him.

Xavier's hands skimmed over her thighs, slow and almost reverent — a cruel contrast to the violence that had brought her here.

Wednesday's body betrayed her — shivering under his touch, straining against the ropes. The carpenter's horse bit into her hips, her legs spread wide, and her dress bunched around her waist.

"You don't even realize," he muttered, almost to himself. "How much you fucking undo me."

He dragged his fingers along the crease of her thigh, brushing close to where she ached, but not touching — not yet. This was his reward, his payment for her emotional distance and apathy. If she didn't want to talk about her feelings surrounding the wedding, fine, but he'd take his pound of flesh in return.

She shifted imperceptibly, a minute attempt to close the gap. Xavier smiled, sharp and cruel.

"Cold little thing," he said. "Even now, you won't ask."

He leaned down, mouth ghosting over the inside of her thigh, hot breath skating across her skin.

Wednesday's hands curled into fists against the restraints.

Another rope slid from the canvas, coiling around her throat like a collar — not tight enough to choke, just a constant, heavy reminder of his control.

"You want me to break you, don't you?" he whispered against her skin. "You want me to lose it. You want to be ruined."

A heartbeat passed.

Two.

Three.

She wouldn't answer, but Xavier smiled coldly all the same. She didn't need to.

Xavier straightened, undoing his belt with vicious efficiency.

The metallic clink echoed off the studio walls, a grim tolling.

"You're about to get everything you asked for, Wednesday."

And then he was lining himself up, no warning, no slow preparation — just the blunt, demanding press of him against her slick, wanting entrance.

He thrust into her with a brutal snap of his hips, burying himself to the hilt.

Wednesday gasped — sharp, involuntary — the first crack in her perfect composure.

Xavier gripped her hips hard enough to bruise, pulling out halfway before slamming back into her with a growl torn from his chest.

"Mine," he bit out, every thrust a violent punctuation.

The ropes creaked under the strain, but they held — just like she did, strung tight and helpless and gloriously claimed.

Xavier set a brutal pace, hips slamming against her ass with punishing force. Every thrust shoved her forward against the unyielding wood, the ropes biting into her wrists, her throat.

Wednesday's breath came in sharp, clipped gasps, not from pain, but from the relentless way he was taking her, leaving no room for thought, no room for distance. Exactly what he intended.

"You think hiding your emotions makes you safe?" he growled against the back of her neck, teeth grazing her skin.

"You think putting on a dress and saying a few words will protect you from my feelings? You think hiding behind that permanent scowl will keep you from pain?"

He drove into her harder, the sound of flesh meeting flesh loud and obscene in the cavernous studio.

"You're mine," he snarled. "No ceremony, no paper, no vows, and even no admission from you will ever change that."

Wednesday squeezed her eyes shut, but the ropes held her brutally in the moment. Every thrust, every word, slammed into her with the same brutal efficiency.

"You can lie to yourself," Xavier said, breath ragged, "pretend you don't feel it, pretend you don't need it."

He wrenched her hips back to meet him harder, forcing a low, broken moan from her lips — the sound escaping before she could strangle it. Everything inside her screamed at her to let go - to let him have her in the way he wanted. She resisted.

"But your body knows the truth," he whispered savagely. "I can feel what you feel in every fucking way that matters."

He released one of his hands from her hips, wrapping her pigtails around his fist and tugging just enough to make her back arch — offering herself up to him without even realizing it.

"Say it," he demanded, voice rough and desperate. "Say you're mine."

Wednesday shook her head minutely, the last shred of stubborn defiance clinging to her.

Xavier's answering laugh was low and feral.

"Fine," he said. "I'll fuck it out of you."

And he did — punishing her with every thrust, every savage snap of his hips, until there was no air left in her lungs, no space left between them, no walls strong enough to keep him out.

The tension coiled inside her, sharp and unbearable. Every thrust, every filthy word scraped her raw from the inside out.

Still, Wednesday refused to break — refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing her beg, confess, or yield.

Xavier sensed that last thin shield of defiance, and it drove him harder, rougher. His teeth grazed her shoulder, a silent threat that made her whimper with need.

"You can fight it," he gritted out, voice wrecked, "but I know what's going on in that dangerous mind of yours."

The words shattered something inside her. Her body seized, pleasure tearing through her with brutal force, her back arching against the bonds. She bit her lip until she tasted blood rather than give voice to the scream building in her throat.

Xavier fucked her through it — relentless, merciless, refusing to let her ride the wave quietly.

He chased his own release, using her limp, trembling body as he claimed her in every way she wouldn't admit.

When he came, it was with a low, guttural growl against her skin, his hips jerking as he emptied himself deep inside her.

For a long moment, the studio was filled only with the ragged sounds of their breathing. Then he pulled out slowly, deliberately, watching the way she trembled against the carpenter's horse, spent and leaking him down her thighs — the ultimate, brutal proof of his possession - his obsession - with her.

Wednesday pushed herself upright and whirled around to face him, but her trembling legs betrayed her. She nearly collapsed back against the carpenter's horse before Xavier's arm wrapped around her waist and swept her into his arms. She defiantly kept her chin lifted, her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line, her dark eyes blank with stubborn pride.

Xavier laughed under his breath — not mockery, but something dark and reverent.

"You don't have to say it," he said, fingers trailing over the bite mark he'd left on her shoulder. "Your body already did."

He pressed a kiss — rough, possessive — to the nape of her neck.

The ropes dissolved into dried paint flecks around her, the painting behind him finally spent.

She rested her head against his chest as he carried her from the studio to their room. She let her heavy eyelids drop shut, too proud to admit that, despite everything, she had never felt more claimed.

More his.

More alive.

Chapter Text

Viper twisted under Leo's hand, her teeth bared, but he only pressed her harder against the wall, the plaster beneath the elegant wallpaper groaning under the strain.

"You want a war?" he growled against her ear, voice rough with triumph. "You've got one."

She opened her mouth — to spit, to snarl — but he caught her jaw in one hand, brutal, forcing her to meet his gaze.

"Mine," he said, like a curse, like a prayer, like a command.

He yanked her hips forward and drove into her in one ruthless thrust.

Viper gasped, the sound torn from her throat without permission. Leo didn't give her a chance to breathe, didn't allow her to adjust — he fucked her hard and fast, grinding her against the crumbling wall, his fingers bruising her hips, his body a battering ram she couldn't and had no desire to resist.

Every stroke was a glorious punishment. Every thrust was a vow that things would never be the same for either of them. They had thrown themselves into the unknown without hope of return or rescue.

Her nails clawed at his back, drawing blood and bringing a smile to Viper's lips as she brought her fingers to her mouth and sucked his blood from each one. Leo laughed — low and feral — and slammed into her harder.

"You were made for this," he rasped, teeth scraping the shell of her ear. "Made for me."

Viper tried to snarl a denial, but it broke into a ragged moan as he angled his hips, dragging her closer to the edge with vicious precision.

She belonged to no one, certainly not this boy-criminal, but her body was betraying her — shuddering, clenching — even as her mind screamed defiance.

Leo felt it, grinned against her throat, and chased her down mercilessly. When she came, it was violent, gut-wrenching — a raw, silent scream punched out of her lungs as her body convulsed around him, clamping around his shaft and shuddering with release.

Leo followed her over the edge with a savage growl, emptying himself deep inside her in brutal, possessive jerks of his hips. He filled her with himself, knowing it'd be days before she could go without his seed dripping from her, reminding her that he had owned her for this moment.

They hung there — locked together, panting, the world narrowed to bruises and broken breath. Leo let her go first, stepping back and adjusting his belt with lazy satisfaction.

Viper slumped against the wall, legs trembling, mouth bloodied where she'd bitten her own lip.

Leo cupped her chin roughly, forcing her dazed eyes to meet his.

"Run all you want," he said, voice low and final. "I'll find you every time."

He pressed a kiss — bruising and possessive — to her wrecked mouth.

And when he finally turned and strode from the room, leaving her gasping, Viper didn't follow. But she didn't fight the smile curling at the corners of her bloodied lips, either. Leo may have thought he'd claimed her - that she would run from him now. But this was only the beginning of their war. And Viper had no intention of running or of losing.

In the end, it was simple:

He conquered her body.

She conquered his soul.

Wednesday rapped the final period on her typewriter and slid the sheet into the outbox to meet her own ruin.

Wednesday awoke to find herself alone and surrounded by the gloom of her bedroom. Muffled noises leaked through the seams of her closed windows. She rolled over, activating her reaper eyes to see the hands on her bedside clock. It was 6:00 p.m., and the sun hovered low over the nearby forest.

She'd allowed Xavier to wash the paint from her body after their encounter in his studio before she collapsed into her bed, exhausted. She groaned at the stiffness of her limbs as she pushed herself upright, enjoying the soreness that echoed through her body as a reprise from earlier that day. Pain was to be savored, and this pain was especially delicious due to its source.

Wednesday went unhurriedly to her closet to select a dress for tonight's party. Perhaps the only perk of being a bride is that everyone was expected to operate on her timeframe - something she wished the world would do all the time. She pulled on a long-sleeved dress with a hem that brushed the ground, then sat at her vanity and rebraided her hair.

Slipping silently downstairs, Wednesday was relieved to find the house empty and all the revelry coming from the back garden. She pulled on her clunky boots, a stark contrast to the elegant dress she'd chosen, and headed out through the kitchen door.

The mist curled around her ankles like gray cats as she strode toward the glow of a bonfire that licked the sky. Pugsley had clearly been hard at work, as evidenced by the discarded gas cans piled perilously close to the blaze.

Ahead, the family gardens sprawled under a bruised purple sky. Candles flickered like tiny spirits as the sun sighed its last for the day. The scent of burnt sugar, roasted meat, and belladonna hung thick in the air.

Xavier appeared at her side without a word, his fingers brushing the back of her hand in silent claim. Somewhat to his surprise, she let him. Perhaps this afternoon had been productive in getting his point across after all.

The guests were already gathered, some clearly well into their cups. Enid flitting from table to table in a black tulle dress embroidered with silver moons, clearly an homage to Wednesday, without sacrificing Enid's own over-the-top style. Ajax trailed after her, pulling at his shirt collar and muttering about the edibility of something labeled "Crow Croquettes" with too many rogue crow feet sticking from them at odd angles for his comfort.

Pugsley and Matilda sat cross-legged on the lawn, arguing over the comparative toxicity of various poisons while placing wagers on how high they would need to build the fire before the fire department was alerted.

Ben Hanson — poor, gentle soul — stood near a cluster of ancient gravestones, sandwiched between an exhilarated Professor Dahilia and an amused Professor Elowen. Hanson gripped a black glass goblet with both hands like a holy relic, eyes wide at the assembled chaos.

"Did you invite him just to see his reaction?" Xavier murmured, voice dry.

"He needs exposure therapy," Wednesday said simply. "I'm an altruistic person."

Xavier snorted a laugh.

Morticia materialized beside them as they moved deeper into the crowd, ethereal as ever.

"My darling, you look positively murderous," she said, kissing Wednesday's cheek with a chilly smile. "The perfect bride."

"Thank you, Mother," Wednesday replied, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from her black velvet dress while suppressing a snide comment about marriage. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Xavier fighting a smile, clearly aware of what she was thinking.

Just then, Gomez clapped Xavier on the back hard enough to nearly knock the wind from him. "You've no idea what you've gotten yourself into, boy," he said, beaming.

"I have some idea," Xavier said, eyes never leaving Wednesday.

Across the lawn, Matilda giggled as Pugsley whispered something in her ear. The torchlight caught the glint of matching silver rings on their fingers — grim little snake bands entwined, promising a future for them after graduation.

Ben Hanson approached nervously, clearing his throat.

"Hi, Wednesday," he said, half-bowing, unsure of the etiquette. "Just...wanted to say thanks for inviting me. It's...uh...incredible." He glanced at a table where a blackened pig's head grinned back at him. "Really incredible."

"You have not yet sampled the menu of questionable origin," Wednesday said. "You may withhold your review until you have."

Ben paled slightly but nodded, determined to be brave.

Overhead, the string quartet launched into a minor-key version of "Here Comes the Bride" that sounded more like a funeral march.

Wednesday smiled — a rare, small thing — and Xavier caught it, his hand flexing at his side like he wanted to grab her and never let go. He knew she wanted to play alongside them, but she shrugged off the urge and scanned the party for a glass of wine.

Tomorrow would be the ceremony. Tonight was for family. And family, as every Addams knew, was forever.

Morticia drifted across the party, cutting through the mist and music like a blade through silk.

She caught Wednesday's eye with a look, and that was all it took. Wednesday slipped away from Xavier, who glanced back at her before deciding to let her be and went to seek out his own mother.

Morticia led Wednesday through the candlelit garden into a small clearing, hidden from the gathering by a thick tangle of blackthorn and nightshade where they often performed rituals. A stone table stood at the center, cracked by time and veined with silver moss.

On it, Morticia had laid out a small ritual setup consisting of a black candle, a silver athame, and a vial of stormwater. Wednesday said nothing, but her pulse quickened. She recognized the marks carved into the candle — old sigils passed down through the bloodlines of both of her parents.

Morticia lit the candle with a whispered word, making the flame flare green before settling to a deep purple.

"My little stormcloud," Morticia said softly, her hands graceful over the ritual tools. "Tomorrow, you stand before death and vow to love. The two are not so different. Both demand everything."

Wednesday said nothing, sensing this was not a moment for interruptions.

Morticia picked up the dagger and pricked her own palm without flinching. Blood welled, black-red in the candlelight.

She offered the dagger to Wednesday.

Wednesday accepted it without hesitation, slicing her own palm with surgical precision learned as a child and honed from autopsies.

Their blood mingled as Morticia caught it in the glass vial.

The stormwater inside hissed and turned dark, swirling.

"This is our blessing," Morticia said, voice low and powerful. "May love tie you as tightly as death, and may you be wise enough to survive both."

She dipped her finger into the vial and drew a rune on Wednesday's forehead — a twisting sigil for protection and inevitable transformation.

The magic prickled across Wednesday's skin, sinking into her bones.

"Whatever you become," Morticia said, cupping her daughter's cold cheek with a blood-smeared hand, "become it fully. Love without mercy."

Wednesday felt the weight of it — a blessing, a warning, a bond.

"I will," she said simply.

Morticia smiled, and it was the kind of smile reserved for graveyards and wedding days.

When Wednesday returned to the party, the energy had shifted.

Gomez was brandishing a rapier he'd produced seemingly from nowhere, challenging guests to "friendly duels."

Enid shrieked with laughter as he bowed theatrically before Officer Hanson, who blanched but accepted a sword Thing had fetched from the hedge.

"You only have to bleed a little!" Gomez assured him.

Matilda sat on a low stone wall, narrating the fights in a breathless play-by-play to an enchanted Pugsley who absentmindedly lit matches and put them out with his fingers.

Meanwhile, the quartet had abandoned their dirges in favor of something wilder — strings wailing into a whirling, discordant rhythm.

The bonfire's flames leaped high, twisting black smoke into the purple sky. Without needing encouragement, guests began to dance around it — stomping, spinning, laughing in the firelight.

Enid yanked Ajax into a clumsy but enthusiastic whirl. Yoko and Divina twirled each other, black skirts billowing.

Even Thing got into the spirit, doing what could only be described as a series of enthusiastic cartwheels around the blaze, risking being trodden on by an unsteady reveler.

Wednesday stood at the edge, watching the chaos; the mist and smoke painted everything in a dreamlike, otherworldly light.

Xavier found her easily, slipping his hand into hers, silent and solid and hers.

"You ready?" he asked quietly, his voice almost lost to the roar of the fire. Wednesday squeezed his fingers once — a rare, almost imperceptible gesture of assent.

Tomorrow would come, with its vows, blood, and unspoken promises. Tonight, they belonged to the fire, the dark, and each other. They slipped away from the bonfire, leaving the revelry behind, and disappeared into the mist.

Chapter Text

The world was draped in gray mist when Wednesday awoke. Xavier's soft breathing told her he was still fast asleep, so she wrapped a black robe around her shoulders and slipped from the bedroom. She padded softly through the thickly carpeted rooms, exiting the house into the garden, where the thin layer of frost chilled her bare feet as she reminisced about the night she had captured lightning in a bottle. The memory of Xavier's rage warmed her heart as she wandered among the drooping greenery.

Wednesday left the house behind and headed toward the town's graveyard, slipping into her crypt without disturbing an early bird. The world was wrapped in quiet above, and only her footsteps echoed below the ground as she trekked through the tunnels to her secret sanctum.

Dust had gathered on every surface within the gilded sanctuary, and sheet music lay across the floor where she had spilled it so long ago. She recalled her vision of standing here, speaking to Thing on the morning of her wedding. But now she was alone, not needing reassurance from anyone, Thing included, about what she would do today. She had come to the decision on her own, with no persuading. As the Phantom who had inspired this place had once intoned, Wednesday had reached the point of no return.

Night fell, and the mist thickened as guests gathered, swallowing the Addams' garden in a sea of ghostly gray.

When Wednesday appeared at the head of the aisle, the gathered guests held their collective breath. Xavier waited for her under a broken stone arch twisted with cruel thorns, his red shirt and black suit making him look like the villain of one of the old-fashioned fairy tales - the kind without a happily ever after.

Wednesday's gown was a dream rent from the fabric of nightmares — black velvet clinging to her high-necked frame, stitched with glistening belladonna berries. Its gothic brilliance was outweighed only by Wednesday's own dark aura, the tendrils of which stole into everyone's heart as she glided past them down the aisle.

Six delicate silver chains draped her bodice as if she wore the remnants of broken shackles. Her sleeves were sheer lace, patterned with wilting roses, whispering over her skin like mourning veils.

From beneath the ruched skirts, talismans and amulets swung with each step — a dagger, a raven's skull, an onyx pocket watch — dangling from silver chains like grim trophies. Morticia enchanted each to attract or ward, ensuring the couple's unhappy ever after.

Wednesday floated down the aisle like a wraith come to claim a damned soul, her gray reaper eyes boring out from beneath her bangs. The black velvet runner concealed the tangle of thorns that adorned the garden. Wednesday kept her gaze steady, cold as the grave, and focused on Xavier.

As she reached him, the mist coiled tighter, and the guests collectively inhaled.

A new figure emerged from the mist: tall, cloaked in black, silver hair glinting like a blade in the stormlight.

Draven.

Wednesday's chest tightened — not with surprise, but with something colder, deeper.

Of course, he would come. All that moaning about his lack of peace and quiet had been bravado. Hamish, sitting regally by Xavier's side, huffed in knowing satisfaction. Leave it to the Hellhound to have known all along and give no hint to either her or Xavier.

Draven inclined his head to Morticia, who stepped aside gracefully, yielding the altar.

Draven’s voice carried through the mist, low and certain.

"Love," he said, "is the only force older than death. It binds more tightly than blood. It endures beyond bone, beyond memory, beyond ruin. When fire consumes the world, the only remnant of any of you will be the love you bore one another."

The guests — even Gomez, Pugsley, and Fester — fell unnaturally still, sensing the weight of the ritual.

"Tonight," Draven continued, "we do not merely bind two souls. We forge them into something greater. We meld a soul smelted within the relentlessness of death," he inclined his head slightly toward Wednesday, as if there might be any confusion of whom he spoke, "with one painted by an artist of life."

Morticia materialized beside Draven, and he withdrew an onyx dagger engraved with ancient runes from the black silver bowl she held. He held his hand out to Wednesday, who offered him her open palm.

Draven sliced a clean, even cut across her palm. She did not flinch, and from beside her, Enid silently swore she saw a small smile from beneath Wednesday's black veil.

Draven cut Xavier's palm with equal efficiency, and blood beaded and dripped into the bowl Morticia held beneath his hand.

Once their blood mingled in the bowl, Draven conjured a length of black silk from the air and placed it into the blood. The silk drank up their comingled blood like a vampire. Draven placed Wednesday's bloodied hand in Xavier's and bound them together with the silk, wrist to wrist, pulse to pulse.

"Speak," Draven commanded. "And be changed."

"I bind myself to you. Not to tame you, but to stand with you. Whatever you become — you are mine. And I am yours until the stars fall from the sky and the oceans rise to consume them."

The knot tightened of its own accord, silk dark with blood.

Wednesday paused before she began, drowning the guests in silence. Then her voice rang out, clear and sharp.

"I bind myself to you. Not from need, but because I would rather fall beside you than live without the sound of your voice calling me ruin."

The mist thickened. A crack of thunder rolled through the clouds. The silk binding them tightened again, and Xavier winced. Wednesday scoffed softly at his sensitivity.

"The binding is done," Draven intoned, voice grim and final.

"Go forth. Wreck each other as only true lovers can."

Their kiss — slow, devastating — sealed the union.

Behind them, the bonfire ignited with a roar.

As the first cold drops of rain hissed into the fire, the raucous guests descended on the long banquet tables draped in black cloth and decorated with bloomless roses from Morticia's greenhouse.

Gomez clanged a goblet against a dagger and roared:

"A dance for the dead and the newly damned!"

The string quartet — down to two exhausted violinists and a manic cellist — struck up a furious tango.

Wednesday recognized the opening notes instantly: the same tango they had danced years earlier when everything had still been unfinished between them.

Xavier offered his hand without words.

Wednesday took it, her fingers tightening with silent ferocity.

They moved as one — blades twining, predators circling.

The dance was no longer about performance; it was about survival, possession, and ruinous joy twisted into something darker and more enduring.

The fire threw mad shadows across their faces and their bodies. Mist swallowed the world's edges, and many guests caught glimpses of wraith-like revenants hovering just outside the light.

When the music died in a final, gasping note, Xavier pulled her into a savage dip, their foreheads pressed together, breathing the same broken air.

Around them, the Addamses howled their delight.

Gomez challenged Divina and Ajax to duels with battered rapiers. Morticia quickly outdueled three other guests before retreating to dance barefoot around the bonfire.

Thing stole cake with impunity before being chased into the hedge by a scolding Enid.

Ben Hanson was tackled into the fountain by a rogue piranha, only to be saved by Uncle Fester.

And through it all, Wednesday and Xavier remained tethered — never straying more than a hand's breadth apart. As the fire raged on and the guests descended further into drunken revels, the couple stole away from the revelry and into the house.

A fire crackled in Wednesday's hearth, casting deep pockets of shadow into the corners of the room. The bedchamber was all velvet and shadow and the lingering, iron-sweet scent of an oncoming storm.

Wednesday locked the door behind them and turned to Xavier, silver eyes glinting.

Tonight was hers.

Without preamble, she shoved him back against the door, binding his wrists above his head with a new black silk cord — a mirror of their handfasting, but this time, with her in command.

Xavier didn't resist. He bared his throat to her like a beast offering itself up to the executioner.

Wednesday circled him slowly, stripping away his jacket, blood-red shirt, and every layer of emotional armor until he stood unflinching under her ever-penetrating gaze.

"You gave yourself to me," she said, her voice cold as the grave. "You knelt at my altar. You burned your name into my bones."

She trailed her gloved fingers down the curve of his ribs, nails scratching lightly.

"Now," she said, "I will remind you who you belong to."

The first murmur of thunder sounded outside, and a brief blue flash told Wednesday that Morticia had cast a dome of magic over their guests so that the revelry could continue unbothered by the oncoming storm.

Xavier stood exactly where she had left him: silent, obedient, bare-chested, wrists already bruising from the silk she’d tied too tight.

Wednesday paced around him like a predator weighing her options.

She had discarded her hat and gloves but still wore her elaborate gown, which rustled as she moved, covering her body in stark contrast to his half-nude form before her.

“You expected softness on our wedding night?” she queried, circling him. “Don’t insult me.”

Xavier didn't speak, but his eyes sparked with desire and stifled amusement. Wednesday frowned at the glimmer in his eye. Perhaps she'd made him too comfortable - that must be remedied tonight.

Wednesday approached slowly and removed her veil — a thin, gauzy thing soaked from the rain and clinging like mist — and tied it around his eyes.

"Now you're perfect," she whispered, lips grazing his jaw.

She didn’t kiss him. She didn’t even touch him at first. She just stood there — watching him breathe harder, faster, until the tension in his shoulders quivered.

Then she lunged, biting into his chest and breaking the skin. He moaned softly. She smiled.

She pulled a length of chalk from her garter and drew a thin, curling rune on his chest with practiced strokes. It looked like a knot. Or maybe a noose.

"A binding," she said. "Don’t worry. You're impervious to even this level of blood magic. You’ll live."

She pushed him back onto the bed and climbed over him with calculated grace, the heavy black skirts rustling like silk mourning. She didn’t bother with fully undressing, instead hiking her gown up around her waist and tearing his belt open.

His breath caught when she wrapped one hand around him, slow and cruel, stifling her own desire to let him fill her. She didn’t stroke. She didn’t rush. She waited. Wednesday had always found patience to be rewarded.

Then she leaned down — lips brushing his ear, barely a ghost of touch — and whispered:

“Do you feel holy yet, or do I need to hurt you?”

He whimpered, his length twitching with need in answer. Good.

She lowered herself onto him slowly — inch by inch, impaling herself with the control of a surgeon and the hunger of a storm. She watched his bound body strain against her, watched the way his jaw clenched under the veil.

Every time he tried to thrust up into her, she stopped. Pulled off. Waited.

“You don’t get control,” she murmured. “You gave that up the moment you said 'I do'.”

She teased him for what felt like hours — slow grind, near-finish, retreat. Again. Again. Until his arms trembled from restraint and sweat gleamed on his skin like holy oil. The storm grew torrential outside, hail and thick raindrops lashing against the leaded glass windows. Candles in the room guttered in response to the howling wind outside as it clawed for entry into the house.

Only when Wednesday was shaking too, her famous restraint worn to shreds did she let herself fall forward and fuck him in earnest. Hard. Violent. Rhythmic like ritual. Their bodies conversing in a way learned over hundreds of nights like this, and the barriers between their souls growing hazy and undefined.

Lightning flashed, bathing the room in eerie white light. Thunder cracked, and the house's old siding groaned in symphonic cacophony in time with their movement.

Wednesday rode him like a horse into battle. When she came, it was with her hand wrapped around his throat, and her teeth bared in something that might’ve once been a smile.

Xavier followed with a strangled groan, body rigid, then falling limp beneath her, helpless and undone.

She didn't move right away. Rather , she pressed her palm flat over the rune she'd drawn on Xavier's chest, feeling his heart thundering like a thousand sets of hooves beneath it.

Mine , she thought.

She unwrapped the veil from his eyes last, slowly and reverently.

His pupils were blown wide. His mouth was open in a whisper he didn’t know how to finish.

“Good boy,” she said softly, stroking a bruise blooming along his collarbone. “I accept your offering.”

And Xavier — fool, lover, husband — wrapped her in his arms like a man who knew he had won the only prize that ever mattered.

Outside, the storm raged as they slipped into deep oblivion.

Chapter Text

Wednesday silently crossed her office, footfalls muffled by the heavy, dark carpets. She sank into her leather chair and tapped her blunt nails against the mahogany desk, relishing the silence. 

Enid, Ajax, and their rowdy litter had left moments before after a week spent preventing Wednesday from having a moment of peace. Enid was swollen with another brood, while Ajax attempted to herd the two gorgons and three werepups they had already spawned. 

The litter was four years old, and the next would add another three squalling offspring to their brood. Enid managed their litter with ease as a werewolf, though there were moments when Ajax seemed in over his head. It was an ill-kept secret that he stoned his children when they got too out of hand. Wednesday imagined that was the only way they'd managed to have a moment of solitude to make their second litter. 

Wednesday heard Xavier's soft footfall on the stairs followed by the clicking of Hamish's claws just behind him. He had a pile of commissions and hadn't touched a brush while their friends had visited. The studio was tightly locked after the first night when the little pack had snuck in and painted themselves various colors before running through the house. One of the little gremlins stoned Xavier as he came rushing out of the bedroom to investigate the clamor. It took two hours for movement to return, and Ajax was mortified for the entire day following the incident. 

Wednesday felt that the fuss was much ado about nothing. She and Pugsley had caused far more destruction in their youth than a few stained carpets and a stoned psychic. Besides, it was mildly convenient to have a petrified version of Xavier whom she could store in convenient locations. 

She settled into her leather office chair and cracked her knuckles before sifting through the pile of files on her desk. She was consulting on a possible serial murder case, and their guests had taken precious time away from poring over the autopsy photos. The commotion had been enough that even Xavier needed some time with his own thoughts this afternoon, leaving her to relish in the surgical execution of the latest victim. It was unfortunate that he wasn't likely to allow her to try and replicate some of the more creative slashes on him later to enhance her understanding of the killer. 

Raindrops flung themselves against her window, and the oil lamps guttered to life with a wave of Wednesday's hand. The house was never quite silent - its stone and wood creaked with age and weather, and an odd spirit groaned from behind a door every so often. The gloominess blanketed them in their remote retreat. 

The house, like its mistress, sighed contentedly in the storm. For all their chaos, Enid and Ajax's pack had left the space fuller, noisier, and smelling faintly of wet dog and crayons. Wednesday traced a finger over a bloodstained corner of a photo, then resumed her study of the latest cadaver.

In another hour, Xavier would emerge with paint beneath his fingernails and a headache from overexposure to familial affection. He would collapse into a chair before the fire, Hamish's nose pushing into his hand seeking affection. 

Draven would likely glide through the room, tutting at the disarray left by the little ones, though Wednesday knew he secretly enjoyed their foolishness. 

But for now, there was only the storm, the hush of her thoughts, and the elegant brutality of the work before her.

Wednesday smiled.

Peace was fleeting. But murder? Murder was forever.