Work Text:
In the Addams home, love is not until death do us part. It can be, if one wishes it, but often the other clings stubbornly, to life or to their love. It is an unwise Addams who does not make the end of love as distinct as the breaking of bone. But of course, many Addamses cling to it all the same, as flesh loves both shards.
So Gomez has always learned it.
He knows, as the younger brother, that the house will never be his, all its echoing halls and groaning towers, the boneyard where he learned his letters, where he and Fester chased each other in and out of brambles and oleander. Oh, his brother would never turn him out, but it will never belong to Gomez as it does to Fester.
It is a thought he returns to more when Fester disappears, and less when he meets and marries Morticia, and again when he becomes the head of the family. A thought simple and stark as a needle, a thought arriving again and again in his flesh as events pour through the years like rain — the house does not belong to me.
And, as with many things he links with his brother, the thought festers, and is lanced by Fester himself.
"Aw, Gomez," Fester says, good-naturedly, as they wait for something, hopefully big, to tug on their lines. "Who's the one raising a family here, huh? 'Course it's yours."
"It's about to be a lot quieter," Gomez sighs, staring across the black water. "You taking Pugsley journeying, Pubert starting college, my little Wednesday marrying... we won't know what to do with ourselves."
"Not if ya don't put some thought into it!"
***
Their home has always been large. Delightfully echoey, just how Great-Great-Half-Great-Grandfather Addams built it, but after years of the children's antics and the occasional explosion, the echo is both too loud and too quiet.
"Empty nesting," Margaret declares, daintily mopping up jam from her plate with another piece of the fluffy bread they get especially for her. "Everybody feels it. You get so used to a little one and they take a piece of you with them when they go. What asked for my appendix once they took it out and I found just the most lovely jar for it. He used to keep it on his shelf before he moved into his dorm."
"Pubert loved the hair blanket I made for him," Morticia says wistfully. "He says it's the first thing people comment on when they visit his room. And it was so difficult to collect enough from everyone's head too."
Alice says much the same thing when she and Mal drop by to discuss wedding preparations. Well, preparations to prepare for the wedding, really. They have all sorts of considerations that they insist on with the guest list, and even if Wednesday and Lucas will disregard those completely, it's good to clear that first.
"Activity, you know! Once they're independent, we practically have to learn to live again instead of teaching them about life." Alice gestures around the big empty ballroom where the kids want to hold their ceremony. "I can just feel a rhyme coming on—"
***
In the moonlight, perched on the ledge of the highest tower of the house with graveyard and garden spread below them, it's like the night they met all over again. Although there's no crowd of celebrants and mourners, and he certainly wasn't tied up then.
Still.
The tickle on her ankle tells her that Gomez has gotten partway free. She swings it gently, just out of reach, so he'll strive a little further, and leans over to smile at him. "Patience, my darling. Midnight is hours yet in coming."
He makes a noise of assent, eyes glinting with promise, and continues his struggle, swinging too wildly to suit a pendulum. She swings her legs enough to the other side of him to trail bare toes down his spine, prodding each meticulous knot she's made. The first flush of manic love lingers even now, but decades of marriage have tempered it with a archive of desires and amorous treasures. And yet, even now, still there's more to discover, by deed or by word. And what love there is between them belongs only to them, but the love for those around them... well.
They do so like to share, and she has his undivided attention, so she only waits for him to get up beside her before distracting him.
***
"A hotel?"
"A hotel!"
"A what?"
"Oh, I know someone who's perfect for this!"
The flurry of reactions around the breakfast table pauses to focus on Wednesday's fiance, who's pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his contacts. Wednesday herself is bewildered at the idea of people coming to stay regularly, Grandmama has dropped her ladle, and both of Lucas's parents are speechless. Gomez beams at his future son-in-law.
"Do you? Ah, Wednesday, my little nightshade, more and more I feel that you've chosen well. The guests who come to stay will be a poor substitute for your gloomy aura, but you shall have a marriage as lovely as your bones."
***
"When was this built?" Lucas' friend sputters as soon as she steps out of the hearse, weeks later. "Oh man, there's no elevator, is there?"
"Oh, there are ways around that," Morticia assures, arm in arm with her husband. "We can rectify the gallows somehow, put some pulleys in..."
"No, no," the young woman says hastily. "Just put a pin in it. Plenty of historical places have ADA non-compliance grandfathered in." She hefts her bags. "Why don't we get inside and you can show me around."
"Very well," Morticia says, leading the way up the front steps. "The model clock first, so you can show us where to put the pin in. Voodoo architecture, how novel!"
***
The Addams House has a reputation.
It's old, it's just about fit for human habitation if you keep to the areas the manager tells you to (tip: listen to the manager), it has character. So much character. 'You stay here for the experience,' writes one TripAdvisor reviewer, 'because it's neither convenient nor comfortable. Beds are fine, bring noise-cancelling headphones, and be prepared to feel something crawl over your foot.'
Another gushes about the good time they had. 'The Addams family still lives in their ancestral home and it's so wonderful of them to open their doors to us. They even let people visit their private cemetery, which is so meaningful to have so many generations of one's family in the same place. Mr and Mrs Addams are such a lovely couple that I spontaneously proposed to my girlfriend — we were basically dreaming of a love like theirs! Five hundred stars because upon announcing our engagement Mrs Addams fussed about us not having engagement jewelry and literally gave us a ring out of her own collection.'
"This isn't a good business model to have, Mr Gomez," Qin says, as she has every month since she started insisting on regular meetings about the state of the hotel. It's rote by this point, the Addamses have galaxies more than enough cash to plug the myriad leaks caused by enthusiastic generosity, but her salary is one of those leaks, so she wants to live up to the faith they're putting in her.
"Pah, business models. Are the guests frightened out of their wits when they go? Do they have deeper, darker nightmares? So long as they leave satisfied, we are satisfied!" Gomez proclaims. Morticia tuts and pours Qin another cup of her bland sweet tea.
"The moans just haven't been the same since Fester and Pugsley went. I'm sure that's what she means, my darling."
Qin bites back a sigh and sips her tea, making sure there aren't any tadpoles in it. Another month, another problem to solve. Maybe some history or genealogy will occupy them away from the more mundane day-to-day. Addams romances down the ages, yes, that'll work. And she needs to pester Lurch into helping her with the chandelier in the south foyer.
***
The house is so much chattier since guests have come. Not that they can hear it, no, its tales are told down below. They've tried to sort out tours, but the guests balk before getting that far down and sometimes the house is shy, so for now it's just Grandmama and Lurch and sometimes Qin.
Gomez and Morticia only ever go down with each other, hand in hand. Among stalactites and stalagmites, in the dripping of water and the flickering of candle light, they listen to the house, to stories they have never heard. Of an aunt, a brother, a daughter, a cousin, here and there and far away, Addams down the ages.
They retell these stories, when they rise, but they keep the story of themselves tight within them. It is not for others to know how deeply Gomez' gaze cut the first time Morticia Frump saw him, or the tumult of despair Gomez felt when Morticia delayed (only a heartbeat!) in answer to his proposal. The joys of one, then two, then a third child, the anguish and support during the days when it seemed Fester betrayed them. They listen, and they remember, and they waltz.
And in the night, sometimes, guests open bleary eyes to the sound of music, somewhere deep below, before drifting off and dreaming of the delight their hosts have in each other.