Chapter Text
‘How does this happen? To fall in love and be disassembled.’
There were two ways to progress from their last encounter: succumb to the distance that seemed to close between them each time, or cruelly force the distance wider.
To succumb would make those eight months of waiting fruitless and wasteful - they were spent to strengthen his waning willpower. It would show that those eight months had done nothing to improve his willpower that he had so carefully, so miserably crafted in her absence. But to succumb would be the most saccharine appeasement to that ferocious heart which thrummed against his ribcage for her.
Her presence was an undoubtedly immersive one: he was steeped in her every time he’d seen her since eight months past, beckoned by her dark eyes and solemn mouth.
To speculate now how it would be to fall into affectionate patterns with her was reckless and ultimately fatal; he’d not yet given himself to that death.
Not yet.
The truth of the matter was that she would not have him.
He had seen her and loved her first. Even before their families intervened with their own schemes and plans, his heart had been stolen by her dark beauty at his ill-fated cousin’s funeral. He’d seen her, loved her, and wanted her.
Even before the lot of them arranged a union, a contract between the youngest Addams bachelor and the eldest blonde Frump daughter, he had already pledged his love and life to her.
He had confessed he loved her - l o v e d her. He loved her more than he dared to loathe her for not returning his love.
He had come to her door with the demand that she tell him she loved him. They would run away together. He didn’t want any of it - not all the riches of the ancient Addams clan could sway him from her. Run away with him, he demanded - no, pleaded. They would start anew. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere where nobody would know them. Just the two of them. That was all he needed. He would keep them safe. He would throw away his cigars and forsake every other luxury that made him a devil among men for her.
He would break every bone in his body to make her comfortable.
They would be together.
Yet, in all the storm of that evening, she had not said it.
Her eyes had silently met his as she shook her head, no, and the finality - the certainty, her calmness made his stomach drop. His hands dropped from hers too, turning clammy with panic.
A pathetic question then, from his stammering lips: Are you sure? Are you really sure?
He knew now that he shouldn’t have questioned her - the woman she was, she would not turn back on a decision so easily. To question her was a mistake on his part.
The truth of the matter was that she would not have him.
Numbly, he’d turned away from those Frump manor stairs, his beating heart crumbling with every step. The door closed behind him, a stony silence in place of her answer, and he’d walked - he’d walked and walked and walked and walked and walked for hours and hours in the miserable, cold rain, letting his staggering feet take him wherever they would. His mind twisted and turned to make sense of it all.
True, she had not uttered those words -those very words he’d never imagined pledging to anyone before her- but hadn’t she looked at him that way too? Hadn’t she looked at him with burning hunger that rivalled his? She had, she did. He’d not imagined it. Her eyes had gazed upon him with shock, recognition, curiosity, and then passion. They’d recognized each other even before exchanging words, sharing something grander - something primal. Even before he learned of her name, he knew who she was: she was everything he'd ever wanted in his life without even realizing it. She was an immortal beauty, a goddess among men and he her humble, willing slave.
Just as he’d seen her for who she was, she had too.
And she liked it.
She’d wanted him. She had, she did.
He was sure of it.
What had happened?
Again and again, those painful questions swirled in his mind. Hadn't she wanted him too? Didn't she? What had happened?
By the time he reached the Addams manor, the pouring rain had washed over him, soaking the deep recesses of his despairing soul. When his faithful servant, Thing, found his pitiful master hours later, he was crumpled on the front steps, unconscious, drenched and ruined like his heart. His devilishly coiffed hair was stuck lifeless on his face, the pomade doused away, no traces to be seen. His burgundy jacket, clean and excellent hours before, was in tatters after hours of aimless walking in the downpour.
Pathetic, but the loss of her love had made him so.
(Had he ever had her love to begin with?)
Her face drifted in and out of his troubled mind, turned dark and delirious with the dangerous fever that threatened to consume him.
For days, his heated body slumbered in bed as a corpse would, her scent, her eyes, those coy red lips haunting his memory. She was so beautiful. So pale and mysterious that no one had even looked at the unfortunate body put on display at the funeral. As much as he’d loathed the bastard that was his cousin Balthazar, there had been one silver lining to it all: a meeting with his fate. She had hopelessly, utterly, completely bewitched him.
Her name a silent prayer on his cracked lips, he’d slipped in and out of consciousness for days, weak hands clawing at the empty air for another caress of her soft, pale skin.
His senses couldn't fool him even if they'd tried.
Weeks later, he’d gathered himself and left - but not before promising a return to Mr. and Mrs. Addams who’d let their (remaining) son leave on one condition: upon his return in eight months’ time, he would be wedded to Ophelia Frump. With the sudden disappearance of their eldest son almost a decade earlier, they were not taking any chances.
Gomez Addams would return in eight months.
Gomez Addams would be gone for eight months.
Desperate to leave, to run away and lick his wounds, to escape the heavenly, hellish memories of her, he’d agreed hastily.
Eight months had come and passed.
The time came knocking at his door.