Chapter Text
You are the moonlight of my life, every night
Givin' all my love to you
My beatin' heart belongs to you
— Last Night on Earth (Green Day)
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Sunlight, pale and grudging, filtered through the tall windows of the master chamber. It fell across a room that had not changed in decades: the black velvet drapes, the candelabra that burned at all hours, the collection of antique blades mounted on the wall like a gallery of fond memories. And in the center, dominating the space like a monument to inevitability, stood the coffin.
Wednesday Addams had commissioned it on her fiftieth birthday. A handcrafted black walnut, lined with crushed velvet the color of dried blood, fitted with silver handles shaped like ravens in flight. And she'd tested it annually, lying inside for exactly one hour each year while Tyler timed her and took notes on comfort adjustments. It was, she'd declared, the finest piece of furniture she would ever own.
But now, she lay in it, propped against silk pillows, and waited. Because age had done what no enemy, no killer, no supernatural threat had ever managed. Alas, it had slowed her. Not broken, of course, Wednesday Addams did not break, just slowed.
Her hair, still braided each morning by Tyler's careful hands, now had gone the color of winter bones. Her face, sharp as ever, had acquired new lines that mapped decades of disdain and delight in equal measure. Her hands, that once so deadly, now rested on the velvet like pale birds at rest.
But her eyes—those endless black pools that had first swallowed Tyler whole all those years ago—remained unchanged. They watched him now as he sat beside her coffin, with his own hands wrapped around one of hers, and his thumb tracing circles on her papery skin, with the precision and love only Wednesday Addams could pulled off.
Tyler, on the other hand, had aged differently. The Hyde's resilience had kept him stronger longer, but time claimed everything eventually. His hair had gone silver, then white. His face held the map of every year he'd spent loving her, every gray day after her command, every hunt with her or with their daughter, every memory spell with their son. He was ancient now, in the way of things that had simply refused to stop.
But his eyes—warm where hers were cold, soft where hers were sharp—still held the same devotion they'd held on the day he'd first followed her home, covered in blood and fury, and never left ever since.
"It's time," Wednesday said. Her voice had not aged. It cut through the quiet like a blade, precise and unforgiving.
Tyler's hand tightened on hers immidiately. "How do you expect me to live a day without you, Wednesday?"
"You'll find a way. Our children will see to it."
"Wednesday—" Tyler stopped, his breathe rigged. His words failed him for a moment. "You've known for years, since we first bound ourselves together, that I as a Hyde cannot survive without my—"
"But you have to." She turned her head on the pillow, fixing him with that stare that had never lost its power. "It would be a shame to meet you again so soon. And honestly, I have only just begun to enjoy the peace of waiting. So don't interrupt me prematurely."
Tyler laughed at her, though it sounded a little broken but still familiar. "Always with the practicality. Even now."
"Practicality has kept us alive for more than sixty years. I see no reason to abandon it for death."
Slowly and gently, he lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "But my life without you will be empty. And Gray. And Flat."
"Sounds ideal to me."
"You would think that." He shook his head, smiling despite himself nit believing their situation. "All these years, and you've never changed. Not once."
"I thought you loved that about me."
"I do." His voice cracked. "I do, but I... I can't live without you, Wednesday. Not me, not the Hyde—"
Something shifted in her eyes, softness, perhaps, and it was so briefly visible before she hid it away the next second. She had always been careful with her tenderness, dispensing it in measured doses like medicine. But Tyler had learned, over decades, to read the spaces between her words.
"Sixty years we have been together," she said quietly. "And years ago, you stood in my family's cemetery and promised to follow me anywhere. You kept that promise then until now. You followed me through murders and miracles, through children and grieves, through every gray day and every dark night. You have always followed me until I had to order you to stop."
"You know I would have followed you into the grave."
"I know." Her hand squeezed his, faint but real. "That's why I couldn't let you."
Tyler's eyes burned. He didn't bother hiding the tears because he knew Wednesday had never respected false stoicism. She'd told him once, early in their marriage, he remembers, that tears were simply evidence of feeling, and feeling was the only proof of living. He'd cried freely before her then, ever since, and certainly, now.
"Live long, Tyler." Her voice firmed, taking on the tone she'd used as his master, his wife, his love, and his equal. "As your master and wife, I command it."
He shook his head, wordless protest.
"Meet me again when you feel you have achieved a good life of a Hyde without its master." She held his gaze, relentless. "Do not come sooner. Do not make me wait in vain."
"Wednesday—"
"That is an order."
He stared at her—this woman who had saved him, claimed him, loved him in her own strange and absolute way. This woman who had given him their dark children and purpose and a home among monsters. This woman who was leaving him behind because she trusted him to survive.
"What if... I can't?" he whispered.
Her smile came slowly, spreading across her face like dawn over a graveyard—rare and beautiful and utterly Wednesday.
"You are an Addams, Tyler." she said. "You have survived my family, my enemies, my grief, my anger, and my love. So, I know, you will survive this too. And when you come to me at last, old and satisfied and ready, I will be waiting."
She reached up, her hand trembling slightly, and cupped his cheek. And Tyler bowed his head, pressing his forehead to hers, and let himself weep.
They stayed like that as the afternoon bled into evening, as the candles burned lower, as the room grew dark. Tyler held her, and Wednesday let herself be held, and somewhere in the quiet hours between sunset and moonrise, she slipped away.
He felt it when she went, because there is a stillness where there had always been motion, even at rest. The Hyde too, keened inside him, a soundless wail of severance, but Tyler remained where he was, forehead pressed to hers, hands wrapped around hands that would never hold him back.
When he finally lifted his head, her eyes were closed. Her face was peaceful. She looked, for the first time in the sixty years he'd known her, like she was truly resting.
He kissed her forehead. Once. Twice. At last, third time, because three was her favorite number and he would not stop counting in her absence.
"Sleep well, my darkness," he whispered. "I'll keep my promise. However long it takes, however painful it feels."
He sat with her until dawn.
And when the sun finally crept over the horizon, painting the room in colors she would have despised, Tyler Addams rose from his wife's coffin, wiped his face, and walked out to find his children.
Since then, his true gray days had begun.
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