Jeremy grumbled awake the following morning, to the smell of burnt candle wax. Sitting up and stretching for a moment, he wasn't even entirely sure it was morning but for the sliver of light peeking in from behind the set of blackouts covering the bedroom window. He checked his watch and it was 6am. He shrugged — it had been about as good a night's rest as he'd been getting lately.
He sauntered over to where he could make out the outline of the window and inched the blind away from the glass, in an effort to wake his eyes up. His room had a view over a small, cobbled courtyard and a garden, where it looked like Wednesday or Lurch must have been attempting to grow red roses. They looked a little worse for wear. He let go of the blind again, preserving the sacrosanct darkness of the house.
Taking a peek out his door, he couldn't hear a thing besides Lurch snoring away in the adjacent room. He ventured a step out, noticing that the study opposite him was shut. He figured Wednesday must have been using the room to read.
He rocked back and forth indecisively.
'Well it's not like I'm planning to stay for breakfast — I'd better just let her know I'm leaving,' he decided.
He tiptoed across the landing to the door, giving it a couple of quiet knocks.
He figured he'd mention that he wanted to make sure his car wasn't on the street for when the no-parking period came into effect in a few hours, or something like that. He couldn't really imagine there being any kind of awkward, long goodbye. He anticipated opening the door to find her sitting there mysteriously, in her leather armchair, reading one of her crime books, or whatever it was she'd mentioned to him the previous night. Perhaps she'd be wearing the same dark dress she did the previous night. He briefly pictured her with one leg crossed over the other, laying back comfortably into the back of the chair, her dark braids resting delicately on her chest, heaving slowly, up and down as she softly breathed...
Shaking his head, he dispelled the thought.
He realized he hadn't heard a reply. He inched the door open.
"...Wednesday?" he whispered. There was nobody in the room.
'Oh...' he thought.
Jeremy closed the door again, and looked around. He decided that he needed to use the bathroom before anything else. As he went to enter, Wednesday popped her head out from the next room over.
"Jeremy," she said.
She briefly fiddled with one of her braids as she stepped out to meet him.
"Oh— hey," he answered, "what, uh, what's up?"
"...I heard you say my name?" she said.
"Y— yeah, I thought you might've been in there reading," he replied.
"Oh," she said, "yeah... I finished it after you went to sleep. I was just in my bedroom."
"Ah," he nodded.
"Did... you sleep okay?" she asked shyly.
"Yeah, slept fine, yeah, just an early riser is all," he reassured her.
Her attention drifted above his eye-line.
"Did you already style your hair...?" she asked snidely.
"Huh? Oh—" he ran a hand through it bashfully, "I don't know, it just kind of sits like that, I guess."
"Uh-huh," she shot back, in amusement.
He thought he noticed her bite her lip, though he might have imagined it.
She glanced at the bathroom door. "Oh, I didn't mean to keep you—"
YOU ARE READING
A Crossbow Aimed at the Heart
FanfictionA 21 year old Wednesday Addams has moved away from her parents (on their dime) in an attempt to find some independence, however they are concerned that she has taken the opportunity to become a shut-in. Under the guise of an audit, Gomez and Mortici...
