orangeave

[orangeave]

all the places light does not touch

wednesday addams x gn!reader

summary: there are places in wednesday that the light doesn’t touch and she can’t help but to put you in all of them.

words: 4.2k

orange speaks: final part to the great war (part one | part two). damn, it's been a hot minute, huh? apologies for the wait, but i hope y'all will enjoy this last installment.

Gravesoil clings to Wednesday’s nail beds, a desperate plea scratching against her vocal cords that she will never admit to beyond this moment. You are mumbling to yourself, a language she’s never heard of slicing through the quiet; the mother tongue of the beast that lingers in places she cannot reach nor see. Wild, bloodshot eyes survey the empty space in front of you and veins crowd underneath your lashes. There’s a pause before you hunch over, hands reaching up to grasp tightly at your head and – 

Wings ripple out of tearing flesh, blood soaking the floor underneath her former lover’s feet. An ominous, onyx liquid takes over the whites of your eyes, dripping slowly down the apple of your cheeks and leaving dark tear tracks in their wake that trail pass a shuddering throat. 

How foolish she was to forget what lays dormant beneath your skin, waiting to unleash itself upon the world. Control was hard fought and just barely won after each battle, a traumatic fear for the possibility of a blood-curdling outcome hardening the usual soft color of your gaze. 

Wednesday had always been there to placate the darker side of you but times were different now. The consequences of her wrongdoings were forming; in the shape of elongating teeth, in downy feathers expanding to three-times the length of your arm span, and in horns spiralling to reach the sky above them.  

You were horrifyingly marvellous. 

Gone is the fear from before, an innately evil force hunkering down to take its place. Tendrils of hellfire coat your skin in a blaze of heat that Wednesday can starkly feel, wraiths rising from the puddles of crimson ichor that is still shedding and staining ghoulish flesh. A sinister grin warps your features into a gruesome mosaic and she is wary of the scheming tug to your lips.

“Do you feel it?” You rasp, multiple layers of cadence making your voice echo and overlap into something otherworldly. Wednesday’s brows pinch, a frown of incomprehension downturning the corner of her lips. “The inevitable culling of this night, can you feel it?”

“Enough. You’re talking nonsense.” She sneers.

A shiver caresses the curve of her spine when you sigh solemnly in return, the ground trembling beneath your feet as you glide closer to her. Your left hand lifts and fingertips that resemble claws leave behind rivers of blood as you skim her jawline, thumb tucking into her jugular before the entirety of the extremity encloses around her throat. 

The touch is light, there’s no weight in the action but Wednesday chokes all the same. A primal instinct of survival urges her to fight the hold because while running has never been in Wednesday’s repertoire, the need for bodily autonomy will always remain. Personal space is sacred when the world longs to claim and taint everything she’s ever come to own.

Nero; a first companion forcibly taken by the will of another. 

Tyler; a first kiss lost to the lips of a monster. 

You; a first something she’s afraid to name with an end she’s yet to come to terms with.

Each one is a death with its own cause and reaction but they all drive her further away into solitude, into a body built too big for her bones.

There’s a light within her that flickers and spiders which crawl from crevices dug into ivory calcium, seeking the warmth that it offers – it never lasts, they scurry with every faltering glow and Wednesday is left with the echo of an ancestor, of a destiny meant to be spent alone.

Be it by her hand or someone else’s, the truth of her fate lingers. 

Still, the scraps from the before she seldom acknowledges; when words meant to burn were just measly thoughts to create distance and a twin heart still laid next to hers, where a sense of forever was yet to fade and hope, however gross the negligence of it was, was able to reach even the unlit corners of her, craves to forget – just for a moment – that this is who she has to be. 

For everyone’s sake but most especially yours, Wednesday scatters those scraps until they exist in locations that are inaccessible, even to herself, and no one suffers more for it than she does. So, as she swallows back the bile of her desires, her tongue is sour with bitterness and syllables formulate an acrid speech that tries to chase away the taste of all that she wants but cannot have. 

“All I detect is your feeble minded attempt to frighten me. You’re a bleeding heart, Tesoro, we both know you’re too soft to follow through with your meagre threats. You never were tenacious enough to do what was needed to keep me, this is no different.”  

Regret is immediate; acid does not eliminate bitterness, it only serves to make the taste resonate deeper until she’s choking on the foul filth of an inescapable death. The true difference between you, she realizes, is that she’s not capable of being selfless without leaving scars on the ones she’s trying to shelter and that your way of being selfless only leaves you with more. 

A thick smog of shadows gather in the atmosphere, sharpening your features and maniacal laughter washes over the cusps of Wednesday’s eardrums. Her pulse jumps and she just knows that you felt it because your grip on her throat tightens at last, unapologetic nails becoming a barbed wire necklace that itches to splay her tendons for the world to witness. 

“Oh, Mulsa, that’s where you’re wrong.” You tsk with condescension. “Everything is different. I’m finally who I was always meant to be, existing outside of the fear that plagued me, and it’s all thanks to you. I have embraced my destiny, can you say the same?”

Mockery drips from your words and her reality suddenly shifts as she finds herself in a castle that assembles itself with a swish of your wrist. It reigns beautifully decrepit in nature; rotten beams of wood rib the frame, moss rests in divots of cracking stone, and moonlight glints through openings in the ceiling. You casually lean against a gothic throne of skulls that no one sits upon and Wednesday transforms into a court jester, in the presence of a lowly regent who pretends that they do not pull all of the strings behind the scenes.

“How long do you think you’ll last in this kingdom of solitude, Wednesday? Who else will you hurt in your quest for knowledge? And do the answers you find at the end of it all outweigh the expense others have to pay to get you there?” Your voice rumbles, ricocheting off stone walls before striking her exactly where you know it will hurt most.

Color touches her skin for the first time, anger and humiliation mingling to create a red sheen on pale flesh. It’s a sort of wickedness she never thought you to be capable of but perhaps she should have seen it coming. 

“None of that is relevant.” She whispers harshly.

“Isn’t it? Am I not the cataclysm of your choices? Is this not me paying your dues?” Massive charcoal wings beat; once, twice, three times – they propel you upward, high into the air and tree bark horns tilt your jaw back with their weight. Specks of blood rain down from the force, painting the surrounding layout maroon, dousing Wednesday in turn. You bare your arms outward, showcasing your new form to an audience of one.

Crisp, off-white linen hugs the muscles of your torso while the sleeves furl at each elbow. Three buttons are undone, revealing a prominent collarbone and a smooth expanse of skin. Dark beige slacks loosely clutch to long legs – one slightly bent at the knee, toeing the edge of the other as you hover in place. You are all neutral tones with monochromatic undercurrents, eyes drowning in a void of black reeking of judgement, and vibrancy is lost to a death by her own hands.

Wednesday licks her lips, catching droplets of metallic liquid on her tongue. Stagnancy overrules the scent of trees in the foreground and there is no reprieve as she suffocates on nothing but the truth. Her resolve is crumbling; you may not be a ruler of this kingdom but you do have an undeniable deathgrip on her heartstrings. If you were anyone else, that fact would be revolting. 

“Unless,” a pause. “Maybe this is what you wanted. You always did love everything dark and twisted.”

Slowly, you descend in front of her and there’s a soft click as the heels of your dress shoes settle down. Dust kicks up into the air, your wings breezing along the floor, and you wordlessly take four shallow strides around her. You come to stand behind her, breath fanning over the sensitive stretch of her neck. She can see you no longer but just your presence in itself is taunting.

There’s a brush of fingertips against her back, nudging her forward and before long she arrives at a set of steps. You shove her up them; the action makes her stumble and her balance is lost to the last stair. She falls into the vacant throne, which she now realizes belongs to her. Twin knees scrape the edge, making her body twist to relieve the pain and sit properly. 

Indignation rises to the surface at the mistreatment and Wednesday tries to swallow it, to keep away words that will only perpetuate this discourse, but it’s fruitless. “My proclivities aren’t your concern. Up to this point, every decision you have made has been solely yours. I am not to blame for your indiscretions.”

“Perhaps.” You nod, standing resolutely at the incline up to the throne she sits upon. “Truly, I’m not here for placations or reasonings. You are partially correct in assuming that this,” your hand waves around your form, “is not the inner workings of your… machinations.”

“Then why? What is this macabre display for?” Wednesday interrupts.

None of it makes sense; how easily you forfeit your earlier claims. 

“Because, in the end, this was never for you.” You start, something dark creeping along your legs. It rises to dwarf your already tall stature and features are slow to form but when they do, they are wholly monstrous and deeply unsettling. There is absolutely nothing in this world that compares and warning bells screech a dizzying spell of the danger to come should Wednesday choose to misstep in its presence.

Exaggerating steps loosen the hold it has on you, materializing into translucent flesh, and your body is distorted to her as the being stands in front of you. An arm raises, travelling up to your chest, and stuttering in wicked glee before plunging in. You gasp loudly, figure hunching over, and the being forces you straight with its free hand at your shoulder. With a dramatic flair, it rips its fingers out and they do not come back empty. 

Without care or regard, the beast walks away from you, and the sight that greets Wednesday grips her with terror. The facade of power fades to nothing and you are left human but skeletal. Wings, horns, the black void; they’re all gone, and exhaustion coats your dull eyes, your knees buckling to the floor. Falling forward, your shoulders rise, head ducking low as nailbeds of blood trace the cracking stone of the floor. Convulsions attack your spine, driving a body of bones further into the ground. 

“A distraction,” The beast rumbles in glee, an olden accent curling over its words. “To pull you away from the truth.” A bleeding, bruising heart rests in its palm; dark blotches covering the organ and Wednesday finds it disconcerting the way they pulsate, widening with each heavy breath you shudder. “We finally understand now; love is a weakness. For children who still play with toy soldiers, dreaming of the day they will change the world. It’s quite humorous, don’t you think?”

And there, right then, despite your best efforts to play it off as something else, Wednesday finally sees the evil for what it truly is: self-preservation. It is protection, disguising itself as rage. It is guardianship, shouldering all that you cannot and turning it into power. It is the heart in a beast’s hand, with a cage that moulds along its edges that wills itself not to break any further.

Red teeth gleam up at her, a grotesque smile staring straight through her, and dissuading her attention from the creature next to you. “I never wanted to change the world, Wednesday, not really anyway. But I did want you – not just the good parts but also the pieces of you that raged in contempt. I wanted the entirety of you: your doubt, your fear, your selfishness; the thousand-yard stare, the tempered soul, the frostbitten heart. I wanted the girl who despised even the thought of love.”

“No.” Wednesday utters except it’s too quiet, caught in her throat.  

“God, Wednesday, I wanted it all – everything you were willing to part with and nothing more. Yet, you turned your back on us and you didn't even have the decency to give me a valid reason why. I deserved better than a half-assed excuse as to why it had to end. But it’s okay. Blame is a two-way street and I was wrong too. I pushed and ignored every warning sign, dancing along boundaries and fed into your suspicions without a need to prove myself to be on your side.”

“No.” She tries again. 

(Still not enough, still on the cusp of- of-.)

“And I guess, this is all to say that we both had a choice and perhaps we chose wrong, though maybe the cards were always stacked against us. Now here we are, forcing each other to relieve it all over again, and it’s time to put an end to this. We finally get to have what we tried to cheat each other out of. You finally get to be free and I finally get to say goodb-.” 

“No!” The single word rips and tears and mutilates her throat in the effort to leave the confines of her voice box. All her life Wednesday has been toeing the line between devastation and freedom, a weak grip on her inhibitions, always viscerally trying to prove something or another. Until a sick sense of clarity washes over what this all means; one more loss, one more all alone, one final nail in the coffin. 

A death to rewrite all the others. 

Falling in love with you was like falling asleep, gradually then all at once, because it crept along the edges of her vision until it was too late and despite her aversion to it, it was warm. And the days that followed were everything she thought herself to be incapable of; the quiet nights, the sound of rustling sheets as she wrote pages upon pages on her typewriter, the dulcet tones of you humming along to vibrating strings, the laughter without reservation, the eyes full of a home made just for her, the hands that held her softly in the dark. 

And then, of course, the self-sabotage set in. Her wants and desires took a backseat to make room for fear, and somewhere in the midst, the ease of your love made way for her doubt and she swears you both lost something that day. The person she became to combat her loss of control isn’t something she’s proud of but maybe… maybe this is the part where she pleads with you to understand. Where she lays everything on the line; all her misgivings and the lies she tries to tell herself to circumvent all that she does not understand.  

When your eyes cut across her own, you look at her like you know, and the uncaged beast only laughs as your features close themselves off from her once more. The vulnerability seeps out, draining from trembling, bloodsoaked fingers, and replacing itself with indifference before Wednesday even has the chance to rearrange her thoughts into coherency. The pleas building in her throat die, falling into the void of every other thing she’s left unsaid.

How repulsive.  

Wednesday’s jaw clenches at her own inadequacy, teeth clicking in time with her shallow breaths. Hands of ice grasp tightly at each other while she tries to reform the truth she’s been meaning to say. It’s time, she attempts to coax herself. No longer will she bow to her lesser qualms. 

Enough is enough. 

“You were wrong.”

A feigned grace pulls her from the throne, rising up and carrying her down the steps that will lead her to you. Firm resolve weights each footfall to the stone beneath Wednesday, laying the groundwork for an outcome that doesn’t end with ties severed indefinitely. A disgusting amount of trepidation still lingers menacingly, but not for prior reasons. It washes over her because she knows that if she doesn't get this right and you walk away from her once again, it will be for the last time. 

As she reaches you, the beast rears up into the space between you, your heart ducking out of sight with a single movement. Up close, Wednesday can see the second the previous glee renders itself obsolete, paving the way for rage to form in its stead. Translucence melds into mortal flesh in an instant, further providing a barrier to you and it’s features constantly flicker; sweeping into each other, refusing to commit to a lone one. 

All of it is a warning: for you may have never been able to truly hurt her, but this beast holds no such inhibitions. And yet, Wednesday ignores it, skirting around the form with a brief flicker of eye contact. Rolling coals follow the movement, a sneer deepening the gouges at the corners of it’s mouth. Heat steadily rises at her back when she kneels before you, gaining in temperature, and a hearth set ablaze licks the skin of Wednesday’s nape, until sweat lines her hairline.  

“Before,” Wednesdays continues despite the duality of the cold shell holding your gaze captive and the heat at her back, her fingertips fluttering around your body but never settling. “You said you’d never be good enough for me.” A scowl crawls into her features, disdain vaguely clinging to her words. “You were wrong.” 

Confusion briefly overcomes the frost but it’s not enough. You flinch with every syllable, as if her words still burn; like your flesh is a step away from igniting and she’s dousing you in lighter fluid. A battlefield sprawls before her, all of her own making, and each word is a precarious mark upon the earth, hidden with landmines Wednesday tries to sidestep. 

Wednesday thinks this might be part of her destiny that Goody forgot to mention – truth be told, self-loathing is akin to starvation; the hunger pains force you to eat yourself from the inside out until nothing remains. Perhaps that’s the most tragic intricacy of her fate, to commit atrocities for the sake of others' preservation, and to suffer all the more for it. Now, trying to find the medium between the two banks entirely on her willingness to push aside everything she’s ever thought to know about herself. 

As Wednesday gazes upon you; you with the sunrise in your eyes and the red candle wax burning lips, she clings to the notion that it isn’t the dying that scares her, but the insurmountable loneliness that follows in the wake of your departure. It is hollow and damning because you are attempting to leave, in more ways than one, and she is running out of options that will force you to stay. 

Longing breaches through the whisper of her words, “You were too much, in all the soft ways I desire to detest. Too good, too simple; too easy to love. And so, I wanted-” Wednesday’s breath falters, fingers folding to tear at the lines of each palm. “I wanted to make you pay, for forcing these ugly emotions upon me. I never wished to feel the juvenile propensity to need you, in all the foul ways weaker beings fall victim to. Yet, it is those feelings that beg of me to forfeit this charade, because, for however seldom I say it, I do love you.”

Finally, Wednesday reaches for your hand, knuckles scraping along the stone to slot her fingers between your own. “I’m in love with you, and it is all-consuming, vile, and entirely effortless. I may not know how it will end, but I believe there exists a place out there built just for the two of us; one that is otherworldly, and beautiful, and so, so alive. Destiny be damned.”

Wednesday watches as your eyes crawl the length of her face, an unreadable expression marring the expanse of your features. A shudder partly pulls your body away from her, a heavy exhale escaping your lips. She can’t tell whether her words were well received as you hunch your knees under your chin, cradling your elbows around the edges of your calves. Just as she goes to continue, desperation clinging to the fraying ends of her sanity, your free palm craters the ground beneath you. 

Long forgotten wraiths spiral into view and confusion tears her form upwards onto her feet, unwittingly losing the grip she has on you. They begin to chase her and the ground beneath her feet zooms out of focus as she tries to get away. They’re faster, upon Wednesday in mere seconds, and then she’s falling, falling, falling, and for a long moment nothing comes up to catch her.

Yet again, the scenery of the throne room changes and she stumbles to her knees in a foreign land. 

Grass bunches up between her fingers, wet and coarse, and a graveyard looms before her. Each tombstone lining the distance is marked with a name, cementing every loss she’s ever faced; not just of people, but places and emotions too. A beat passes before you appear at her side, steps away from an open casket set six feet in the ground. When she shuffles up to unsteady feet, the body within it looks suspiciously like you. 

Your voice carries on the wind, circling her as you murmur, “What if you’re wrong?”

There’s a slew of answers on the tip of Wednesday’s tongue, but most fall short, never quite encompassing what she truly wants to say. One, though, rises above the rest, so simple it makes her want to scoff. Instead, she pushes the sound down, and in the midst of the words that follow, a part of her realizes that she’s finally learning; understanding. There are things in the world that you need not fight, nor feelings that are too childish to accept. Some things are just simple; easy.

“But what if I’m right?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Wednesday sees you sway slightly in place, her words – honest at last – completely sinking in. With a noticeable limp stuttering your footsteps, you gradually move in front of her. The tips of your dress shoes scratch along the edges of her own boots as you eliminate every ounce of Wednesday’s personal space, your arm rising up in her peripheral vision. Hesitation faults the movement, and she recognizes the doubt for what it is: a fear she never meant to place within you; of her reaction, of her motives, of her.  

With time, she promises to herself to put all of her wrongs right, but for now, she gently latches onto your wrist, bringing your hand down to rest on the underside of her jaw. Your eyes flash with recognition before your forehead descends upon hers, a shaky breath exhaling against her lips that sounds like an okay. Suddenly boneless, your body sags, shoulders loosening as your other arm reaches around the small of her back, tugging her into you. 

You hold onto Wednesday tighter than she ever had the audacity to covet her desires and she cannot deny the sense of home that follows. 

Without fear, her feet lift up, gaining a slight height advantage to place a lingering kiss atop your head, but a figure drifts into focus before her eyes can close. The beast faintly shimmers behind the tombstone with your name on it that fades, a neutral expression on it’s face. It watches Wednesday closely, eyes of coal simmering into ash as it takes in your figure so entwined with her own. Your heart still resides in it’s palm, but even from here, Wednesday can gauge how loosely it’s grip is. A nod of a head and a quirk of lips beckons her, once last time, to take in another truth. 

Love has many faces, and seldom are they seen clearly.

Your heart finds its way back to its home as the beast settles, slowly descending in height, and it’s features melt into a vaguely familiar countenance. It is you, but aged, with laugh lines marking the corners of your eyes, and a nostalgic smile at the cusp of your lips. And it is an echo, of both your and her future, teetering on the edge of a forever that will soon be fully earned. 

( – there are places in wednesday that the light doesn’t touch and she can’t help but to put you in all of them.

but then you learn to become the light, and all the dark places shine.)

[orangeave]

not even ghosts are this empty

wednesday addams x gn!reader

summary: you dug a grave for two but you lay in the casket alone.

words: 1.2k

orange speaks: part two to the great war, with more angst (whoops?). hope y'all enjoy.

Plumes of smoke echo slowly out of your mouth, the blunt in your hand burning the edges of your fingers. You make no move to ease the subtle ache, secretly enjoying the weight of the blisters that form in their wake. A cough flowers in your throat when you inhale the sharp sting of night air afterwards but you hold it in place, forcing it to expand downward to create a rattle in your chest. It encompasses the entirety of your ribcage, swallowing the meat of your organs whole. 

The sensation is fleeting and you mourn it as it fades. There’s an emptiness that follows, one you’re making an unwilling acquaintance with since you left Wednesday’s dorm those short months ago. Time has been infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, passing by in hiccups of memory that never truly stick. 

The first few days following that night go by in denial, refusing to believe you had lost her. A hollow ticking resounding in your ears proves it to be true; vaguely signaling a countdown that tells you that you now carry a solar flare where your heart should reside, and it’s only a matter of time before it implodes. 

Loving Wednesday isn’t easy but neither is letting her go, and when the denial dwindles into tormenting acceptance, you are left with only the ghosts of her. They haunt each corner of your existence – both mental and physical – creating dark circles beneath your eyes that resemble tattoos more than they do skin. 

You attempt to exorcise Wednesday from your being and the vacancy within you becomes a cathedral; you pray at its illusionary, cobblestone steps but you are bent at the knees before a false god, incapable of offering reprieve. Wraiths have risen in relief’s stead – fallen too far to be ghosts any longer – and they are starving, snarling at the altar of your shortcomings. You will find no peace here when your body, laden with a lifetime of grief that ages you, is pirouetting upon crumbling earth. 

Resorting back to the roach in your trembling hands, you yearn for it to bring some semblance of life into the space you ache to fill. As you exhale, a shadow gathers in your peripheral in the shape of a girl you cannot escape. 

“I see you’ve come to dislike functioning lungs.” Wednesday dishes out, coming to stand by your sitting limbs that stretch out into the pond in front of you. Fathoming why she’s here, in the spot that once belonged to the two of you, is something you can’t grasp. 

Casual conversation is the last thing you want to participate in. It feels cheap; hollow. You deserve more than astute observations and meaningless slights. Something she’s averse to giving you, it seems, and the part of you that continues to die in its place hates her for it.

Youthfulness is forgotten when you are a rotting carcass forcing itself to breathe to a tempo that no longer comes naturally, dangling on flimsy strings that Wednesday commands, waltzing to the tune of her desires. A puppet master is what she is and you find no solace in this dance, not when the past lingers so close to the surface; of who you were to each other but will seldom be again. 

“Something like that.” You monotone, a slight shrug lifting your shoulders. 

There’s a tense set to her own shoulders at your response, the lack of expression in your voice pulling her entire body taut. A vengeful part of you revels in it, only to diminish into nothingness just as quickly, as everything else before it has. 

Your desolate eyes finally raise to meet Wednesday’s, causing hers to widen almost imperceptibly. They trace the heavy bags beneath your lashes then down to your still shaking hands and you come to understand her astonishment because up till now, you’ve managed to avoid her – a feat you were proud of. 

“Y/N…” She murmurs, reaching out for you. Wednesday’s fingers barely get the chance to brush against your arm before you’re recoiling away from the touch, water splashing up into your lap from where your legs hang in the pond. 

Oh, god.

There’s something to be said about the inbetween of dreams and reality; a certain dissonance that easily perpetuates the disruptive cognitive faults which riddle a half-aware person that the past haunts. Nightmares of memory which lead to dark, twisting backdrops that muddy the truth and serve to create monstrosities of unchecked thoughts. 

Falling asleep has always been a terrifying experience for you. In a moment's notice, you are suddenly the backseating, side character in the fluttering reel of torment plagued by the emergence of day. You have absolutely no control over the fate of each suffering you were forced to face and only hold the capacity to watch as it unfolds once again.

You are not asleep but you have spent the past months half-awake, and Wednesday’s touch yanks you right back to that night where your roles were in reverse. The details are still so fresh and it’s too much. It’s not fair the hold she has on you even now. 

“No, you don’t get to do this. Not now.” Your voice cracks, clumsily lifting your limbs from murky depths and rising to your full height. Water cascades down your form, leaving you shivering in the night air. A gasp chokes in your throat, panic seizing you and the ticking in your ears reaches a deafening roar. “I- After all this time, why now?”

Wednesday hesitates, the pause hanging in the air between you.

“Say something!” You bellow, panic turning into anger at her silence.

She shrinks back as you close the distance between you and it is wholly unlike her but you ignore it, invading her space. 

“I will never be good enough for you, will I?” You unevenly gasp out, realizing a long forgotten truth, “I plead, and I bargain, and I sacrifice, in the name of love. To heal the cracks in our façade but you stand before me, stoic as the day I met you, and give absolutely nothing in return.”

Her eyes follow your stance, expression shuttering to impassive and unseeing – hollow in a way you’ll never be able to change. All the anger drains out of you and when she goes to finally respond, mouth tentatively opening as she comes to know the sickness sinking beneath your mirage that you were never able to cleanse, you simply shake your head. 

In loving and losing her, you have lost yourself. You no longer know how to breathe air she does not exhale and disgust flares at who you’ve become; at who you’ve let her make you. Some cowardly thing, bent to the whims of a devil in the disguise of a god. 

Love is a fickle thing, so easily transforming into a monstrous being when betrayal hangs heavy in the space once wrought with the finer side of a bottled heaven. The feeling you welcome in love’s place should terrify you – for a moment, it does – but power is a corrupter in the hands of a widow. 

The implosion within you is beautifully damning – strings held in commandeering fingers snap, the corpse of you reborn in the ash of your submissiveness; flesh of the burnt coagulating into an armor made to pressurize the weight of your footsteps until the force of them cracks the earth, widening the gap of reality between the duality of life and death till it is but a mere phantom pain. 

Say, what’s a soul really worth?

You’ve already lost everything, what’s a little more? 

(– vultures have come to feast upon your bones; only the vulture is you and you’ve gorged upon yourself.)

[orangeave]

the great war

wednesday addams x gn!reader

summary: sometimes, the war is over before it ever truly began.

words: a quick 800+

Wednesday's words shoot to kill, her normally dull, dark gaze turning into a swirling storm of anger. You know that one, or both, of you are not getting out of this unscathed but you press on. A chasm opening beneath your chest that you plead with Wednesday to cross.

“That's not fair and you know it. Why do you continue to punish me for things I've never done? When have I ever given you a reason to doubt my motives?”

A scoff leaves Wednesday's sneered lips and it is bitter; cruel. You understand, far too late, that this is a fight with only one winner and the victory will never belong to you. You loathe it – damn the hollowness that only furthers to widen the gap between you. Briefly, you wonder when the sourness of your relationship took root, how the ivy of your love grew thorns meant to tear everything asunder. 

Perhaps it was always there, disguising itself from view until the light hit it from an opposing angle. Loving Wednesday has never been easy but you weren’t naive, from the start you knew what you were getting yourself into. 

There’s a resignation in the way you fold into yourself, chin tucking into your neck with a shallow nod. Wednesday watches the movement but makes no move to console it, instead turning her back to you with hands clenching into tight fists and it is achingly familiar – a subtle form of her giving up; on the fight, on you, on everything you were building together.

An ache metastasizes in your throat and behind your eyes; when you speak, the words roll off your tongue with a vague sense of apathy, “You are a match within a gaping maw and the saliva behind its sharp teeth is kerosene. Every exhale is a spark turning into a pyre of flames and you only hold the capacity to scorch all the things you’ve deemed have betrayed you. I cannot love you like this, when my body is burn marks and smouldering skin.”

When you regain your ground, a hand reaches out for one of hers despite your words. Your fingertips brush over her white, blotting knuckles but she’s quick to rip it away from your grasp. The reaction makes you recoil and it further proves your point; another scalding blemish to add to the collection. “It hurts to love you, Wednesday.”

“I have never asked for your incessant need to love me. If anything, it is the last thing I want, so why don’t you do the both of us a courtesy and leave. You have fulfilled your usefulness.” She spits out, finally spinning around to look at you. You’re only a few quick paces away from her but it feels like there’s an entire world between you. Her features still carry her usual blankness, though there is the barest of lines tugging down at each corner of her lips, a murky scrunch of contempt anchoring her nose and brows in place. 

It’s always been the little things with Wednesday that tell you how she really feels and right now, they are painting a picture you wish you were blind to. Yesterday suddenly seems so far away, when you two were whispers in the dark and hands held in secrecy because PDA will never be something Wednesday participates in. 

There’s none of that now and it tears something visceral inside you, something you know may never mend.

You want to fight this ending, for her, but it has become a war, one that you aren’t capable of surviving without sacrificing parts of yourself that no longer exist. You’ve given her everything already, all fragments of your being – there’s simply nothing left. 

Slowly, you gather your belongings and subtly hide one of her sweaters in your bag. (It has to be enough, if you can’t have her.) The walk to the dorm room door is heavy, you feel it weigh down every last bone in your body and when your fingers wrap around the doorknob, you foolishly want it to be her hand that you’re holding.  

Your head tilts toward her, even though the rest of you stays facing the exit. Wednesday stares as you commit her form to memory, drinking her in from her dark hair, down to her chunky, black boots. You sear the image into the back of your corneas, willing it to stay there and promising yourself that one day, though not any time soon, you’ll wash it free from this moment. You’ll cleanse away the sickness that creeps along the edges, wishing to taint the version of her that you still love. 

The door closes behind you with a sharp click and you step further into the hall, a large mass of grief settling on your shoulders. And you have no idea what you mourn more; her… or yourself because this isn’t just the end of your relationship. 

It is also a death and it is solely yours.

(– your body is a cemetery and you hold a bouquet of burns.)