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For the first time in a while, Xavier finds himself actually looking forward to going back to school. Having extracted from Wednesday the answer that yes she is going to be there, he’s curious to see what the new semester will be like. She has a way of shaking everything up, good or bad, it makes life interesting.
When he arrives, he heads straight to his room to deposit his bags. He’s expecting to be greeted with the usual sight of his slightly barren dorm, but he stops dead when he reaches the door.
There are flowers, to be more accurate, flower stems - roses if the thorns are anything to go by - on his bed. Which is vaguely concerning, mainly because he’s sure the door was locked.
He blinks at them and after a few minutes of deliberation, carefully picks them up and places them in a drawer. He writes them off as some welcome back prank, unusual, but harmless enough.
He’ll come back to them later, first he needs to find Wednesday. They’ve been texting - which is a miracle considering part of him assumed she’d chuck the phone in the ocean at first opportunity - but he can’t wait to see her droll face in person. The flowers can wait.
It’s been long enough that he’s put the flowers behind him, his brain far too occupied with thoughts of drawing, and Wednesday, and drawing Wednesday - because that’s all he seems to be doing lately - to remember the eerie stems in his drawer.
He’s abruptly reminded when, upon entrance to his studio, (which he really needs to get a better lock for) he comes face to face with a large covered painting. Covered paintings are not an unusual sight in his studio, but this one is too purposely placed in the centre of the room to not be alarming. Also the fact that he didn’t put it there; that’s pretty alarming.
He sidles up to it warily, gingerly uncovering it, only to drop the cover in shock. It’s a painting of him. Abstract, not done by a practiced painter, but it’s still quite uncanny. Paint-him is holding a bow and arrow, having just shot what appears to be a human heart in the centre of the target; the bullseye.
It’s incredibly concerning because to get that level of accuracy the painter would need to either paint it as he was shooting in front of them, or - the far more likely scenario - would have to study him doing so extensively. Which is, in the loosest terms, worrying. Sure, he’s not exactly the most focussed person, but he should’ve noticed this level of scrutiny.
He’s not unused to admirers; Bianca was particularly driven in her pursuit of him. But this is definitely going to extra mile. He’s forced to re-evaluate the status of the flowers; he doesn’t like the conclusion he comes to.
He’s not sure what the appropriate reaction to somebody painting you is. He wonders if this was how Wednesday felt with his cello painting. He can’t help but wince, no wonder she seemed so off-kilter. He should properly apologise. He never got to in the end, what with everything that happened.
Thoughts consumed with the pigtailed girl, the painting is pushed aside. Its cover is left discarded on the floor as he hurries off to find Wednesday.
It continues like this for a while. The next Monday he finds a voodoo doll of himself with a pin in its heart in his bag midway though the day, which is mind-boggling because he’s never more than a meter away from his bag. He spends the rest of the day eyeing up his seat mates and random passers by, half convinced nearly everyone’s his stalker, until he catches Wednesday’s eye and becomes too busy attempting to be cool and collected in-front of her to continue.
On Wednesday he’s greeted with more stems, except this time in front of his door, which makes him late to meet the actual Wednesday - because standing on thorns is unsurprisingly not a great experience. It’s the most annoyed he’s been at whoever his stalker is. Threats on his life, he can take, but interrupting Wednesday time? So not cool.
Thursday, he steps out of the shower to find a message on the foggy glass, it’s in Latin, because of course it is. After pouring over it he discerns it’s about conquering and love. Which is on brand and definitely upping the ante; he’s in a towel for godsake, at least let a man get dressed before he has to deal with these sorts of things. He gets close to telling Wednesday what’s been going on, but chickens out and ends up just asking her about the Latin language. She gets so genuinely passionate about it that by the time they’ve parted ways, he’s half thankful to whoever left the message.
Wednesday’s beautiful when she’s talking about something she enjoys.
By Friday, his head is so muddled that he barely registers Wednesday when she sneaks up on him. Which is a true testament to how messed up he is, because he usually can’t stop noticing her.
She greets him with a question, which is better than the murder accusations from before, but still leaves something to be desired. But it’s Wednesday, so he’ll take what he can get.
“Why are you making that face?” Is what she goes with, a hello would be perfectly acceptable, but Wednesday always strives to differ from the norm. She’s blank faced as usual, but it looks like one of her happier expressions, so he isn’t worried.
“That’s rich coming from you.” He smiles down at her. She’s so short, it’s easy to forget sometimes with her domineering personality. But she’s short, and sweet (sometimes - mainly accidentally) and he’s so obsessed with her it hurts.
“I don’t make faces.” She states, while proving her statement by not moving a muscle on her face. He thinks she does it on purpose at this point.
“Exactly.”
She tilts her head slightly, “You appear… negative.”
His raised eyebrow prompts her to continue, “Enid is teaching me how to appropriately read people so I don’t keep accusing them of things.”
“Ah, like accusing someone of murder when they’re trying to be your friend?” He leans in, a mocking smile on his face.
“The two are easily confused.” She admits.
He stares at her for a minute before breaking out into laughter. If he didn’t know better he’d say her lips purse to stop herself from laughing, but he does, so he just assumes she’s unsure of how to deal with such a blatant display of emotion. He loves looking at Wednesday, no matter what she’s doing, he’s always itching to pick up charcoal. This time though, she seems to be studying him back.
He takes a minute to sober up.
“Actually you were right about the face thing,” He confesses, “I have a… situation.”
“Oh?”
“An admirer of sorts-” He skips over the details, “I’m not sure how to deal with them.”
Her face is unreadable.
“Don’t worry about them anymore.” She finally says, before suddenly turning away and striding off.
Caught off-guard by her sudden exit,
he moves to go after her only to be blocked by Enid, who appears to have been watching their interaction, and is now facing him with a furious expression.
“Are you seriously dense?” She huffs, “Wednesday is like, totally putting herself out there! I have to live with her, she does not emote normally, you know, I share a room with a creepy serial killer board of you and I’ve never seen her spend so much time on something other than murder and her writing, and you haven’t even realised?!” She finishes, taking a few deep breaths. Her nails are digging into a nearby bench and Xavier would be worried about the threat of claws if it wasn’t for the total realisation that-
“Are you saying-“ He gapes, “Wednesday’s behind the- Oh. Oh.”
Enid’s giving him her best, took you long enough face, but he’s too busy with the hope that his hopeless and inadvisable infatuation might not be so hopeless. The inadvisable remains to be seen but-
He jolts forward, giving Enid a weird half-handshake half-hug in his stupor, before running off.
She watches him leave with an exasperated look on her face, “Boys.”
The blonde shakes her head, before sheepishly retracting her claws from the bench. At least now the murder-board turned stalker-board will be removed. Hopefully.
He finds her by the targets. Her brows are scrunched and she’s curled in on herself and Xavier’s about ready to shoot himself, because how could he not have noticed- No wonder Enid was ready to flay him alive.
“Wednesday.” He stares at her like an idiot. He is an idiot, he’s never felt more like one, as he finally puts all the pieces together.
“Xavier.” She seems wary.
“Is it-” He takes a step forward, “Is it really you?”
She looks uncomfortable, and it hasn’t fully clicked with him till now, but Wednesday’s surprisingly emotive once you learn to read her. She isn’t looking him directly in the eye, her eyebrows are just slightly furrowed, her mouth is set - more so than usual - and she’s going on about something, babbling, which is so unlike Wednesday, who never gets flustered.
“Weems is dead, and there are no other shape shifters so-“
He cuts her off. “The flowers, the doll, the picture, that was you?”
“I thought it was obvious.” Her eyebrows lower further, “Is anyone else currently wooing you?” She seems so genuinely upset by this idea, that Xavier is startled into a laugh.
“Wooing?” He chokes, “I thought someone was planning to murder me!” He’s smiling like a lunatic at this point, fondness and other emotions he dare not name welling inside him.
Wednesday’s eyebrows shoot up. “I suppose the two do have similarities.”
She seems intrigued by the possible overlap with one of her favourite talking topics, but Xavier isn’t going to let her pursue the train of thought. He can see it in the slight twitching of her fingers; this is a distraction, a deflection, from the topic at hand.
“Wednesday,” He laughs, “Wednesday do you like me?”
She seems entirely unimpressed. “I thought we had established that, I understand now my affection is not reciprocated-“
“Wednesday,” He interrupts, “I’m only totally gone for you- I thought ‘we had established’ that?!” He moves even closer, closing the space between them, “Was I not the one who kept following you everywhere- so much so you thought I was your suspect?”
She winces, or at least, does the Wednesday approximation of a wince, which is a twitch of the eyebrows and a twist of her heart shaped lips.
“Not one of my finer moments.” She admits.
There’s a moment of silence, where both parties contemplate the series of events that led them from accused and accuser, to confessed and confessor.
“What changed?” He breaks the silence, mind racing.
She doesn’t pretend to misunderstand the question, just looks him dead in the eye.
“It… Your texts, they were…” She trails off, “Nice.” She finishes lamely, looking uncomfortable to be discussing such shameful emotions.
“I thought you hated nice.” His voice cracks slightly.
She takes a minute to compose the right words, dark eyes solemn, “I realised that breathless feeling wasn’t actually suspicion, it was… affection.” Wednesday says the word as if it’s an affliction; he supposes it is for someone like her. “And that my heart pounding or my palms sweating wasn’t my body telling me you were dangerous or not to be trusted, but something… else.”
”Are you telling me you put me in jail because you were attracted to me?” Xavier’s pretty sure he sounds as incredulous as he looks, which is very.
“It was extremely disconcerting.” She looks petulant, and he feels another wave of affection crash into him. There’s clearly something wrong with him, that he finds this confession sweet, but he finds himself breathless at the thought of Wednesday placing beheaded flowers on his bed, and Voodoo dolls in his bag, and painting intricate pictures of him in her spare time.
“You really had no idea it was me.” It’s said as a statement rather than a question.
”It was really creepy.”
Her face brightens, she looks bashful, “Thank you.”
Struck with the image of Wednesday Addams looking bashful, a flash of inspiration strikes; he dives into his bag and pulls out the voodoo doll (it remained there mainly out of the belief that if one did not see something, it did not exist - and boy is he glad of that now).
He carefully removes the pin from it’s heart, and holds it out to her “I think it’s done its job now, you’ve certainly got my heart.”
She clutches it, and oh god he’s going to have to start giving her headless flowers now because all this time they’ve been trying to get Wednesday to care more, but she always has, she’s just been showing it a different way.
“Wednesday Addams,” He says seriously, “Will you be the one I behead flowers, leave cryptic messages in dead languages and paint endless pictures for?”
“Yes,” The girl of his nightmares stares up at him and answers - voodoo doll in hand, “Yes, I will.”