A/N: I love the Lurch and Wednesday dynamic hinted at in the latest chapter of Gleefully Wicked's amazing AU "Turn On The Light," and wanted to explore it a bit. And thus, this bit of semi-parental fluff was born. Not ringing a bell? Look it up and read it first; you won't be disappointed.
The giant had family. He had a childhood home, parents, and even a few siblings. And, while his ambitions were few, his mother's had been many. So when he went east at the age of twenty, she'd wept and said he was making her so proud.
When a half-Spanish family called Addams had hired him as their butler, she'd been significantly less pleased.
But old Mrs. Addams, a widow, had a son about Lurch's age and was desperate for him to have some semblance of a valet. The fact that her new employee had ended up as a man-of-all-work more than anything else seemed to go unnoticed. Gomez and Lurch got along very well, the latter's calm, no-nonsense nature a good influence on the former's chaotic whimsy. And his groaning speech, so difficult for many to understand, was as clear as English to the Addamses.
Though he'd been born somewhere else, for the first time, Lurch found a home.
Two years later, when a young Miss Morticia Frump had first entered the house, the butler had silently hoped. She and Master Gomez were perfect for each other, deeply and madly in love in a way he'd never seen before. He would have cried at their wedding- if he ever cried.
For a year or so he kept house for the newlyweds. But life seemed to settle down into a quiet, predictable routine; while this made his various tasks easier, Lurch couldn't help but think that it was…well, boring.
And then, his mistress got pregnant.
It was pandemonium- inside his mind. His exterior betrayed very little emotion, as usual, but inside he was a wreck. A baby? How could he manage a baby? Of course, he had a younger brother, so the physical aspects wouldn't be difficult, but it was hard to imagine Gomez and Morticia pausing in their great love affair to deal with a child's emotional needs. So, while the expectant parents cooed over rusty brown wallpaper and black, knitted onesies, Lurch spent many sleepless nights worrying about the new arrival.
Finally, the day came. And when they returned from the hospital, the first time he looked into the baby's solemn, brown eyes, he was lost.
Wednesday Friday Addams, they'd named her. Along with "Mother" and "Father," one of her first words was " 'Urch."
He couldn't have known then that, from the moment she was born, he would be in the business of fixing her.
" 'Urch?"
The butler looked up from dusting a heavy silver candelabra. Standing in the doorway, his two-year-old charge regarded him with the steady gaze that often unsettled strangers. He straightened up.
"Uuuh?" was what most people would have heard. But both Wednesday and Lurch heard, "What is it?"
The little girl scuffed her feet against the moth-eaten carpet. She shifted her shoulders uncomfortably and wrung her tiny hands. Lurch just waited, still plying the feather-duster without taking his eyes off the child.
At last, she twisted one braid around her hand and blurted, "Hit my head." It was only then that he noticed the cut, so close to her scalp as to almost be hidden by her black hair. In fact, the only reason it became evident was the small trickle of blood that had begun to run down her pale forehead.
"Yes, I see it. Come here." Setting down the duster, he shifted on his stool and held out his arms. Dropping her toy crow, Wednesday ran across the room and clambered into his lap.
"Hurts," she said, burying her face in his shirt. There was no emotion in her voice and no tears or screams. But an injured child was an injured child, and her pain threshold wasn't yet what he knew it would be (given those of her parents). Making soft "ssh" noises, Lurch held her close.
After a few minutes, the tension in the little shoulders released and he gently pulled her back. The cut had left a stain on his shirt and smeared blood across her face, but that could be easily cleaned up.
"It'll be fine," he said. "But you have to be more careful, Wednesday. All right?"
She nodded. "Good." And with that, he motioned for her to get down and, taking her hand, led her to his room to be bandaged up.
"What on Earth have you been doing?"
The only response from the eight-year-old was sulky silence. Her left hand remained clasped in a fist over her right, but blood still seeped through between her fingers.
Lurch gestured to her hand. "You come waltzing in here and…'Lurch, can you sew my pinky back on?!' Haven't I told you to be careful?"
A nod.
"Was it Pugsley?"
A shake of the head.
"Then what?"
Once again, silence. The butler stopped pacing around his small room and grabbed the girl's shoulders. He gave her a gentle shake. "Wednesday!"
"My scalpel slipped," she muttered finally. He let go, throwing his hands up.
"Of course. You were too busy dissecting a rat-"
"It was a pigeon."
"-to take care with what you were doing," Lurch finished. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "What am I going to do with you?"
"Sew my finger back on before I bleed out on the floor?" she grumbled. Still shaking his head, the tall man gently pried open her hand; the small digit fell into his palm. He motioned her over to the little table beside the bookshelf, examining the stump of the detached pinky. Once seated, he also scrutinized her hand.
"It's a clean cut," he said at last. "I'll be able to get it back on. You're very lucky, young lady."
Wednesday smirked, and the last of his anger at her melted. No matter how exasperating his charge became, he'd do almost anything to see that little smile.
"I know," she replied.
She was ten.
"Lurch, I might need to go to the hospital." He could only stare at the crossbow bolt sticking through her hand; Gomez was in the next room having hysterics about fears of nerve damage. With a groan- a rare meaningless groan –he ushered father and daughter into the car.
"I could have taken it out myself," she whispered to him.
"I know," he whispered back.
She was thirteen.
It was a long story and she couldn't explain right now, but Pubert had gotten ahold of her best dress and Mother would have an aneurism if she found out and was there anything he could do?
Lurch held up the scorched, torn, and unraveling scrap of black silk that he knew had once been a very expensive evening gown. If ever a garment was past hope, this was it. He glanced from the former dress to Wednesday's hopeful expression (and the one-year-old boy in her arms who didn't even have the decency to look guilty).
"Of course."
She was sixteen.
As he hauled rocks out of the newly-constructed cavern beneath the garage, he passed her dropping her own armful at the entrance to the nearby woods. She smiled- the small but genuine smile that few outsiders saw but her family knew well.
"Thanks for this, Lurch."
"You're welcome," he said. Offering him a water bottle, she leaned against the rock pile for a moment and wiped sweat from her forehead.
"I know summer is a bad time for this, but I…I just need someplace that's mine."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. They stood like that for a moment, before she moved to awkwardly hug him around the waist.
Some things could be said without words.
She was eighteen, just barely.
Somewhere in the New York night, a young man was bleeding. Of this Lurch felt certain. But that young man wasn't his concern.
His concern was the teenage girl sitting in a chair across from him, staring at the candle that illuminated the room with such concentration that he knew she wasn't really seeing it. Finally she spoke.
"I thought he loved me."
"I know you did," he said quietly.
"Turns out he just loved the novelty."
He placed his large hand over her relatively small one. She glanced up and met his eyes.
"You'll find someone, Wednesday."
"I don't need anyone," she replied, and looked away. But they both knew it wasn't true.
So when she is still eighteen, a few months later, and she comes to him at the crack of dawn in her superhero getup, with her cape in tatters and a good foot of hair burned off, with the man she'd ranted against for so long close behind as if unwilling to be even a room away from her, with a two-year-old's guilty eyes, he isn't surprised.
A bit sad, maybe; Wednesday's hair had been lovely and she'd only just started wearing it down more often as he'd been suggesting for years. And suspicious- after being out all night, did his charge really think she could come home with a sheepish-looking young man in tow and he'd not come to certain conclusions? But not surprised.
And instead of wasting his breath ranting, he changes and grabs a pair of sewing scissors and heads out to fix her, yet again. Because, while he's never had children, Wednesday is the closest thing Lurch will ever have to a daughter.
A/N: Lurch is one of the best underappreciated characters in this fandom, and I loved him in the aforementioned TOTL chapter. That fic, the plot and all involved scenes, and any original characters therein are property of Gleefully Wicked.