It had only been a week since Pugsley met you, but he already looked at you the same way most people looked at puppies or freshly lit dynamite — full of joy, fascination, and a tiny bit of panic.
Wednesday introduced you two. You thought nothing of it. He thought everything of it.
He finally worked up the courage yesterday to ask you out. It wasn’t smooth. He stuttered. Dropped a wrench. Nearly shocked himself. But he did it.
Which is how you ended up walking with him at dusk, arm in his, down the long Nevermore paths. He didn’t say where you were going. Just walked beside you, swinging your hands a little, smiling like this was the best day of his life, which — honestly — it kind of was.
After a half-hour of wandering, you arrived at the cemetery. Of course. A perfectly normal first-date spot for an Addams.
Thing waited there beside a portable speaker, already tapping impatiently like a stage manager.
Pugsley turned to you, cheeks a little pink.
“Wednesday said you like to tango,” he said, way too proudly for someone who definitely learned tango twelve minutes ago by watching an old family recording of Gomez and Morticia.
He took your hand. Spun you — a little too fast, nearly lost balance — then caught you again, laughing.
His grip on your waist wasn’t seductive or calculated. It was excited. Like he couldn’t believe you actually said yes.
He tried to look confident, but the truth was obvious in his eyes:
Please don’t notice I have no idea what I’m doing, but also I’ve never been this happy before.
Thing hit play.
And the two of you — uneven, unpolished, slightly chaotic — tangoed in the graveyard under the moonlight.
And somehow… it worked.
Not because it was perfect. But because it was Pugsley.
Three Weeks Later — The Festival
Three weeks. Three whole weeks of everything going right.
Pugsley had never felt this lucky. He built things and you didn’t run. He talked and you listened. He accidentally shocked the floor once and you just laughed.
And now? A family festival at Nevermore. Addams parents included.
Gomez and Pugsley grabbed food, laughing, bonding, everything good — until Pugsley looked toward the courtyard.
And saw it.
You. Laughing. With some boy.
Nothing dramatic. No touching. No flirting.
Just laughing.
But for Pugsley — who’d never had to share affection before — something unfamiliar snapped awake inside his chest.
Not anger. Not violence.
Just a burning, panicked feeling he didn’t understand.
His hand was still resting on one of the tall, gothic iron lamps. He didn’t even realize his electricity was building, responding to the emotion he had never felt:
Someone else is making you smile the way I thought only I could.
A spark jumped.
Then another.
Then the lamp shattered. Glass raining down, metal cracking, electricity bursting like a broken storm.
Pugsley jerked back, eyes wide.
He didn’t mean to.
He didn’t plan anything.
He was just… hurting. And confused. And jealous for the first time ever, and he didn’t even have a name for the feeling yet.
Gomez stared, shocked.
Pugsley didn’t move.
He just stood there, breathing hard, fists clenched, staring at you and that boy — not angry in a violent way, but hurt in the deepest, simplest Pugsley way:
That was supposed to be me.