Work Text:
It pained Wednesday to admit, but there was a time when her relationship with her mother wasn’t so fraught.
Once, she had been her mother's little shadow, mimicking and imitating her with all the grace of a young predator learning how to hunt. That idolization had died sometime before being shuffled off into the public school system, and the similarities that were picked between the mother and daughter pair stopped inducing a childish pride and instead became a most redundant irritation.
Her mother, of course, still delighted in the comparisons, obviously assuming her influence on Wednesday’s final form as something to be celebrated rather than reviled, and Wednesday strove to disabuse her of that notion in all the ways she could. The skirmishes between mother and daughter were many and littered with sharp barbs and cloaked criticisms, both frequently over the table during meals or when Wednesday was forced into shared quality time in the family rooms.
Alas, Wednesday was still young yet, and though she had grown to be a formidable adversary to her mother’s silken venom, she still found it prudent to retreat occasionally, not conceding to a defeat but to a temporary armistice.
Her father was a different matter.
Alone, his jovial and blundering disposition was infuriatingly adept at lowering her natural defenses. Her mother’s creature he may be, but Wednesday had a soft spot for her father, a respect for the man who somehow survived Morticia Frump’s poisonous allure and who adored both his children no matter how inept Pugsley proved to be. She would die before ever admitting it, but her father was perhaps her favorite amongst her macabre family tree, even more so than her beloved Uncle Fester.
Since it became clear that Wednesday and her mother’s relationship would only grow more volatile as she came into her own, her parents had developed a system on how to meddle in her life. They called it guiding, but Wednesday recognized the manipulation tactic from a mile away. They were her parents though, and there were some things she still had to tolerate whilst she built her empire.
Her father knocking on her door was an obvious sign that whatever information had come this way was not something Wednesday would take well from her mother. That he also had a plate of freshly cold spider-chip cookies told her that the news alarmed them enough that they believed her in need of early appeasement.
She wasn’t that childish anymore but the glare she affixed her father with was half-hearted at best. She allowed him in and headed back to her table, trusting her father to see himself in. She had a brew on the burner still bubbling and the timing needed to be precise when she dropped in the skullcaps. Wednesday was adding the clump of fungi when she heard her father repeatedly strain the springs of her reading chair, clearly fidgeting for some extra time.
“Tyler Galpin has been released from Willow Hill.”
Wednesday paused for the barest second before she began to grind up the nettle and sage shell, her movements perfectly controlled while she worked the pestle and mortar.
Her father’s tone was soft, placating. “He’s been deemed rehabilitated by his doctors and acquitted of any guilt. Laurel Gates is still in a coma, and she is being kept on life support. She will be tried if she ever wakes up, but it seems unlikely that she ever will.”
Wednesday stirred twice, counterclockwise. “And they’ve pinned all his kills on her?”
“Gates kept detailed journals of her…studies on the hyde.” There was an audible wince. “I was told it was illuminating.”
Wednesday wasn’t surprised. She sprinkled the allotted amount of bone ash and asked evenly, “And the judge accepted it?”
“The jury did.”
“He’s a minor. The juvenile courts don’t do jury trials.”
“He was tried as an adult, my storm cloud. The jury and the public were on his side.”
Wednesday doused the flame and turned then, the table jostling at her abrupt movement. She glared, giving her father her full attention while her concoction’s sputtering died out. “Seventeen dead and the public was on his side?”
“Only sixteen deaths,” her father soothed. “Of which, only three were known in the greater Burlington area. The others seemed to have been campers and vagabonds who somehow ended up in Vermont. Anyhow, it seems as though Jericho and the public have rallied around the young man in the past few weeks. The Walkers have been vocal supporters of his and with some of the late mayor’s belongings and personal anecdotes, they’ve painted quite the picture of both Tyler and the Gates family. Donovan has been making his rounds to plead for forgiveness on his son’s behalf, and I’ve heard that out of all his rehabilitative requirements, the boy was most concerned with sending his own letters to the victims’ families.”
Her father paused, taking in his daughter’s perfectly restrained scowl. “From what sources I’ve heard from, the boy seems to have taken his rehabilitation quite seriously since Laurel Gates was transferred far enough for his hyde to be calmed. He’s contrite and repentant and with Laurel Gates incapacitated for the foreseeable future, there doesn’t seem to be a danger in letting the boy free.”
Wednesday snapped at that. “Tyler Galpin is a murderer and a liar.”
“Not according to the verdict,” her father corrected gently. “Oh mija, I know it must grate on your sense of vengeance but judgement has been passed.”
But not her judgement.
And as far as Wednesday was concerned, Tyler Galpin still had much to answer for.
She’d make sure of it.
Nevermore, unfortunately, still had too many familiar faces. Wednesday had hoped that after the fiasco last year that the student body would be at least a third smaller. Instead, it looked like the population had nearly doubled in size. There were more students milling about and more eyes following her than when she had been the new transfer.
That she and her reluctant accomplices last year had been regulated into these insipid heroic roles was aggravating enough, the combined noise of the returning students sharing gossip with their new peers was enough to make Wednesday consider lacing the next day’s meal. If she had to endure the flash of another student’s phone, she was going to drop it into the same vat she did Thorpe’s.
“Not enjoying the popularity boost?”
Speak of the devil. “Neither are you it seems. Are you in the habit of skulking in corners, Xavier? I would’ve assumed that your father would have shipped you off to some other elitist school by now.”
His face spasmed, an uninteresting sullen countenance taking over as he muttered, “I don’t suppose you care or just haven’t heard from the gossip queen herself yet. Dad’s run into some trouble. Haven’t seen him since summer of last year.”
“Right on both parts,” she said, before pointedly parting from the boy in avoidance of the giggling group of underclassmen. She had seen this particular group three times too many in her trek through the school, and whilst Bianca may have seen fit to dismiss her group of fanatics as some type of repayment for last year, Wednesday didn’t expect her to continuously supply her Song without any favor in return.
“Permanently Siren Song-ing your little fan club is a bit overkill, don’t you think. They’re kids—they’ll grow bored in a few weeks.”
Overkill without any murder. Wednesday had done worse to Pugsley for less.
Xavier didn’t take the hint, jogging behind her quick steps and paying no mind to her sharp turns to lose him. “I didn’t get any replies since the last time we saw each other. Did you remember that the phone needs to be charged?” he joked weakly.
Wednesday didn’t find him amusing. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that it also needs to be dry.”
“I mean, preferably? The model I gave you should be waterpr—”
Wednesday stopped at her door, turning to fix the boy with a flat stare. “You were right the first time. I don’t care. Goodbye Xavier. Don’t bother me tomorrow.”
When she went to enter the thumping room, she found her wrist caught, and she looked sharply up.
Xavier backed away, hands held up near his head. “Look, I get you still don’t like me. You’ve made that abundantly clear.” There was a pained smile on his lips before he grimaced. “Just wanted to give you a heads up. Galpin—”
“Has been released. I know.”
He scowled at that, lowering his arms back down. “Yeah, well, you probably don’t know that the town has—”
“Rallied around him. Again, old news. You do realize that my father likely has the same sources as you do. Better, even.”
“Yeah, well just wanted to give you a heads up so you aren’t surprised if you run into him in town or at the Weathervane.”
“Noted.”
Xavier threw up his hands again before slinking down the stairs. From below, she could hear him call back one last time. “And Wednesday, he’s up to his old tricks again. I think you’re the only one who’ll believe me and I don’t think you want a repeat of last year.”
Like she needed his warning.
“I heard the Thorpes have been having some financial troubles lately. Unpaid loans and gambling debts that have been stacking up. Apparently Vincent Thorpe’s show on the Strip has been shuffled off for some newer talents, and no one is willing to pay his asking price anymore.”
“Fascinating,” she deadpanned.
“I know right! Not that I’m trying to be mean or anything but Xavier’s always been a bit stuck up. Privileged, I mean. His dad was the biggest donor for years. He practically paid for most of the scholarships, and most of the school enhancements from the last decade were funded from his donations. Now that well has dried up, and with our new principal not having any ties to the Thorpes, he’s just like any other student. Worse even. If his dad hadn’t prepaid his tuition, I honestly think Principal Dort would’ve turned him away.”
“Riveting.”
“He’s really going to have to keep his head down this year, what with him being persona non grata with the townies.”
“Offended somebody already?”
“Multiple somebodies. Like, majorly. He came a week earlier and had a freak out at Ty—ler Galpin, the sheriff’s son.”
“I know who Tyler Galpin is. His name is not going to send me raving.”
Enid examined her closely at this before continuing, “Well, you’re better than Xavier at least. Heard that he went to the Weathervane and saw Tyler behind the counter and immediately started snarling. Some of the things he said were true, but still. He’s not doing himself any favors accosting Jericho’s prodigal son. Apparently, Principal Dort wasn’t too happy with the flood of emails from the town expressing how rude the students are. He had to do some PR with the new mayor to get him excused. I heard Xavier’s town privileges have been revoked for most of the semester.”
“Over a little shouting match?”
“Didn’t say it was a match. Apparently, Xavier made himself look like an ass shouting at Tyler while Tyler just stood there with the most distressed customer service smile ever. It was so bad too. I heard from Davina who heard from Kent that Xavier was calling him a murderer and a monster. One of the old ladies from the church eventually had enough and started shooing him out with her purse. Apparently, she used to babysit Tyler? In—sane!”
But not surprising. Close knit communities tended to band together for better or worse and his last year’s self-imposed isolation aside, Tyler Galpin was embedded in the community he had once claimed he wanted to escape. Wednesday wondered if there was any place he could run to that would hold him with the same arms as Jericho.
Enid’s voice took a dip, “Look, I’m not giving you the deets for gossip's sake. I know you Wednesday. You’re not someone who lets things lie, and Tyler—he’s a loose end you haven’t tied up. But take a page from Xavier’s mistake. Don’t go guns blazing like how you did last year with the shed.”
Wednesday glared at that and Enid smiled sunnily back. “You were right, of course, but like, the execution was so so bad.”
“I’m surprised that you believe me and Xavier about him. Did his letters of remorse not move you?”
Enid laughed nervously at that. “You got one too?”
“No.” Not even to burn—she had checked.
“Well, yeah, they were nice. A lie, obviously, but nice.”
Wednesday scrutinized her.
“It’s girl-code. I’m not going to be moved by some pretty words on a page. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Wednesday could admit that had the news of Tyler Galpin’s release reached her while she was within distance to correct the mistake, she would have probably done something rash. As she still had obligations to wrap up in the summer, the few weeks between learning of his trial and returning to Nevermore had given her time to temper herself.
She would not be brash, and she would not be swayed.
Unlike her roommate who had taken only a week of proclaimed solidarity to fall victim to Tyler Galpin’s manipulations.
“What happened to not being moved by ‘pretty words’?”
Enid at least had the decency to look abashed even as her wolf-toy curled an arm around her. “Pretty words on pages. Anyone can write words on paper and lie. People do it all the time on social media. It’s different in person.” She tapped her nose. “I could smell that he was telling the truth.” She looked away then, her new boyfriend rubbing her arm in comfort as she quietly added, “You didn’t see the remorse on his face when he saw the scars he left on me. I could tell he felt bad.”
But Wednesday remembered how expertly he had wounded himself last year and the pain and fear he feigned. Enid had missed the lie back then too.
“You as well, Bianca?” she asked mid thrust, her sword parried with a practiced flick.
Bianca went on the offensive, pushing her back towards the door. “I’ve read his case and I’ve talked to him. It’s not all so cut and dry.”
“You didn’t see the damage he wrought.”
“No, but I see a boy suffering, manipulated by an adult. Who did wrong and regrets it.” Bianca took the point, match won and opinion unchanged. “The courts gave him a second chance. We should let him try for it.”
The acceptance of their shared foe from someone whose ruthlessness she respected stung.
Each one of her allies was advocating for the same boy who had lied to them all last year.
“Lie? Kind of. Really didn’t talk to him much other than, you know, the shed. Wasn’t really much of a Weathervane customer.”
She was on her own, like always.
“Going to town Wednesday?” her unwanted stalker asked cheerfully.
Wednesday ignored her.
She giggled, phasing in and out of the visible spectrum as she kept up with Wednesday’s quick strides. “You know, I thought you would’ve caved much earlier. I was so sure that you would’ve gone to see Tyler Galpin within the first week.” When Wednesday continued to ignore her, she sang, “If you want to see him today, you’ll have better luck at his house. He doesn’t have a shift today.”
Wednesday stopped and stared hard at the smiling girl. “Speak.”
“I knew you would be facing him eventually so I synced myself to the Weathervane’s work calendar. There’s a bunch of emails registered to it, and it doesn’t look like the managers ever clear it out when anyone quits. Tyler Galpin isn’t on the calendar today, but he has a late night shift tomorrow.”
Wednesday narrowed her eyes, “The calendar, show it to me.”
The girl beamed and pulled out her phone, the same collage of stalker photos from the year before as her home screen. Wednesday rolled her eyes and gestured for the girl to hurry up and pull what she wanted. “I could print it out if you want.”
“Unnecessary.” The calendar was easy enough to memorize. Morning shifts on Monday, all day shifts on the weekends, and closing Thursday and Friday.
“I know his schedule outside of work, you know. If you wanted to ask.”
“Leave me Agnes, before I decide my interest today lies in discovering if your ability requires you to be whole and attached, or if parts can hold your invisibility if removed before reappearance.”
She would not be walking into her enemy’s den today.
Nearly a month after the start of the semester, Wednesday entered the Weathervane on a Thursday afternoon.
Her classes concluded early, and Enid had taken to spending as much time with her pack-mates as she could. Their shared room often went half empty, the lupin cages being the pack's preferred sleeping quarters with Principal Dort encouraging outcast groups to practice their more wild traditions.
“Wolves are meant to sleep in packs,” Enid had chirped, unaware of the wince her ex-boyfriend made behind them.
It meant that Wednesday had more time to write and more time to plot.
There was no bus from Nevermore to Jericho today as it wasn’t the weekend but the route through the forest was brisk and familiar. Her mind, normally quick and spinning with plans, oddly seemed to stutter, backtracking on the same repeated scenario over and over again.
She would see Tyler and expose him of all his crimes.
She would see Tyler and ask: “How does it feel to lose?”
She would see Tyler and—
A thousand versions of their reunion had whirled in her head from the time she had stood victorious over his wretched master, but those versions of her gloating from beyond bars or glass had died at the news of Tyler being freed to walk the streets of Jericho. Wednesday reluctantly admitted to herself that she was particularly inflexible here. Her musings on their next confrontation had skid to a halt, and the weeks between her returning to Nevermore had been riddled with plans rehashed and discarded over and over again. The weeks since were no better, and she had avoided any invites to Jericho with diversions.
But that’s all they were—diversions to something she was clearly reluctant to face. It was cowardly, and Wednesday despised this weakness that took root in her. She had attempted to prune them from herself these past few months, but like weeds, each gnarled knot she cut grew another notch.
It was infuriating.
Even as she found herself sat at her old table, a quad prepared by another one of the Weathervane’s employees, Wednesday found that she did not want to be here.
She did not want this confrontation.
She had wanted Tyler tucked safely away from her, whether that be in a prison or a mental asylum, at the whims of whether or not she deemed it time to see him. He could rot there for years until she found it necessary to see what he had become. Before she allowed him to see what he had made of her.
No, she corrected, what she had made of herself in his absence.
She was not ignorant to the fact that she had regressed—cocooned in the past few months since. Her mother had been ecstatic at the discovery of a heart to prod, and Wednesday, like prey exposed, sought to bury it deep once more.
That cursed thing beat traitorously at the sound of the bell, the scent of what she now knew was not just coffee grounds and the Jericho woods but the hyde, hidden underneath pink skin.
Wednesday took a sip and waited for his feigned ignorance to drop, or for his act to bring him to her.
Her name was like a breathed prayer.
“Wednesday.”
He had acted like he had not seen her. Making a beeline for the counter and exchanging pleasantries with his coworker at first. He was still a hyde though, a fact she had not forgotten. His play of waiting for his coworker to point her out to him was unnecessary, but she was curious to see how far he would go. How tightly he kept to his mask now.
He was clumsy. Or acting like it. He reminded her of the barista she met that first day in Vermont, but now with a guise of penitence cloaked over his shoulders. His coworker ate up his slightly ducked head and low laugh, nodding to allow him a few extra minutes even as he was on the clock.
The way his fingers fidgeted when he nervously took the seat across from her was masterful in the way it made her chest twinge. That he seemed to be at a loss for words made her want to scream.
“I wrote to you.”
She affected a dispassionate eyebrow at the lie.
“I never sent any. The words—I could never get them right.” He laughed deprecatingly. Then, quietly, “I’m sorry. For everything.”
“According to the law, none of those kills were your fault. Why apologize then?”
Something glinted in his gaze, but it was gone too quick and his eyes were now wet. It repulsed her. “Because I feel guilty. I may have been under her control, but it was my hands—my claws and teeth that murdered those people. I’ll never get their blood out of my head.”
“I thought you liked it. The sound of their screams, the panic in their eyes,” she echoed, eyes piercing his until he looked away, shame feigned in the way he wrung at his hands, but there was a quirk to his lips, hidden from everyone but her.
“—and a fear so primal I could taste it. I remember.” He looked up then, eyes earnest. “That night at the station, you have to know that wasn’t me,” he lied. “I still can’t say their name. The commands I was given are still up in here.” He tapped his temple. “But you have to know that I didn’t mean anything I said.”
She didn’t. But she could lie and say that she did. Lull him into compliancy like he did her not so long ago.“I want to be friends. Or at least not enemies. For real this time.” He smiled, holding out his hand.
But a skilled liar she may be, something in her rebelled at letting him dictate this dance—this battle.
“We were never friends,” she said.
She had left then, his hand still in the air awkwardly as she strode away.
She could understand how he had manipulated her peers and the townsfolk so easily. Even when made aware, one look into his teary eyes made it hard to believe that the boy was the murderous monster he really was.
It wasn’t his father he inherited this skill from, and Wednesday thought briefly of that hollow-eyed woman sentenced to Willow Hill, never to return home again.
“—nesday! Wait.”
She didn’t stop, continuing her way through the square and back towards Nevermore. This time when she found her wrist caught, she didn’t turn around until she felt the minute flex of hyde strength. She had whirled then, half-furious at his audacity and half-hoping to catch him in the act of transformation, his ruse ended and the truth restored.
What she found was his kicked demeanor, his grip loosening until only the memory of heat remained.
They stood face to face then, Tyler staring mournfully at her while Wednesday glared up at him. Wednesday didn’t like how exposed they were yet they seemed to be the only ones close enough to hear. She moved to turn away again, but he reached out, stopping short only when she bit out, “Don’t.”
“Wednesday, please, I’m being real with you.”
“You aren’t,” she snapped. The restraint she held onto frayed and slipped from her grasp. “You are a liar Tyler Galpin. A good one, I give you that. You may flash those teary eyes, and it may be enough for the masses to believe you, but I saw you. I know who you are.”
He flinched back, a very visual jerk that had a few heads turning their way, but his eyes—his eyes were pleased. “Do you?” It was low. Quiet. It made her ribs itch, her hands clench.
She tilted her chin. “I do.”
He stared for a moment and then—a small, out of place smile, gone so quick Wednesday wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it. “You don’t.”
He began moving back, everything about him remorseful again as he called out, “But I want you to know me Wednesday. I’ll be here when you’re ready to.”
She was left alone then, her figure stuck on the green as Tyler turned and made his way back to his post. From beyond the window, Wednesday could see a different smile splitting to soundless laughter as he received a companionable shove from his coworker.
And when the last of the eyes slipped away from her, Wednesday fled.
She avoided Jericho again. Mostly.
Her encounter with Tyler had not gone as planned. She did not expect his exposure to be easy but she did not think she would feel this way.
Unsure. Imbalanced.
She did not like the loss of her hard earned detachment and sought to fortify her defenses once again.
So she took her time.
School was still laughably easy, and the only challenge she found was in her matches with Bianca. She petitioned to be released from Botany, testing out of the class with perfect marks. Her mother bore a half-proud half-disappointed mien at the results, demanding that Wednesday commit to weekly dinners if she would not suffer her mother for an hour in class.
Wednesday agreed but only to get some proper meals while in school. It would be nice to not have to double up on her allergy medication.
Meanwhile, she took to researching from a distance. Over the summer, her focus had been on Goody’s book and how to strengthen her abilities as she had been unwilling to dive back into the mysteries of the hyde so soon. She had thought with Tyler imprisoned, that she would have time to research them at her own leisure, but she knew the folly of that now.
His intact wits and newfound freedom were reliant on his master’s incapacitation. How long would that last, she wondered. Could he remain in such a state as long as Laurel Gates lay breathing, even with her brain activity—what people would consider as her self—gone? Would he be able to maintain his health without seeing her? From what she gleaned from his reports, Tyler had shown a near immediate reversal of psychopathic behavior as soon as Gates was transferred several states over.
Had he not, he would’ve been interned for indefinite treatment at Willow Hill, something that his father had advocated strongly against. Apparently, Sheriff Galpin had a worse opinion of Willow Hill and its owner Judy Stonehearst than he had with her own family.
Curious.
Keeping track of Tyler at a distance proved easier than expected.
She learned from her father about his community service with the mayor’s office and the library. Bianca and Ajax, being two of the school’s student liaisons to town, seemed to frequently come in contact with Tyler, striking up a friendship that Wednesday thought unwise.
Not that she verbalized her opinion on the matter. She heard enough fondness in their voice for Tyler to understand where they stood on the matter.
From their anecdotes, the Weathervane’s calendar, and a few useful reports from her increasingly tolerable spy, Wednesday was able to come up with a picture of Tyler Galpin’s life.
He was active and more social even though he was now home schooled. He spent his days away from work between his home, the library, and the former mayor’s house. His friendship with Lucas Walker had been rekindled sometime before his release, as had a few other friendships from his childhood soon after he had returned home.
He was a far cry from the angry troublemaker Jericho didn’t know what to do with two years prior. There were a few still rightfully wary of him due to the deaths last year, but like her father had said, most of the townsfolk had accepted that the blame lay on Laurel Gates and not the boy whom they had watched grow.
Wednesday didn’t trust him, but it seemed like she was starting to be the only one—well, the only one who mattered.
After all, Xavier and her lackey didn’t count when one was an idiot and the other, sycophantic.
Wednesday did not know which one of them had first thought it clever to leave unwanted blooms and trinkets on her balcony, but either way, she was unamused. Had they tried their luck at the beginning of the school year and had some of the tributes not been rare cuttings from her mother’s class, she would have sought to set a very public example of the two, perhaps by giving them a viking farewell with the two of them situated on a raft with their useless gifts, a burning arrow to send them on their way.
Unfortunately for her, Agnes had proven herself useful, and Xavier had—well, there were only so many humiliations that Wednesday could visit upon the boy and still be productive in her daily life.
So Wednesday kept the useful herbs and plants for her rituals, while the pretty and useless dark blooms were fed to the portable firepit that the dorm advisors had long stopped trying to confiscate.
The other trinkets were harder to deal with. After several complaints about being pelted with whatever deceased stuffed animal Wednesday had shoved off the side of her balcony, Wednesday had thought to rid herself of the unwanted mounts by burning them as she had the flowers, but alas, even her grandmama’s funeral parlor had turned away the unwanted gifts, citing that it was against policy to use the incinerator for such disposal.
There was, of course, no such policy, but Frump’s Funerary Services prided itself in draining its customers of both their money, time, and pleasant disposition. Wednesday had the money and never the disposition, but time was something she guarded fiercely. Even as her grandmama’s favorite, FFS’s employees were bureaucratic sharks that reveled in wasting weeks that she did not have.
She kept their useless tributes stuffed in the corner of the balcony, the slowly crowding space starting to look like a diorama of some gothic safari gone wrong. The aesthetics of it weren’t the problem, but Wednesday only ever accepted ready made decorations as trophies, and as neither were a favorite serial killer nor had they thought to imbue the pieces with some hellish entity, Wednesday had little fondness for the barista bobcat Agnes had referred to as Bobler.
Wednesday had half the mind to have Enid deal with the issue, for while Wednesday was annoyed with the clutter, Enid decidedly did not enjoy the growing sets of lifeless eyes. Wednesday hoped that by having angled each such mount towards Enid’s increasingly empty bed, that she would solicit her many followers to take the figures out of their hands.
She hadn’t, but Wednesday continued to hope.
In the meantime, Wednesday had instead taken to sending Agnes on more missions, finding that the more she was kept busy coming in and out of her room, the less time she likely had to blackmail some spineless davinci into leaving a new piece.
Wednesday decided to run the girl ragged, as to keep her from cluttering her escape route.
With allies that doubled as nuisances to be handled, and friends that took her correct misgivings over their last year’s foe as paranoia, Wednesday could only forge onwards, alone.
She stopped probing for allies and slowly began trickling herself back into Tyler’s life. She couldn’t out right investigate him, not with his father dogging both of their steps, and not with those around them so invested in his reintegration into town.
She had to be subtle, so she started with allowing herself to be pulled back into trips to Jericho. Visits to city hall with her father, research at the library with Bianca, minding her brother and his gaggle of age-mates with Ajax. All reluctantly and resentfully at first, and then with favors promised and a put upon scowl.
Her play was masterful.
She didn’t need to seek out Tyler. He would come to her himself, in bits and pieces.
Because for some reason or another, he couldn’t stay away from her.
It started with her visits to town no longer going unnoticed. Where she had carefully observed him from afar, running the till at the Weathervane and no longer struggling with the espresso machine, sometime near the beginning of winter, his schedule had started to match. She started finding him in the corners of city hall or the station, between the stacks of the town library, and even in the tourist-filled crowds of Pilgrim World.
Like her, he was attempting to slowly sneak back into her life, trying to catch her defenseless and unaware for some game.
It was so obvious that Wednesday had to temper how vindicated she felt.
Unsolicited offers for files she could retrieve herself, tidbits of Jericho gossip and history as she perused the shelves, and even painful small talk as she tried to set Pugsley on fire with the force of her glare—all of them were a part of his yet undisclosed plans.
Wednesday did not know what end he was trying to lead her to this time around, but she wasn’t grasping in the dark, ignorant that the hand he offered in support was meant to lead her astray.
Like he had last year, Wednesday would make a fool of him. Would rip off that mask of his and expose him for the world to see, his soft underbelly laid bare and wounded like—
Nothing. His humiliation would be new and sweet. A perfect way to bracket the excitement of last year. An end to the Gates mystery and her monster in the woods.
She just needed to endure his one-sided attentions for a bit longer. Wait for her apparent disinterest to provoke the beast she knew lay beneath his skin.
Not the hyde, but him.
It was slow at first, but just as Tyler had started injecting himself into her life, he had equally as slowly begun to exit it.
His intrusions started to taper off. Where she could reliably expect him to pop up during one of her Jericho excursions, she started to have to seek him out instead. Oh, he still volunteered in the community, and his friendship with Bianca and Ajax paired well with his relationship with Lucas Walker—the four of them melding into some hellish Jericho friend group that Wednesday decidedly did not consider herself a part of—but he seemed less inclined to try and corner her alone. Where he used to trail after her in unwanted companionship to harass his father, he would only give a weak wave, sometimes not even that, and continue on with whatever business he had.
Boring business—nothing nefarious—she had checked.
She had even begun having to frequent the Weathervane once more, not that it did much. Tyler was pleasant enough, treating her as any other customer, but his distant interactions with her were not conducive to her investigation.
Had she overestimated his persistence? Had she shown too much interest, too much vigor in revealing him that he knew he needed to retreat?
Was he burrowing himself deeper into the persona he had crafted, unwilling to play their cat and mouse game anymore?
Or, Wednesday’s stomach soured, had he found new prey to play with?
Carissa Young was blond, green eyed, and held a mouth of thirty two perfectly straight teeth. She was voted best smile despite her dull incisors and looked very much the picture of the normie’s ideal of the girl-next-door. She existed in multiple pictures alongside Lucas Walker and Tyler Galpin and their other gaggle of rotating classmates.
“Carissa’s been friends with Lucas and Tyler since they were practically infants,” Bianca said with interest as she watched Wednesday watch Tyler, the boy adding the typical foam heart to the latte the blonde never managed to finish. “Her mom is best friends with Lucas’s mom. They stopped hanging out as much when Tyler and Lucas started hanging around Jonah and Carter, but she’s been coming around more often since Lucas’s dad died. I guess Tyler reconciling with Lucas also led to them reconciling with each other.”
“How heartwarming,” Wednesday replied, taking a sip of the quad made by Tyler’s coworker. The boy had gotten the temperature right this time, but the four shots of espresso were weak. The quad was practically tasteless as it fought its way down her throat.
When Wednesday brought her gaze back to her companion, she found Bianca observing her, and there was a peculiar glint in her siren eyes that made Wednesday’s hackles draw up.
Bianca took a slow sip of her own drink, and there was a kindness to her pause that Wednesday did not appreciate.
“She’s nice,” she stated, voice soft and almost Song-like with how soothing it was. If it weren’t for the turning in her gut, Wednesday would’ve expected Bianca’s amulet to be missing. “President of the Key Club and a peer mediator for the high school. She’s volunteered for a lot of our community projects, and I think she’s on all of Tyler’s.”
Wednesday knew that.
“They look good together.”
Wednesday knew that too.
If she hadn’t been winning their game before, she was definitely losing control of the board now.
Without an altruistic bone in her body, her interactions without Tyler instigating their impromptu meetings meant that she found herself a disgraced regular at the Weathervane once more.
She cycled through her companions as much as she could, but Bianca cared for coffee only to an extent, and Ajax, not at all. Enid was glad to accompany her, but that meant that she had to deal with her two-timing boyfriend and at least three of her packmates as well. Agnes was added to her repertoire involuntarily, Wednesday only allowing her to stay visible twice before she found her fawning too intolerable to bear.
Pugsley and Eugene were too busy with their undead pet, and even if they weren’t, she wouldn’t stoop to inviting her brother to act as a cover for her.
So Wednesday more often than not found herself sat in the Weathervane alone. She always made sure to have some case files out, unofficial of course and scrambled enough that when Sheriff Galpin deigned to peruse through them, he was unable to accuse her of breaking into his cabinets again. She had, of course, but that was neither here nor there.
If anything, he should be glad she had not broken into the station’s cold cases just yet. After all, other than the few odd break ins obviously orchestrated by bored miscreants, and the few attacks from what was obviously a bear woken too early from hibernation, there wasn’t much else that she could fake interest in.
Occasionally, Tyler would grow curious enough to come glance over what she was working on under the guise of topping up her drink, but he didn’t allow himself to sit. She never refused his company, but Tyler seemed to take it upon himself to maintain this new distance. He came to her seemingly involuntarily, but leaving her presence was also done with apparent reluctance, like each step away was an exercise in resolve.
Wednesday didn’t know what to make of it.
She often found herself glaring at him over the countertop, eyes willing him to act normal—not like a normie, and not like the boy he pretended to be last year, but also not—not this.
They were not strangers to one another. They could not be strangers when he once had her by the throat, and she once had him strapped down for torture.
But Tyler stopped looking at her like he wanted her to see, and Wednesday was left wondering if what she saw was ever real. Not the glimpses of him last year that brought unfortunate flashes of anger and heat, but the boy she met again this fall.
“But I want you to know me,” he had said, but before that, he had asked, “Do you?”
She had said she did, so sure in her vision, both ocular and metaphysical, that his question had only provoked her. But now, that small smile she replayed in her mind twisted. Her memories reorganized, and she started to question whether the glint in his eyes that day wasn’t pleased—wasn’t mocking.
Maybe it was sad.
“You don’t.”
What if the only fool here was her?
The next few days Wednesday warred with her mind.
She was a stubborn creature, she knew. She liked to flaunt her intelligence, and she had always disdained being wrong. She begrudgingly afforded that her mother was right about her; she did get ahead of herself. Sometimes.
She didn’t want to admit that maybe her loss from the previous winter had poisoned her objectivity. That she had seen Tyler and thought every word from his mouth a taunt, a game that she had believed the both of them were playing when in reality, it might have just been her. Just her looking for a glimmer of that boy last year.
The barista, the monster, her friend, the liar.
The Tyler that was behind the counter now was probably never the Tyler she thought he was.
He was Jericho’s Tyler. Carissa’s Tyler.
Not the boy who wanted someone to escape this town, and not the boy who reveled in premature victory. He was a boy who wanted to do better—be better. Someone who had stopped blaming the world for his hand in life.
He was someone she never knew at all.
The last time Wednesday Addams entered the Weathervane, it was to the sight of this:
Tyler smiling, laughing, eyes relaxed and happy and free.
His form leaned back on a wall, shoulders drawn up playfully as Carissa gestured with an unopened straw. They were close, the blonde leaning forward over the counter as they traded laughs.
The bell had wrung, signalling her entrance, and Tyler’s eyes had immediately found hers, the grin dropping and his polite customer service smile replacing it. He had coughed then, trying to tamp down the muscles in his jaw, while his companion turned, a flush on her cheeks.
“I’ll see you later Ty,” the girl had chirped, eyes only glancing over Wednesday kindly before darting out the door, the bell ringing once more with her exit.
Tyler had cleared his throat again, a little startled by Wednesday’s rigid steps to the register.
“Quad?” he asked.
“...iced. To go.”
“Not staying? Your booth is free for work, and John’s not clocking in tonight if that’s what you’re worried about,” he joked, but at her solemn face, it tapered off. “Is…everything okay?”
No. “Nothing to worry yourself about.”
“Your investigation?,” he tried supportively, as if he hadn’t spent the past few weeks pretending to be disinterested. “I don’t see any files with you today. Solved it already? Or should I be getting ready to hear about it from Enid.”
“It’s finished,” she said shortly, eyes trained on him and looking for—something.
But Tyler’s face was open, unguarded. “So they were actually bear attacks this time around?”
Her fingers twitched, and she suppressed a scowl. “Yes, nothing worth investigating at all.”
“Oh.” His voice dropped. “Disappointed?”
“...yes.”
“Well, I’m sure something will catch your interest eventually. With Nevermore and the forest, there’s gotta be some murder mystery to dig up I’m sure.” He handed her drink over and laughed. “Knowing my dad’s luck, you’ll probably end up solving another thirty year old cold case for him.”
The cheery fondness in his voice repulsed her, and desperately, Wednesday wanted this to be the lie. Was this Tyler as he truly was? Pleasant, kind, small-talking Tyler?
The incredulity from the last few weeks—last few months—came to a boil. “Why do you care?”
Tyler’s smile fell, taken aback. Her voice had been more biting than she had allowed it to be during their game.
He chuckled nervously, eyes darting around the empty café. “It’s because we’re friends, Wednesday. I know you’re allergic to people caring—”
“Not people—you. Why do you care? We aren’t friends. We were never friends. You spent the last few weeks being distant for someone who was trying to be friends.”
He looked hurt at that. “I was trying to give you space. I thought I was annoying you, and I wanted you to trust me?”
“Trust?”
“Yes, trust—” There was a flash of anger in his voice that he struggled to tamp down, “—that I can respect your space and still be here. That I trust you even after—”
“Even after what?” she asked lowly—goading that bit of fire.
“After you strapped me down and tried to torture me! I’m trying to trust you not to hurt me just like you are trying to trust me not to betray you! We hurt each other Wednesday, but now we’re trying to make amends.”
Wednesday laughed, even when that bit of hurt in his eyes made her feel hollow. “Amends? Are you an idiot? I’ll never, ever trust you Tyler. I didn’t accept your apologies before, and I don’t accept them now.”
He flinched back like he was struck, the flames doused as quickly as they came. Wednesday willed it to come back, but he went quiet instead. “Then maybe we don’t have anything else to say to each other,” he said and looked away. “I have my whole life to get back on track. I can’t—I can’t keep chasing after you to forgive me.”
And he was right. What did Thorpe say last winter? That she was toxic and only made things worse. That she should go away if she wanted things to get better.
If she wanted to stay, she’d have to accept that she was wrong, and even with the truth laid in front of her, something in her refused to believe him. Something in her clutched desperately to the boy in her memories.
It was unfair.
“...You’re right.”
His head snapped up.
“We don’t have anything else to say to each other.”
She pulled herself tighter and did not imagine alarm in his eyes.
“Goodbye, Tyler.”
Forgetting Tyler Galpin was easier said than done.
Without her investigations to occupy her any longer, Wednesday was forced to turn her focus elsewhere, and after the turmoil of last year, Nevermore and the greater Burlington area was rather uneventful. A few thefts here and a crime of passion there, but overall, nothing seemed to be able to capture her attention.
“I think you’re depressed,” Enid said apropos to nothing.
“Preposterous.” Over what? Her days went much the same other than the added boredom. Nothing else had changed in her life other than her removal of Tyler Galpin.
“You know Wednes, it’s alright to be sad over Tyler.”
Wednesday decidedly did not make a face at that. “The chaos that Tyler brought was always meant to be temporary, and since he’s escaped the mental leash of Laurel Gates, he’s now free to settle back into his unremarkable life.” He would finish school, get a job, and get married. Perhaps even have a gaggle of blond and green eyed children.
A different future than what she had once envisioned for the boy. A better one. Nothing to be “sad” about.
Robotically, she stated, “I am glad that justice has been served.” And then, with something like razors in her throat, “You were right, he’s changed.”
Enid looked at her pityingly, and it was only because she was determined to finish her essay that Wednesday decided to let it go.
In the weeks that followed, Enid had taken to spending more time in their dorm, citing that she wouldn’t allow her to mourn alone.
A funeral would’ve been welcomed, but there was nothing to bury.
“I meant metaphorically. A little delayed but your situationship—”
“My what?”
“Situationship. Oh em gee Wednesday, you’ve got to get with the times. Your not-relationship with Tyler!”
“Why would I be mourning something you yourself are saying was not a relationship?”
“I mean—everyone knew where it was going last year even though you guys didn’t make it official. And then, um, you know, everything that happened after and in the summer and then your weird little dance again this year. It was weird. And definitely not not a relationship. Definitely not healthy for either of you so maybe it’s better that it’s over?” Enid sent her a small supportive smile. “It still sucks though, and it’s going to hurt for a while. But that’s what besties are for!”
Wednesday really didn’t have any words to say to that, so she just stared blankly at her roommate until she slowly ducked behind her phone once again.
The pity from both Enid and Thing was unwelcomed, but they were preferable to the attempts by Bianca and Ajax to speak to her on Tyler’s behalf.
Wednesday couldn’t stand Ajax’s conciliatory nature on a good day, but him trying to ferry messages between her and Tyler had only led her to making sure he was too busy putting out fires with his charges to bother her.
Bianca was a more difficult opponent to shake, cutting straight to the point with the tip of her sword.
“I didn’t take you for someone who’d ignore facts, Addams. You’re holding the blame for crimes he had no choice in over Tyler’s head.”
“Have you considered that perhaps I just don’t want to be friends?” she said flatly.
Bianca had given her a knowing look at that, and Wednesday ended the match, shuffling onto her next opponent to avoid any more “insightful” remarks.
With Ajax and Bianca rallying behind Tyler’s cause, and by extension, the rest of the Nightshades, Wednesday found herself retreating back into her dorm, now singularly occupied with Thing drawn back to mind Pugsley and his undead project, and Enid having been chased off when the taxidermied dolls on their balcony had become one too many.
“I just—can’t,” Enid had gagged, nose pinched shut at the newest addition beyond their window. Even Wednesday had to admit that the latest tributes were particularly strong with tanning solution, the scent lingering for weeks instead of days. It was probably a good thing for Agnes that she had left when she did as her latest tribute was a wolf-like coyote, patches of fur dyed a familiar pink and blue. Wednesday made a mental note to keep this one intact, unlike Bobler who she had decapitated and sewn back together multiple times over the past few months.
Wednesday thought it preferable.
The emptiness of her room was welcomed compared to Enid’s pitying glances or Thing’s frazzled hand-wringing. Wednesday had spent the last shared weeks with the two of them typing the same stubborn scene over and over again, disposing of the paper out of their prying eyes. She didn’t need them citing her writer’s block as another symptom of depression.
With inspiration eluding her, Wednesday instead found herself getting ahead in her schoolwork. She completed her syllabi ahead of time, and she soon found herself contemplating finishing the rest of her schooling early. Afterall, she didn't necessarily need to finish her next two years since her parents had allowed her the option of testing out after last winter. A change of scenery would probably do her inspiration wonders, though she’d probably have to make concessions on technology to keep Enid from weeping.
She could let Pugsley be her parent’s Nevermore legacy; after all, she had always preferred her Uncle Fester’s unconventional achievements. She could go on the run with him or cut her own swath through the Americas. She didn’t need to stay.
However, as with Viper, Wednesday found that her fingers lay still on her typewriter’s keys, her wrists frozen and hands unmoving whenever she tried to type out her final goodbyes.
Aggrieved, Wednesday found a sort of listlessness pervade her, and she was thankful once more that her room remained mostly unoccupied. She didn’t need Thing mentioning how odd her sleep schedule had become. Her body, originally a well-trained machine accustomed to the various amounts of sleep she allowed it, was now plagued by both an odd sort of fatigue and restlessness.
She put on an unaffected facade during the day, but as the sun dipped, she found herself unsure if the day’s end would find her transfixed on her ceiling, mind dull until the scent of hag thistle lured her into a deep dreamless sleep, or if she would find herself in the surrounding forest, feet carrying her in a near endless loop around the school.
It was as if she was looking for something—something she didn’t know and wouldn’t tell.
Unlike the beginning of the year, she couldn’t avoid Jericho forever.
She still had projects that she was unfortunately volunteered for, and even with the newfound tensions between her and the Nightshades, backing out of them now felt a little too much like fleeing.
So Wednesday had taken drastic measures—she started allowing Xavier to follow her around.
She didn’t know exactly what the break between Xavier and the Nightshades had been over, and she honestly didn’t really care, but Xavier worked as a handy repellent. When he was around, she could be guaranteed that the rest of the Nightshades would fan out like he was the epicenter of some disease, and after one too many attempted interventions from Bianca and Ajax, Wednesday had unfortunately determined that Xavier’s presence was a necessary evil. Their avoidance of him made the few classes that she still had to attend bearable, and being partnered with both Xavier and a Nightshade assured that any projects done would be completed in tense silence.
When they were in Jericho, he doubled as a warding charm for Tyler.
Wednesday remembered how the first time she had seen Tyler in weeks, he had begun making his way to her, face determined, only to stop in his tracks when Xavier appeared beside her.
She did not feel a flicker of anything, expression flat and stomach calm as his eyes darted between the two of them, eyes darkening with—something.
Wednesday had simply turned away then, marching onto the bus with Xavier trailing behind her.
It went much the same the next few times their paths crossed, Tyler would make his way to her only to be stopped by the persistent presence of Xavier by her shoulder. His mouth would fall into a flat line, and his eyes would dart to hers as if asking: “Really?”
Wednesday never answered back.
She did not care that his eyes would flicker over Xavier and her before he returned to laughing with Bianca and Carissa and the rest of their little group of friends. She did not look for clenched hands or the tightness of his shoulders, uninterested in any sign that he was watching her like she was not watching him.
After all, they didn’t have anything to say to each other.
Of course, Xavier had to remind her one day, why his use was less of a shield and more of a double edged sword.
Despite his assurance earlier in the year that he knew that Wednesday didn’t like him, Wednesday knew that he didn’t understand. When he brushed against her, she contemplated peeling off that patch of skin. When he opened his mouth, she desperately craved the bliss of an ice pick to the head. Were it not for his repellent nature towards all those she wished to leave her alone, she would’ve abandoned him to the roaming bear months ago.
They had nothing in common, and he frequently failed to notice when Wednesday was reevaluating his use as he spoke. He was winning but just barely, and each time the gap grew smaller. His anecdotes of his childhood bored her enough that she had made a game of guessing what rote story he was going to repeat. However, his uninteresting past was preferable to when he thought himself witty or when he thought he should be afforded any sort of regard other than tolerance.
“So, what happened with you and Galpin?”
The two of them were finishing up the last of the art pieces, and Wednesday was arranging the bright blooms with thick gloves to frame Xavier’s murals. The boy was using the excuse of putting the last few details on his finished works to avoid having to deal with the thorned roses, the only acceptable trait of the flowers he had chosen to frame the pieces. The garishness of the flowers were almost offensive, and Wednesday wished they had gone with her mother’s headless roses rather than this explosion of colors.
“I didn’t really hear what happened—” Of course he didn’t. “—but I know Ajax and Bianca have been trying to get you and him to make up.” He scowled at this. “God knows why, but I was just curious. You were spending a lot of time at the Weathervane again, and then you just stopped.”
Wednesday didn’t say anything, weaving the last of the stems into a knot.
“Did you hear me, or are you ignoring me again?” He was starting to grow a little too comfortable. “Come on Wednes—”
“Nothing.”
“You really gonna say nothing when he was hanging all around you this past year.”
Wednesday flattened her expression. “I am saying nothing because nothing is exactly what you deserve to know.”
Xavier let out a shaky laugh, “Is that how it is?”
“Yes.”
“But we’re friends—”
“We’re classmates. Peers,” she affirmed, before biting out, “What I do or did during my free time is no business of yours.”
Xavier let out a disbelieving huff. “Wow, so much for not falling for his charm again this year, huh, Wednesday.”
She turned then, eyes narrowed in annoyance. She held his eyes in a glare until he broke it, looking away first into the distance. Then, she stated, “It is only because you and I held the same reservations over Tyler Galpin this year that I will tell you this. While you were content to regurgitate the danger Tyler posed to the public, I sought to prove it.” She pulled off the gloves, tossing them to the floor. “I was wrong.”
Incredulous, Xavier dropped his paintbrush. “Come on, you don’t really believe that do you?” He stood up, towering over her sullenly. “I told you, he’s up to his old tricks again. He’s been watching you—stalking you for some reason—”
“If he is, he isn’t the only one. Agnes. You. And last I checked, he wasn’t the one littering my balcony,” she mocked.
“I’m not stalking you. We hang out! And I haven’t been sneaking onto your balcony like a creep!”
Wednesday rolled her eyes.
Xavier’s voice was a bit too high pitched, determined to sell his lie. “I haven’t! Maybe Agnes has, but I’m not that weird okay.”
“Agnes doesn’t even take Botany.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Wednesday affixed him with a glare, but Xavier seemed to be adamant in his story. “The witch knots? The hag thistle? The redcap blooms?”
“Your mom doesn’t even have any of those for us to observe! And redcap blooms? Are you crazy? That’s illegal in nearly all the states to even grow!”
But they were invasive to the northeast, brought centuries ago. They weren’t common but in the deep untouched stretches of wood, they could be found calling for prey to step through.
If Xavier hadn’t plucked them from her mother’s menagerie—
Her thoughts were cut short, Xavier suddenly grabbing at her wrist. She went to jerk her hand away, his grasp easily sliding off. His gaze fixed towards the square, pale.
“I’ve seen those men before,” he said shakily, voice low as if afraid to be heard. “They’ve been stalking my dad’s houses for the last few months. I’ve seen that one,” he pointed towards the nondescript man closest to the diner, “at least three times this past summer.”
Wednesday raised an eyebrow, suddenly interested. “You think your father’s personal issues have come to roost?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not going to find out!” he said, quickly grabbing his personal supplies. Uncaring of the rest of the items lent by the school or the town, he began shoving his belongings into his pack as fast as he could.
Wednesday observed the men as he did this, not bothering to assist Xavier’s scramble. “They’re watching the roads.”
“Shit, I can’t even get to the bus without passing them.” His breathing was starting to grow shallow as he frantically repeated, “What do I do?”
Still wanting answers, Wednesday grabbed the cuff of his sleeve, and muttered, “Come, we can go through the back of Uriah’s Heap and lose them in the woods.”
He looked at her with misplaced hope and followed as she casually got up. They walked at a sedate pace, passing by the Weathervane and discretely blending with the crowd until they could part for the antique store.
The bell announced their arrival, but the store was thankfully empty, the owner not even looking up from her book as she droned out a greeting. The door on the other side of the store wasn’t an emergency exit, but was instead a secondary entrance, leading out to a quieter set of buildings.
Wednesday and Xavier slunk through the back of the shop, making quick but discrete steps to the outskirts of downtown. Xavier seemed to want to follow the roads, but Wednesday impatiently gestured to him to follow her into the woods.
They were barely past the treeline when they heard, “Over there!”
They ran.
Wednesday kept a harsh pace, crisscrossing this and that way, trying to use the growing thicket as cover. Xavier barely kept up, unused to the unkempt terrain, but frantic enough that he didn’t stop, even as his skin caught and bled.
Wednesday didn’t stop until they were well into the forest, far from civilization. The forest was quiet around them, the setting sun casting the forest floor a golden orange.
Behind her, Xavier was hunched over his knees, trying to recapture his breath.
“Did we lose them?” he gasped while Wednesday scanned the way they came.
“It appears so.”
The tension in his body bled from him as he nearly collapsed onto the forest floor. He grinned up at her, exhilarated from their escape, but Wednesday was observing how the last of the sun was dipping. They had run without any direction, and Wednesday knew it was prudent that they didn’t get turned around before the sun set completely. It would be more difficult to navigate towards Nevermore once darkness blanketed the forest.
“We need to head back to the school,” she said, starting without him. They couldn’t go back in the exact direction they came from in case any of his pursuers were still searching the forest, but Wednesday thought it was unlikely. From the look of their clothing and the gait they carried, Wednesday didn’t think they were outfitted or skilled enough to hunt in any woods as wild as these.
“Wednesday, wait—”
“Do not slow me down.”
“Wednesday, please, hold up, we just ran like several miles—”
“And we have several more to cover before complete nightfall. I doubt you want to be stuck out here with all the animals out of hibernation.”
“Well, no, but I’m dying here. Can’t we take a quick break?” he begged.
Wednesday could hear his loud sigh of relief when she finally slowed to a stop, not noting how it wasn’t out of concern that she ended her trek.
Her earlier interrogation came back to mind for there was a riotous field of red in front of them, the blooms opened in supplication to the stars starting to twinkle above.
It was beautiful. It was deadly. It reminded her of Xavier’s earlier claims.
Witch knots were expensive, but not impossible to procure. Hag thistle was an alternative controlled substance that her mother had the license to grow. Redcap blooms, however, were her mother’s open secret. One could grow them if they had the money to turn heads, the petals useful for all sorts of dark spells, but no one said that they were redcap blooms. They were fae carnations, spirit droplets, a number of different epithets for the same flower. Her mother had the few stalks she had growing in different vases, scattered around her observatory so none would ever be able to wrap around the other. She would never allow anyone to pull any of her blooms, and no one would be stupid enough to venture close enough to a field to snip a few away.
Especially not Xavier.
Wednesday turned, determined to get some answers if their journey was to be momentarily paused.
But Xavier was closer than she had expected. She took a step back, almost stepping into the welcoming maw of the meadow.
Xavier’s face was soft, the blooms’ iridescent glow illuminating his face in an eerie reddish light.
With alarm, Wednesday realized that Xavier’s silence had less to do with contemplation and more so to do with his sudden interest in her mouth. His face was soft as he looked at her, an unwanted awe in his eyes as he leaned forward.
Wednesday tried to rock back, but between Xavier’s looming form and the field of red behind her, she was stuck. She went to push her hands in front of her to knock him down, but she didn’t get the chance to.
Because one moment Xavier was inching towards her, and the next, he was being thrown across the clearing, a hyde loping after his discarded body and into the deadly field without a care.
Wednesday scrambled away. She chanced a single look at Xavier, seeing that the boy was already pinned and feeding the blooms underneath him, and the hyde was tearing into him like he had his last year’s victims.
There was no saving him, so Wednesday ran, feeling an odd thrill of victory from being proven correct despite knowing she would be next.
Redcap blooms on her balcony. I’ll devour you whole, he had been promising.
Tyler hadn’t changed. He was still a murderer, and he was coming for her.
She wouldn’t go down without a fight though, and she sprinted through the foliage despite not knowing if the direction was correct. She had only been concerned with putting as much distance between her and Tyler that she was probably a few degrees off from a straight shot back to Nevermore, but if she could get to a road—
She hit the ground hard, and a hard body had her pinned. Her arms were immediately trapped behind her, one of Tyler’s hands gripping them closed as his knee dug into her back and kept her flat. Her heart was thumping, so sure that she’d feel the rake of his claws next, and she felt furious that she was so helpless. That she let everyone convince her that she was wrong when she was so clearly right. Wednesday snarled, trying to buck but unable to get any purchase.
“Calm down cockroach, you’ll hurt yourself if you keep moving.” Tyler’s voice was jovial, mockingly placating. A far cry from any of the tones he had used this past year with her. Wednesday wriggled harder, and Tyler tightened his grip on her wrists and leaned heavily on her body. “Stay. Still.” His voice was harder this time, though a tinge of infuriating amusement still ran through it.
“Bite. Me.” she barked, and then froze as she felt his teeth nip warningly at the base of her neck.
“Oh, I will. Just. Not. Yet.” He licked a stripe from where he pressed his teeth all the way up to her right earlobe, pulling the appendage into his mouth before nuzzling her cheek, unmindful of how it pressed her head further into the dirt. He crooned, “Oh baby, don't be mad. You don’t get to be mad. Not anymore. Not when you were about to kiss Xavier.” His light tone had turned into a hateful hiss at the name.
Wednesday was stunned. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” She didn’t correct him about the kiss that was never going to happen.
“Was,” he sang, tone flipping on a dime. “Not so much now that he’s dead.”
“You killed him.”
“I did. Been wanting to do that for ages, but couldn’t because you know, good behavior and all. But then he had to go and make eyes at my girl.”
“I’m not your anything,” and as if she couldn’t stop herself, “Go bother Care.”
Tyler huffed a laugh, the proximity sending an unwanted shiver down her spine. “Were you jealous, baby? Knew you were just trying to get even.”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
“But you do,” he rubbed his cheek against hers, and Wednesday tried to bite him. Instead, he caught her mouth with his, uncaring of her sharp teeth digging into his lips. It split and spilled blood, but he kept kissing her, even going as far as forcing his tongue into her bloody mouth, wrenching her teeth open with his hyde tongue. It slithered deep into her mouth and almost down her throat, too large for her to bite down.
“You should’ve known that she didn’t matter. That none of them matter. I’m a liar baby, didn’t you say that? Didn’t you know that? It. Was just. A game,” he sing-songed. “It’s all we’ve been doing since last year. Lying to each other. Playing with each other. You just forgot the rules. You forgot what we were playing for.” He looked into her eyes then, eyes so earnest it made her teeth ache. “To win. For keeps. You for me and I for you. Just two black hearted souls made for each other.”
“You’re insane.”
“Only because you made me this way.” Her stomach warmed treacherously at that, and Tyler gave her a lopsided grin. “You like that? Knowing how crazy you make me? How you drove me insane last year and then kept doing it this year. You made it so hard to play the good little normie Tyler, reformed and just so sorry for everything that happened last year.”
The heat immediately dissipated and cold settled in her gut. “You liked it.”
“I did,” he agreed, nuzzling into the crook of her neck then. He was pressing kisses to her skin, unmindful of how still she had gone. Her struggles had ceased, and Tyler was still pressed tight against her. He had shifted his knee from her back sometime ago but was now straddling her hips from behind, knees locked tight around her own keeping her in place.
Wednesday could feel his arousal pressing against her skirt, the heat of it more noticeable than that of the rest of his body. Wednesday started to struggle again, but it seemed to make no difference as Tyler continued airily, “Not all of it, but it wasn’t all too bad. Could do without Laurel in my ear telling me to kill a camper here or bring her the toe from some unlucky soul there, but you? I loved everything about you. Meeting you, saving you, getting to fool you.”
He taunted with a sort of giddy disbelief. “Seeing you run around in circles just so obsessed with the monster in the woods and then falling in love with me, the barista.”
“I did no such thing!” she snapped, but Tyler continued on, grounding against her rear in a way that made something in her ache.
“How could I not fall in love too? Laurel may have had my leash but you had me by my throat the moment you came to town,” he laughed. “I killed Rowan for you, and I would’ve killed Laurel too, if you had given me enough time.”
He was delusional, she realized. And making up some revisionist history of events in his head. There was no stopping Laurel in the hours between his imprisonment and her sacrifice. Not by him, Wednesday thought spitefully. Not when he was still a hyde and Laurel was still his master, but Tyler didn’t seem to care how impossible his what-ifs were. He seemed caught up in this fantasy reality where he had the agency to save her. The incessant press of his lips paused for the moment, but a hand had slid underneath her skirt and high up her thigh, tracing idle figures on her skin.
“I loved you,” he said, suddenly sounding pained. His fingers stopped their maddening trail of hearts and his hand gripped her thigh instead, as if anchoring himself to her. “I love you. I get that you were mad. Are still kinda mad—hell, I’m still mad too sometimes. But I love you more. I want you more than I want to punish you.” Then, in a small voice, “You want me too, right?”
As if she could stop. As if she hadn’t hated both him and the fact that she couldn’t stop caring for him. Hated that she mourned this version of him rather than the mask he wore for everyone else. She’d want him until she was finally buried true, and that she couldn’t forgive.
Tyler waited a moment, breath still hot on her neck, and when she didn’t say a word he laughed. Not madly as he did before but softly, as if he was disappointed with himself for ever thinking elsewise.
“It’s okay. I know you want me. I can smell it.” Then, as if sharing a secret, “You know you whisper my name when you sleep.”
“I do not!”
“You do,” he said gravely. “Each time I drug up those little kills, I’d watch you for hours from outside. I should’ve just slipped into your bed, you looked so lonely without me, but it took Enid longer than I thought to move out. How’d she like the coyote? I got it for her too.”
Wednesday understood. “It was you in the winter? The bear?”
“Bingo. Not my best work, but Dad was on my ass nearly 24/7. I had to get real creative with the timing and everything. How’d you like it though? Learned how to do taxidermy from Kinbott.”
“And the flowers?” she bit back, “Did you learn about them from your master?”
He nipped her. “My mom, actually. Dad gave me some of her belongings, and she had an old botany textbook still left over. I could show you, if you want. If you ask nicely.”
“I don’t do nice.”
“You will. For me.” His hand moved upwards, pressing into the fabric covering her mound. “I’ll show you an easier way than tasers to get someone to talk.”
Wednesday didn’t make a sound when he pressed her underwear into her slit, and she continued to refuse as he began to rub and stroke her folds through the fabric, keeping a steady pressure until her underwear was sticky with her body’s involuntary emissions. He was kissing the back of her neck again, hips thrusting minutely against her bare thigh as he stroked up and down with teasing fingers, only grazing her throbbing clit every so often.
She hoped one of her knives nicked his offending appendage, even as her insides began to clench for something she was still unwilling to entertain.
Alas, he was able to avoid her sparse arsenal or just didn’t seem to care. It was on his seventh pass over her nub when his fervent rubbing turned into the softest pinch to her clit. Wednesday jerked and an involuntary gasp escaped, her lips too late to keep it behind teeth. The hyde paused then began to pinch again, pulling a little at the nub through the fabric, wringing her accursed clitoris between his thumb and index, his middle finger occasionally joining and grazing over the bundle of nerves in additional offense. Wednesday moaned, hating herself for the sound and then hating herself even more when she found herself squirming towards his hand instead of away.
Tyler laughed breathlessly. “I knew you’d like this.” Then his hand was touching bare flesh, a short ripping sound the only warning she had before he was dragging his fingers through her slick, lathering his fingers to circle her nub over and over again, twisting her clit at times and pinching it at others. She clenched on nothing when he flicked it hard, a mean little surprise after working it over for what felt like forever.
She still wasn’t ready for his fingers when they came, sliding into her folds like they belonged there. Her cunt was still fluttering, and humiliatingly, it felt like she was trying to pull his fingers in, like she was inviting him home.
“God, baby, you wanted this so badly, didn’t you. Wanted me even when you hated me. You were so cute glaring from across the counter. Could tell that you wanted to fuck me as much as you wanted to stab me. Could smell it a mile away.” He was talking a mile a minute, fucking his fingers into her and stroking her insides in a maddening motion, and Wednesday could feel how wet her thighs were growing. The slick sounds of his fingers made her ears burn and when he brushed over some spot inside her, she couldn’t help but go tense, cunt going tight to try and keep him just right there, her chest lifting off the ground ever so slightly as she arched into the feeling.
When it was done, she slumped back down, face smothered into the forest ground like a cut puppet. Her arms felt more tired than ever, but the strain in them had dissipated as she was no longer tensing them in his hold. She just continued to breathe, trying to recover and mind desperately trying to scramble back into some semblance of normalcy.
She felt the grip on her wrists loosen, but instead of going for her knives as she should’ve, she stayed prone, arms slumped beside her in reprieve. Then, she felt something firm teasing between her folds. Wednesday scrambled to her palms, but Tyler’s hands gripped her hips and pulled backwards, caving her elbows so she was supported on them even as her face pressed into the ground again.
It was his tongue in her next, licking up her body’s slick from the source and mouthing at her vagina. The strange feeling of him sucking in her labia into his mouth, first the majora and then the minora, and then fucking her with what couldn’t possibly be a human tongue. His nose teased at her perineum, and the feel of his hot breath on that sensitive part was probably the most embarrassing part of this act.
No, she was corrected, the most embarrassing part was hearing his lewd groans into her cunt, the vibrations making her clench on his tongue as he feasted. They’d not even had a proper kissing session without a vision interrupting or her trying to bite him bloody, and it felt like he was having their first with her cunt.
Then, Wednesday felt him tilt her hips upwards, and the angle of his breath changed. His lips were then on her barely recovered clit, sucking hard and swirling at the exposed nub, before worrying it between his teeth. It was the barest pressure and the hint of pain that brought her over, wetting her thighs and his jaw again.
Tyler didn’t stop. He brought her off with his mouth and tongue several more times, each time taking shorter than the last. Had he not had his hands locked around her hips, pulling her to his mouth even as he pressed forward, her legs would’ve given out underneath her a long while ago. As it was, the sounds she had been desperate to keep contained in the beginning had joined the forest’s cacophony, moans and whimpers she had thought an exaggeration spilling from her lips.
“I—wan—t you.”
The tongue stopped. Withdrew. A loud smacking kiss was laid on her sensitive hole followed by the whisper of a lick to the creases of her thighs, cleaning up the bit of slick that got away.
“What was that?” The tone was falsely nonchalant, and Wednesday would’ve felt irritation bubble had his voice not been hoarse from his meal.
Wednesday spoke slowly, careful for her words not to be swallowed by the ground. “I. Want. You.”
With his hands still trapping her hips, she pushed up on her elbows enough so she wasn’t in danger of eating dirt and turned her head. Tyler’s eyes immediately pierced hers, even as she tried to keep the flush she felt from seeing his dripping maw away. She knew she didn’t succeed, feeling the heat spread from underneath her blouse and up her neck at him idly licking a bit of the excess from the corner of his lips.
“I want you Tyler.”
A slow smile broke across his lips and Wednesday suddenly found herself in his lap with her back to his naked chest. He was hugging her tightly like he had finally come home, his arms crossed around her neck, and his head buried into the crook of it. He held her like she was the only thing he ever wanted, and with her skirt scrunched between them and his cock hard under her, Wednesday felt unsettled. She had been so sure that he would’ve continued gloating in that erratic way of his instead of this.
Her hands reached up hesitatingly, grasping onto his forearms and pulling them closer, allowing him to squeeze her tighter, deeper, so the only things separating the two of them were the layers of her clothes. Wednesday felt—disquieted, especially when she felt wetness on her skin.
She didn’t want to face it. She had said the first set of words, but the second sat heavy in her throat. So instead, she spread her knees and pushed up, mindful of keeping her hands where they lay on his forearms until she was sure he knew that she wasn’t trying to struggle away anymore. Then, she reached underneath her and grasped his length. She stroked it unsure at first, trying to memorize its feel, the heat of it in her hands, and how the appendage was oddly both soft and hard as she wrapped her fist around the swollen tip and dragged down. Her hand was slick, wet with what she knew had to be Tyler’s precum and maybe even some of his sperm. He had spent so long in between her legs, she thought she’d be offended if she learned he could remain so controlled while he had pushed her over the edge again and again. When she had wet his cock with enough lubricant, she pressed the head to the split of her, hesitating only for a moment before baring down. Her folds were still slick with spit and her own emissions, but the rigid length of him was wider than his fingers and his tongue, human or hyde.
Wednesday dropped only what must have been an inch or two before she stopped, panting at how thick his cock felt penetrating her. Tyler’s tears must’ve stopped sometime while she was exploring because he was pressing kisses back on her neck, trailing his lips and teeth over what little shoulder was exposed and up to her ear. “You’re doing so good, baby. Just a little more. You can do it.”
He was lying, of course, she knew what progress she had made, but at his encouragement she slipped down further just a bit more before pausing again. Tyler didn’t stop kissing her, but the arm she wasn’t holding onto slipped down to her hip. This time not trapping it in his grasp but offering a guiding hand. Tyler leaned over her shoulder and nudged her cheek until she turned, capturing her lips as he coaxed her hips down.
Their third proper kiss, as sweet as the first two. No, sweeter, with the way he drew away minutely only to return for one after another. Little pecks that shouldn’t be so sweet with the musky taste of herself still on his lips but were, just as he worked her cunt open in increments. Bringing her down mere centimeters before coaxing her back up, repeating until she was down several inches and near full.
Wednesday broke away from his incessant kisses then, breathless and only accepting kisses to her cheek as she tried to steady her gentle bouncing. Tyler was in a kneeling position, using the leverage from being mostly seated on his calves to spread her wide over his thighs. Because of this, Wednesday had to lean forward a little, ignoring Tyler’s chasing lips to place her hands on his thighs for leverage. She could feel that she hadn’t taken him down to the root, but she was already so full. She rocked backwards, trying to work him deeper, but either the angle or her inexperience didn’t let her. Frustrated, she pressed back harder, ignoring the twinge low in her stomach.
“Shit, Wednes—day,” Tyler gasped behind her. “Slow down—You don’t have to go so fast.”
Wednesday ignored him, more determined to have all of him, and growing frustrated at her body’s limitations. “Fuck—baby—you’re going to kill me. You’re going to kill me dead. Is this your revenge? Fucking me to death?” He was babbling now, but he was also squeezing her hips, pulling her backwards at the same time she was fucking herself back onto his cock. She was so close, but his cock felt like it was already too much. She knew he could get deeper; she just couldn’t get him there herself.
Tyler somehow knew that, or maybe he was as crazed as she was frustrated, because she was suddenly pushed forward, palms catching the ground in front of her again. Tyler’s knees spread her thighs wide at the same time his palms spread her ass, squeezing as he fucked into her with a dark snarl. Wednesday clenched on his cock, unable to do anything but lean on her forearms and take it. He fucked deeper and deeper until he was finally pressed all the way against her, cock nudging what must be her cervix. It twinged in delicious discomfort, her body tingling from her scalp to her toes, her nipples sensitive against the fabric of her bra.
She was moaning again, this time not trying to hold it in but overwhelmed at how full she was. Tyler seemed to be trying to keep a steady rhythm but soon found himself fucking into her harder, faster, his balls grazing her clit every so often and causing her to clench helplessly. She tried to reach down to put consistent pressure on her throbbing clit, but her position was unstable. She dropped forward, a deeper arch that made her mouth drop as Tyler used the position to get on one knee for better leverage. Her legs were pushed closer together, a slight better friction to her clit as Tyler kept rolling his hips into her rear. She felt like she was losing a battle trying to keep him in her, but her thighs were wet and her toes curled in her boots with how good it felt to be used. Her clit throbbed, and Wednesday felt like she was on the precipice of the edge of control, one that she was pushed off when Tyler reached around and pinched her nub hard.
Wednesday’s vision went black. Her elbows gave out underneath her and she couldn’t feel any of her limbs. Just a constant pressure and pulse from her cunt, like it had a heartbeat of its own.
“—oh fuck, Wednesday, yeah, all over my cock, you’re doing so good, keep cumming on me—” Tyler choked, hips still thrusting minutely and keeping her in what seemed to be a never-ending orgasm. She felt herself soak her stockings and the garters holding them up, and Tyler’s hips trembled, pressing deep and shuddering as he released into her. Wednesday felt herself clench in time with each twitch of his cock, something in her deeply settled as he painted her cervix white.
She passed out with him still pressed deep inside her, his body folded over hers like a beast over prey.
When she came to, the sky was moonless but full of stars.
She was underneath a tree, sat between Tyler’s clothed legs, his arms around her in a vice. His breath was steady on her neck, his slumber light.
She was quiet for a moment and then: “You told me to leave you alone.”
Behind her, Tyler stirred. His breathing picked up, and Wednesday wondered if he would feign ignorance.
He nuzzled into her neck instead, lips soft against her skin.
“I said I couldn’t keep chasing you,” he corrected. “And I lied—remember? I didn’t mean it. I’ll never mean it. There’s nowhere you can run that I won’t find you because you’re the only good I have. The only good I want. I may not be good for you, but I’m never going to stay away. I can’t. I won’t.”
Wednesday had never wanted good.
She flexed her fingers. “And Care?”
“Dead. If you want,” he offered carelessly. Like he wasn’t talking about murdering one of his childhood friends.
Some part of her was tempted. “...Let me up.”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Now.”
He laughed then, and Wednesday found the ground missing from underneath her.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
She wrinkled her nose at that, well aware that Sheriff Galpin was probably waiting for his son to share dinner with.
“Not my dad’s place. Home. Wherever we decide that to be. Can’t go back to Jericho with Xavier dead,” he said cheerfully. “I’m a fugitive again, and you, my grim reaper Barbie, are coming with me as either an accomplice or an abductee. You choose,” he punctuated with a wink. “—or I will.”
Wednesday thought she should argue on principle, but she felt an odd serenity in his arms. His gait was easy, and his heart thumped steadily beneath her ear. Wednesday thought about the last year and what it had meant to him—to her.
She had already decided on leaving Nevermore, and she was never going to stay in Jericho. But—Tyler was a few months away from graduation, and though she was right and it was all a ruse, something about him on the run didn’t sit right.
It was her secret, she realized. She had never wanted to lose him. She just wanted to win. To be right. This entire year, everyone had looked at her like a sore loser. Like she was being paranoid and holding grudges. Wednesday didn’t care to be made a fool, but she always enjoyed making one of others.
And Tyler—Tyler would be her biggest secret.
After all, Tyler hadn’t been the only one out for Thorpe blood, and the woods had room for more than just one body tonight.
Together, they could fool the world.