Chapter Text
Wednesday didn’t miss Nevermore, but she wouldn’t have minded being there right now. She’d grown used to her split room and Enid’s overzealous presence. Even with the mystery of the creature and her prophesized destruction of the school solved, she suspected her classes and the rampant opportunities for trouble would’ve kept her marginally entertained.
Being home wasn’t as torturous as it was before she’d gone to the supernatural academy, which in her present mood wasn’t ideal. At least when she’d been at odds with her parents things had been interesting. But even waterboarding Pugsley wasn’t as entertaining as it had been.
Put bluntly, she was bored.
She tried writing, but without stimulation all she did was stare at her typewriter.
“Hey Wednesday.”
Wednesday lifted her head and looked toward her window, somehow surprised (and yet not at all) to see Tyler Galpin standing in her room. She regarded him while lifting from her chair to square off with him.
“How did you get past the garden house vines?” They had a penchant for ensnaring anyone who wasn’t Lurch or her mother into a constricting cocoon.
The corner of Tyler’s lips curled in a peculiar half-smile. He gestured to the window behind him. “I jumped.”
Wednesday tilted her chin up and crossed her arms. “It was foolish of you to come here,” she said. He huffed, and there it was, that crazed look in his eyes. She had to wonder how she’d ever missed it.
Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe this was the reason she’d entertained him for as long as she had.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t expect me to come after you after you killed Laurel,” he said. The look on his face grew darker as he took a slow step forward.
“I did you a favor. Laurel Gates was a pathetic excuse for a woman whose grand plan would’ve gotten you killed along with the rest of us.” Wednesday paused and let her eyes flicker over Tyler, unperturbed by the vicious way his expression twisted at her words. “Though in your case, that’d be an improvement.”
His clenched teeth loosened enough to smirk cruelly. “You’re not still mad about the little bee boy, are you?”
“And Thing. You’ll pay exponentially for both.” She didn’t care he’d been under the control of Miss Thornhill at the time. He said he’d enjoyed it, and from what she was seeing now, that seemed true regardless of the Hyde enslavement. She could’ve admired it, if Tyler hadn’t hurt 2 of the select few beings she cared about.
Tyler’s teeth sunk into the edge of his bottom lip. He’d been inching nearer with each word of their conversation, was halfway across the room to her, and he closed the rest of the distance before he decided to respond. “And what if I just kill you now, Wednesday Addams?”
Wednesday tilted her head back so she could meet his delirious gaze. The last time they’d stood like this, with him looming over her, he’d had a very different look in his eyes. She wasn’t good at discerning feelings, but the only way she could describe it was warm.
Pushing the thought of their kiss away, Wednesday bit back with, “You’re that loyal to a dead woman who tortured you into being her puppet? That’s pathetic too.”
The feral look on Tyler’s face slipped a little. Lips parting, he searched Wednesday’s face and asked, “How did you-?”
“I saw the chains in the cave she kept you in. Once I knew how Hydes were made and realized it was Laurel who made you… it wasn’t hard to put together.” As they stared at each other, something started bubbling up Wednesday’s black gut. The tar that coated her cold, dead soul should’ve been thick enough to keep it down, but she found herself inescapably curious about something. “When did she tell you about her plans for me?”
“Not until you broke into her house the first time and she realized you’d go back.”
Wednesday glanced to a distant spot in her room as she calculated everything that fell before and after that moment. “So that night in the crypt… when you showed me Legally Blonde –“ her gaze locked with Tyler’s again – “you were just manipulating me.” Silence, and then she straightened. “Impressive.”
For the first time since she outed him, a genuine smile quirked Tyler’s lips. “See? There’s a reason you liked me. We’re more alike than you thought.”
“I never liked you. And we’re nothing alike.”
“Right. The truth only matters when Wednesday isn’t the one who has to tell it,” Tyler sneered. Incredulous, Wednesday tilted her head a little as she glowered at him with her wide-eyed stare. “Didn’t you lie about wanting to go on a date to get me to take you to the Gates house? Lied to Enid to get her to help you get out of Nevermore too, just to give a few examples. Some would call that manipulative as fuck.”
Wednesday’s jaw almost clenched, but she said, “Doesn’t mean I’m lying now. There’s nothing more I want from you except your blood turning cold on my hands.”
“So what are you waiting for?”
There was a beat where they both held their breaths, and Wednesday’d never admit she could’ve gotten lost in the frenzy of his eyes. In the next, she twisted and reached for a slender knife she always kept on her desk. But when she turned back to make use of it, Tyler was gone. She blinked, and then rushed to the open window he’d jumped through. Pale fingers clamped to the old wood and she stuck her head out to look at the blackened grounds of her family estate.
Tyler stood on the dead grass, his smile illuminated by pale moonlight. His brows lifted, a glimpse of the sweet, quirky barista she’d first met in Jericho flashed across his face before he waved. “See ya around, Wednesday.”
She watched him run toward the trees, her coal black eyes unable to look away, even after he was long gone.