Work Text:
The art shed was dark and musty, filled with the pungent smell of acrylic paint. It was difficult to breathe underneath the sourness of the air - all lead pencils and rotting wood, traces of dust and mould. Despite windows, the small space had no means for ventilation. The artist kept his studio just as messy as his incoherent work, dirty sheets and rags strewn over each easel, splatters of paint marking the floorboards. Sketchbooks left open for her to flick through, soft pencils worn down to the nub. For a makeshift art studio, it should have been splashed with colour : vibrant orange, vermillion, olive-green and chalky yellow - but Xavier was strictly charcoal. She was surrounded by ghoulish paintings and sketches of the terrorising monster, large canvases towering over her. The walls felt as though they were closing in, but Wednesday felt trapped for an entirely different reason.
“I mean, do you even care about anyone or anything at all, Wednesday?”
Xavier Thorpe had a sharp tongue, that much was clear. Usually his words were effortless to brush off, to toss aside and ignore. But it was the way he looked at her, as if she were heartless. As if this was just something she did, just who she was.
The second the words left his lips, she was back there - back in front of the police station, harsh wind ripping through her uniform. Tyler looked hurt. No, he was hurt. And he looked at her like she was nothing more than cold and callous, like she had crushed his highest hopes - when she was simply being honest. What more did he expect? But a punctured, deflating balloon found home in her chest. More sour than spoiled milk, more acidic than thick paint. Tyler’s face fell on a repeated loop in her head, his shoulders drooping and smile faltering. He had the audacity to look like a wounded animal, blood-soaked and whimpering. But she had not stabbed him in the back, she had not carved into his flesh and left him on the ground. She had told the truth. She had given him the facts, but he spat them back out as if they were nothing but rotten lies. It wasn’t until he walked away from her, that she realised he must have been hoping that she was going to say something different. She tightened her jaw a little, eyes flickering away to the floor. Xavier had turned her into some kind of villain, and maybe she was.
“Get out”, he seethed at her.
Wednesday did exactly that, dragging her bruised ego with her.
Nevermore seemed dreary and bleak, every tree looking the same until she feared that she was walking around in circles. Wednesday knew her way around the outdoors, but for a split second, she wondered if she had gotten lost. Her head was swimming, ears ringing. The rustling of leaves and snapping of twigs were all muffled, far-away. She stomped with her big boots, kicking at every rock that she could see. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. She had barely known him for a month, and somehow he expected an invitation. To Nevermore’s stupid dance with its white and ice blue theme, twinkling lights and flouncy dresses. He was a normie. And for whatever reason, he wanted to stand amongst the outcasts and freaks, and he wanted to stand beside her. Wednesday didn’t understand. Tyler Galpin was quickly becoming obnoxious. He was pushy and emotional, prideful and easily-hurt. He was normal and boring, and everything that she would never normally waste her time on. But still. Still, she could hear the never-ending loop of the small, dejected way he asked her to give him a call when she was willing to give him her attention. Still, she could see the way he flinched ever so slightly when she said Xavier’s name. And still, she found herself dredging through the woods and down the long, winding roads with a quiet determination until she reached the town square of Jericho.
The Weathervane was quiet around this time, in the later hours of the afternoon. Post-work coffee fixes and chatty teens still in their uniform made up the majority of customers, and they all tipped poorly. Wednesday spotted him behind the counter, pressing buttons on the espresso machine with a forlorn expression on his face. He was in auto-pilot, trying to make it through the rest of his shift so that he could smother himself with his pillow.
“Hi.”
Tyler cursed quietly, almost dropping a mug.
Wednesday was stood in front of the counter, big dark eyes focused on him. She looked just the same as she did a few short hours ago - neat braids, straightened uniform, big boots. There was nothing about her to suggest that she was feeling anything remotely close to the shrivelling, torturous hole of embarrassment that he was stuck with.
Why would there be? Wednesday Addams did not do feelings - she had made that much clear.
“You’ve got to stop doing that”, he mumbled half-heartedly.
“You need to stop being so easy to mess with.”
Tyler knew that she was referring to his skittishness, how easily-spooked he was. But that didn’t mean that her casual comment didn’t dig deeper, that it didn’t twist the knife a little. He knew it was stupid. And afterwards, he was certainly feeling stupid. But after hearing the giggles and whispers through the morning shift about the upcoming Rave’N and that it was tradition for the girls to ask the guys - the tiny bubble of hope rose without permission. When he bumped into Wednesday outside of the police station and she didn’t immediately head off with a list of tasks to do, he couldn’t help but wonder if she did have something to ask him after all. The bubble rose higher in his chest with every word, lasting approximately less than a minute. That’s when Wednesday took a pin in her hand and burst the bubble herself. And she did it without flinching, without even blinking - and that’s what hurt the most. Maybe after all the times that she went to him for help, stopping by his place of work, indulging in conversation - he had started to think that she maybe didn’t hate his company. Maybe after countless smiles thrown her way and soft, lingering eyes - he dumbly hoped that they were on the same page.
“Did you want something?” He asked flatly.
“Like what?” She replied, perhaps a little too quickly.
“A quad to go?”
The second half of the sentence was stressed, and Wednesday began to wonder if he really did want her to leave. He was hardly looking at her, eyes flitting around the cafe, looking for something to do despite there only being two customers sat down in chairs. Both with fresh refills and hardly-touched pastries.
“You want me to leave?”
“Wednesday”, he let out a long sigh, rubbing an eye tiredly. “I don’t know what you want from me. I’m tired, okay? I’ve had a long day, and you’re not really helping.”
She didn’t budge. Tyler was beginning to think that she had come back just to add insult to injury. To sneer in his face and rub salt into the wound. He was already embarrassed as it was, she didn’t need to bother. But when he looked up, he started to notice it. The minuscule crease between her eyebrows, the way that her right hand twitched at her side. The way that she shifted her weight awkwardly, eyes darting between his face and the window to her left. And although he should probably know better, he wondered if she wasn’t as unaffected as she seemed. He had known her for a little less than a month, but he knew that Wednesday had very few facial expressions and changes in tone of voice. If she wanted to say something, she would raise a singular eyebrow by half a centimetre. If she was amused, the corners of her mouth would twitch. Beyond that, he got the sense that she wasn’t someone to stick around if she didn’t have an agenda. She wouldn’t have come back to see him if she didn’t have something that she needed to say. Maybe this was her resolve cracking.
Wednesday fidgeted on the spot, trying to tighten herself back into stone. She tried to school her expression, to hold her chin high and straighten her shoulders. She had found herself in a stalemate before. It was a long, skilled game that she never lost. And she had been in the middle of several gruelling arguments before, too. With her parents, her brother, strangers - she did not hold back. She gathered ammunition and started firing before she ended up dead on the battlefield. But this one didn’t quite feel the same. She didn’t like it. She was not bothered, but Thing, Tyler - everyone was looking at her like she should be bothered.
“I didn’t ask Xavier because I wanted to.”
Tyler was sure that he imagined the words coming from her mouth, just like he imagined everything else between them. But he had never seen her look so uncomfortable, and it made him inclined to believe that she was being honest with him.
“Okay”, he started slowly, “…so why did you?”
“I had a hidden agenda.”
“Which is?”
“That’s on a need to know basis.”
Judging by his face, she wasn’t doing a great job at smoothing things over.
Tyler drew in a long breath, like he was trying to calm himself down. “Right. I should have guessed. So you came all the way here to tell me that you didn’t want to ask Xavier, but you can’t tell me why you did?”
Wednesday blinked.
He huffed a small laugh, shaking his head. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
It was laced with frustration, but there was quiet adoration there. Somehow, he still found her endearing. Wednesday could never understand it, could never see why he was so eager to aid and assist, why he looked at her in such a way. Like she was a little caterpillar that he found on a tree one day, tucking her away into his pocket. And later when he put her in a glass jar and grabbed a magnifying glass, he started to become intrigued and realised that she was kind of interesting. Kind of cute.
Wednesday looked at him as if he had grown two heads. As if he was some kind of stubborn weed that kept growing back twice as strong when she tugged at his roots. A science experiment that went wrong. She tried every method, testing every hypothesis - but the results were unlike anything she had seen before. If she avoided him and kept her distance, he chased. If she tried her hardest to make him feel anything but special, he shook his shoulders and brushed it off. If she refused to give him answers, he smiled at her like it was all a big mystery. Wednesday feared that if she yelled at him, he would simply cry. And somehow, she would end up feeling like a child that needed to be scolded, that needed a time out. A child sucking her thumb and making an apology card out of glue and stickers. It was humiliating. Nobody should have the ability to make her feel that way, especially not Tyler Galpin. Tyler with his clearly-loved flannels and boring brown jacket. Tyler with his broad shoulders and big hands. Tyler with his hazel eyes and blinding smile. If she was going to spend more time around him, Wednesday feared that she would need to invest in sunglasses.
Reluctantly, Wednesday realised that it was rather convenient to spend time with him. His company was agreeable and his knowledge was passable. His familiarity with Jericho was beneficial and his coffee brewing skills were almost admirable. He knew to tamp harder for a more bitter aftertaste, and he didn’t try to coax her into trying any of their unbearably sweet artificial syrups. If she was one to fuss about looks, she could admit that he was rather attractive. Definitely attractively. And quietly, she began to wonder if it would be so bad to try and spend more time with him.
“I came here…”, she said decidedly, forcing herself not to falter. “To ask if you would accompany me instead. To the dance.”
Tyler clearly wasn’t expecting that.
His hand paused from where it was scooping ice out of a bucket, and he waited patiently. Maybe he was expecting her to immediately take the words back, or to laugh in his face. But when she didn’t, he dropped the scooper and stepped closer to the register, closing some of the distance between them. He chose his words carefully.
“What about Xavier?”
“He figured out my ulterior motive.”
Tyler cracked a crooked smile, a little sad. He looked down, scuffing his shoes on the floor. “So I’m the second choice? The understudy?”
Wednesday gritted her teeth. “Do you want to go or not?”
“Do you?”
The scowl reappeared on her face, sharp and unmistakable. She didn’t understand. A few hours ago, he was asking for her to move him up her list of priorities and now that she was considering it, he was almost throwing the offer back in her face.
“Wednesday - look, of course I want go. I want to go with you. But I don’t want to be some pathetic pity date, or a pawn in some game that you’re playing. I need you to tell me that you are asking me because you want to go. And that you want to go with me.”
He was out of breath by the time he finished, eyes searching hers.
She could see it plain, something was on the line for him. It was there earlier that day, in front of the police station, with his incredulous expression and cutting voice. For the first time, he stood his ground and told her no. He was always so careful not to press, not to push her too far. But not this time. If he laid his cards out on the table, she couldn’t pretend to ignore them, couldn’t look at him as if he had created this entire narrative in his head. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe she just couldn’t bear to acknowledge it. Instead, she ignored the page that he claimed they were both on. Snapped the book closed without another glance. Tossed it in a fire and stamped on the ashes. But it was seemingly useless. Perhaps in her panicked effort to deny and deflect, she had somehow made her feelings more glaringly obvious. A nagging feeling tugged from within her, urging her to do or say something. It had never been so insistent before.
Her voice was small, but there nonetheless. “I want to.”
His face lit up with another one of those smiles, so bright, so blinding - it almost ripped her in two. It took everything in her to walk away calmly, whilst everything inside her urged her to high-tail it out of there while screaming.
— — —
They had barely arrived at the Rave’N and she had already pulled a disappearing act.
Tyler scoured the dance floor, pushing past the crowd of people and squinting through the rotating lights and reflections of the disco ball. He searched for her through the maze of translucent white drapes, caressing the floor, each curtain entangled with twinkling lights. The dance floor was coated in dry ice, swirling and curling its way to each corner, reminding him of sunken clouds.The room off to the side was golden and warm, filled with glowing trees and the gentle crackle of a fireplace. It was there that he found her, sitting like a statue. The atmosphere was tense. He got the sense that Wednesday wasn’t just sitting out to catch her breath, or that the drinks had been too sweet for her taste. Her arms were crossed, eyes cast downwards in contemplation. He figured she didn’t want to be found.
“Was it the thin mountain air or the yeti-tinis that got to you?” He started in a light-hearted manner, watching as she turned to face him.
“Xavier told me what you did last year. How you and your friends assaulted him and destroyed his mural on outreach day.”
Right. She was jumping straight in. He shouldn’t have expected anything less. But he blindly hoped that he would be the one, eventually, to admit to his past. It was a part of himself that he was not proud of. And he tried to hide it from her, and not because it was part of the game. The twisted game that he had been forced to play of juggling both the love interest and antagonist. There was a real sense of shame and regret there, and Tyler knew that if he could, he would go back and choose a different path. Maybe he would have fought harder to escape with her into Burlington when he had the chance.
“I guess that was inevitable.”
He sat down gingerly, sighing to himself. And slowly, he began to tell her. In honesty, he could easily have made up an excuse or blamed Xavier for lying, and she may have believed him. He could have sugarcoated it or used the dead parent card to gain sympathy. He wasn’t sure why he chose to be honest, but he did.
Wednesday sat quietly the entire time, not even blinking once. Her face didn’t give anything away. She gave him no indication or clue to let him know if he was on the right track, or if she even believed a word coming out of his mouth. He couldn’t change tactics, or backtrack. All he could do was come out the other side and see the damage done.
“Did you think I was going to judge you over some lousy prank?”
His eyebrows raised slightly, lips twitching.
“I would have taken it further.”
When she first mentioned Xavier, his stomach sunk. It wasn’t even that he had a problem with the artist - not really. He might have rubbed him the wrong way a long time ago, and he may have laughed as he saw the angry boy take in his destroyed mural. Tyler was angry himself, and messing with other people was a surprisingly good outlet. But Xavier didn’t press charges. He didn’t talk about what happened, or turn others against him. He kept to himself. He left Tyler to live with his own mistake. Tyler respected that. It didn’t mean that Xavier didn’t hate his guts, but he didn’t give him any grief other than looks of distain or groans when assigned the Weathervane on Outreach Day. It really wasn’t about Xavier. Somehow, it was more the nasty shock. He hadn’t even seen the pair of them interact other than a brief encounter at the Harvest Festival and the Weathervane, where Wednesday didn’t seem particularly enthused. She had ringed the bell for him, after all. Asked him to make her usual, asked him for help. But the moment Xavier’s name left her lips, Tyler wondered if this was his punishment for what he did last year. And that maybe he deserved it.
“You mean like putting piranhas in a swimming pool?” He questioned her playfully.
Wednesday frowned for a split second.
“I may have done a little digging on you after we met.”
Gathering intel may have been part of Laurel’s instructions, and she ordered him to spend time with her. She may have wanted him to get close to their target, but part of him wondered if she really thought her own plan through - if asking him to get close to Wednesday was a good idea. Tyler was unprepared for how much he liked her. And that definitely was not part of the plan. Staying up to the harsh light of his laptop screen, pushing his fist into his mouth as he tried not to laugh at the articles from Wednesday’s previous school, describing the “incident”. Scrolling through the details and eye witness reports, shaking his head and beaming with pride - was not part of the plan. Tyler was wholly unprepared, for how much he wanted more.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
After a while, he had lost count. He found a reason before he even knew who she was, before she got tangled in the twisted coil that was his half-baked mission. Maybe it was the way she set him on edge, making the hairs on his arms stand up. Or the way her coffee order was perfectly fitting - dark and bitter, inedible to most. And the more he looked, the more reasons he found. They snuck up on him, tripping him up. Her obsession of solving the case, her dry humour, her monochrome wardrobe. And just moments ago, there - another reason. She hadn’t spit in his face, or even flinched as he admitted to his biggest mistake. In fact, she wished that he had followed through with something worse. And while that should have sent alarm bells ringing in his mind, all of the noise up there melted away until Tyler was left with a rather peaceful silence. Knowing that someone might accept him for who he was - angry, a little lost, slightly deranged. She might even like him for it.
She didn’t say anything for a while, but for once - her eyes gave her away. They softened, slight enough that nobody else would even notice, would even detect the minuscule sign of weakness. But Tyler could see it. She was calling off the troops, drawing her shielded weapons away and placing them on the ground. She was waving the white flag.
“I mean it, you know”, his voice softened, less playful - more true, “I like you.”
Wednesday blew out a long, frustrated breath. “I know.”
Tyler watched as she slumped back into the loveseat like a child having a tantrum. She stared at him hard, but there was no malice behind it. It was almost like she was considering his words, stopping for a moment to acknowledge them instead of batting them away like pesky bugs. He tilted his head. “And?”
“And I think it’s a terrible idea.”
They couldn’t look away from each other. At this point, there was no need for words, they were merely a formality. Their eyes were doing all the talking. And whilst sitting separate from the floor full of swaying bodies, they managed to slip into something vaguely reminiscent of a dance. With their own rhythm, eyes darting back and forth, bodies sinking a little bit further into the air. Leaning in, just slightly. It was like a game. The cheesy pop melody blared through the thin drapes, slightly muffled and slowed down. The dry ice started to wrap around their legs, giving the illusion that they were floating in thin air. Wednesday looked so damn pretty. Her usual dark eyes had been outlined by a black kohl, smudged at the edges, softened slightly. Underneath the glow of the lights, he could make out the dusting of her freckles across her nose and cheeks, and her lips were full and glossy. Her dress was black - of course - but the many layers were almost sheer, and they moved like water. When she walked down the stairs, he couldn’t be sure if she was walking or floating over to him. There was a delicious anticipation in the air, something that didn’t need to be signified by something as trivial as words. Unbeknownst to them, the pair slipped into a strange kind of middle ground - in-between revelations and secrets, confessions and lies. Amongst the deception, there was something entirely truthful.
“The thing about terrible ideas…”, Tyler breathed, hand slowly coming up to cradle her cheek, “…is that they are often much harder to resist.”
It was a moment of surrender. When his lips met hers, Wednesday’s eyelashes fluttered against her cheekbones. He could feel the gentle whisper of them against his thumb, and she all-but melted into his grip. She waited for him to guide her, fingers tilting to keep her mouth at the right angle, other hand joining on the other side of her face to encourage her. Her movements were unpractised, maybe even a little sloppy. But her lips were eager and sticky with gloss, and it left a strange yet pleasant tingling sensation. Wednesday’s hands stayed planted firmly in her lap, but there was something submissive about the action. If they were engaging in a dance, she would be waiting for him to place her hands on his shoulders and waiting for his quiet whisper to count them in once the music began. She was letting him lead. In return, Tyler let himself surrender. He chased her lips, tugging her back to him a little desperately, every time she tried to break for little gasps of air. He couldn’t bear to part with her. A hand wound itself around the back of her neck, twining into her pinned braid crown, keeping her close. He had only dreamed of being this close to her, and after wanting her so badly, lying awake at night to the thought of it - he never imagined that she wanted him just as much.
For a moment, Tyler let himself give in. He let himself be swept away by the illusion in his head, the foolishness that led him to believe that he had a chance - that they had a chance. Maybe they did once, back when they were so close to driving to the train station, escaping into the dead of night - much like Bonnie and Clyde. With only the stars and their laughter following them. Maybe they might still have a chance, something beyond this night. It may have been reckless and stupid, but Tyler clung to that hope desperately as their lips gently parted, keeping his forehead pressed against hers. Wednesday’s eyes were still fluttered shut, her breathing quick and a little uneven. He took the quiet hope in his hands and curled an arm around her waist, squeezing her tight. Hoping to shield her from what was to come, hoping to silently beg for a bit of forgiveness until then.
The bittersweet melody continued playing on a loop around them, sunken clouds drawing nearer until they were swept up into one, weightless moment.