Work Text:
The blade carved its way through her ribcage with little fanfare. As she watched the ghoul who wielded it abandon her without a second thought, blood’s metallic tang coated her throat and she thought, “ I thought death would taste sweeter than this.”
“Sweet dreams, Wednesday,” Thornhill murmured as the door to the crypt slammed shut.
Wednesday’s vision is filled with black light.
She came to to the sound of a ghostly whisper, soft in her dying ears.
“Wednesday…”
She opened her eyes and glared at her ancestor. Blonde really didn’t suit her (their?) facial structure.
“You insist on haunting my final moments, too?’
Goody Addams met her gaze calmly, but with a subdued urgency. “Crackstone must be stabbed through his black heart. You are the only one who can vanquish him, now and forever.”
Wednesday looked at her, then at the knife buried in her gut. “I’ve always heard ghosts are notoriously short-sighted but this is just shameful.”
Goody’s hand braced itself just above the wound. If Wednesday didn’t naturally run so coldーeven colder with her circulation slowing by the secondーshe would have noticed the unnatural frigidity of the touch.
“Your necklace. It is a powerful talisman,” Goody said, a weight to her words. “I can use it as a conduit to heal you.”
Wednesday stared at her, unblinking. “Spectral magic includes healing stab wounds now?”
Goody pursed her lips, “Mortal wounds lie between the realms of the living and the dead. My spirit has lingered with but one purpose, and my power is insufficient to save you as you are now.”
Wednesday scoffed, but it came out a sort of gurgling choke. “Cut to the chase, Goody. I don’t exactly have time to kill.”
“The only way you will survive is if I channel my spirit through your body and through your wound. The lifeforce I’ve managed to preserve will transfer to you, and to compensate for the exchange in energy…” Goody’s voice trailed off, tinted with uncertainty. Clearly it was an unfamiliar and uncomfortable sensation.
Wednesday understood the feeling, but her patience had long since run out. “Then what? You lose the ability to plague the shadows of my consciousness and finally leave me alone?”
If her ancestor wasn’t centuries dead, Wednesday would have thought she saw a flicker of life in those dark eyes. “That, and your soul will incorporate the bought time in the only natural way this world can accept.” Goody paused, and set her jaw.
“You will be sent back in time, to before you were ever stabbed.”
The widening of Wednesday’s eyes was the only thing betraying her shock.
“Unfortunately, to maintain balance, you will not remember the events leading up to this moment. Time is too delicate a creature to allow active manipulation,” Goody said, a hint of resignation in her voice. “And, unlike before, I will no longer be able to guide you. You will be on your own.”
Wednesday wiped her mouth feebly, hand stained red but hardly noticing.
“But,” her ancestor brightened as much as a lifeless phantom possibly could, “your case is far from regular.”
She clasped the pendant Wednesday’s mother had gifted her, pressing it firmly into her bloody palm.
“Your visions will steer you towards truths that can circumvent today’s events. Trust them, and you will know a better fate.”
Wednesday’s vision throbbed, the apparition before her fading in and out of focus. She’d never been this tantalizingly close to death. But, as much as she longed to know its loving embrace at last, she had things to do and , she thought, people to save.
Cold, sweet death could wait.
Goody’s face was all her tired eyes could latch onto in the end, a vignette of darkness bordering her visage, and the sight of the spirit rushing into her wound was the last thing she saw before blackness swallowed her whole.
“Trust in yourself, Wednesday. You are the only one who will never let you down.”
Wednesday gasped, precious air filling empty lungs like a prisoner being resuscitated for the umpteenth time, unable to resist the vice that is the chance to live once more.
Feeling the same dread rise in her throat at the thought of that life being wrenched away yet again, she rose, spine stiff and straight, arms crossed over her chest.
She smiled.
What a delightful dream to begin the day.
While her day may have begun beautifully, the sight before her was nothing but horrifying, and not in the good way.
“Oh, my frigid darling, aren’t you a vision of scream-inducing enchantment this morning,” her father kissed her mother’s hands, once, then twice, then Wednesday looked away, no longer able to stomach it.
“Could you save your nauseating displays for after you’ve abandoned me in the teenage hellscape that is your alma mater,” she asked coldly, without a hint of desire for a real answer.
“Don’t be so glum, my little hellion,” her mother smiled, lashes spidering over unblinking, black eyes. “Nevermore is a bewitching place, full of magic and intrigue and,” she reached out, before seeming to think better of it, “children just like you.”
Wednesday scowled, watching the dark woods blur outside the tinted windows. “I’ve always told you that the second I meet my doppelgänger, only one of us is coming out alive.”
Of course, she was unaware of how true that statement was, but that didn’t stop her from meaning it with every ounce of disdain she possessed. Which was, as could be expected, quite sizable.
Morticia’s smile dimmed, but Gomez clasped his wife’s hand and squeezed, the crushing grip grounding her as it always did.
The drive continued without any more saccharine acts of romance, and Wednesday unwisely had the thought that maybe, the day wouldn’t be as excruciatingly life-sucking as she’d expected.
“She’s insufferable,” was her first thought upon meeting her new roommate. Not only was she loud, and energetic, and colorful , but she seemed determined to worm her way under Wednesday’s skin andーshe gagged at the thoughtーto become her friend .
Of course, she’d get over it soon enough, she consoled herself as she allowed herself to be led around campus in a tired exercise of teen movie cliche.
She took note of the ones to watch for, but did so with an overall lack of interest. She’d be escaping before the week was up, after all.
“Don’t…mess with me,” said her roommate, engaging her rainbow-painted claws.
“Well that was a quick turn-around,” Wednesday thought. “I’m even better than I’d thought.”
Without so much as a knock, the door to their room opened, and mud-encrusted red boots crossed the threshold unapologetically.
Wednesday was more disgusted by the muck than anything else, but the second the unwelcome visitor’s voice rang out in greeting, she felt her head snap back and her senses disengage from the real world.
Grainy images flashedーa redhead in a tomb, a smile full of rotting teeth, a knifeー
“Wednesday?!”
She was being shaken, so furiously it would've likely knocked a real patient into further distress…were her condition anything but metaphysical.
Her eyes snapped open without warning, and she heard her roommate’s sharp gasp in alarm before she quickly retreated back to her more blinding side of the room.
Wednesday immediately honed in on the woman who’d triggered her vision. She had glasses and red hairーWednesday took immediate noticeーand, other than the potted black dahlia in her arms, seemed completely harmless.
“I’ve never had a vision without physical contact before ,” she thought to herself suspiciously. Luckily for her, her very aura itself came off as cynical and mistrustful at any given time, so her sudden wariness escaped anyone’s notice.
“I hope you won’t have need for it so soon, but we do have a fine infirmary here,” the redhead introduced to be “Marilyn Thornhill” said, concern heavy in her voice. “Fainting spells can get you into danger.”
If it weren’t for her vision just moments before, Wednesday likely wouldn’t have even noticed the hint of something else in her “dorm mom”’s tone.
But alas, her intuition had been triggered, and her senses were on high alert even as she calmly accepted the flower and seemingly warm welcome.
Her gut had yet to lead her astray, and Wednesday was far from one to trust blindly.
She’d keep her eye on this “Thornhill”.
Her mere minutes with Dr. Kinbott were as tedious as she could've expected, and her escape out the window couldn’t come soon enough.
After dropping to the ground and ducking into the nearest open door, Wednesday found herself enveloped in the sweet, bitter smell of freshly brewed coffee. Her mouth tingled, and she moved like a wraith over to the espresso machine, which was puffing out steam so thick the boy behind it didn’t see her until it briefly cleared. He startled with an undignified yelp.
“Holy crap!” Shock expressed itself in a glare as he jumped. “Do you make a habit of scaring the hell out of people?”
Wednesday could not have been more unfazed. “It’s my favorite pastime.”
“You must be new in town,” the boy huffed a sardonic laugh, “What’s a Nevermore transfer student doing slumming it down here with the normies?”
“He’s quick ,” she thought, giving him a once-over.
“Trying to escape, actually.”
He blinked at her with wide eyes.
“… But harmless”, she added.
“O-kay then,” he smiled nervously, which seemed to be his default. “Anything I can do to help?”
“I’ll take a quad, hot, and the location of the nearest train station.”
The boy looked up a bit incredulously, eyes flicking between her own and the steaming machine between them. “You’ve managed to ask for the two things I can’t offer.”
She opened her mouth in protest, but he preempted it by continuing, “No trains in Jericho, and espresso is officially off the menu as of right now.” He gestured vaguely at the broken machine before flicking open what must have been its instruction manual. After a beat of silence, his brow furrowed and he shrugged at her apologetically.
“Aaand the whole thing’s in Italian, so I really can’tー”
Wednesday strode behind the counter and snatched the booklet from his hands without wasting a breath.
“ーhelp…you,” he tilted his head at her, eyebrows raised, “You can read Italian?”
She shoved the manual back against his chest, and he stumbled back a bit from the force.
“I can fix your machine.” She took a step forward. “That’s one impossible request solved, how about the other?”
With a wry smile and a shrug, the boy offered to drive her to the station in the next town over himself, but only after his shift ended. Wednesday agreed to wait, albeit displeased, and set to fixing the machine.
He watched as she worked, his presence over her shoulder somehow not as unpleasant as she would’ve expected. For some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, the two of them seemed to have a sort of natural energy easing what would normally be painfully mundane interaction. He’s almost… familiar?
After she’d finished, the boy set to pulling the shots for her espresso, but as he poured them into a mug and told her his name, Wednesday’s neck snapped backwards and she sank into another vision.
She heard a sharp intake of breath and a curse before her dead weight was caught in warm, steady arms, but it was like watching a scene from deep underwater.
This one was far more vivid than any vision she’d had before, and she experienced it in what felt alarmingly close to real time. A series of events that could only be described as impossible flashed before her, but there was a truth to them that she couldn’t deny, and even as she saw herself being saved by a monster, getting drenched in bloodーin a dress, to her horrorー, and going on a date with the boy holding her limp body at that very momentーshe believed every scene.
After experiencing what felt like weeks’ worth of memories, her body jerked forward and she inhaled sharply. The sounds of coffee shop ambience and strangers’ concern muddled in her ears, and it was all she could do to stare at the boy beside herー Tyler , her brain filled in helpfully. To her surprise, however, he met her gaze with a level of shock incongruent to merely catching a girl who’d fainted.
There was knowledge swirling in those wide eyes, and Wednesday would have to be a fool to not understand what that meant.
Connecting the dots all too late, she realized that when she’d collapsed, the pendant on her necklace had slipped around her neck to rest on her shoulder, and when Tyler had caught her, his hand had fallen to rest…right on top of it.
If her necklace was the conduit for her visions…. She tore herself from his stunned embrace, but she knew she couldn’t run from the truth.
She knew everything, but now so did he.
“I think we need to talk,” Tyler said, expression unreadable.
Wednesday gripped her mug with a brisk nod. Despite the unfathomable distance between now and when it’d been brewed, the coffee was somehow still hot enough to scald.
The two of them sat across from each other in a booth, motionless and wary. Wednesday had never met anyone who could go as long as she could without blinking, but she seemed to have met her match.
“Alright,” Tyler choked out, surrendering their implicit contest, voice rough. “I take it we saw the same thing just now?”
Wednesday’s mind was still in overdrive as she processed it all.
“You’re not going to get away with it all again,” was all she could bring herself to say.
Tyler sighed, a heavy thing, and dragged a hand through those aggravating curls. She remembered what they’d felt like against her palm when they’d kissed….
If it wasn’t for her desperate need to appear composed before the enemy, she would have slapped herself. She had no time for idiotic delusions. It had all been a lie, and they had all been manipulatively woven by the boy sitting before her now, fists clenching and unclenching in what could be nerves, but was likely just a show to put her off her guard, again .
“Listen, Iー”
Wednesday cut him off, what little patience she had seeping out of her, reminiscent of her bloody stab wound back in Crackstone’s crypt. “I’ve had enough of listening to your lies.”
Tyler flinched, and something flickered within her, a niggling sense of doubt despite herself. His face right now wasn’t at all like the one he’d greeted her with at the police station, or at the crypt. It was entirely too much like the one he’d worn through all their interactions in the beginningー through their meetings at the Weathervane, their dance at the Rave’n…and their movie date under fairy lights and the feeling of being all to themselves, alone in the world, together.
ButーWednesday’s eyes narrowed with a renewed vendettaーthose memories were all tainted with the knowledge that every single one was a mere deception, an attempt to get past her defenses, to sneak a hand inside her ribcage and crush .
And what she couldn’t yet face in the aftermath, was that she’d fallen for it, not even “hook-line-sinker”, but like one of Pugsley’s catches, caught unawares and blown up in a pond full of other victims that were targeted with just as much careless detachment as she was. The sights had been set on her in a way that was almost impartial, and Wednesday felt the sting of it acutely. There was nothing even remotely intimate about what Tyler had done to her, and it was only now that she understood the reason why indifference was a crueler punishment than hate.
(In the back of her mind, in the dark recesses she refused to acknowledge, Wednesday also knew that during every single one of Tyler’s machinations, she’d likely had the chance to see through it all, but she’d let herself be caught. She’d let herself be conned, and the worst of it allーa fact that she’d deny to her dying breathーwas that she’d enjoyed it.)
“I know,” Tyler began, cautious, as if she were a wild animal ready to flee, “that I haven’t done anything to deserve a second thought or a second chance, but!” He hurried to continue, seeing Wednesday’s scowl darken, “I do think I owe you an explanation, and…” He swallowed thickly, and broke the eye contact they’d maintained since sitting down.
Wednesday didn’t need to speak to communicate her growing irritation, but she didn’t have to wait long. It took only a moment more of tense silence, in which Tyler seemed to be working up his courage and Wednesday watched him with seething distrust, before he finally met her eyes once more with a sort of gentle determination.
“I could really , use your help.”
It took some serious negotiating before Wednesday agreed to have their discussion somewhere more private,
( “As if I’d let you take me to a secondary location.”
“Come on Wednesday, technically I haven’t actually done anything to you yetー”
“You chained me to the ceiling and left me to be murdered by a centuries-old reincarnated ghoul with a blood feud against me.”
“...Ok so I have some making up to do but can we at least agree that the Weathervane is hardly an inconspicuous place to talk about this?”
“...” )
…but eventually she found herself standing in Tyler’s room, scoping out the premises with what felt like almost too much suspicion, considering the place could not have been a more normal model of a teenage boy’s bedroom.
Littering the desk, drawers, and bedside table was a motley assortment of school supplies, trinkets, and half-eaten bags of junk foodーthat Tyler quickly disposed of with a flush in his ears that Wednesday could have considered somewhat, objectively cute…had she not also watched them sharpen into blue-grey points as the rest of him morphed into a flesh-rending, man-eating monster, just minutes before in her vision. She was finding that part a bit hard to forget.
“So uh, make yourself comfortable? I guess.” Tyler rubbed the back of his neck a bit sheepishly.
Wednesday stared and didn’t move. “I’ll stand.”
Tyler sighed, sinking into his swivel chair with a tiredness that went beyond a mere lack of sleep. He grabbed a baseball bat (by the end, as gingerly as he could without dropping it) and offered it to the frowning girl before him with some hesitance.
Wednesday took it, propping it against her shoulder in a way that shouldn’t have been intimidating, considering she was a good foot shorter and hundred pounds lighter than he was, not even counting his Hyde form, but Tyler knew better than to underestimate her.
“We agreed to talk here because my house is also the sheriff’s house, and there’s hardly a chance of me doing anything without my dad finding out,” he twitched and rubbed his neck, looking a bit more put out than Wednesday thought was appropriate, considering the amount of times she’d nearly died at his hand in their shared future, “so do you have to still…?”
He trailed off then, before snapping his gaze to meet hers with the light of some kind of realization. Then, with a crooked smile dimpling one cheek, he wheeled himself clumsily to the back corner of the room, furthest from the door.
He swiveled back around to face her before gesturing with a sort of pleased satisfaction that seemed to expect applause, or at least grudging approval.
Wednesday, of course, gave him neither, but her deadpan did nothing to faze him.
“Now you have a quick exit and defense against me should I try anything!”
His smile was bright (too bright considering the subject matter of the conversation) and the way he leaned towards her with those wide hazel eyes was altogether too—
—Nauseating, she filled in quickly, refusing to entertain whatever foolishness had her thinking a psychotic serial-killing monster was cute.
It took a solid twenty seconds for Tyler’s grin to droop and slowly die, as he seemed to realize she was far from one to let a grudge die for something as simple as a smile.
(She couldn’t quite shake the visual of that same mouth, those same shiny teeth, dripping in blood straight from the vein as he grinned over her therapist’s dying body….Or the memory of said fangs inches from her throat as she was pinned against a tree in Nevermore’s forest….)
(She ignored the way her skin remembered the thrill of that moment, when she’d looked the Hyde in the eyes and thought, “At last, I’ve met my match.”)
By now the residual hope of an eased reconciliation had thoroughly drained from Tyler’s face, and his fingers twitched nervously where he’d planted them on each arm of his chair.
“Look, we have a lot to talk about, so you may as well settle down and just trust I won’t immediately Hyde out on you.”
Wednesday’s expression dripped in suspicion and wariness, but she perched lightly on the edge of the bed nevertheless.
Her nose wrinkled as she sat. Too much plaid.
As if he could sense her thoughts, Tyler’s mouth twitched into a small smile. But instead of commenting on it, his face grew somber and he met her stare with an expression too open, too vulnerable for her to trust.
“Figure I should just confess right out the gate that Laurel’s already unlocked the Hyde,” he said, taking a deep breath, a flash of what couldn’t be guilt passing over his face. “And I’ve already killed three people.”
He searched her eyes for even a speck of emotion, but Wednesday remained unmoving where she sat. She already knew this.
He sighed, a trend that was likely to continue throughout the conversation. “You’re gonna have to let me talk for a while, no interruptions, if we want to even try to figure this out together, ok?”
Wednesday’s gaze sharpened at the thought of working together after everything, but nodded.
“Ok,” he inhaled shakily, “I’ll start from the beginning.
“When we met the first time, I knew nothing about you. Really, I didn’t,” he emphasized, seeing the look on her face.
“Laurel only told me to spy on you after you left the Weathervane and I was stupid enough to mention meeting you at the Harvest Festival.” He swallowed. “That night, I really did do my best to get you away, to get you out of this hellhole town, far away from Laurel’s plotting….But then you went after Rowan, and I had to follow orders to keep you safe.” He shook his head, and for the first time since the crypt, that familiar, bottomless darkness cast its shadow over him.
“Believe what you want, and say what you may, but killing him to save you is the only thing I don’t regret.”
Wednesday felt electricity shoot down her spine, down, down, until her toes curled inside her boots. She kept her face cold, but she couldn’t deny to herself that something within her thrilled at the blackness in his voice, in his eyes when he looked at her, in the way he confessed murder in her name with no remorse.
Unaware of her mental conflict, Tyler continued, almost begging, “You have to understand, I may have trusted her in the beginning, but I didn’t choose to become what I did.” He grimaced, an unnatural expression on that face usually full of life. “I didn’t know I was signing away my freedom when I agreed to follow along with her plans.”
Despite the residual electric current thrumming under her skin, Wednesday’s voice was a deadly calm. “You’ve still murdered three innocent people, and you’re going to attempt to kill four more.” Her eyes flashed. “One of them being my friend.”
Even with resignation weighing down his posture, Tyler looked at her unwavering, and responded firmly, with resolve, “I won’t try to defend myself, or lie. Like I told you before, a million excuses can’t justify what I’ve done but….But what I’m trying to tell you is I stopped having a choice the second I let Laurel unlock the monster inside me.”
He paused for a moment. “And if I have any say in the matter, I’m never going to kill again.”
The darkness was gone, and for a moment, Wednesday saw the boy he must have been before it all, confused and helpless in the wake of his mother’s passing, desperate for answers, no matter the cost.
His voice seemed far away when he finished, “I didn’t even realize all that I’d done until yesterday, when I woke up surrounded by the man I’d murdered.”
Wednesday knew he was referring to the body parts flung into the foliage like some twisted, bloody confetti.
“And when I saw all my memories from after today,” he shook his head in lingering disbelief. “I had to sit there and watch as the Hyde slowly pushed me out with each time Laurel gave a command until eventually…” his shrug seemed to physically pain him and he met her eyes with difficulty.
“By the time I watched myself put those shackles on you, I couldn’t even recognize myself.”
He sat there, staring at her in silence, for long enough that Wednesday understood he was finished saying his piece.
She could see the nerves and discomfort smothering him, but she let him stew in it while she took her time, and thought.
Throughout the whole time he’d been talking, forcing out every pained word, she’d been watching him with a surgeon’s eye, ready to slice apart the smallest indication of dishonesty or deceit.
What disturbed her, was that she hadn’t been able to find even the most minute signs of duplicity in his performance— if it could even still be called that , she thought with more than a hint of dismay.
Because even when she looked back at future memories where she was deceived, she was now able to spot his tells—the way he’d look at her too long or have just a little too much amusement in his smile at something she said, or even when his expression seemed to empty out at the eyes, as if the overall lack of feeling was an abyss too gaping to try to hide. It was a strange sort of hindsight, but one she trusted.
But in the face of a confession with all the potential in the world to be just another trick, she saw nothing but truth.
“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear ,” she told herself, but even Poe’s trusted words felt like a platitude. What should she do with what she felt?
For she knew she had to trust her instincts, but how could she when every tug in her gut pointed towards the boy sitting anxious and pleading before her?
And how could you , she thought grimly, when the darkness you want to condemn him for is the same as that which exists within yourself?
She looked at him as she stewed, and watched every twitch of a finger, every tap of a foot.
He tended to stiffen and shake his shoulders when he was nervous, Wednesday noted analytically. It was a mistake she’d have to remedy, as any interrogator would be quick to pick up on the tell.
And even as he struggled to hide his unease at her silence, it signaled itself clear as day in the jump of a jaw muscle, in the veins bulging as his hand gripped the armrest.
“I don’t mean to rush you, but…” Tyler’s fingers fidgeted and squeezed, knuckles white as they clenched.
There was an apology somewhere in that chagrined smile, but she ignored it in favor of glaring at the boy before her.
A few minutes was hardly enough time to decide the fate of one’s attempted murderer, after all.
But after a moment, she knew the frigidity in her scowl had lost its bite, because the tension that’d stretched Tyler’s shoulders tight over the past hour suddenly released like a slashed tire.
Although some part of herーhidden deep down inside that she pretended didn’t existーwas comforted at the sight, the rest of her, the parts that pushed and pressed and pressured her to protect every weakness, every potential chink in her armor, screamed at her to threaten, to remind .
“The only reason I’m letting you breathe the same air as me is because I don’t trust you any further away.”
“That’s…fair,” Tyler responded, a fragile hope in his hesitant smile.
There was a bitter sweetness in watching his darkness fade to light. She had yet to decide which she preferred.
“So,” he continued, dimples deepening, “When plotting against a prospective genocidal psychopath with a thing for rotting corpses with bad teeth and worse breath—” Wednesday felt her lips twitch despite herself, “—what’s our first move?”
There was a look in his eyes when he smiled at her then, one Wednesday hadn’t known she’d come to expect until the realization hit her, in this moment.
Because whether it was the light or the dark that ruled him didn’t matter. Had never mattered, not really. There were shades in her own darkness, times when the shadows were all she could see and times when they made way for the light she always denied lied within her.
Goody had told her to trust herself, and if there was one thing she couldn’t deny, it was the authenticity of her connection with this boy who’d been the first to see her, the first to know her soul. That undeniable tug between them, that’d ensnared her even from their first meeting, the first time. It was improbable, impossible, and she’d done everything to avoid it, and yet…
She would know it blind.
It’d been used to cloud her judgment in her future past, but death had been a kind teacher, and Wednesday was far from one to be fooled twice.
As Tyler waited for her order, for her plan to forge a better fate, Wednesday knew what she needed to do.
She’d claim the weapon that’d been used against her, and turn it against its undeserving master.
“Let’s see how Laurel likes my knife in her back.”