Chapter Text
He was chained up, dressed in his off-white straitjacket, as it was standard whenever he had a visitor – basically only his outcast specialist therapist. Truth be told, the man was way more well equipped to deal with him, than Dr Kinbott ever was. The comparison was unfair, he would admit, the woman had no inkling what kind of monster she was dealing with. The kind of monster, who could slit her throat if she was too pushy. And one fateful day she was too pushy.
Tyler had no indication of time, but something told him the therapist was late. Usually it took maybe about five minutes after the drugs and the getup for the guards to let him in his room. Or at least it usually felt like that. When the sedatives hit just right, no longer letting him fully drift of, but also not letting his emotions to go to overdrive. That would have been a bad idea, as the guards, who escorted him to Willowhill had to learn the hard way. The slightly mutilated way.
At least five more minutes passed, and Tyler started to get anxious. He tried to strain his chains a bit with no avail. He even called out loudly, in hopes that someone would hear him through the double door, or at least watch him on the security camera. In just a moment, the inner door opened and quickly closed behind the petite dark figure, who stepped inside. She did not turn to him yet, but he would recognize those ridiculous black pigtails anywhere.
“What are you doing here?” his voice came out a bit hoarse from not using it for days. Or weeks. Time was just a construct. She must have been here to kill him. That was the only possible explanation. She would be finished with him by the time any guard would come to stop her – if they would come at all. He gave try to his chains again.
The girl turned on her heels, but refused to look in his eyes, inspecting the small room he was living in instead. The bed was made in the military style, everything tucked in neatly. The walls were lightgray, bare and windowless. The only source of light was the overhead lamp, without a switch inside the room. There was a slightly molding, narrow shower curtain dangling from the ceiling separating a shower area from a seatless toilet. She scrunched up her nose a bit, probably from the smells, he didn’t really registered anymore. The whole place couldn’t be larger, than the quarter of her dorm. The Hyde was sitting at a desk in the middle of the room, an other chair waiting right across him. Wednesday noticed the leather bound notebook on the desk, and reached for it.
“Don’t touch it!” Tyler warned trough his teeth. This just made her more curious. Finally she looked at the boy in front of her. Tyler saw her face harden ever so slightly as she took in the image of him. He wondered, what she might have felt in that moment, but didn’t dare to think about it for long. Maintaining eye contact she touched the notebook, as if to try to get a reaction. It worked. The chains holding him in place rattled and his straitjacket ripped around the seams on his shoulders. She looked thoroughly entertained as she picked up the notebook and opened it randomly around the middle.
Tyler continued to struggle against his bounds, hearing the jacket rip again. If he kept it up, he might even get it off in maybe twenty minutes. The drugs seemed to wear off a bit quicker, than usual. And once he has at least one hand free, he will murder the girl, as he should have done long ago.
“I would not make to much noise, if I were in your place. If your handlers come in and find you trying to escape, I wouldn’t put it past them to simply knock you out for days. And judging by your incoherent scribbling you really don’t like that.” These were her first words to him in a long time, and the coldness of it was somehow comforting as well as infuriating at the same time.
She continued to read his inner most thoughts scattered around his journal. He wrote about the nightmares a lot recently and really hoped she was not reading that part. She had no right to see that part of him ever again.
“What are you doing here? Where is Dr. Jackson?” he was surprised by the worry in his own voice. Maybe he did care a bit about his only company in forever.
“Are you the only one, who can kill your therapist?” she asked, mocking him. She looked at his contorted face again, with her version of a smirk playing on her features. “He is fine. He’s just not feeling so well today. Nasty food poisoning.”
Wednesday closed the journal and put it back in front of Tyler. If she had read the recent entries, she didn’t say a word about them. She sat down in the vacant chair, looking at the boy expectantly.
“What do you want?” Tyler seethed. She seemed too at ease around him, and that shouldn’t have been the case. He almost killed her. He could, and would kill her, given the opportunity, he was certain about it. His long talons could easily slice up her pale brown skin, going right to her innards with only one effortless swipe. But he wouldn’t stop there, oh no. His monstrous self would make sure, her demise would be slow and agonizing. Her pretty little face would be the only part of her left unharmed. He was sure she would have the same uncaring look dead, as she had alive.
“I need to know if you’ve been cooperating with someone else. Someone with access to the Gates mansion as well as Nevermore.” she stated without looking truly interested in his answer. Like she was waiting for her bitter, cold quad to be ready for her.
“Why would I tell you?”
She looked him up and down for a second. “Do you want a bribe? I thought you couldn’t be bought.” she said with a teasing tone. Trying to rile him up was not the smartest idea. Even if he was in chains at the moment, once he got out, she is dead.
“Desperate times can break a man’s will.” he half-joked. Maybe he could put away his murderous intentions for a while if she would give him a good enough reason.
“You break quite easily then.” she looked around the tiny room, noting the claw marks on the walls left by human hands, before refocusing to Tyler. “A fragile little man you are.”
He shifted uncomfortably, trying to somehow loosen the bindings holding him in place. After a moment of struggle he looked into her eyes once again. To the untrained eye, she might have looked as uninterested as ever, but the barely noticeable raise of her brow gave her away. This was not just teasing. She wanted to see if she could hurt him just with her words.
“You are more expressive. Enid made wonders.” he turned to a different tactic instead of ripping her throat out. “But I guess you were always more expressive around me.” he didn’t even know, he could still muster up a smile, but he felt it tugging on his lips. Taunting her was almost as good as sinking his claws and teeth into her inhumanly cool skin.
“This pathetic attempt to rile me up is not going to work.” she leaned forward, planting her hands on his table as she rose so she could lure over him. Like she could intimidate him. He was the serial killing monster in the room, she just had the hearth of one. “I want a name, or I will leave, and we won’t have a deal.”
He wanted to say, ‘go ahead, leave already’, but his throat closed up. He didn’t see or talk to people anymore. Even if his visitor was like the people, who betrayed her mother, he couldn’t let her leave so soon. Even if she was someone, who never cared for him, who only used him, and he used her in return. Even if he wanted to kill her, so all of this wouldn’t have been for nothing. He still wanted her to stay. It was terrifying, to think of being left alone again for days on end.
The dejected look on his face must have inspired something inside the girl, because she tentatively raised her hand and let it hover just next to his cheek. His breath hitched, as he asked what she was doing. She didn’t answer, but slowly touched his face with the tips of her fingers. After a second, her palm also rested on his cheek, cradling his right side. Her hand was cold as a dead woman’s touch, but impossibly soft. Her eyes bore into his, and he saw something, he rarely saw from anyone else; kinship and understanding.
“Wednesday” he breathed out, and involuntarily melted into her hand more. He wasn’t going to think about it too much, he just had no one touch him for a long time.
As if that was all she needed, her body went rigid, and head snapped back, while her hand stayed firmly on his face. His body instinctively moved, wanting to catch her, but the straitjacket and chains kept him in place. He scolded himself for this pathetic reaction, both to her touch and her vision.
She stayed on her feet without help and came back to consciousness after a couple of minutes, or maybe seconds. It felt like a long time, but also just a moment. Tyler was worried about what she might have seen, but didn’t dare to question.
“That was entirely useless.” she said as she pulled her hand from his face and wiped her palm on her black pants, as to remove the filth of him. As if he was a disgusting serial killer. A monster. Someone who tried to rip her and her friends apart. “Now back to you giving me information, like those terrible, deceiving old days.”
Tyler was still a bit stunned. It might have been the drugs getting out of his system way too quickly, or seeing an old acquaintance again, but his reactions seemed to come slow. He only just processed that she offered him something in return before she touched her.
“What deal are you offering?” his voice sounded way too calm, almost nice to his ears. Too close to the boy from the aforementioned bad old days. The voice of a boy, and not the monster, that he was.
She looked around his cell again; his single bed, his bare walls, his claw marks, then her eyes snapped back on his chains and getup. There was an unspoken understanding in her eyes. Not sympathy, surely, she would never feel that toward him. She might not even be able to feel such way at all.
Wednesday remained silent, as if waiting for him to state his demands. To tell her, he wants to get out of this hellhole, as if it wouldn’t be obvious. If she wanted him to beg, he can do that. He would rip into her flesh and tear her apart for it later.
“I want to be free, Wednesday. Can you give me that?” the venom returned to the sound of his words. Much more like it.
Her dark brown eyes bore into his. “You are a liar and a killer.” she sighed, and continued. “You betrayed me, and I have no doubt, that you would do that again, given the opportunity.” her tone was even, unwavering. She had no doubts about what she has said, and she shouldn’t. Her eyes were almost emotional, it caused his chest to tighten the slightest bit. She took a long breath and looked away. “Do you think, that being incarcerated for three months is ample punishment for you crimes?”
So it has been three months. It felt longer, so much longer. But it also meant that his therapist came more often, than he thought, probably around once a week. That was a strangely comforting thought. He saw an other human being every week.
He must have been in his head for a bit longer, than it was normal, because Wednesday snapped at him. “Do you think you deserve to be free? Do you think, I would want you to be free? I want the information, but it is not that valuable.” She stood up again. “Tell me a name, and I will decide, what you deserve for it.”
“You decide for me.” he felt tired. “I’ve heard that before. Someone else deciding for me. Go, kill that hiker. Take me to the Gates house. Take care of the kid. Tell me the name of the guy Laurel worked with.”
“So it’s a man.” her reaction was instant. She ignored his emotions. She always did that, nothing changed between them. “That is information already. Thank you.” she added, sitting back.
He couldn’t look at her any longer. He couldn’t even hear his murderous thoughts at the back at his head. All he felt was the vacuum inside his soul, that has been there, since he turned into the monster. It was all because of her, because she came to town, because she was needed for a ritual to get revenge for his mom. Revenge on people, who sent her to a place much like this to die alone. And he couldn’t even be angry at her anymore, because his anger meant nothing to either of them. He failed his mother again.
“It’s the groundskeeper at Nevermore. He knew some of her plans all along. He helped with some of the plant stuff. He might even knew more, than I did.” he said after a moment of staring at the journal on his desk, his tone monotone.
He heard her chair move, and brisk steps toward the door. Wednesday was going to leave him there, like he left her to die. She was not much better than him in that regard. But the door stayed closed, and she stood still for too long. He looked up again to see her staring at him the way she did before she ran out of the Weathervane. After she saw who he really was.
“Thank you for your time. I will make arrangements to make your living conditions more bearable for you.” her tone became colder as she spoke, as if trying to distance herself from the sudden act of decency. She solidified it with her parting words towards him. “You’ve made a fool of me. You’ve lied to me. I won’t forget, nor forgive that to you, Tyler.”
And with that, she left his cell. The sound of his own name was still ringing in his ear, when he heard the guards locking the door, before the room was filled with the anesthetic gas. His mind began to fog, his last thoughts before sleep overtook him were about the girl with pained eyes saying his name softly.