Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I like you, okay! And I really thought you liked me too…”

Wednesday stared impassively at Tyler as he averted his eyes, then looked back at her, breathing deeply. It was shockingly the most emotion she’d ever heard in his monotone voice, and she noted that his usual awkwardly muffled facial expressions had melted off to reveal something more open, more honest. It made her gut churn. And not in the good way.

How to handle Tyler’s confusing and downright delusional infatuation with her and somehow still salvage his help…

Unblinkingly, she replied, “Your affections are misplaced, and any verbal or nonverbal cues you may have mistakenly interpreted as romantic interest are completely incorrect.”

Tyler’s face fell. Wrong words. Hazardously, she added, “I cannot fathom why the idea of me in a romantic light would pique your interest in any manner. I am, as Mother says, stubbornly independent, harshly blunt with my words, and will always put my needs and passions above your own. You would be better off chasing any other person than myself.”

Now satisfied somewhat that her response would placate him, she turned, about to start returning to Nevermore to look at her murder map or gather more intel, when Tyler sprang out of his stupor and reached out, grabbing her hand.

“Wait,” he pleaded.

Immediately, she wrenched her hand out of his grasp and fixed him with a glare, crossing her arms.

“The last person who grabbed my hand ended up like Thing, except the other way around.”

She felt a small poke at her back from inside her backpack, and shifted her back slightly to push back at Thing’s finger, pushing it off.

Tyler blanched. “I’m sorry, Wednesday, I’m sorry, just…so your answer’s no, then? I just…I just don’t understand. I really thought we had something going between us…”

Oh Tyler, ever the persistent dimwit. Wednesday wasn’t sure there was anything she could salvage from their working partnership from here on out, if Tyler was going to keep pursuing her this way. Best to just cut the rope and let him fall.

“I’ve told you already that any ‘signs’ you might have seen were false,” she said, “but to spell it out very clearly for you, I am not romantically interested in you in the slightest, Tyler. Anything ‘more’ you might have sensed between us is nothing more than a fairytale farce your wishful mind conjured.” She turned away to leave again, then turned back around after a second, eyes flickering in assessment before softening ever so slightly. “However, I do truly wish for you to move on from your hopeless infatuation with me and find love elsewhere. Far elsewhere. Goodbye, Tyler.”

With that said and done, she turned around and left Tyler standing there on the sidewalk, eyes wide with hurt and one last image of her twin braids and straight back retreating from his sight.

Going back to Nevermore on foot was certainly a hike, but it at least allowed Wednesday to organize her thoughts. A certain hand, however, interrupted her pondering as she walked briskly down the road.

“Thing, not a word,” she warned, but with no heat behind it, although she would never admit that she had softened up on Thing. “I will never like him back that way, and this departure was for the best.” Hearing this, Thing patted her comfortingly on the shoulder, and slinked back into his bag, leaving Wednesday to her thinking. And think she did on that encounter with Tyler.

Wednesday didn’t understand him. Didn’t understand romance at all, actually. She could barely bear her parents’ very public affection, whispered gossip about who-likes-who now or whatever nonsense at her old high school, or even the longing glances Xavier sent her way when he thought she wasn’t looking. Yes, she noticed. Yes again, she was trying desperately to ignore it and bury the repulsive feeling 6 feet under into her pre-made coffin, which failed miserably as she was forced to ask him out to the dance to save her own skin.

But the point was, romance and love in general eluded her more than death itself, although the former didn’t ignite her interest as the latter did. In her life, she could privately admit to herself that she did care for at least a small select portion of people in her life, that being her parents, her uncle Fester, her brother Pugsley, and possibly Eugene and Enid. She didn’t know if she could say she loved them though. Love was a strong, seemingly universal, yet impossible-to-pin-down word. It was seemingly everywhere, yet flowed between certain people, and appeared in different forms, such as platonic or familial love. Everyone around her seemed to understand what it was. As for Wednesday herself, she could barely even stand the people she cared about touching her, and touch was apparently an integral part of love. Emphasis on apparently; it was what Wednesday had picked up after watching her parents embrace while whispering sweet nothings, and watching her brother crying out “I love you” while running forward to embrace their father. She wouldn’t know if it was or not though. She protected the people she cared about, sometimes to an extreme degree, so wasn’t that enough?

She was even less so inclined to jump to a word like love with people like Tyler and Xavier, who she sought help from but didn’t really care much for at all. So hearing of Tyler’s infatuation, seeing his devotion, his passion, his romantic love for her, after what? A few days, if even?—made her bones chill, and not in the good way. Wednesday had never felt even close to that way about anyone ever, and was perfectly content with the seemingly core emotion completely absent from her mind and personal life. She had better things to spend her time on, anyway.

Her brain kicked into focus as she pondered her next step on how to find the monster and stop it from killing more people. Setting a trap, perhaps? Figuring out its next potential target? She’d have to think more on it. For now, she entered through the gates of Nevermore with a new plan in formation and a lightness in her step, as the memory of her encounter with Tyler faded back to the dusty cobwebs of her forgotten memories, not to be willingly dredged up ever again.