Chapter Text
By the time the dining hall opened for breakfast, Tyler was still sleeping like the dead. He hadn’t moved a single muscle the entire time that she’d been pacing back and forth.
Wednesday herself felt a little fatigued, but mostly from the previous night’s battle. She had finally showered and changed out of her dirt-stained clothes as the sun finished rising. One night without sleep wouldn’t kill her. Far from it. She had trained herself to be able to go days without sleep over the previous summers in case any emergency situations called for it.
Dressed in clean clothes and fairly certain that the unconscious Hyde-boy would remain that way for several hours longer, she left her dorm to fetch food for both of them. Thankfully, not many other students were awake yet. Those that were stared at her as she moved silently through the corridors. Whether their whispers were related to the part she had to play in the outing and subsequent death of Principal Dort or whether news of Iago Tower had already spread school-wide she didn’t know. Too much had happened in the past 24 hours and she couldn’t care less what people had to say about it.
It didn’t matter anyway. The school was officially closed for the semester, several weeks earlier than it should have been. But with a lack of a headmaster and yet another violent battle on school property they had no choice. Despite the scared and teary-eyed underclassmen scurrying around the halls, Wednesday was certain that a new headmaster would be found and that Nevermore would reopen by next semester.
If an attempted school-wide elimination and the death of Principal Weems hadn’t shut Nevermore’s doors for good, what would a little kidnapping, Hyde fight, and explosion do?
“Good,” Wednesday thought as she began piling a plate with nutrient rich foods. “At least this pathetic excuse for an educational institution doesn’t cower before a few mishaps.”
She was thankful that she managed to escape the dining hall without running into any Nightshades, especially Bianca or Ajax. They were the only people in this whole school that she felt any obligation to speak with. They deserved the truth about Enid, at least. She hoped Agnes had told them so she wouldn’t have to deal with it.
If any of the professors saw Wednesday exit the dining hall with plates and cutlery that were definitely not supposed to leave the premises, they didn’t care to say anything. The packing up and clearing of dorms had already begun, and several parents had arrived at Nevermore’s gates to pick up their children. The teachers were too busy sputtering apologies and excuses at the angry parents to track down two stolen forks.
Wednesday re-entered her dorm, balancing both plates on one arm and nudging the door closed with her foot. She set the food down on her desk, and began quietly eating her portion. Tyler looked so different when he was asleep. She realized that she had never seen him this unguarded before.
Despite the scratches and bandages, he looked younger while he slept. The lines of tension he normally carried in his face were smoothed over. He didn’t have… unpleasant features, she had to admit. His face was rather proportionate and nice to look at. She scrunched up her nose at his greasy curls. She’d have to wash her pillowcase, or risk breaking out. She’d have to wash all of her sheets anyway, to get the blood out. Thankfully, blood stains don’t show easily on black. Another reason it was her preferred color palette.
As she finished eating, she mentally ran through how to proceed. Although she had been allowed to go back to her dorm last night, she would be expected to show her face at her family’s temporary home today. Grandmama would be leaving town this morning. Thankfully, as head of the gala Morticia had to stay at the school and assist with cleaning up the mess left behind (both the murder and the decorations). As a result, the entire Addams family was staying in the area for the rest of the week.
Her plans to leave a note next to Tyler’s plate of food just in case but hope he didn’t wake up until she got back were ruined when he began to shift under the covers. She set down her quill and dark gray sticky note pad as he turned over and slowly opened his eyes.
He squinted as the sunlight hit him, obviously confused. He managed to push an elbow underneath him and sit up before looking over and catching sight of Wednesday at her desk drawer. He moved as if to scramble backwards, but the headboard prevented him from getting very far.
“I brought you food. Don’t eat it too fast or you’ll throw up,” Wednesday told him matter-of-factly.
“What?”
She narrowed her eyes. “If you get vomit on my bed, I’ll kill you so creatively that legends will be woven for decades.”
“I don’t understand,” he gasped. “Am I dead? Am I dreaming?” He paused, running his hand over the fabric of her bedspread as if to make sure it was truly there. “Am I hallucinating?”
“Sadly, none of the above. Though I enjoy a good hallucination now and again. Do you truly not remember anything from last night?”
“I… you were being buried, but that freaky invisible girl was there… and then your brother and the tower and…” he sat up straighter. “My mom? Is she really?”
Wednesday nodded, not knowing what else to say.
He slumped back against the bed, like a marionette with its strings cut. “Oh.” He didn’t sound as sad as she thought he might have.
“If you plan to kill me, I’d advise against it,” she warned him.
“As if I’d be stupid enough to try in your own room, where only you know where all the hidden weapons are,” he scoffed.
She almost let her mouth twitch into a fraction of a smirk. She could work with this. “I thought you said swords are no match for a Hyde.”
“They wouldn’t be.” He winced. “The Hyde seems to be… out of commission, for now.”
His honesty was interesting. Wednesday didn’t know if she would have given up that piece of valuable information if she were in his situation. It was possible that he was too miserable to care.
She stood, bringing the plate over to him. He watched her warily as she set it on the bed. “Eat.”
“No poison?”
“I wouldn’t have wasted my suture kit on you only to poison you later.”
She watched Tyler process that; saw him bring his hand to his side and realize he was wearing foreign clothes. He looked terribly uncomfortable. In fact, he still looked horrible overall.
“Eat, and then shower,” she ordered. “I can forgive a little blood on my bed, but grease is inexcusable.”
His eyes flitted towards the bathroom, and then back towards her. “I don’t know if I ca… Do I have to?”
She hated how unsure he suddenly sounded. She noted that his entire body had gone tense again, almost as if braced for something. Preparing for something bad. For what? Had he been punished in Willow Hill for showering? For not showering? Surely his mother hadn’t…
Wednesday thought back to how Tyler had launched himself at his mother the second she had freed him from the table, and how he hadn’t sounded as devastated as she thought he would at the news of his death. She ground her teeth. The web of mysteries surrounding this boy was so thick it was virtually opaque.
“You don’t have to,” she finally said. She watched him relax fractionally. He still looked unbearably tense. “You can if you want, and I’d appreciate it, but you don’t have to do anything.” She decided honesty was the best policy. The policy that she had started to enforce with herself, and should probably extend to others as well.
Tyler slowly reached for his fork and took a hesitant bite of scrambled eggs.
“Listen,” Wednesday told him. “I have to spend time with my stupidly sentimental family celebrating Grandmama’s sirening and Pugsley’s kidnapping. You have nowhere else to go, so you might as well stay here until I return.” She crossed her arms, refusing to meet his eyes. It was harsh, and it was maybe true, and it was also the closest she could make herself get to asking him to stay.
Tyler didn’t respond or give any indication that he had heard her. She didn’t know what she had expected. She stomped back across the room, but ducked into the bathroom before leaving. She opened their small storage closet and pulled out a clean black towel. Even with her chunky black boots, she had to stand on her tiptoes so that she could cover the entire mirror with the towel and tuck the edges under the top to ensure it wouldn’t fall. Then, she flipped off the bathroom lights and exited the room.
She felt Tyler staring at her back as she left.
_
Wednesday could barely focus on what Bianca was saying to her.
"-ou next semester.” She caught the tail end of the sentiment.
“Hopefully the whole school will burn down over the summer,” Wednesday said, but Bianca nearly laughed.
“I’ll miss your sense of humor. Thank you again, for everything.”
Wednesday didn’t bother to say goodbye, and Bianca (to her credit) didn’t attempt to hug her or even wait for a response. She just left. More people needed to be like her. Wednesday can’t believe she just had that thought. What happened to her over the past two years?
She passed her mother, who was directing the removal of the added chandeliers from the quad. From a safe distance away, of course, lest she get dust on her dress. “Wednesday, my darling, are you joining us for dinner? Lurch is making your favorite.”
While entrail casserole sounded tempting, Wednesday felt like she would vibrate out of her skin if she had to spend one more moment unsure of whether or not a certain stowaway was still in her dorm.
“I just ate lunch with you. Isn’t one torture session a day enough?”
Morticia just smiled. “Never.”
Wednesday gritted her teeth. “I’ll see if I can make it. I need some writing time.”
In reality, she was bracing herself for the likely reality: Tyler was long gone. As much as she hated to admit it, entrail casserole and the insufferable noise of her parents smooching over the sounds of her favorite eerie records would be preferred over the silence of her empty dorm.
Because it would be empty.
He would be gone.
If anything, she was surprised he had stayed as long as he had. That he hadn’t been out the window the second after he opened his eyes. She supposed it would be stupid for someone in that condition to pass up a free meal.
She was sure he was gone the moment the last bite was devoured, leaving nothing but blood and the faint smell of pine and coffee beans on her sheets to prove he was ever there.
Maybe she wouldn’t wash the sheets right away.
Wednesday slowed her steps as she approached Ophelia Hall, admonishing her hormonal teenage brain while simultaneously allowing herself to enjoy a few final moments of delusion. It was like her favorite experiment at the age of five. So many of the neighbors’ cats had disappeared as a result of her re-creations that animal control had paid their house a personal visit. As long as she didn’t check in her room, Tyler could either be there or not. Schrödinger's Hyde.
Steeling herself, she pushed the door open.
The room was empty.
The setting sun cast long shadows across the stuffed animals left on the floor from her emotional tirade last night, the typewriter perched on her desk, the boy sitting cross-legged on her chair, flipping through her manuscript.
Wait, what?
“You were gone for a long time,” Tyler remarked.
Wednesday just stood there, flabbergasted.
Tyler held up her manuscript, the edges still charred from the close call at the opening-day pyre. “Viper’s love interest, with the brown eyes and curly hair? Sounds like quite a catch.”
She was halfway across the room, about to snatch the manuscript from his hand, when she processed his damp, clean hair. He had showered.