Chapter Text
Wednesday Addams cannot sleep.
Normally this is not a problem she worries about. Some light sleep deprivation is inspired, she thinks, to unlock different parts of her mind, to challenge her body further into submission. She welcomes the fitfulness, she invites the nightmares.
Usually.
Whereas once she dreamed of monsters and mystery, of torment, of inspiration she can later pour into the pages of her novels—she only sees one thing now.
Or rather, one person.
The settings never stay the same. Sometimes she sees him peering over the espresso machine at Weathervane Cafe. Sometimes he is leaning over the steering wheel of his car, he is running with her in the forest, standing before her in the crypt, his deceptively kind eyes pleading with her to let him in.
Sometimes he is back in the police station, creeping towards her with a taunting smile, asking her once more how it felt to have lost. He reaches out, claws protruding from his fingers, and plunges his talons into her chest. He pulls her heart out, blood pouring down his claws and his sleeve as he triumphantly raises the organ in the air. He has won.
Worst of all, sometimes they are back at Weathervane, and she leans up to kiss him. They pull away, she fights the upturn of her lips and loses. There is no undercurrent when he holds her. There is no vision this time. She does not run away.
The dreams are enough to make Wednesday give up on the notion of sleeping through the night altogether. She grows tired of awaking with a start, of her shaking, treacherous body, of the sweat down her back and the air never seeming to fill her lungs quite as it should.
She is angry, still. She is so angry she feels it might consume her very being.
But that is not who she is. The anger is not productive. The emotions do not control her, she controls them.
She spends the daylight hours in careful routine, she attends her classes and the beekeeper club, she writes in the afternoons and practices cello in the evenings.
She wanders the courtyard of Nevermore after midnight, she memorizes the pathways with her eyes closed, tracing along the carvings in the walls. She reads from the books from the Nightshade library until her eyes hurt.
When the sun comes up she begins again.
Her mind does not remain idle, not for one moment.
She does not step foot in town again, and the forest seems to howl louder when she sits on the balcony. She does not dwell in the bed anymore, for when she lies awake she can see figures dancing about in the dark wallpaper— a man and a monster.
(When the figures begin to laugh at her, she almost tears the paint off with her fingernails)
She listens to Enid, she is cordial with Xavier, she makes contact with her parents regularly, and flatly tells anyone who asks— she is fine she is fine she is fine.
The world carries on around her.
Nevermore is different, too. The damage from last year is entirely gone when the students return.
There is a memorial for Principal Weems, hosted by the new appointed leader of the school.
There is little anyone knows about Richard Knighton. A west coaster, his golden skin and ever-present smile stands out at Nevermore.
Enid relays that this appointment was a controversial one. Knighton promises to think outside of the box and make changes to the school in the name of progress. No one likes it, but considering how the last principal ended up, they don’t push back.
Wednesday plans to watch him with a healthy dose of skepticism, something she should have done more last year.
She discards her phone under a pile of clothes. Her stalker reaches out with photos and enquiries, they write her lines she assumes are meant to spook her and it does little.
She knows this is a mystery she can solve, something tangible to focus herself on until the other nonsense melts away. She works to rule out the entire student body, the faculty, the staff. She has learned from her mistake to not let her guard down again, and no kind eyes can deceive her this time.
Still, there’s emptiness to it. She doesn’t dare to tell anyone of what transpires, because she has even less of an emotional bandwidth to comfort Enid’s worry or Xavier’s indignation or whatever her unpredictable parents will say. She keeps the wretched device hidden and only glances at it once per night, when her impulse control is lower and her only friend is not awake to notice.
She follows the news carefully, for suspicious disappearances or odd sightings, for prisoner breakouts or animal attacks. Regretfully, she finds nothing of the sort.
There is a mayoral race in Jericho that begins to heat up. A long-time resident of the town was running unopposed for months, campaigning heavily on fear mongering and anti-Nevermore sentiments that gains him support from most of the town. Chandra Draven, a younger outside candidate enters the race at the eleventh hour.
Draven has the enthusiastic endorsement of Knighton.
Wednesday finds their joint positivity troubling. She tucks the information in the back of her mind, another storyline to keep an eye on, another person of interest, whose slip ups she won’t miss.
She carries on, unblinking, watching and waiting. Her body feels heavier the longer she goes without sleep, when others speak to her it is as if they are talking through water. She wonders when she started drowning.
When she arrives for breakfast one morning, the energy of the student body feels different for the first time all year.
Everyone keeps their heads close together, speaking in low voices. As Wednesday crosses the room, fearful eyes turn to track her movement, and the chatter picks up in volume.
She finds Enid and the others, engrossed in conversation. In a rare show of indignation, Enid gesticulates wildly, calling something ridiculous and promises that her parents will file a complaint. Others exclaim in agreement.
Enid turns to Wednesday when she finally notices her arrival. Her eyes widen, she asks her roommate if she heard the news. Wednesday shakes her head.
She almost doesn’t hear what Enid says when the commotion picks up, but the movement of her lips is unmistakable.
The student body is now filtering out towards the courtyard. Wednesday follows the crowd.
Enid and the others are calling her name behind her, but Wednesday’s body moves on its own accord.
The crowd parts around her, wide eyes and gaping mouths follow her path. Every step she takes rattles her shaking frame. Her fingers curl and uncurl into fists.
Waiting at the end, like the culmination of her worst nightmares, he is standing.
Her treacherous heart pounds so loudly in her ears she worries her eardrums might shatter.
She stops a few feet short of him. He looks just about the same. Dressed in a navy hoodie with an old gray t-shirt underneath, he looks just as pathetic as ever.
He flashes those deceptively kind eyes at her, and smiles.
“Hello, Wednesday.”
She lunges.