Chapter Text
She wavers back and forth in the doorway, leaning against termite bitten wood with a faintness in her weary stature.
Her voice, as solemn as a ghost, calls out to her safety. “Tyler.”
The boy lifts his head, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he takes in the appearance of his companion. He hadn’t heard her come in, but by the early morning melancholy pouring in through her stained glass windows, he can tell it’s past five AM.
“I’m here,” he holds his hand out to her. The boy had fallen asleep at the foot of her bed, curled up like a faithful dog, his lean body coiled around one of Wednesday’s woolen sweaters to keep her scent close.
Wednesday takes a weak step forward, her bruised legs tripping over themselves in an attempt to reach Tyler. Upon seeing her stumble, the boy is by her side in an instant, giving her an arm to stabilize herself on. Tyler knows better than to carry her, for Wednesday Addams is a woman most independent. She allows Tyler near her, and that in itself is a miracle he has thanked her for daily since the moment they met in high school.
They’re older now, wiser. When Enid went off to Clawllege, Wednesday found herself lacking companionship. She made a home for herself outside of Jericho, a rusty clocktower purchased with daddy’s money, much to her embarrassment. Her pride refuses to admit this to anyone, but her line of work doesn’t exactly provide fiscal stability.
As Tyler acts as a crutch, guiding her towards the washroom, Wednesday reminisces over her self-fulfilled prophecy beginning with the very boy now drawing a bath for her. They were young and easily impressionable, misled by the wrong influences and twisted against the fate of the world. Wednesday won her apocalypse, if by a razor sharp slice of chance. Ever since, she has taken it upon herself to save the world. The world she hates; filled with people she can’t stand and traditions that revolt her. If anybody gets to decide their fatal doom— it should be her. No one else. She is the world’s keeper and executioner, only they don’t know it yet.
“What was it tonight?” Tyler asks softly, keeping his eyes fixated on his mud-caked sweetheart.
Wednesday winces as she bends down to untie her platform boot, to which Tyler drops to his knees and begins to unknot the laces himself. Wednesday does not object, a sure sign that her body has been beaten and damaged beyond quick recovery. In defiance, her coal mine eyes strike the fear of God into the man before her. Tyler sighs dreamily, smiling up at his heaven and leaning his cheek against her bloodied knee.
“I found myself in the very depths of a vampire clan,” Wednesday forces herself to speak coldly, her eyebrow twitching in pain as Tyler pulls off the other platform. “A rusty amulet meant to destroy the sun entirely. They wanted a world of darkness.”
Tyler leans back on his knees, testing the warmth of the water to make sure his beloved’s corpse cold skin doesn’t grow irritated under any temperature above lukewarm. While twisting the brass handles of her antique tub, his voice distractedly asks “Wouldn’t you enjoy that sort of thing?”
Wednesday tilts her head to the side as she takes in his appearance. A soft cotton shirt bunches up around his waist, showing off hip bones that curve down into a pair of her sweatpants. After accidentally slicing through the outer thigh with his claws on a particularly hostile night, she deemed the threads unfit for wear. She was unaware he had kept them for his own leisure.
He is always so pretty, she thinks to herself. Wednesday, the girl who finds beauty in the grotesque, cannot believe that such a marbled statue has caught her eye the way he has. He glances back towards her, wide boyish eyes gazing up at her so innocently, a contrast to the hungry beast she knows he can turn into.
“For whatever reason,” she exhales her words as if they are tiresome to speak. They aren’t, not really, and she will repeat them for as long as he lets her. “I find myself enjoying your appearance. A world without light would prevent me from indulging in such pleasure.”
He tries not to show it, he truly does, but the man before her melts so lovingly; he will always be putty in her hands.
Wednesday stands, beginning to unbutton the front of her blouse and noting how blood seeps through at the waist. Her shirt is dusted with a light coating of undead grime, dirt and dried formaldehyde smudged against the delicate fabric. When she glances upwards, Tyler’s hands immediately fly up to cover his flushed face, the boy whirling around in order to give Wednesday her privacy. A formality, of course, as the two have seen every crevice of each other’s vessels in the lonely moonlight. In golden afternoons. At dusk, at dawn, at every moment in between.
Once submerged in the water, the small girl brings her legs up to her chest, watching blood swirl through the pure water lapping against her shaking frame. She calls his name, quiet and pleading, and he’s there in an instant.
“You should really let me come with,” he sighs, undoing the tight braid Wednesday wears her hair in. She finds it distractingly difficult to manage with her constant conquests, so her childhood hairstyle has remained exactly as is despite how long it’s grown. “You know I could help.”
“Too much of a risk,” she says bluntly, the words lashing out before she can attempt to process his feelings. When his hands go rigid against her second braid, Wednesday cranes her neck back to observe her most loyal. “I don’t want to see you hurt, not again. It’s safer if I know where you are.”
Tyler is quiet for a moment, wordlessly running his nimble fingers through her unraveling plaits. Then, relentless as always, he states “I’d be able to control it if I were with you. I could protect you, just give me the orders.”
She turns her head back to face the faucet, her chin resting atop her non-bloody knee. She imagines doing what she does best but with the added risk of bringing Tyler along with her. Could she afford tending to his wounds? What if someone else were to seize control of his mind? She’d lose him. Wednesday understands that cannot happen, not under any circumstance.
They need each other.
“Orders imply you are bound to me by force,” she speaks quietly, the words echoing around the porcelain room. “We are equals, I am no stronger than you.”
Tyler stops running water down her back, leaning forward against the edge of the bathtub to let his forehead press against her spine. She cools his forever warm skin, a pointed shoulder blade grinding into his temple. In a hazy voice, he repeats, “Equals.”
Wednesday does not allow herself to be Tyler’s master, even if he sees her as such. To take control of one’s partner is not a relationship; it’s a hostage situation. After everything she watched Tyler go through in their youth, she refused to take part in the master dynamic he begged for her to accept. If they are to be together, she wants it to be genuine. None of this one sided brainwashing, she wants him to still have his freedom. She desires his devotion because he wants to give it, not because his mind compels him to in a primal way. She resents the idea of him only loving her because his affliction conditions him to. She wants him to love her on purpose.
After washing the grime off, Tyler dries the girl off with a chalky white towel. His eyes don’t stray over her body, seeing the bruises and injuries would only let a stream of guilt pool in the bottom of his stomach. Instead, he wraps her up in the towel and the two head back to her bedroom. She sits on the edge of the bed, shivering against the cold air, drying her hair out the best that she can.
This is her favorite part of the night.
Even without the presence of a world ending threat, Tyler still does this for her without complaints. Wednesday, the headstrong girl of steel, allows herself to be taken care of. She has made friends throughout her life, sure. She has leaned on others in times of needs, absolutely. But never— never has she had the mind to expose her vulnerabilities to another. With her upbringing, Wednesday has sought strength in isolation. She finds solace in perfectionism, which can only be achieved if she does not find herself weakened by the emotional debt of others. These morals, however, don’t seem to apply to her highschool sweethyde. And they haven’t for as long as she can remember. Even finding him covered in blood, hikers and joggers disemboweled before him, she still allows herself to be weak before him. There is a trust. There is a love.
“Here,” he brings her out of her thoughts, holding a ruffled nightgown between his hands. The Victorian fabric slips over her easily, the girl working her arms through the sleeves he holds up for her. Lace cuffs ghost along the bruised edges of her wrists, black ruffles covering up her barren breasts. When she pulls the nightgown down past her knees, she sees Tyler kneeling once more, holding the waistband of a pair of bloomers. They go to another nightgown, a complete set from her mother many birthdays ago. She doesn’t mention this, however, just steps into the leg holes and holds her bunched up gown out of the way for Tyler to secure the bloomers over her hips. She holds herself to a pristine manner, never mixing matching sets when dressing herself. However, with a boy’s hands smoothing down the front of her nightgown, she allows herself to be dressed like a haunted doll. For him, she is lunar moths. Delicate, yet fleeting.
Their next moves are calculated and perfected over months of practice. Tyler sits against the headboard of Wednesday’s creaky bed, spreading his legs just enough for the smaller one to wiggle her way backwards until she’s nestled between his thighs. Once their bodies are interlocked, Tyler reaches for the 18th century relic on her nightstand. The brush is old and the bristles are harsh, but Wednesday is nothing if not committed to her enjoyment of hardships. Tyler is gentle in all capacities when it comes to her; touching her, feeling her, taking care of her, being beside her, loving her. He is gentle, because he has seen her on her most death-rotted nights. At the very core of it all, Wednesday is tired of being so strong.
And this is why she tilts her head back, eyes closed as she feels peace course through her veins. Anytime her hair brush snags on a knotty strand of hair, Tyler takes the time to untangle it by hand, as delicate as threading string through a needle head. He steals seconds— no, minutes with her, working his way through her thick raven waterfalls. She’s avoided Thing’s constant eagerness to give her haircuts after a particularly bad scissor stabbing, a jagged scar left along the plane of her collarbone if Tyler were to feel for it. He’s got all of her scars memorized, and he’s sure he will memorize the ones given to her tonight once they heal up. Some are more sensitive than others, damaged nerve endings and deeper wounds. Sometimes, if his fingers were to brush against these particular marks, Wednesday would pull away from his grasp and have a steel-toed boot smashing against his foot before he even has time to react. Concurrently, if his fingers were to graze against a moonlight colored ridge in her skin, he’d find her fluttering out gasps and desperate whines. These moments drastically depend on the complexities of Wednesday Addams, a puzzle that he will never grow tired of solving.
“Tyler,” she murmurs quietly, an eerie creak sweeping through the room as a gust of wind pushes against the clock tower.
“Yes, my darling?” He responds, leaning forward to kiss the back of her earlobe.
Wednesday wiggles the side of her collar down past her shoulder, revealing a set of scars against the curve of her neck. She pulls all of her hair to the opposite side, bony fingers raking through the unbrushed spots. “Will you feed?”
“Wendy,” he murmurs, “You’re tired, please don’t worry about me, my love.”
It took her quite some time to warm up to normie terms of endearment. She’s used to hearing words such as tormenta and great despair to describe her lovingly. When Tyler called her ‘baby’ for the first time, Wednesday found her intestines spilling out on the floor in a tender notion of being gutted. How generic, she had told him. He said it again, and she couldn’t stop herself from kissing him.
Wednesday leans back until the outline of her back is fitted right into the deviation of Tyler’s sternum. She presses into him tightly, feeling his heartbeat drum against her shoulder blade. “Please.”
The truth is, she loves his bloodlust as much as he loves consuming her. Tyler leans her forward, delicately stroking his touch up and down the sides of her ribcage. She feels herself warm beneath his bonfire hands, an embarrassed flush creeping up the back of her neck. The raven tilts her head to the side, inviting Tyler once more. She needs to take care of him, just as he takes care of her. Equals, she promised.
Hitchhikers and campers do not taste even half as good as his paramour does. Wednesday’s veins have a sweetness to them that he has never tasted within another living being before. She’s addictive, in all aspects, and he finds his tongue roaming up her shoulder before he can really even consider his options. As if on autopilot, his body takes hold of the woman he loves, locking her body within his tightly. Just an hour before, he was curled around her sweater. Now, his teeth grow razor sharp as his claws sink into the tender flesh of her tummy. She does not shy away, but her heartbeat quickens. Tyler knows her well enough to understand that this is because she’s feeling the heat of love pumping through her cobweb filled body.
“Tyler,” she repeats again, gripping her hand over one of his.
The boy’s claws retract, remaining piercingly sharp, but not growing any further than what he allows. That’s something Wednesday has taught him to control, for he does not need to completely transform anymore to gain the strengths of the hyde. He chooses how far he goes, he decides how much of a beast he becomes. With Wednesday, it’s always one step below human.
Sinking his teeth into her throat is always a smooth motion, his desperate jaw jerking through her skin to tear open gaping holes in her neck. Wednesday clenches her teeth, her grip on his knee tightening as she feels his tongue circle around the wound. There’s an intimacy in this, for Tyler’s bloodlust gets satiated by none other than Wednesday herself. To have that sort of bond with someone is surreal, for she provides life to the one she wants to spend forever with. She can’t imagine a more treacherous romance.
“Mnh,” Tyler grunts, pulling her even closer as he mouths her throat hungrily. They’ve learned that if Wednesday spills her blood for him, his lust for pain is contained to the confines of her bedroom. No more chaining him up on full moons, no more uncontrollable transformations. He feeds, he remains human. He feels indebted to the woman— how can one repay such a sacrifice?
Call it what you want; parasite and host, werewolf and tamer, boyfriend and girlfriend. The love that binds them together is beyond physical bodies. Wednesday would go to much farther lengths for the man, something he feels in full as well. Redamancy is defined as the act of reciprocating unconditional love.
As his feeding comes to an end, Tyler’s mouth presses soft, delicate kisses to the punctures in her neck to contrast the gnashing fangs that just tore her flesh open. In her bedside table, gauze and medicinal tape for these exact moments. He takes one last lazy lick, then patches her up and slides her sleeve back over her shoulder.
Wednesday’s featherlight fingers brush against the bandage, a fondness for her boyfriend’s delicate ravishing. Her neck has begun to accumulate a cluster of scars, something her mother has commented on during a particular torturous family dinner. Her turtleneck had folded down while she reached for squid ink pasta, showing off a set of bite marks collected over months. “You’ve got quite the appetite,” her mother had remarked towards Tyler. It was the first time she brought the man home to meet her family, and her father had attempted to kill him twice already. Tyler’s quick reflexes narrowly dodged flying knives and even the swing of an ax, something Gomez had delighted in as he smothered the man with a tight embrace.
Remembering this disaster of a night, Wednesday finds herself turning around to face the very man who survived an evening with the Addams family. He’s stronger than he looks, and Wednesday finds herself leaning forward to kiss the corner of his mouth where some blood has smeared against his lips. Entirely fond, the two worship each other.
“My little creature,” she whispers in the cold stiffness of her room. Her forehead falls against his, darkened eyes staring into his wide greens with such intensity he feels like the crumbling of ancient architecture. “You have my infested heart.”
“I have half a mind to devour it whole,” he replies in a hushed whisper. The two are nothing more than a fireplace lit in the dead of winter. His warmth melts her frost, just as her harsh snowfall cools his blaze.
Wednesday presses her cheek against his, closing her eyes and remembering the day she asked for ownership over him. Equals, of course, but he belongs to her, just as she belongs to him. The thought of Tyler becoming one with another person fills her with an indescribable rage, bile rising in her throat at the very consideration.
They were stupid and freshly freed jailbirds. After chasing her through the woods, Tyler had pinned the woman up against the trunk of a decaying tree. His eyes, so filled with bloodlust, softened at the sight of her smile. “Be mine,” she whispered in the soil scented forest. “Be mine, you nuisance. Be mine.”
And he promised, without hesitation, to be hers eternally. He vowed himself in that very moment, surrendering his being to the one he spent years in love with throughout their youth.
“I find myself exhausted,” she whispers against his ear. The tickling sensation causes the boy to shy away, hiding his ear against his shoulder. She kisses the high point of his cheekbone, her dimples deepening when he cannot see.
Their ruined sleep schedules align, sleeping through the day like true creatures of the night. Tyler shifts himself around in bed until he’s lying on his side, Wednesday pulling herself close to encase him like a snake would suffocate its prey. Tyler, both stronger and larger than her, becomes small in her embrace. To the untrained eye, such positioning would seem backwards, but to them, it’s only natural. After taking care of her, Wednesday becomes Tyler’s protector. It works, just like everything else about their devotions. It just works.
In the gloomy dawn, the fated couple fall into a comatose slumber, only ever feeling truly safe within one another.