Work Text:
November
Wednesday’s bedroom seems much smaller than she remembers.
Nothing has changed: the light flickering from pillar candles and muted red bulbs in tall lamps; her treasured prints of Girl with Death Mask (She Plays Alone) and Saturn Devouring His Son hanging on the black walls; the four-poster, coffin-shaped bed Fester had helped her build after getting expelled from school number three. And yet - it feels small. There is no huge, round, patterned glass window, no vast hardwood floor. No additional space for another person to spread out all her belongings, too.
She certainly does not miss the larger room. Nor the forced cohabitation.
It’s a relief to return to her space, her carefully-curated retreat from the inane demands of the outside world. Her parents barely waited till she had entered the house again to begin their contribution to those demands, in rapid-fire succession demanding that she watch Pugsley (he’s too old for a babysitter and hasn’t ever even managed to injure himself in any interesting ways), and attend an extended family dinner to “tell everyone about your adventures at Nevermore!” (absolutely not).
Once they’ve finished with her, Wednesday closes her bedroom door and opens the window, allowing the breeze to stir the minor-key wind chime hanging in the frame. Winter is starting to bloom in New Jersey, and the air carries the scent of their neighbours’ overflowing garbage bin and her mother’s bed of carrion flowers. She unlocks her monogrammed steamer trunk and starts to unpack, one piece of clothing at a time sorted on the bed.
She’s back in her retreat for a while. Best to settle in.
-
Wednesday has learned to adapt efficiently to change - a necessity given her academic record - but she strongly prefers to have a routine. She rises early, at her typewriter with espresso as the sun comes up. She eats the same breakfast each day, dresses in the same order, braids her hair and lightly accentuates her facial features in the ways that are both her comfort and her signature.
Mornings are for contemplation and writing, afternoons for language study or refining her hand-to-hand combat. In the evenings, she wanders the family graveyard and notes the phases of the moon. She’s at her best in the winter, when she can roam freely amidst the bare trees and hibernating life in the woods by the Addams manor, the gap between living and dead narrower than any other time of year. It makes her feel at home.
However.
This year, something is different. Which is irritating. Wednesday dislikes disruption of her patterns, particularly when she does not understand why.
So: she calls the one person she can stand to straight-out ask for advice without her pride being too much of a stumbling block.
“Wednesday!” her Uncle Fester’s voice crows from the crystal ball. “To what do I owe the misfortune?”
Wednesday folds her hands on the desk in front of her and sits up straighter.
“Fester. I am having a psychological issue and I require your analysis.”
“Of course. I picked up a thing or two from all those hospital stays. What seems to be the problem?”
“I find myself - ” She pauses. “I find myself curiously disinterested in my normal hobbies. Some of the pursuits that usually bring me the most joy no longer suffice.”
Fester looks concerned. “Like what?”
“Blood rituals. Graverobbing. Knifeplay.”
“Oh, what a shame! I remember your first bloodletting like it was yesterday. You were a natural.”
Wednesday looks down. “Yes, well.”
“On the other hand, didn’t you tell me you were forced into a blood ritual right before you left school? Something about exhuming the crypt of a genocidal maniac and raising his corpse to seek vengeance?”
“Something like that.” She nods, and Fester throws up his hands.
“Well, there you have it.”
“Have what?”
Fester beams at her. “Trauma! There’s a big difference between enjoying some grotesque carnage you’ve planned, and being at someone else’s mercy. Ruins even the finest things in life.”
Wednesday sighs, slumping slightly. “Trauma. How pedestrian.”
“Hey, it’s an occupational hazard of the lifestyle. After that business with the cartel in Tijuana I still don’t like the smell of cocaine or chloroform.” He shrugs. “Happens to the best of us.”
“Thank you for the insight.” Wednesday nods, then pulls the velvet shroud back over the crystal, hanging up.
This explains a lot. Including her nightmares, which have become less varied and thrilling, more one-note rehashes of the moment when the knife sank into her abdomen and twisted, ripping her viscera apart and filling, then overflowing her peritoneum with blood. The anatomy of it is fascinating; the experience of being on the receiving end, not so much.
Wednesday shivers, then rolls her eyes at herself. This won’t do.
December
It is a common misconception that Wednesday does not feel.
She is quick to anger, particularly in the face of injustice; she loves her family deeply; she fears little but has the capacity. Woe is an old, familiar friend, and while she will welcome Death’s embrace, she does feel some pleasure in this mortal realm from time to time.
Wednesday feels, intensely, and resents those who tell her she does not. However, she understands the genesis of their judgement. She is very skilled at regulating her emotions and managing them through sublimation - one of the most mature psychological defences, she will remind anyone - but remains at sea when it comes to expressing them. If overwhelmed, she cannot help but flee, returning to her inner world to process and regulate.
She has been observing the people around her closely for sixteen years, and much of the time they still mystify her. People rarely tell the full truth. They seem to understand one another in a subconscious, organic fashion that Wednesday has attempted to mimic in the past, to her detriment. The world is hostile, particularly to young women who neither understand nor value the unspoken social contracts doled out to those around them. She does not belong, and has never wished to.
And yet - she peers over the top of her book at the phone sitting on her desk, a concrete representation of change. Evolution, as she put it to Enid. Despite her better judgement and best efforts, she has accumulated a small cadre of accomplices.
Most ominously, she finds herself wishing to continue these associations. Her judgement is clearly impaired, given that she was very recently deceived by a murderous monster, allowing him to take advantage of her moments of vulnerability.
And yet.
She powers off the phone, turning back to her typewriter.
-
Christmas approaches, and Wednesday is unsurprised to receive a garishly wrapped package from Enid toward the end of the month. Feliz Navidad!!! the tag reads, and inside are three hand-knitted mittens, two black and one a horrendously festive red and green, which Thing immediately dons and refuses to take off.
She had not intended to send a gift so far away, but Fester has contacts at a deeply unproductive shipping company that is a Mafia front, and she does take pride in her seasonal recipes for morcilla and sangrecita. If anyone will appreciate them to their fullest bloody extent, it’s a wolf.
And if Wednesday also mails an envelope to Salem when she drops off that package to be overnighted to California, that is no one’s business but her own.
-
Unpublished excerpt. Burn after reading.
Chapter 3
Viper slammed the door of the safe house behind her, mere moments before the assassin could pull the trigger. There was no end to the intrigue surrounding the Gutiérrez family, it seemed, and the more she pulled on the disparate threads of the case, the more they seemed to unravel.
She descended the spiral staircase into the reinforced bunker below ground, strategizing for the hours to come. When night fell, she would be able to flee under the cover of darkness, evading the team of ex-military mercenaries they had hired to tail her. As always, her enemies underestimated her cunning. And her ability to fashion an elaborate disguise. The trunk of wigs, clothing, and false moustaches of every calibre lay where she had left it last, hiding from her estranged mother’s goons. She began to sort through it, cataloguing the options at hand.
As she moved, the heavy compass in her pocket shifted and she recalled the other conundrum facing her, in addition to the constant threats to her life. The heir to a rival faction had given it to her in a stolen moment in the heat of battle, engraved with coordinates. He had invited her to join him there, and Viper was unsettled at the fact that she was even giving the idea consideration.
She was not prone to emotional whims or, god forbid, the waste of her energy and resources that was romance. Those around her seemed constantly preoccupied but she had, until recently, been uninterested in such things. Her one brief sojourn into experimentation had been a resounding failure of judgement, almost resulting in her death and certainly resulting in embarrassment that she could fall for such elaborate deception.
How could she possibly entertain the notion again, or trust that her judgement was sound enough to make such a decision?
Furthermore, Viper was well aware of her shortcomings. She worked alone and always had, relying on herself and endangering no one else as she chased the truth relentlessly. He would soon be disappointed, his expectations too high, too normal for her to ever reach. She was a cold-blooded corpse of a girl, rotten to the core.
And yet.
He saw her as she was, and had repeatedly chosen to come closer instead of backing away as so many others did. He also saw her in a way she did not see herself, and this intrigued her.
Something about him drew her in, even as she wished to run. Some mirror of her own intensity that was as enticing as it was threatening.
She touched the cool metal of the compass, chastising herself for falling prey to such a trivial distraction as attraction. Luckily, she had until the full moon to decide how best to move forward.
In the meantime, she would need to sharpen her sword. The rampage of the Gutiérrez kingpin would pause for no one, and she had made a solemn vow to chase him to the ends of the earth.
To be continued…
January
Xavier does not attempt to text her again, which is perfectly fine. Enid texts her constantly, which is profoundly irritating. The sole positive outcome of Enid’s constant stream of consciousness is that Wednesday is privy to all her research on werewolf lore. Enid focuses on the practicalities - working out a shared calendar for moon shifts, recommending a particularly effective brand of noise-cancelling headphones (which you’d love anyway, trust me - if anyone would want to silence the whole world it’s you), and installing the Nevermore-mandated fire extinguisher-like glass cabinet in their room labeled BREAK IN CASE OF LUPINE MADNESS containing an emergency vial of attenuated wolfsbane. Frankly, Wednesday finds this a laughable requirement given Enid’s basic temperament even in wolf form, but it seems to be non-negotiable.
In the second week of the new year, Lurch brings in a large envelope addressed to her. There is no return address, and for a moment she wonders if her stalker has escalated to mailing anthrax. However, it becomes clear immediately upon opening it who it is from, and the sick anticipation she felt about a potentially interesting threat morphs into something else entirely.
There is no letter in the envelope. Only drawings.
Wednesday unfolds them and suddenly has some unusual difficulty taking a full breath in. The physical symptoms of excitement and panic are nearly identical, and she has always found this a curious coincidence.
She was a cold-blooded corpse of a girl, rotten to the core. It’s hand-written below a charcoal illustration of a young woman who somehow looks much like Wednesday had always imagined Viper in her mind - black hair spilling out from the hood of her cloak, her pale face in deep shadow, knelt in front of the trunk of disguises. Her hands are skeletal, the image moving slightly as the white bones scrape the edge of the trunk, gripping it tight as she leans over. The scene is almost entirely devoid of light, the page covered in black shading.
He saw her as she was. He also saw her in a way she did not see herself. This is scrawled below a scene of two figures, the impression of a fight in the background. A slightly taller young man holds out a compass to Viper, who hesitantly takes it from his hand, moving slowly. From her other hand hangs a sword, gently dripping blood onto the ground. In some ways she looks similar to the previous illustration, but there are subtle changes that shift the entire tenor of the image: her hood is down and she has been drawn as someone beautiful. She seems threatening and icy, but she is not a corpse; she is bathed in light.
The final drawing is a sketch of two scenes next to one another, mirror images. In one, Viper sits at her desk alone; in the other, the young man stands at a work table covered in paper and paint. Viper stares into a mirror hung across from her, while the young man seems to be gazing out a window. They are present in one another’s reflections, ghostly extra figures that lurk in the background: he leans against the wall behind her desk, watching, while she stands next to him at the table, her hands spread out on the wood almost close enough to touch his. Written at the bottom of the page: Some mirror of her own intensity that was as enticing as it was threatening.
Wednesday’s eyes are itching - she must have gotten soap in them earlier this morning. She blinks several times, carefully folding up the illustrations again and placing them in the envelope for safekeeping. Perhaps she will review them again later, for potential inclusion in her novel. She has never considered working with an illustrator before, but clearly it could be advantageous.
Nevermore welcomes their students back for the winter term in the second week of January. Wednesday dreads transition: she wishes she could simply start to exist in her new routine, skipping over the expectation to participate in joyous reunions and post-holiday cheer.
Luckily, it isn’t quite as terrible as she anticipates. Xavier offers to help Lurch move her things back upstairs, and he doesn’t linger, simply laying a hand on her doorframe and telling her it’s nice to see her again. Enid is clearly delighted to have her roommate back, but manages to keep herself contained, giving Wednesday a brief touch on the arm before gathering Thing into a hug. Bianca seems as happy to not discuss the bizarre happenings of last term as she is, skipping past pleasantries and challenging her to a fencing match the first day of class. Eugene remains wholly himself, albeit an inch or so taller.
It is tolerable. In the darkest confines of her own mind, she might even acknowledge she is pleased to be back.
On her second night back, Wednesday is deliberately polite and does not pick the insultingly simple lock, opting instead to knock on the door of Xavier’s shed. When he opens the door for her, she is instantly reminded of that moment opening her mail, the barely-distinguishable line between excitement and panic. He’s lovely to look at. She wants to pluck out her eyes so she won’t be susceptible to such foolishness.
“Welcome back,” he says, ushering her in, and she already wants to see him smile at her like that again.
In the first few weeks, Wednesday re-establishes the rhythms of her life at Nevermore, now much less disrupted by emergent monster dilemmas. Her own solitary time for writing and contemplation always takes precedence - it is time she cannot survive without - but she finds herself allotting periods for previously unimaginable activities: lunch with Enid and Ajax, fencing scrimmage with Bianca, and -
She keeps going back. Almost every evening. Most of the time they work side by side, him at his canvas and her at the typewriter. He’s assured her he likes the sound of the keys clicking, and she has begrudgingly allowed Enid the victory of being right about the noise cancelling headphones, which go everywhere with her now. Sometimes, though, she takes them off.
He asks her about what aspect of the plot she’s working on and what her little brother is like and how she learned conversational German. He tells her about his dreams, mostly images and sensations he then puts on canvas to make sense of outside his head. One evening, long after the sun has gone down and the air outside has become painfully cold, he asks if her shoulder aches.
There is no logical reason for her to desire these interactions. Except that he too prefers the solitude of either the dead of night or early morning, and even without the psychic influence of the monster, his art remains haunting. Except that he too is intense. Exacting. Reasonably well-liked from afar, but a bit too much for most of their peers to get close.
She wants to devour him.
In lieu of this desire, which is both socially inappropriate and infeasible, she watches him work. Memorizes the play of expressions across his face and the way the muscles in his wrists and forearms move as he paints. She wants to open up his chest and his skull and explore everything inside; make it hers. She wants to see his visions the way he does and hear his thoughts as they arise in his head.
(It was perhaps inevitable that when she allowed for the possibility of mutual affection - not simply experimental cooperation with someone else’s desires - it would occur with the same single-minded obsessiveness that characterizes every other aspect of her life.)
“Are you watching me?” he asks one day.
“No,” she says immediately, and he smiles, a little teasing. Puts his brush down.
“What are you working on?”
Indeed, she is at a standstill. “Very little at the moment. I’ve filled in almost all of the plot points surrounding Viper’s daring escape, but it doesn’t feel complete. There are loose ends.”
“Whatever happened with the compass?”
She does not blush.
“Viper had to prioritize her survival, so that remains a loose end.”
“But now she has a chance to breathe, right? She can decide what she wants.”
The way Xavier looks at her is excruciating. She’ll kill him if he stops.
“Yes.”
They look at one another, silent. She feels adrift and unraveling. She’s on the knife edge of bolting, back to her space to reconstitute herself alone.
And yet -
“Wednesday,” he says, impossibly soft, and she will ruin him, she will burn him to the ground, but she does not run. Instead, she goes to him, waiting for her in front of his canvas with a smear of black paint on his cheek.
He looks down at her as she comes to him, standing close enough to feel him breathe. Close enough to feel him gasp when she kisses him, and she feels light in the chest at the sound. Bites his lip to hear it again.
She moves back for a moment to look at him, and is smugly pleased at the dazed expression on his face. She likes being the one to kiss first, she thinks. It gives her an advantage.
-
It is blessedly cold and dark on the walk back to her room, giving Wednesday time to slow her breathing to normal and straighten her collar back to its typical severity. As she walks across campus, she thinks about the meaning and the gravity people attach to a kiss. There is nothing inherent to it that is so important. She enjoyed the experiment of kissing Tyler; she would kiss Enid or Bianca if they wished her to. The issue is the set of expectations that seems to come with it.
She doesn’t expect herself to become something she is not, and Xavier has seen quite clearly who she is. The path of a raven remains a solitary one.
But she would, perhaps, welcome company on a parallel road: at times, veering close enough to touch.