Chapter Text
Grey eyes dulled as a dying, rattling gasp escaped parted, bloodstained lips. Wednesday Addams watched impassively as her foe slumped over, and slid with a squelch from her sword’s dark, flashing blade. She was disappointed by how easy this fight had been, especially since this woman-child had boasted of her skill and might. Worse, she had bragged incessantly of how she twisted to her will the one Wednesday secretly longed for. Perhaps her foe assumed those words would lead to wrath and fury great enough to distract her. All it did was grant Wednesday clarity and focus.
A shame the dead girl had not studied Wednesday Addams. To know oneself and one’s enemy was to secure victory. To know neither was to court defeat.
She looked away from the corpse to scan the room. The others had finished up with their opponent. That none of her team had yet to die dealing with the menace that was the Trinity was a stroke of disturbingly good fortune. There had been several close calls, yes, but no deaths.
Just wait, she could hear her younger self say, almost mockingly.
“Miss Addams,” a man said on approach. “We’ve finished up here. My men found an occupied cell in the basement.” He was tall, geared in dark military fatigues with body armor set over his torso and hips. Technically she could give him orders, but he was too prone to chivalric thinking to do as he was always told. It was frustrating, yet better than being treated like a child. “He says he isn’t with these terrorists, but his name was linked to one of their members. They didn’t get much else from him.”
She hummed thoughtfully. It had been child’s play twisting the Trinity into a terrorist organization in the eyes of the American government. That had gotten her people the funding and gear necessary to make this raid successful, along with several other operations against the odious organization set against outcasts globally.
“Who was the prisoner, lieutenant?”
Wednesday didn’t need to ask; she had known who it would be before they stormed the complex. She only wanted to hear confirmation of what she knew in her bones.
“You wish to know, ma’am?” He sounded surprised by her interest, but then he was in the dark about her suspicions. She nodded, mouth tightening with annoyance. “It’s the Hyde.” He paused before adding, “He’s in rough shape. Dehydration, perhaps a little starved. Bruising. They treated him poorly, despite being a valuable asset.”
Her dead, blackened heart clenched at the news. Years had passed since Wednesday last crossed paths with Tyler Galpin. To feel anything upon hearing of his poor condition blindsided her conscious mind. She had spent years telling herself that those short merry weeks together in Jericho had meant nothing.
She did not need the achy, immaterial pain those thoughts induced.
“Take me to him.”
“Ma’am—”
“I gave you an order, lieutenant. I expect them to be followed.”
He held her black gaze for several seconds, then bit out a curse. He pulled up his radio, which crackled despite how new and fancy it was. “Prep the Hyde for transport. Addams wishes to see him before we go.”
She smiled at how understanding the lieutenant was. It was quite nice when he understood where he resided in the greater hierarchy of the world beneath Wednesday. Thankfully, he said nothing of her interest in Tyler. If he did have something to say, she would listen to and promptly ignore his words with her head high and chin tilted. With her marginal height, she enjoyed the illusion of staring down her nose at someone. There had been a few occasions where it looked silly, but they had been learning experiences.
The lieutenant guided her through the compound, heading toward the warehouse furthest from the gate. They had snuck a spy into the compound before the raid, ensuring they understood the layout and could predict how the defenses would react to their assault. Said spy—Wednesday guessed Lucas Walker had his own reasons for wanting to help out—had already slipped away; the military men would grumble about him slipping back into civilian life without a debrief, but she didn’t mind. Let him return to Jericho where he belonged. Perhaps he would make for a good sheriff, and then a good mayor. He had surprised her by being a good friend to both the normies of his hometown and the outcasts of Nevermore Academy following the Crackstone incident.
They came upon the men escorting the Hyde in the first basement level, just outside a large loading bay. A medical vehicle was standing by, lights flashing as the medics waited upon their patient.
Tyler Galpin was laid on a stretcher, appearing as though he were asleep. He was bare from the waist up. Scars from his fateful duel with Enid stretched across his face as pale remembrances of past sins. His face was gaunt and sunken, his arms and chest withered. An IV had already been stuck into an arm; he looked quite terrible, and not in the good way she secretly desired. She could count every rib he possessed, a feat she couldn’t have accomplished that night she patched up his self-inflicted wound. Already her hands remembered the feel of his smooth chest, how taut muscle flexed beneath velvet skin. His warmth, the hard beating of his heart—Wednesday remembered those sensations as if she had just finished stitching him back together, so long ago. Her gaze lingered on the scars he had given himself, and a hand clenched.
“Were you close?” asked the lieutenant, watching her closely. “I know it isn’t—”
“Once, I thought of him in a light akin to how my mother sees my father,” Wednesday whispered with pained reverence. “Now… I cannot say. That depends on how he answers my questions.”
The man whistled, and she remembered he had met Gomez and Morticia Addams. Wednesday sighed through her nose, continuing to stare at Tyler; all she knew was that he was hers. She did not know what she would do with him beyond asking questions. No chains, no taser, not even a hammer to coerce out the words she wanted.
She had learned something of trust in the years apart. Wednesday hoped—an odd thing for her to do—she was not making a fool’s error.
* * *
Tyler somehow knew he was safe when he woke up. His eyes remained closed, but he could hear the beeping of a heart monitor, the soft breathing of someone lingering at his bedside. He took in a deep breath and was met with a familiar, eternally intoxicating smell: the unholy blend of blood and formaldehyde. Only one person he had ever met bore that smell, and she had been proud—proud—to brag it was no perfume, but her natural scent.
“You came for me,” he rasped out. His throat was drier than a Midwest summer and every corner of his body ached. “You… You came for me.”
Tears, unburdened and pure, leaked from his closed eyes. He felt the fool for letting them go, and better now that he no longer bore their terrible weight. They fell and fell, a trickling waterfall without end.
And then without notice or warning, a soft hand brushed against his cheek. His tears slid onto it instead of crawling the length of his face. He opened his eyes and blearily stared at Wednesday Addams. She had been beautiful when he first met her through a curtain of steam, but now? She was a vision, a demon arose from the darkest pit of hell to pull him out of the wretched cells those prescribing to goodness and godliness had tossed him into between attempts to break him as Laurel Gates had.
Her black eyes were not as large as they had been, but he still found himself lost in the depths of those endless pools. Her lips were still the kissable rosebud he remembered savoring before everything fell apart, and oh, did he long to take them in his own. Her cheeks were high and harsh, having shed that last trace of childhood he hadn’t realized still clung to her during that ill-fated courtship.
“You’re like a cockroach,” she said before smiling faintly. He spotted those telltale twitches in her lips. His heart sang, seeing her look upon him so; then Tyler wondered what had happened for Wednesday to accept him after all he had done.
Regardless, he replied, “Flattery will get you nowhere,” stronger than he felt. They had exchanged those words a lifetime ago, before he had given in to despair. That last glimmer of hope he had held on to then had nearly fallen away upon hearing of Wednesday’s death. Feeling the desire of his master to ensure the scion of Addams could not stop Crackstone had been the final nail in that rotten coffin.
Wednesday leaned forward, close enough her pigtails—Tyler was astonished to see she still tied her hair up in those; they had inspired several indecent fantasies, none without him yanking them—could almost brush over his face. They swung and dangled over him, yet were not enough to draw his hazel eyes from those black pools, which always demanded his attention.
“Maybe it has gotten me somewhere,” she murmured. The words stuck thick in his mind the moment after they passed through her dark-painted lips. “Or gotten me someone.”
Hearing that word rolled from her tongue and how she emphasized one nearly undid him, then and there. However, Tyler experienced enough pain and torture over the years to have guarded his once-exposed heart. He was wary, and feared to trust. This moment, here with Wednesday, left him bereft; there was nothing he desired more than to embrace her, to unite with her how he had wished ever since he first laid eyes upon her through a gasp of steam. Even so, he learned not to trust, and to not trust women who desired his power in particular. It disgusted him to think of Wednesday so, but her obsession with death and the macabre was a red flag he could no longer ignore. It was enough to be wary of her and of her intentions.
For now, he could only hope his fears were for naught.
“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked, pained he must end this moment between them. “You couldn’t have…have taken them on alone.”
Wednesday sat back. Disappointment flashed in dark pools. Tyler did not expect to so readily read her now, but it appeared some tricks learned could not be forgotten. She could be remarkably expressive, if you knew where to look.
“That depends on you and your answers, Tyler.” He glanced over and saw that her hands rested on her thighs. They clenched, knuckles deathly white. “I have questions for you, questions whose truthful answer will determine your future. I… I will not compel them from you, but I will know if you lie.”
He looked around. There were no restraints over him, nor were any of Wednesday’s torture implements waiting in the wing to be wielded against him. She continued to watch him, and feeling strangely emboldened, he shot her a crooked smile and asked, “No foreplay this time? I was acting too much like a normie to appreciate the chains and taser, back in that cabin with all of those paintings of my ugly side.”
Most of her face remained impassive, yet her intense gaze and the twitching corners of her lips gave away whatever she attempted to hide. She had missed him. Tyler held his smile, waiting for her to say what her eyes screamed. She wanted the truth after all. Perhaps he twisted it some, but his words were honest. Cutting even, like the knives she had shown him once at the Weathervane. He had mentally compared them to his Hyde form’s claws, that beast always lingering under the skin.
“I am giving you the option to tell me without force. If you wish, I can have you put in an iron maiden until you’re ready to talk.”
“It’s tempting,” he drawled, allowing the crooked smile he had held back to slip forth. “Oh, so tempting.”
Several seconds passed, holding Wednesday’s gaze, before she looked away and muttered something about Tyler and her parents. From the little he knew of Gomez and Morticia Addams, Wednesday must be annoyed with his overtly strong flirtations, or he was reminding her of her parents.
How cute.
He chuckled, low and deep. It was enough to focus Wednesday’s gaze upon him. There was something wary, maybe even afraid, hidden behind layers of defensiveness and a strained mask. Tyler thought back to the girl he had known in Jericho. She had gone to great lengths to guard her heart against others, taking measures to keep everyone around her at arm's length. He had done his best to break through, yet nothing serious had occurred until after she successfully worked with his father to put away Xavier Thorpe. Nothing had to be done on his part to lead her toward Thorpe as a suspect; that had been Thornhill and Wednesday’s own bullheaded certainty.
“What do you find amusing?” she asked. There was a bent to her lips, one he found curious in return. The Wednesday Addams he had known revealed nothing; only one smile of hers had ever lingered in his mind, that of the victorious glimmer of a girl in love, proven right.
“You, my dear cockroach,” Tyler said lowly. Her dark eyes widened and her breath caught. Wednesday breathed slowly, deeply, and he was left wondering what he had just sparked off within her mind. She shifted in her seat.
“Enough with the flirting,” said Wednesday. He wondered when she had figured him out, or if she had always known what he had been like back in Jericho. “My questions are about the Trinity.”
“Those the people who had me locked up?”
“Yes.” She frowned, or as much as Wednesday Addams could frown. “Did you not know what they’re called?”
“Hadn’t seen much beyond my cell and the small room where they tried to bring out the Hyde,” Tyler admitted. “The moment I found out they were trying to kill you…”
His throat tightened, remembering when that realization had struck him. Her eyes darkened with intent. Her breaths shuddered, if briefly, and her hands clenched again; he suspected it was in order to regain control. Tyler tried to think or feel nothing over the fact he could affect her just as she affected him.
“Was that truly enough for you?” Wednesday murmured. “Knowing they wanted me dead?”
“Yes.”
“Even after what happened with Laurel Gates and Crackstone?”
He scowled at that. “Her grasp on me died with her.”
“And your mother? Are you still angry over how Francoise Sylvanne Galpin was treated?”
“…you think what happened is a crime, don’t you.” Wednesday’s black eyes flashed. He knew, without her telling him, that he was right. “She would have liked you, Wednesday. That’s enough for me.”
Watching how Wednesday stiffened and then released into a faint, pleased smile that made the Hyde beneath his skin roar with approval. He had to clench his jaw to stop any prideful whoops or yells from springing forth, though he couldn’t help the rumble in his chest. Wednesday noticed, flinching as she did and staring at his torso. Tyler found he missed how fit he had been. If the large black eyes scanning him could be believed, she did as well. Never had he thought she might care for physical aesthetics, but there were many things he had thought about Wednesday Addams which might no longer be true. Years had passed with them separated, and he could only hope she still cared for him as he still did for her.
“I could never let you go,” Wednesday suddenly said. Tyler blinked and found she was meeting his gaze once more. “I wanted to forget you or let the festering anger of your betrayal devour me like a cancer. But… But I couldn’t.” Something like tears filled her eyes, turning them watery. His heart skipped a beat or three, waiting for whatever she was about to say. “I hate you, Tyler Galpin, and yet I strangely… I strangely love you as well. You’re a plague upon my mind, a parasite I cannot go on without. A sliver of your essence bore its way under my skin, and despite my every attempt, has remained fixed where it settled…and even if I wished to free myself of it, I would not. You are mine as much as I am yours.”
He smiled, sighing slightly as his lips twisted upward, pushing almost painfully against his stiff cheeks. Tyler was haunted by the night he received the scars which crossed his face. Those of the Trinity, as Wednesday called them, had reopened them several times, knowing then just how he received them and what they meant. The feeling of blood running down his face reminded him more of the murders Gates had made him commit as his Hyde master than of the Rave’N, when crimson paint sprayed down upon the dance floor.
“And as I am yours, so you are mine,” he replied faintly. A trigger, one he had only felt once, naked and afraid, clicked in the back of his mind. Suddenly, Tyler could sense the full array of what being a Hyde was and realized that the bond that had been awakened by Gates and pursued by the Trinity had now fallen into the hands of another. Never had he thought there might be one with whom his Hyde would desire to willingly bond. He was wrong, and oh did he wish to weep at how he had been wrong. Suddenly and perhaps strangely, he had found more than protection in the safe harbor that was Wednesday Addams.
She remained there beside his bed until he fell asleep, spirit light and face splotchy.
* * *
When Wednesday stepped out of Tyler’s room, she was surprised to find Xavier Thorpe leaning outside on the opposite wall. She felt strangely light after her reunion, though she could live without the strange burst of emotion that welled within. Regardless, she needed to speak with her parents about a particular matter. It would be a torturous conversation, but the sooner she got it out of the way, the better.
Xavier cleared his throat, and she turned to face him. He had stayed within her orbit after Nevermore, growing out of the arrested development he had been trapped within when they first met. He could still be self-absorbed and pushy, but he was a world-famous artist now; fame meant he could push boundaries, as long as he didn’t push hers.
“How’s he doing?”
“Well. They treated him poorly, though not enough to trigger his Hyde into shifting. We should be thankful they failed.”
Xavier hummed, crossing his arms as he shifted to face her fully. She had come to know he did this when uncomfortable yet tried to force himself forward regardless. It was a curious quirk, and one that made Wednesday’s later years at Nevermore easier to bear once she understood it.
“I’m surprised you haven’t turned him over, for all the things he did.”
“Oh, they know about Tyler’s past,” Wednesday said. She nearly smirked at how his brow furrowed. “I believe they will strike a deal with him. Time served to his country in exchange for a pardon, or at least enough freedom to walk about as a free man.”
“And who’d watch him?”
She nearly volunteered herself for the job. After everything that had happened, she knew in the end he would be hers. Perhaps she was going mad, or somehow the curse of being more Frump than Addams was finally striking, for Wednesday couldn’t help how dreadfully lovely the name Tyler Addams sounded in her mind. It took more effort than it logically should to prevent herself from turning around, reentering the room, and proposing her idea to Tyler.
Though with her moment of pause, Xavier must have parsed together some of her emotions. He sighed and shook his head, loose, long hairs swaying.
“Should’ve guessed. The moment you made a romantic claim on him, it was all over for Wednesday Addams.” Xavier nodded and stepped aside, moving toward the exit. “Once he’s cleared, bring him by my exhibition. I have something special for him, something I think he’ll appreciate…or it might disgust him. You never know.”
“Like that portrait of me playing the cello you sold my father?”
“Something like that.”
Wednesday watched Xavier turn and walk away, throwing back a small wave of his hand as he slipped around a corner. She didn’t know what to think about the artist beyond relief he had grown up since their torturous teenage years at Nevermore. It was certainly for the best, though she doubted he would ever allow her to escape his orbit.
“Surprised he’s still around. Would’ve thought he’d get the hint by now.”
She turned to find Bianca Barclay had somehow snuck up on her. The siren had become her most ardent backer since the Crackstone incident, and had built a life all her own in the years since that terrible night.
“Xavier has his uses,” said Wednesday. “The same as you.”
Bianca huffed, smiling widely. “You always say the nicest things, Addams.” Her white eyes turned to the door Wednesday had stepped out of. “I know you’re still hung up on Galpin—”
“I’m not hung up on him.” Wednesday realized belatedly how defensive she sounded. Given how Bianca smirked, she had picked up on her tone as well. “Not how you’re thinking, Bianca. This is like you and Morningsong.”
“If that helps you sleep better, Addams,” Bianca said with only a hint of anger. It had been messy business, handling Bianca’s mother. Wednesday knew she shouldn’t have brought it up, but if she had to be defensive, then so should Bianca. The siren sighed and stared at the hospital door with a frown. “Are you sure—”
“Tyler is my concern, and no one else’s.”
“Not even Enid’s?”
Wednesday’s jaw clenched, lips pursed at the reminder. During the winter following the Crackstone attack on Nevermore, she had traveled west to visit Enid. One night, after discussing everything that had happened during their first term as roommates, Enid demanded that she have the first go at Tyler.
“He gave me these,” she had hissed, gesturing to the four scars crossing the left side of her face. Enid messed with her hair, hiding the one on her forehead under her blonde locks; the three on her cheek remained visible, though already pale and white. “I know I shouldn’t want it, but I want to pay him back for the scars he left me.”
Then, she had thought little of Enid’s words. Wednesday had still been seething at how he had deceived her, made her the fool. Though once she had honestly and seriously thought about that semester, she had been bullheaded and too caught up in her first theory to give other options consideration. She had deserved to be fooled and learned her lesson appropriately.
“Enid is still with Ajax.”
“Who’s still with Ajax?”
Wednesday spun to find Enid had slipped up behind her, Ajax in tow. The two held hands, and it took all of her willpower not to glance at her former roommate’s left hand and the glittering ring there.
“I didn’t think the two of you would come here,” Wednesday admitted. She glanced at Bianca. “We can talk later, if you would prefer.”
“If I’d prefer,” she murmured, sounding faintly surprised. “Never thought I’d see the day, Addams.”
Bianca peered past her to the others. “Sinclair, Petropolus.” And with that, the siren turned away and meandered down the hospital corridor.
“How’s he doing?” asked Ajax, failing to think through his words as usual. How Enid put up with him Wednesday didn’t understand. Then again, part of her still reeled from how simple it had been to allow old memories and feelings of Tyler to reemerge, fresh as ever.
“Tyler’s asleep.” She rubbed her hands, hating how antsy she suddenly felt. “He still has those scars that Enid gave him on the night of Crackstone’s attack.”
“Oh, he does?” Enid sounded surprised and more than a touch pleased. Once she had found shame in the four scars that lined the right side of her face; now they were badges of pride, a reminder of her struggles and how far she had come. “You get a chance to speak with him?”
“I did,” Wednesday said, each word slow and measured. “He’s… He will be fine. It will take time for him to recover, but Tyler is strong. Strong enough to resist every attempt the Trinity made to take control of him, like Laurel Gates did.”
Enid made a disgusted look. “I still can’t believe I told her about my…” She trailed off before Wednesday needed to ask her to stop speaking. There were a great many things she had learned about her former roommate years after the fact she could have gone her entire life without knowing. This would have been one more occurrence, and around Ajax to boot. “Ugh. Never mind.”
“No, I wanna—”
“No, you do not,” Wednesday told Ajax. For a moment she feared he might press, but it appeared the gorgon had enough sense to sigh and nod his head. He played with the beanie atop his head. Were they in any other situation, she might berate him for it. However, she was a touch on edge from her reunion with Tyler and the bucket of unwanted emotion and desire it had drudged up. So she turned to Enid and said, “Tyler’s asleep, I’m afraid, and I won’t allow you to harm him.”
Enid pouted. “I had no intention of actually hurting him! I just wanted to let him know what’ll happen if he breaks your heart again.”
“Break… my heart? Again?”
The words had trickled from Wednesday’s lip like sewage, drudged up from the darkest, bleakest depths. She had never thought of what happened following her vision of Tyler murdering Kinbott in the terms Enid had used.
“Yes!” Enid stated; her eyes went wide and it sounded to Wednesday that her former roommate was nearly shouting. “He broke your heart when it turned out he was the Hyde!”
“I wasn’t heartbroken,” Wednesday replied. “I was furious he had duped me, tricked me into accusing an innocent man, but it didn’t break my heart.” She paused, considered her words briefly, and decided for once to throw caution to the wind and pull a card from Enid’s playbook. “The fact he was a serial killer and managed to deceive me makes him worthy of my time and attention.”
“And your heart?”
“That… “ Wednesday mentally stumbled over herself, even as she allowed the words “That too” to escape her.
The words were uttered, and released into the wild. Wednesday felt her heart race, pounding so hard against her ribs she feared they might break from the pressure. It was terrifying, this utterly new realization; the sensations she was experiencing might be delightfully familiar, but their cause was not something she had expected, let alone entertained. Just as his claws had carved through his victims, Tyler Galpin had carved his way into her heart.
Enid suddenly squealed, launching forward. Wednesday was too on her back foot to avoid the ensuing hug, though she remained stiff and uncomfortable in her former roommate’s embrace. Over the werewolf’s shoulder, she spotted Ajax. He appeared caught between laughing at her predicament and fearing the retribution that would inevitably find him, were he to actually laugh.
“Oh, I can’t believe you found love!” Enid was squealing in her ear. Wednesday tensed further. What she had with Tyler was more than petty love; it was an obsession bone-deep, sunk into her marrow to the point she thought she might be the Hyde and he the psychic. And yet, love was the only suitable word she could grasp.
It pained Wednesday to admit her emotions in any manner—that she had done so with Tyler could be easily ignored—but she nodded. She would not give Enid the pleasure of verbal affirmation, for whatever words that may spill from her dark-colored lips would inevitably be used against her.
Before her conversation with Enid could spiral further out of her control, a door slid open. Wednesday turned. Her eyes widened as Tyler, a hand wrapped around the IV pole, emerged from his room. His hazel eyes were fixed upon her with an intensity that drew heat to her cheeks. The pupils were wide enough to nearly blot out the irises, their color already bleeding into the whites around them.
Tyler glanced at Enid and Ajax before saying, “I thought I heard you talking out here.”
“We were finishing up,” Wednesday said, turning to Enid. “We can talk later, if you wish.”
Enid stared at the scars on Tyler’s face, perhaps a little too obviously searching for the ones she had given him. Wednesday assumed she had found them, for Enid eventually turned away from Tyler and said, “Oh, we will certainly be talking about this.”
She stormed off after that, Ajax only briefly hesitating to follow after her. Wednesday waited until they were out of sight before she stormed toward Tyler and shoved him back through the door he had come through. She locked it behind her, prodding him toward the bed he should’ve been occupying.
“Be thankful none of the nurses have come to check on you,” she began, crossing back to the seat she had occupied when he woke. Wednesday sat and stared, waiting for him to sit as well. He took the hint quickly, the bed slumping under his weight. “That or the soldiers still lurking about. They’re going to recruit you into being their puppet; it’s the only way, I imagine, that the government will allow you to escape punishment for the murders you committed while under Laurel Gates’ influence. My family can only do so much, despite all of our connections and resources.”
He blinked at the news, and then Tyler suddenly smiled. It was crooked and wry, more in line with the haunted boy that brazenly confessed to enjoying murder than that boy-next-door mask she had grown accustomed to. “You got the military involved? Just for me?”
Heat rose in her cheeks and ears, and along the sides of her neck. His hazel eyes darkened, gazing upon the color his words had induced. “I got them involved solely to deal with the Trinity.” There was a pause before she added, somewhat mulishly, “Rescuing you was merely a…bonus.”
“A bonus,” Tyler repeated, smiling widely. “That what you told the others, Wednesday Addams?”
Her lips rolled back into her mouth, pinned between her sharp white teeth. Her mind wanted to rethink how fond she was of Tyler, yet her heart wouldn’t allow that to happen. For now, Wednesday Addams would just have to suffer having Tyler Galpin once more in her life. It would not be easy, but perhaps one day she would be content with this decision, instead of merely accepting it.