Work Text:
Tyler didn’t actually want Enid to have no friends, or boyfriends, or whatever she wanted next. He was just protective.
He’d learned very early on that people hated him. Whether they were werewolves or normies, he was the thing people told their kids about to make them behave. He wasn’t a person, and he certainly wasn’t capable of anything other than violence.
Frankly, he found it stupid to ask why he was so protective of Enid when Enid was the only one who never treated him like anything less than her pack. She was the one who found him. She was the one who touched him. She was the one who crawled into his bed and asked him to squeeze the nightmares away days after he first moved in.
People didn’t go to him to feel better. They just didn’t. Enid was the only reason he knew how bullshit everyone else was.
Tyler learned very early on that he had a hell of a protective streak, and it had teeth and claws. He learned that once someone wormed their way into his head as ‘his’, any perceived slight against them set him off.
He had control, of course, despite popular opinion. If he hadn’t, he would’ve killed a lot more people in the past ten years. He’d have probably been put down long before stepping foot in Nevermore, and he never would have gotten the chance to meet Wednesday Addams.
Wednesday was weird, but not in the way that everyone else thought she was weird. Well, that too, but Tyler didn’t care about that as much as how she seemed to have no idea what he was.
Not that hydes were well known, but it was more than that. She didn’t know he was scary. People always knew, no matter what he did. They always sensed that monster within him and they always treated him accordingly.
Wednesday was smart too. Keen and transparent in a way he wasn’t used to. Blunt and sometimes callous.
When he first met her, she was a potential threat. This was a woman who was going to be sleeping in the same room as Enid. Worse, Enid had her heart set on making a new friend, and that made Wednesday dangerous. Enid was too quick to rip her heart out and give it to others. She was too open, too optimistic. It made it too easy to hurt her. Too easy to let her down. Tyler had admonished her a thousand times, but she never listened so he’d had to take matters into his own hands and make sure everyone knew better than to treat her heart carelessly.
Perhaps it didn’t help his reputation as a rabid dog, but some things were more important than pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
Wednesday, however, wasn’t concerned in the least with the predator in their midst. She may have been callous but she was also straightforward, and it did nothing to deter Enid, which he admired.
Tyler spent Wednesday’s first night in Enid’s bed, laying with Enid between him and the wall—her arms curled up between them with her forehead pressed to his back—and his eyes firmly on Wednesday’s bed.
Wednesday slept like the dead, fully clothed and ready for the grave. She did not move an iota the entire night, and Tyler knew because he kept guard all night long.
Until she’d proven worthy, Tyler wouldn’t risk Enid’s heart for a moment. He wouldn’t do anything to her, or keep Enid from chasing her, but he would be keeping an eye on her.
A very close eye.
***
Wednesday Addams had no desire whatsoever to attend Nevermore Academy, but her father had promised to help transfer her to a special program in Italy if she made it through the rest of the semester.
Wednesday would tolerate the incessant cesspool that was American high school for the chance to study blood magic with one of the few true experts in the world that spring. Even if it did mean walking the halls full of her mother’s face smirking down on her and, she shuddered, giving Nevermore a real chance.
“And this is the quad,” Enid chirped as they entered a courtyard shaped like a pentagon. Various students were scattered throughout the hub of social activity.
Wednesday glanced at Enid and hoped that she’d move on quickly.
“You’ll find we have four main types of outcasts here.”
Apparently not. Wednesday let her continue with her welcome speech, filling her head with uninteresting social dynamics and petty drama. A handful of names attached themselves to faces. Bianca Barclay. Xavier Thorpe. Enid’s brother.
“That’s Tyler,” Enid said, reaching for Wednesday’s hand only to swipe through the thin air where her hand used to be.
“We’re the same age so we actually see each other during the day, unlike my younger brothers who I see maybe three times a semester. That’s fine by me, though. Tyler’s the only one I actually like. Ironic, since he’s not even my biological brother.”
“Do tell,” Wednesday deadpanned sarcastically.
Enid seemed to take this at face value and lit up. “Tyler was fostered in like ten years ago, give or take. He’s not even technically allowed to go to school here. I threw a massive protest to the school board to get him an exception. I wanted to lift the ban altogether, but one pass was all we got.”
“Ban?” Wednesday asked, her curiosity officially piqued. She wasn’t aware there were any bans besides, “Is he a normie?”
Enid laughed. “No. Ohmygod. Can you imagine? He’s a hyde.”
As they talked, Enid managed to inch them closer to where Tyler was scribbling something down in a notebook. Wednesday didn’t notice until they were close enough for him to flare his nostrils and look up, catching Enid’s eyes immediately.
Tyler transformed from a frustrated teenage boy losing a fight with what looked to be math homework into a soft puppy, gazing adoringly up at his master. He was rewarded with a casual hand brushing the nape of his neck as Enid stood beside him, leaning into him as if it were as natural as breathing to let him support her weight.
“Hey, Enid.” Eyeing Wednesday, he asked, “This the roommate?”
“Yep,” she said with, obnoxiously popping the ‘p’.
“Wednesday Addams,” she greeted since it seemed there were to be official introductions.
Tyler looked her up and down, examining her like he was evaluating her for something. Whatever it was, it seemed to keep him talking, though he didn’t regain that softness he had before.
“Tyler, and before you ask, no. I’m not going to eat you. Not unless you give me a reason, anyways.”
“Tyler,” Enid hissed.
“I study with Enid a lot,” Tyler continued, “so we’ll likely be seeing each other often.”
“I study in our dorm. Alone.”
“Like I said. A lot.”
“I was under the impression that boys weren’t permitted in the dorms. I didn’t expect anyone to consider a bit of family bonding to be worth the sneaking around.”
“What? You going to snitch on us?” Tyler smirked.
“I prefer to handle my personal grievances personally. Besides, such rules are antiquated and do nothing to prevent a couple of horny teenagers from doing what they will.”
“Right,” he said slowly, “Cool, then.”
“Anyways,” Enid said pointedly. “Wednesday still needs her uniform so we should really get going.”
Wednesday dodged her attempt to lead her by the arm and started walking until Enid caught up with her. She felt Tyler’s eyes on her back until they rounded the corner, watching her with an intensity she could only liken to her brother’s pet tarantula whenever it decided it wanted to pounce into her hair.
“We’re almost there,” Enid said after a few minutes of blessed silence and continued onto another tangent prompted by whatever she saw on their way.
Wednesday tuned her out.
***
Her last class of the day ended in an impulsive duel and a trip to the nurse, which was as humiliating as it was frustrating.
“Rooming with Enid, huh?” Rowan asked.
“What of it?” she answered impatiently.
“Nothing. Just, you know. Some people might ask about the rumors.”
She glanced at him disdainfully. She had even less desire to hear idle gossip from him than she did Enid.
“They’re close. Like really close. Tyler is kind of terrifying in general, but everyone knows he will gut you and dump you in the lake if you touch Enid. Enid will swear that he’s like a big puppy, but unless that puppy is guarding the gates of hell, I don’t see it. The overprotective streak and the late nights in Ophelia Hall have led to some nasty rumors about him. I mean, Tyler is up there all the time. Everyone knows it, and ever since someone started that rumor they’re…you know? It’s just fanned the flames every time.”
Wednesday raised her brow questioningly in the hopes that he’d just come out and say whatever it was he was going to say. When he didn’t elaborate, she huffed. “Know what?”
“That they’re too close for a brother and sister.”
“Are you implying they have incestuous sex?” Wednesday asked, but she was already bored. What a basic social taboo to throw around. It was empty of any true excitement. As if humankind hadn’t been doing it, denying it, and arguing over what counted since the beginning of civilization. A shame they weren’t rumored to be murderers like her. That may have been interesting.
Rowan laughed. “Yeah. It’s bullshit, of course, but I figured I’d warn you. People will probably hound you about it now that you actually live with Enid.”
“Noted. Any reason for this act of good will?”
“Nobody’s stood up for me like that. Didn’t want to seem ungrateful.” Rowan laughed self-deprecatingly. “Who would have thought that I’d come here and still manage to be an outcast?”
“Before you continue with some woeful tale of public-school bigotry or schoolyard taunts, you should know that we’re not friends. We aren’t commiserating over a shared dream to be accepted by the masses nor a mutual bitterness at rejection.”
Rowan swallowed like she’d hurt his feelings and nodded. “Got it. I’ll just…leave you alone then.”
Rowan left with his tail between his legs.
***
Wednesday fell into a routine easily. This was not her first time at a new school, and it wouldn’t be her last. The faces changed, but the work was the same. Learn the schedule. Organize her workstation. Plan her life around assignments and responsibilities. Weems forced her hand to join a club, which Wednesday found ridiculous. ‘Well-rounded’, she said as if Wednesday wasn’t already engaged with a number of varying interests and pastimes that had nothing to do with her classmates.
Wednesday found the paperwork needed to form her own club, but she needed at least three people. The idea of hunting down two more people sounded more exhausting than sitting in a corner of the writing club and glaring at anyone who tried to talk to her, so she did that instead.
She spent two hours over her schedule putting everything in place and thought little of anything else as she wrote her novel.
The harvest festival was an annoyance. She had no desire to spend her evening amongst others or be pulled along by an overeager Enid.
She was tenacious in her desire to include Wednesday. Wednesday would admire her ferocity if it didn’t mean she was standing in the middle of a crowd, watching as people laughed and screamed around her.
“Tyler got to stay behind,” she found herself sulking as Enid sat her down with an elephant ear between them.
“No, he didn’t,” Enid chirped. “Tyler sneaks back through the woods whenever we’re brought to town.”
Wednesday scowled. “And we couldn’t have done that?”
“No,” Enid said forcefully. “It’s bad enough he runs off every single time. I’m not letting you go full hermit too.”
Wednesday stabbed the sugary monstrosity with a vengeance. She happened to like being a hermit. Being a hermit was her retirement plan.
“I have writing to do.”
“Your typewriter will still be there in a few hours. I won’t even complain when you keep us up all night.”
Us. So, he was staying the night again. Wednesday wouldn’t be surprised to find Tyler in the dorm already. In that moment, she envied him.
Wednesday tuned out as Enid kept talking. A barrage of small-town gossip and high school politics held no interest for her. To pass the time, she dug her knife into the cracks of the wooden table, idly pulling splinters from the grain.
“Besides,” Enid continued, “Tyler just sits around the woods all night. I get he doesn’t want to see his father, but it’s so boring. I tried to join him a few times just so he wasn’t alone, but there is only so much sitting I can do when I can’t even wolf out with him.”
Wednesday perked up at that. “I thought Tyler was a hyde.”
Which she still had questions about. She’d never heard of a hyde before, and the library was useless for answers.
Enid waved it away. “Whatever. I can’t shift with him so it kind of leaves me to sit and watch as he runs around.”
Enid switched over to the way her baton practice fell apart earlier that day. Wednesday hummed and counted the hours until she could slip away and continue her novel.
***
“What are you always writing?” Xavier asked before class started.
Wednesday’s pen paused before continuing as if he never spoke.
“She’s probably planning how she’s going to kill us all,” Bianca answered from her desk. Divina snorted. More eyes fell on them.
“If we get another essay today, I’ll help,” Ajax joked. More laughter sounded as multiple classmates threw balled-up pieces of paper at him.
“Shut it!” Xavier exclaimed as if he were defending her.
She released a long-suffering sigh and said, “If you must know, I’m contemplating the practicalities of rearranging one’s guts.”
“What? Like sex?” another classmate asked. Their sudden excitement thinly veiled their amusement.
“No.” Wednesday glanced up to impress upon them how unimpressed she was. “As in ripping one’s entrails out and then stuffing them back in. I need to know the mechanics of it and the effect it’d have on the body.”
“Kinky,” another classmate laughed.
“Cut it out!” Xavier hissed, hitting the boy across the head. Or he tried to. The boy dodged in time.
Wednesday shut her writing notebook and replaced it with her chemistry notebook. Class would begin in twenty seconds.
“Aw,” Bianca cooed. “Here I was looking forward to reading how psychotic you really are.”
“If it’s that important to you, you can read it like everyone else when it’s published.”
Wednesday did not look up to see the disgust on Bianca’s face, but she felt the satisfaction of turning somebody’s weak stomach well enough that she didn’t feel the need to look.
Mrs. Stempit entered a moment later, quieting everyone for class. Wednesday doubted many of them would remember this past the week.
“Ignore her,” Xavier whispered into her ear, sending an awful, oily shudder down her spine. “She’s just mad you did better on your essay last week.”
Wednesday did her best to ignore him in the hopes that the brick wall between them might turn him off.
“You know, I’ve been working on something too if you wanted to compare notes. Maybe we could—”
“No.”
Xavier sulked the entire lecture, but Wednesday didn’t pay him any mind. It wasn’t until she was halfway out the door, that she was reminded that Tyler shared breakfast muffins in the back with Enid every morning.
“By the way,” Tyler said as she passed their table. “It’s less about how you rearrange the guts after you put them back in, and more about how you moved them in the first place. They’re already pretty stuffed in as it is. They just don’t like being manhandled.”
Wednesday paused, glanced at him, and hummed in acknowledgement before moving on.
***
Wednesday managed to keep to herself for a week after the festival before overhearing Bianca laughing with her little cohort from Rosaline Hall. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared enough to linger. Normally, she didn’t have a werewolf foaming at the mouth over a school competition and a hyde hovering like he’d bite Bianca’s head off if she glanced at them, carrying anything Enid’s team needed to build their boat.
Bianca sat with Divina in an alcove in the hall, her words hushed but perfectly clear to Wednesday, having had years of experience spying on her parents.
“We’ll distract her over breakfast. I’ve got the powder. It’ll keep her down all day.”
“Not sure it’ll even be necessary. Yoko doesn’t know up from down until she’s had her morning mochasanguis.”
“Either way, that werewolf is going down.”
Intrigued, Wednesday followed Bianca down the hall, catching flashes of conversation while staying just out of sight.
“I still say we should just give Enid food poisoning instead. I mean, it’d be easier to get to—”
“And set the hyde off?” Bianca scoffed. “No. I value my life.”
“It’s not like he’s immune to us. We’d be fine.”
“Tyler knows that too. Contrary to popular opinion, he’s too smart not to prepare for it, and I want to make her cry. The harder it is for him to find out we did it on purpose, the better.”
“He might still kill you anyways.”
“Please. He’s too busy stalking Wednesday like a good little guard dog to bother with us when Yoko is the one with the nurse.”
“And what about Wednesday? Of the two of them, she actually has tried to kill people.”
“One. Tyler definitely has a body count. He’s just better at hiding it,” Bianca said. “Two. I can handle one psychotic witch. Wednesday thinks she’s untouchable. Taking her down a peg is exactly what she needs.”
Wednesday let them disappear around the corner. She’d heard more than enough.
Bianca was an egotistical, arrogant—
Wednesday breathed deeply. She could feel the steam coming out of her ears as the rage simmered under her skin. The mental image of Enid crying snapped something inside of her, carrying her to their dorm where Enid was playing bubblegum pop music loud enough to make her ears bleed.
The door slammed shut behind her, startling Enid into knocking the needle off of the gramophone. Wednesday didn’t have the space in her head to question why she even had a record when Enid used the internet for her music.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve seen your boat for the Poe Cup. If we’re going to destroy Bianca, we’ll need to do better.”
Enid lit up. “Does this mean we’re a team? You’re going to be a black cat?”
“It means I’m going to take Bianca down a peg.”
Enid lunged, her arms spread wide for a bear hug. Wednesday barely dodged in time.
***
Winning the Poe Cup settled something inside of her for a time. Watching Bianca drag herself out of the water and stew as Enid was handed the trophy brought a sense of vindictive satisfaction to Wednesday’s heart that she’d never had for any school event that didn’t end with a lawsuit.
Enid became more determined to be her friend afterwards, which was frustrating mostly because Wednesday didn’t understand why. She didn’t engage in girl talk. She didn’t allow Enid to touch her unless absolutely necessary. She certainly didn’t reciprocate the more wolf-like overtures that Enid was prone to the way Tyler did.
Perhaps that last part was a shifter thing. She still had too few answers about hydes and their habits. He may be a canine as well, or he just adopted the tactility and scenting from being glued to Enid’s side for so long.
More important than that, however, was how often Wednesday brushed her off to write. Enid knew her novel was her top priority, and the few conversations Wednesday initiated were always about it. Enid knew that Wednesday had no interest in boys, social events, or cat videos. Every time Wednesday thought that this was the moment when Enid would roll her eyes, slump her shoulders, and give up, Enid merely pouted and tried again the next day.
She was determined in a way that Wednesday didn’t know what to do with, but as the weeks passed and the air got colder, Wednesday found herself with one more person she’d commit murder for.
***
Wednesday opened her writing notebook and flipped to her observations section. Having exhausted the library, both public and school, of shapeshifter material, she’d taken to noting Tyler’s habits and mannerisms. It was a simple side project of hers that she used to distract herself from her novel on occasion. It’d been a long time since she’d come across an outcast she’d never heard of.
Tyler was protective. That much was obvious. And he seemed to live in a world of Enids and Not-Enids. He rarely had eyes for anyone else unless he was gauging how much of a threat a Not-Enid could be to him or Enid. Otherwise, he kept to himself. He did his schoolwork, read his books, or disappeared for reasons unknown. Wednesday assumed he was in the woods shifted into the hyde, but she hadn’t been able to prove that theory without stalking him which she refused to do because she didn’t care enough about him to do so.
Tyler rose at five a.m., performed a brief workout routine that often woke her up at five-thirty a.m., and left to retrieve breakfast. He met Enid at their first class and sat in the back, always, with a blueberry muffin for her and a banana nut muffin for him. He could be found brushing the crumbs off her face adoringly with a reliable frequency.
Such open affection unnerved her. She never could understand how people so blatantly advertised their weaknesses, but she could admit that Tyler made up for it in other areas.
He was strong. She made several notes in the days leading up to the Poe Cup as he carried, lifted, and held whatever Enid needed for as long as she needed without a thought. His arms hadn’t even strained at the weight of the canoe filled with all their building materials and Enid herself. Though the pride shined quite clearly at her laughter all the way to the lake.
He was also fast. When he didn’t have a reason to be somewhere, he’d be gone in the blink of an eye. Had there been a gust of wind to accompany him, she’d have thought his speed preternatural. Perhaps even on par with a vampire’s, but after weeks of observation, she suspected it said more about his ability to go unnoticed when he wanted to be.
There was also something wild about him in a way that put weak people off and drew her in. Every now and again, Wednesday would overhear some idle gossip lusting after it, but none were brave enough to seek him out. She had no time for sexual fantasies, but she could sense something hiding just under his skin. Something dangerous and unhinged. He always felt one trigger away from snapping. He never felt fully human.
Wednesday had a few theories. One. He was raised by wolves and seemed to have no social connections outside of Enid. He wouldn’t be the first to pick up on a few more primal habits in those conditions. Enid supported this theory in the way that she never discouraged him from acting like he was a wolf in her pack, whether that meant holding her close at night or scenting her thoughtlessly in public. In fact, he seemed to bring it out in her. Enid’s wolf never felt closer to the surface than when Tyler was with her.
Her second theory was that he lacked control over his hyde. He learned to function on his own, but with nobody to guide him, he grew comfortable being other even when it was impractical for a man capable of rational thought. Having known him now, she also noted that he was far from stupid. Tyler was clever and excelled when he applied himself. Not that everyone acknowledged this, but Wednesday always found conventional methods of gauging intelligence lacking.
She could not prove or disprove this theory without learning more about a hyde’s nature. Which led her back to the beginning with her being forced to make her own observations.
Wednesday watched as Tyler leaned over Enid’s shoulder. The sun shone down on them from behind, casting long shadows across the quad, touching the ground inches from Wednesday’s shoes. Enid said something to Tyler, presumably about the essay laid out for her. It was due in ten minutes. Wednesday knew because Enid had panicked about it that morning until Tyler calmed her down and promised to help her finish.
Wednesday noted how easily they moved around each other. There was a grace to them whenever they were in each other’s orbits. It was almost like they could sense the other’s next move and react accordingly with a preternatural sense that she knew they didn’t possess. She wondered if it was a wolf thing, a hyde thing, a pack thing, or something born of their own unique connection. She had no answers to give.
Wednesday shifted minutely. Her ankle popped as she stretched her ankle. Her toes crossed into their shadow for one brief moment.
Tyler’s eyes met hers, and their intensity froze her in place. He lingered on her form, examining her like she was something new.
It was then that she realized that he didn’t look at her like she was Not-Enid. She didn’t feel like Enid either, however, when she had his attention.
Whatever it was, it made her chest feel like something was pressing in on her, and her mind raced with theories of what he was thinking whenever he looked at her that way. Wild ideas of predators and prey ran rampant in her imagination. Of violent intent and burning curiosity. He hadn’t treated her like a threat to Enid in weeks and yet she couldn’t help but think he was waiting for something anytime she intruded on their precious space.
Enid groaned, breaking his focus like it was never there, and dug her hands in her hair. “I’m never going to finish this!”
Tyler coaxed her hands out of her hair, expertly directing her claws and fixing her hair. Whatever he said to her seemed to soothe her.
Wednesday didn’t know what it all meant, or why he was changing his behavior, but she wrote it down furiously.
There were three types of people in the world for Tyler Galpin. Enids, Not-Enids, and Her.
***
Wednesday returned to their dorm late one night expecting Enid to already be in bed.
She had spent the evening in the fencing hall, practicing her form in preparation for the next week. Bianca was on a warpath to regain her lost dignity, and Wednesday wasn’t about to let her gain an inch.
What she found was Tyler, alone, laying in Enid’s bed reading a book. A quick scan of the room revealed that they were truly alone. He had no apparent reason for being there.
“What are you doing here?”
“Reading,” he answered without looking up from his book.
“Do you actually have a dorm, or do you just sleep in the woods whenever you aren’t here?”
Tyler’s lips quirked up in a half-smile. She could feel his eyes on her as she made her way to her desk and prepared to do her homework.
“Not to imply I hate the woods, but the company is much better here.”
Wednesday stared at him waiting for that to make sense for one second before turning her back and working on her first assignment.
“Enid’s great,” Tyler continued like he was ready to answer honestly. “but when you grow up with a bunch of werewolves, you learn to appreciate the peace and quiet.”
“Peace and quiet aren’t exactly words I associate with Enid,” Wednesday said without looking up from her work.
Tyler laughed softly. “Yeah.”
Wednesday completed two assignments to the backdrop of paper folding under dexterous fingers. She realized, rather suddenly, that she’d never spent so much time with Tyler one-on-one, nor had she ever tolerated a silent presence at her back so well. And yet, his presence felt familiar. Too familiar for what she knew of him. And then she remembered.
Bianca mentioned once that Tyler was stalking her. She’d forgotten it almost immediately, too preoccupied as she was by the seething rage the thought of Enid crying evoked. His eyes on her back felt like an old friend. Like she’d been feeling them for weeks already without realizing it. And then she remembered her notes. Tyler would disappear often without a whisper. Without a trace. She had no idea what he did in that time, but maybe he’d never left at all.
If Tyler was capable of so thoroughly evading her senses, he was far more dangerous than she ever anticipated. How intriguing. How—
Her face felt flushed. What on earth…did he poison her at some point? Would he be so forward? Apparently, he would. Wednesday shook the ridiculous thoughts from her head and thanked all that was unholy that he couldn’t read her mind.
“Interesting book?” she found herself asking.
“It was an insult wrapped up as a gift last Christmas. A dig at my monstrous nature. Still, I like the main character.”
“Oh?”
“She’s a criminal mastermind hellbent on revenge.” He said with a smile she could hear.
Wednesday paused, contemplating this new development.
“Sounds like my kind of book.”
They didn’t speak for the rest of the night.
***
“But you have to go!”
Wednesday looked up from her typewriter to see Enid’s distraught face. She was only lucky that Wednesday’s writing hour had ended thirty seconds ago.
“Why on earth would I want to stand around, peacocking for a bunch of boys I don’t care about while bland pop music makes me want to cut my ears off. If I wanted to cut my ears off, I could do it in the privacy of my own room in clothes I can lay in comfortably while I take in the pain.”
Enid rolled her eyes. “It’ll be fun; I swear! And I can’t go by myself! I need you to come with me!”
“One; yes, you can. The idea that you need a date is an antiquated idea born of the patriarchy. Two; you’ve yet to give me a good reason to attend.”
Enid pouted. Her eyes grew glassy and yearning in a way that would bend a weaker woman.
Tyler sighed from where he’d been reading in Enid’s bed. “Didn’t you have some sort of murder planned in your book?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Wednesday asked. And how did he even know that?
“A school dance could be a good setting for it. You could go as research.”
“More like cliché. Everyone and their mother has been spilling blood at school dances since Carrie got doused in pig’s blood.”
“Make it a red herring then. Either way, you’ll get to examine us teenagers in our natural habitat, and we both know how much you like to make people feel watched when they’re reading your books.”
“Doesn’t sound worth it.”
“You can always leave if it isn’t.”
Wednesday doubted his logic. It was true that personal experience was valuable in any setting, and her writing did grow flat with certain venues of expression. Mostly whenever they contained mundane rituals such as a school dance. She never understood any of it growing up, and her own fond memories of Addams celebrations didn’t come off well, or so she’d been told.
“Just go,” Tyler said. “Make Enid happy.”
There it was. Tyler didn’t care about her book, or her prowess as a writer. He just wanted to make Enid happy. It was what he always wanted. She didn’t know why she was surprised.
“…Fine.”
Enid’s squeal was shrill enough to make Wednesday wince.
***
Enid had become a woman obsessed.
If it wasn’t shoes, it was hair. If it wasn’t hair, it was their dresses. She did Wednesday’s nails. She did her toenails. She sat Wednesday down and had a pencil in her eye for twenty minutes and then she took what appeared to be a torture device and used it to clamp her eyelashes. Wednesday was familiar with makeup and its application. She was known to indulge on occasion herself, but Enid’s attention to detail was a nightmare given flesh. Wednesday had never felt more pruned and plucked than when Enid had declared them presentable for the dance.
It took four hours. Wednesday could have gotten ready in ten minutes.
“Look at her!” Enid squealed at Tyler, who had been sitting in their room the entire time silently laughing at Wednesday’s suffering. “Isn’t she perfect!”
Tyler’s face did something weird seeing her properly for the first time since Enid started. He took a moment to find the words.
“Yeah,” he said, and promptly stood up. “Well. You two have fun. I’ll just be…yeah.”
“Are you not going?” Wednesday asked before he could open the door.
“Trust me,” he said with a hollow laugh, “Nobody there will be happy to see me.”
“Tyler,” Enid admonished, but he didn’t look at her as he left.
Wednesday stared after him, wondering where that had come from. Tyler wasn’t one to sulk or cater to the happiness of someone who wasn’t Enid.
“He does this every time. You’d think school events were cursed or something.”
“Of course, they aren’t. That would make them fun.”
Enid huffed and didn’t dignify that with a response.
Still… “I’ll meet you downstairs. I have to check something first.” She didn’t wait for Enid to respond.
She found Tyler in his dorm hall, about to enter his room.
“So, you do have a dorm.”
Tyler jumped, spun around, and leaned back against the door when he realized it was just her. “Yeah,” he laughed. “Yeah, I do.”
Wednesday crossed her arms and did what she could to look more comfortable than she actually felt. Tyler looked at her like it wasn’t working.
“So…” he drawled, “Did you want something?”
“You should go.”
Tyler raised a brow. “I’d like to.”
“To the dance,” she emphasized. “Enid wants you there.”
“Enid doesn’t need me to escort her to a dance. Not now that she has you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” Tyler emphasized, standing tall and taking the two steps to loom over her, “That you’ll keep her safe. I don’t have to go and be ogled by a bunch of mouth breathing assholes just waiting for me to snap and kill them all because I know that if someone is stupid enough to hurt her, you’ll be there to drive a nail through their head.”
Wednesday blinked at the way he spoke. She’d never heard him so forceful and… certain before. Not about this. Tyler didn’t just leave Enid in the care of others. Not really. He’d tolerate other people being near her, for her sake, but he never let down his guard. It was one of the things she most admired about him.
“How can you possibly be so sure? I don’t want to go either. I could just slip out when she’s distracted and scrub this gunk off of me.”
Tyler huffed a laugh, and it made her feel dreadfully adorable. “You won’t because, unlike most people, you understand.”
Tyler slipped into his dorm before she could find the breath to ask what he meant by that.
***
Wednesday found Enid at the bottom of the staircase, eagerly waiting for her arrival. Her face lit up at the sight of her, which made Wednesday’s chest feel frightfully warm.
Enid took Wednesday’s hand in both of hers with a wide grin the moment she was within reach. “I was worried you wouldn’t come after all.”
“I will be here for one hour.”
Enid squeezed her hand so she couldn’t escape. “Three at the minimum.”
“Two and a half.”
“Deal,” Enid said with far too much pleasure not to have planned this and dragged Wednesday inside.
The dance was a mercifully monochromic mass of white, though the hints of blue were a bit much in Wednesday’s opinion. She had no desire to approach anybody else, so she allowed Enid to lead her as she pleased directly to the dance floor because,
“I love this song!”
Wednesday could not differentiate this song from anything else in her playlist if a gun was put to her head, but she didn’t comment as Enid pushed and pulled her through the music. There were bodies surrounding them, being far too close for Wednesday’s comfort, but Enid wouldn’t stop smiling as she danced so she supposed she could tolerate it for the rest of the song.
She said this to herself, but she didn’t leave Enid’s arms for the next five songs. Enid wouldn’t let her, she told herself every time the music started to wane. Her grip was too strong. Her persistence too powerful. But the truth of the matter was that she didn’t want to make Enid unhappy, and if her ears bled from the awful music overhead, then she would bleed.
That did not change the fact that Enid would be attending a real party the next time the Addams clan came together where Wednesday would have her vengeance tenfold.
The music crescendoed. Enid spun her, but Wednesday didn’t land back in her arms. She landed in Tyler’s.
She could feel her eyes bugging out of her head as she met his. The song faded out only for a slow dance to begin. Wednesday looked behind her to find Enid, but Tyler’s arm wrapped tight around her waist as he pulled her deeper into the heart of the dance floor.
Tyler cleaned up well when he wanted to, as it turned out. Dressed in a simple white suit, he fit right in with everybody else who must have spent far more time getting ready than he did.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I decided I couldn’t let you keep Enid all to yourself.”
“It’s things like that that give people the impression you care about Enid a little too much, you know.”
Tyler laughed. “I’m not the one on a date with her.”
“Typical of the male to assume any woman dancing with another woman must be sexually involved.”
Tyler smirked and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I never said anything of the sort. Should I be worried over your intentions, Wednesday?”
“Hardly,” Wednesday scoffed.
They swayed some more. Tyler was not much of a dancer, as it turned out, but Wednesday’s feet hurt too much to really care for a proper waltz.
“How did you even hear about those rumors anyways?”
“The same way I hear about any rumor. Against my will.”
Tyler chuckled and spun her softly.
“High school gossip bores me. You should know this by now.”
“Is that why you haven’t cleared up the rumors about you?”
“The ones that say I murdered a kid? They’re false.”
They swayed a moment more. The chorus played again.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Wednesday continued, “I intended to murder five. I castrated one. I hold no regret over this except in a job poorly done.”
Tyler’s brow lifted curiously. His interest visibly piqued.
“So, you really are a psychopath. And they say I’m the one to worry about.”
“You’ve mentioned that before. Mouth breathers scared of the big scary hyde lurking in wait to grind their bones into bread. I don’t suppose cannibalism is on your list of rumored crimes.”
“It’s not really cannibalism is you’ve never even met another of your kind, but yes. Lots of people think if they sneeze in my direction, I’ll lose all control and tear them apart.”
Wednesday leaned forward and asked, “Now why would they think that? You’d think a school like this would be used to a few carnivores.”
“You’ve no idea what a hyde actually is, do you?” Tyler asked with a bemused half-smile.
Wednesday frowned. It was true that he had vexed her all semester. The lack of recorded history of his kind was so pervasive that she suspected ill intent. “I admit that before meeting you, I was under the impression it was nothing more than a mad scientist’s name from a book.”
“Well, that mad scientist might have been real. Or it’s a shit joke. I don’t know, but hydes are shapeshifters. We’re known for our violent, vindictive natures.”
“So are normies.”
Tyler grinned. “Don’t see any of them around here either, do you?”
Wednesday’s amusement leaked through her eyes. She nearly felt the urge to smile.
“You know what’s really hilarious though?” Tyler continued. “I’m half-normie too.”
Wednesday threw her head back and cackled, startling more than a few nearby dancers. “The tragedy,” she teased.
“That about sums up hydes from what I hear. We’re nothing if not tragic.”
They danced for another verse, moving in time with each other as if they’d been dancing for years. Like they were an extension of each other and wasn’t that something new. Wasn’t that interesting.
“So tell me,” Wednesday said as he spun her once more only for his hand to fit snugly around her waist again. “Are you feeling particularly violent or vindictive right now?”
“That depends on how you define it.”
“How do you define it?”
The song faded. Couples parted all around them, creating a path for Tyler to lead her down and out until they were outside where the music was a dull roar, and her back was pressed against a wall. Tyler pinned her with his body, his hands squeezing her hard enough that bruises would surely form. She couldn’t breathe as she took him in and how feral he felt against her.
“Right now, all I want to do is rip you apart and sink my teeth into your flesh.”
Wednesday gasped as his nails sharpened into claws and pressed into her skin slowly so that they only threatened to rip through her dress and spill her blood. Her back arched. His nostrils flared.
They kissed like starving men, and she didn’t know who moved first. She tore into his neck with the same ferocity as he tore into her waist. He slammed her back against the wall. She pushed harder to escape just so she could feel how strong he was when she didn’t move an inch.
Together, they ripped each other apart.