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Tyler might be human, but outcast blood ran true through his veins. Even if he eventually had a child with another Normie there was a strong possibility his child would be an outcast like his mother. He lived in Jericho all his life, one of the greatest Outcast per capita cities in North America.
Tyler knew that there were surprises in the world, he saw them every day wearing his girlfriend’s face. His surprises ranged from a bout of Olympic-level fencing, to casually mixing belladonna syrup into her coffee when her rarely-seen sweet tooth made an appearance.
There were also a lot of things Tyler knew to expect. Like if anyone commented on how different Wednesday and Tyler were, dragging out the old “I guess opposites really do attract!”, while in hearing range of Wednesday that she would inevitably chime in with a “Well, you know he is half orphan, on his mother’s side.” No one ever made the comment twice and his gothic girlfriend loved to share her macabre joke with each new audience.
There was a falling sensation as Tyler fell asleep, carefully spooning Wednesday right against his heart where she would be safe. His stomach jerked suddenly, like his entire body had collided with a hard wall. His eyes flew open and the whole world no longer made sense.
Tyler watched Wednesday approach him from the darkness. She thought herself above the behaviour of normal teenagers, of normie teenage girls, and yet she was so predictable. Sure her definition of romantic was a few standard deviations to the left but she still wanted a clandestine meeting in a private location to continue their interrupted rendezvous. Disappointedly predictable from a girl who’d been keeping him on a backfoot for more than a month.
“Thing gave me your note, I was surprised you wanted to see me again after you ran out the other night.” There was a small voice in Tyler’s head screaming BE CHARMING, BE CHARMING, even as the dozens of search results regarding epilepsy that he had spent all night reading and re-reading flashed through his brain.
She says nothing. He wonders if she felt self conscious about the Grand Mal seizure that had ended their kiss in her one-sided embarrassment.
“So, uh, is this a date?” Tyler knew how this night had to end, how he had to take her to Laurel, but he was still hoping he would get some gentler memories that would console him, as he doubted Laurel would allow him distracting romantic entanglements ever again. This was it, she was it for the rest of his life. Not that Tyler could imagine anyone better formed for him than Wednesday, so one way or another he’d at least have a few events to treasure.
“It’s a surprise.” She says before he approaches her. “When I came to Nevermore, romance was the last thing on my mind.” She continues, evading his attempted kiss indelicately. “But when you kissed me, you opened my eyes, and suddenly it all made sense.”
He scoffs, uncomprehending. An unforeseen twist, Tyler disliked it when the people around him deviated from the script he expected, it happened so rarely but his Wednesday seemed to have a supernatural talent for it.
“Xavier warned me about you, but I didn't listen.” Wednesday said the name of his romatic rival, his red herring so naturally, and it sent a spike of anger through his blood.
That she still thought about the psychic boy at all stung more than a little, Xavier didn’t warn anyone other than Wednesday, making his jealous motivations evident to Tyler. “Ironic now, huh?”
“Ironic would've been framing Xavier for murder while the real Hyde helped me put him away.” Wednesday spoke so casually even though what had really happened here was obvvious now.
Everything was unravelling. “Wait, you don't think…” He attempts, desperate.
He tries to deny every accurate accusation she is throwing at him but is too busy trying to think of a way out, a way to buy time. He affected a careful look of hurt, betrayed horror.
“I don't think. I know.” Wednesday spoke with venom, and Tyler doubted her more and more strongly. “Kinbott probably discovered your secret during one of your sessions. So she unlocked you. Why'd you kill her? I thought Hydes were typically loyal to their masters.”
Fuck his life, seriously. “Wednesday, seriously, this is nuts.” He tried again, scrambling for any way to buy himself just a little more time, a few more hours. Soon Laurel would have to reveal herself and it would take the pressure off of him, if only he had just a bit more time. He had leverage that could be used against his master, evidence that could ensure he’d never encounter Gates again and he had been planning to use it but Wednesday had gotten to the truth too fast.
“On Outreach Day, I told you I was visiting the old meeting house. Did Kinbott send you to spy on me? The night at the Rave'N, you overheard Eugene and me discussing your cave in the woods and you warned Kinbott. Eugene probably saw her torching it. Then she sent you to clean up her mess.”
Oh. So that’s what this was really about. It wasn’t the murder or the lying, it was that he had been forced to hurt her chubby little psychic pet. Figures. Selfish to the end, just like other outcasts.
“I have to hand it to you, Tyler, wounding yourself that night at the Gates mansion? That was a masterstroke of misdirection.”
“Okay, stop. Do you know how insane you sound right now? I'm not a monster. A-and if you really thought that I was, why would you risk bringing me out to the woods to confront me alone ?”
“Who said I was alone?”
Tyler only had a split second to worry that it was the Sheriff, If Tyler’s dad was here he was fucked, only the decades of denial had protected Tyler from Donovan thus far. But it was just Nevermore students who had been hiding amongst the columns.
“Okay, I don't know what kind of sick joke you're playing, but I'm out of here.”
Bianca, beautiful, untouchable, stood in his way and Tyler didn’t even have enough time to recognise how much danger he was truly in. “Actually you're coming with us.” her sirenic voice completely masked a slightly quieter one.
“I hope he’s not the Hyde.”
“I wish he wasn’t the bad guy.”
“I wish he would be understanding about this.”
“What if he wasn’t the hyde after all?”
“I wish this wasn’t happening.”
Tyler felt his eyes close against his will and when they opened again he was back in bed. A dream? Maybe he was missing time and that confrontation was hours ago. He scoffed and rolled over, completely missing the other body lying next to him, and falling straight back to sleep.
Tyler dreamed. He dreamed of a blackbird drowning in a vast lake, and then of nothing at all.
Instead of reopening his eyes to the back of Wednesday’s head, curled up together in his bed, Tyler found himself upright and bound tightly in a chair. Someone clicking their hands on either side of his head didn’t even register as he looked up in horror at the terrifying Hyde artworks plastered on every surface of the weird little shack, populated exclusively by Nevermore students he vaguely remembers seeing around. Terror raced through him until his eyes managed to focus on who was in front of him.
“Welcome back.” Wednesday said, all the soft affection he knew she felt tucked deep inside, her voice and body language tense and unhappy.
“Oh, Wednesday.” Tyler said, sagging in his chains with no small amount of relief. He didn’t know what was happening yet, but he would, once Wednesday explained everything. She loved her little monologues. More than once his involvement in her cases ended with him tied up somewhere waiting for his beloved badass to come to his rescue, so he was old hat at this. Even better was that Wednesday looked pissed , he must have been taken from his own bed and Tyler was eagerly awaiting the beat down onto the villain that his wonderful girlfriend was doubtlessly going to deliver, it was going to be so hot .
His simple joy in seeing her face seemed to puzzle her and now he wondered if something other than his detainment was wrong, if some of her anger was directed at him and not just his captor. Was he missing time? Had he done something in between going to bed on a Thursday and waking up here?
“Do you recognise her?” Wednesday asked, angrily taking out a giant photo of both of their mothers’ fencing team from back in the day and furiously tapping a manicured black fingernail next to Fran’s smiling, teenaged face. “Perhaps if I hadn't been so distracted by my own mother hogging this photo, I would have noticed yours sooner.”
“Yes?” Tyler blinked up at her in open bafflement. “There’s a framed copy of this in my house? You think I printed out a copy to look at Morticia ? I mean it’s cool that she’s in the picture and all but did you really never notice my mother was in it?”
At his open acquiescence, the aggressive glares from the other Nevermore students gave way to a sort of bland shock.
“Your mother was an outcast!” Wednesday said, accusatorily. “Thing stole her medical records!”
“Okay, what the hell is this?” Tyler spat, his love being temporarily buried by anger. “You know my mother was a Hyde. I know that was something she was ashamed of but it’s not exactly a secret anymore! Being related to a Hyde doesn’t necessarily mean I am one! I mean you’re related to Morticia, are you the same as her?” Tyler hated to compare Wednesday to her mother when he knew she so despised it but her behaviour was beginning to scare him.
“W-what?! Of course not!” Wednesday dropped the document she was holding to stare agog at Tyler like she’d never seen him before. “Are you my stalker as well as the monster?”
“You’re being stalked ?” Tyler froze from where he was trying fruitlessly to find give at the seams of the chain. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it?”
“Why would I tell you about that?” Wednesday asked, and that, over everything cut Tyler to the quick. That her trust of him could be so quickly and completely shaken, even demolished. “I know you killed Kinbott!”
Tyler felt like he must be living in some surreal nightmare and subtly dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to wake up. “Who the fuck is Kinbott?”
“Our therapist!” Wednesday screeched, an uncharacteristic flush high on her beautiful cheeks. “She was your master and you killed her! I saw it in a vision… after we kissed.”
Tyler forced himself to take a deep breath. A vision, that actually explained a lot. He knew that visions could be upsetting and disorientating, and that there was always a possibility of them being wildly misleading though he’d only known Wednesday’s to be accurate so far. He’d even received warnings from other, biased parties about how visions could make seers unstable over time and he’d never given them much credit, though now clearly there was an issue.
“Which time?”
“Which time what?” Bianca asked, looking a lot less sure at Tyler’s consistency.
“Which time that we kissed did you have the vision? Because honestly, that doesn’t narrow it down at all.” Tyler forcefully injected some cheer into his voice. He just needed to make sure Wednesday didn’t do anything to him that both of them would regret before he could get her some help. “And stormcloud, I love you, I support you starting therapy and I’m glad you’re taking care of your mental health, but I don’t have a therapist at all and I don’t know yours. I’m sorry she died, but it couldn’t have been me.”
“We only kissed once, Tyler.”
“Okay, everyone in this room knows that’s not true. Even if not a single person here has seen us kiss, no one could possibly think we never have after dating for so long.” Tyler decided that now might not be the moment to bring up the time Wednesday wore a sundress for the sole purpose of showing off his ‘kisses’.
“Wait.” Bianca said, voice hard. “You two have been together, together-together for ages? Seriously?”
“Yes!”
“No!”
Wednesday and Tyler spoke simultaneously. Then stared at each other in respective disbelief.
Tyler was really freaked out, “What is this? Bizarro World? Why-Why would you say that?”
No one noticed one girl turn pale at that and bolt out of the open door.
“We went on one date and we kissed once in the Weathervane. That’s not ages.” Wednesday said, looking petulant as she crossed her arms.
Bianca nodded slightly and turned to Tyler.
“Okay, something is wrong, something is seriously wrong. Bianca, you have to believe me. I’ve been Wednesday’s boyfriend for ages, we’re in love and I can prove it.”
“No one believes you, Tyler.” Wednesday replied, imperious. “We don’t need proof.”
“Uh, actually…” Ajax leaned forward and stood up, taking a few steps closer. “I’d like to see the proof.”
“Me too.” Some siren Tyler was pretty sure he hadn’t met before piped up.
“Ugh, fine, you’re just wasting your time and mine.” Wednesday took three steps backwards and Tyler hated, hated it how that made him relax just a little.
“This year I went with Wednesday’s family to see her baby brother Pugsley in his school play.” He said, firm.
“That’s not proof. You knew I left town briefly to see it.” Wednesday swirled to face him again, pointing her finger sharply into his face.
“But I know the whole plot! Pugsley was an evil scientist's assistant who wanted to be an evil scientist and he made… like a female Frankenstein’s monster? And then adopts her as his daughter at the end when she wants to be an actress instead of an evil creation. At one point someone has to slap Pugsley’s character and when the other student made contact by mistake Wednesday folded up her programme into a paper airplane and threw it into that student’s ear and he went deaf for like three days.”
As one, their unwilling audience swivelled to Wednesday who was glaring at him with venom. After a clearly reluctant pause she acquiesced, “Well, yes, that is the plot, and uh, yes that happened but he could have heard about it from someone?” Though it was obvious not even Wednesday seemed to really, fully believe her own words.
“Who?” Tyler demanded, shaking his hands from within their restraints.
“My parents could have told you! On family day!”
Tyler tried to swallow down his building anger so Wednesday could see how much he cared for her. “They weren’t there though when you saw the play, they attended the show on opening night but you had an exam that day and we couldn’t go until the second showing. And more importantly, no one was blamed for the incident so there was nothing on social media about it. The only way someone could know is if they sat right next to you in the audience and almost everyone else was too scared of you to sit close enough to have seen. Just me. Now, you look me in the eye and tell me that wasn’t exactly what happened.”Wednesday was rendered mute by that, unable to deny it without lying outright.
“Wednesday, honeybee, I know this must be really scary, you always know more than anyone else, not knowing what is happening must be a lot, I know it’s hard but I would never, ever hurt you, even if I could. We both know you could take me out with both hands tied above your head.” He paused. “Please, let me go.”
Tyler woke again, still in his bed, the sunlight and silence forming a sweet syrup that slowed down what was usually the panic-stricken and rapid morning ritual of getting out of bed. He opened his eyes and squinted disbelievingly at his light fixture. Instead of the bland flush mounted light he’d opened his eyes to every morning since before his brain could form memories there was a black wrought iron fitting that Tyler recognised instantly would have had to be specially ordered. Was it installed as he slept for some stupid excuse for a prank? There was no way even in a post-Hyde fugue state that he’d sleep through someone standing on his bed and looming over him with power tools in order to change his lights.
He rolled to his left and came face to face with a carefully framed photo of his mother holding a fat little baby that beamed at the camera with eyes he saw every day in the mirror. The shadows of the image were slightly green with age and Tyler recoiled from this photo he’d never seen, moving with such speed that he collided with someone lying at his back and almost shoved them bodily off of the bed.
“Hrn.” said Wednesday, with whatever the polar opposite of grace was, a cold hand smacking ineffectually at Tyler’s face. “How are you awake so early?”
Tyler’s brain went into overdrive, frantically pouring over his last memories while keeping his facial expression sleepy and blank. How much time had he lost between the Jericho woods and this baffling mutt of a bedroom - a perfect hybrid between Tyler’s ‘Normie’ life and what could only be a healthy dose of Wednesday Addams' influence. She wasn’t sleeping hidden, so the Sheriff either knew she was here, or wouldn’t care, so that meant it had been at least a year - that Addams’ hatred ran deep in Donovan. And Wednesday was sleeping next to him at all, which meant he lied his way out of their terrible forest confrontation. It must have been something really good for her to have reopened her heart to him, he wished he could remember what it was. There had to be a whole host of things he had lied about to get out of that sticky situation - things he needed to know to stay out of jail and here in Wednesday’s arms - things that Tyler never would have written down. Things he’d said over the last twelve months and since forgotten.
The worst thing now would be to accidentally contradict any one of the doubtlessly masterful deceptions he must have told Wednesday between then and now. For a brief, shining moment he thought about faking it, pretending to still be in possession of up-to-date memories, pretending to know everything just to discover how he managed it. The idea excited him, and he felt like a child anticipating the reveal of a magician's trick, his own great performance. Even at the last moment he was capable of remembering, Tyler hadn’t had any idea of how to escape beyond further denial. He decided against that reluctantly, too many variables . But it was too late, anyways.
He didn’t know if it was his expression, if he missed some ritual or simply waited too long but Wednesday moved fast. One second he was curled up in bed facing her, the next moment he was airborne and the next time he blinked he was spread eagle on his back on the floor, winded and sore.
Wednesday paused only long enough to withdraw a dagger with a tightly undulating edge from his bedside table (something else he hadn’t put there) before she crouched over him, kneeling hard enough on his shoulder joints that his arms went numb. Tyler’s flannel - apparently her pajamas of choice - slid down her shoulder, revealing clusters of lovebites and bite-bites that only Tyler could have left.
“Who are you?” she snarled, pressing the cold metal of her weapon to Tyler’s throat.
Tyler opened his mouth to reply, and then his eyes snagged on the fact that the only thing on Wednesday’s top half was an unbuttoned flannel and his brain began buffering as it desperately downloaded as much detail of her body as possible.
“Where’s Tyler?” she spat, cheeks flush with rage. “Where is he?!”
“I am Tyler!”
Wednesday glared at him, scanning his face for something - a tell perhaps. “I know you’re not my Tyler.”
“ Your Tyler?”
Tyler remembered that all-too-brief window when he’d thought in the privacy of his battered soul Wednesday - the Wednesday he knew, the Wednesday of his world - might have been thinking of him as hers. After their kiss was cut short by her devastating grand mal seizure, he’d spent almost two straight days obsessively researching the different types of epilepsy. He’d spent two straight days ignoring Laurel, ignoring everything he knew about what would soon happen to Wednesday as he did something for himself. Something he hadn’t let himself do for months.
He planned for the future.
It was only a tiny window of future; the next few days. But it was something. Tyler had a lot of life to cram into those next few days. A whole lot of living to do. There wouldn’t be much life afterwards after all.
Tyler had eyed the part of the webpage that was telling him that high doses of caffeine could be bad for epileptics. He wasn’t totally sure that even knowing that would stop Wednesday.
The flowchart he’d drawn up was beyond elaborate; detailing all the places she could get coffee from if he went forward with refusing her service at the Weathervane. It branched out into multiple counties because he knew his outcast girlfriend had the disposable cash to get long ranged deliveries if her heart desired it and her technophobic mind conceived of it.
There was even a note at the bottom about how best to win her affection back when she inevitably got huffy about it. And something vague about a pharmaceutical heist.
But those plans were all dust now. Wednesday had lured him to the woods for some weird tête-à-tête with her school buddies, not to kiss him again. And now somehow, Tyler was in this absurd world where everything was somehow both beautifully better and tragically worse.
He wondered if his dad would find the print outs of his epilepsy research. He wondered what he would make of them.
As if she’d heard his thoughts, Wednesday tilted her head back and screeched at the top of her lungs, “Donnie!”
In all the confusion over why Wednesday would trust his father to help her in the difficult moment, it never once occurred to Tyler that even with his very life at risk, pinned on the floor by his master’s greatest enemy, he hadn’t felt his Hyde stir once , he hadn’t felt his Hyde at all.
“I-I, I” Wednesday said, eyes suspiciously glassy. “I can’t…”
Tyler twisted in his chains before her like he was trying to reach out, to comfort her.
That was the moment that Tyler’s terrifying and terrifyingly perfect girlfriend seemed to rediscover her spine. She straightened up, and a cold, steely glint ignited in her usually warm eyes. It was so out of place on her once-and-still-familiar features that Tyler physically recoiled away from her.
“You can’t possibly be believing him.” She spat. “I spend twelve hours a day alone in a room with Enid Sinclair. You all refused to let Ajax invite her into the Nightshades because she’s a blabbermouth but you think she would be capable of failing to mention an out of state trip where my boyfriend stays at my childhood home with my parents?” Wednesday held both arms out like a prophet. "Therefore, he's not my boyfriend!"
"He just described the entire plot of your baby brother's school play? And you agree that it's accurate?" Bianca challenged her, eyes narrow.
Wednesday’s confession was obviously deeply reluctant. "Well...yes..."
"So, how did he see the play? If he didn't go with you?" Divina cut in, clearly very proud of herself. “Is this like a commitment issue thing? Like when you say you love a guy and suddenly he’s busy all the time? Is this your equivalent of that, Wednesday? You’re just not used to an actual human person caring about you and understanding you so you’re self-sabotaging?”
Wednesday said nothing, looking furious enough to begin spitting fire.
"So Addams has cracked, we can probably go." Bianca said offhandedly, and Tyler was horrified on both of their parts. Couldn’t she take this kidnapping she was voluntarily participating in sort of seriously?
“Wednesday, please.” Tyler tried again, his voice breaking hard as he begged. “Even if I was an outcast, why would that matter? Everyone else in this room is a Nevermore student.”
“Because I know a Hyde was the one who did the murders, I saw a Hyde rip Rowan in half the night of the harvest festival. And you’re the only Hyde around these parts since your mother’s incarceration.” Wednesday lectured as she paced in front of them all, like a petite, gothic Hercule Poirot.
“Oh dear god, Rowan’s really dead.” One of the other students murmured at volume hinting that they hadn’t expected to be heard.
“Murders? What murders?!” Tyler asked, horrified. Wednesday and his dad were both fairly open about the existence of their cases - even when they chose not to share all the details. This was the first he heard of a multiple homicide case in some time. Had they been hiding it from him to spare him the concern? Or did his dad somehow know about this charade? Did his dad approve of what Wednesday was doing?
Wednesday turned to face him like a big cat following the twitch of prey in the distance. “You’re too smart to play dumb, Galpin.” She spoke solemnly, like a judge putting forth a sentence. “And even an idiot would have seen the news. By trying to pretend that you have no idea what I’m talking about you’ve given yourself away as a fucking liar.”
The uncharacteristic swear took Tyler by surprise, he shrunk back. But everyone else turned on him.
“You’re right, it was a little too far fetched to say you didn’t know there’d been any murders.” Ajax said, “Like twenty people died and your dad’s the Sheriff. You’d have to have rocks for brains not to have heard of least some of them.”
Heady with victory, Wednesday slammed down her small satchel and withdrew a wicked looking pistol gripped, serrated compass saw from within, tilting it threateningly so that the perfectly sharpened metal glinted in the dim light.
“Wednesday, what are you doing?” Bianca asked, eyeing Wednesday like she’d never seen her before. Great, now she knew how Tyler felt.
“Just some light torture.” Even if Wednesday never laid a finger on him, Tyler knew beyond a doubt, beyond hope that he’d have nightmares of this night for the rest of his life. Of seeing his girlfriend - who’s blank expression usually held back a veritable deluge of emotion - actually blank and numb as she always pretended she was. Every third time their eyes caught, he could detect a faint flicker of genuine pain. She was hurting and lashing out in retaliation and everything Tyler said, every move he made only made everything worse.
Her blank face terrified him. Wednesday was always such a wonderful bright point in his life, but now there was darkness above and beyond the looming shadows in the corners of this freaky monster shrine hut. “Don't worry, I won't leave a mark.” Tyler’s quick moving mind briefly snagged on what her intentions were with the serrated saw if she didn’t want to leave so much as a visible bruise.
Bianca was either not fully back on board with what Tyler had said or too afraid of Wednesday’s sudden bloodlust being redirected onto her, “Wednesday, hold on.” she said, but too quietly. Tyler only wished Bianca had grown morals a few minutes ago.
“Wait. Are you being serious?” Ajax asked, both eyes perfectly round.
Tyler felt like he could see Wednesday’s bloodlust like a demon wearing her face but inexperienced at moving her facial muscles. “There's only one thing that a Hyde understands. Pain.” She spoke matter-of-factly like a teacher. Tyler could have been sick.
Tyler heard the other students call out in protest at the sight of Wednesday’s tools but even though there were several of them and only one of her, no one actually physically restrained her. He vaguely recognised them all but couldn’t name them confidently. That didn’t tamp down his feelings of betrayal though.
“Wait! No, Wednesday!”
“Wednesday!”
“That's it. I'm out!”
“Us too.”
Then they left him. Even the gorgon refused to actually intervene. Coward.
“No.” Ajax spoke slowly as he backed away from the armed teenage girl. “No, I'm done.”
Soon it was just him, Wednesday, Bianca and Ajax, though clearly the siren and gorgon were metaphorically and only a few seconds away from being physically one foot out the door.
Bianca tried a slightly more appeasing tone with a gentle, “Wednesday, I didn't sign up for this. Let's go to Weems, explain everything.” But at this point, even Tyler could admit that nothing was going to talk Wednesday away from her chosen path.
“Weems won't help. And Tyler is always one step ahead of his father.” Wednesday said, and even though he hadn’t experienced anything different for the last hour, the coldness of her voice and body language was still felt to Tyler’s core.
“Proof I know you. I swear I know you. Nero!” Tyler suddenly yelled out, completely panicked. “You had a pet scorpion called Nero and some norrmies murdered him and that’s why you refuse to cry!”
“I suppose Enid couldn’t keep her mouth shut about that.” Wednesday hissed back.
A sob escaped Tyler’s throat.
“Ugh!” Wednesday screamed, though thankfully she dropped the wicked saw. “What was Kinbott using you for?” Tyler’s silence as he scrambled for any answer that would soothe her somewhat. “Tyler, the body parts in the basement of the Gates mansion, what was she collecting them for? ”
His voice was barely a whisper when he begged her, “Wednesday, please. The only time I was in the Gates mansion was with you, when we were looking into that woman who kidnapped me?”
“You were kidnapped?” Bianca and Wednesday asked in tandem, the siren’s tone gentle and Wednesday’s demanding. Always demanding more.
“Yeah, remember?” Tyler felt like he was going insane. “When that Normie Supremacist lunatic kidnapped me to awaken my Hyde, that was when we discovered for sure that the gene skipped me?”
Wednesday’s expression didn’t change an inch. Hard as granite and three times as cold.
“You don’t remember? Seriously? What’s-her-nuts Thornhill, Gates, whatever?”
Tyler had the rare and singular honour of seeing his girlfriend’s jaw drop. “Did you just say Thornhill?”
And that’s when the Sheriff’s team entered the shed.
Tyler had seen a lot of things in his life that maybe another world would consider impossible, he’d seen an eight year old girl turn Deputy Santiago into a statue with nothing but a glance and an askew cap. He’d seen his own body twist and morph into a most horrifically foul creature.
If you told Tyler there were still things in this world that could shock him it wasn’t likely he’d believe you.
If you want to be really, really specific, if you approached Tyler in the street and told him to his face that there were more surprises in his immediate future he would; drag you into the nearest dark alley, ask you what you know, and threaten your life. All in self defence of course.
“If he moves, shoot him with this.” Wednesday said solemnly, gently extracting Tyler’s Dad’s service weapon from its holster and passing him a taser. Tyler watched in mute surprise as Donovan simply let her.
There was a horrible, raw desperation in Tyler’s voice when he spoke. “What? You don’t think that I deserve to die?” He had no idea if he wanted Wednesday to respond in the positive or negative.
“No. You don’t deserve peace, and even if you did, I don’t care. Donovan doesn’t deserve to have to kill his son. Any version of his son.” She seemed to steel her resolve, “And I don’t know if I deserve my Tyler, but I’ll have him back all the same.”
No one had ever loved Tyler that much. The Tyler who this Wednesday adored so much didn’t have powers. He didn’t have anything. Except all of the love and support that Tyler-who-was-a-Hyde had ever wanted. The love and support that he had become a serial killer to avenge because he refused to conceive of a world where had his mother lived past his first birthday she wouldn’t have lavished him in that.
The other Tyler. Normie Tyler. He had all of it for free, from his dad and even from Wednesday to whom if he gave a mile would shuffle closer less than an inch. It wasn’t his, but Tyler could see the care bottled up inside of his (girlfriend? They kissed once and she had a seizure and ran away, did that still count as a first kiss when she bolted, embarrassed?) Wednesday now, and it was just as beautiful as he’d always dreamed.
But there was one thing he had to set straight, something about his Wednesday that was better than this one.
“Well, I know that you're not my Wednesday. Because she wouldn't torture anyone. She's not like Laurel and she's not like me. She's better. She wouldn't torture anyone even to get me back. Even if she loved me.” Which Tyler knew for a fact she didn’t. His voice felt flat and cold.
Wednesday shrugged. “Her loss.”
Tyler pressed past the deputies who had helped raise him with a barely-there smile, completely ignoring the several he didn’t recognise at all - they must have called in extra people for Wednesday’s arrest.
What a shitshow.
They’d hauled away his girlfriend, against his adamant protestations and had her in handcuffs until she could be extradited out of the state. And everyone was acting like it was some great benevolent thing, like Wednesday Addams should be thanking them on bended knee for their charity. Like Tyler should be focusing on how it could have been worse and not how in less than an hour his entire life was being rent in two.
His dad hadn’t even looked at him as a deputy who looked like Deputy Matt Marques’ female twin - a twin Tyler was pretty sure didn’t exist - unshackled him and lead him to a Sheriff’s cruiser with a heart-achingly gentle voice. A voice reserved for a victim. That’s what Tyler was now. Even if he never pressed charges - which he wouldn’t - he was a victim.
Whatever was going on, Tyler needed to stop it, he just needed everything to pause - everyone to just stop - everything was just moving so fast and he hadn’t even had the time to process that Wednesday was willing to torture him at seemingly the drop of a hat.
He wanted to prevent any more decisions from being made by anybody for the rest of the week, cry hysterically, shower and eat something that would make a fat-free dieter sob uncontrollably. Unfortunately there was no time - or capacity - for any of that. He needed to protect Wednesday. She hadn’t actually done anything other than tie him up in a weird shed and show him all of her weird little tools and he would repeat that as many times as he needed to. So far, no one had given him much of a chance.
Tyler froze at his dad’s office door only for a moment before shoving it open with undue force.
“Tyler, what the hell!” Donovan stood up behind his desk, slamming his hands down hard onto the old wooden surface.
Tyler physically froze. His dad looked so much older somehow. He’d seen him just a few hours ago but he looked like he’d lost fifteen pounds and several days of sleep. His skin was more lax and his stress lines were deeper.
“Dad, please, you have to listen to me.” Tyler begun, closing the door more quietly than he’d opened it and sitting down in front of his dad’s desk without waiting for permission.
Donovan collapsed back into his seat with a loud exhale that betokened his bone-deep exhaustion. He shifted his weight back far enough to tilt his chair off balance, just for a moment, and glanced at his mechanical watch. “Alright, kiddo, ten minutes.”
“You can’t arrest Wednesday, or do whatever weird little deal with Weems that I know you’ve been cooking up. I know this all looks bad, really bad but Wednesday wouldn’t hurt me. You know she wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know anything for sure right now.” That was just like his dad, shutting down when he got stressed. Tyler sighed.
“Wednesday is clearly having some mental health crisis, she needs our support right now. We need to get her help!” He tried, but it wasn’t enough.
Donovan slammed both hands down on his big heavy desk, hard. “She’s an Addams ! We don’t owe that murderer’s daughter anything at all!”
The reaction was so out of the realm of what Tyler had come to expect from his father, even on topics he found upsetting that Tyler felt wrongfooted.
As Donovan started to make a phone call to someone else, Tyler whispered, “I don’t even know you right now.”
And before his father could look up, he slipped silently out of the office.
Tyler’s superpower was that he could figure out people he knew. Like an internal algorithm fed by every conversation he’d had with them that spat out their future decisions with more accuracy than a fortune teller. Even people living in the periphery of his life were predictable, he knew their opinion on the local sports team and he could see - as clear as any vision - who they would suspect first when an unclaimed prank occurred. Having everyone around him suddenly falling way off script had left him reeling.
So, just like every time he felt his life was falling apart he just wanted to see Wednesday. Even though she was part of today’s dumpster fire of a problem, he just wanted to talk to her. He could hear the high pitch of Weems reaming Wednesday out while the girl was still locked up in holding. He had a few minutes left before Wednesday’s responses would become so aggravating that Weems would give up. She always did. Tyler froze, his internal predictor had been way off so far. Who really knew how much time he had before he could see his girlfriend privately.
Tyler took out his phone while he waited for Wednesday to be released from holding. Weirdly, it was flat. His older phone model had few functions, but a battery that lasted for days. The one time he decided he wanted to try using the ‘flat phone’ excuse to skip curfew he’d had to use it purposefully for several days straight to wear it down. He didn’t remember doing it on purpose the last few days, or any time recently.
Inconspicuously, Tyler moved over to an empty desk and rummaged through the drawers until he found a spare charger left behind by whichever haunting entity called Deputy Sheppard’s desk their home. This whole station was like a haunted house, the once familiar halls were made unfamiliar and alien to him. He’d blinked and the world was wrong. He’d blinked and his world was gone.
After a few minutes of charging, his phone switched back on. He had an ungodly number of missed calls from an unsaved number, as well as one saved under only the letter M. He hadn’t saved any contacts that obscurely, but when he tried to unlock the phone by tapping in his current passcode it was denied. There was no way to call the numbers back or even figure out who they were now. Was this even his phone? It was the same model, but the background, passcode and missed calls were all different. He abandoned it on the charger at the desk as he saw Wednesday being set free. Not his phone, not his problem.
He raced over to Wednesday, virtually ignoring his father’s attempts to bat him away and stared at her.
“What do you want?” Her voice was sullen, reluctant, but some other emotion was holding her body stiffly, like she was trying not to take up too much space.
It reminded Tyler of one night several months ago when Wednesday had admitted to him with all the solemnity of a deathbed confession that he was best friend. That she hadn’t had a best friend since she was six years old with her pet scorpion, and she’d never wanted to tell anyone what they meant to her but even though she loved her independence, that so much of her life had been marked by loneliness. Like he wasn’t even there, right in front of her, she was lonely once more.
“Wednesday.” Tyler breathed, feeling lost, “Please, everything’s wrong. My dad is different...he's sadder, and the way you look at me is breaking my heart.” He panted, desperate, yet her face didn’t change at all, “Please tell me what's going on!”