Chapter Text
Wednesday woke up to a pounding in her head and a trickle of warm liquid trailing down her forehead. Struggling to keep her eyes open, she was struck by an immediate sensation of metal assaulting her senses. The fluid was blood - most likely her own.
Finally, her eyes managed to stay open. She looked down, seeing her combat boots barely brushing the ground. She looked up at her hands to see a familiar pair of shackles chained around her wrists. The scent of smoke and damp earth overwhelmed the space. She’d been here before.
Crackstone’s Crypt.
Nothing about it had changed, from the layers of dust to the hundreds of lit candles that bled wax onto the concrete below. She half-expected Laurel Gates to pop out from the tomb sitting in the center. But it couldn’t have been Laurel. She’d seen her demise almost a decade ago. A literal stab to the back. How Wednesday wished she could have witnessed it.
Footsteps echoed through the crypt. The sound marched closer to Wednesday, who twitched in her less-than-comfortable situation. Her eyelashes partially painted in her own blood, she tried to make out the figure from a distance. It wasn’t until he was all too close that she realized who her tormentor was.
Joseph Crackstone.
He looked as awful as ever with his greying complexion, thinned-out hair, and teeth that would force a dentist into retirement. Unlike his usual pilgrim garb, he wore a traditional tuxedo, bow tie, and all. He walked toward her in an unsettling silence, and Wednesday was usually game for all things unsettling. But not this. She ventured to open her mouth but found her lips stuck together behind sticky adhesive. Duct tape. How pedestrian.
With no way to reach for her knife or at least snarl at him, Wednesday fidgeted her body around, hoping she could stall him and think of a way out. I mean, she’d escaped his tricks once before. What’s one more time?
As she jerked and turned, she noticed a ruffling sound against her body. It was not the sound her usual clothes, or Nevermore uniform for that matter, would make in its polyester glory. No. This was tulle. She tilted her head down to see that she was wearing a stark white gown…well, it was mostly white besides a few blood stains. A wedding dress, to be specific. If not for the tape, Wednesday would have vomited right then and there.
Crackstone was now standing right in front of Wednesday. He caressed her cheek with his rotting hand, and with no way for Wednesday to slap it away, she stood there and took it. He began to lean in closer and closer and closer. Before he could reach her blood-stained lips, the tune of Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna” blasted through the crypt.
Wednesday’s eyes shot open. Suddenly, she was no longer in Crackstone’s Crypt but in her bed.
A nightmare. Not a pleasant one, but at least it had a compelling storyline. She hated when her dreams got lazy with plots of endless falling and losing teeth.
She groaned and turned to shut off the blaring phone alarm. She absentmindedly noted the date. June 26th.
Shit.
Hoping she was still in her nightmare, she slowly raised herself to a sitting position to face the door ahead. On its hook hung a black silk gown and a matching veil.
Shit.
It was her wedding day.
***
Wednesday still isn’t sure how Xavier convinced her to marry him.
After attending the same Outcast university post-Nevermore, maybe it was all the nagging from Enid about how they were “destined to be together” or her mother’s constant attempts to matchmake her with the god awful Pyro and Avian sons of the ladies in her bookclub.
Or it could have been that she was tired of seeing Xavier follow her around like some runt of the litter - if he was gonna be her shadow anyways, at least he could make himself useful in some manner. So, midway through their junior year, Wednesday took Xavier up on his open dinner offer, if not to get him off her back. After pleasant enough exchanges were made over the course of a few coffees and movies, Wednesday declared he was fit to be a valuable asset by her side, which, to her, meant a reliable alibi. Nevertheless, she decided to indulge him by allowing him to call her a name she never thought she’d possess -
Girlfriend.
And she carried that name like an albatross around her neck until a little over a year ago, when Xavier dropped to one knee in the dining room of the Addams family mansion and asked for her hand. At that point, they had been dating for almost five years. Enough time had passed that marriage seemed like the logical next step in a traditional relationship. Why shouldn't she say yes?
But one small voice crept into her brain as Xavier looked up at her, beaming. The voice wasn’t a scream but a whisper. It wasn’t the usual monotone sound she heard whilst writing her novel or digesting new leads in cases. No, it wasn’t her voice at all.
It was Tyler Galpin’s.
It hummed at the bottom of her temporal lobe.
Don’t marry him.
His honey crisp voice was clear as the day she spooked him at the Weathervane, but now a dark edge haunted that sickly sweet tone.
Wednesday hadn’t disposed of Tyler as seamlessly as she’d have liked to post their…treason-laced trysts. If it were up to her, he would have landed at the Hyde colony, found himself through whatever yogi-bullshit they did there, and moved on.
Yet, after his trials, tribulations, and countless murders, of course, Tyler found himself right under Wednesday’s nose.
In a single dorm at Nevermore Academy.
After a summer at the Hyde colony, Isadora Capri insisted that Tyler was stable enough to survive on his own without a master in tow. She urged Nevermore to be the first step in reintroducing Hydes back into society, shedding the centuries of fear from their names.
As interim principal, Morticia Addams fought for Tyler’s admission, much to Wednesday’s chagrin and death threats. She should have known that her mother would delight at morbid, magazine-clipping-lettered notes on their doorstep.
Morticia insisted that Tyler’s rehabilitation was a worthy cause, and one she could not give up on in good conscience. Wednesday knew her mother had a weak spot for the orphaned and weak-willed, but she thought softening for the man with multiple assassination attempts on her daughter’s life would be a bridge too far.
She supposed not.
And Gomez, being the lovesick, pliable man he is, fervently agreed with his wife’s “philanthropic” efforts. He even agreed to help Tyler with any legal matters pro-bono as they came up.
So, when Morticia approached the board with a fierce tongue, Tyler stood beside her with a saccharine smile and docile eyes.
And those fools fell for it.
Tyler started that fall with an “anonymous” scholarship that paid full freight and a new “lust for life” as he so pitiably explained to Enid when he apologized for half-mauling her.
And she fell for it, too.
Suddenly, it seemed like all of her friends were forgiving Tyler for the sins he’d committed towards them. Well, everyone except Xavier. He was certain they all had come down with severe Stockholm Syndrome. Wednesday concurred.
But something in her stirred the longer he stayed. At first, he kept his distance. Allowing eye contact across the quad, small talk amongst friends, and the occasional homework help. But beyond that, he didn’t ask anything of her. Didn’t push her.
It drove her nuts.
It began to eat at her like a backwater parasite. Why wasn’t Tyler confronting her? Or trying to fix things? Why wasn't he showing her that he was still the same guy she met at the Weathervane? Did this prove her theory - that he never felt anything for her at all?
One day, she decided she couldn’t take it any longer as she watched Tyler study in the Nightshades library, highlighting a textbook - yes, they had inducted him into the Nightshades too, claiming inclusivity. Inclusivity her ass, she thought.
She had meant to once and for all confront him about his willingness to come to Nevermore, his inability to say more than a few words to her without looking like the Grim Reaper was standing right behind her, and his overall demeanor of a kicked puppy…more than usual, of course. She was ready to show everyone that Tyler was hiding something. He had to be.
And Wednesday calculated everything down to a tee. Every possible retort or defense mechanism he might throw at her. What she didn’t calculate was that she was going to have to look him up close, in those stupid, sparkling eyes, for the first time since “missing” him with her axe in Iago Tower - her greatest moment of weakness.
So with one uncalculated misstep, Wednesday somehow found herself hoisted against the Nightshades’ bookshelves with her hands fisted into Tyler’s golden hair and their tongues fighting for dominance.
After a long-winded apology from Tyler, which Wednesday only half-listened to because she was still so taken aback by the whole affair, they decided to give it another try…which lasted all of two months.
Every time Tyler’s lips touched hers, she convulsed, if only slightly. Something in her body remembered the feeling of his touch, leading to the horrifying discovery of his betrayal. And she knew Tyler began to notice.
After many conversations, fights, and, eventually, screaming matches, they decided they still couldn’t trust each other. They weren’t sure if they ever could.
Luckily, they kept their relationship under wraps from start to finish so as not to draw unnecessary attention from their already nosy friends. She was sure Enid suspected something after Wednesday stopped poorly sneaking around after hours and started “angry typing” her novel at all hours of the night. But she knew her best friend well enough not to bring it up unless she wanted a dagger to the thigh.
But there Tyler was in her head, still. The boy who had been her first kiss, her first true betrayal, the first crack in the stoicism she so prided herself on. The boy who had made her feel something she vowed never to feel.
And then pulled it out from under her.
She looked back down to see Xavier awaiting with a now slightly waning smile. She looked up to see her parents and brother glazed over with unsettling happiness. The scene looked straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
But what did she have to prove by saying yes? Wasn’t the great Wednesday Addams going to be independent until the day they lowered her into her already chosen grave? That was always the plan.
Not another voice but a memory weaved its way to the forefront from the depths of her brain.
A senior year Nightshades party. Almost everyone had gone to bed, with the exception of Bianca, Kent, Yoko, and Wednesday. Wednesday would have left hours ago if she hadn’t accepted a bet from Kent that he could out-drink her.
Addams don’t lose.
Bianca definitely had more drinks than the two of them combined when she suggested they play “Truth or Dare”. Yoko gave Wednesday a truth and asked, “What’s your biggest insecurity? I know Wednesday Addams must have something down there she doesn’t like about herself.”
“Unlike you sitting ducks, I am perfectly secure in myself.” And that wasn’t a lie. After the death of Nero, alongside never letting tears fall, she decided she wouldn’t let anyone else get to her. So any flaw she saw in herself at that moment, she got rid of until there was nothing she could possibly be insecure about. No crack in her armor.
Slurring her speech, Bianca spoke up from behind a Vodka Soda. “No, no, nope!” Wednesday rolled her eyes at the drunken display.
“Wednesday might not think she has insecurities, but she’s sure shit at hiding them.”
“Well. Do elaborate then.” Wednesday’s tone was icy but intrigued.
“She - you - put up this mask because she’s afraid no one would ever be able to love someone so dark and twisted and…freaky! That’s the word. Freaky.”
Wednesday didn’t flinch. This wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. For years, family members, passersby, and, notably, Valerie Kinbott, claimed that her lack of emotional display was simply a way to protect herself from potential rejection from peers.
As much as she explained to them, they never considered that she truly just didn’t care about the opinions of anyone besides herself.
But Bianca wasn’t finished.
“And if that’s what Wednesday’s insecure about, she's got it spot on.” The other remaining Nightshades turned to Bianca as one might turn to watch a car crash occurring on the other side of the highway.
Kent interjected. “Maybe we should be done with this. Game over.”
“No! Let me finish!” Bianca insisted. On Wednesday’s nod, Kent stood down. “Wednesday might be onto something. I think she actually may be unlovable. Like, not in a bad way. I think you weren’t built for it or something, and it wasn’t built for you.”
Wednesday’s eye twitched.
“But I’m really jealous because that means you won’t have to put up with bullshit guys or first dates or bad sex or anything.” At that moment, Kent dragged her out, mouthing I’m sorry as he left. Yoko knew better than to offer Wednesday any sympathy, so she showed herself out.
Leaving Wednesday and her unlovable self by her lonesome in the library.
Bianca apologized after that party, stating that she was jealous of how Xavier always looked Wednesday’s way while they briefly got back together that senior year. Wednesday brushed it off, claiming no harm was done. But it stuck. Drunk thoughts are sober truths, isn’t that the saying?
She didn’t want love. She actually wanted it as far away as possible. But that was her choice. She chose to be alone. She chose to never fall in love, or become a housewife, or have a family. Wednesday Addams was a chooser. She didn’t like things chosen for her.
So Bianca claiming that no one could ever love her made her crave wanting to be loved even more, even if only subconsciously. Was that why it hadn’t worked with Tyler? Did he realize she was unlovable and left? Playing it off as a lack of trust when really he just couldn’t imagine a life with her?
She wasn’t sure whether it was in response to Xavier in the flesh, or the memory of Bianca, or to the shell of Tyler in her mind, but she replied with an unquestioned “Yes”.