Chapter Text
Emotion was, to put it simply, not a strength of Wednesday Addams’. Emotion meant weakness – she had claimed that for years, ever since Nero’s last day when she was six years old. But despite her cold exterior and aversion to emotions, Wednesday Addams did have feelings, albeit she was a master at hiding them at all times.
The worst one she had ever experienced, the one that she would tell anyone made you the absolute weakest, was love.
All types of love could be exploited - platonic, familial, romantic…name it, and someone could use it against you. If you asked the young Addams girl if she had ever felt love for anyone, she would say no. She would be lying.
Family aside, she had grown to care deeply for her peers at Nevermore Academy. It was a platonic love that plagued her in that regard, though it took nearly the entirety of her second semester at the boarding school to realize this. When it came to her roommate, Wednesday knew that the protectiveness she felt over the werewolf came from friendship. It was a new concept to her, but one she could recognize easily when it came to the pastel colored girl nonetheless.
Wednesday had briefly entertained the idea of a romantic love with Xavier, having given in and texted him over the long break. But once both were back at Nevermore, it became blatantly obvious that Wednesday didn’t truly have any romantic feelings for him. While it wasn’t as obvious as it was with Enid, any feelings for Xavier were that of friendship only. Eugene was too much like Pugsley for her to even have to think twice about why she cared about him.
However, despite having figured out all these feelings throughout the spring, there was always a nagging feeling in Wednesday’s chest whenever she thought too long trying to decipher her thoughts about everyone. She tried to ignore it, tried not to think too hard about what, or rather who, was causing the ache.
Wednesday Addams didn’t want to admit that she missed someone, someone who she had let herself fall romantically in love with despite her insistence she would never do so. But Tyler Galpin was sent off to some psychiatric facility (Willow Hill, she had made sure to find out the name of) and would probably never see freedom again after the revelation of his Hyde. Sometimes, she lay in bed awake at night and wondered how much longer Tyler could live with his Hyde inside him, now without a master since she had killed Laurel. The research on Hyde’s was limited, to the point where all she really knew was that Tyler was doomed to slowly lose his mind without a master at some point in time. How long that took, though, she had no idea.
Occasionally she considered stopping by the police station in Jericho to find Donovan Galpin, to inquire about his son and his current condition. However, Wednesday found herself avoiding the town more than anything. Every time she was coerced into doing so, nobody questioned why she adamantly refused to enter the Weathervane. And if Enid ever caught her searching up Tyler’s name, or news regarding Willow Hill, she would never mention it.
With both Nevermore and the town of Jericho still healing from the fall semester's events, the spring semester was surprisingly calm and lacked anything overly exciting. Well, at least for Wednesday who had no interest in the gossip that went on between students or any extracurricular events that the school put on.
Summer break was filled with revising her novel, something in which she normally would have never done. But during the spring semester she had started a sequel, and the publisher had a few minor suggestions on how to make the book more appealing to a wider audience. Wednesday had responded that anyone who couldn’t handle it as it was simply wasn’t her target audience - to which the publisher then more bluntly said that nobody would read something with so much explicit gore.
“Keep the plot exactly the same, just minimize the…description of the crimes a bit. And we’ll publish it. I know someone with your unique upbringing sees no issue with it, but I assure you that no best selling novel list will even consider it with the vividness.” the publisher had told her. This was how Wednesday found out that this publisher was also an outcast, one who was familiar with the Addams and their…kooky reputation. Her parents swore they had nothing to do with getting a publisher to agree to the most minimal of changes.
So, Viper de la Muerte was finally getting her first published appearance set to be in October, just in time for Halloween. All Wednesday had to do was spend the summer revising a handful of scenes, sending it for review, then having to revise again when it was still deemed “too graphic”. Eventually she had given up and turned to Xavier, Enid, and Eugene to help determine what would be acceptable. Anyone in her own family would be of no use, finding nothing wrong with the scenes just as she didn’t.
Thankfully, everything had been accepted and was ready to go for final review and then publishing by the time the new school year started up that fall, and the official release date of Wednesday Addams’ first book was announced.
The move back to Jericho was familiar by now. It was going to be her third semester, though only the second full one, and once again she was in the large attic room with Enid.
Enid was beyond ecstatic for the start of the new academic year, albeit Wednesday had a feeling the academic part of it had nothing to do with it. “We’re upperclassmen now,” she said, nearly jumping with excitement, “We’ll get invited to more parties, be able to go to Dark Prom, have a later curfew…”
Wednesday tuned all this out, having an interest in none of it. She had decided she would probably skip the Rave’N this year as well, and ignore any Homecoming activities she had luckily avoided the previous year, having not been enrolled yet. She knew her parents were going to be those alumni who showed up and made a huge deal about the nostalgia of it all, and she wanted no part of it.
“Are you going to do like, book signings?” Enid eventually asked, “Imagine a book signing in Jericho, I don’t think they’d be able to handle it. Or in Nevermore! There could be these whole events for it.”
“I’ve made my stance on public book signings very clear to my publisher. I will not participate in any such event, however I’m willing to sign a few and have them sent out.”
“You don’t want to see all the people who love your book? You’ve worked so hard on it, though!”
“I don’t need to see huge crowds of people to know my work is enjoyed. I don’t write for huge displays of validation, anyways.”
Enid shrugged, “Yeah, I guess that tracks for you. You might also scare away your readers.” she jokes, though the thought almost caused Wednesday to smile. “So what are you looking forward to this year?”
“Am I supposed to be looking forward to something in particular? If I need to provide an answer, then we’ll keep it on topic - my book release.”
The werewolf suddenly jumped in excitement again, “OMG, when it’s officially released we should go see it in the bookstore!”
The young Addams finally turned away from her desk, realizing she wasn’t going to get out of conversing, “I’ll already have a copy of it. Actually, I already technically have an unofficial copy of it. Why would I need to go see it in a store?”
“Because,” Enid said with an eye roll, “Even if you don’t want to admit it, it’s a big deal. And I’ll need to buy a copy, you haven’t let me read any of it! Okay, I guess I’ve seen small parts of it when you were editing, but it gave me nothing about what the plot is, or what’s going to happen!”
“Save your money, I’ll have an extra copy sent for you.”
“Do I get your autograph?”
“Enid, we live together.”
“But we won’t always! And in a few years, when it’s made into a hit Hollywood movie, I can show it off and tell everyone about how I totally put up with your typewriter every night while it was written.”
The banter went on for a few more minutes before Wednesday finally put an end to it, only after Enid had managed to convince her that the few people at Nevermore who had helped her edit out the graphic details at least deserved signed copies of the novel.
The first few weeks back at Nevermore were once again uneventful, but Wednesday found herself keeping busy with the sequel of Viper’s first (published) story. It had been easy enough to get out the beginning, picking up where the first one had left off. The first book had ended with the killer Viper had been looking for turning out to be two individuals, though one was being manipulated by the other by promising them a better life than what they had been dealt. The twist being that said manipulated killer - named Thomas - had been someone Viper had seen as an ally, had almost decided to let into her life more permanently.
But Viper had stood strong with her emotions and didn’t let anyone fool her. She wasn’t heartbroken by the revelation of the true killer(s). She had done her job, and there was nothing more to it.
So the second book began with Viper’s reflection on the case, a brief recap of what had gone down with Viper and her relations with those around her, and a promise that she would not think of Thomas and if anything he had told her was ever true, if any of it was real.
That’s where Wednesday hit a wall. Where did Viper’s story take her next? What would the next big case be? Every now and again she would write something out, then immediately throw it away, deciding it wasn’t what she wanted.
‘Bring Thomas back into the story,’ kept ringing in the back of her mind. ‘See where their connection goes, if they can recover from everything. After all, Thomas wasn’t truly the one at fault, was he?’
She was hesitant to go with that storyline. Would Viper let Thomas back into her life? Or would she kill him as she had done the manipulator? And Viper was a detective, not some teenager out searching for love in the world. But maybe somehow, if a new case came up, they could work together to solve it. Maybe Thomas could once again prove himself to be a useful ally, maybe it could be revealed that he was truly trying to help before.
Before she could think too much about it, that’s what Wednesday found herself writing. Whether it made the final cut or not, Thomas was getting something of a redemption written. After an hour of writing this, the girl took the pages and set them aside separately from what else she had written. It wasn’t immediately thrown away as every other plot had been, but wasn’t fully dedicated to being in the main storyline yet. That was good enough for now.
That night as Wednesday lay in bed, Enid having long fallen asleep, she found herself reaching for her phone, grumbling something to herself about how she hated she had grown somewhat of an attachment to it as she opened up the browser.
Typing in her most frequent searches, she was ready to see nothing new - to have that confirmation that nothing had changed and Tyler was still locked away. Then she would allow herself to fall asleep. But this time, her search for ‘Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital + Jericho’ had a few new articles pop up.
KILLER RELEASED FROM WILLOW HILL PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL?