master list part 1(you're here) part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13 part 14 part 15 part 16 part 17 part 18 part 19 part 20 part 21 part 22 ...
A/N: I got tired of waiting for Issac Night fanfics to just appear in my lap, so I am making this story to indulge myself and hopefully other simps out there. I hope you all enjoy this story! Also, just to preface, this is a female reader, so I’m sorry if anyone was looking for something gender–neutral. This is my first x reader, so I am not used to being general with a protagonist. I'll go back to edit any mistakes or do refinements when necessary. I plan to make this a series, since all I see with him rn are smuts (no shade, I just crave plot), this story will also be leading into dark romance because duh he's a bad person
Please leave a like, follow, and comment if you like my story! Interactions will keep my depression from abandoning this series, I'm also starting a tag list so lmk if you want me to include you in that
Obviously, spoiler warnings to those who have yet to finish the second season of Wednesday.
warnings: morbid talk of death, Isaac being lowkey a freak (not in a fun way), animal death, somewhat graphic descriptions, nothing too bad its just the first part lol
word count: 3.1 K
Nevermore days had a particular gloom to them. The sun shrouded by groups of stormy-looking clouds, architecture straight out of a brooding poet’s dream, and spindling woodlands that called for students to create urban legends about. Picturesque, if you enjoyed the company of melancholia. I’d been here long enough to stop counting the years–days blurred into nights, nights back into days, a watercolor washed in grey. Charming, really.
Skipping class? Pointless. I had given that kind of rebellion a shot before; since there was always something going on at Nevermore, with a school full of cryptids and what felt like magic, which was considered unbelievable, and slowly had become unremarkable. You can only “discover” the same cursed corridors and whispering statues so many times before even secret societies can cause you to roll your eyes.
So, class it was. Again. Pretending as though the routine hadn’t calcified into monotony decades ago.
I slipped into the back of the classroom, umbrella in hand, notebook in the others. The spot I had chosen was a patch of gloom by the window where the light gave up just before reaching me. Perfect. Settling in, I smoothed out the journal’s worn pages, tapped my pen, and let myself do what I do best: observe and judge.
Nevermore was practically a zoo of cryptids, creeps, and misfits, which meant people-watching never went entirely stale. One might think wolves were the only ones to travel in packs, but no, gossip was traded like contraband, secrets dripping from its stone walls. It was mindless, yes, but where you’ve outlived fads and eras, gossip became the closest thing to sport.
Samuel Holt, for instance, was flexing to his fellow lycans, booming about the escape he one day planned to make to Hollywood. Puffing his chest out like a golden retriever convinced he was a lion. Naive, yes. But I could not help myself in quietly rooting for the boy; he was good-natured from what I had seen, and the world could use a little more naivete.
Then there was Kathryn Parks, a girl with a longstanding fixation on teeth. I wish I were kidding. She spent a good ten minutes wasting my time ranting about how my fangs were a centimeter longer than most vampires. Weird girl. She was animatedly describing a nightmare where a creature chased her through a dark tunnel– an octopus named Stewart. Stewart. I tuned out after that, but the name stuck. If eldritch horrors existed, they deserved hilariously plain names; the simple stupidity of it was entertaining.
Larissa Weems, who was sitting in front of me, was applying ruby lipstick in her compact mirror, blissfully unaware that her reflection gave me an unobstructed view of her. Curiously, the platinum blonde-haired girl chose the spot just behind Gomez Addams and Morticia Frump. Shape-shifters and their identity crises–textbook material. Shame, the girl was venomous underneath her natural class she did seem rather lovely, regardless of whatever one-sided rivalry she had created with Frump. The girl trapped in a cliché, jealousy is the oldest story in the book
Useless little dramas. Still, they were mine. Without them, eternity stretched out duller than old parchment.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The sound pulled my ears forward, faint at first, but steady. Mechanical. Not the condemned clock tower. Something smaller, portable. Moving closer
That’s when he walked in– a peculiar, measured way he moved inside. I watched through the reflection of the compact as the mystery boy carried himself like he wanted to fold into the wallpaper, except the steady tick of whatever contraption he carried with him announced him to me like a drumroll. It sounded faint, muffled; most wouldn’t hear it, but the thump of it almost commanded me to listen in.
But before I could investigate with the safety net of the mirror, Weems snapped her compact shut. Damn it. It was the perfect cover, too, since it’s not as if I had a reflection someone could accidentally make eye contact with.
And then he sat down. Right beside me.
From what I could see from the corner of my eye, he moved with a peculiar brand of self-consciousness…no, it was purposeful. The type of shifty movement someone makes when they want to disappear into the floorboards. The problem? He was impossible to ignore.
Turning my attention to the journal in front of me. I began to mindlessly draw on it as I waited for a brief moment, waiting for just the right moment before I glanced up and to the side to get a good look at this mysterious boy.
Pale skin, a face sharpened into angles, dark eyes sunk beneath tired circles, and black hair combed back just enough to look like he hadn’t tried at all. Ringlets falling around his haunted face, a single mole artfully placed on his chin. Handsome in that cursed, tragic-portrait kind of way. Naturally, my traitorous, unbeating heart fluttered. Typical. Who doesn’t have a weakness for the tortured, pretty ones? It was unfair, really. I hardly stood a chance.
When he set down his journal, I couldn’t help but take a peek. Blueprints of intricate machinery, equations that were accompanied by obsessive notes, and a sketch of a mechanical heart. And suddenly it clicked who this boy was.
Isaac Night. A DaVinci boy, Nevermore’s golden prodigy. Genius, recluse, miracle-worker. The type of mind that was born perhaps once every generation. Even someone who has lived as long as me has to admit if the rumors are true, then I would be the first to confirm I had yet to see a mind as bright as his in my decades. Believe it or not, he had already given Professor Orloff a new body like it was just another Tuesday. Around campus, his name carried less personality and more reverence, as if he weren’t even a student and already some sort of walking legend.
It was strange how there wasn’t much about him that did not have to do with his ambition that went around the school. All people talked about was that he was a genius, and he was dedicated. Reclusive, but even then, one would assume a pretty boy like him would have more gossip surrounding him than simply being defined by his inventions. Strange, but it also could be telling.
But maybe that was only my inquisitive nature talking; I have always had a bad habit of being rather nosy.
That's when the sound of Professor Orloff wheeling in with his bubbling contraption, droning through the syllabus already as he walked down the aisle of tables.
“Settle down, students settle down.” His voice had begun to silence the classmates all around as he moved to the front of the class. Standing in front of his desk, everyone waited patiently as his contraption took a moment to let the man turn around to face them all, “As you all know, I am Professor Orlaff, here to teach you all the wonders of science. Specifically, advanced biology in this course…”
I could not care to listen to the rest of his introduction, not because I have no respect for the man, but only that I had just lived through many of his classes since he was prevalent in the science department here at Nevermore. I’d heard it all before: anatomy, astronomy, even dark psychology– you’d name it, I’ve suffered through it. And if not from him, then I heard it from Stonehearst.
I just continued with what I had been drawing, sketches of various flowers I had been studying in last year's botanical science, from nightshades to black delilahs. Just anything to keep myself busy, the whimsies of a girl who’d lived too long.
The sound of graphite scratching against paper beside me caused a momentary pause; I couldn’t help but let my eyes trail across the table to look at how Isaac had seemingly continued onto a page that contained what looked like processors and circuits. A contrast of the functional and what I just considered beautiful.
When my eyes traveled up to sneak another glance at the boy beside me, his eyes snapped up– straight into mine.
For one absurd second, my chest tightened, from both shock and perhaps the more girlish part of me that relished in the moment.
But such simple feelings were fleeting, unlike in the books I had wasted hours away reading. This would be a part where I could say I felt a spark of some kind, maybe even a twinkle in his eyes, but no, his gaze was empty. Polished stone. A void. For all of his haunted beauty, there wasn’t a single flicker of light I could find. Even my inner hopeless romanticism couldn’t conjure anything. The twist in my stomach was not butterflies. It was a warning.
I had looked away automatically; always better to pretend you hadn’t noticed the landmine you’d almost walked into. Also, just wanting to avoid any awkwardness on the first day. But I could not hide the hint of unease I felt. Many students passed through the halls of Nevermore, and I had experienced all shades of people. Something wasn’t right about this boy. It was hard to place, but years of watching students come and go from this academy meant I knew a thing or two about the strange and peculiar, this? This was almost scary.
And yet, infuriatingly, he was beautiful.
“We shall be reviewing some basics today, taking this first week or so to familiarize ourselves with the fundamentals so we may push ourselves towards advancements.” I had tuned back into what the professor was saying once I had realized he was giving instructions. “All notes and homework shall be done independently, though the lab activities shall be done with your table partner as well as other assignments throughout your term.”
Fantastic. Great. My options were suddenly limited to (a) endure whatever unnerving creature this boy was, or (b) fail the class.
The activity today was on neurophysiology. The classic biology experiment where students stimulate a dead frog's nervous system into having muscle contractions, even Normies did this. The project was less about actually documenting your findings and more about familiarizing us all with the nature of the class and hopefully creating some excitement around the subject. Nothing sparks joy in teenagers like watching dead frogs twitch, I guess.
Waiting amongst the line of students who were grabbing a tray each with their own deceased amphibians, I could tell my classmates could barely contain their rowdy nature. Subjecting myself to immature laughs mixed with the giggles of students who squemishly chattered about the gross frogs. I had wordlessly volunteered myself to grab the tray, meaning I just stood up and walked away because I couldn’t help but feel a touch uncomfortable from earlier accidental eye contact. I was quickly getting over it, but still, it was hard not to feel a touch unnerved.
Grabbing the sterile metal, I couldn’t fight the scowl on my face as I watched the creature’s unmoving body wriggle with every step I took back to the table. Pitiful, really, I was not looking forward to this.
“Are you afraid?”
The voice startled me. Isaac, of course.
“Of frogs, I mean.” He chuckled; it was rather boyish, though bias told me it was hollow. He was hardly smirking; he was just…watching. Expectant.
“Hardly. Cold-blooded creatures are just…unappetizing.” Which was true– as a creature whose biological preference was what was warm-blooded, frogs were rather unappealing. “Slippery little carcasses. Practically an insult to the senses.”
The corner of his mouth twitched upward, not quite a smile, but he let out a short laugh, “I can’t think of many who disagree…”
After Isaac spoke, I looked around the classroom again. Most students moved through the project immaturely, and Gomez even seemed to be zapping away at the frog, making it do a flop-like movement across its tray that mocked a dance. Morticia delightfully gave a small applause while stringing along words of praise. I hadn’t noticed how Isaac had leaned in closer, tilting his head closer to my own as he observed the boy with me.
“Interesting,” Isaac murmured beside me.
I glanced over. He wasn’t watching the frog. He wasn’t watching me. His eyes were fixed on Gomez, sharp and unreadable.
“What’s interesting?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“People like him.” Isaac’s voice was soft, almost contemplative. “So loud, so burning with life. They don’t realize the fire consumes itself. They burn faster. Shorter.” He tapped his pen once against the desk, in rhythm with that clockwork tick I kept hearing. “You can see it already. His kind never lasts.”
A chill prickled down my arms. The way he said it — not cruel, not mocking. Just… factual. Like a scientist describing the inevitable collapse of a star. Was Gomez not his friend? She could have sworn she heard somewhere that the two were roommates.
“Morbid observation,” I muttered, forcing a wry smile.
His mouth curved faintly. “Only honest. Entropy favors the vibrant. The quiet ones endure.” His gaze flicked to me then, brief but cutting. “You’d know.”
I froze, pulse kicking up. Was it a compliment? An accusation? Both?
Before I could form a reply, his eyes lowered to the frog. Like, he didn’t drop some sort of weird prophecy mid-conversation. “The project Professor Orlaff gave us is rather charming, wouldn’t you say?”
“Charming?” I say as he picked up the scalpel like he’d been born holding it. I was still mentally recovering from the earlier callout, but I tried not to make it known, “That’s the word for playing god with a dead amphibian. Interesting, yes, but personally, I’d go for grotesque.”
“Ah.” He murmured, sliding the blade down the frog’s abdomen with a clean precision, other tools lifting around him to pull back the skin with the sterile metal, his right hand flicking as he continued. “Grotesque is merely the first cousin of the sublime.”
Could he sound any more like an evil scientist?
That earned a side eye. He caught it, and this time, he smiled fully. It was soft, yes, but the context made it all wrong. Inappropriate, yet aware of that and still pleased. In any other instance, I would have thought he looked handsome, but he looked frightening.
“While yes, the experiment is elementary,” He went on, a smile still stretched across his face, “there’s beauty in its simplicity. A spark forcing flesh to remember movement. That boundary between what is gone and what might return–” he flicked his wrist, he commanded the floating tools seemed to bolt open the frog’s cavity and that’s when he turned back to me. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’d say Hollywood already wrung out every drop of drama out of the undead decades ago.” Leaning my chin against my palm, my tone was flat, but my pulse wasn’t. Who wouldn’t be anxious watching a boy three feet from you flay open an animal carcass like it was nothing? “The concept is a tad overrated.”
“You sound as if you lack imagination.”He looked at me from under his lashes, voice silk-edged with iron. “Though perhaps imagination dulls after a century or two. You would know better than I.”
My throat tightened. Blunt. Morbid. But it didn’t make it any less true.
“Funny,” I spoke dryly, passing him the electrodes, but I couldn’t fight back the way I naturally shifted myself at an angle that faced away from him. I didn’t enjoy my immortality being pointed out like that. “You certainly know how to flatter a girl.”
He chuckled, low, like I’d told him a joke. What an asshole. His gloved fingers brushed mine when he took the clamps. I wouldn’t put it past this guy to have done so deliberately.
Then he connected the wires. Turned the voltage up.
The frog twitched, limbs jerking in graceless spasms. I only hummed slightly in approval, not realizing that the boy beside me would take it as an invitation to take it further.
Smoke rose, faint at first, then acrid. Isaac’s eyes didn’t even so much as flicker, even when I had begun to move to get him to stop, realizing he was turning the power up past what the instructions on the board told us to do.
When the body suddenly lurched upright with a sick thump against the tray, Larissa, who had been startled by the sudden noise, shrieked. The class all whipped their heads around and erupted into laughter while I recoiled instinctively.
Isaac only muttered, almost to himself, “Not enough power.” He removed the clamps delicately, looking down at the frog like he was disappointed personally for it failing him.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, before folding my arms, “Or perhaps you have too much hubris. Hard to tell the difference.”
This time, he looked at me. Like, really looked. He even began to lean in, which caused me to pull back, but he still got close enough that his breath tickled my cheek. His words were low, like a secret meant only for me.
“You stare a lot.”
My pulse jumped. Deflection of the century, yet I fell for it headfirst. “I do not!”
One brow arched up, his head tilting as he smirked. Mischievous, like he had caught me in a trap, his chuckle was real this time. “Am I the first to say it out loud?”
Heat crawled up my neck, his laugh unsettled me, curling like smoke up my spine as he pulled away, but not before letting out a small “Interesting.”
I was quick to busy myself with wires, jars, anything that meant avoiding that gaze. But even with my head down, I felt it– the weight of his attention. Too calm. Too intent. Yet his eyes burned at the back of my skull.
In all honesty, there was nothing actually wrong with anything he did. He said all the right things to make the conversation dance around ambiguously, laughed the appropriate amount of time in between conversations, and overall was polite. It was the little things that I could not get out of my head. I was usually one who was irritated easily, but putting me on edge was something else. It made me squirm in my seat, but also left me hoping his impression of me did not stand out for the wrong reasons.
When the project ended, I packed quickly, wishing that the world would just swallow me whole rather than let me spend another moment with this man. I was eager to vanish before he could speak again.
Of course, he did.
“I never did catch your name.”
I froze just at the door; unfortunately, it was not far from our table, so it was not as if I could feign not hearing him. Glancing back, he was smiling, politely, gently, it tugged something at the edges of unease.
“...(Y/N) (L/N).”
His smile deepened, like he had been given exactly what he wanted. And I hated how much I wanted to know what he’d do with it.
