A/N: Inspired by Violet and Contance's dialogue in the episode 'Halloween Part 2', when Tate's mother tells Violet that he's a 'sensitive boy' with 'the soul of a poet, but none of the grit or steel'. Loved that stuff. Please leave a review for me, ya'll know I thrive off your approval. Can't derive much improvement from viewcounts alone.
Tate Langdon
Death is one hell of a mask. I feel protected by all its raw power, in its unabashed symbolism painted across my face in all my visions. I wear it as a veil to cover my own human weakness. I bring a promise with me everywhere I go with this veil. A promise to rain down fire and brimstone on the scum stealing space on this Earth.
Violet is so much stronger than me. In life and especially in death. When she ran crying from the basement after seeing Infantata I thought that maybe, finally, she was afraid of something. That she was vulnerable, just like me. But no. She was crying because she felt like I'd betrayed her trust and gone too far. I had gone too far.
Yet for the life of me, all this excess emotion, this churning snowstorm suffocating a burning forest, I cannot see her again. Not until she wants me. Not until she stops telling me to go away, until she stops crying into her father's sweater, until their stupid dog drops dead of sheer exhaustion.
Because I've gone too far.
I think of the shooting now as a past atonement to my present sins. Like I've brought them all to the feet of God in exchange for quiet suffering in a place only slightly apart from my personal Hell. Even with this new revelation, this self-comfort, there are still too many emotions. And try as I do, I cannot separate myself from them. I can't detach myself, no clean break, not anymore.
I list them for Dr Harmon one by one, giving each the respect they demand.
Angst, for all that I have lost and all the lives I have stolen.
Jealousy, for the boy that lives in my room now that sees how beautiful my Violet is.
Rage, for the universe has conspired against me and timed my untimely death down to the second.
Sadness, for my Violet doesn't want me anymore.
Emptiness, for I have nothing to fill the gap.
All inescapable.
Ben tells me emptiness isn't a feeling, it's a state of being. I disagree. Because if this... this damage I'm experiencing isn't a feeling, why do I feel it so strongly? So undeniably?
"You don't have to be afraid, Tate. There's nothing that can really hurt us now."
"Yeah, actually, there is something that can hurt me. Violet, goddammit. Violet is hurting me."
Every time I pin some depraved soul to the ground, choke them for every last gasp of air and take their life right out of their begging hands, there is a transfer of power over life. From their hands to mine. It feels like I'm finally taking something for myself, for the greater good. Something Constance can't take away. That alone makes me feel better. Screw Violet anyway. I never deserved her. A sense of acceptance rushes through me like a forgiving breeze on a hot day.
And for the first time in my afterlife, I feel free.