A/N: So yeah, I'm re-reading Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, which inspired the nihilistic tone of this.

Sometimes she's just gone. I'll wake up, expecting her next to me, and she's gone. The first time it happened I ran through the house looking for her until I spotted her in the yard, pacing the back fence like she was walking to the gallows; iPod in her ears, lips moving silently. When I approached her, she disappeared. So I waited. She came back one night, laid on the bed, and didn't say anything. I didn't say anything either, just put an arm around her and tried to hide my happiness at her return. She didn't say much of anything for days after that, and the one time I asked her why she did it she walked out of the room.

Sometimes it's easy to know why she does it. The first day of a new school year she'll sit on the front steps invisibly watching the kids walk past the house the way to school. She's mourning I guess, she never wanted to be here. The one time I joined her she didn't look at me when she said, "You don't feel the emptiness, do you?" Despite the question mark it was a statement. Sometimes she'll catch a glimpse of Constance and Michael; those times are always the worst; then it's not days I don't see her for, but weeks.

Usually though the reasons why she leaves are a mystery, and no matter how much I try to draw it out of her she won't talk about it. I try to not think about it when she's not there; try to convince myself she has no place else to go. But I remember the years she wouldn't look me in the eye, on the rare occasions I even saw her. How I forgot what her voice sounded like because I never heard it. Forgot the way she smelled. Forgot how her hand felt in mine. There were days I would look at my hands trying to remember the weight and feel of her in them.

When she finally did speak to me she told me she hadn't forgotten what I had done, but she was too tired to keep punishing me. She said it wasn't forgiveness because I wasn't sorry, just sorry that I had lost her. I didn't argue with her because she wasn't wrong. I watched her watching me for a long time before I went over to the bed, practically trembling with fear that she'd tell me to 'go away' again, and lay behind her, wrapping her up carefully in my arms. I could feel how tense her muscles were at my touch. Maybe it was the awkwardness of being together for the first time in so long. I like that thought because it was better than the alternative, that maybe this was the real punishment; she'd let me do this, but not really enjoy it.

There was a sick part of me that hissed that raping her mother had been easier, at least in a way she wanted it when she thought it was Ben. There was a sicker part of me that didn't care how Violet felt as long as I could force myself on her like this. I hadn't felt anything when I had done what I did to Vivien. I cried silently next to Violet as she stayed tensed next to me, breathing shallowly and rapidly, completely silent. This is the real violation I thought. She didn't leave though.

When I woke up the next day, my eyes sore and swollen, I found her sitting in the window, smoking, completely relaxed. I tried to tell her I loved her, how much I had missed her, how much I wanted to make her happy. She spared me a blank glance before looking back out the window, and I stopped. "I don't know when you're lying to me." I let her lead us back into the light after that, and by degrees she became more herself; slowly she came back to me.

Months passed and then one day she wasn't there, like I had made her up inside my head, and she was just a beautiful wraith that haunted me. There were other things, good things. She let me tell her I loved her, though she hadn't said the words to me in years. She let me touch her and hold her, and she enjoyed it. She was happy, most of the time, and I was too because we were together, and she let me be the person I always wanted to be: the one who loved her and protected her; the one who made her happy. She always came back to me, and now when she did she'd pick up a conversation where we left it days before like nothing happened, like she'd done nothing more interesting than slipped outside for a cigarette. She came back.

So she had been gone two days. I tried not to think about. Tried to read, or wander, or occupy myself in some way so that every thought wasn't focused on her. She was never in the house, so I walked the halls late at night wishing for sleep, and getting increasingly angry. She had let me back in, sort of. She was there most of the time, but sometimes she wasn't. She had shut me out of her head though; whatever was going on in there was private. That hurt more than anything. It was easier when she wasn't toying with me; our roles used to be so clearly defined. I wracked my brains thinking of something that I had done, something that set her off on the times when she'd do this so I wouldn't do it anymore. I stormed downstairs to the basement, into the heart of the darkness to rage and storm; when I ran out of things to destroy I found Charles' surgical instruments and started destroying myself, screaming in pain.

When I came to again my clothes were hard with dried blood, and there was a cold pre-dawn light filtering through the little window. I went back upstairs and stood fully clothed under the shower until the water ran clear. I was dripping my way to her room when I heard her voice wafting out of the attic. I stopped and looked up, but it was dark; and still her voice, quiet and soft, cascaded out of the trapdoor. I didn't bother with the rickety ladder, just appeared there. Her voice was coming from the darkest corner, and I couldn't see her. I stilled as I listened to the words.

I am the line, I hold you near. There is no burden left to bear, I can see clear. You're in suspension, you know no love. There is no story left to tell, you have no wisdom to pass on. I am the soul of absolution, no man can hurt his own illusion. My hands are crippled with the pain, you are the splinter in my vein. You put your head between your hands and understand nothing it has. I feel the answers keep you scared, I've put the harm inside myself.

I am the line, I hold you near. There is no burden left to bear, I can see clear. I am perfected, I know no void. I have no conscience to keep clear, I understand there's nothing more. You try to kid yourself with questions, pleading in time for some correction. I found you tied onto the cross, with judgment on your every thought. You know my words all mean the same, you've buried here to isolate And in this prison of your mind, you were born without a spine.

I wondered if she knew she was singing; her voice was so quiet. I wondered if she knew I was there. I sat on the floor facing the sound of her voice. As I listened I wondered if she was more cipher than wraith, or if her words were anyway. I wondered if this was an insight into what was going on in her head. I listened to her voice, low and soft and throaty, as she repeated the same song over and over again, and decided it must be because there was a lot of us in it. "Violet." She stopped singing, but didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say beyond that, so simply asked the question that had been perpetually running through my head for nearly 72 hours. "Why? Why do you do this?" Once the words came out, the floodgates broke. "I hate this! Just fucking tell me what I've done!"

"Nothing." Was her quiet reply.

"Then why are you doing this? Why did you want me around again if you're just going to disappear like this?"

"Because I love you." Her voice was flat, completely devoid of emotion, and it hurt. It was her first I love you since that night, The Night, and it should have felt good. Instead it felt like the words were ricocheting around my chest tearing holes like bullets.

"You don't fucking act like it." Nothing. No response. "I'd rather you just punish me like you used to. At least then I knew what was going on." I dug my fingers into my scalp. "Just tell me why you do this." I said desperately.

"Because I can't hurt myself."

"You're hurting me."

"I know." She might as well have been telling me the weather forecast for all the emotion in her voice. She didn't care. At all.

"Explain to me how that's love?"

"I didn't say it made sense. I like the way you feel against me; the weight of you, you know? You feel like home. You're still all I want." More words like bullets. "Sometimes I just wish I didn't feel that way. Sometimes it makes me hate myself that I love the guy who raped my mother, and ultimately killed her. Since cutting doesn't really work for me anymore I have to live with it for a while until it wanes."

"I wish you'd fall in love with someone else." I said bitterly, spitefully.

"Me too." She didn't say it to be hurtful like I did, she said it because it was the truth. It still hurt.

"I tried to make that right. I tried to give you someone so you wouldn't be alone."

"I didn't want him, I told you that."

"You said you wanted me, and now you have me, so why are we here?"

"Because I want the you I thought you were." I could feel angry tears streaking my face, my body shaking with hurt and hate. "You want things to just be the way they were, and I don't think they ever will be." I heard the floorboards creak, and a shadow, denser than the dark surrounding it moving towards me, her hand grazing my head as she walked past. I wished her touch made me sick, but it didn't. I heard her descending the stairs, walking down the hall, going into her bedroom. I wished I didn't want to follow, but I did. I'd let her hurt me if it meant I could still be with her because being without her was worse.

She was naked under the sheets when I came into the bedroom, and I stripped out of my wet clothes, leaving them in a leaking pile, to join her; her skin was like an open flame against mine. As I lay next to her I felt her words like a wall between us, and I hated her indifference. I needed something other than that, anything but that, and I made empty threats. She made empty, disinterested replies. I wanted to scream. I could feel the hate, the darkness welling up inside of me, and I reached out for her, slipping an arm around her and pressing her to me, my lips meeting her skin.

I whispered sweet words as I palmed her breast, and listened to her breathing change as I got hard against her. I told her I loved her as my hand trailed lower, finding her core, grazing her wet folds before finally dipping inside. But she didn't moan like she usually did as I hit her favourite spots with my fingers, and tongue, and teeth. I moved on top of her, between her legs, and felt the heat rising off her body, but even with me inside her, her eyes didn't meet mine. It was a useless zero sum war, and my dick might as well have been a prop. All the hurt focused my hate on her, and I slammed into her, determined to get anything other than her fucking apathy.

"Tate, you're hurting me." I could hear the pain in her voice, and it felt like victory breaking through her wall of icy indifference. I was vaguely aware of her body tensing before I slammed into her again, relishing the feeling of triumph. I did it again, and she screamed, pushing me off of herself with all the strength she had. I landed with a crash on the hardwood floor. I pulled myself up, using the bed as leverage until my eyes met hers and I froze. She scooted away from me across the bed, looking terrified, tears from the pain streaking her face. I moved slowly, coming up by inches, trying to reassure her, but after a long moment she said, "Go away!" Her voice shaking slightly.

I landed in the basement, my mind totally blank with what I had just done. I lingered by the door until I heard her voice in the kitchen late the next day. She was there with the queens, talking quietly. I shuffled up the hallway, stopping at the door to the kitchen. She was sitting between them smoking, all of them speaking in low voices. Patrick spotted me, and straightened up, anger clouding his face; Violet and Chad not even bothering to look when they saw his reaction.

As Patrick walked towards me, blocking the other two from view I walked away remembering her wide scared eyes the night before. I went into the backyard and sat in the sun, letting the heat of it burn me as I tried to make sense of the herd of thoughts thundering through my brain. She hadn't gone to her parents, she'd gone to the queers. In her way she was protecting me. If Ben found out what I had done, that I hurt her, he'd be killing me over and over for the next month. So maybe she just needed some time to herself. More time.

I could give her time, and then when she was ready I could apologize, and it would be okay. It was a total fantasy; I had crossed some invisible line with her last night, and it was going to take more than time and useless apologies to fix, I knew that. So I would give her time, let her make her move, and see what happened. I kept reminding myself she had nowhere else to go, that she'd always come back to me before, and she would again. Finally after a week I cracked and appeared in her room as she lay in bed reading. I didn't get a word out before she whispered 'go away', sending me back to the basement.

Another week passed, and I was wandering again; pacing the hall outside her closed bedroom door when I heard noises down another hallway. The lights were off, and the door was open, the scent of her cigarette wafting out into the hallway like a tease. A strong moon showing through the curtain-less windows revealed bodies writhing on the bed, clothes littering the floor, and Violet sitting in a chair, smoking, watching the whole scene.

I stood there confused for a minute before she turned and looked out the door. She didn't seem to hold any special recognition in her eyes before she turned away again. There was an empty chair next to her, and I decided to fill it; she could always tell me to go away again. Moira and the Dhalia's looked like they were playing Twister on the bed, naked, moans and groans and mutterings punctuating their heavy breathing. My curiosity piqued and I had to ask Violet, "Who do you see? Young or old Moira?"

"Right now, the young one."

"Why are you in here?"

"They left the door open like they wanted an audience, so I decided to give it to them." Her eyes never left the scene unfolding in front of her, and her voice was flat and quiet. We sat that way, in silence, for a while before I found the courage to speak again.

"I'd tell you I'm sorry, but I don't think you would believe me."

She was quiet for a long time before she replied. "We always hurt the ones we love."

"That works both ways."

She finally looked at me. "That's why I stay away when I'm like this." I felt my mind go into free-fall; writhing, twisting, imploding and exploding, spinning as I tried to find that parachute that would drift me safely back to some semblance of sanity. The numbness of what I had done, the secret joy of hurting her for abandoning me, disappeared over the horizon of my brain and left me spinning, scrabbling for a hold on reality as I finally understood why she left. She watched the pain cross my face as the realization hit me, and I wondered what she must have seen because it felt like my body was collapsing in on itself. I opened my mouth uselessly mouthing words that wouldn't come out, stopping only when a look of complete disgust crossed her face, and she turned away.

The cacophony of grunts and moans reaching a crescendo before all three collapsed panting on the bed, and Travis locked eyes with Violet. "What do you want? Applause?" Sarcasm dripping off her voice as she walked out.

I scrambled after her like a dog, desperate for forgiveness, and caught her just as she opened her bedroom door. Any words that I might have been able to formulate she quelled with one look. She knew better than I did what I would say, she'd heard it too often. I followed her inside, risking her disapproval as I slumped into her desk chair, and hung my head in my hands. I wanted to kneel at her feet and wash them with my tears. "I always knew you'd hurt me again." There was no weight of judgment in her voice, but her words were like nails through my skin. My eyes met hers for the briefest moment. "You want resolution; maybe there is none. Maybe you just enjoy it when it's good for however long that is." She turned away, and started undressing. "Coming to bed?"

A/N: The song is The Line by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club