Dead
Disclaimer: I do not own American Horror Story.
Violet Harmon was as dead as a doornail. She had no more idea what was particularly dead about a doornail than Dickens had but there it was.
Violet Harmon was as dead as a dodo. It had taken her awhile before she was willing to believe that there was ever such a creature as a dodo given its ridiculous name but Wikipedia had claimed that it existed and surely that would never mislead her. It was discovered in 1581 and the last confirmed sighting was in 1662 so chances were the species bit it not much later. They died because they were stupid and didn't know what to be afraid of and wasn't that starting to sound familiar?
Violet Harmon was dead as yesterday. It was like that stupid song that came out the year after she was born, two years after Tate died.
Violet Harmon was dead as disco. She wasn't even quite sure she knew what disco was it had been so far before her time. Something to do with a disco ball, she knew that. That was one of those corny expressions that her father used to love.
Violet Harmon was dead as dead.
Dead as Tate.
Dead as her grandmother.
Dead as those house invaders.
Dead as every other resident that had ever lived in the house except for Constance and Larry, it seemed.
Dead as her parents would most certainly be if they stayed.
So. She was dead.
She wasn't quite sure how she felt about that.
She knew that she should be feeling something. What kind of freak doesn't even care when they died?
Well…it was quite possible that that kind of freak was her.
It just all felt so surreal. She was dead.
She didn't even remember dying but she saw her own corpse so it must be true.
She had looked down and saw her eyes all rolled back and white and her mouth hanging open in a parody of a scream. She saw those nasty flies that had been hanging around the fruit swarming all over her and inside of her. Though she supposed she couldn't throw up anymore (though it wasn't even her anymore, just the shell of what she used to be) the thought made her nauseous.
And wasn't that ironic? The fact that she hadn't been able to throw up was what had ultimately killed her.
Violet wondered if she was the only person who had ever committed suicide almost entirely by accident. There were a lot of people in the world and infinitely more who were dead. Of those, there were plenty who committed suicide so it seemed unlikely that she was the only one.
They could all go join a club, the 'Too Stupid To Live Club.' Meetings would have to either be at her house or on Halloween since she was currently trapped. Were there other places that the dead were trapped? Were the dead who weren't bound there walking the Earth during the rest of the year? Violet suspected that if there were then she'd have seen Addy show up at some point since her death.
Could non-house ghosts travel to the house when it wasn't Halloween?
Violet rather doubted that one as well. Since she now recognized the Dead Breakfast Club (one of her more inspired lines, she had to admit) was, in fact, dead and had been killed by Tate she had to remember that they had said something about trying to confront Tate for years. If they could walk the Earth when it wasn't Halloween (or even just get inside the House on Halloween) then she knew that they would have.
And that was another nightmare she didn't want to deal with.
Tate had killed fifteen people and hurt more than that. One of the articles she had read on the subject said something about him pouring gasoline on some guy and lighting him on fire as well. That was either sixteen people killed or one more mutilated man.
She was horrified when she had found out. Her boyfriend was a mass-murderer who had pulled a Columbine five years before there WAS a Columbine. Strange that one should receive the attention and not the other. That might have been before cell phones which had something to do with it. As a child of the nineties who had come into her own in the new millennium it was difficult to believe that there was ever a time before cell phones but she knew that there had to have been one.
Her boyfriend was dead. He was dead and had been dead for a year before she'd even been born. Had he lived he would have been legitimately old enough to have been her father. She knew some girls were into older guys but she'd never been quite fond enough of her father to want somebody that reminded her of him and certainly not after he ruined everything with that student of his. Ahem, "student." And then there was the fact that he was dead and she had been alive. There was really no way that that could end happily and now look, it hadn't. Not that it was over.
Her boyfriend was both dead and a mass-murderer. Either of the two would have been enough to devastate her but both? Was it really any wonder that she sought solace in the pills?
She could barely even remember taking them. She hadn't intended to overdose. She was just going to take one or two but it was like…the minute she started taking them she couldn't bring herself to stop. She knew that it was a bad idea, vaguely, but it hadn't seemed to matter. Nothing seemed to matter. She hadn't wanted to die but she hadn't much wanted to live, either.
Was it a cry for help? Maybe. She didn't want to be one of those pathetic teens who tries to kill themselves to get some attention from the parents who had failed to notice that she was dead for over a month. Cutting might make her seem like that especially – as Tate had noticed – since she wasn't doing it right to kill herself but she hadn't wanted the attention and so had hidden it. No, she was just looking for the release.
And what greater release was there than the release of death? Actually, she was finding that it wasn't much of a release at all, especially not in that house.
She didn't remember dying. Tate told her that he tried to get the pills out of her system but that it was too little, too late and that she died crying and she supposed that she believed him. Tate had said that being dead sort of freezes you so that the issues you had in life you still had in death. If she'd been crying and hurt and depressed then that might explain why she couldn't seem to shake off the depression now. Sure she'd had bouts with it in in the past but it had never lasted this long. Would it now last for eternity? Not only was she dead and stuck in the house but she'd have to be miserable the whole time, too? Why couldn't she have died happy? Maybe shot from behind while she was laughing?
Of course, that was assuming that Tate was telling the truth and Tate didn't really have the best record for honesty, at least where she was concerned. She couldn't recall him ever telling her that he wasn't dead or that she wasn't dead but surely such a massive oversight had to count as a lie after all this time? He did deliberately mislead her, especially about her own deadness. He knew that the police or her father couldn't take her away and yet he told her to keep quiet about the ghosts and to kill herself with him just the same. Sure he had his reasons and they were good ones but they still made her question him.
He said that he didn't remember dying. Well, she didn't remember either so there was that. On the other hand, she died while heavily medicated – died from being heavy medicated – and she had read that he'd been gunned down in his bedroom (was it her room? She didn't dare ask) by the SWAT team when he'd reached for a gun. He'd been completely aware though obviously out of his mind for reaching for a gun with so many trained on him. Unless, of course, he didn't want to face up to the consequences of his actions or this was all one elaborate suicide attempt.
Or maybe he should join her new club. That was at least one guaranteed member. She could go recruiting in the house. Perhaps there were more members-to-be.
And even if Tate didn't remember the actual dying part (she imagined that it would have been quick) what about before that? What about the massacre? He claimed not to remember that but he also claimed not to know any of the people that he killed. If they went to his school then surely he must have seen them around somewhere even if he was just killing at random. She knew that she remembered everything right up until she passed out but maybe it was different for him.
If he remembered…well, call her a coward but she didn't think she wanted to know. Him being dead and killing fifteen maybe sixteen people really should have been the last straw. She should have broken up with him. She sort of passive-aggressively tried to by ignoring him and being distant up until her death but afterwards they'd reconciled. She'd felt different and less concerned about any of that and maybe it was because she was dead.
But…he was her first real boyfriend. He was the only person she really liked since they moved and she even loved him. Of course she didn't want to give that up. It was horrible but it was what it was.
She was reasonably certain that he hadn't killed her because if he was going to do that then why wait until she took the pills of her own accord? It wasn't like he had manipulated her into taking them or finding out about his past and it was even more impossible for him to have done what he did all those years ago just so she'd be born and grow up and kill herself here.
He still did it whether he remembered or not. Somehow, though, if he didn't remember then that made it easier. He didn't know them even so even if it was him it wasn't really her Tate, just some other Tate that had been wiped out by the SWAT team's bullets. If he did remember, if he knew exactly what he was doing…then God help her, she was in love with a man who had knowingly killed so many innocent people. And who even knew if he had done anything since then? He'd have less of an opportunity but there were still living people in the house on some occasions…
No wonder she'd taken those pills.
Of course now she was one of those pathetic teens who killed themselves because the world had just seemed so mean. She had never wanted to be one of those but at the very least she could say that her problems were a bit more serious than losing a boyfriend or not making valedictorian. She was in a haunted house and her boyfriend was a mass murderer and even if he said he'd leave her alone if she asked could she really be sure that he would? He hadn't seemed to take the hint.
But she couldn't really go around blaming her suicide on something that happened before she was born, even if the ghost of the boy who did it continued to haunt her.
Now that he admitted that he remembered that he was dead (Constance had been so sure that he hadn't. Was she deceived or was she deceiving her?) she could ask him about the massacre, ask if he knew why he died, even if he didn't remember it.
But what would he say? Yes or no. She could believe the answer if it was a yes but she hated that if he said no she'd have to wonder if he was trying to protect her again. He'd gone through almost ridiculous lengths to protect her before now. And if it was a yes then she knew it would kill her to hear it. The house wasn't that big and she didn't know how to dematerialize. She'd be trapped with him no matter what and she didn't think she could avoid him forever. Avoidance wasn't really her style, anyway, with a few notable exceptions.
And she could admit that she didn't even hate his attempts to protect her.
She had been much happier (though not exactly happy) believing that she was alive but she might have known that the charade couldn't continue forever. How could it? Sooner or later she'd have to wonder why she wasn't aging. Sooner or later her parents would have tried to drag her out of the house and then who knew what would happen? She couldn't leave on her own but what if she got in a car and her parents started driving away? Would it be like she hit an invisible wall or would she just teleport back onto the property? She didn't want to find out and, more to the point, she didn't want her parents to find out.
It actually surprised her that she was able to be so ignorant for so long. When was the last time that she ate or drank anything? That she went to the bathroom? She was able to sleep in a way but she hadn't left the house in a month. Why hadn't she tried? The rationale about the bullies sounded weak to her now but she'd been so convinced of it when she told her father. Maybe she subconsciously knew and was trying to protect herself from a truth she wasn't ready for.
Was she ready now?
She didn't think so but now there was no longer any choice.
Like Eve, once she bit from that fruit of knowledge there was no going back.
She was dead for such a long time now and she was finally aware of it.
Sooner or later her parents would find out as well but she was hoping to put it off as long as possible. Them finding out that she was dead for a year wouldn't make it any better than them finding out she'd been dead for a month (it might even make it worse) but she just wanted to put it off as long as possible in the vain hope that the day would never come. Tate probably had the same hope.
What did it mean to be dead, really? No more eating or leaving or aging but aside from that? Maybe some cool ghost powers like turning invisible or teleporting.
It meant no more future. No more finishing up with the high school BS – in a way, she'd already done that – and going on to college and a husband and a career and maybe kids and a life.
She'd always been scared of dying. She didn't know what came after death and she was convinced that it would be the worst pain she could ever experience. It would have to be, she had reasoned, because it was the one thing that made her body stop working. It was the one thing that made her shut down and so it had to be painful.
Well, now she knew what came after death. Well, what came after death for those with the dubious privilege of expiring in the Murder House. And as for dying? She had been in so much pain before but falling asleep had been the easiest thing in the world. And now she would never have to die again.
Was it really so bad? (Her mind kept screaming 'YES' at her but it wouldn't change anything and so she might as well try to get used to it.)
So her fate was sealed and would likely never change. One day the house might be torn down and she might be freed then or trapped on the property still, a bunch of ghosts wandering around an empty lot. There would be a lot less space and a lot more suspicion when they wouldn't leave and even the police couldn't drag them out.
But that was a thought for the future.
For now, there were still her parents to consider. Her poor, imperfect parents who had never quite managed to be what she needed them to be but still didn't deserve this. She had to get them out of this house, even if it meant that she'd never see them again and would never so much as meet her new little brothers or sisters. She would miss them terribly for all she'd eschewed their company while she'd been alive but this wasn't about her, not anymore. They couldn't protect her anymore but maybe…maybe she could still protect them.
Protect them from the knowledge of what they'd failed to save her from. Protect them from whatever was going on with their babies. Protect them from whatever the house or the ghosts in it had in store for them.
And why not? She was a ghost now, too, and they couldn't hurt her anymore.
But she'd find a way to hurt them if they dared touch her parents.
Something told her that it was a good thing she had an ally in Tate.
Review Please!