lover, won't you come back home
Rated M because of the language, mention of murders and brief sexual situations.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
He doesn't talk to her for nineteen years and it's the most excruciating, worst kind of pain he's ever known.
Nothing can compare, not even the many different and torturous ways Charles uses him for his experiments, cuts him up and tears him to pieces.
Violet has torn him apart a lot worse.
It's well-deserved, he knows that, but that does nothing to stop the ache in his chest, and half of the time he feels like self-harming himself just to feel something else other than the pain of losing Violet - chopping off his fingers or his ear like that damned painter would suffice, or maybe tearing his own heart out, literally this time, because metaphorically she has already done that.
He doesn't do any of these things but Charles is more than happy to help him out with the pain.
One day, weeks or months or years after his inevitable doom - he doesn't really keep count of the time because that would make words like 'eternity' and 'forever' and 'never' seem so much more real - the good doctor snaps him out of his routine that consists of sitting and staring at the wall in the basement, rocking back and forth in his chair, by getting this strange idea that he needs someone who would willingly withstand the pain and be his experimental rat, and Tate is the perfect candidate. The boy never had many friends in the house so nobody would care if Charles hurt him in anyway and Tate himself, in his near cathartic state, wouldn't really object to anything.
And sure enough, when the doctor pulls him up from his seat and leads him towards his surgical table, Tate finds that he doesn't have the strength in him to complain.
It hurts.
But it hurts so good.
This kind of pain he can deal with. This kind of pain, in contrast to the one Violet inflected upon him, he relieves in.
The next time it's him who goes back to Charles, offering himself up with a smile on his face. They help each other out.
And every single time, when the doctor cuts into his skin and it hurts so good, he screams her name.
He isn't sure what possessed him to leave the safety of the basement that day but he felt like it would be a good idea, and when he comes across Violet in the living room, he knows it was fate.
She doesn't have such a visible reaction to him as he does upon seeing her, - her breath doesn't catch in her throat then picks up rapidly like his does, her eyes don't water and she doesn't have to bite her lip to keep the tears from falling down her face, and she doesn't whisper his name ever so softly like a prayer for mercy as he does - she just merely cocks her head at him, studying him carefully like he was an interesting piece of puzzle she couldn't seem to figure out before a sigh leaves her lips and she crosses her arms across her chest, almost in a defensive manner.
"Do you want to play cards?"
In the middle of playing UNO with Violet, Tate decides to speak up.
"How have you been?"
As soon as the words leave his lips, he regrets them. What a stupid fucking question to ask from your ex-girlfriend who you haven't seen in over nineteen years due to the awful things you've done to her and her family, but are still desperately in love with. He could have slapped himself.
Throwing a tentative look at Violet, he can see by her scoff that she agrees with him.
"Really? You couldn't think of a better question?" He shrugs noncommittally as she throws a draw two card at him with a smirk and he obeys without a bad word or look. She takes her time to answer, wondering what she should say. In the end she settles for nothing fancy. "Fine, I guess."
"Why are you talking to me?" Risky question, he knows that, but sue him for being curious.
"I'm not talking to you, I'm playing cards with you."
"But you're also talking," he points out and she rolls her eyes. He is still a smart ass, it seems.
"That's just a nice addition. I can take it away." But there's no real warning in her tone and he knows she's not going to play mute now.
"Fine. Why are you playing with me?"
She shrugs and looks down at her cards to avoid his inquiring, dark and enchanting eyes. "It gets pretty boring around here," she explains then murmurs 'UNO' as she is now left with only one card in her hand. Looking over at Tate, she notes with smugness that he has at least six cards with himself. It's safe to say she's won this round. "The only excitement is scaring away the new inhabitants but that's been a while too. I think no one has lived here for years."
"Maybe people finally realized it's a bad idea to buy this house," he suggests although he doesn't really believe that and neither does she. People will always be too dumb to run from this place while they still can, or maybe that's just the house, maybe it lures them in, captivates them and never lets them go again.
"Nah," she shakes her head and puts her last card down, officially winning the game. She smirks proudly and Tate just sits there for a moment, admiring her smile while he still can because who knows when will be the next time he's able to witness it. "I think it's just the calm before the storm. And I've won..." She trails off, suddenly getting a suspicious look on her face when she takes in his tender expression. "Hey, did you let me win?" She knows he's entirely capable of doing that just to please her, especially now.
"No."
"Let me see that." She reaches out to snatch the cards from his grasp before he could react and inspecting them, she can see that he's definitely been holding back on her. There are a few pieces he could have placed down but didn't, and maybe if he did the outcome of the game would have been different. Suddenly her victory doesn't seem as sweet as before. Throwing them on the desk in anger, she leans back in her seat while crossing her arms, her eyes ice cold and disappointed. "Will you ever stop lying?"
Busted, he groans in his head, struggling to make things right before she leaves him again. "Violet..."
"You didn't have to do that, I can win on my own."
"I just..."
"What, you thought that winning one little stupid card game will change anything in me?" she snarls at him, jumping up from her chair with such force that it falls backwards. "Did you think I would let you back in my bed?"
Tate curses the stupid tears springing into his eyes at her comment, but he could never control it when he's around Violet, that's his curse. Is he going to lose her again now? "No, I..."
Violet never lets him apologize, slamming her hand down on the table as she leans in dangerously close to Tate but with a furious expression and narrowed eyes. "Because look at my face now, Tate, and listen good: it will never happen." She says every word with deliberate and cruel slowness to make sure he understands, to hurt him that much deeper, and his tears spill over but yet he attempts to explain and soothe her.
"Violet..."
"Forget it, this was a mistake." She takes hurried steps away from him, ignoring all too easily the sobs that escapes his mouth but turns back towards him one last time. "And Tate?" He looks up hopefully, his eyes red and broken, thinking against his better judgement that maybe she'll change her mind but she only shoots him down again. "Stop screaming my name."
Then she walks away.
Surprisingly, his failure that day doesn't discourage him in the slightest, on the contrary, it makes him all the more determined to win his girl back.
After he gets over the heartbreak her latest rejection brings, he begins planning and scheming. It's 'Operation Win Violet Back' and that's something he can't screw up. So he plans and works out even the smallest details, giving it all he has, until he finally feels like he's ready to put things into motion.
After thinking things through he discovers that the first thing he needs to do isn't actually getting her back but rather making her accept the possibility that she'll be his again one day. She needs to realize they're inevitable and she needs to come to terms with it, she has to banish words like 'never' from her head once and for all.
That is the first step.
Then it'll be easier for him to work on breaking the ice in her heart, and eventually she would come back to him on her own.
He would win her back, he's sure of it.
On the first day he leaves her roses all over the house wherever she goes.
In the morning there's a yellow rose in the kitchen, waiting for her on the shelf with a piece of paper, 'friendship' written on it.
Then there's a pink rose on the living room table, admiration.
An orange colored rose in the garden, desire,
A red rose, floating in the water in the bathtub. Love.
And lastly, she finds a black rose laying on her bed. There's no note this time but there's no need, she gets the meaning behind this one.
And when she turns around to put the flower in the vase next to the others – because she doesn't have the heart to throw them out, even knowing that Tate watches her and her reaction, probably thinking that this means he has some kind of chance with her again – she sees an all too familiar, achingly familiar message on her chalkboard.
'I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.'
And even this time around, she can't hold back her sobs.
On the second day he uses her chalkboard again but he writes poems on it now.
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."
She stares at the words in front of her until she feels like she has them memorized and then she begins to grow sick of it and everything, including Tate.
He's trying but Violet doesn't want him to try. She wants to stay mad at him for a little while longer and he makes it so fucking hard.
In the end that's why she's angry with him.
Grabbing the sponge she stalks towards the board and with long drags she makes the words disappear from her sight. It only takes him a few seconds to write another.
She cleans that too, and then he writes another, and she cleans, he writes, she cleans, he writes, she cleans, he writes.
It's Violet who gives up.
She shakes her head in frustration and plops down on her bed, making sure she's facing away from her board, thinking that the first thing she'll do when she gets the chance is ask her dad or someone to remove that stupid fucking thing from her wall.
But it does not matter either way, the words of the last poem are already etched in her brain whether she wants it or not.
"In secret we met-
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?-
With silence and tears."
On the third day he buys her cigarettes.
Or rather, asks Constance to bring some to the house – the fucking cunt is still alive, although barely.
Compared to the roses and poems, it's not much and not nearly as romantic, but he knows it's what she appreciates the most out of all his gifts. He even gets a little smile out of her when she sees all those cartons on her bed. And honestly, he even asked a fucking favor from Constance, all for her. If that doesn't show his devotion then nothing does.
So imagine his surprise when he sees her crying herself to sleep that night.
For the life of him he can't figure out what's wrong, not until she wraps her arms tightly around her middle, trying to curl up into herself. She's lonely, he realizes, and the cigarettes won't make her bed warmer.
But he knows just what will.
She decides she's had enough when she comes to her room to find a little puppy sitting on her bed, staring back at her with curious eyes. It barks happily when she enters and jumps down from her bed, running in circles around her legs excitedly to show her how glad it is to have her here, and she has to admit that it's pretty fucking cute but still.
It's a dog.
Tate has crossed a line.
"You need to stop."
Tate examines her from his usual place in the rocking chair as she stands there on the bottom of the stairs, her eyes sparkling in anger, the dog in her hand, stroking its fur gently, although he suspects she's not even really aware of that. He smiles at the image of her with the small animal, it's a sight to behold, and he can't help but think of the very first time he saw her when she had wandered down to the basement to look for her mother's dog, completely unaware of the ghosts residing down there, including him too. He remembers thinking she looked gorgeous, shining through the dark with her ever persistent light, and he remembers that it was love at first sight for him.
"I see you like my gift. It's a girl, a beautiful girl like you."
Violet decides to ignore the fact that he's just compared her to a dog. Instead she focuses on her anger. "Tate, this is a little dog. A puppy."
"Yes, to make you less lonely."
"What?"
"You're lonely, I can see it." He frowns when he remembers how vulnerable she looked that night, crying alone in her bed. The dog will help her even if she doesn't realize it now. "You didn't want me killing that guy years ago so I thought maybe you'd like a pet."
"Did you kill it?" Please let the answer be no.
"Yes."
She seethes. Poor little animal. She hardly deserved getting stuck in this dark cold place, nobody did. "Tate!" she berates him, shaking her head at him like he's a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and she's the mother disappointed with him.
He's so annoyed that he can't even really appreciate how cute she looks like that – she doesn't like his gifts, she continues to push him away no matter what he does, he's running dry on ideas to win her back, and it isn't fucking fair. Yes, maybe he did horrible things but that was in the past, a long time ago, and he's changed, he loves her and if the situation was reversed he would have forgiven her. Isn't nineteen years of waiting and suffering enough?
Suddenly he snaps and all the feelings he had tried to hold in, all those anger he'd stored up in himself over the course of the years burst out of him, making him jump up from his chair, staring her down with a hateful look in his eyes. "Stop acting like a goddamn fucking moral compass, it's incredibly hypocrite of you," he sneers darkly, stepping closer to her. She takes a step back out of reflexes but he doesn't back down. "You didn't give a shit that I killed all those kids so long ago, or the gays. Your problem is that I hurt someone close to you. If it wasn't your mother I raped you wouldn't have cared. Just like you don't care that I killed the dog." He stops right in front of her, his face inches away from hers and she's too shocked to even move and put some distance between them. His next words come out in a low, dangerous, smug tone. "You like it."
Her mouth hangs open for a good few seconds. She can't believe he just said that. She can't believe the accusations he threw at her head.
Hypocrite.
You didn't give a shit.
You wouldn't have cared.
You like it.
"That's not true." Her voice is quiet, wavering, unsure. Sure, there's a darkness inside her, the same darkness which made her so attracted to him in the first place, but she doesn't actually enjoy it. Right?
"We're not that different, Violet."
She blinks, once, twice, then laughs right in his face. "I am nothing like you," she growls out through her clenched teeth, emphasizing the word 'nothing'. "You're a monster." He visibly flinches but she doesn't care, she doesn't stop because she wants to, needs to hurt him back. "And stop with the flowers and the poems and the dead dogs. It's not gonna change anything."
She should leave now, she should turn around and walk away from him but she doesn't because she's feeling particularly cruel today and she wants to see his reaction and bask in the pain on his face.
He stares and stares back at her, and he would have continued to stare silently had it not been for Charles who chose this moment to ask for Tate's help again. He hadn't visited his surgical table ever since that day a few weeks ago when he and Violet played UNO together because after that event he focused all his energy on coming up with different plans and ideas to get Violet back, but right now he could definitely use the pain. The doctor had the best timing possible.
"Tate? I would acquire your assistance."
The boy nods but he never takes his eyes off Violet who is now frowning mildly. "Yeah, I'm coming."
"What are you doing?" Violet raises her eyebrows suspiciously. The dog in her hand suddenly whimpers and fidgets uncomfortably at the entrance of Charles so she sets her down and the animal wastes no time running up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her. She's going to have to name her, Violet wonders briefly, now that it looks like the puppy would be sticking around anyway, but she doesn't waste her thoughts on that for long, turning her attention back to the absurd situation at hand.
"Helping Charles out," comes Tate's emotionless reply. He turns around to approach the doctor and his table and without even really thinking about what she's doing, or more importantly, why, she follows after him. Different and different kinds of dissectors, lancets and scalpels are resting on a desk nearby, and just the sight of them makes Violet shudder.
"Tate, are you crazy? Don't do it!"
He stops to look at her, a wry smile on his face. "Why? It's not like you care."
"I care. Tate, stop!" But he's not listening to her, he just shakes his head and turns away from her, pretty confident that she'll just go and leave without putting up a fight. That makes her angry all over again.
Fuck him.
Fuck him for thinking he can just let Charles cut him up like that, fuck him for thinking he can inflict pain upon himself and blame it on her like it's her fault, and scream her name like he expects her to come down here, admit her feelings for him and rescue him from the evil clutch of the crazy doctor.
Well, she's attempting to rescue him now and he doesn't even care.
So yeah, fuck him.
She wants him to stop this nonsense right now and realize how ridiculous and childish he's being, and she doesn't even care how she manages to achieve that as long as she does. So without a second thought she grabs one of Charles' tools and stabs it in Tate's neck from behind, successfully keeping him from practically sacrificing himself at the doctor's altar. He never sees it coming and frankly, neither does she but she likes it. There's something satisfying about watching him fall right on his face, even hitting his head on the table in the action, and she lets out an amused giggle.
Then, just for good measure, she kills Charles too, slitting his throat and watching as the blood spirals out from his neck for a few seconds, bright red and beautiful, before disappearing up to her room.
She watches his face while he's still unconscious but she doesn't really see him. She's lost in her thoughts, in all the things he said to her before and what she's done just half an hour ago, and she thinks that he might have been right.
Maybe she does like it.
Does that make her a hypocrite? Probably.
He comes to life with a start, gasping and coughing, before he sits up on the floor of her room, looking around wildly. When he realizes where he is, he lets out a long breath, looking at her in confusion. She has not only killed him but she's taken the time to drag him back to her room.
She's playing hot and cold with him and it's beginning to drive him insane.
"Why did you do that?" he inquires, crossing his arms defiantly, trying to seem at least mad. But the truth is, all his anger from before has evaporated with his death, and he woke up feeling guilty and like an asshole for all the things he said to her earlier.
"Because I wanted to," she shrugs like it's nothing. "Because I enjoyed it." So there, she said it. She hopes he's happy now.
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He had never expected her to admit that. But it still makes no sense to him. "If you enjoyed it so much why didn't you let Charles do his crazy experiments on me?"
She blows out a breath and looks away from him in discomfort. She knows the answer to his question, she knows it all too well, but it's going to be hard for her to tell him. "Because… he can't hurt you. I'm the only one who can." She's still not looking at him as she says that.
He's silent as he contemplates this new piece of information, wondering if he should take her reasoning as a compliment. "You have no claim on me anymore, Violet. You made sure of that."
His tone is quiet and sad. She knows he wants to belong to her and wants her to belong to him, he wants that more than anything else, and she can't help but snort at his idiocy. He could be such a fool sometimes. "You're wrong," she shakes her head, finally looking at him. "You're mine. You'll always be mine, no matter what."
He can't help the small smirk playing on his lips as he stands up to move closer to Violet. He doesn't mind being objectified, not one bit if it's coming from her. He'll gladly be her object or whatever she wants him to be.
"Then you're mine too."
Before she could disagree or deny it, his mouth is on hers and all her thoughts fly right out of the window.
It's been so long, so very long since she had a taste of him, and it feels so good. She grabs the back of his neck, pulling him down forcefully to her level so she can get a better access to his lips and if he wasn't so lost in her, he would have chuckled at her eagerness. Their lips crash against each other's again and again, and it's as if both of them is trying to devour the other in whole. He can't get enough of her – he runs his fingers through her hair, tugging on it rather roughly but it only makes her mewl in excitement, then he moves his hands down her body, ghosting over her heaving breasts, and still she does nothing to stop him.
Her mind is blissfully empty, her whole body is burning up and it feels too good to stop.
At this rate they're going, she might have gone all the way, had it not been for the loud baby wail ringing through the otherwise quiet house. But as Tate lays her down on the bed, attaching his mouth and tongue to her neck, she hears it, loud and clear, and she knows who it belongs to. Somehow that snaps her out of her lust-infused haze and all the thoughts about why she shouldn't and why this is so wrong and what he's done come rushing back, leaving her feeling sick all of the sudden.
Tate takes no notice of anything, his tongue is still working on her bare skin when she pushes him away, sitting up and crawling away from him just to be sure. She shakes her head, clutching at the spot where her heart should be beating, fast and wild right now if she was alive, and he has an expression on his face that's half heartbroken and half resigned. He's not even surprised, a part of him expected it all along.
"I can't."
He nods and stands up from the bed. Touching his lips, he looks at her weirdly, inspecting her like he's trying to figure her out. "You still have feelings for me," he says with no doubtfulness in his voice. One does not kiss someone like that if they have no feelings for them anymore.
She snorts, holding back a laugh. So observant, isn't he? "No shit Sherlock."
"Then let me fix things."
"You can't fix things." She rolls her eyes, mildly annoyed. It's so typical of him, to think he can just 'fix things', that there's a solution to every problem and then everything will be okay. That's what's gotten him in this mess in the first place, him trying to fix things.
Nora wanted a baby so what's his solution? Rape her mother.
She can't deny that his intentions were good, and they are good now too, but he had screwed up so badly in the past that she doesn't trust him not to screw up again if he attempted to fix things.
"Don't say that!" he snaps and she can see that he's getting desperate. "There must be something I can do. Just tell me what, I'll do anything, I promise. Whatever you want. What do you want?"
"You know what I want? What I really want?" she starts, leaning back on her bed and crossing her arms. If Tate wants to know her wish then so be it. "I want you to make the right choices. I want you to stop being the guy who raped my mother." She pauses, breathing heavily. Her eyes convey all the hurt she feels because of the situation and Tate finds it hard to look at her and see the damage he's done but yet he can't look away either. "I want you to go back in time and undo what you've done. But you can't do that, can you?"
She smiles bitterly when all he can do is open and close his mouth a few times, trying to come up with an answer. She knows she got him there. She told him her wish but that's something he can't help her with. Too bad, Tate, isn't it?
"I… I can try," he gets out eventually, biting his lip in thought, no doubt wondering how he could manage that.
She lets out a loud, humorless laugh. "Don't be ridiculous, Tate."
He straightens himself and all the uncertainty from before is gone from his voice. "I said anything. I meant it."
When Violet finds him in the living room, a slightly irritated but mostly just nonplussed look on her face, Tate is busy hitting the same button on her laptop over and over again, hoping it would change anything.
It doesn't.
"Why did you steal my laptop?" she inquires with a raised eyebrow but he doesn't answer her. "Tate?"
He never stops his actions, but turns to look at her, completely ignoring her question again. "Did you know that it's not working?" he asks instead, shaking his head as he looks back at the piece of metal.
She furrows her eyebrows in confusion - as far as she knows there's nothing wrong with her laptop - and sits down on the couch next to him to get a better look at the screen. She laughs quietly when she sees a familiar text she's gotten acquainted with in the past few years. "It's not working because there's no internet connection," she explains to him, still grinning to herself. "I'm surprised you could turn it on in the first place," she teases him.
He pretends to be offended by her assumption that he's so thick he can't even turn it on, but seeing the smile on her face, he really doesn't care. It's been so long since he actually made her smile, and it feels nice to do that again even if it wasn't intentional on his part. "I'm not that stupid, Violet. I recognize a power button when I see one."
"What do you need it for?" she asks again, getting even more curious when she sees him avoiding her eyes and even blushing a little at her question.
"I was going to find a way to go back in time," he shrugs like it's no big deal, but he's embarrassed, still unable to look at her.
She doesn't know what to say to that. She certainly wasn't expecting him to be so serious about this whole thing but she should've known better. He's Tate, after all. And even though it's ridiculous that he thinks he can actually do it, it's also very adorable. This is exactly the kind of thing her Tate would have done, the Tate she fell in love with, the good Tate, the romantic Tate, and it makes her heart melt. She even lets out a little giggle.
His head snaps up, scowling because he thinks she's laughing at him but the genuine smile on her face tells him otherwise. "Tate… if you're going to find a way to go back in time, it's not going to be through the internet," she tells him gently but he just shrugs.
"Well, it's a start. So can you explain that internet thing to me? How can we fix it?"
"With money."
"I could ask Constance," he offers half-heartedly, shuddering at the idea of asking another favor from the woman but he'd do it. For Violet, he'd do it.
"Tate…" She wants to tell him that there's no need to ask Constance because there's no way he will find anything useful about time traveling on the web, or anywhere else really, but she realizes that she could use that internet after all. It's been so long since she had a connection to the outside world – only on Halloweens or when a new owner moves in, but neither lasts for long. She wanst to get to know the world again, find out about the new things and new discoveries. Not to mention that taking Constance's money sounds very appealing to her. So she nods and gives Tate a small grin. "Be my guest."
For the next few weeks, Tate does everything in his power to find a way to undo the things he's done in the past, all the things which made him lose Violet.
He arranges things with Constance who brings them a small weird stick a few days later. He has no idea how that will help them with the internet thing but Violet smiles and puts the thing in her laptop and then it's working so he guesses Constance knew what she was doing after all.
But he finds nothing on the web.
He talks to one of his mother's stupid medium – another favor from Constance, he needs to stop with them before she starts thinking he owes her something back in return – who has no idea how to help him but brings him a few books on the topic just in case.
He reads through them all but they're full of bullshit, nothing in them that would be able to help him. It seems like Violet has truly given him an impossible task.
But he never gives up and shrugs off all those comments about how stupid he is for even trying – mainly coming from Hayden, the resident whore of the house.
"Oh my God, you're pathetic," she sneers from behind his back while he's sitting in his favourite chair, turning the pages absentmindedly. He has already read all the books, now he's reading them again, trying to find a hidden meaning behind the words. To his great disdain, he has to realize that there's none.
"It's the one thing she asked of me. I'm not going to let her down." The only reason he hasn't just given up yet. He has to make things right with Violet again, he wants to prove her that he can do it and he will.
"Well, that's too bad because newsflash, kiddo: you can't travel in time."
And there it is.
The truth.
Finally someone said it out loud. He hates that it had to come from Hayden of all people.
"We're ghosts," he shrugs. He would never admit that he agrees with her. "If ghosts exist, why couldn't I?"
"Whatever," she shakes her head, throwing her hands up in the air when she sees that he's not in the least interested in her. "Let me know if you've finally come to your senses and wanna have some fun." She winks in a seductive manner – or he guesses that's what she was aiming for, personally he finds it revolting – then disappears.
Tate goes back to reading his book.
Constance dies on the second of October.
She was murdered in her own house, stabbed in the stomach seven times in her sleep. There are no suspects.
The only reason Tate is mildly disappointed is because now there's no one outside the house who will get them the free stuff they crave.
A week later, Tate's peaceful days of researching is disturbed when someone decides to buy the house.
And Violet was right, it was only the calm before the storm.
Because the new owner is no one but Michael Langdon himself.
She's laying on her bed, an old book in one hand, stroking her dog in the other when he approaches her. She hasn't seen him ever since Michael bought the house and she can tell that he's nervous to be around her and see her reaction to himself. Yet he couldn't keep away.
"What are you reading?" comes his soft, quiet voice. He doesn't startle her because she knew he was there, she knew it for half an hour now when he first showed up in her room, although invisibly. It's taken him this long to gather up the courage to speak. Or maybe he just liked to see her reading without a care in the world.
"Let the Right One In," she answers, holding up the book cover for him to see. There's no recognition on his face but she didn't expect any. "I'll let you borrow it one day."
He nods gratefully – the idea of finally reading something else other than his books of time traveling is more than appealing – and he'd do anything just to feel closer to Violet in any way.
He smiles softly when he sees the dog snuggled up next to her, her tired eyes dropping closed as Violet continues to stroke her fur gently. He was right, the puppy did help her. "Did you name her?"
"Kitty," she nods.
"But that's a cat name."
"So?" she raises her eyebrows and he can't hold back a smile. His Violet, always a rebellious one, even in the littlest things.
But his smile disappears at her next question, reminding him of why he came here in the first place.
"What do you want, Tate?"
He shrugs at first, avoiding her inquiring gaze, and to her eyes he looks so much like a lost little boy that it's hard for her not to reach out and comfort him. The way he's standing at the edge of her bed, heartbroken and desolated, reminds her of another memory in another life, when he had confessed his love for her for the first time, asking her to accept it and accept him.
Now he only whispers two words. "I'm sorry."
She knows what he's apologizing for – he's apologizing because his son with her mother moved in and that would put a damper on anyone's mood. But she's going to have to burst his bubble.
"You think I'm upset he bought the house?" At his tentative nod she shakes her head. "I'm not. He's not your son, you know."
Tate stares at her emotionlessly for a moment, trying to process what she just said. Confusion clouds his features and he wonders if she's really lost it this time. "He… is."
She almost smiles at his blindess. He could be so oblivious sometimes. "Have you ever taken the time to look at him? I mean, really look at him?" she asks and she's not surprised when he shakes his head no. Truth be told, he wasn't interested in the little devil at all. "Well, you would have seen that he's basically the nineteen year old version of my father, minus the hair."
He's silent for a long time, and she begins to wonder if he even heard what she just said, or went into shock because of it. The expression on his face is unreadable when he eventually does speak. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Doesn't it?" she raises her eyebrows disbelievingly. Personally she thinks it makes perfect sense. "The house didn't want to let go of your son. Of its own son. So it made him weak and he died shortly after his birth. It's not that surprising."
"And Michael?" His brain starts working in overdrive, wondering if she could be right. He unconsciously descends down next to her on the bed, lost in his thoughts. She can see that he's starting to warm up to the idea so she goes on.
"To make the baby weaker, the house made Michael stronger. And the evilness in him?" she continues when he opens his mouth, already knowing what he was going to ask. "I guess it's my father's rebellious streak and being born in this house. Or maybe he's just simply… a psychopath. Who knows?" She pronounces the word carefully and looks away from him. Psychopath. Her father thinks that's what he is. But Ben was always a shitty therapist. And aren't psychopaths suppossed to feel only shallow emotions?
Tate's love for her is the deepest emotion she has ever witnessed in her whole life and death.
"So he's not my son?" he questions her one last time, just to be sure.
She smiles as she answers him. "He's not your son."
As the ghosts soon find out, the new man of the house has a particularly annoying habit that no one approves of: namely that he likes to bring people to the house and kill them there.
Anyone will do for him – from homeless dirty men to rich business people, anyone who's foolish enough to go with him ends up dying in the house.
And the worst part is that no one can do anything about it.
They can't scare him away because he knows the truth about the ghosts and monsters in the house.
They can't kill him because he would be stuck here forever.
Michael knows that all too well and he laughs in their faces whenever someone dares to show themselves to him. (Which is not too often, not even Moira wants to prance around as a naughty little maid for him.)
If he continues brining new ghosts to the house every week, they would be crowded soon enough.
Violet is smoking a cigarette, thinking of ways to get rid of the little monster as she watches him kill yet another rich and spoilt blonde whore from the doorway. She feels no sympathy towards the girl, at all, but she has no desire to be stuck with her for the rest of her afterlife and…
Well, she looks no older than twenty. Is it so wrong of her that she wants to keep the bitch away from Tate?
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Tate goes to stand beside her, watching, maybe even admiring Michael's work from the shadows. He's changed, he tells himself, but nonetheless, he's always liked the blood and the carnage. That's not a crime, is it?
Violet shakes her head slowly, grumbling under her breath while taking deep drags of her cigarette. "The little shithead… If he keeps this up this house will be full before you know it."
"I don't understand why this is good for him," Tate wonders out loud. What is he trying to achieve by killing all these people here in the house?
"Who could understand the fucked up mind of psychopath?" She looks at him with a little smirk. She was happy to see that Tate's eyes hadn't lingered on the blonde girl who was undoubtedly what men call 'sexy', especially in her undressed state. It made her feel a little better.
"Your dad must be so proud," he snickers, wondering what Ben's face looked like when he found out about all this. It must have been pretty hilarious.
"I don't think he knows. That Michael is his son, I mean," Violet pouts. She would have been happy to see her father's reaction too and she plays with the idea of telling him but she knows she won't go through with it.
"But it's so obvious."
"After I pointed it out."
He doesn't comment on that because she's right, he wouldn't have noticed it on his own either. He turns his attention back to the murder at hand – Michael is dragging his knife up the woman's thigh while she trembles in fear and he laughs cruelly. Tate is suddenly very glad the boy is not his.
He's a murderer too, that's true, but he's never done any of the things he's done purely just for fun. Unlike Michael.
"We could still stop him," he suggests. Saving lives isn't his strength, taking them is, but he guesses he could try if that's what Violet wants.
But she isn't too keen on the idea either. "He would only kill us. Or we would kill him but nobody wants to be trapped with him for eternity." She sighs and puts out her cigarette on the doorframe. "There's nothing we can do."
Tate is silent for a while as he contemplates an idea. Maybe there is something they can do. "Halloween's just around the corner."
"So?"
He looks down at her, smiling a sinister smile. "It's the perfect opportunity to kill him outside the house."
There's an evil gleam in her eyes when she understands what he's implying, the darkness inside her roaring happily at the idea, and she nods. "Let's do it."
Unfortunately for Violet and Tate, Michael Langdon is a smart man and he has no intention of leaving the house on the day of Halloween. Not when all the ghosts can walk free and they could very well kill him wherever they want to.
If he dies, he plans on dying inside the house.
It makes their plan a little more difficult but nothing they couldn't handle.
So when everyone besides Michael and the two forever dead teenagers left the Murder House, they put their plan into motion.
The first part is Violet's – distract him.
"Hello there." Her plan to catch him off guard doesn't quite come together. He doesn't even flinch, merely smirks and turns around slowly to size up the girl who's his sister for the first time. She had never showed herself to him before because she didn't see the point in it. Now though, there is a point.
To kill him.
"Violet," he nods in greeting, his lips curling into a vicious grin. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you." He grabs her hand in his and raises it to his mouth to press a kiss on it, turning his charm on in full mode.
Violet doesn't bother to hide her disgust, yanking her hand away immediately, clutching it to her side. She casts a brief glance at the spot where she knows Tate is hiding and she can practically feel his anger radiating through her. He's always been such an overprotective and jealous idiot when it came down to her and she prays he won't screw up their plan now. If he's already mad, what will happen later?
But he stays put and doesn't come out of the shadows, and she has to bit her lips not to let out a sigh of relief.
"Ugh. You reek of growing up with Constance." That wasn't a compliment, rather the worst kind of offense. "You know she's not actually your grandmother, right?"
He nods. "I realized that, yes."
"Is that why you killed her?"
"How did you know I killed her?" He crosses his arms across his chest, watching her with an unreadable look in his blue and cruel eyes.
"I didn't," she shrugs. She really didn't know but it wasn't hard to guess. She wonders why the police don't suspect him in the first place.
He's the perfect killer.
Too bad he's going to find his match in Tate.
"Smart," Michael approves, grinning. "When she figured out the truth, that I wasn't her precious little son's offspring, she didn't really take it well. Her… attitude towards me changed. I didn't like it," he shrugs, a smug smile playing on his lips as his eyes get lost in the memory of what he did to Constance.
"Gotta admit, I can't blame you." She looks at her brother up and down before adding. "Or her."
He chuckles deeply, taking a step closer to her. She has to fight the urge to step away from him. Instead she leans in closer and puts on her best seductive look that she's only ever got to practice on Tate. It worked on him but he was in love with her so his reaction might have been a bit biased.
"Why are you still in the house?" he inquires, tilting his head to the side.
She answers without missing a beat. "I had nowhere better to go. And now we're here, all alone," she trails off, moving so close to him that they're almost touching. She peers up at him through her lashes and images it's Tate who she's trying to seduce but Michael's blue orbs make it hard. "Don't you wanna find out what it's like to be with a ghost?" Without waiting for an answer she presses her lips against his and it would be better because now she can't see his eyes, but it's not because she can feel his lips on hers and they're nothing like Tate's.
Tate's are soft, sweet, gentle. Michael's are the opposite: they are harsh, ragged and demanding against her own and the contrast is blatant. She almost pulls away before she reminds herself to stick to the plan, hoping that Tate will now soon pick up on the action and praying she doesn't throw up.
Luckily she doesn't have to wait for long, probably because the sight of Violet and Michael making out makes Tate's stomach churn with bile too and now he's more eager than ever to kill the bastard.
As Violet continues to distract the Langdon monster, Tate approaches him from behind and with the knife he's been holding in his hands, stabs him in the back once.
Violet finally lets go of his lips, letting the boy fall to the ground. His eyes go wide as he looks down at his bloody white shirt, then when realization sinks in, he lets out an amused little chuckle. "I have to admit, you got me good, Violet. I like you."
"If you were smarter," she growls out as she towers above him, "you would have found it weird that suddenly I want to sleep with you when a few minutes before that I was grossed out by you."
Michael chokes out a laugh, completely unbothered by the gaping hole in his stomach. It looks like the whole situation hasn't dawned on him yet, not until Tate pulls him up by his arms and starts dragging him out of the house. Then he starts to panic.
He grits out words through his teeth, begging him to stop but Tate doesn't listen. Violet follows them outside the street and watches as her ex-lover throws her brother on the ground and raising his knife, he plunges it into his neck.
She smiles. Now they are all free of the little monster. He had it coming.
"Nice job," she comments, watching with fascination as the blood flows out of his neck, staining the sidewalk.
"You know, I think he's the first person I've killed who actually deserved it," he sighs, thinking that there's a first time for everything. He looks at Violet to find her staring at him with a strangely soft expression on her face – he'd like to say it's a mixture of happiness, pride and love, but he's afraid he's just being delusional.
"What?" he murmurs quietly. She doesn't answer him, tearing her gaze away from his face after a few minutes and motions back to the house.
"Come on."
Once they're inside, she plops down on the couch in the living room, sprawling out lazily while he hovers around her uncomfortably. Does she want him to go now? Would she mind if he stayed?
He has no fucking clue.
Closing his eyes, he lets out a sigh. With spending the last few days on planning Michael's murder he had gotten nowhere with winning Violet back. Teaming up with her today felt good, like old times, but for all he knew she didn't feel the same way. Maybe she only agreed to do this with him to remove the little monster from the picture. For everyone's sake.
"This isn't really how I wanted to spend my Halloween," he says at last, taking a seat in front of Violet. Her eyes snap to his, raising an eyebrow, a smirk forming on her lips.
"You had other plans?" Her disbelieving tone should offend him but it's completely justified. For the past eighteen Halloweens he had done nothing except sit in his rocking chair in the basement, just like on every other day of the year. Without Violet he had nothing to do, nothing he could amuse himself with, so it was hard to believe he'd planned something this year.
But he had, although that was not nearly as exciting as killing Violet's brother with her help, but it would have helped him more in getting her back one day. "I was going to visit some libraries, see what I can find out about time traveling."
She stares at him in surprise for a few moments, her mouth hanging open, her eyes full of shock. She had no idea he was still working on that. He too has to know that what he's trying to do is impossible, yet he's completely serious about the whole thing. All just to win her back.
She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Oh, Tate. Let it go."
"No," he shakes his head, completely resolved. "No, I promised I would do anything. I promised," he repeats, trying to make her see that he can't, he doesn't want to let her down again. This is his last chance to redeem himself, to prove himself. He can't afford to mess it up.
"Well, I say it's alright for you to break your promise this time." She gives him an encouraging smile which does nothing to change his mind.
"I already broke too many," he whispers, his voice laced in guilt, thinking of all those promises he made to her. I would never let anybody or anything hurt you. He said that words to her once upon a time and he wanted to mean it, but in the end he hurt her worst out of everyone. Of all the horrible things he's done, this is his biggest regret.
Her face falls as she thinks of those same words he uttered to her so long ago. She was naive to believe him then and give him her heart, and she swore she would never make the same mistake again. But the part of her that still loves him and always will – the larger part of her, if she wants to be honest – craves him and his closeness and his companionship, and hates that she can't have him.
"Tate…" she trails off, biting her lip in thought. She doesn't even know why she wants to convince him so bad to just let it go, after all it isn't her problem, not her time he's wasting on such nonsense things. Maybe she's afraid that one day he will grow tired of the fruitless researches, and grow tired of her too, deciding that she's simply not worth the effort.
She's selfish when it comes to him and she doesn't want him to give up on her. She doesn't want to be without the constant presence of his love.
"Honestly, I don't think you can do it. I don't think anyone can travel in time."
"Maybe," he shrugs. He looks unbothered by her incredulity. "But I can try. It's not like I have anything better to do." In his opinion, trying to find a way to be with his Violet again is a good way to pass the never-ending time.
She gets a contemplating look in her eyes, thinking that maybe she can learn to satisfy both parts of herself warring inside her over Tate Langdon. She can't be with him, not yet, maybe not ever, she's not sure, but despite that she also wants to be close to him most of the time, so maybe she can offer to be his friend for now. Maybe it could work.
She swallows nervously, preparing herself to say the next words. "What if I gave you something better to do?" His eyes glued to hers, he frowns in confusion, not daring to let himself hope until she smiles softly. "Do you want to play cards?"
Okay, the idea of Michael not being Tate's son comes from shootingstella's wonderful story, Iris, and I just loved the possibility ever since, so it pretty much became my headcanon :)
The first poem Tate leaves her is Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, and the second is last verse of Lord Byron's When We Two Parted.
Also, holy fucking shit, this is the longest story I've ever written and I've written it in a few days. That's incredibly huge for me, so I'm proud of that, even if I'm not really proud of the story in itself (I just don't think it's my best work)
Kathy