A/N: Set after 'Birth'.
Hope you guys are enjoying the holidays!
She sat on her bed, one hand lifting a cigarette to her lips and the other absentmindedly toying with the blade it held. The significance of her promise to him had been weighing on her, but she was dead now, so the promise had to be void, right? Either way, it had begun to elicit unusually twisted thoughts. If I had traveled back to the past and killed myself, would it be considered murder or suicide?
"God, this is such bullshit." Surely she was going crazy.
"What's bullshit?" But then there he was, seemingly appearing out of nowhere like he always did and she found herself wondering where he went when he wasn't there. Or if he could even remember where he went because if he did then wouldn't he know that he was dead? She wasn't entirely sure how any of this supernatural fuckery worked. But he does know he's dead. His lies were beginning to confuse her.
Exhaling a puff of air with the relief (could you call it relief if she still disdained his presence?) that it was just him and not one of the other disfigured characters inhabiting the house, she huffed, "Would you stop doing that?"
"Would you stop doing that?" he countered, emphasizing the object in her hand with raised eyebrows and a pointed glance.
"If you're here to criticize me, you can just leave now. It can't really do too much harm to me any more." She refused to let him make her feel like child, but…wasn't that what she was? Just a fucked up kid with demons that the devil himself couldn't chase away?
He was surprised by the defeat in her voice, that voice that usually held such ferocity, such spunk. When she was alive, a part of him wanted to show her just how deadly her habit was, wanted to press that little sliver of metal just a little too deep, wanted to drown in the small puddle of sticky redness that was sure to form on the bedroom floor, wanted to so desperately not give a fuck about those fragile wrists and the girl that abused them.
And sometimes he really hadn't (given a fuck, that is).
More often than not, he found himself clinging to what scarce humanity he felt he wielded. It was as if the devil and god were raging inside of him and he was never quite sure which he wanted to take control. With her, though, the darkness never stood a chance.
"I didn't come here to argue."
She didn't understand him, doubted she ever would because, honestly, if she still couldn't fully grasp the concept of death how could she understand the beings it possessed? It took her weeks to finally accept that her grandma wasn't coming back, that she wasn't just taking an extended vacation and would be coming home soon. But death didn't work like that. One couldn't decide when they wanted to pop in and out of existence.
So why could he?
If it wasn't for the absurdity of the thought (there is no coming back from death…right?) she would have slightly resented him for it. She supposed she should probably hate herself for it now, too.
She had read somewhere once that, 'no more things should be presumed to exist than absolutely necessary.' Which means that a murder victim is usually killed by someone known to them; that faeries are made out of paper; that you can't talk to someone who's dead.
"Then why are you here?"
"I just wanted to see you, I guess."
"I thought I told you to go away." She breathed him in with the smoke and relished in the bitterness of it all.
Taking a few tentative steps towards the bed, he watched her discard her cigarette into an ashtray while simultaneously taking note that the razor never left her palm. "You never answered my question," he said, finally sitting down near the spot where her hips met the mattress.
"I wasn't aware that I had to." How could she tell him that he was the reason for the loose hold she had on reality? How was it at all possible that he could be her stability, her savior and yet her hysteria, her downfall as well? Things were never supposed to end up like this. Her dead, psychotic, mass murdering boyfriend wasn't supposed to fuck her mother and leave behind a little demon spawn. And she wasn't supposed to be stuck in this house forever. But he did and she was.
"Come on, Vi. What are you doing?"
Trying to figure out how you can be so sinister and so sweet at the same time; trying to figure out how to unlove you. But ever since she'd traded her home for this Hollywood horror freakshow, he was the only one she could talk to. She'd lost her mind, but she still had him. She assumed it was easy to lose her mind when she'd lost her heart. She had no one else and if being crazy was the only option she had to have any sense of companionship, maybe it wasn't so bad. Returning to his question, she deadpanned sarcastically, "Contemplating suicide. Oh, wait..." For a brief second, she wondered what it'd be like to be a suicidal ghost. Is it possible for me to kill myself again?
"Stop it," he insisted. "I never wanted it to end that way for you. Suicide was too easy of an escape route."
"No, it wasn't." Because if it was, she figured she would've been dead months ago. Hearing her let out a bitter laugh, he glanced back at her hand that carried her vice in hopes that she'd finally decided to let it go. She hadn't and now there was an eerie silence creeping over them; eerie, but oddly never uncomfortable despite all the information she'd learned a few days back.
He understood the darker parts of life all too well (hell, he had lied about being close friends with her brother), but he didn't understand why the girl in front of him had to be so acquainted with that darkness.
But maybe that's why he was so intrigued by her. She knew that the world wouldn't offer much of anything if she asked for it nicely. She wore her scar tissue like it was her lucky charm and there was something he admired about that.
The silence encouraged him to hand out his bouquet of rushed apologies. "Violet, I'm so sor-"
But she never liked flowers.
"Will it hurt?"
He faltered a bit, confused. "What?"
She glanced at the razor in her hand and then back at him. "Will it hurt?" she repeated, ignoring his previous attempt to make things normal again. Or as normal as they could be for two dead, helpless teenagers. Had she been her old self, alive and straightforward and unafraid, the question would've sounded more like, 'Do you like to hurt? You relish in the pain of others, don't you? Anything to make you forget about your own.'
He sighed, nodded his head in confirmation and wondered what that vacant look in her eyes implied. He had tried to save her once, twice, multiple times; from herself, from him, from the horrors of this house. She had told him a while ago that she wasn't afraid of anything and maybe she wasn't. But she spoke with caution now and her 'no bullshit' attitude had vanished. Right now, he wanted, more than anything, for her to address his blood stained past, to take out her anger on him, to release a fury of blunt accusations that they both knew were true. He'd take anything over the state she was in now because now she wasn't Violet.
"Yeah," he told her. "It'll still hurt." 'I do, I do.' "Being dead doesn't numb too much of anything. It, actually, intensifies some stuff."
"Okay." 'Then hurt me.'
"Violet...," he tried again. When she showed no signs of protest, he figured it was safe to continue. "I meant what I said."
Her expression was quizzical, unsure of where she expected him to trail off. He wasn't her knight in shining armor; never had been, never would be. Maybe he was just a ghost of a kid with ruthless mistakes. Or a motherfucker in a rotting corpse.
"The night you died," he clarified, speaking softer as if full volume would make it any less real. "I love you, Vi. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you." As he spoke, he scanned his palm over hers, hesitant to reach for the metallic vice for fear she'd recoil and end up cutting herself accidentally...or maybe on purpose. But as he stole it from her grasp, she willingly relinquished it; she'd been willing to relinquish that and so much more before she'd learned of his demented secrets.
If self-destruction couldn't tame her thoughts though, maybe losing herself in him would. But, no, she was stronger than that. Or at least, she used to be.
"Don't, Tate." She'd given in to him many times before, but she couldn't let herself indulge in him again. "What would that say about me if I instantly forgave you? Everything you've done..." Her voice was cracking, but she refused to let the tears fall.
He'd been reduced to pleading, always was when it involved her. He never begged for anything, but he'd openly beg for her forgiveness if it'd mean winning her back. Struggling to choke back the lump in his throat, he said, "Please, Violet. You have to understand that-"
"Understand what?" she scoffed. That you couldn't buy your siblings your mother's love, so you bought a gun instead? That you couldn't make amends with your wrongdoings, so you made a devil's playground in exchange? That you couldn't save me, so you saved all your secrets to make up for it? "I'm tired of hearing nothing but lies from you."
With the blade successfully discarded, he clutched onto her hand hoping that the spark of his touch would ignite the kerosene of her flesh. "But I've changed. You have to believe me." With red rimmed eyes and a clenched jaw, he urged her to admit that none of his crimes would ever exhaust her. But looking at her now as she failed to hold back sorrow of her own, he realized that he'd left her drained.
"If I forgive you, I'm weak." When a strangled gasp left her lips, she knew he'd won. She'd been attracted to the darkness and now he was giving them a formal introduction. "I don't want to be weak, Tate." His fingertips were leaving burn marks on every inch of her body that he traced. She wanted him to scrawl his name into her skin and etch it onto her ribcage; that way the coroner would know that that was what brought her to her knees; that he, and only he, had managed to see her at her weakest.
But the coroner would never get a chance to examine her body. She'd forever be a decaying heap of bones, hidden somewhere within the property of the Murder House.
"I'm not weak," she told him forcefully, tears finally brimming over the edge and down her face. She looked at him with a pained expression and when she barely breathed out, "I'm not," he pulled her to his chest and thanked whatever deity that he didn't believe in for her not instantly pulling away from his grasp. Instead, she seemed to sink into him, drowning in the twisted comfort that only he could provide.
He kissed her shoulder and she wanted to shudder. He was cold-hearted, but his touch was warm; too warm for a dead man.
"Shh," he tried to soothe away her struggled inhales, but it only resulted in more sobs. She hated herself for finding solace in him when she should've been banishing him again. "I'm not that kid any more; I promise. You've changed me, Vi." He stroked her hair and the circles he palmed into her back did nothing to make her feel like any of this was acceptable.
But she made him want to pretend to be a better person. That had to count for something, right?
She pulled away from him slightly, contemplating her next move. "Tate?" But she couldn't meet his eyes.
"Yeah?"
And that was it.
She was weak.
Before she realized what she was doing, her mouth was on his with her tongue sliding along his bottom lip asking for an invitation that he hastily confirmed. He was finding it more difficult to control himself with her eager nibbles on his lower lip causing sinister visions to excite what little obedience he still possessed. And then her hands were at the hem of his shirt, sliding underneath the scratchy fabric. They urged for a stronger sense of closeness to him, but all he could hear were echoes of, 'Take advantage of me.'
Through closed lids, his eyes were surely clouding over with a reckless lust that he'd successfully contained so many nights ago when the beach had served as their source for an escape. But now they were in her room and she was taunting him again with those soft hands and he felt that he couldn't hold himself back any more.
But this was wrong, all wrong.
Yet he couldn't find it in him to care.
Maybe he hadn't changed after all.
But he missed the way her toes curled the tiniest bit when she came and the way her nails left pleasantly painful indents that sometimes leaked blood when he traced her clit and found that spot. He should be stopping this, but he couldn't. If this was what she needed to make herself feel better than he'd happily play along until she told him to stop (though he doubted he'd be able to control himself by then).
He was the darkness, she decided. So that night, when the darkness came, she decided to treat it like a friend. The repercussions could wait until morning.
After all, she was a kid and children shouldn't play with dead things. But it was far too late for that now.