I don't need to sell my soul
He's already in me
I wanna be adored
I wanna be adored

Every Thursday evening, Dr Harmon went out for a drink at six thirty sharp. His wife, Vivien Harmon, was beginning to think he left their house on this weekly trip for something stronger than a drink, though. Something more ... scandalous, Tate Langdon considered as he sat on the ground beneath the Harmons' kitchen window-ledge. It was a favourite spot of his, that soft patch of grass. Sheltered from cold by the sill, and softly illuminated by the amber ceiling lighting indoors, the eternal teenager could while away countless hours just sitting; thinking. Having to spend all his waking moments hanging around the house, Tate had picked up many of the Harmons' domestic rituals. He heard all of their arguments - caused a lot of them, in fact - and watched all of their tears fall. He had been figuratively handed a map of their minds, a key to their souls. He knew them all better than they knew each other; probably even than they knew themselves.

Tate heard the dull clunk of the front door closing as he sat on his patch one Thursday night, knees tucked up to his chest and cardigan sleeves jammed over his hands. It was a bitter night but he didn't mind. Tate liked to listen to the birds call from their treetop palaces. As a child, he would often try to whistle back to them, hoping they'd hear and hoist him up onto their wings to sail him away from his world and into their own. Hell, he still wished it now. Tate didn't believe in any God or religion shit though, not anymore - he'd been waiting on the guy to answer his prayers for almost twenty years; his desperate pleas to rejoin the living going ignored. He didn't know what he'd done. Gotten himself shot by the man, he supposed. But why? He had no fucking idea, that's why.
And Tate had screwed up again. He'd gone and fallen in love; he'd turned into a total sap because of one girl.
That wasn't the mistake, though: he hadn't fallen in love with Vi before raping her mom first. That was the biggest regret of his life - far more so than his untimely death. Big G in the sky with diamonds wasn't much help, either. Tate guessed it was because there was no salvation for him, he was so far gone. He often wondered if Violet, his sweet Vi, knew what he'd done. Sometimes, when he looked at her beautiful, innocent face, he saw traces of her mother reflected back at him. Then, his memory was thrust back to the night he'd done it, the terror burning in Vivien's eyes emblazoned in his mind. He couldn't escape his crime, his past, and it scared Tate. He was a little boy once more, weeping in the arms of a kind ghost after her child had frightened him. How was he to know back then, when he was so young, that the same ghost who had protected him and cradled him that night would command him to attack - to rape - another kind woman, many years later? And why, why for the love of hell, did he agree? Tate could try to shift the blame on Nora as much as he liked but it was he who had went through with it. He who had committed such a crime. He'd not only hurt Vivien, he'd hurt Violet, too. Back then he had no clue how his feelings for the doe-eyed misfit would develop, how hard he'd fall in love with her, just how deep a grave he had dug himself.

The air was suddenly much icier against his cheeks.

I don't need to sell my soul
He's already in me
I wanna be adored
I wanna be adored

With a final glance at the boughs of the trees around him, a last nod to his feathered allies, Tate stood up, dusted his jeans and melted into the wall he had been leaning against. Emerging in the Harmons' kitchen, the welcoming blast of heat warmed him up almost instantly. Tate harnessed one of the pros of his state and concealed himself, just in case Vivien left the television in her front room for a mid-evening snack. He walked to the staircase in the hall, passing the smoldering ghost of one of Larry's kids and ruffling her hair. She was one of the only ghosts who didn't despise him - somehow, the kid saw good in everybody. It was a shame she'd been the one to burn her way into hell, instead of her father. Her useless, bastard father.

Reaching the second floor, Tate could hear Vi's music floating down the hall. A jangling guitar riff played behind echoing, haunting vocals. She seemed to like the song, Tate thought, considering she'd had it on loop for at least half an hour. That was another perk of his outdoor haunt: he could hear the sounds from Violet's room when he was sitting there. She played good shit for an indie kid. Tate liked his rock a little harder and a lot angrier, but he appreciated hearing what Violet was listening to; it made him feel like they shared something together.
He paused for a moment when he reached her room, unsure whether to knock or not. His hand rested on the wood, fingers arched and quivering as he held them there. After a few moments of deliberation, Tate decided against it. His eyes bored into the door as he stood, hoping he could be granted with some psychic power to let him know if she wanted to see him.
"Vi?"
His voice was merely a whisper, a feeble crack that the blasting Stone Roses track drowned out easily. What was wrong with him? He tried to call her name again, but the words just wouldn't form.
Tate's hand slid from the whitewashed door-frame and into his pocket. He turned around and gazed forlornly at the stretching corridor ahead of him. Watching him silently from the far end of it, her head cocked and a pitying smile on her toddler face, was Larry's dead daughter. She shook her head slowly at the tall teenager.
"She's sad," whispered the young girl. "You're sad, too."
"No I'm not," he snapped back, oddly defensive all of a sudden.
"Then why are you crying?"
Her point was true and as the girl continued Tate rubbed his eyes furiously with his sleeve, making it damp. "It's like my mommy. My daddy, too, but we don't see him anymore. They're sad, just like you and Violet. I think the whole world is sad, really," she said thoughtfully. "Some just hide it better."

Then the little girl, with wisdom far beyond her years, stretched out a tiny hand which Tate accepted immediately.
"Come on," he said, using his free hand to flick endearingly at her nose, "do you want me to read you a bedtime story?"
She beamed up at him in response, and the two headed for the basement.

It was nice to feel adored for once.

A/N: I have no idea what this is - there was a plot somewhere but I think it got lost along the way. I hope you like it, anyway, whatever 'it' is!:)