.

Nights in White Satin

.

This will only be three or four chapters at the most. I'm just toying with the idea of Violet haunting Tate in an AU sort of thing, before he went so crazy. I mean, he'll go crazy. But not at first.

Whatever.

.

Nights in white satin, never reaching the end,

Letters I've written, never meaning to send.

Beauty I'd always missed with these eyes before.

Just what the truth is, I can't say anymore.

.

The summer was painfully hot, leaving him surrounded by dead grass and dusty blue skies. The Murder House stood out like a sore thumb against the lineup of cookie cutter houses that dotted the street neatly, the house a tragic monument of glittering windows and a sprawling lawn.

Tate had always liked the house when he was a child, sneaking into the attic and discovering boxes of belongings that were always like secrets. A stash of books and records in a battered trunk, fisherman sweaters folded neatly in a cardboard box. Nora would always ghost about, slipping through the hallways as the house unfolded to her every whim. He could even dimly recall the red haired maid slipping him cookies when his mother had turned her back.

Once his father had run away and left his sickening freak of a mother they'd been forced to leave. Another family moved in for a handful of months before finally moving out, one member short of what they had been. Eventually, after a long winter of emptiness, another family had bought the property.

His mother had been intrigued, her gaze constantly wandering the massive mansion with the dark hallways and shadowy corners. That had been the beginning, the slow buildup of delivering fresh baked goods and smiling sweet little smiles that dripped with venom. Eventually as Tate watched from the distance, his mother finally unraveled an entire family and left them smouldering in her wake.

His mother had boxed them all up and shipped them off towards the Murder House. Addy had been delighted, clapping her hands and spewing out long lines that were staggering in the hot dry air. Larry had only mindlessly smiled at her, barely glancing over his sister.

"Isn't this lovely, Tate?" His mother crowed, lifting a small box from the truck. "Grab your things and pick out your room. We're going to have a happy family here, you know."

"Whatever." He mumbled as he yanked up a heavy cardboard box that had his name printed out neatly on the side.

He had taken his old room, the bed still in the exact same place as it had been when he was a child. He set the box of books down on his bare mattress, casting a long glance over the empty the room. The ghosts would slowly come crawling out of the woodwork.

Birds chirped from outside the street. He ignored them as he slammed the door shut loudly. The four walls around him were darker than he remembered, and despite the proper cleaning procedures, he could still smell the smoke.

"Hey."

He spun around only to find a girl standing behind him. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I live nearby." She shrugged. "My name is Violet."

She stood just a little shorter than him, with long brown hair that hung over her shoulders. She was pretty in a quiet sort of way, the way that usually left guys out of breath. "I'm Tate. What are you doing in my room?"

Violet blinked. "Your room?" She paused, looking around at the empty bedroom, the lone box sitting on the mattress. "I'm just welcoming you to the neighborhood."

"Thanks." He said awkwardly, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Don't let my mom see you. She'll freak if a stranger in her perfect little house." His words taste like acid. "So, yeah."

She began gently searching through his box, lifting up old books and scanning the titles. "You have good taste, you now. Great Gatsby is good." Violet wrinkled her nose as she looked at a thin copy of Catcher in the Rye. "I hated that book when I was younger."

Tate had always adored Great Gatsby, remembering the woman from his childhood with her soft words and old stories. She used to tell him stories about speakeasies and when she was younger, how her world was lit up because of the Great War. "Schools banned that book. I always thought it was funny that something so trivial could get people worked up. It was fucking messed."

Violet grinned bright. "Makes sense."

"So where do you live?" He asked as he took out a small stack of books on birds and set them on the floor. The furniture would be brought up eventually from the moving truck.

"On the street." She set the books down on his bed. "Anyways, I should get going. I'll see you around." Violet winked at him before slipping out of the room and into the hallway, shutting the door softly behind her.

Tate stood alone in his bedroom, surrounded by nothing and yet everything.

.

"I'll tell you this, Miss Nora; you best leave my family alone. We're going to live here in this house, whether you are satisfied or not." Tate could hear his mother's low voice slip through the hallways from the foot of the stairs. "You and your lot of dead freaks will not bother us, or I swear by the heavens I will bring a priest in here for an exorcism."

Nora stood in her long pale dress, her fingers twisting the silk handkerchief into a worried knot. "You lock your baby away in the attic." She mumbled, looking over the house. "Don't the glass fixtures match my eyes?"

"You just keep away from us, will you?" His mother tone was like steel. "Don't you go near my children. I will not tolerate them getting hurt."

"Of course not, who would possibly wish to hurt a child?" Nora looked stunned, her expression filled with confusion.

"Well, you best keep your distance then."

Tate crept further into the house away from the two women and towards the attic. He could hear his brother move about, his chain sliding across the floor. Addy was murmuring to herself in her bedroom, the walls painted bright pink and the entire room filled with 'pretty girl' decorations.

"Tate?" Larry stepped out of the bathroom, his hair still wet from his shower. "What are you doing still up? It's gotten late."

He shrugged. The house felt warm in the summer heat, the night barely cooling off the excessive warmth.

"Hey. What's going on buddy?"

"Don't call me that."

He turned on his heel and slipped down the back staircase, ignoring Larry's persistent calling. The servant's stairwell was filled with cobwebs and dust, leaving footprints behind in his descent. "Fuck them all." Tate mumbled, lightly slapping his hand against the wall. "I'm sick of those fuckers." The stairwell led into the kitchen which he promptly left, sneaking out of the house and into the sprawling yard.

The yard was overgrown with clumps of trees and thick grass that crunched beneath his bare feet, the grass transformed into a burnt brown mess. Further away from the house was a thick cluster of trees that would shield him away from any of the windows. The remains of a structure stood still, vines growing rampant around it. Tate pulled out a carton of cigarettes but didn't take one out. Instead, he just sat on the ledge of the structure, swinging his legs idly.

"Damn, it's hot out." Violet spoke softly, drifting out from the darkness. "I can never sleep in the summertime."

He jumped slightly, unaware of her presence. "Don't you ever go home?"

"Why? Sick of me already?" Violet grinned sharply at him. "My parents are busy right now. So I figured I would come over and say hey." She paused, tossing her hair over shoulder. "So, hey."

Tate rolled her eyes. "You might be the sanest person I've met here today." He offered her a cigarette which she accepted without hesitation.

"That's not saying much." Violet informed him blandly, lighting the white cancer stick. "So, what's your story?"

The neighborhood was silent; all around them was the still darkness of night. Not even a cool breeze rustled through the trees, but rather just a painfully suffocating heat that made simply existing painful. "Not much to tell." Tate paused before running a hand through his hair. "I like birds."

They sat together, straddling the ledge and facing each other. Violet looked different in the moonlight, her face paler and hair darker. "I like birds to. It must be nice to fly away, you know? There's so much bullshit here, the way people act. I'm sick of it. I'd kill to be anywhere but here."

He exhaled sharply. "I hate my mom. She's a cocksucker. Literally. Larry had a family, you know. Except she wanted to get back into this place so she ruined them."

"His wife lit herself on fire, and her children, didn't she?"

"Yeah. It's sickening."

Violet watched the smoke drift in the air, twirling slightly in the night. "I hate people like that. My dad had an affair with a nineteen year old. It ruined my parents. Except my mom was so weak she couldn't just make him leave. It was fucking bullshit."

"Are your parents still together?"

"Nah." She tilted her head back slightly. "My dad sent my mom away to an asylum. She kept raving on about seeing things, and it made her go mental. My dad got sick of dealing with it, so he just sent her away." Violet's eyes looked hard in the dark. "That's what he does to broken people. He just ships them away when he gets tired of dealing with their shit."

Tate looked away. "That blows."

"Yeah."

They sat together in silence, watching the night blur into day.

.

"Tate! Don't you have school, young man?" His mother's shrill voice flooded his room. She stormed over the windows and snapped the curtains open.

"It's the middle of the fucking summer." He groaned out from the tangle of sheets and blankets, flopping over and burying his face in the pillow. "Get the fuck out of my room."

She jerked on the covers. "You do not take that tone with me."

"You're fucking drunk. Get out of my room!" Tate shouted. "Go away!"

Larry knocked sharply on the door. "Honey, what are you doing? Shouldn't you leave Tate alone? It is the summer holidays, you know." He looked confused, brow furrowed at the screaming between the two.

"This boy has no manners." She flung her loose silk scarf over her neck, staggering closer to the bed. "He's so goddamn perfect, but he just bathes in his own irksome dissatisfaction."

"You did just wake him up now, come on. Darling, why not you take a nice long bath and I'll cook you breakfast?"

His mother waved a hand in his direction. "I'll have you know, boy, that this house has darkness in it. She haunts the halls, trying to rip out our joy from our lives. Don't fall victim to it. She'll rip your heart out for her own happiness." Her makeup from the day previous was smudged, making her eyes look wild and frantic as they bore into him.

Tate gave her a thin smile, kicking off the blankets that had wrapped themselves around his ankles. "I know. Her name is Constance."

She screamed wordlessly at him before flinging herself out the room, howling at the noise from the attic.

"Bitch." He smirked as he flopped back onto his bed with one hand stretching out towards his CD player that sat on the bedside table. The Ramones played loudly, drowning out the shouting from his mother and his sister's upset screeches.

.

The mirror revealed the damage. His black eye looked darker in contrast to his pale skin. "Bastards," he spit out as he slammed his hand against the countertop. He slipped out a razor from his stash that he kept hidden under the bathroom mat, anxiously dragging it across his wrist. "Fucking pricks."

"You know if you want to kill yourself you should shut the door." Violet drawled from behind him, stepping into the bathroom and shutting the door herself. "Also, cut vertical. Can't stitch it up then."

Tate spun around, automatically shielding his bloodied wrist from view. "The hell are you doing here?"

She perched herself on the edge of the bathtub. "Doing my thing. Saying hey."

"What do you want?"

Violet looked confused at his split lip and black eye. "I'm assuming whoever did that to you looks ten times worse, right?"

Tate snorted as he grabbed a rag and wiped at the blood. "Of course. They're such pricks, you know. I'm not even doing anything, and they just fucking jump me because they can." He feels so much anger that it burns him. "My mom is making me do summer school. She thinks I'm up to no good, so every fucking morning she sends me off to that stupid school with those freaking morons."

"Let me guess. You go to Westfield, don't you?" He nodded. "Yeah. They love attacking anyone who doesn't match up to their standards. Westfield sucks."

"Yeah. You used to go?"

She grimaced. "Yep. It was a joke. Place blows."

"Wanna go to my room? We can listen to music?"

Violet grinned as she stood up from where she had been seated. "You better have good taste. I swear, if you're one of those pop freaks, I'm out of here." She paused, frowning sharply. "Please tell me you don't like the Beatles."

.

They listen to the Hole, looping songs over again and again. They're sprawled out on the ground playing with a deck of battered playing cards, oversized mugs of lemon tea. "I loved this place when I was younger. We lived here once before, but then after my dad ran away without me we had to move."

Addy walks down the hall, chirping meaningless phrases to herself.

"Your dad left?"

"Yeah. I can't blame him though. My mom's insane. She freaked at me this morning. You should have seen her, ranting and raving. Drunker than hell. Wish he had taken me with him though. I'd kill to get out of this nightmare."

Violet begins sorting through his mess of CDs, searching for something different. "I can't believe how stunted your stash is. Do you only listen to Nirvana?" She switched the disc, playing a Morrissey album. "Your mom sounds nuts. Is she always this high strung?

Tate snorted. "You have no idea. She's making me see some therapist to ensure that I won't blow her brains out." He looked over his cards. "Do you have any eights?"

"Fuck you." She threw the card at him.

He winked. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Violet grinned, tossing her hand of cards down. "Wouldn't you like to know." She poked him the side and made him jump. "Have you heard about the stories yet?"

"What stories?"

She grinned wickedly with sharp teeth. "Everyone who's died in this house is trapped here."

Tate remembers being a child and Nora, her slim fingers running through his messy hair. Sometimes at night the house makes loud noises, wood moaning and creaking. His mother ranting at the house spirit, how he feels watched when he wanders in the basement. "How many people have died here?" He's never really believed in ghosts, a small defiance to his mother's devotion to wage a silent war with the chances of the dead creeping about.

"Lots."

.

Doctor Harmon sits rigid and face pale. "Your mother is worried about you, Tate." His eyes were haunted with dark shadows, telltale signs of insomnia unfolding across his face.

Tate hates the way he scribbles random nonsense in the thick pad of paper that sits on his knee, a fancy pen glinting in the dim light. "Didn't know therapists did house calls. Does that cost extra, or something?" He detests the room they're seated in, with the fancy couches that feel slippery to the touch and towering shelves filled with encyclopaedias.

"Do you want to talk about your relationship between you and your mother?"

He shrugged. "She's a bitch. What else is there to say?"

"Quite a few people have difficulties with their parents. Being an adult can be a challenging thing sometimes. I'm sure your mother is only trying to do what she feels is best for your wellbeing." Doctor Harmon informed him, tone filled with restlessness. "Have you two gotten into any arguments as of late?"

"Yeah. She sucked some guy's cock, and drove his wife to burn her and her daughters alive. Now they're dead because my mom is such a bitch."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Your mother had nothing to do with that accident. I cannot explain exactly the events that took place here, but surely you don't actually believe your mother had anything at all to do with that. Those deaths were something different all together."

"No, it's because my mom couldn't keep herself from wrecking a family."

Tate had a feeling his mother was listening from behind the door. He hoped she was. He hoped his words stung her and made her regret. The idea of her crying made him feel satisfied. "There's so much pain, you know. So much fucking pain, and it ruins people. It turns people into monsters, and all I want to do is kill them. I want to crush their skulls and slit their wrists before they can hurt others. My mother is a bitch who only wants to fucking better herself, no matter who she hurts."

"Tate-" the doctor began but he only cut him off.

He leaned forward in his chair. "You aren't looking to hot right now, doc. Maybe you should go take a nap and get out of my face."

.

But we decide

Which is right

And

Which is an Illusion

.