Warning: Incest – if you don't like it, that's totally cool, just don't read, okay? Inappropriate child behavior. Suggestions of abuse. (I got some background, psych, behavior information for this chapter online before writing). This is probably just totally fucked up. But I like how the chapter turned out anyway and it sets the groundwork for future events. So again, please be warned.

Tate & Violet, Rated – M

Disclaimer – I do not own American Horror Story. Only the idea for this fic is mine.

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Summer Vacation, 1987

"Violet," her brother whined, shifting on the chair, making it scrape. She froze, listening. Mama was passed out, drunk on half a bottle of bourbon, downstairs on the couch, but that didn't mean she couldn't spring to life in the matter of a heartbeat. And Violet would get a spanking, or worse, for tormenting her brother.

His wrists were tied behind his back, slender ankles roped to the chair legs. She wanted to, liked to, hurt him, because Constance loved him so much. Because Nora, the sad lady who lived in their basement, loved him. And Daddy, the only adult who had ever thought she was special, worthwhile, had up and left them because her mother was a cocksucker.

That's what Tate had told her at least. And while she knew he was a liar, that his sweetness was an act, he was always honest with her. Her brother was afraid of her. She was smaller, younger, but infinitely more dangerous. Because she owned him, body and soul. He craved her love more than anything else in the world and she knew it.

He was ten years old and she was nine.

"I don't want to play this game anymore, Violet," he told her, wheedling.

"Don't be a baby," she replied, eyes narrowed.

"I'm not," his lip protruded petulantly.

"You're acting like one, Tate." He huffed.

"What are you going to do?" her brother asked eventually, studying her, sounding nervous but she could never be sure with Tate. He could just be playing, acting, testing her. He did that.

He knew the game. She would torture him until he cried out or begged her to stop and she would win. If she got bored before that or ran out of flesh to mar, Tate won.

They had not been terribly creative when inventing their game and simply called it 'Torture Chair'. It was modeled off of a movie they saw late one night after Mama was in bed. One man tortured another until he told all his secrets. But Tate didn't keep secrets from his sister so she tortured him just for fun.

Violet never sat in the torture chair.

She was thinking, tapping her index finger on her chin, glancing skyward. With a sigh and a small sad smile, she said, "I think it's going to be razor blades."

Tate's breathing stuttered as he closed his eyes. His sister was an expert with razor blades, cutting his arms, his legs, tiny lines appearing along his flesh, red pooling in the dip of his elbows and around the rim of his white socks. The problem was how much he liked it; the blood letting, the blood in general. It got him excited to see it running, dripping. It would be even worse, harder for him, if Violet kissed it better. That was her favorite part. Her lips on his skin, his blood on her mouth, his body reacting. She counted those kinds of sounds as a win too, making her cackle with glee, clap her hands, and grin.

Tate liked it when Violet was happy.

She had worked him over in so many ways, with so many implements since they came up with the game. Her creativity never failed to impress him. She had used knives, Constance's metal knitting needles, poking and prodding him, making his mouth twist as he winced, held the noises he was so desperate to make in. She had burned him with matches and stabbed him with needles. She had even once sewn her initials, VL, into his chest, just above his heart, working patiently until her stitches were perfect. He had barely bleed, watching her with a stunned expression, but it hurt so bad he thought at one point that she was killing him.

Next time she pulled out the sewing kit Tate flatly refused to play. He had to put his foot down somewhere.

"Violet! Tate!" Mama was awake.

"Shit," her brother cursed, tugging at his bonds.

Violet whirled around, stashing the envelope filled with razor blades under his mattress, before rushing back to her brother. The stairs creaked, groaned. Tate had his hands free and was working on the first ankle expediently. She never tied the ropes so that he couldn't get out of them; he could get out of anything anyway. Tate was an escape artist their mother told them with a grin for her boy and a scowl for her girl.

"Quick!" she whispered, dropping to her knees to help.

"Where in damnation are you?" Constance Langdon hollered.

Neither child replied.

Tate was up and off the chair, ropes tossed to the floor of his closet. The two of them standing side by side, a unit, a pair of blond heads and innocent looks, gazing across the room with trepidation.

"Well, there you are," their mother drawled, nudging the door open with her black pump. There was a tumbler filled with brown liquid in her hand and her eyes were narrowed in suspicion. "Why was this door closed?" She looked to Violet when she said this, not Tate, even though it was his room, his door. And his idea to play 'Torture Chair'.

"We didn't want to wake you, Mama," her sweet boy, all messy curls and angelic features replied, small hand slipping behind his back to take hold of his sister's even smaller one, squeezing. The girl, beautiful but sullen, no spark or charisma, nodded dutifully.

She pointed one long finger from the hand around her glass and gazed on them balefully. "You all weren't playing doctor up here again, were you?" They shared a glance, each shook their heads. "Because I told you that was wrong. What you were doing to each other. Filthy," she spat, listing sideways.

"No, Mama," they stated in unison.

"Good," she nodded. "Now, I'm going to lie down. And I don't want to hear a goddamned peep out of either of you."

"Yes, Mama," they told her.

Constance stepped out of the doorframe, leaving it wide open, and staggered down the hall to her bed.

Violet breathed a sigh of relief. Dealing with their mother was stressful, something to be avoided whenever possible.

Her brother waited, staring at the ceiling, silent as the grave, before rushing on swift, nimble feet back to the door, pushing it to with a barely audible click.

She was smiling at him, hands rubbing themselves on her little floral dress, the full cotton skirt blooming around her coltish legs. "Torture chair?" She demanded gleefully. But Tate shook his head no. His sister pouted, stomped her foot and spun around, charging over to his bed, climbing up onto his superman sheets. Glumly her eyes cast up to his as he moved toward her, slow, watchful, more graceful than she could ever be. Mama said she was as graceful as a herd of elephants.

Tate laughed at her. "I wanna play something else."

His sister glared, frowning, arms crossed over her narrow, boney chest. "What?"

Tate liked stupid games: Battleship and Go Fish, hide and seek in the basement, shooting the tree outback with his pellet gun, stealing the neighbor's cat and skinning its tail, making it howl and hiss, before he kicked it, stomped it, to death.

He was in front of her then, observing her with interest. It was his sister's turn to squirm.

"Mama's not going to wake up for awhile," he smiled and she shrugged helplessly. "And I want to play our game," he spared a look for the chair, saw her momentary relief, excitement, before clarifying, "our other game."

"Tate, Mama said no."

"I don't give a fuck what she says." His hand was on her knee, her chapped lower lip was between her teeth.

She really was the good one. Not that anybody cared. Except maybe Tate. She was just mischievous, got into things, was too smart for her own good. Curiosity killed the cat her mother liked to tell her and Violet would think, no, that was Tate.

Violet liked cats.

"Maybe I don't want to."

Her brother leaned in conspiratorially, whispering just beside her ear, "Liar. You always want to, Violet."

She shifted backward on the mattress, not agreeing, but making room, and watched his grin turn wicked.

Tate climbed up on the bed, not beside her, but on top of her, his hands on her waist, pulling her skirt up. Violet opened her legs a little wider to accommodate him as she reclined, laying on her back. "See?" His impossibly dark eyes flickered with delight, "You like playing 'Daddy and the Maid' just as much as I do. So say it." She shook her head, more to make him angry than anything else. Tate always got his way. It wasn't fair.

"Say it, Violet," he hissed between his teeth, fingers dancing across her thigh, touching the elastic edge of her pink cotton panties. When she still said nothing he pinched her leg brutally, making her wince, mouth dropping open on a silent gasp.

Tate immediately appeared contrite, shamed, guilty over hurting her. But he would do it again and worse if he didn't get what he wanted.

As an apology he leaned down and kissed her bottom lip, tenderly stroked her bruised and burning flesh.

"You made me do that, Violet," he breathed. "I didn't want to."

She nodded and he kissed her again.

Tate loved kissing Violet, her soft, plaint lips against his firmer, more demanding ones. He could kiss her all day but that was just the beginning of the game, he wanted to get on with it. Get to the good stuff.

"Say it," he repeated a final time as he lifted his head up, extricating his mouth, gazing at her hungrily.

With a sigh Violet gave in. Like he knew she would. Like she always did. Because she loved him so completely that she could never deny him anything he really wanted.

Wetting her mouth she hushed, "Please, Mr. Langdon," voice breathy and begging how he liked, hazel eyes big and round, "I want you. I need you."

And her brother beamed down at her.

A/N - Tate and Violet do not/are not engaging in sex in this scene. It's more a game/simulation of sex. They do not (as of this time) have sex. They are far too young. Just to clear up any possible confusion.