Author's Note: I've been rather slow with my updates lately; I apologize. I had this chapter half done for over a week and didn't really know how to end it, but I think it turned out nicely. It's just a couple hundred words shorter than the last couple, but the dynamics and everything is really going to shift in the next chapter and it'll be interesting. Keep in mind, like always, that the rating speaks for itself and know what you're reading. Enjoy and a review would be veryvery lovely- and next update should be faster as well!
The day Tate finally finds out that his sister is dead is the same day that he first sees his father after nineteen years of haunting the same house.
Hours of yelling and crates spilled over in the basement was what came from his knowledge that Hugo hadn't actually run away to live his life elsewhere. Knowledge that he had been there all along and hadn't said a word to his son—left him to fend for himself in the mix of a broken family. Nineteen years of being a walking corpse in the Murder House and he hadn't known that his father was in the same boat. He'd always thought Hugo to have been the better person, but now he knows he was just born of swine and serpents. Nothing more.
…
When Tate's first face-to-face with his father, he has him against the wall in a choke-hold without any hesitation, a snarl hot on his breath. Hugo tells him to 'stop' with heated and rushed words—tells him that he's sorry and then tells him that he didn't mean to leave all his children to die.
Tate only lets go of his throat long enough to learn that Adelaide Langdon was hit by a car a few Halloweens ago, before he spits in his father's face and bashes his skull into the brick.
There's a groan that sounds through the entire house as a shelf crashes to the floor in the basement. Glass smashing mixes with the sound of screaming and yelling—it creates a terrifying cocktail that shakes Violet to the bone and keeps her rooted upstairs in the kitchen to listen. All at once very afraid and also intrigued, she pours herself a cup of tea with lashes lowered as she works to hear just what's happening under her feet.
She hears a muffled 'fuck you,' and has to guess that Hugo's woken up. A loud crash and a caterwaul like the one a cat makes when you step on its tail—she knows Tate's just going to wait until his father continues to wake up once again, before he kills him over and over until the burn in the pit of his heart goes away.
She knows it'll never really go away and that it'll always be there to haunt him in the back of his mind.
Violet wonders if he'll cry. The idea brings a sick grin to tug at the corner of her lips.
…
He doesn't cry.
When he emerges from the basement, he storms past her without a single glance and heads up the stairs without a word. Something in his eyes—something festering and something angry scares her.
She knows Tate's lost it when she goes in the basement to find Hugo Langdon gutted like a pig and choking on his own blood and teeth.
"I never had a funeral, you know," he mutters. He won't look at her—he's staring out the window in the upstairs bedroom.
"I don't care. Neither did I."
"…"
"Wonder what they did with your body." She has to imagine he's just a pile of bullet-chewed bones somewhere lonely and far away from the house. Somewhere his mother probably chose because she was sure that no one else in town wanted to see Tate Langdon have a proper burial. "Your head stone is probably beat to shit. People probably hated you even in death… still hate you." The idea makes her smile.
"At least I have a head stone somewhere out there."
"If there's anything left of it."
All she got in answer was a shrug, almost like he didn't even care about having his own retort. He probably didn't.
"So, what's your deal now? Daddy Langdon doesn't wanna hang out with you?"
"Nope, and I don't care either." His tone is flat and his eyes refuse to look at her—she can tell he's lying and that it's slowly killing him inside. He's still staring out the window and avoiding her gaze.
"Liar. All this time he's been here and you thought he cared. You thought he was out there and things would have been different if you ran away with him," Violet starts and her voice is malicious; there's new found venom lacing her words and she almost surprises herself with it. "Your life was doomed the second you left the womb. There was never any second option and there was never any what-if. Don't lie and act like that doesn't upset you."
"Fuck you, Violet, shut the fuck up."
"All along you were just an insignificant kid that never made anything of his own life other than taking others away. The only person that ever cared about you was your crazy mother—and what does that say about you?"
"Say one more thing about it and I will beat the shit out of you."
Silence sinks in between the two of them and Violet wears a shocked look of parted lips and eyes wide. Him threatening to hurt her? The idea seems so strange and she's almost sure that Tate's bluffing.
Almost.
He's finally looking at her now, but only just a sliver—jaw craned so he can gaze over his shoulder at her without really having to turn. She can hardly see the color of his eyes and she's just standing in his peripherals; almost like a warning. Something in the way he goes quiet and stares without really looking her dead in the eyes makes her think that he could be serious, but something compels her to continue. Bitterness and anger that swells and grows within her like a storm that waits to erupt and overflow; she's not done with him. Not done digging her teeth in and sawing, sawing… sawing away at the flesh.
Violet takes a step towards him with pursed lips and an angry gaze. "You'll beat the shit out of me? No you won't. You're too much of a pussy to ever lay a hand on me—because you're too afraid I won't forgive you. Your entire existence revolves around some dead girl who doesn't even love you anymore."
It only takes a second, he moves so quickly.
Long fingers flex and they reach out to snap around her arm like iron vices—it only takes him a moment to have her back shoved into the wall. Tate is only millimeters away from her and his nostrils are flared like a bull who's seen red.
"You wanna know what your existence revolves around, Violet? You have nothing better to do other than to follow me around and take out your anger on me. You're bitter and you hate that I fucked your mom, so you obsess over it and waste all your time trying to make me feel bad about it by acting like a petulant child," he snaps. His face is so close to hers and he's shaking now—his voice is getting progressively louder. For the first time in a long time, Violet was near the point of cowering. Something in his voice and the way his eyes are wide and pupils are dilated; she doesn't know what to say and she's too frozen in place to move.
"You say you hate me, but you won't just leave me alone and forget about me. So what the fuck does that say about you, Violet?" he asks, but she doesn't respond. She just stares him in the eyes with her jaw set. "What the fuck does that say about you?!" he repeats- and this time, his voice cracks because he's yelling in her face and he's shoving her tighter against the wall.
Quiet. Another silence falls between them and she doesn't know how to respond because she knows exactly what that says about her and she hates him for picking up on it.
So she spits in his face instead.
A snarl and the loud crack of his hand hitting the side of her face fills the room. She recoils and her hair follows to fall and shield her features.
He'd called her bluff and there was a smarting hand print on her cheek as proof.
"Don't act so shocked; you might as well have asked for it."
She only just now sees it, hadn't recognized it before. She'd stopped fearing Tate all together, stopped taking him seriously; and it had taken him backhanding her to regain that fear—to regain that respect and the knowledge that Tate Langdon was not a force to be reckoned with. He was a monster; an angry and violent monster with cruel intentions and only one weakness, and being his only weakness had made her forget that maybe he wasn't so sweet to everyone else.
Maybe he wasn't so sweet to her anymore either.
"I hate you." The words spit past her lips and ride out on angry breath.
"This is your fault. If you stopped bitching enough to realize that none of it even matters than maybe you'd feel a little better. You're dead, Violet, and nothing matters anymore because your whole family is dead too," he answers and his voice is angry—his face only inches away from hers.
"Only because of you."
"Shut up. I didn't kill them, I just fucked up. If I wanted them dead, they would have died long before they did, so stop it."
Violet's gone quiet and now she's simply staring at him. What was she supposed to be anymore? Angry? Upset? Both just seemed insignificant now and she hadn't even realized it until now. Nothing really mattered and it was his fault. Back when things did matter and her lungs needed oxygen and her cheeks could flush—it seemed as though she cared even less in a time when it was actually necessary.
She had never wanted a funeral until the opportunity was taken away from her.
"I hate you," she spits again because it's all she can muster. She's shaken and she hasn't felt this way in a long time.
"I hate you too. So now what?"
A silence falls between the two because neither of them really know what comes next.
And then his lips are on hers and they're wild and angry with need. Hot, passionate and hungry—Tate Langdon has the ghost-girl pinned to the wall by the force of his bony hips angling into hers and fingers held fast to each of her upper arms. Violet doesn't push him away, but she doesn't respond enough to make it satisfactory, so he digs his teeth into her lip and the pads of his fingers put enough pressure into her flesh to nearly bruise.
A warning; and she's finally a slave to his love—to his hate.
But Violet's angry too and the second she's able to, she bites down hard into his invading tongue.
"…-" A gasp and he pulls away enough to spit blood to the floor and suck on the appendage—waiting for the sting to stop while Violet stays rooted in place. Why wasn't she running? He answers the question himself because he knows perfectly well why she was still there. Because as much as she hates him, she still likes the feeling his dick gives her and she hates herself for it in turn.
Eyes flicker to rise and Tate meets her gaze with a seriousness that nearly makes her quiver—enough anger in his eyes to makes her feel all at once afraid and aroused at the same time.
And then they're kissing again; he's sucking the air out her lungs and filling his stomach with it—tongue down her throat and hands back on her flesh to leave hand prints all across her. Violet's legs hitch over his hips and Tate pushes in close enough to suffocate with rough and calloused touches. He's an angry hurricane of messy kisses and needy hands; fingernails digging into her skin and teeth snapping.
A monster.
She kisses him back with a fire that's only been ignited by his newfound violence; and she knows she's been lying to herself because she hates him for the exact thing she loves him for. As much as Tate acted like he was a crying mess of a man at her hands, he wasn't and that much was apparent now under the force of his touch. Constance once told her that Tate was sensitive and lacked grit, lacked a backbone—she wasn't so sure anymore. Maybe he just had a couple screws loose and she was the one thing that had kept him hinged together.
Strong and feverish hands skirt up her sides and bunch the female's shirt up her midriff in an unorganized fashion while teeth bite down onto the flesh at the side of her neck.
Violet hates him with every fiber of her being, but it's harder than ever to deny that she did in fact once love him when he's leaving hickeys to flower out in a trail down the hollow of her throat. Hitching breath and the slow, revolving cant of his hips into hers—she's left a trembling and aching mess for him to mold and shape like putty in his dexterous hands. A handful of shaking bones and soft words, wet on their breath—Tate Langdon works to push his hand carelessly into her jeans so he can finger-fuck the other into a hot and bothered mess.
Because he's always liked to have the upper hand and this seems to be the only way she'll ever actually give in to him.
Oh, but he's found another way and its working its way into his nerves and gripping on tight like a spreading plague. Little Violet Harmon responds to violence above all else and so it is violence that she will get.
A rather sharp angling of his hips as he ruts into her leg—she's finally decided that she's had enough and all she has to do to get him off her is send a harsh knee to his groin, before shoving at his chest with her palms. A gasp and a low whine in his throat as one of his hands comes to slap against the wall beside her; holding his weight and keeping his breath like a prisoner in his chest. Angry, but silent, he remains leaned over Violet, refusing to actually look at her while he stares at the wall in frustration.
One, two, three—
It doesn't take long for the pain to ebb away and Tate finally pulls back enough to meet the other's honey hues with gaze livid and lips in a tight line. Oh, there's no stilling of the storm this time, because it's working fast to bubble over and fester into a flood that will swallow her whole.
Done for.
Her words come out like venom on her tongue when she speaks. "If you thought I was going to fuck you again, you're—"
And then her words stop abruptly; cut off and choked away because Tate's forearm is slammed into her throat and pinning her back to the wall in a suffocating hold that they both know she could never escape. Harder and harder—the male ghost is leaning in on his arm that's slowly pushing in her windpipe, and Violet is gasping and choking while she claws at his forearm hard enough to rip through the skin and leave red trails in her wake.
He's not upset and he's not crying. He doesn't look at her with love in his eyes like he used to and he doesn't even look at her like he's angry; because in actuality, he simply doesn't have the energy to care about much of anything anymore. Violet is dead and he's long dead too—his brothers and sister, her mother and her father; they're all dead and didn't leave behind some story or legacy.
Dust that films and crusts over the top of a bookshelf that's been picked clean of any novels.
She struggles for a few moments and her soft petal lips turn blue, before her eyes finally roll in their sockets and she stills. Dead and done—for now, at least. He doesn't let her fall or crumple, no, because deep down and buried somewhere secret, he still loves her and still has to look out for her no matter how much she hates him. Hands take a gentle turn and slowly lower her limp body to the floor and Tate arranges her in what would be a comfortable position on her back. Almost like she's just sleeping; and really, that's all she would be doing for a few hours until she woke up. He knows she'll be angry and he knows she'll want revenge, but he doesn't care and can't really bring himself to.
Curiosity had gripped her and made her wonder about him. It had made her wonder where he put his anger and how he held such control. She had looked at him as weak before, but there was no question that now things would be different.
The sound of shoes scuffing the wood flooring and Tate Langdon leaves the room without another thought or word. Because when she was actually ready to talk to him again, he would be there—always was there—but for now, he would not be a pawn in her game.
Not now and not ever again.
