Disclaimer: I do not own American Horror Story.
She laid there in his arms for the longest time, all night, as he kissed her—lips, forehead, even her hands, especially in the places where she was scarred. The fact that she allowed him to do this was amazing to him. He had thought she would tell him to stop, to stay away from her, yet she embraced it, was inclined to it even. She hummed in satisfaction as he held her to him, stroking up and down her arms and smiling like the fool that he was.
"It's getting late." Violet pointed out. It was almost morning. "Actually, it's getting early. We should head back. I don't want my mom to wake up and find an empty bed. And we have school too. It's finally our last day."
It occurred to him that the night was indeed over and he hated to let that happen. He couldn't. "If it's the last day, what's the point of going?" he questioned and she sighed, wriggling away from his embrace. "Seriously, Vi, haven't you ever skipped school before?"
She thought about it, about all of the days that she hadn't wanted to get out of bed, all of the days that she had done so anyhow. She had always put on a brave face, gotten dressed, walked the halls like the zombie that she was. She hated it, but she went anyway. "No, I haven't. And I don't think I should today." It was a losing argument. Tate had such a good point and she didn't feel like fighting with him.
"Come on, Violet. No one will even notice we're gone. We can call in sick. It'll be fun, and let's just say it's on my list of things to do: skip the last day of my senior year." Violet looked at him with wide eyes, surprised at his words.
"You're a senior? How old are you?" She'd guessed he was a junior, just a little bit older than her, but she would have never though that there was that big of a gap between them. This was only her second year of high school.
"I'm seventeen. I thought you knew that." She decided not to say anything more, because she didn't want to seem stupid. "What? Are you afraid that we might get in trouble?"
And that was all he needed to say. He knew it, and so did she. Violet could never turn down a dare, could never be called a chicken. She was brave, after all, immune to all forms of fear. This, breaking the rules, would be nothing. "Fine. I'm gonna go home and change, take a shower. I'll meet you back here at noon and we can figure out what to do today, okay?"
He agreed readily, and soon found himself back in his room, as though the entire night had never happened. He missed her already, because, to him, it all felt like a dream. Never in his life had he ever felt happy, or content, or even satisfied with the world around him. Tate had never felt a part of it, and, in a way, he never had truly joined in. The way he saw everything was different, too different for the liking of some people—most of his peers.
As he walked down the stairs, he caught sight of him mother, crying in the study, her mascara running down her cheeks. He had been her last child left; the other two had died already: Addie and Beau. They'd been troubled, and she'd expected it, though Constance had cried her eyes out for days, gone on a vicious rampage planning their funerals. Yet, he had never seen the woman so distraught, because he was her perfect son, her beautiful son with a future that they both knew he would never be able to live up to. He was dying and, to Constance, he might as well have already been dead. Tate could feel this in her, the frustration he caused. But he couldn't bring himself to feel bad, not really. She was a monster in her own way, too. For, though she was lovely and polite on the outside, he had always lived with what she really was. Sometimes, he thought she drove him mad.
"Constance." He spoke, his voice so hard that it was frightening, to see how cold he had become in comparison to just a short time before. "Don't cry. Not over me. You knew it would come to this, just the same as the others." It made him angry that she favored him, that she always put him first just because he was more aesthetically pleasing. It was all she cared about. But Addie had always been so much sweeter than Tate, he knew, and Beau had never had the chance to be anything but an abomination. Old Mrs. Langdon had made sure of that.
She continued to weep, harder than she had before, but he didn't understand why. It was nothing for him, to see this fate, far enough off in the future to sustain him. But he had Violet, and so, perhaps, it was that companionship that kept him from breaking down in the same way. Constance had no one. She had chased everyone off long ago—everyone, including his father whom he had no more respect for. He had left him with her, left him to die alone with her. How much worse could it be?
He walked away silently, turning to thoughts of Violet, his memories of her warms hand pressed against his chest, the soft skin of her lips against his own. He recalled the way she had pulled on his hair as he kissed her, there in the haunted house, high up in the most secluded bedroom, surrounded by ruins of grandeur architecture and candles that had long before begun to melt into the rough, unfinished, hardwood of the floors. There had been nothing that was not perfect, nothing that he did not deem flawless in those moments: long, treasured moments that had lasted through the whole night, until the break of dawn when the world had intruded on their little paradise. And then, back to the suffering of it they had both returned, comforted only by the recollections of the hours past and the knowledge that they would soon return to them.
Violet didn't seek out her parents when she got home. She snuck upstairs, afraid that they might see her, and hopped into the shower quickly, stealthily. The water was warm, but there was no time to linger there. She had things to do, places to be, people to see—people, or rather a person, that she actually wanted to see. This was new to her and it made her hurry up her actions, made her rush to wash the soap from her hair.
In the meantime, Tate listened to the sound of Constance shouting into the phone. He couldn't make out what was being said on the other line, but the sound of her angry, blood thirsty voice made him want to cower away, into the safety of the farthest corner of the house, high in the attic.
"That's a horrible thing for them to say…and how dare you ask me such an insensitive, insolent question! It's mass hysteria, you bastard! I don't care if you're the Queen of England and I don't care what your job is! Now, if you ever dare to call this house again, I swear you will wish you had never been born! Do we understand each other, Miss Hayes?"
Tate didn't intend to stick around to find out what else him mother had to say to whoever was on the other end of the phone. He slipped out the front door, slamming it behind him. He could hear his mother screaming from inside the house, but he didn't listen, didn't allow the words to reach him. He felt miserable, and he needed to get away.
Violet and Tate met in front of the house, as they had promised, around noon. The sun was high in the sky and the lighting brought a new appearance to the old, abandoned houses that lined the streets. They were all so dilapidated, but much less sinister. The tall grass and over grown weed and busted white picket fences told a story, a story that Violet would have loved to know.
"So, I think I know what we're going to do today." she announced, looking up at his face and marveling, secretly, at how he looked like a cherub in the bright light of summer. His blonde curls, his smile—the only thing that didn't match were his eyes, pools of onyx set in a beautifully celestial face.
"And what is that?" he questioned in response, his hands finding the sider of her face as he leaned in to kiss her. The contact made it hard for either of them to think but, Violet, being the level headed girl that she was, managed to pry herself away.
"I want to find out more about our house. They say it's haunted, but I want to know if there's any truth behind it. I want a story."
Tate loved the way she said 'our house', the way she had claimed it for just the two of them. And it was indeed theirs. It would be there home for always, somewhere deep in their hearts. In Tate's mind, it was where their relationship had begun. In Violet's, it was where she wanted to end it all.