Author's Note: ... okay, this is the last chapter before the big reveal about Violet. Not that there won't be any fluffy goodness, but I've almost been staving it off because it's just so saaaaad. Baw. Anyway, this one's kind of random, watched the scene where Violet serves Ben in his office, so I went from there.
As always, thank you for your wonderful reviews! :)
Cough into Your Sleeve
Violet barely has her door shut before she hears her father bounding up the stairwell. And sure enough, moments later, Ben's pounding at the portal with a tight fist, the wood behind her head rattling with the force of his determination as she sinks back against it and wills him and all of her life to vanish into oblivion. Of course, it doesn't work.
"Violet! You open this door right now," Ben demands in stern tones, and Violet knows she should oblige, the consequences of not doing so are going to suck, but she just fucking can't deal with this bullshit for another second.
"Just go away," she turns her face, presses her cheek against the door, feels it rumble, hears him sigh outside her bedroom. "I have nothing else to say to you."
"You don't get to talk to me like that and just walk away-"
"What the hell do you even care?" Violet twirls away from the door when it creaks with the weight of her father leaning against it. She wants to put as much distance between them as possible, the idea of being anywhere near him nauseates her. "Does any of this even really fucking matter to you?"
"Just open the door, Violet."
"Go. Away." She shuts her eyes and wishes her father back down stairs, or into a different world altogether, just away. Like the way he had taught her.
As if summoned, by her ear there's a hum and a sudden breath, and Violet makes to gasp but a familiar hand slides into place and plants firmly over her mouth and Tate murmurs against her cheek, "You know it doesn't really work like that."
"Violet?" Her father sounds weary, less fury-driven than his last call of her name. She just stares ahead at the door, her eyes burning and unblinking as Tate holds her firm against his chest, palm still clamped over her pressed lips. "Please, honey. I just... I don't want to leave things like this. Please, just ... talk to me."
Tate's fingers trip slowly down her lips as he relinquishes her face, though an arm stays in place around her middle. His chin rests against her crown and she trembles just a bit against him, somehow anchored and safe yet nervous and irritated all the same. Nevertheless, his proximity gives her courage when she knows she'd buckle to her father's pleading if he weren't here.
"I don't want to talk to you," Violet manages, and Tate nuzzles into her hair and inhales her scent. "I don't even want to look at you." Ben utters her name barely loud enough for her to make out the consonants but she does, and Violet closes her eyes against how miserable it sounds. "Jesus, just leave me alone, dad."
His palm slides against the other side and it sounds like defeat. Then, after a few heavy seconds, his dragging footsteps are echoing down the hall and down the stairs and Violet heaves a shaky breath. The floor buzzes with the silence of the aftermath and Violet can only hear the steady sound of her and Tate's breathing in the quiet.
He speaks first. "Are you okay-"
And she cuts him off, breaking out of his gentle hold with a rounding of her shoulders and a brisk step forward. "I'm fine." She turns to him, face blank as his brow knits into a confused line at her sudden shift in demeanor. "What are you doing here?"
"I.. just wanted to see you," He slowly utters, looking nonplussed to her defensive stance. "Violet, what's the matter?"
"God—I am just so fucking sick of talking about this shit," she throws her hands up and laughs bitterly, before refolding her arms against her chest. "Seriously, maybe if he didn't fuck up everthing in our lives, we wouldn't have to have all these stupid 'talks.'" Violet uses air-quotes and shakes her head, face contorted in disgust. When Tate starts to open his mouth and moves in closer, she brushes past him with an agitated noise, toward her bookshelf, plucks out a random tome and flips blindly through it as she rants on. "Or you know, maybe people could start using this whole 'talking' concept before things start going sour, actually work out their problems instead of having to deal with a giant shit-storm at the end."
Tate sighs, runs a hand through his hair as he listens and settles down in the large chair under her window. He tries his best to stay patient while she carries on angrily, just watches her stew across the room, waiting for it to billow out of her sails. When she finally looks up at him, really acknowledges his presence, her face breaks just slightly and he knows she's running on empty. His heart aches for her in that moment.
"Come here," he waves a hand to beckon her closer and she tosses the book back on top of the others and sullenly makes her way toward him.
When she's close enough, he takes her hand and pulls gently, and Violet settles into his lap, tucked in under his arm with her legs kicked over his in the small space provided. She turns her face into his shoulder and shakes her head, both silently wishing they could bury themselves in each other, and Tate runs soothing circles over her spine.
"I don't know how it got so bad," she speaks softly and he tucks loose stands of hair behind her ear. "Everything... it wasn't all like this. Things used to be pretty good. With mom, with dad..."
She starts to look faraway when he peeks down at her, and Tate imagines she's somewhere in the past, somewhere where leaves change color for the seasons. "And then … like, I never would have thought my dad would be a cheater. Never. It all just got so fucked up, and then they kept saying they were trying to fix shit, but they weren't doing anything to make it better. Not really. They both half-assed it, and now here we are."
His arm winds tighter around her side and Violet exhales, closes her eyes, listens to the beating inside his chest. "I want to get out of here, Tate." He swallows thickly, her head bobs just a bit as he shifts, and she wishes out loud, "I just want to get as far away from them as fucking possible."
"Violet..."
Violet doesn't recognize the tremble in his voice, the trepidation there, but she looks up at him and sees the crease in his brow and the downturn of his mouth, and she grants him a sad smile. "Hey, I don't mean it like that," she misinterprets his concern, but he's comforted by her hand slipping up around his cheek. His face bows into her palm and she scoots up to press her mouth to his.
His confession is gone, both his arms have snaked around her waist, and when Tate looks down at her as their mouths drift apart, Violet can barely recall her rage from moments before. Just like that, with him, everything evaporates. "I don't want to talk about it anymore," she tells him abruptly, and he nods, ever compliant. "It's a waste to keep harping on it."
"Hey, I'm here for you," Tate reminds her, fingertips dipping against her back. "If you want to spend the whole afternoon telling me what a giant douchebag your dad is, we can do that. If you want to play Uno all day, we can." His hands run up her side, pushes her shirt up along the back, and his features shift into something a little more playful. "Aaand if you wanted to work on something else," he suggests lowly with hitched eyebrows and she shivers as his cold palms sneaks up under and wide fingers tinkle at her bra strap, "Wellll, we can do that, too."
Violet scoffs lightly and ducks her blushing face, and she opts instead to wiggle back down to fit into the nook of his arm, and he obliges her by slipping his hands back to places of propriety. He has to admit he's disappointed in her deviation from such endeavors, however. She isn't aware of that though, and continues conversationally, "Actually, I was trying to play with your brother earlier." She tilts her head back to spy him smiling down at her. "My dad saw me talking to nobody in the basement; he probably thinks I'm going crazy."
"Do you?"
"Oh, yeah. I think I lost my shit a long while ago."
He makes a noise indicating he doesn't like that train of thought and she slides off his lap and onto her feet again and holds out her hand to him. "Here. C'mon, I think my dad's in his last session." Tate puts his hand in hers and lets her act like she helps lift him back to his feet. "We can have Moira make us some lunch, then when he's gone, we can go screw around with the stuff in his office."
"Isn't that a little juvenile?" He pretends to be exasperated with her suggestion, until she lands a playful punch to his upper arm and he chuckles, rubbing at the spot.
"Hey, you said we could do whatever I want."
Tate tilts his head to the side and makes a petulant face. "Yeah, I guess I did."
"Yeah, you did."
"Are you sure you don't want to take me up on one of my other offers?"
Violet hits her tongue to the roof of her mouth, tsking at his boyishness with a roll of her eyes. She peeks her head out her bedroom door, looks up and down the hallway carefully, pleased to find no one in sight.
"...She's not going to make us brains for lunch, is she?"
"Ugh, god, I hope not," Violet feels nauseous over the very idea as she finally side-steps into the empty hall, with him on her heels. "Seriously, what the fuck is your mom doing bringing my mom brains, anyway?"
"I don't know," he grumbles, face contorting though she can't see. "I don't know what she's trying to do."
They tip-toe down the staircase, careful not to make a sound as they inch through the house and toward the kitchen. When they do pass her father's shut office door, Tate has to firmly clamp his teeth together to keep from guffawing at the flippant middle digit she flings the portal's way. They scuttle the rest of the way, both on teenage high at the risk of being caught in broad daylight (for him, with her; for her, with him and on a school day.)
Upon entry into the kitchen, they both note that Moira isn't around. Violet pads over to the laundry room, the only other haunt for the old woman, and she's frowning when she re-enters the kitchen. "No dice. Guess we have to fend for ourselves."
"Is she off today?"
Violet shakes her head. "I don't think so. She'll show up, eventually. She's probably out buying my mom more weird shit to eat."
"It's cool you have a maid. We had a maid."
"She's fucking creepy," she tells him with a sneer, and he laughs aloud. "She's got this weird eye.. I actually caught my dad trying to fool around with her once. I don't know who was more freaked out: him, me, or her."
"Gross," Tate moseys toward the fridge, opening it and eyeing the contents with very little interest at all. "He really does have some issues."
"Right? Just ... so uncomfortable." Violet settles in one of the chairs and rests her chin on her fist, her eyes following Tate as he inspects the innards of her cabinets, watches his hands as they skim across the sink, the pasta arm, the gas stove. A question lights anew in her mind, and it's out of her mouth before she has time to rethink. "So, how come you never told me your mom was Constance?'
He freezes while studying the mug collection, and he takes his time closing the cabinet door, and even more hesitance before he actually turns to face her. Violet's not looking accusatory, it's almost a bored sort of curiosity in the gentle furrow of her brow. He struggles to not sound defensive. "How would you like to tell people that's your mom?"
"Point," she tips her head in concession. She notices the twitch in his jaw and frowns. "Are you mad?"
Tate resists the urge to roll his eyes and turns away from her to gaze out the kitchen window. "What, that she's my mom?"
"You know what I'm asking."
"Then you know the answer."
"Tate."
His lungs are heavy and he has to force the air out as he looks back upon her. She feels so small, perched there behind the island, and she thinks from the look on his face that he must feel bad for being a prick, but she knows he also hates talking about this. About anything to do with his mother, or his past. She doesn't blame him. "Why would I be mad?"
"I don't know," Violet shrugs and glances down at her hands, picks at her bitten nails. "That I, whatever, nosed around in your life?" She looks back up and he's moved in closer, he sits beside her and makes a motion for her to give him her hands. She does, and momentarily she's worried he might break her fingers. "I'd be mad."
"You shouldn't bite your nails," Tate tells her after a beat, then meets her steady gaze. "I'm not mad."
"She really does suck," Violet offers, and she feels better when he hitches a half-smile. "I'm sorry."
He continues studying her hands, from fingertips to wrist. "I hate her," Tate mutters, his eyes darkening as less favorable memories loop. "She's not just a bad mom; she's a bad person."
Instead of inquiring, Violet just sits and listens and lets him play with her hands while he talks, hoping for more but letting him offer what he will. It's the least she can do after that display with her father earlier.
"And it's not just to me, but it was Beau and it's Addie, too. I feel bad for them."
Oh, that name. Her heart sinks heavy when he brings up his sister, she had really almost entirely forgotten, and then she feels like an asshole forgetting at all. Tate must sense the shift in her, because he lowers her hands from his eyeline and stares into her, and she wonders what her face must look like from his look of concern. "What?"
She withdraws her hands as quickly as possible without seeming too rushed, folds them in her lap. "Nothing," Violet lies and lowers her gaze away from his, hopes he hasn't rooted it out of her eyes before it's too late. "Let's just make some lunch and go upstairs; I don't think Moira's coming back soon, but my mom probably is."
Violet is certain she must look suspicious, but to his credit, Tate doesn't question her hurried movements to prepare them both sandwiches and dig up pops from the bottom bin of the fridge. With their food in hand, they retreat back up the staircase in silence, careful not to draw much attention and eager to get back to their private zone.
He hesitates on the landing however, lets Violet go ahead as he waits and watches Dr. Harmon collect his coat and hat from just beside the front door. Ben pauses to gaze into the deeper part of the house, a look of pain and confusion on his features. Finally, he vacates the home, and Tate smirks to himself, more than happy to be confined alone with Violet once again.