.
Dollhouse
.
I believe that this will be the last chapter to this story. It was only meant to be a brief mind screw, though I have been thinking up another story with a very different Harmon family moving in. But, whatever. After this I want to do a few more chapters for another story before even starting anything new.
Thank you to whoever has been reading this. I've had a fun time writing this alternate story because yeah, I obsess wildly over Tate and Violet together. I might make one more chapter, but I might not. Whatever.
(also, this chapter fought with me word for word so fuck this chapter.)
(happy new year's!)
.
Places, places, get in your places
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces.
Everyone thinks that we're perfect
Please don't let them look through the curtains.
.
He dreams of a woman in a room bathed in sunlight playing the cello, dead babies surrounding her. She's crying, black mascara and red blood running down her face. Eventually she drops the instrument, the bow clattering loudly against the bloodied ground. "Vivian," someone called, the door to the room opening to reveal a smoky figure grasping the door knob. "They're here for you."
"You're sending me away." She whispered as she looked towards the dead children scattered around her. "I don't understand what has happened anymore."
"You're sick. They're going to help you, but you have to go with them."
The woman sobbed. "I just want out of this house, you don't even understand."
The figure crept further into the room, stepping on the bloodied infants without realizing. "I do understand. You're sick, and you need help." He reached out his hazy hand and came close to brushing his hand against her shoulder before freezing. His arm dropped. "Think about our daughter."
She scoffed. "She's dying, you know. You think you know everything, but you can't even see it."
He grabbed her arm and hauled her up out of her chair. "She'll be fine, but you have to go now. They're going to take you to a hospital. Everything is going to be fine now, but right now you're not stable. You need to leave, because you are ruining this family. Vivian, you're losing it. You need help before you ruin your daughter more than you already have."
Vivian crumbled into ashes, the cello bursting into flames and each of the dead little infants opening their blue eyes and howling in rage.
Tate woke up crying.
.
Violet looked at him from where she was painting her nails black. "You're going to be fine." She told him quietly. "Trust me."
.
Tate liked smashing the pumpkins. He grinned when he crushed them with his heel and threw them against the walls, watching the orange shell split open and the seedy guts spilling over the porch steps everywhere. Violet watched from her perch just out of sight, hiding in the shadows of some large trees, looking bored as she watches him gleefully break his mother's carved jack-o-lanterns and other untouched pumpkins. "Your mom will kill you if she finds out, you know." She warned with her face tilted up at the warm sun burning bright in the sky. "Didn't she spend all morning carving those and arranging them?"
"She'd have to catch me first." Tate shrugged; launching one at the welcome mat and watching it explode at contact. "Face it. She's too drunk anyways."
Ever since they had moved in his mother had become more and more restless, lost in a drunken daze and lashing out violently. Larry was growing more and more frustrated with the falling apart family, trying to force his way further into their lives. "Whatever. Just don't be stupid." Violet murmured, fingers pulling at the green grass. "I like you alive, you know."
He threw himself down next to her, instantly reaching out and pulling her closer to him. "When are we going out on a real date? I'm sick of this place."
Violet looked at her beat up shoes before looking back at him. "Let's go out tomorrow night. Halloween."
The entire street was decorated with fake cobwebs and black paper cut out bats hung from the trees, bright orange pumpkins dotting the porch steps. Children were milling about in large bunches, shrieking about candy and costumes, filling the hot air with their thin excitement. "Won't you be scared?" He teased her, running his fingers through her long brown hair. "Isn't that the night when the monsters and ghosts walk the streets, blending in with the living?"
"I'm never scared." She shot at him, elbowing him gently in the side. "You should worry about yourself."
He grinned, tipping them both backwards so they were gazing up at the sky, pointing out shapes in the clouds together.
.
"You'll be taking your sister out tomorrow." His mother informed him at the dinner table, stabbing violently at her plate. "And you, missy, will be Snoopy."
Addy smacked her hand down against the surface of the table. "I don't want to be Snoopy. I want to be a pretty girl! Like Violet."
His mother's sour mood flared up. "You'll go as Snoopy or you won't go at all." She turned to Tate. "That girl is a bad influence. My daughter will not be modelin' herself after your little Violet. You better not be associating yourself with that little she devil. I am through with this childish rebellion of yours; always moping about with that racket you claim is music, in those fallin' apart clothes."
Larry smiled at him. "I'm sure you could find better friends to spend your time with. Surely there must be other girls at your school."
Tate glared at him. "Fuck off!"
"I want to be a pretty girl!" Addy shrieked as she jumped up from her seat and threw her glass of water at the wall, watching it shattered into a thousand little pieces. "Why can't I be a pretty girl?"
"Because you aren't!" She howled, her blonde hair falling out of her hair clip. "You aren't a pretty girl, and you'll never be one! You're stuck like this, Adeline. You'll always be stuck like this, stuck in this house." His mother grabbed hold on the table cloth tightly, hands clenching tightly around the white fabric. "They see you walking down that street; they think how lucky they are. Lucky that they aren't you, that they aren't ruined!"
"Sweetheart, maybe you should calm down." Larry spoke quietly, watching them with wide eyes. Tate scowled at his weak attempt, gazing at him mother falling apart. The house was quiet around them, breathing anxiously as she kept getting louder and louder. "We can decide on a costume for darling little Addy later."
She ignored him, continuing on as she seethed at her daughter. "They see me as hero, you know? Every time we walk down the street together, they stare at us. Imagine," his mother barked, "that if they ever saw Beau. What would they possibly think? My entire family is wrecked you know, and nothing will ever fix it. God, he's like Frankenstein. "
Tate looked past his mother and out the window. Violet stood bathed in the darkness watching them. "I can't take Addy out tomorrow because I have a date."
Addy turned to him with wide eyes. "Is it Violet?" Her brief display of anger and hurt and been washed away into mere curiosity, intrigued by his quiet news.
His mother turned to him, her eyes dark in the candlelight. "I will peel her skin off them pretty little bones of hers if you dare go near her one more time. This twisted little friendship you two have is over. I swear to the Lord above us, that I will rip her lungs out and crush her pathetic little organ she claims a heart."
Violet gazed back at him, her face blurred by the reflection of the four of them gathered around the table. "It's not. Some other girl from school." He shrugged, tearing her gaze from the pale girl outside in the night to the sharp silver knife sitting next to his plate.
His mother stood up, wobbling on her feet before staggering away towards the sitting room. "Don't get her pregnant, will you?" She called over her shoulder before vanishing in the darkness of the house.
Addy was still watching him intently from across the table, candlelight flickering across her pale skin. "There is no other girl." She informs him quietly before leaving the table as well.
Larry poured a glass of wine.
.
"Some other girl, right?" Violet asked the moment his bedroom door was shut. The Rolling Stones was playing, oddly upbeat compared to her usual song preferences. "Is she prettier than me?" She teased him from where she laid on her side, eyes watching him carefully.
He grinned at her, "She's gorgeous."
Violet stuck out her tongue at him before standing, hands hidden in the pockets of the oversized sweater, the dark fabric making her look smaller. "Whatever. Wanna playing Scrabble?" Something had clawed her face, leaving behind three crimson cuts across her cheek, looking painfully deep as they forced the side of her mouth to tilt upwards.
Tate carefully touched her chin, forcing her head to tilt upwards. "What bear were you poking with a stick?"
She carefully touched her cheek, flinching when her fingers brushed against the cuts. "Shit. I forgot about that."
"How do you forget about your flesh slashed into ribbons?"
Violet shrugged. "Easy. You do it all the time. It'll heal, trust me."
Tate nodded. "I do."
She looked confused. "You do what?"
"I trust you." He shrugged, unable to tear his eyes away from the cuts on her face. "Seriously, what happen to you? You weren't like this earlier."
"I was babysitting for someone. Seriously, don't worry about it." She smirked at him, smirk looking sharper the way her mouth was tugged upwards. "The kid is a little monster, but he doesn't have any rabies. You don't have to worry about that." Violet winked, taking his hand.
He kissed her carefully, pulling her closer.
.
He remembers when he was younger playing in the basement with a toy truck. He remembers the darkness, space crowded with chandeliers and boxes crammed with items of a lost past. He remembers a face watching him, grey and strange with a leach like mouth, lurching out of the shadows and grabbing him. He remembers surging forward, sliding across the floor crying and trying to escape, feeling death clinging to his skin.
Someone had stopped the monster, wrapping their thin arms around him and stealing him away.
.
Tate slipped on his trench coat before he left the house, barely glancing at Addy wearing a rubber mask over her face. It looked surreal, features unmoving and so obviously fake. His mother leaned against the doorframe, watching Addy twirl about in the front entrance in a bright blue dress. "You be careful now, Jesus H. Christ. Last thing that needs to happen is you runnin' about into traffic."
He slammed the door shut behind him as he left, finding Violet across the street sitting on the sidewalk. She was watching the house with a satisfied smirk.
"You're face looks better." Tate informs her curious, because there wasn't a sign that she had ever been attacked.
She rolled her eyes. "Heavy duty concealer."
Day was fading slowly into night as they walked down the streets, their hands finding each other. "Where do you want to go?" He asked her as they skirted around a rather large cluster of children latched onto one another with pillow cases clutched in their hands.
Violet shrugged. "I think there is a pretty good music store close by, if you want to go. They got some pretty off the cuff stuff, but they're decent"
They do find the store, looking ancient with dusty windows and creaking floorboards. Tate holds the doors open for Violet and they browse about together, snickering at obscure names. It's a jumble of cassettes, records and CDs, all piled up together with no form of organization.
Eventually they leave with a bag each of music, stuffing them carefully into Violet's backpack. "I want to take you somewhere." Tate tells her quietly, leading her through the small town with small minded people. Part of him wants to smash house windows and kick in store doors. "I found it a week ago when I blew off school."
He takes her to a beach where the water roars as it hits the sand. The horizon stretches on forever as sandy hills rolled up behind them. Violet kicked her shoes off before running towards the edge of the water. "I love it." She declared as she turned to face him.
"I've wanted to take you here for a while." Tate shrugged as he drew her closer. The sun was setting, striking the sky red. He loved the way it looked, as if the sun was bleeding. "I wanted to make you smile."
Violet grabbed his hand and he tugged her further back from the water. "The night is ours, isn't it?"
She sat down next on the ground before yanking him down next to her, her purple tights looking darker as the sun shrank away. "I wish it could always be like this, you know."
"It will." Tate decided quietly as he pulled closer. "It always will. As long as you want me, I'll be here. I love you, Violet."
Violet kissed him softly.
.
A group of teenagers stumbled down the little pathway, struggling to maintain their footing as they descended the sandy hills. "That you, Tate?" One demanded as they neared. Tate got up to his feet before helping Violet up. "I heard what you did to Joey, you fucker."
Five of them end of standing in a group, slutty girls dressed sluttier and jocks glowering darkly at the two. "Who's this? You drug her or something?" The one girl asked as she tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder. "Or is she so fucked up she doesn't care that you're a freak."
Violet rolled her eyes. "What are you supposed to be anyways, a hooker?" She asked as she took in the mini skirt and boot combo. "Get out of my face."
"Seriously, get out of here. It's a big beach." Tate shrugged as he pushed himself slightly in front of Violet.
"What the hell did you do to him?" Demanded one of the jocks that he dimly recognized as the quarterback for the football team. "Joey's become a nutcase. Claiming his hair is turning white from fear and shit. He goes on and on about the bible, claiming that he's seen the devil. You did something freaky, and you're going to fix him."
He rolled his eyes. "What the fuck do you think I did? I gave him some coke. He just couldn't handle it."
"Tell you what, because you ruined Joey, we're going to ruin your pretty little slut." The other boy smirked, lurching forward and grabbing Violet by the wrist. "We're going to carve up her face and make her cry. What do you say, Mike? Transform her into the next Black Dahlia? Bet she wouldn't be a good screw if we ripped her in half."
She cried out before kicking his ankle hard and grabbing his arm and bit down hard. He screamed as he ripped his arm out of her grip. Violet spit out blood. "Don't touch her!" Tate shouted as he shoved the boy backwards.
"She's fucking mental!"
Within one smooth movement Violet ducked down to grab her black backpack before punching him hard in the gut. "Come on, Tate!"
Together they sprinted, stumbling up the sandy hill with the five others struggling after them. "What are you doing?" He hissed as they managed to get to the top, grabbing hold of her arm to pull her up.
"Just keep running. I'll distract them. Meet you back to at the house, alright?" She shoved him hard before turning towards their pursuers. "Hey fuckers! Wanna go for a run in the park?" Violet frowned at him before pushing him again to get him out of the way before sprinting the opposite direction, spewing insults the entire way.
Tate watched as she ran, long hair looking near silver in the moonlight.
.
"Are you okay?" He demanded the moment she slipped into his room and shut the door softly. "What happened?"
"Bitches couldn't keep up." Violet grinned as she picked up a piece of chalk. "It's fine. I lost them when I ran through the cemetery. They got spooked or something." She slowly wrote on the black chalkboard pinned to his wall, her neat script spelling out three words. "Idiots."
Tate sat down on his bed, watching her throw her bag down by his desk before sorting through his growing collection of music. "Did he hurt you? I swear to god, I'll break his neck."
She gave him a look. "You can't hurt him. It's fine, anyways. It probably won't even bruise."
Violet sat down next to him. "I don't want you to be hurt. I could have killed him when he touched you." Tate grabbed her arm gently and pulled her closer. "I never want you to be hurt."
He took the flower from where it lay on the other side of him and passed it to her. He had painted a rose black earlier, remembering her distaste of normal things.
"No one has ever given me a flower before." She smiled at him softly.
I love you was scrawled over the chalkboard.
.
He liked to surprise Violet with flowers every day after that Halloween date.
.
Tate's jacket ended up on the dusty floor of the basement, Violet's grey tights dangled over the railing. They are surrounded by boxes filled with pieces of lives long gone and it's the most comforting feeling he's ever experienced.
.
Beau died of natural causes, his mother had claimed.
He doesn't quite understand why that damn red little ball rolls down the hallways towards him and how at night he can still hear that chain slide across the attic floor as if he had never died.
.
School was an agonizingly dull process that Tate preferred to skip.
After Halloween the five students had branched out and gathered more followers who were determined to make things right, leering at him in the hallways and shoving him into lockers. He hated everyone and wanted nothing more than to crush their skulls beneath his heel.
So he stopped going.
His mother never noticed his presence in the house and Larry never said anything when he heard the music playing loudly from his bedroom. Every morning he found Violet asleep next to him, one hand grasping tightly to his shirt in her sleep. He liked the feel of her in his arms and watching her sleep.
They rarely left his room and if they did, it was to go smoke cigarettes near the back of the property where no one would be able to catch sight of them.
"Do you ever just want to leave?" Violet asked quietly one day as she leaned against the towering trees that sheltered him. His mother was outdoor overseeing the placement of a gazebo, gazing coolly at the construction being built. "Just throw everything away and get out of here?"
"Every day."
Violet took his hands and pulled him closer. "I want you to get out of here."
He grinned. "Come with me then. We can steal my mom's money and take Larry's car. We can go anywhere you want. Boston?" Tate knows she misses Boston, misses her home. He wonders sometimes if she really misses it or if she misses what it had been once, her family together before they all crumbled apart.
She shook her head. "No, I can't leave. But you can. You should go while you still can." Violet wasn't looking at him anymore but rather at the house. "You shouldn't be here anymore."
"Are you high or something? I'm not leaving you. I love you, Violet. I don't give a fuck about these people; I just want to be with you forever."
The house blocked out the sun, casting its shadow across the yard.
"I want you to go. Before it is too late. Please, Tate. You're a good person. You don't deserve to get caught here. I want you to go before it's too late, because you don't even understand what is going on. You need to go. So go. Stop staying and just pack your shit up. Get the hell out of this place!"
Tate turned around as he ran his hands through his hair. "I'm not leaving without you. I'm never going to leave you."
When he turned back around, Violet was gone.
.
He carved their initials into the tree before realizing he never knew her last name. So he gives her his last name instead.
.
Violet left behind a painful gap in his life.
He couldn't stop looking for her, always seeking out a glimpse of her faded dresses and pale skin except she was never there. Moments were that he could have sworn she was watching him through mirrors but whenever he turned to look closer he could only find himself.
"You act like you've lost something." Moira informed him as she scrubbed the counter. He was seated at the island, glaring at the silver toaster. Tate could see a blur of brown hair before it faded into red. "Your mother is concerned."
Tate frowned. "I don't care."
She smiled thinly. "Good. Just, do be careful. This house has a nasty habit of taking things on you."
"Have you seen Violet lately?" He eventually asked her as he looked out the window. The yard looked dead, lawn turning brown and leaves beginning to wilt. Winter was slowly creeping into the neighbourhood. "She hasn't been around."
Moira took out the kettle and began preparing tea. "You'll find that the people you look for the most will always be out of sight. I'm certain Violet is close by."
Except she wasn't.
The tea burned his tongue.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered and he wasn't really sure why.
.
Tate wanted to scream.
.
The house was empty.
He was going mad, listening to the house laugh at him.
People in photographs were shifting in their frames, lights blinking on and off. Doors were slamming shut and all he could hear was the house roaring.
"I'm sorry but I really must insist that you wait here. I cannot possibly allow you to be there during the procedure." A man informed him coolly, his face grey. "My wife must be prepping your girlfriend."
Tate gapped at the man dressed as a doctor. "Who the fuck are you? Get out of my house!"
He looked confused. "This is your house?"
Tate stumbled away only to trip over a child lying across the floor with her face clawed at. Something howled from the basement. "What the hell is this?" he whispered as he staggered away and into the dining room. "Wake up, wake up!" He shouted in frustration, punching the wall.
"You're not dreaming, you know."
The woman with dark hair lay out on the table, dark black hair falling over her shoulders. The white dahlia in her hair looked almost grey in the gloom of the house, tainted and ruined. She gave a cry as her torso and lower half suddenly split in half, intestines spilling out over the surface of the dark wood table that Moira had scrubbed. "Has the doctor seen you yet? Has he given you a grin yet?" She sobbed, stretching out a hand to him. He flinched at the sight of her Glasgow smile.
"What are you doing here?" A red haired maid asked him, her eyes tracing over his form. He remembered her vaguely from when he was child, traipsing around the house in her black uniform. "Shouldn't you be playing with your toys, little boy?" the glimpse of naked skin between her dark skirt and tights. Her bright eyes as they watched him, biting her lip as she leaned against the doorframe.
Tate tripped out of the room, shrinking back from the sight of a woman with skin flaking away into ash. "I just wanted him to feel my pain!" She hissed, words turning into smoke. "He left me for her, wanting that vile woman to move into my home." The woman latched onto his arm, yanking him closer. Her touch burned his skin. "Can you see me now?"
People were slipping out of the walls, hands reaching up out of the floorboards. The house was screaming and pulsing, life flowing through its hallways. "Get away from me!" Tate shouted, yanking himself free from her fiery touch and took the paper weight that sat just within reach and bashed her skull in. "Stop it!"
The woman fell to the ground, wood scorching beneath her. Someone was screaming as the grabbed him, shaking him roughly. "Tater-Tot!" A man grinned wildly at him, revealing sharp teeth and frantic eyes. "Does your mother know you're here?"
He didn't pause for a moment, striking down the too familiar man. His neck looked strange, twisted as he lay in a heap at Tate's feet. Within seconds the man's eyes had opened again as his hand began reaching for him. "Just die! Stay fucking dead!" Tate roared as he kicked the older man hard in the chest. Bones crunched beneath his blow.
"What are you doing?" Nora whispered, gazing at him from across the room. She looked lost in the swarm of people crowding around him as they tried to grab hold of him. "We're suffering here. Can't you see us?"
The old mirror that hung on the wall revealed Violet gliding up the stairs. She didn't glance towards him, didn't say a word. He called for her, trying to fight past the swarm of limbs and sheer force. When the people didn't get out of his way he killed them. He killed them relentlessly, blood splattering over the floorboards in a way that felt purifying. Children laid in twisted heaps on the ground, men gazing up at the ceiling with glassy eyes as women fell to their knees pleading.
"Violet!" He screamed as he fought past a woman with sharp nails and long hair, a bloody smile across her throat dripping blood.
"There is death everywhere," Nora whispered, her voice finding its way to his ears despite the shrieks that clung to the air. "My baby died, and he broke the rules. He's the reason why the house can't sleep, why we can't rest."
He crawled up the stairs, leaving smears of blood behind. The house felt like it was spinning wildly out of control as he fought his way up the stairwell. He could hear the roar of the water filling the tub, loud music echoing through the house. "Violet, help me!"
Tate glanced over his shoulder and saw the rooms filled with bodies twisted unnaturally. Nora was stepping carefully over the bodies and looking around furniture. Some of the figures were twitching, slowly sitting up. He pushed himself up the last of the stairs, slowly managing to get up to his feet as he leaned against the wall.
The water stopped.
.
He found her in the bathroom with her wrists slit.
She didn't wake up when he pleaded her to live.
.
Tate ran through the house, searching for a way out. He could hear people calling for him, pleading with him to see them the way they were. Beautifully broken, the way victims forged through pain and hell. He flung himself into the attic, lurching up the little ladder and tripping in his haste to escape the madness because nothing was making any sense.
He fell into a heap of boxes, contents spilling out over the ground. Purple tights and old records scattered around him, the messy scrawl of Violet marking the box.
Darkness engulfed him.
.
His mother was holding his hand when he woke up, face dark in the shadows. Night had fallen, wrapping itself around the house in a sullen way. "What were you doing up in the attic?" She asked him quietly, running her fingers through her hair.
Tate remembered the man shaking him frantically, how he gazed out of old photographs that his mother had forgotten to burn.
"I was," he swallowed, shutting his eyes. "looking around."
"Moira found blood in the stairwell. Were you attacked when we were gone? You have a nasty bump on your head."
He had forgotten that his mother could be a mother, touching his forehead gently and whispering softly. "I don't know. I don't know, nothing is making sense. None of it does."
She shushed him as she carefully adjusted his blankets. "Don't you start worrying yourself. You need proper rest, none of this stress. You just stay put and let momma take care of you, will you? I'll get you right as rain again, you'll see. You're just needin' proper sleep and some good meals. That's all you need."
"She was there, in the tub. Did you see her?"
His mother furrowed her brow. "See who? You aren't making any sense. Right now you just need to sleep."
"That box though, it was Violet's." Tate squeezed his eyes shut. He remembered her in the bathtub with blood smeared across the floor. Her blood had looked like an explosion against the white towels and cream coloured towels. "What happened?"
She stood up from the chair. "She must have left the box behind when her family moved."
.
"The darkness will make you crave it, make you do things you shouldn't ever do."
"How do you know so much about this place?"
"I did my research."
.
The internet was lying, he decided as he fought his way past each of the images. Vivian Harmon, famous cellist, had been taken away to an asylum. Teenage suicide, found the bathtub empty, water dark pink. Body missing.
Her school picture glared at him, her dark eyes flashing across the screen as she stood in front of a blue screen with her arms crossed defensively. She looked barely restrained in the image, her smile more of a scowl.
"No," he whispered, clicking past the images and further into the history. Suicide murder accident suicide murder accident-everything was just so tragic! the one neighbour claimed. "She's alive, Violet was just here!"
"She was." A soft voice came from behind him, Nora standing nervously in his shadow with her lace handkerchief clutched tight in her grip. "Violet has been trapped here, the way we all are. She knew it the moment she stepped foot in the house. We've been watching the world drift by, waiting to be released."
He stood from his chair slowly, his legs trembling. "Is there release?"
Nora gave him a sad smile. "Only hell. They took my baby for what we did. Or what I did, I forced him to do those awful things to those girls, you know. I just thought it would help. They wouldn't be in trouble anymore, and the bills would finally be paid. Except, we're still paying for it. I'm still paying for it." She gazed forlornly around the room. "My baby isn't my baby anymore."
Tate glanced at the chalkboard on the wall; I love you still written across the surface in a loud print. "I remember you, when I was younger. You watched the birds with me, when mom was drunk."
"I do love birds," She whispered as she stepped closer, placing her one hand gently on his shoulder. "They can fly away whenever the world gets loud. Except, we've all had our wings clipped. Mortality was fleeting before we even realized."
She vanished, her pale hair and golden dress swallowed by the dimness of his room, his computer screen making the shadows thicker.
Violet's eyes looked dark in her school picture.
.
"I didn't want you to know." She told him quietly as he sat at his desk. He couldn't stop looking at the image enlarged on his laptop. "God, I hated that picture."
"I like it." Tate whispered. "You could have told me."
Violet stood behind him quietly. "I wanted you to get out of here. I thought you'd be able to, that you would find your way out. Why couldn't you just leave?"
He shrugged. "I can't leave here without you. Why couldn't you have come with me?"
"I'm dead, Tate. I've been dead for a couple of years now, I think. I don't really know anymore. Time doesn't really function here the way it does when you're alive. I can never leave this house."
"Halloween." He swallowed. "You left Halloween."
That remembered her then, running in the moonlight. The way she stood at the edge of the water, tights and long skirt and the way she spoke. She had never seemed so alive until that moment, burning in the darkness.
Violet gently brushed her hand against his shoulder. "Halloween is the only night that the dead can walk free."
Her words feel like they're burning themselves to his skin, tattooing themselves to his skull. He can't really see anything anymore beyond her image, a reflection of her caught in the moment when she was still alive and not dead, body still breathing with blood pumping through her veins and not rotting in some casket seven feet beneath the ground.
"You left me. How could you just leave like that?" He forced himself not to cry. "I love you, Violet, and you just left me and wouldn't come back. And then I found you in the bathtub, dead. You weren't waking up and the house was coming to life and you weren't there."
"I wanted to give you your best chance." She sobbed. "I'm so sorry."
He stood up from his chair and grabbed her, yanking her tightly into his grip. "You are my best chance, Violet. I love you, please don't leave me again."
"No, Tate. I'm never going to leave. I love you."
.
"You seem better, Tate." Doctor Harmon stated blankly. "How have you been sleeping?"
Tate shrugged. "Better. Violet came back." He feels sickeningly satisfied with the way pain flickers across his therapist's face. "We made up."
"What happened between you and Violet?"
He grinned savagely at the man. He hates them, especially when Violet told him her entire story. How he threw her mother away when she tried to leave the house, how his girlfriend continued to attack Vivian again and again, and how he had done nothing. "Her dad is an asshole. He messed up her and her mom pretty bad. She's better now."
The man looks like he's going to cry. It took him a few moments to regain his usual weary composure. "Some people make mistakes, Tate. It's not a good thing to hold grudges. Tell me, though. How have you been doing lately?"
"Fine. The sex helps."
He doesn't like being this crude, this rough. He does however like making the doctor squirm in his seat, Violet's smirking gaze peering out at him from the reflection caught in the framed photographs.
"How has school been?"
"Idiotic. I just want to blow everyone up. Kill them, you know?"
Doctor Harmon attempted several more questions before relenting, handing over a new prescription of pills that they both know he won't take.
.
"Why did you come back?" Tate asked Violet eventually, setting aside his book because there is something sickeningly lurching in his chest that screams at him he's living a lie. "After, the house came to life. You were gone because you wanted me to go. Except, you came back."
Violet looks at him with wide eyes.
Tate continues on, standing up from his chair. "Please tell me?"
"You already know, though." She sighed, taking his hand carefully. "I'm sorry."
He gives a jerky nod. "I'm dead."
Now that he's said the forbidden words, everything seems so painful. The glass windows looked barred over, the doors look wielded shut. The air tastes stale, but he figures everything will be alright because they're together now.
Like Romeo and Juliet, except she hates Shakespeare and he hates that love story.
Violet looked terrified. "I didn't want you to die."
"I don't remember dying. Was it one of the ghosts?"
She nodded. "Not in the way you think. You died in the attic, poisoned."
"Where is my body then?"
.
As they stand in the crawl space side by side all he can think of is the Bell Jar and taking sleeping pills one by one.
.
"Moira slipped something in your tea." Violet whispered as she took his hand. "She dragged your body down here to hide you. Your mother killed her years ago and she wanted revenge. You were her revenge."
He fell to his knees. "I'm dead."
He's alright with it, but the realization that he'll never leave the Murder House crushes his spine and tattoos his entire existence into the foundation of the damned mansion.
Violet began to cry. "I'm sorry, Tate. I wanted you to live so badly, but then you weren't. I wanted you to be free, not chained to this goddamn house. I'm so sorry."
"I didn't realize I was dead. How could I not notice?"
"My parents never realized. My dad had my mom taken away and then he sold the place to some family. Larry's family. He thought I ran away and never bothered to look for him. Some of the other ghosts hid my body down here. I never meant to kill myself; I just wanted them to see me. What they had done to me."
The crawlspace felt like it was humming, his body twisted up in the shadows. Flies were crawling over his corspe and all that he could see were the remains of another body wearing old converse and a thin shirt that was falling apart. "Is that you?" he gaped at the form, blackened skin rotting still. "Down here? You should be buried properly, not down here. Unknown."
Violet shrugged. "Maybe. My dad's still alive. He might like to know, really know. But I'm okay with it, being down here with you."
Their hands were just inches apart.
.
Addie understands, when he tells her everything. Midnight is the magical hour, Violet tells him. That's when carriages turn back into pumpkins and ghosts become their strongest. She can see through his appearance and understand everything.
"Leave, get out of here." Tate smiled at her softly as he whispered the devils words in her ear. "Please, Addie."
She knows what she has to do.
.
Larry burns in his office chair after she delivers a letter, and she fires a round into their mother when she crosses the street just outside their home.
Then she swallows a bullet safe in her bedroom surrounded by her dolls.
.
"I wish I could make this up to you." Moira tells him softly, shrinking away from him. She looks terrified as she stands before him, pressed against the cabinets. "I had to ruin her, the way she ruined me."
"Get the fuck out of my way."
They don't talk after that.
.
Vivian stands in the entrance of the house, hair cut short and looking small in the general darkness of the mansion. "Violet?" She called out softly as she peered up the stairwell.
Violet appeared just a few feet away from her mother, looking uncertain in her converse and black dress. "What are you doing here?"
"Tate sent your father a letter demanding my release. Things are different now." She whispered, stepping a little closer to her dead daughter. "I'm so sorry, Violet. I never thought you would have died here. I thought he would have taken you away."
She shrugged, flinching away. "You guys were busy. You had just lost the baby and dad was screwing some twenty year old. I get it."
"I never lost my baby, Violet."
With that she allows her mother to pull her into her arms and cling to her. "I missed you." She whispers in Vivian's shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut. "I want to go home with you."
"We are home, believe it or not."
Tate watches from the top of the stairs.
.
Vivian owns the house in the end.
Violet threatens the ghosts if they even revealed their presence to her. Tate ripped apart the ones that did.
.
A gay couple buy the house next door and Vivian never needs a security system and somehow everything works out in the end.
.
"I love you," Violet whispered to Tate as they gazed up at the ceiling. "I want you to know that.
"I love you."
.
No one ever listens,
this wallpaper glistens
.