Chapter Two: Pilot
"Psychopaths [make] the world go around...society [is] an expression of that particular sort of madness...I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?"
― Jon Ronson, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
Iris was thankful her sister let her sit in the back of the car. Not only would sitting up front mean the obvious tension between her parents but she'd eventually have some form of attack.
Oh the perk of being claustrophobic.
"The light is different out here. It's softer." Vivien commented as Iris shaded the appropriate areas of her sketch. Iris was mad at herself, she was tired of hearing all the small talk. Of course, anything to drown it out was buried with her things. Her Ipod and tablet were in a bag in the back, near the front of the trunk. Her dad had taken her satchel from her and threw it in before she even had the chance to argue.
At least Violet was suffering along with her.
"It's called smog." Iris remarked as she closed her sketchbook, the one simply titled 'Faceless Devil'. She'd lost count of how many sketchbooks she had filled up, each with different titles that showed her inner sanity. She never had the heart to throw them away, it would be like losing a limb for Iris.
"You should be excited Vi. You can stop sneaking cigarettes and just start taking deep breaths." The twins ignored him, they didn't need to hear anything their 'therapy' dad had to say.
"I need to go to the bathroom." Violet remarked, finally speaking up.
"We're almost there." Ben assured his daughter.
"I need to go." Violet insisted. Iris knew her sister's plan, get out of the car for maybe five minutes, get away from the awkwardness and smoke. Maybe add a few more scars to her arms.
"Me too." Iris inputted, seeing her sister get fidgety. It'd been too long since Violet last had a smoke and besides, Iris could stretch out her legs.
"Vi, it's a freeway. Really, where do you want me to pull over? Maybe the Honda next to us has a bathroom or something." There he goes again, trying to be the 'I'm not a dickhead' dad. The twins glance at Hayley, who was sitting in what was supposed to be the baby's booster seat.
"Bet if the baby had to shit, you'd find somewhere." Violet remarked, making her sister snort.
"Really?" Vivien glances back at the girls who were sharing a grin, "Violet, I hate that word, unless I'm saying it."
"I'm really glad we named you two Violet and Iris, instead of our second choice." Ben remarked, glancing at the twins in the rearview mirror. The two shared a look.
"Which was?" They simultaneously asked.
"Sunshine and Joy." Vivien answered, and though it isn't all that funny, the four of them still manage to share a chuckle.
"It's funny. Come on, you gotta admit it's funny." Both girls notice their father trying to grab their mother's hand, but they don't say anything about it.
There was enough going on without commenting about it.
-AHS-
"I love it," Ben remarked as he rang the doorbell, "Don't you love it, hon? I mean, it looks even better than it did online."
"Yeah, it's interesting." Vivien answered as she glanced around, holding Hayley close to her. Iris opened the trunk and immediately grabbed her bag, hugging it close to her chest and letting out a sigh of relief. Violet looked at her sister with a questioning look.
"They're my cigarettes." Iris explained as she placed the bag on her back and turned to the house. Violet stood next to her sister.
"Great. So we're the Addams family now." Iris shook her head.
"We make the Addams look like the Kardashians." Violet snorted.
"Hey, crabby pants. Come here." The twins looked at one another before grabbing hands and walking up to join their parents on the porch.
"What are you doing?" Vivien asked her husband as the twins walked up. Ben smiled at his girls and put an arm around Iris, who tensed at her father's touch. Her saving grace was the realtor, Marcy, who opened the door and graciously smiled at the Harmon family.
"Welcome," the twins pushed past their parents and Marcy, wanting to see the house and get away from the awkwardness, "It's a classic L.A. Victorian. Built around 1920 by the doctor to the stars at the time," Iris pretended to fan herself, like a silver screen actress, and Violet covered her mouth, snorting into her hand, "It's just fabulous. These are real Tiffany fixtures. As you can see, the previous owners really lobed this place like a child. They restored everything."
"They were gay." Violet whispered to her sister, who sniggered as she ran her hand over the fireplace.
"Gay?" they heard their mother ask.
"What do you think?" Marcy answered, causing the girls to giggle together. The three adults looked at the teens with strange looks, but neither of them answered, just rejoining their parents with the tour of the house.
"Tiffany. Wow." Ben remarked with a nod, as if he knew what he was talking about.
"Do you cook?" Marcy asked as she led the family to the kitchen.
"Viv is a great cook," the twins rolled their eyes, here we go again, "I got her cooking lessons a few years ago, and she ended up teaching the teacher a few things." The girls stood by one another at the end of the counter, simply watching the encounter between the three adults.
"Cooking lessons…romantic. Aren't you a psychologist?" Marcy asked Ben, completely changing the subject at hand.
"Psychiatrist. You said something on the phone about there being a study that I could use as a home office? I'm planning on seeing patients here, so I can spend more time with my family." Violet and Iris shared a glance, like that was actually going to happen.
"How refreshing." See, Marcy didn't care. Vivien put Hayley down, who immediately ran out of the kitchen, yapping at nothing.
"Violet, Iris, would you go see where Hayley went?" The two leave, "Thank you."
"What are you yapping at?" Violet asked the dog as the twins finally reached the door where the dog was yapping at. The two share a look and push Hayley out of the way, opening the door for them to go down. They go down the stairs together, look around before immediately going back up.
"That was some freaky shit." Iris commented as she knelt down and picked Hayley up.
"Yeah, no going down there?" Violet asked her sister.
"Hell no." Iris answered as the two of them went upstairs, following the voices of Marcy and their parents. However, they pause when they hear Marcy talk about the gay couple who owned the house before them. The two of them shared a grin before entering the room.
"Where did it happen?" Violet asked, making their parents look at them, shook written on both of their faces.
"The basement."
"We'll take it." The twins simultaneously answered.
In the shadows of the room, a blonde haired boy smirked at the scene before him.
-AHS-
The Harmon twins walked arm in arm across the yard of their new high school. Violet lets out a drag, which blows back in her sister's face. Though Iris doesn't flinch or couch, like she used to when Violet first started out, surprisingly she finds the smell comforting. Iris looks around the yard while bobbing her head to Avenged Sevenfold, which was blaring in her ears.
"I hate them already." Iris decided. She couldn't stand people who gave her and her sister nasty looks, they didn't know either of them. Who were they to judge them?! Suddenly, a skankly dressed girl comes up and stops in front of the twins. They pause and Iris removes her ear buds.
"Hey! Student council passed a rule against smoking in public places." The first one remarked as the other two followed and stood behind their 'leader'.
"Secondhand smoke kills." Girl number two remarked, stating the fact that had been spread all over the nation for many years. A simple reminder to get people to stop smoking, yeah right.
"We're new, we didn't know." Iris defends her sister and Violet drops her cigarette and crushes it with her shoe.
"What the hell is wrong with you? People sit here, they eat here." The leader all but shrieked, gesturing to the yard around them. The two girls shared a look, seriously, who was this girl?
"You don't know us." Violet began.
"Why are you doing this?" Iris finished with a frown, looking at the three of them.
"Leah's grandmother died of lung cancer. She takes this stuff pretty seriously." Girl number two answered as Leah knelt down and picked the crushed cigarette up and held it in front of Violet.
"Eat it…eat it or I'm gonna kick the shit out of you." The twins remove their arms from one another, looking at Leah with shocked looks upon their faces. Seriously, who the hell was this girl?!
"No. What?"
"Come on, Leah, that's enough." Girl number three, personally Iris's favorite right now, said and tired to pull Leah away from the twins.
"No," she yanked her hand away from her 'friend', "No, no, I want to see her eat it."
"No, that's disgusting." Iris said and tried to pull her sister away from the scene. Violet tried to leave with her sister but this Leah chick wouldn't leave them alone.
"Eat it, eat it." Leah insisted.
"Leah, seriously, she's like 12." But Leah apparently wasn't one to listen to reason because she tried to force the crushed cigarette into Violet's mouth. Iris immediately jumped in and punched Leah in the face, the hand with her skeletal ring…which was most certainly going to leave a nasty bruise. Leah screams and falls to the floor. The twins take that as their chance to leave, which they do.
"You are dead! You are dead!"
-AHS-
Iris sat in her room, staring at the blank wall and willing her creative side to come up with something to paint. It wasn't that hard to convince her parents to allow her to paint and decorate her room how she wished. Actually, it didn't seem to be that much of a problem when it came to asking for things. They probably felt bad for her, thinking that she hated what her sister was doing and Iris 'just wanted the family to be back together'.
What a bunch of bullshit.
Iris sighed, rubbing her head in annoyance as she glanced at the sketchbooks she had laid out on her bed. She removed her hat and tossed it to the side, it landed on a box that she had yet to unpack. She picked up the one labeled 'My Sight', it was mostly scenic things. How Iris saw the world. She flipped through, hoping to find something that would inspire her but she dropped the sketchbook when she heard her mom scream. She ran out into the hall, where Violet was, looking around for the source.
"Come on." Iris said and pointed to the staircase that leads to the attic. Iris went up first, seeing her parents together.
"What happened?" And then she saw the rubber suit, which made her eyes go wide.
"Holy shit." Violet commented as she joined the rest of them.
"Let's get rid of it. Come on," she pulls her daughters along to the stairs, "let's go downstairs. Come on. Watch the steps." Once Iris was back in her room, she laid down on her bed and closed her eyes, drifting off into sleep.
That night, Iris had a dream of the rubber suit, although the eyes…the eyes were what made it a nightmare.
-AHS-
Iris knew that her father had an appointment with his first patient today. She was kind of tempted to sneak downstairs and listen to their conversation…maybe it would give her some ideas of what to do with the blank wall. She ran her fingers though her hair, the skeletal hand ring taking some loose ones. She was wearing her first day of school outfit again, it wasn't like she was meeting anyone. She'd already decided that she hated the people here and wanted nothing to do with them.
"Music...music will distract me." She decided and got off her bed, stretching out her legs. She kicked her shoes aside as she walked over to her cd collection and looked for something to listen to.
"You got any Kurt Cobain?" Iris jumped at the voice and looked to the door. There, a boy with messy dirty blonde hair, a stripped sweater, jeans with holes, and high tops, stood.
"How'd you get in here?"
"If you wanted some privacy, you might also try locking the door." And with that he pulls the door shut, leaving Iris alone again. She stared at the door, processing what just happened again and again until she slowly went back to trying to decide what to listen to.
-AHS-
"Why are you so obsessed with this guy?" Violet whispered as the two of them snuck downstairs, listening in on the conversation between their father and the boy from yesterday.
"I don't know Vi." She answered as they stopped and sat down on the stairs, listening into the conversation.
"I was afraid my big dick wouldn't work." Both girls suddenly became attentive, leaning a bit closer to the cracked open door. From Iris' spot she could see the boy she had met yesterday, though his shirt was different, he was still wearing the same jeans and shoes.
"What?" their father asked and the boy laughed.
"Yeah, that's why I didn't take the meds." He answered.
"Tate." Their father warned and Iris smiled to herself, happy that she finally knew the boy's name.
"I was afraid my dick wouldn't work," Tate looks up and sees Iris with her sister, "Because I met someone." Violet let out a squeak of surprise, causing the two of them to immediately jump to their feet and run upstairs to the closest room, which turned out to be Iris' room. They quickly shut it and sat against the door.
"He was talking about you!" Iris shushed her sister, "You're his someone!" Iris blushed, hiding her face in her palms. Someone knocked at the door and the twins looked at each other before scrambling to their feet and opening the door. Outside stood Tate with a small smile on his face.
"Hello. I'm Tate." He held out his hand.
"Violet." Her sister and Tate shook hands and Tate then turned to Iris.
"Iris." However, Tate took Iris' hand and gently kissed her knuckles, making her blush. Violet quickly excused herself and allowed Tate to enter her sister's room. Iris shut the door and led Tate to her bed, where the two of them sat. Tate picked up the sketchbook she had out, labeled 'School'. He opened it to the first page, where Iris had drawn a picture of her sister cutting herself in the bathroom.
"Is that your sister?" He asked, showing it to her. She nodded.
"Violet's gotten into the habit of cutting. Soon after our first day at the hell hole known as School, she came home and added some more because of these bitches that were messing with her." Tate pulled down his sleeve, showing Iris his scars.
"This one I did after my dad left. I was ten, I think." Iris gently ran her fingers over the scars, making Tate shiver.
"I think they're beautiful," she looked up at Tate, "Would you mind if I drew them?" He shook his head, making Iris smile. She jumped off her bed and ran over to her bookshelf, which held both empty, full, and partially full sketchbooks. She grabbed an empty one and a soft leaded pencil. She sat back in front of Tate and begin to sketch out the idea she had.
"You go to Westfield, right?" Iris nodded her head, not looking up at Tate, "The worst. I got thrown out of there."
"I hate it here. I hate everyone. All their bourgeoisiy designer shit. East Coast was ten times better. At least there was weather there." Iris complained, happy that someone else was listening to her besides Violet. She was also happy that there was someone else who understood her hatred of this place bedsides Violet…maybe, just maybe, this place would be bearable.
"I love it when the leaves change." Tate commented, making Iris look up from her drawing and smile at him. The first smile, it seemed, since her family had moved here.
"Yeah, me, too." She went back to the drawing, already getting Tate's arm.
"Why did you move here?" Tate already knew the answer, the whole damn house knew. He didn't want to scare her off just quite yet though…no, he was patient.
"My dad had an affair. My mom literally caught him in the act of screwing one of his students."
"That's horrible," Iris snorted, "If you love someone, you should never hurt them…never."
"That's not even the worst part. My mom had this brutal miscarriage, like, six months earlier. The baby was seven months old, and we had to have this macabre funeral," She looked at Tate, "Have you ever seen a baby coffin?" She went back to the drawing, blinking away the tears. Tate grabbed Iris' wrist, which not only happened to be the one with the tattoo but the one she was using to draw. She looked at him.
"I'm sorry." She gives him a thankful nod and resumes her sketching. Tate's arm was complete, now she just had to get the body. In her mind, she saw his scarred arm covering his eyes, the words psychopath etched into his arm.
"Why are you seeing my dad?" Iris asked, unable to resist the question.
"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to. You're smarter than that." She placed her drawing, she had the basic outline it could get finished later, aside and walked over to her CD collection. Tate got up and followed her, standing behind her.
"Want to listen to Morrissey? He's not bad but my sister really likes him."
"You sure you don't have any Kurt Cobain?" Iris chuckled and shook her head.
"I'll make sure to get some for you," she replied as she stood up and looked at him, "Never really tried Cobain but I'm always open for new suggestions."
"What are you doing in here?" The two jumped and turned to see Ben standing there, an angry look upon his face.
"Just talking dad, we were getting ready to choose a CD to listen to."
"You need to leave, Tate. I'm sorry. He shouldn't be in here, and I think you know that…please." Ben asked his daughter. She scoffed, there's no way in hell she was going to finally start listening to her dad. He stopped being her dad a long time ago.
"What's that thing you think I'm afraid of? Fear of rejection?" Tate clarified with her father and then stormed out of the room. Iris started to go after Tate but Ben pushed his daughter back into her room.
"Stay away from him."
"Dad, nothing…"
"You heard me!" Ben snapped and left, making Iris slam the door in anger. Faintly, she can hear Tate storming down the stairs, yelling 'bullet' over and over again.
-AHS-
Iris wears the same outfit she had been wearing when she and Tate were talking to school the next day. There's some faint smell that she wanted to preserve, kind of smelled like gunpowder, cigarette smoke, and paint. As she walks out of her intermediate art class, she sees a bunch of people run down the halls saying something about 'two girls fighting'.
Iris knew that could only mean one thing, so she took off running, pushing her way past people to find a crowd gathered. She quickly pushed her way through, and surprise surprise, its Violet and Leah.
"I'm not scared of you!" Violet insisted.
"Should be!" Leah spat back.
"Fight, fight, fight!" the kids began to chant, much to Iris' horror, mostly because she was afraid of what her sister would do. And of course, her gut feeling was right because Violet picked up the still lit cigarette and smashes it into Leah's hand, causing her to scream.
"Oh, she friggin' burned me!" And with that, Iris grabs her sister's hand and pulls her away, running off towards their car.
"I (pant) don't know (pant) how we're…"Iris began before the two of them shared a look, bursting into laughter.
Who gave a shit?
Their parents certainly didn't
-AHS-
Iris unlocks the back door for her sister, holding it open to allow her to enter the house first. She follows, seeing her mother sit Violet down and examine her battle wounds.
"What happened to your face?" Vivien asked her daughter as Iris got an ice pack out of the freezer and handed it to her sister.
"Fell down." Violet lied, making Iris roll her eyes.
"Come here Iris and sit," Iris did so and held her sister's free hand, "Boy or girl?"
"Girl. Three of them." Iris answered.
"Hope they look worse than you do Vi. Either of you know their names?" Vivien asked her daughters.
"We're not narking." Violet told her mother, who let out a sigh.
"You know, we can easily move you to a different school. There are a lot of really good private schools right in this neighborhood."
"We're not running away. We're not scared of them." Iris insisted.
"We're not afraid of anything." Big fat lie but no one bothered to correct that. Their mother chuckled.
"It's like that time in kindergarten, when you two insisted that I bring you home from the slumber party 'cause all the other girls were sleeping with the nightlight on," she looked at her daughters, "I know you both have gotten the short end of the stick, lately. This move, and…your dad and I haven't exactly been great to be around."
"Why don't you guys get divorce, if you're so miserable?" Violet asked her mom as she shifted the ice pack on her face.
"We still love each other."
"You could've fooled us. We thought you hated each other. Well, at least you hated him." Violet said.
"We don't blame you. He was a shithead," Both of them looked at Iris, "Sorry." She wasn't.
"It's okay," Vivien assured her daughters, "He was a shithead. You know, we got a lot of history. You dad's been through a lot, I've been through a lot. Guess we need each other. What are you two scared of?" Neither one of them was actually going to admit their fears aloud, so they decided to keep with the lie of not being scared of anything.
"You said we're not scared of anything, so…what scares you?" Iris asked her mother.
"Lately? Everything. Life will do that to you."
-AHS-
"I hate her! I just want to kill her!" Iris ranted to Tate as she paced her room.
"Then do it! One less high school bitch making the lives of the less fortunate more tolerable is, in my opinion, a public service," Iris stopped pacing and looked at Tate, "Look, you want her to leave you and Violet alone? Stop making your lives a living hell? Short of killing her, there's only one solution. Scare her. Make her afraid of you. It's the only thing bullies react to."
"How?" Iris asked, walking over and sitting next to Tate on her bed.
"It's simple. You simply walk up to her and say, 'Here's the deal: I need you to stop harassing me and my sister. I got what you want. Drugs. Come to my house tomorrow for your free sample. I'm a dealer, and a good one. I've got the best shit in town.'"
"Well, yeah, it's obvious she's a cokehead. But, here's the problem, I don't have any coke."
"You won't need any," Tate assured her, "It's just an excuse to get her here. After that, she'll leave empty-handed and terrified. And I promise you, you and your sister will never be bothered by her again." Iris was quite for a few moments, contemplating this plan.
"How am I going to terrify her?" she finally asked, making Tate grin.
"Helter-skelter! That's where I come in."
-AHS-
So Iris waited till school would be done, when everyone would be out of the house. She smiled to herself as she lead Leah to the basement.
"What's down there?"
"My stash. Parents toss me and my sister's room every week." She lied.
"If you're screwing with me…"
"It's just the basement. I found the best hiding place. This is great shit, too. All the coke coming to the U.S. form Central America smuggled in on lobster boats in Gloucester. My sister used to show her boobs to the lobstermen in return for a key or two before they cut it." Honestly, Iris was making this up as she went along. The two of them reached the bottom of the stairs, Leah waiting for Iris to show her her stash.
"So where is it?" Leah insisted.
"Right around the corner. To the right." Iris instructed, pointing Leah in the right direction. Leah went first, making Iris smile as she slowly followed her.
"This place is a dump." Jesus, what a whiny bitch.
"Oh, shut up."
"I want my goddamn drugs."
"Then keep going." Iris insisted and switched the light on, where Tate was sitting in the middle of the room in a rocking chair.
"So this is the coke whore."
"Who the hell are you?" Leah asked.
"Get the lights." Tate instructed Iris, who shut them off. She heard Tate laugh this…villainous, no, psychotic laugh as the lights began to flicker.
"What is going on!? What is going on?!" Leah screeched, though Iris wasn't finding herself pleased with how this was going. Sure, she wanted to scare the bitch but with what Iris saw…that creature was enough to give anyone nightmares.
"Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!" Tate throws himself on Leah, making Iris gasp and slowly walk backwards at the sight of it all.
"Get off of me! Get off of me!" Leah screamed, thrashing about. Suddenly Tate disappeared and that…thing took his place, making Iris scream in horror. Iris bumped into something and she jumped, jerking her head around to see Tate with a malicious grin upon his face.
"Get off me! Get off me!"
"Please, stop! Stop! Stop!" She begged Tate, who only grinned. Iris turned back around, seeing the creature's hand slowly approach Leah's face.
"Mommy…?" It starts to slash Leah's face, which is when Iris can't take it anymore. She flicked the light back on. Leah is laying on the floor, whimpering to herself and the creature is nowhere to be seen. Tate is back in the chair, a different, more sinister, grin upon his face. Once the Leah seemed to collect herself, she immediately ran out of the room and upstairs.
"Will you wait?!" She screamed at the girl, who did nothing of the sort.
"I don't think she'll be bothering you anymore." Tate commented as he got out of his chair.
"What was that?!" Iris snapped, looking to Tate with hatred upon her face.
"What are you talking about? She hit me in the balls and got away. She must have run into a wall or something."
"No, I saw something!" Iris insisted.
"What are you talk…? Iris, you're talking crazy. This is cool. We showed that bitch." Iris shook her head.
"Get out! I never want to see you again!" She pushes Tate away and runs up the stairs.
"I thought you weren't afraid of anything!" Tate yelled after her.
"No, that's just the lie I tell everyone." Iris thought once she was safe and sound in her room. She pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin upon them and thinking about what she had seen.
In the shadows of Iris' room, Tate watched her. This was only a bump in their relationship. He slowly walked over to her bed and gently kissed her forehead, smirking as she suddenly jumped.
Yes, he could be patient.