Dear Falchuk and Murphy, you're awesome. Don't you ever quit. That being said, I would appreciate it greatly if I could own American Horror Story. Cause I don't, much to my dismay. But great work, keep it up.
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CHAPTER 4: You're So Tangible, Like a Nitroglycerin Tablet Under my Tongue
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"Progress shall be defined by your position on the bridge as it burns. When populism, activism, urbanism fail, my cooler head will prevail. When there are no more gods left to annoy; no more noses to bend out of joint, I will meet you at the point of diminishing returns."
-Harvey Danger, 'Diminshing Returns'
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Tate's revelation hung in the air like the stench of last night's Indian food. Heavy with spices of shock and surprise. Nuggets of meaty fear. A side of bland disgust. Like a curry of secrets.
Violet hated spicy food.
Lip trembling and stumbling one, two, three steps back, her face went sheet-white and she let loose a cry not unlike that of a trapped animal.
The tiny measure of hope floating above the madness swimming in Tate's eyes soured and curdled the moment that sound escaped her mouth.
"Violet?" His voice shook like a 6.7 on the Richter Scale.
He had regressed to the state of childlike delicacy that he had adopted in her room. It would only take one word too many to crack the fragile sheen of sanity he'd managed to scrounge up despite the reaction he knew was inevitable.
His body was already tensed for the impact of her rejection. Curled in on itself. Ready to lash out at a second's notice.
"Just… just… just…"
She had become her best-loved and well-worn record; vinyl ground away to dust and floating about the room. Stuck on the same track and skipping with. Every. Single. Beat.
He took a tentative step forwards, reaching out, away from his previous position of surrender.
"Violet?"
Maybe she isn't like everyone else. Maybe she isn't scared. Maybe she just needs a bit of encouragement. Maybe-
That's too many 'maybes' for a 'yes', psycho. Don't kid yourself. Did you really think that she would overlook the fact that she just sucked face with a dead kid? That's like, necrophilia. Ew.
Pushing aside that nagging little voice in the back of his head, Tate took another step towards her.
She took another five back.
The expression on her face told him that that ship had long sailed for better horizons.
"Just stay away from me!"
Her shriek echoed through the empty basement, ringing in her ears.
Scrambling, she turned and sprinted up the uneven stairs, tripping once or twice as her spindly pale legs pumped and strained to get her away.
Spidery fingers with bitten fingernails fumbled with the heavy metal door handle, twisting and pushing until the basement was locked away.
The sound of the door slamming shut felt final to Tate.
Heavy silence. The calm before the disaster.
That was the only way to describe his outbursts. 'Storm' was too tame.
Shelves fell like dominoes under the wrath of his worn tennis shoe. The wooden rocking chair that had once been the sole piece of furniture in the room Thaddeus favored became no more than splinters of wood lodged in his hands, courtesy of the stone wall and his rage.
His energy spent but his emotions still raging, Tate dropped, his knees drawn close and his bloody fingers twining in his hair and pulling, pulling, pulling.
"I THOUGHT YOU WEREN'T AFRAID OF ANYTHING!"
He screamed with everything he had left, ignoring the heavy musk of copper and salt rising in his mouth.
But here he was.
Afraid.
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He had another session scheduled with Sigmund Freud.
Fucking Constance. The old whore.
Tate hoped she was just as cursed as her womb was.
He was in no mood to speak to the weak-willed and utterly incompetent excuse for a man that had by some miracle sired the wondrous creature that Violet was.
The taste of blood rose in his mouth again, and he restrained the urge to scream her name, to plead for her to take him back, to at least freaking look at him. He was almost certain that she would hear him from Dr Harmon's office.
The temptation grew.
Tate stifled the hope growing in him and shot the quack a dark glare when his phone went off. Siggy mumbled an apology and turned off the stupid contraption.
"Um, if it's okay with you, I'm going to record-"
Tate cut off his clumsy demand with a sharp nod. His scowl would probably make even the old hag he'd once called 'Mama' cringe, he mused to himself all while trying desperately not think of Vi- the girl. The girl.
"Have you been taking your medication?"
The question almost caught him off guard.
Of course he wasn't. He was dead. Zyprexa wasn't going to do anything for him now, was it?
Besides, even if by some chance he'd been alive, he would never have taken it. It dulled his senses in a way he didn't appreciate. Too manufactured. Too permanent. Too mandatory.
Even so, he decided to throw the dog a bone. "Sure."
"Any side effects?"
The question followed his reply immediately, as if Ben Harmon was just as eager to get Tate out of there as Tate was.
Come on, I need side effects… side effects… what are common side effects?
"I was taking them at night. They were keeping me up", Tate answered, staring up at the ceiling and counting the cracks as he lounged back in the chair.
"So what did you do?"
God, doc, you just have a question for everything now, don't ya? Can't we just stick to the usual 'tell me about your issues' and 'how does that make you feel'?
"Started taking them in the morning."
There. A reasonable solution that any idiot could come up with. Even one whose brain was being shrunk by prescription antipsychotics.
"Light sensitivity is pretty common", Harmon added, seeming to relax back into his usual role of douchebag shrink.
That's a side effect, right? Oh well, might as well roll with it.
Play it safe, psycho.
Great. His Jiminy Cricket was back.
"Maybe", Tate said, his voice lingering a little on the final syllable, as if he wasn't completely certain. "I think so."
Siggy sighed, giving him a skeptical look.
"When I was in medical school", the dear old doc began.
Fuck this. He's playing storyteller. I'm leaving.
Pretty lies don't fool me, psycho. Would you really ever pass up the chance to push this guy's buttons?
Mm. Nah.
"They brought in this guy from the CIA to show us how to tell if someone was lying, a guy who specialized in interrogation. He was huge, like seven foot a hundred, so he and to be real good at his job. I mean, I wouldn't have the balls to lie to this guy."
The very idea that Harmon had balls in the first place made Tate want to laugh. Scornfully. Right in his face.
But then he registered the words coming out of Freud's mouth. He put two and two together and realized they made four.
Tate stood up suddenly.
"You think I'm lying."
It was a statement. Not a question. That was made very clear.
But Tate couldn't have the doc thinking he was lying. Or else he'd start to question. He'd start to dig. And Tate knew all too well how many bones were buried out in the backyard. In his past.
"Light sensitivity isn't a side effect of Lexaprotate."
Ah. So that's what they were calling it. Tate sat back down again, this time in a rocking chair completely different to the one he'd trashed not days ago.
"So you lied to me." His clenched teeth and bitten tongue were apparent in his words.
Hypocrite doctor. Trying to trap me. I wasn't even specific in my freaking answer.
"What's really important is that you're telling the truth about what you're thinking of doing to your classmates."
Oh, so he was going to go with that one. Nice try doc. I've heard it all before.
"If you're actually a danger to society", Harmon continued. "The law says I have to report you to the police."
Rocking back and forth, hands clasped white-knuckle-tight as if in prayer, he looked up. "Did you call them already?"
Cops meant investigations. Investigations meant the truth. The truth meant V- the girl- the girl would leave.
"Not yet." For a man inches away from being gutted like a pig and strung up like dead meat in a slaughterhouse, the doc was quite calm. It was as if he'd completely forgotten exactly how dangerous this patient could be. Harmon got up and started pacing.
"I've treated psychotics before and know that even with the right combination of medication and treatment, some people have a chemical imbalance and can't be reached." He stopped three feet away from Tate, staring him directly in the eye.
Ooh, the quack has some semblance of balls after all. Interesting. Maybe he'll finally give up.
"You think that's me? You think I can't get better?"
Go on. Say it. I've been waiting for you to say it. Hell, I've been hoping you'd say it. Come on.
Set me free.
"You?" Harmon chuckled.
God damnit! So close!
Tate knew exactly what he was about to say next. But it wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"You're hopeless", the doc stated in a teasing voice. He chuckled again.
He probably wanted Tate to laugh with him. He expected he'd be happy that he could be cured.
"You're right, doc. I am hopeless."
Tate smiled, his eyes alight with darkness. "And that gives me hope."
Harmon coughed, trying to shake off the little shiver of fear that had run down his back with those words. "No, Tate. Everyone can get better. You're just scared."
Damn right I am. Thank your daughter for that one.
"Of what, I'm not sure. Maybe… rejection."
Bingo, Siggy. Right on the nose. That's Sunshine's work that you're admiring right there.
Tate didn't want to be spiteful towards that girl. But he couldn't help the resentment that followed his frustration in her complete refusal of him.
Maybe, if she would just acknowledge him again, it wouldn't hurt so bad. Maybe it'd just hurt a million times worse.
It's like that thing I call a heart-for better lack of a term- is covered in a billion little paper cuts. I fucking hate those. They sting like a bitch.
"Maybe because of what your father did to you."
It was then that he noticed her.
Over Harmon's shoulder, he glimpsed that gi- Violet half-hidden in the doorway.
And suddenly, it was as if he had never been renounced by her in the first place. The organ that would be called 'heart' by the men who'd poked around his chest cavity to determine the exact cause of death after he'd finally been declared no longer among the living tightened in the best of ways.
He could feel ever-so-close-but-never-quite human again.
"I was afraid my big dick wouldn't work."
Tate said the words with a smirk and looking right at her. The joke was shared between them without the doc ever having a clue that it was less than pure fact.
"W-what?" Harmon tried to laugh it off, his voice betraying the tiniest of wavers. Tate laughed right along with him.
Laughing at your own jokes, now, psycho? My, how the mighty have fallen.
"Yeah, that's why I didn't take the meds", Tate continued. Harmon scoffed. "I was afraid my dick wouldn't work."
"Because I met someone."
He stared at Violet.
Violet stared right back.
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All of the sudden, it was as if he wasn't dead anymore.
There they were, Sid and Nancy, sitting in her room and comparing battle scars.
"I made this one when I was…" he paused, thinking back. "Ten, I think, when my dad left."
Violet brandished her own arm, where the straight lines of crusted blood were still fresh. His had long faded away, much like the denial he'd been swimming in before he finally accepted his monstrosity of a mind.
"Last week. First day at my new school. Sucks."
Ooh, I know this one. The whole déjà vu thing. Been there, almost done that.
"Westfield, right? The worst. I almost got thrown out of there."
She looked at him through her hair. Hiding again.
"Don't do that, Violet", he pleaded softly. "Don't hide from me."
She shook her head, hair scattering like leaves in the wind. "You know, I don't know what to think of you, Tate. You're just so…"
"Go on, say it." His voice was a murmur now, an echo of his thoughts in the doc's office.
"Say it. I won't be mad. It's true."
"Insane", she finished. He smiled.
"But I don't believe you", she added, her tone growing bolder. There she is. My Violet.
"I'm still your friend though. But anything... else will have to wait until I've made up my mind."
He considered it. "Seems fair enough."
"One thing to consider before you decide what I am", Tate said, his smile wicked and hinting at the darkness that lay beneath the surface. "Us dead people aren't like fairies. If you don't believe in us, we don't vanish."
"We come back, more real than ever."
-O-0-o-0-O-
Alrighty then.
Some shit has gone down. Ish. More to come on that front, that's for sure.
(and I'm still sitting here, counting down the minutes until Season 3 airs)
Now, on to other business.
My lovely, lovely readers, as lovely as ever, I bestow one hug upon you all (or a cookie if you're not too keen on sharing personal bubble space).
The great, marvelous people who have deemed me worthy of favoriting or being on their list of alerts, you all get bacon (or more cookies if bacon and hugs just ain't your thing).
And finally, to the amazing and awesomely fantastic vixenXfreezepop and jandjsalmon, who have gifted me with the most perfect gift of reviews, I offer you both my eternal gratitude and a plethora of baked goods crafted by the masters of pastry. Cause you guys are that cool.
Much love to all of you,
Merida