Murphy and Falchuk... Thank you. (Oh and by the way, I don't own American Horror Story)
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CHAPTER 12: Dead Lungs Command It
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"You're not invisible now; you just don't exist. Your mother must be so proud. You sublimate yourself; granting us our wish."
-The Shins, 'The Rifle's Spiral'
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There weren't words.
The English language had yet to develop words spiteful and burning with enough rage and frustration to express his utter…
He didn't have the words.
So instead, Tate swore profusely, taking lessons from the French and stringing every foul slur and verbal slap he knew into a jumble of complete frustration, throwing his discarded sweater over Violet and disengaging from the tangled mess they'd become.
He could almost feel the dregs of his final appearance sliding into place, as if they belonged there all along. He could almost feel the tightening of his heart as it had once constricted; convulsing and all but exploding, pushing sticky tar-blood out through every orifice available.
He could almost feel the syrupy liquid pulsing slowly from his nose, his ears, his eyes, his mouth like molasses being forced from a squeeze-bottle. He could almost feel his mind cooking in his skull.
This is your brain.
Tate couldn't even force a proper 'go fuck yourself' from his lips to spit at Larry Harvey, the man who'd ruined his life. Not even Constance, with her love for tormenting the spoiled fruit produced by her diseased womb, could come even near to what this man had done to him or his family.
So instead, Larry Harvey spoke first.
"If it isn't the golden boy, Tate Langdon?" he sneered, his mouth half torn from his face and teeth exposed by the missing chunk of flesh right where his left cheek had once been. Drool and thick blood spattered on the ground by him as he spoke, narrowly missing Violet.
Still unable to utter a single word, yet alone a witty retort, Tate hissed at the man who had once fancied himself his step-father. Like some sort of alleyway tomcat.
This is your brain on drugs.
Larry smirked. Or he attempted to. Or he grimaced. It was hard to tell with what had happened to his face.
"You always were her favourite. Then again, look at the people she liked to surround herself with… your father, your deformed little siblings, me", he put an emphasis on the last one. "Constance always did have shitty taste. I mean, have you seen her paintings?"
It had been obvious to Violet from the beginning that Tate and Constance had some sort of a past together. It wasn't like she was completely surprised by the statements that this rather rude man was making- who she assumed was either dead or a Hollywood makeup artist. But this was the first she'd ever heard of siblings.
"Anyways, how is Beauregard doing? Still chained up in the attic?"
The sickly sweet in his tone made Violet want to retch and cry at the same time. Because she could feel the hate and hurt emanating off of Tate, whose entire frame, though covered in bruises, cuts and- were those burns?- tensed, ready to lunge and do what she imagined was all too similar to what he did to her attempted murderer.
Was that his brother? Why the hell would he be chained up in the attic? The only thing we found up there was that god-awful BDSM thing.
If she'd had a sense of humour in this situation, she might have privately joked to herself that 'Beauregard' was the suit, but she knew all too well of the house and the pain that it carried.
"Shut up."
It was the first thing that had escaped Tate's mouth since he'd reverted to the way he'd been when he died. At least, she supposed that was what he'd looked like.
"And what about sweet Adelaide?" the man taunted, a horrifically gleeful look in her drooping eyes.
Oh dear god. No. Not Addie.
Wait- does this…?
Oh god. Oh god.
If Addie's Tate's sister, then-
Forgetting the sweater that she'd been clutching to her chest as if her life depended on it, Violet clapped her hands to her mouth, forcing back the torrent of shamefully pitying tears and whimpers of unwelcomed sympathy.
"It's too bad that she wasn't in the house when she died."
Her heart managed to find a way to stop in order to feel the sheer emptiness caused by the absence of life. The hands that kept her from crying out and solidifying her presence in the conversation dropped to cradle her unmoving chest, splaying from sternum to collarbone and clutching, always clutching.
"Oh, you didn't hear? Hit and run. Very clean work", the man leered, grinning- moving what was left of his mouth- maliciously. "In fact, I did it myself."
She didn't realize that she was crying until she felt the white-hot tears burn a path down her cheeks. Her face remained frozen in its grimace of pain as she sobbed without a sound, clawing at her bared breast.
Tate lunged.
He tackled his good-for-nothing whore of a mother's once-lover, pushing that mangled body of his into the wet sand. Punching, unflinching as he felt his knuckles shatter, fuse back together and shatter yet again, continuing his assault as Larry struggled, attempting to twist away or- more likely- get in a few hits of his own.
"I will KILL you!"
He had never acted so savagely. Not even when he'd taken his sweet time murdering the sperm donor with a blunted butter knife, or when he'd rammed that fire poker up the cheater's rectum.
Not ever in front of Violet.
Her would-be murderers' deaths were clean in comparison to the carnage caused by the utter hate and rage that fuelled him, giving his arms the power to reduce Larry to a pulp a dozen times before his sister's killer lay still.
At least, for now.
And then, dripping with bits of gore, fragments of Larry's bones caught in his hands and his heart squeezed tight in Tate's hands, he crawled towards Violet, who lay weeping on the sand.
His Violet.
She was unashamed in her grief, his sweater cast aside so that she could wrap her arms around her midsection, as if to hold herself together. She was dusted with grainy bits of sand, her hair was a knotted mess, her nose was running along with her eyes and she'd managed to somehow cut herself on her chest.
She was still the most perfect thing he'd ever seen.
His perfect Violet.
He reached out to her with a bloody hand. She hesitated, her face still shining with tears and snot, almost considering pushing him away. He could tell. He knew his Violet.
After ten long minutes, she finally took it within her own, pulling him in closer.
She'd almost left him to hurt alone again. Just like the last time, when he ended up crying into her chest in an all-too-similar manner to this occasion. But she knew better.
She knew that she needed him to survive just as much as he needed her. They were a part of a symbiotic relationship in which both were parasites, slowly pulling the life out of the other. She supposed that it was more accurate on his part than hers. After all, he had no life left to pull away.
And so they lay there.
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Violet returned home, draped Tate's sweater and spattered with blood. In fact, it was more smeared on her than anything else, Tate having been the primary source of the transference of the man's blood.
She had been ushered home by him, whispered promises of I promise I'll explain soon and there's nothing more to worry about. Then, he'd promptly left her alone to face the wrath of her parents, who had most likely returned by then and would have probably noticed their only living child not in utero was past curfew by now.
In fact, she was almost anticipating the long lecture she was hoping they'd give her. For once, maybe they'd step up and finally parent her for the first time in almost two years.
With the previous baby, she had faded into the background, like and unwanted prop in an old photograph. With the miscarriage, she'd been nothing more than a shoulder to lean on while Ben and Vivien wept over the loss of the child they never had. With the infidelity, she had been turned into a form of continuous revenge from one parent to another; first she was supposed to hate her father, and then she was supposed to hate her mother. Individually, never both at once.
With the move… she had become even less than a glorified piece of furniture or carrier-pigeon between spouses. Now, she was just another chore. A chore that they didn't get their allowance for. She wasn't even just forgotten or used anymore. Violet didn't fit into their bright new family portrait that the rest of the Harmons had built up for themselves. She got the distinct sense that in their deepest, darkest thoughts, she was no longer welcome.
But she swallowed her resentment and the need to cry and opened the door to the Murder House.
And there they stood, both in their ridiculously cheesy costumes, arms crossed and patent looks of disappointment on their faces.
She could have cried with relief.
"Violet Harmon, do you have any idea what time it is?" her mother's voice exclaimed in a clearly irritated tone.
Sighing, she replied in a subdued manner. "Yes, I know what time it is."
"What the hell is that crap all over you?" Ben interrupted, moving his arms from their 'disappointed parent' position to gesture at the sweater. He looked… concerned?
"It's just fake blood, Dad. I was hanging out with Leah and she had some left over from her little brother's costume. She gave me an old sweater so that my clothes wouldn't get dirty", Violet answered smoothly, having received the excuse from Tate on her way home. Hopefully her parents wouldn't realize that Leah had been the girl that had given her the scar on her right eyebrow.
Vivien and Ben shared a look before seeming to accept her explanation and telling her to go upstairs.
"Oh", her mother interrupted her as she was about to climb the stairs. "Give me your phone. You're grounded for a week."
Violet had never been so relieved to receive parental discipline.
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He was there, waiting for her. She knew it before she even opened her door.
Maybe for once he'll give you a straight answer or two. Maybe even tell the truth for once.
Locking the door behind her, she shed his bloodstained sweater and collapsed onto the bed beside him. The events of the night were beginning to wear on her. It wasn't every day that you hear that one of your only friends got killed by a dead man who was subsequently reduced to pulpy flesh by your somewhat-boyfriend. Not only that, but moments before all of these terrible things happened, you were about to get it on with said somewhat-boyfriend.
She felt weak, boneless.
He looked even worse than she felt.
"This is all my fault", Tate whispered as she carefully ran her fingers through his hair. She paused, looking down at him wearily. Violet no longer knew when to deny his accusations towards himself or to silently accept them. He'd done quite a few terrible things. She just didn't know the full extent of them.
So instead of refuting his claims, she instead decided to inquire about their true nature.
"You promised that you'd explain to me", she whispered, resuming her playing with his locks. "You said that you'd tell me everything."
Tate turned his head to look at her. "I did."
His voice was so quiet and broken that she almost felt bad for asking him to recount what was most likely the worst part of his existence. But then she remembered that he had killed people. He had done things.
She didn't feel guilty anymore.
Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, he began to speak.
"When I was still alive, my life was… complicated. When I was young, we moved into this house. Back then, my parents were still together, living the lie of the American dream. It was them, Addie, Beau and me.
"Constance had always paid more attention to me, since I wasn't different like my siblings were. Hugo didn't pay attention to any of us. Instead, he preferred to pay attention to the slew of housekeepers that came and went."
His voice had turned bitter, but he continued to speak.
"I was six when Constance finally caught him trying to rape poor Moira. She shot both of them in the head. I watched while she buried them in separate holes in the backyard while Nora held my hand. We had to move out then to the house right next door, since my mother didn't have a job and my father's salary that he'd earned working in the stock exchanges would only go so far for so long. Constance became… more unpleasant to live with. She was obsessed with getting this house back, despite all of the terrible memories that went along with it.
She started an affair with the new neighbour, Larry Harvey, a married man with two children and a wife."
Tate looked up at Violet once again, his eyes burning black. "You met him tonight."
A whimper rose in her throat. She swallowed it back down and after a few moments of silence, motioned for him to continue.
"When his wife found out, she had a mental breakdown, dousing herself and her daughters in gasoline and setting herself on fire. Larry wasn't even fazed. Instead, he married Constance a few months after their deaths and had us all move right back into this house.
"My real problem with him came when he started taking Constance's orders and he- he-"
He choked back a sob. She couldn't even imagine how terrible the things that Larry Harvey had done had been. So instead, she pulled Tate close to her, resting his head on her shoulder as she embraced him.
"He killed Beau. He-he smothered my big brother, just because he was different, and Constance couldn't stand to love someone d-different."
Violet had begun to cry as well, having cast aside her front of strength. She couldn't be strong for Tate. Not when she had to know such horrible things. And she did have to know them.
"She-she'd been keeping him in the a-attic, all chained up b-because he just didn't kn-know any better. He'd never been allowed to go o-out before because in her eyes, being b-born different was wr-wrong."
He took deep, shaky gulps of air before continuing.
"A-and I-I couldn't take it anymore, I just h-had to do something", Tate whispered in between sobs. "I-I was going to do something so-so terrible, so b-bad…"
"I know I'm a bad person, I'm a fucked-up a-asshole, b-but this was worse than any-anything I-I'd ever done."
He wrenched his head from her delicate grasp. Staring her dead in the eyes with his dead eyes, she could see how dark he was inside. The part that was crying, the part that felt sorry; that was just a sliver in his twisted psyche. Even so, she reached up with a pale, fragile hand to touch his ice-cold cheek.
"D-don't hate me Violet. Please, d-don't h-hate me."
The truth was, she couldn't. She'd watched him stab a woman in the neck with a utensil. She'd seen him dead. She'd sat and done nothing as he smashed a man to bits and torn out his mangled heart.
"I-I… I was going to hurt people, Violet. People in my school. People I liked. I w-was going to kill th-them."
Biting her lip, she restrained her cry of dismay and disappointment, opting instead for a silent and tearful nod, having heard the silent 'but' in his statement. Inside, her mind was racing with the fear that she would have to suffer the end that his peers never did, that she was just his next victim, offering herself to him all wrapped up in a pretty pink ribbon on a silver platter. She must have kept her thoughts private. She had to; it was a matter of life and death.
A brief expression of respite washed over his features, and he continued to speak in his stuttering sob.
"I-I was going to k-kill Larry, just like how his f-family killed themselves. B-but before I-I could, I did something s-stupid."
Tate sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve and clearing his throat.
"I-I overdosed. I died before I could do those terrible things."
She couldn't take it any longer. Violet all but threw herself into his arms, the arms of a murderer. Her tired eyes shed more tears as she stroked his chest where his heart should beat. Suppressing the most primal of fears and thoughts was more taxing than she had ever anticipated. She collapsed, her fingers speaking the words of comfort that she couldn't bring herself to voice.
"Larry went to jail on criminal negligence because of his wife's suicide and the guns they found under my bed. He died in a prison riot. Constance… Constance never said a word."
He stopped talking after that, his fingers reaching up to tangle in her hair. He'd stopped crying too.
"I love you."
The words had slipped out of Violet's mouth without warning, little more than a whisper. Despite her terror in the face of his truths and intentions, she still felt so attracted to the darkness in him. She still wanted that emotional intimacy that she had yet to share with another. Her feelings were so jumbled and twisted together that she couldn't pull them apart to tell what was what, so her subconscious had done it for her. In fact, she hadn't even realized that she'd said them until she saw the look on Tate's face.
It shone with a dark sort of pride, whether it was direct towards himself or her was a complete mystery, but the sheer joy was present as well as a regular reaction to discovering that the object of your affections feels so strongly. He laughed, all of his previous turmoil erased with three simple words that she had barely even noticed saying.
But in an instant, it was gone, drained away. In its place came a brief flicker of horror, quickly replaced with a blank look.
Before she could bring herself to ask what was wrong, Violet was alone once more.
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Yes, it's been a while, but college exams tend to pull me away from my beloved laptop and force me to gravitate towards some rather long, dry reading that I should've probably done way earlier.
So, season three... Opinions?
Having been interrupted in mid-first-episode (I know, it's a crime D:), I have not had the chance to fully form any judgments on this season yet. Personally, I feel like it's a bit... different? I don't know, maybe I'm just suffering from post-midterm trauma xD
Right, so, before any of you ask what happened to the fourth child Constance supposedly had yet was never seen (I'm still kind of ticked that that didn't get resolved), I didn't mention it in the chapter, but Tate had a twin that was a stillborn. At least, that's my explanation in this story.
Readers: EYELAHVIEW AND OTHER THINGS.
Alerts/Favorites: Awesome. That's what you all are, and I need no other words to describe said awesomeness.
jandjsalmon: Your comment about Larry is quite very accurate, which is why I opted to refer to the worst villain in all of Harry Potter to describe him... UMBRIDGE. Hope you enjoyed this chapter too :D
Well then lovelies, that's all for now!
Merida, out.
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Edit: Sorry, for some reason Fanfiction isn't emailing me when a new chapter is posted so I have to check directly to see for reviews and, like and idiot, I only checked today.
vixenXfreezepop: It's actually my favorite Johnny Cash song xD I felt that it fit Tate very well, but I held myself back and only used it this chapter. I hope this chapter sort-of-not-really answers your question. Okay, it probably won't, so I'll give you a few hints :P Their relationship is something that isn't even really set in stone, and they're partly together out of sheer convenience. But apart from that, feelings make things complicated, and guess what? I love making things complicated xD
Sorry for that, hopefully I'll be less forgetful and check sooner next time!