Murphy and Falchuk, you clever, clever creators, you. I'm not half as clever as you guys, so in a way I guess I'm thankful that I don't own American Horror Story.

-O-0-o-0-O-

CHAPTER 13: Surprises Lost their Thrills; Vodka and Pills and the Marquee Moon

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"Your heart is always almost beating along with windy frozen tunes. But you say you've laughed enough, you closet's stuffed with the last year's blues. And by summertime, your suicide's just the last year's news…"

-Bedroom Walls, 'In Anticipation of Your Suicide'

-O-0-o-0-O-

There was no right decision.

He was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Either way, when all of this purgatory cursed-ground-house-whatever crap was over, he knew he was going to stay with the man from the south.

Gathering the mass of inner frustration into a writhing ball of self-hate, Tate expelled it from his lungs in a hair-rising screech. Nothing living could make that sound. He could feel the walls and foundations of Murder House shiver as the sound echoed throughout the empty basement.

Not even Thaddeus dared come near him when he was in such a mood.

This was the third time it had happened in all of his nonexistence.

The first was when he had finally realized that he was in fact dead; that the drugs hadn't just put him to sleep for a few hours, but that they'd stopped his shrivelled, hateful heart from beating any longer.

The second was the first time that Constance had set foot in the house after his death and Larry's subsequent arrest. She'd moved out again, citing 'bad juju' as her main reason, though he knew all too well that she couldn't afford to live in such a luxurious structure. She'd come in to greet the new neighbours, the gay couple, with one of Addie's pies. He'd howled for days.

This time… this time was something new. This was something completely different.

Tate was quiet for the most part.

The voice that tormented his thoughts with the reminders of his most vile actions and intentions was not.

You know you want to. You know you have to, if you want this to last.

Go on, psycho. Do the crazy thing. The thing that feels right.

He'd torn the entirety of those blond locks from his skull countless times by now, a pile of hair attached to bloody strips of scalp by his feet. He'd clawed at his temples in an attempt to pull the voice out until his nails broke and his temporal lobes were thoroughly gouged.

He was a bloody naked mess.

This decision was tearing him apart, bit by bit, second by second. But it needed to be done, needed to be made before someone or something else made the decision for him. And their reasons wouldn't be nearly as honourable or righteous as his own, that he knew.

Or so you think, psycho. But that's what you do, isn't it? Take choices away from people. Take their lives, their futures, everything they have…

How the hell do you know that what you choose will be right? What makes you so sure that you can trust yourself anymore?

Think on that, psycho.

Tate continued to weigh his options and his exits. There were so many things that depended so heavily on the outcome of his final decision.

One of them was him.

This was a first for him; to be given such a dilemma, one that required that one act on thought and pre-planned logic instead of primal instinct as he usually did. This time, the very thing that usually drove him in his whole existence was not the way to go. For once, that door was shut; barred and deadlocked with the key thrown away.

Tate continued tearing his hair out.

-O-0-o-0-O-

It was a scene pulled straight out of a dollar-a-dozen horror movie.

Cheap scares and five-second thrills for the masses; come one, come all!

Watch as Violet Harmon, ghost-fucker and naïve teenager extraordinaire decides to venture into the attic alone with no one living in the house with her! See as she trembles with uncertainty and terror in the face of the unknown, observe as she does something stupid in the hopes that she'll find the man who is apparently not only dead, but afraid of emotional commitment!

Shaking her thoughts away as if they were no more than gnats on a warm summer evening, Violet pulled on the chain that released the stairs leading to the attic. She'd always wondered what Tate's family had been like. Maybe she'd get lucky and find him up there instead of trying to brave the basement where dead things played.

I won't flinch. I don't care what he looks like, I won't flinch. I won't scream, cry or run away either. I've had enough of crying.

And she definitely had.

After a night so full of tears that her face had stung, she had cried herself to sleep after Tate had vanished. Vivien had sternly reprimanded her at the breakfast table, even going so far as to inquire if she had been using drugs because her eyes were so red. And then she had coldly informed Violet that Ben would no longer be living with them, and that they would be seeking a divorce.

Needless to say, despite her internal 'I told you so', Violet cried some more.

Now, a full week later, she still hadn't even so much as heard from Tate, her father looked ready to punch a wall whenever he showed up for a client's appointment and Vivien was giving the security guy the twice-over.

Finally opting to take something into her own hands, she'd elected to go and visit the brother that Tate had claimed to love so much; the one that he had claimed was harmless.

Biting her lip, she began to ascend into the attic, pausing slightly whenever she heard a creak out of sheer habit rather than prudence. But she was in fact afraid. She'd just resolved not to act on it.

Pushing the trap door open, she peeked her head through before letting it fall open, climbing into the attic and closing it behind her with a thud.

The space was practically empty, only littered with the odd few boxes and an old bed. At least the gimp suit was gone. She'd always hated latex. It was a bit tacky after all, especially with so many zippers. They'd dusted the space since she'd last been up there when her mother had called out in surprise of seeing the suit.

Having assessed the room, she deemed it safe to continue onwards, stepping carefully. Her basketball shoes scuffed against the unpolished wooden floor rather loudly in the silence of the mostly empty space.

"Beau?" she said hesitantly, turning her head to see if anyone had emerged. "Beau, where are you?"

Nothing.

"Beau, I know your brother. He told me about you and I wanted to meet you", Violet added, hoping to see a box shift or a person to appear. "Tate-" her throat began to close up at the mention of his name.

No, I will not cry. Not anymore.

Forcing back the tears that built in her swollen eyes like a re-opened wound, Violet continued to call out to the quiet ghost who lived in her attic. "Tate told me that you could use a friend."

Someone finally did appear, timidly, as if expecting to be reprimanded for their presence. Clumsily too, as if they were unused to moving slowly.

Violet wouldn't lie. She did want to flinch. And the pity that the sight of this boy brought crashed into her like a tidal wave. But she wouldn't flinch, and she wouldn't pity. She didn't want to be weak like that again. She didn't want to presume.

"Friend?" he asked in a watery voice, clumsy as his movements. His eyes seemed alit with hope, something unheard of in Murder House, long drained away by the harsh realities of the consequences of dying here.

Violet wouldn't lie. Beau Langdon was deformed. He had a hare lip that Constance had obviously neglected to have operated on, which had most likely caused him many problems with speech and other things in life. His nose was rather squat, and he had a large chin which made it appear as if all of his features had been bunched together in the center of his face. His hair was long and unkempt and his fingernails untrimmed and ragged, while his clothes were dirty and tattered. But he wasn't ugly.

No, Beau had a look too innocent and trusting in his calf's eyes for that. He held within him a spark of some small happiness which, if she was to trust the word of his brother, was all too hard for him to find in his life, but had managed to maintain it from the cold corrosion of death.

The pity that had all but drowned her moments before was overtaken by a rush of rage.

Rage directed at Constance Langdon, the pox upon her own family and plague to her children.

If Beau had only received more care in life and not been so neglected, he could have lived like Addie. He could've had in the very least an almost-normal life.

But instead, Constance- that disease- left his lip untreated despite available surgeries that could've eased his speech and allowed him to have more balanced features instead of having the minor deformity slowly force them into such a cramped position. He could have been given clean clothes, basic sanitary products and even an actual room of the dozens in this god-forsaken house. He could have had a life.

Carefully shuffling forwards ever so slightly, Beau held out a hand clutching a bright red ball towards her. "Friend?"

Violet wouldn't lie. Reaching to take it from him, she held the ball close to her heart and smiled as brightly as she could.

"Friend."

-O-0-o-0-O-

The witch's clawed hand tore at her mutilated wrist, tugging with fingers of wrinkled insta-tan flesh over bone.

"Come", her raspy bitter voice rasped. Her yellowed teeth were exposed, drugstore red smeared over thin lips, stretching to show her sickening snarl. Her grip tightened. "Come."

Violet struggled against the Wicked Bitch of the West, pulling and leaning away.

But with the years of resentment and hatred must've instilled an almost unnatural strength within her limbs, and she managed to drag her out the door and through her own. Fucking Constance.

Her décor was tacky. That was the first thing that Violet noticed when she was unceremoniously seated roughly in some polyester-upholstered chair. The worst part of it was that it might've been welcoming and warm. But she knew exactly how the people who had lived under this roof had been treated by the woman who was pouring herself a glass of scotch.

Violet vaguely recalled having seen that crystal tumbler in her father's study. Maybe Constance had filched it away to keep with all of the other shiny treasures she'd pried from unwilling and unknowing hands.

"I have someone I want you to meet."

With a manicured nail that looked like it could slit her wrists just as easily as her razor, the hateful bitch gestured to the woman sitting at the other end of the table, cigarette already in hand and an expensive glass with what appeared to be brandy in it in the other.

She was TV-ready, with immaculately curled and styled highlighted hair and flawless makeup. She was what the Witch aspired to be; young, successful and beautiful.

"Billie Dean Howard. Psychic."

Violet wanted to spit on Constance. Call her names. Tell her that she was worthless; ugly. Lock her away.

"Well, isn't that quite a bit of unmerited resentment that you have directed towards my friend, young lady?" the Howard woman seemed to muse. "Then again, you did finally meet her oldest. Not one of dear Constance's finer moments, I'm afraid."

If her eyes could kill, even Tate would find the outcome of this encounter gruesome. In the background, the woman unfit to love anything in this world or beyond it seemed to diminish ever so slightly, downing her liquor and quickly pouring herself another three measures only to throw that glass back as well.

"'Not one of her finer moments'? She convinced a man whose affair with her had led to the deaths of three people to smother her child in his sleep. And that was after she'd chained him to a bed in the attic and convinced him that no one would ever love him."

She spat her words like a snake would; in a hiss and full of venom. "The only child who never did anyone any harm. And you killed him like he was nothing more than a spider on your bedroom ceiling."

"Don't you ever assume that I didn't love my children!" Constance exclaimed suddenly, slamming her glass down onto the counter. "I always did what was best for them."

Violet sneered. She couldn't believe this woman.

"So neglecting your oldest son was what was best? Telling your only daughter that she was ugly and no one would ever find her beautiful? Pushing Tate to-" she choked, her throat closing up at the mention of his death.

"Look, none of this matters right now!" said Billie Dean Howard hotly.

My ass it doesn't matter. That bitch ruined the lives of nine people. All of them ended up dead, caught up in her egotistical schemes or the wrath of her emotional insecurity. Doesn't matter. Right.

"Then what does matter?" Violet stated sarcastically, throwing up her hands in sheer frustration. "If the lives of nine people don't matter, what does?"

Constance recoiled. "Nine people? What is that supposed to mean?"

"She's talking about Hugo, Larry and the others", replied Billie Dean Howard, taking a deep swig of alcohol. At this rate, Violet was going to need a drink too. "Never mind that. We have to talk about Tate."

Violet scoffed. "What about him?"

"I'm not quite convinced that he knows that he's dead. He seems to have been confused to the point that he believes that he never did die. He walks the house, unsure of what he's doing. Perhaps the shock of his death caused some disturbance in-"

She was cut off when Violet began to laugh.

It was a sombre, chilling sound. It was the sound of someone who had looked into the eyes of darkness itself and stared back into that abyss unflinchingly. Like making eye-contact with Tate.

"You", Violet finally said, breathing a bit more heavily, "you are either blind, incompetent or stupid."

"E-excuse me?"

"You know what Tate told me when I met him for the second time?" she asked in the most condescending voice she could muster, her small features twisted into a snarl.

Both of the older women seemed completely unaware of the most glaring, obvious fact in all of Murder House. Tate Langdon didn't remain ignorant of his demise; he embraced it, flaunted it in the faces of the living ever so blatantly. In fact, she was amazed that Ben hadn't even noticed that one of his only remaining patients dead in her room over a decade before.

Constance and Billie Dean Howard begged with their betraying eyes for her to finally tell them just what he'd said. They would never have dared voice their anticipation to have a definitive answer to seemed like what was the Witch's crusade for redemption.

"You don't know what he told me. And it's going to stay that way."

Violet got to her feet and walked straight out the front door.

-O-0-o-0-O-

There he sat, bathing in squalor and surrounded by the things that go creak in the night; his colleagues, his peers if ever he would admit himself to being no better than them.

But Tate was far too proud to acknowledge that he was little more than a whisper of a monster that had died within these walls that had remained in limbo as some sort of eternal punishment. It was the ultimate truth; this house corrupted, and anyone willing to live in a place so overflowing with ghosts was just as tainted as they were.

And so he sat, fingers crusted with his own blood, tears and thinking having burned permanent tattoos into his face. It was almost as if he was still alive.

He was lying to himself, lying on the ground now.

A pale hand with flakes of browned dark red falling to the ground in a spiral reached upwards, as if to grasp something beyond this world. All it closed around was the empty space between Tate and Violet, crushing it away to nothing.

Thinking back to the day he had met her, his lips twitched into a smile despite himself, recalling how innocently broken she had been back then. Just beginning to crack, yet so close to shattering in a controlled way. The most accidental of accidents.

But Violet never knew what she really wanted. Not until he cajoled her with his words, which held the power to shift mountains and topple empires. She needed him to help her decide for herself.

His hand still clenched, he pulled it away from the illusion of reaching for her as if he could pull her into his arms through sheer force of will. And he pressed that clenched fist to his chest so hard that he felt bones fracture and blood vessels rupture.

He'd made his decision.

He would make Violet's decision for her.

-O-0-o-0-O-

I'm currently in the process of catching up on all of the Season three goodness that I have yet to enjoy, but I'm getting there :D

Many things are happening after this point, so expect major changes and lots of shit hitting lots of fans. Hopefully not fans of the show, just regular all air circulation devices xD

I'll get right down to it:

Readers: I say it every time. And I'll keep saying it every time. Love you all.

Favorites/Alerts: Love you guys slightly more ;D

Reviews: If you didn't see the edited version of the chapter I posted last time, Fanfiction is not emailing me whenever someone reviews as they usually would. I don't if it's just a glitch, but I won't necessarily see your review right away, so please forgive me if I have to go back and edit the chapter in order to respond.

jandjsalmon: I might be shooting myself in the foot by telling you this, but yes, he was in fact telling most of the truth for once. I kind of agree with you about Emma Roberts. I dunno, I just find it hard to believe the characters that she plays and to genuinely like them. That's my personal opinion, at least. I'm already in complete adoration with the whole idea of Queenie's powers xD I hope you liked this chapter too :D

Done for now.

Merida, out.