Don't own anything, you know the drill. SEE AUTHOR'S NOTE.
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CHAPTER 14: Lack of Vision, Lack of Light
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"Then, in the dust all the things we discussed were thrown to the wind. So at last we begin, 'cause we fall hard; we fall fast. Mercy me, it'll never last."
-Low, 'Point of Disgust'
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She was visiting Beau again for the fifth time in as many days.
Violet knew that she enjoyed his company, as he was one of the only people she had ever known that really didn't seem to want anything more from her than company and friendship. The only other person she had known who had had such innocent motivations was Addie. She still had to clench her fists so that she didn't cry whenever she thought of the night when they'd bonded over makeup and boys.
She still had yet to see the youngest of the Langdon children since the night when she'd let what was probably most likely sort of kinda the biggest mistake of her existence. She knew all too well that Tate was far past unstable. In fact, he constantly toed the line between 'total psycho' and 'kicked puppy'. He was likely bipolar as well as a sociopath for the most part, which made hurting the people around him all too easy. She wondered if after all of those years living with a cold-blooded gold-digger in this house meant that he could never acknowledge, let alone reciprocate her feelings.
Then again, maybe he just didn't feel that way about her and just tried to get in her pants because she was the closest thing he had to a warm body. Maybe she was just that; a glorified human blanket.
Cringing, Violet recalled all too well that if Tate did indeed want a blanket made of human, he was more than capable of turning her into one. It was all a little too Buffalo Bill for her tastes.
Returning to rolling the ball to Beau, Violet managed to move her features which felt frozen nowadays into a sad, tired little smile. She must've looked particularly broken in that moment because Beau shuffled forwards as far as he could towards her before the chains were pulled taut, arms out to embrace her.
The laugh that forced its way up her clenching throat was watery and tasted of salt.
She stepped forwards, allowing his long arms to encircle her ever so gently, as if she was a butterfly that he wanted for a moment before throwing it back into the air and setting her free.
She only wished that that was the truth and she wasn't just lying to herself for the billionth time in the past week. But the truth was just as fragile as a butterfly's powdery wings and as sharp as the words that Tate spat back in her face whenever she offered him comfort or respite from his own darkness.
His darkness was just as much a part of him as the scared child that still cowered in the corner of Charles Montgomery's operating room. It never slept, it had insomnia; it was his Tyler Durden.
So instead, Violet rested that head of hers which was bursting with questions and accusations on the shoulder of sweet Beau.
A single traitorous tear escaped, blazing a path down her face until it fell to the ground.
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"So you're the reason why everyone, living or dead within these walls is terrified."
The words were delivered with hungry eyes and a smirk.
Tate growled from where he sat barefoot on the cold concrete. He was shirtless too, as the shreds of the tee-shirt he'd been wearing for the past week and a half lay among the tufts of torn out hair drenched in blood. He was still debating within himself which course of action that he could take without totally fucking everything up.
"Hey, freak. I'm talking to you, not whatever piece of fetus got left behind after one of the doc's sessions", Hayden snarled, getting up from the rocking chair she had claimed in past few days. She strutted right up to him, sneering at his blank and vacant expression. "Huh. And here I thought you were one of the only dead people in the house that wasn't totally hung up on how they were killed. Shame."
She crouched before him, reaching out to touch his cheek. Wrenching his hand from where it was still tangled in his hair, he caught her wrist before she could, bits of skin, blood and all still caught in his nails and between his fingers. He parted his lips, exposing his bloody teeth.
He could already tell exactly what this bitch wanted. He already had her all figured out. It was sickeningly easy, really. She was so cookie-cutter that it almost gave him the urge to spit.
She was still in a sort of denial; hoping that Ben Harmon would 'come to his senses' and pledge his everlasting and undying love to her.
Love.
He didn't have time for this. He still had important things to figure out.
He put on his death like an old coat taken out of the cedar closet and dusted off. It slipped on like an old friend, wrapping its dark tendrils around the last human portion of his brain.
Tate could feel stale blood running from every orifice on his head, black and congealed like leftover chicken. He remembered every scratch from Constance's angry hand adorned with rings that cut whenever she slapped him. He recalled the deep burns on his chest, a result of failed attempts at resuscitating him with a defibrillator. He welcomed his death like it had always been a part of him, because it had.
"Of course I'm hung up on how I was killed", he hissed right in her face, having drawn her close so she could feel the death rattle the exuded from his collapsed lungs as he spoke. "I'm the one who did it."
Grinning in the least pleasant way, his eyes, previously empty of emotion danced with a diseased glee.
"Call me a narcissist."
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Vivien was going crazy.
At least, that's what Violet was ever-so-slightly guiding her to believe.
On some level, it made her shake with nausea. She was in fact poisoning the mind of the woman who had given birth to her, who had cared for her, who had loved her. The worst part was how easy it was to convince her that she really was losing it.
But a tiny part of herself revelled in the idea of a mother who had been lead to believe that she was insane. Especially with her being the one to pull Vivien to the edge of the metaphorical cliff and push her over with a tap. Besides, it wasn't like she could tell her mother that yes, the woman who tried to kill her was sitting in the car's backseat, and yes, the maid who was currently serving her cow's brains died in '83. It helped that she felt the power that she was certain that Tate absolutely thrived on whenever he used his words like pliers to wire on her. Also, it didn't hurt that she was sort of getting back at both of her parents for everything they hadn't been doing as well as everything they had done for the past three months.
"You know you love it", the part of her would whisper when she was at her most vulnerable, plagued by the feelings of doubt in morality that arose whenever she reminisced about her happiest memories in Murder House. Memories with Tate and his toxic presence in them. The ones that shook her belief in the generalized values of average Americans.
That part of her spun a web of venom that spread like a virus, like an idea.
"Mom, I don't know what you're talking about! I didn't see anything."
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He'd cleaned up nicely.
Staring at himself in the bathroom mirror for the last time, Tate felt uncomfortable with his sudden cleanliness. For fuck's sake, he'd even combed his hair. He'd even put on his least tatty sweater, untorn jeans and his sneakers without the holes worn in them.
Raising a single finger, he traced five letters over the part of the steamy glass that he hadn't wiped away. With those five letters, he sealed his fate.
Turning on his heel, he walked out without looking back.
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A knock on the door almost went unheard by Violet, who her earphones in with Pink Floyd filling her thoughts as a distraction for the voice that had taken up permanent residence within her mind.
It wasn't working.
Huffing to herself and praying that it wasn't Ben coming for another heart-to-heart, she pulled herself out of the nest of blankets she'd built around herself and made her way over to the door.
"What the hell do you wa-"
Her mouth stopped working when she saw who was behind that door.
Tate stood there, one hand behind his back and a rather sheepish expression on his face.
"Would you believe me if I said I was sorry?"
Violet tried to play it off, to pretend it was nothing and she hadn't been absolutely torturing herself for the past twelve days. "Sorry about what?"
He sighed, pulling the hand he had hidden behind his back and presenting the mug of hot chocolate it held before her. It was still hot, swirls of ethereal steam dissipating into the cool air drifting in from her open window. He had even put marshmallows in, and they were only just beginning to melt into a white sticky froth. His hand shook with the slightest of tremors as she reached out tentatively to the mug's handle, pulling it from his warm fingers into her own.
But even with her denial of the incident, Tate turned his eyes- so heavy, so dark- to bore into her own, his mouth set in a decided frown. "I'm sorry. You know what for."
Her expression urged him to elaborate, to explain why she was so pissed off at herself and at him all at once. She felt like the passive-aggressive suburban housewife who had caught her husband eyeing the nanny, spilling her angry words in the way she stood with her arms crossed and her foot tapping.
"I ran off. I know, I'm an insensitive prick with commitment issues. I should never have left you after you admitted something that I don't have the balls to say, let alone after Larry showed off", he stated in a rather remorseful and subdued tone as she drank a sip of the hot chocolate. She almost grimaced because of the unexpected taste of orange and slight odd aftertaste, but after a slightly larger gulp she found that it wasn't too bad. Actually, she kind of liked it a lot.
She knew exactly what he was going to say. He was going to tell her everything that she had thought about him in the past few days and manage to make her feel guilty for not owning up to them. He would admit the worst parts of himself so that she had nothing left to resent and hate. She would be stuck forgiving him; trapped, pushed into it.
Violet let him continue talking, nursing her drink as he spoke. "I-I just felt so overwhelmed. That sounds pathetic for a dead guy with next to nothing left to worry about, but I really was. That asswipe showed his face for the first time since I died and he-he killed Addie."
He was sniffling now, but his eyes remained clear despite the tears running down his cheeks. "And then I told you everything and you-you… you shouldn't feel that way about me. No one should. I don't deserve that kind of- of…"
Everything that Tate said was predictable. Some of it even felt like a bit of a cliché. It was so unlike him to use those tired lines that could be found in almost every bad-guy-meets-good-girl movie. Something was wrong.
This is the last time that you give in. The last time. If he screws up again, you'll pull those pretty eyes right out of their sockets so they can't ever plead for your forgiveness ever again.
The voice nagging her, speaking the most despicable thoughts and desires in hushed tones would never rest. Maybe it was the House, removing her inhibitions and draining her morality bit by bit. Or maybe she was just going crazy like everyone else here.
You'll crush them beneath your bootheels and smile as he writhes in pain on the ground. It's not like they won't grow back anyways. The dead can't change. The dead never change.
Resisting the urge to beat her head against the walls until the voice went away again, Violet instead downed the remaining half of her hot chocolate in one large gulp. The back of her throat taste like something thick and metallic. Like blood.
"Come in."
His expression was one of relief that seemed so powerful that she almost doubted if it was truly genuine. But even so, she moved aside for him to enter her room, closing the door behind them and turning the lock. She didn't need Vivien or Ben to stumble upon what would most likely be Tate whispering sweet nothings to her as they curled up on her bed.
Of course they would be sweet nothings. She wasn't sappy. Romanticism just wasn't a part of her personality or her interests. But sweet nothings were just that; the Splenda substitute for love. He couldn't feel that for her, so he would give her an artificial surrogate.
Violet sat precariously on the edge of her bed, waiting for him to join her before she fell backwards onto the mattress and soft duvet. He looked down at her, his hand snaking over to stroke her hair as he offered her a very delicate, very vulnerable smile. She returned it lazily, stretching out her arms and allowing one of them to rest below his knee.
She hadn't slept much more than a few hours a night for the past few days, and it felt as though it was finally starting to catch up with her.
No matter how hard she tried, there were just some things that you couldn't run from.
Like Tate Langdon.
Violet drifted off to sleep.
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Tate continued to sit with Violet for a good hour after she'd fallen asleep, stroking her hair and making her promises that no one could ever fulfill, let alone him.
It was after he kissed her on the forehead and hugged her close to him that he took action, pulling the folded sheaf of papers out of his back pocket and smoothing out the lines, letting them rest on her night table.
I used to dream in color. I don't know what happened between then and now, but I haven't dreamed, or even just lived in color for a long time now.
He was almost surprised that his Violet, his smart girl, had not even considered that there was something wrong with the drink that he'd proffered as a peace offering. He'd crammed it full of Zyprexa, after all. Why he'd managed to find anti-psychotics in Doc Harmon's office was beyond him, let alone why he'd found four packs of it; enough to balance a dysfunctional elephant's hormones.
Hope is no longer a part of my vocabulary, having been long ago buried under the heavy burden of this darker side of life, blotting out who I used to be like a giant ink stain. The new me can only see in shades of grey that fade and darken depending on the day.
Tate had dropped a hundred and thirty-two citrus-flavored wafers into that drink. Enough for a sedative. Enough for a coma. Enough for an overdose. But he wouldn't take any chances. Not with this.
All of the previous pleasant noise is blurred out, muffled as if hearing everything underwater, where sound doesn't travel. It's nothing more than a buzzing of once clear voices, filling my empty head with the sounds of obscure origins. I'm not sure which voice to listen to anymore.
He dropped the empty blister-packs and boxes around the bed, dropping the mug on its side. Ben would be blamed in part for this, as he deserved. What kind of father keeps lethal amounts of prescription drugs in a place where his clinically depressed daughter has easy access? Ben Harmon deserved this.
People wonder what could drive a person as seemingly normal as myself to do such a thing. They wonder, thinking with unperturbed minds of my situation and that of so many others without stopping to consider that maybe, just maybe, this is the type of problem that has to be felt to be explained and understood.
From his other pocket, Tate produced Violet's favorite blade, all polished up and gleaming in the light of the rising sun. It felt poetic. Poe would have been very pleased with the image and its morbid implications. Tate smiled. She would have liked it too.
The greatest minds in science can't explain something so simple such as why we feel emotions so deeply, placing the blame on electrical signals and impulses transmitted by our brains. The everyday citizen will disregard this faulted experiment, claiming that we feel because it comes from somewhere deeper inside ourselves, like the soul.
He was crying for real now, not like when he spouted that bullshit about not deserving her in the doorway. He knew he didn't deserve her, but that wouldn't ever stop him. Tate Langdon took what was his.
Damn, his nose was starting to run.
It's only then implied that the rare individuals that can't feel have no souls. They might as well be made of stone as they shuffle after the life that evades them so easily, weighed down by their hearts made of lead.
Her wrists had always been a fixation of his, from the very moment he'd first laid eyes on her. The slashes there were blemishes, marking something so elegant as different. So when he lifted them, he made sure to observe them ever so carefully.
He almost paused. Violet had come closer to death than he'd thought. Two thick, barely healed slashes had taken up residence right beneath her palms. Any deeper and she could have died before he was ready.
It's impossible to fathom how much being emotionless can hurt a person. They make the world believe that they're just fine, that there are absolutely no issues to be dealt with. They don't want to have to tell a doctor exactly how long this has been happening and what their symptoms are. They don't want to explain how their childhood could have affected them to a nosy psychologist, who later overanalyzes the aspects of the person that they have written down on their notepad, prescribing an anti-depressant that just makes everything worse.
Tate ran the razor back over those two cuts, pressing hard and slashing again, again. The blood that poured thickly from her severed veins was almost the same shade as his eyes before it came into contact with oxygen.
They want to be left alone, no matter how many specialists say that any signs of depression are a cry for help. The world's help is corrupted and helps the government more than the patient. They want to be left to their own lives, undisturbed by medical examiners or privacy-invading therapists.
He was mesmerized.
This was the first time that he'd killed someone he cared about.
That's why, in the morning, when they finally convince themselves to crawl out of bed after a night of little sleep, they put on the mask that so many people criticize. It's essential for them to show the world that there's nothing wrong, even if that means turning their entire life into a lie. That's how they manage to get through the day.
In the bathroom, the condensation left over from Tate's shower was beginning to turn solid again.
'TAINT', read the mirror for one final moment before water dripped down, erasing the evidence that it had ever existed.
They almost believe this lie themselves sometimes. It's in these moments that they can almost taste what used to be pain. They exercise the only control that they have over their lives. I do it myself, a dry smirk of ironic satisfaction on my lips as it runs down my fingers, dripping onto the floor, each small splat louder than the last, echoing in my ears as I process the one feeling that I can almost make myself feel again.
Tate crawled onto the bed, curling himself around her prone form, holding her close in his arms and burying his face into her shoulder.
"I love you."
Violet Harmon's heart stopped beating.
But it's a temporary solution to a permanent problem. It doesn't last and never will.
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Yes, it's been awhile, and it might be awhile before you guys get another chapter.
I had writer's block, as I didn't exactly have many ideas as to how Tate was going to pull it off in an even slightly believable way. Also, this took a long time to write because it involved a lot more editing than usual because I had to work with bits of something that I wrote a while ago.
I might not update for a bit because Hell Week at college is coming up.
So yes, this chapter might be a bit disturbing. Just a tad.
Readers: Awesome.
Favorites/Alerts: Even Awesomer.
Reviews: (So many this week! I'm so very happy :D)
jandjsalmon:I think that this pretty much resolves any doubts you had about his decision xD And trust me on this, Violet won't just be cranky- she might just listen to that voice in her head, she might not ;)
Nicole: I'm very, very flattered by your compliments :D I was hoping to expand on Violet's true strength after extreme events, ie: this. I didn't have her spit on Leah or burn her because I want her reactions to be a bit more subdued so that her actions fit in with her depression, which Tate will be playing up so that her death doesn't seem suspicious. But you do bring up a very important point, and I'm going to work on developing her into a more independent strong person.
vixenXfreezepop: I wanted more Beau in this story because I think that Violet really should've gone to him for real comfort more than Tate. After all, we all know that Beau is sweet and has no ulterior motives :)
caysayda: My ego really is getting inflated by all these wonderful things you say xD I hope this chapter can tide you over for a bit until I can write more :)
That's all for now, folks!
Merida, out.