CHAPTER 17: The Time Is Gone, the Song Is Over; Thought I'd Something More to Say

Disclaimer: I really wish I did own it, but then again, it would probably end up way less awesome, so I guess that Falchuk and Murphy can have it. For now.

-O-0-o-0-O-

"And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking, racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death."

-Pink Floyd, 'Time'

-O-0-o-0-O-

Honestly, I thought that there'd be more of a build-up leading into this.

Maybe a bit of suspense. Or maybe even something to set the tone; flickering lights, a curtain fluttering in the wind, blood dripping from the ceiling…

But this… if I'm being honest, it's really kind of bland.

Like rice cakes.

Because that's what murderers should be like. Rice cakes.

Violet swayed in place.

She didn't feel faint or dizzy. She felt more grounded than she'd been since before she ever laid eyes on him.

Him.

That ugly thing clutching her bedpost with white knuckles. That ugly thing with black holes for both eyes and a heart. That ugly thing with her blood on his hands.

Him.

He opened those swollen, bloodless lips that looked like they'd been gnawed at for hours on end as if to speak; to plead his case and somehow twist the events to his liking and charm his way back into her life.

Death. Your death. You don't breathe anymore, Violet.

See? He's already doing it, and he hasn't even spoken yet.

Violet Harmon giggled. A sharp, clear sound that resounded not like a bell, but like a glass being thrown to the ground.

"It's so funny."

He closed his mouth. Furrowed his eyebrows and allowed the crease between them to emerge.

"You don't get it. You won't ever get it."

She swayed some more, steady like a sailboat riding a gentle wave.

"You can't ever look in from outside. You're far too attached to yourself to ever be separate from who you are."

Her features twisted in disgust. In disgust of him, the pretty boy and the ugly thing. As if she wasn't the one with slashed wrists trailing blood over Moira's floors, with the blue lips and the vomit caked on her cheek.

Her death wasn't beautiful. And that's because it wasn't hers.

It was his.

"If you could. You'd be able to take a step back and finally fucking notice how obvious it really was all this time."

She scoffed.

"God, I was so blind."

His gaze was aimless and confused. Nothing but pupils and sclera. There was no iris.

No Violet.

"You've always been so twisted. So wrong. You don't belong in this world, Tate. And yet, here you are, still taking lives because yours never meant anything. You're dead, and you still want the world to burn. But guess what, Tate? The world is for the living. It isn't mine or yours anymore. And there's nothing that you can ever do to change that."

Her voice was calm. Even. Maybe even a bit rational.

Violet Harmon, the voice of reason. How ironic, seeing as to how much you repressed your conscience.

But you don't even have that anymore, do you?

You just have The House.

"It's so funny. Psychopaths pride themselves on how well they can fake emotion, even if they'll never really feel joy, or sadness, or love. Looking back, every word you spoke felt scripted. Every interaction felt stiff. Until you got angry."

She smiled, one side of her mouth curling further than the other.

"That's the kicker, isn't it? Anger is universal. Even if it's violent. Even if it's directed at everyone. Even if it's directed at yourself. Everyone feels it. It's like death. Everyone gets one."

Her high finally wearing down on her, she felt the crushing weight of her bare feet on the ground. She could feel the layer of wool that billowed around her thighs and hung from her wrists. The thin slip of a dress that fell just above her knees was tangible once more.

She could feel the lines of her face. The bags under her eyes. The creases beneath them. The marks around her lips.

She stopped smiling. She took a step forwards.

"Except you, Tate. You got my death too."

He flinched at that. Averted his eyes to look away at the place where he'd taken her life. The bed.

The one place where a person was meant to be safe. Those sheets were meant to be fortress walls, those pillows shields. It was a place to let down her guard. A place to relax. A place to sit and read while her parents fought two rooms over. A place to allow all of the tension of the day to melt away into the unconscious. And, given enough time and her stupid, teenage brain, a place to share.

With him. That ugly thing that couldn't even meet her gaze. The ugly thing that had spoon-fed her lies like a mother nursing a child. That ugly thing that had taken advantage of her naivety and allowed her to fall in love with him.

She felt tired. She knew that sleep was for the living; that the dead could not rest.

But god damnit, this was her fucking room. Not his.

He'd had his go at The House, and he lost. This wasn't his anymore.

So she was taking her fucking bed back.

Because fuck him.

"But there's no way in hell that you get to take this from me too", she continued, slowly but surely making her way over to his rigid, cowering form. "You got my friendship. You got my heart. You got a second chance. You even got to freaking kill me. But guess what, Tate?"

Violet stared at how pathetic he'd become, how pathetic he'd always been. She stared long and hard before she finished what she'd started.

"You don't get my fucking room."

She was less than a foot away now. Too close.

Close enough.

She spat in his face.

"Get out."

He looked back at her, eyes desperate. She might have believed them once.

"Go away."

And right before her, he vanished.

-O-0-o-0-O-

Her first order of business was to invite Maria, Gladys and Chad up for drinks.

Partly because she wanted the company, and mostly because Chad always felt obligated to bring a few bottles of wine from his stash. All the booze that she'd had left had gone towards her partially fruitful quest to get well and truly sloshed in the basement.

Besides, she'd managed to re-conquer her room with such ferocity that Tate hadn't even managed to wheedle out a single word past his greeting. It felt good. It was a well-earned victory over what she really believed was the human incarnation of evil.

"Because who the fuck takes it on themselves to murder someone as wonderful as me just because his lesser half wasn't ready for commitment or a baby?" Chad raged, gesticulating with his wine glass as if to reinforce the point. "I mean, sure, I can be a little much at times, but come on, you don't just go and kill people so that new ones can take their place!"

Sighing heavily, he took another swig of the white. "I swear, that boy has some real mommy issues that he needs to do the fuck away with before someone new ends up joining our little circle. I only have so much wine to go around!"

Gladys nodded absently, applying pink nail polish to her big toe.

Maria giggled, nudging Violet with her elbow. "Wonder what's going to happen now that your mom's been committed and she's lost the baby?"

Violet shrugged, a tinge of nostalgia rising in her throat before she beat it back down with the fact that ghosts don't have the luxury of getting mothers. Especially not living ones.

"I guess that either we wait for someone new to come along and be stupid enough to buy The House or they all just give up on the idea that a bunch of dead psychotics are going to ever end up caring for an infant", she replied sarcastically, snorting. "Yeah right. They'll never give that up. The people here have such a bug up their ass about babies."

Chad scoffed. "Please, everyone without a pulse is obsessed with their parents. What better way to fix that than to become one and totally fuck up their own kid as some sort of sick revenge plot?"

Violet contemplated it. He did have a point.

"Okay, let's drop this morbid subject and discuss this shade", Gladys piped up, waving a bottle of cherry red polish around. "Yay or nay?"

"Oh, honey, that color'll make you look like a poodle", Chad exclaimed, shoving a tube of teal at her. "Use this one instead."

-O-0-o-0-O-

Violet curled up next to the table that Moira was cleaning.

"Moira?"

"Yes, dear?" the woman who used to be her maid replied, looking up from the reflective surface that the table had become after being subjected to her rigorous cleaning.

Violet still couldn't see what had pushed Ben to pursue the poor woman despite her age and her continued rejection of his advances. She really seemed as if the last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself.

There was something deeply maternal that she could glean from this woman's eyes, but there seemed to be this great expanse of sadness lapping at the edges of what could only be an impossible dream.

"Why do you think he did it?"

Moira put the rag she'd been using down into the bucket of vinegar by her feet and inhaled deeply, exhaling in a shaky way. She then made her way over to Violet and sat next to her in a manner similar to collapse.

It was when she took Violet's hand in her own that she saw her as she truly was; not the trashy seductress her father had claimed her to be, nor the fragile old woman that she'd been before.

She was young, and beautiful, that was certain. But she was also modest and mature, and the kindness in her eyes spoke volumes. This was the person she had been meant to be.

Not desperate and clutching at the affections of men. Not weary and burdened by the troubles of others.

"I've been around that boy all of his life. Ever since he was born in this House, to when I found him blue in the face surrounded by the instruments of death. And if there is one thing I can tell you about him, it is that I know nothing at all about him. I hope for your sake that he isn't truly a bad person. The person who killed me was, and she brought him into this world. I almost found it ironic that it wasn't her that took him out of it."

Her voice was raw and cracking as she spoke.

"I would blame it on The House, but I know better than to lay the blame on the only thing that can remain entirely blameless for what he became. If I had to choose, it would be the people inside of this House that made him the way he is."

Her half-milky gaze rested on the ceiling.

"He looks beautiful. It's a shame that he's so ugly."

-O-0-o-0-O-

"Violet?"

Her soft voice echoed throughout the front hall, bouncing off of the walls and reverberating throughout The House.

The clicking of her heels followed, along with the clink and snap of her zippo.

"Violet, I know you're there. Don't even think about hiding."

She pushed her blonde bangs away from her forehead to tuck them behind her ears. A cigarette was placed between red lips by delicate fingers with long nails.

"What do you want?"

Violet made herself visible to the mortal eye. But that really didn't make any difference at all, since the only living thing in The House didn't need eyes to see the things that were already dead.

"I want to offer my condolences. You really shook up the spiritual plane when you died. It was rather hard for me not to notice."

Violet snorted. "Yeah, sure. What do you really want, Billie Dean? Because I'm really not in the mood or in the position to be a guest on that Lifetime gig you scored yourself."

The medium rolled her eyes.

"I came to ask about your death. It wasn't exactly made clear to me how it happened. This house tends to… fuck with the signal, if you will."

From her perch on the balcony, Violet swung her legs. "Guess."

Billie Dean furrowed her brow. "My first thought was suicide, but now that I'm here, I'm almost certain that it wasn't. Accident? Slipped in the tub? Landed awkwardly after tripping down the stairs? Freak fridge accident?"

Violet rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I would almost wish it were that if not for the great and enlightening revelation that my death brought on me."

The medium winced. "He didn't."

"Oh, but that's the problem. He did", she retorted in a cynical tone. "And he was a real prick about it too."

She rubbed her hands over her arms as if trying to get warm or to ward away a shiver.

"That sonnovabitch wasn't even up-front about it. It was a fucking ambush."

Billie Dean seemed to take her words in with a grain of salt, appearing slightly apprehensive.

"While I must admit that he has done terrible things in his life, he doesn't even remember them. He's lost and confused. He might not even realize what he did."

Anger, rage- call it what you will- rose surging in Violet's stomach, preparing to spew forth over this blind fucking seer. How dare she assume something that was so wrong.

She would hurt her. Tear her to bits. Pummel her bones to dust. She would take those fake fucking press-on pieces of shit and shove them right through those big brown eyes. She would strangle her with her own mess-of-a-dye-job hair. She would… she would…

She would break that fucking bitch.

Her death emerged, as it always did nowadays when she got pissed off. It was like a defense mechanism. Like a cat puffing up its fur and hissing when it felt threatened. Only Violet didn't feel threatened. Oh, no.

She felt furious.

"Oh, don't get mad at me", Billie Dean said nonchalantly, not even attempting to diffuse the very precarious situation she'd just placed herself in.

"Get mad at him."

Violet started, compromising her balance on the balcony and crashing to the first story's polished floors and cracking her skull. Muttering to herself, she moved various limbs and parts back into the places they were in before she'd broken them and got to her feet.

"Are you implying that I should direct every ounce of my anger at Tate, or are you telling me that he's here, listening in on us?"

"Both", the other replied, taking a lazy drag of her cigarette. "Just because you told him to go away doesn't mean that he isn't still there. It just means that to you, he doesn't exist."

She turned on her heel. "I'm getting out of here. Constance has tea waiting with some of her coffee cake next door. That, and it hurts my head to be around him for this long."

Billie Dean made her way to the front door, turning to wave.

"Bye."

-O-0-o-0-O-

Hello, lovelies!

Don't worry, not over with yet (I did promise you all smut, didn't I?)

I got super pumped because season 4 is out on Wednesday (squee!) and the trailers are finally starting to freak me out a little. I can probably manage to make it till then by re-re-re-watching all of the teasers and the trailers.

Anyways, thanks for all of the follows and favorites :D

jandjsalmon: Next chapter is even more interesting ;D

BsBLady: I'm so sorry, but I just had to do it to you again xD

Hannah: Thanks, I hope you keep reading :)

Right, so I'm squeezing this one out between all-nighter parties, work and this week's midterms, so hopefully it's not too filler-esque. Hopefully I'll get another one out soon.

Thanks again for all of the feedback!

Merida, out.