A/N: Really inventive title and summary, huh?

Anyway, hello everyone! I wanted to post something before the season finale came out and we all had our collective soul crushed. I have been hearing some crazy rumors about episode twelve.

Happy Holidays!

It's been a year since Violet died, since she swallowed all those pills and woke up dead. She's been a walking, talking, breathing shadow of herself, ensnared inside Murder House, for three hundred and sixty-five days today.

How Violet could even remember her deathday, she didn't know, had just woken with the realization filling up the inside of her skull the way a bold red circle would fill a up a box on a calendar page, like it was important, like it was a good thing.

But as far as she was concerned, it wasn't an occasion that warranted celebration. There was nothing congratulatory about being trapped in a house with your mother, your father's whore, your ex, and a grab bag of other broken souls for fifty-two loathsome weeks.

You'd think it would feel crowded here, or maybe even thrilling, being able to have a mid-afternoon chat with The Black Dahlia or watch Dr. Montgomery dismantle his baby on loop. But it wasn't. It was lonely, like being stuck on an island with people who didn't speak your language, and even if they did, would rather spend the day crying, wrapped up in their own minds and past mistakes than gift you a kind word or a smile.

Most of them couldn't remember they were dead half the time and spent the other half sulking or worse.

Hayden was really the only soul you couldn't label sad. She was cruel and volatile, unhinged and manic, but never sad. That part of her was buried in the back yard with her body and her baby.

The only living dead thing that gave a damn about her was her mother, but Violet didn't spend time her anymore. Couldn't. Every time Vivien would walk around the corner, her lips curved into a pleasant smile and her hands folded over her empty tummy, Violet would think of black latex and blonde curls, and the way Tate's breath always hitched when he came.

Tate.

Her whole face pulls tight in a dry sob at the name. Anger flares up inside her chest like heartburn. She can't breathe. Her lungs are burning. Her bones are made of lead.

She hasn't seen him in almost a year, since that night in her room when she'd confronted him, her heart heavy with dissention, about what he'd done to her mother. And she's glad, elated even, would choose loneliness over him every time, because if she had to see him again, that sharp jaw and those bowed lips drawn up into a lop-sided grin, well, she'd just fucking lose it.

For a while he haunted her. She couldn't go twenty minutes without pondering where he was or what he was doing. Whenever a chill stumbled down her spine she'd wonder if she'd just walked through him, if he was playing invisible, if the hair on her arms was reacting to an unseen caress.

Thinking of Tate tore her insides to ribbons. She was a walking, talking, breathing wasteland. Her veins were filled with sludge and the underside of her skin was turning gray. She felt like the Violet down in the crawlspace looked.

But she's developed a system now, a way to keep him from setting up shop in her mind and chiseling away at what little sanity she's got left. (Finding out that you're sloppy seconds to your forty-something mother really does a number on your psyche.)

It's simple.

Whenever Violet thinks of him, all too-wide smiles and striped sweaters, she kills herself. (Again.)

She's taken to carrying a scalpel, something she'd found snooping around Charles's office one evening.

Some days she slits her wrists, others, her throat.

As a result, her grey blouse has a rusty-red collar and her sleeves are perpetually soaked through, but she doesn't see the point in changing, has taken a page out of Moira's book and wears the same soiled clothes everyday, has been for months now. It's not like she's out to impress anyone - the opposite, really - and sometimes Chad's catty little remarks about her blasphemous fashion sense are amusing.

By the time Violet wakes up from her nth suicide, or regenerates or whatever the fuck you want to call it, the only thing living inside her head is a welcome static. No more bondage gear or dead high-schoolers or demonic siblings. No more hand-holds or 'I Love You's or books about birds. She can breathe again. The world isn't flip-flopping wrongside up anymore.

When her internal clock goes off, like the buzzer on an oven in the left side of her ribcage, Violet's sprawled out in the bathtub, fully dressed and smoking, because it's poetic, because she's got a sick sense of humor.

Shoulders pushed against the bowed porcelain and feet hooked over the opposite rim, smoke slips through the slack seam of her lips and unfurls into a white-grey plume while warm water beats down against the crusted front of her shirt.

She's been thinking, about life and death and how they're really not all that dissimilar, both filled with disappointment, heartache, and the unanswered need for connection and understanding. She's felt different all her life, and not just because she preferred Sylvia Plath to Stephanie Meyer.

Her parents never paid her much mind, even before their marriage splintered and snapped; her dad worked late and her mom never took the time to really get to know her, just bought her gift cards for holidays and took her out to get their nails done once a month, treating her more like a co-worker than a daughter. And now, when they finally had the time to bond, all the time in the fucking world, Violet couldn't be in the same room as Vivien without getting woozy and wanting to hurl.

Her afterlife is just a desaturated version of life before she was dead. She still spends the day in her room, reading and watching videos on YouTube while something pissy plays out in the background.

See, after Vivien died and he realized Violet was six feet under too, Ben had decided to keep the house, kept the furnishings and paid the bills for them. But he couldn't bear to live there anymore, not with his daughter and his mistress and his wife and her rapist all living-but-not under the same roof. So he moved back to the east coast about six months ago, to somewhere that never got warm; Maine, or maybe Vermont – Violet couldn't remember.

But she's not just ruminating on the pros and cons of being dead and how there really aren't any, except that now she can't run away from it all, now she's cemented in. She's thinking of Tatetoo, of the fact that he axed a crazy bitch for her and of the way his breath felt against the curve of her neck. She's thinking of the silver scars on his wrists and the way he'd say her name. Of black eyes and broad shoulders. She's thinking of hand-holds and 'I Love You's and books about birds.

Instead of killing herself again to stamp out the cancer that is her train of thought, Violet just drops her dead cigarette onto the tiled floor and lights another, tears already welled up in her eyes and sliding silently down her cheeks.

Tate saved her life once; he tried twice. That should count for something, but how could it when he obviously preferred taking lives, when her mother's throat was in his hands once?

Some insidious voice that sounds too much like her own chimes in right then, wonders if maybe, just maybe he had his reasons, if maybe his sins were just good intentions gone wrong.

He told her once, before she'd let him map out the inside of her mouth with his tongue or the lines of her body with his hands, that you never hurt the ones you love.

And his lips did look awfully pretty bowed around the words 'I' and 'Love' and 'You.'

Maybe she was wrong about him.

Then, and she doesn't know exactly when because she's had her eyes closed and her head bent back against the edge of the bath, there's someone standing at the other end of the bathroom outside the translucent wrap-around curtain, someone wearing dark jeans and a red-and-blue striped shirt. No, not just someone; Tate.

Violet's mouth opens in a silent scream on sight and her cigarette teeters off her lip. It tumbles into her lap, singing a hole into her leggings and burning a spot into her thigh. Her hands reach out to grip the lip of the tub. Her eyes are unlidded in terror, two glassy wide saucers staring into fogged plastic.

Tate doesn't speak or move, just stands there with his arms at his sides, a blurred indecipherable shape lurking back against the far wall.

How long has he been there?

The water continues to assault her, lukewarm now but just as violent, soaking her hair in seconds, plastering pale brown to her cheeks and forehead.

She can't even make out the shape of his face through the curtain, but already her heart is skittering against the front of her ribs, the beat of it loud and pulsing between her ears.

But before she can take a calming breath and hiss those two magic words that will expunge him again, she's breaking into hysterics, curling in on herself, clawing in choppy gasps of air and shaking with violent sobs that render her utterly helpless.

When Tate pulls her into his chest, suddenly crouched in the empty half of the tub, Violet's wailing and her face has folded into devastation.

"Shh… It's okay, it's okay," Tate murmurs against her temple, dragging her onto his lap, arms cinched around her ribs. He's wet too, water dripping off the upturned ends of his hair; his sweater and jeans heavy and sopping. It's pulled down the collar of his shirt, exposing the beginnings of collarbones and the thick muscles between neck and shoulder.

The sound of his voice does nothing to quell her fit, spurs it on if anything. That, coupled with the way he smells just like he used to and the way he's cradling her only makes her cry harder, and soon she's rasping out a scream that leaves her throat dry and feeling like she's swallowed a pint of lighter fluid.

He peppers the back of her neck with kisses, reminiscent of their last bath together, and pushes his fingers into her skin as though she might slip away again, like she had before. "You're safe. I'm here now," he whispers, pressing his cheek to her ear and closing his eyes.

When the water's run cold and she's slowed her desperate sobs into hiccupped breaths, Violet lifts her head to face Tate for the first time in an almost-year.

A crease forms between her brows at what she finds.

He looks the same as that night. Exactly the same. Same striped shirt, same rumpled hair, same perfect features. The only difference is that now he's wet. And he's not crying, but his eyes are red like he wants to, like he has been, like he hasn't stopped in an almost-year.

Tate meets her gaze and swallows, flexing his jaw and obediently dropping his hands from around Violet when she tries to straighten up.

He opens his mouth in a half-breath like he's going to speak, like he wants to give her the world in whatever words have settled onto the flat of his tongue, but then he must change his mind, because after a little hesitation he just closes his mouth again and drops his gaze to the tile.

He's here and he's real and Violet almost forgets what reason she could have had to send away such a beautiful boy for so long…

Her head is swimming and she wants to vomit up the maelstrom of emotions raging under the weight of her skin.

Wrath surfaces first, and before Tate can muster up the courage to say whatever's stuck to the roof of his mouth, Violet's swelling forward to beat against his chest with closed fists and hissing venomous 'How Could You?'s between clenched teeth.

Tate doesn't try to stop her or even recoil. His face just crinkles into a heart-wrenching grimace and he turns his head, entirely accepting of her abuse, deserving of it.

"I trusted you!"

She delivers several open-handed blows to his cheeks and even stretches her little hands around his neck.

In the flurry of violence she must hit the shower knob because the water cuts short and now it's just her cries of betrayal filling the room

Soon Violet has Tate forced back against the curved side of the tub with a split lip.

She's finally letting go of a sliver of the rage that's been chewing holes into her heart all this time.

At some point, when he's bleeding from the mouth and his sternum's marked up with bruises shaped like her hands, Tate loses his patience and catches Violet's wrists.

Reluctant, she stills, glares at him defiantly and pushes out a breath through her nose, buzzing with bottled-up frenzy.

"I can't forgive you."

"I know."

Unlike her, Tate's all soft edges right now. He's nodding in concession and his lip is trembling slightly. "I know."

Then, without warning or reason, Violet's wrath gives way to lust.

Well, maybe the reason is that she's been utterly starved of his touch for an almost-year. And Hayden was right; for some ungodly reason, being dead and being horny went hand in hand at Murder House. No wonder there wasn't a cheerful soul in the joint.

Learning the joys of sex only to houdini her boyfriend away a week later had given Violet perpetual blue balls – yeah, she's a girl, but that's how it feels. She even fooled around with Travis once or twice because she was desperate for some sort of release that wasn't brought about by her own hands, but things didn't get too far. She'd already been sloppy seconds to a mother once before.

The scalpel wedged into her boot burns against her ankle, a white-hot reminder that she's got a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card, that she need only trace the collar of her shirt with it and with any luck he'll be gone when she comes to. But for once, just this one time, she ignores the temptation.

Without any hesitation, Violet curls her hands into his soggy sweater and rushes forward to meet Tate at the mouth.

Their teeth knock together with the force she employs, and this time, once he gets over the straight shock of it all, Tate reacts immediately. Huffing out a breathless little whine that's so hungry it makes her heart lurch, he releases her wrists and tows Violet in by the hips.

Their lips slot seamlessly together and he slumps down the bath so that she can shift into a straddle over his waist.

Violet's got her hands clawed into Tate's skin under his sweater and she's swabbing at the blood that's lining his teeth with her tongue.

An unbearable pressure settles into the apex of her thighs at the taste of copper and she's growing feverish in a way that a cold shower won't douse.

"Violet," Tate groans when they part for breath, but she covers his mouth with hers before he can blurt out anything else and grinds down determinedly against him.

"Shut up. Just shut the fuck up," She says, nursing the cut in his lip and scrabbling for the hem of his sweater. She doesn't forgive him – no really, she doesn't - but he's here and he's pretty and she's missed him. She's missed this.

He pulls back from her then, when she starts impatiently tugging up his shirt, peeling it up his chest, and searches her face. His eyes are eclipsed with desire and his lips are spit-slicked but he looks cautious, confused, like how a baby animal would eye a predator that had stopped short of devouring it.

Oh. There he is, the boy that likes birds too, the one that would never let anybody or anything hurt her, the one that only wants her, that only had her.

It's enough to give Violet pause, but it's not enough to stop her.

Staring at Tate's teeth peeking out from behind chapped lips, she pushes her hips down against the front of his jeans and whispers out a hoarse, "please, Tate."

While he's busy struggling out of his shirt, Violet unthreads the button of his pants and pulls down the zip. Her hand snakes into the parted material and in no time she's wrapping it around Tate's cock and pulling it out through the open slit of his boxers.

Tate chokes out a breath that's more like a sob and his head snaps forward; the shirt drops and squishes onto the tile floor. Instead of holes in his chest there are bruises shaped like her hands. "Violet," he exhales, looking down into his lap and wetting his lips at the sight of her small hand curled around his swollen flesh. But as soon as it's there, it's gone. Violet leans back and lifts up, and she hastily rolls her leggings and panties down to the middle of her thighs.

"Violet." This time her name is laced in fading restraint and warning, and she's tempted to say, "That's my name. Don't wear it out," but she doesn't. Instead she repositions herself until the inside of her knees are pressed against the front of his ribs and lines up their bodies.

One hand guiding his cock and the other gripping his shoulder, Violet looks up into Tate's black eyes wrapped in wet lashes. He lifts shaking hands to smooth back the hair from her face and leans in to kiss her.

They're wet and freezing and their hearts have grown shriveled and hollow in the last year, but when Violet sinks down and Tate fills her up, they let out twin breaths and feel whole all at once.

She starts slow, just rocking back and forth against his pelvic bone, her tongue drawing lazy circles around his, but soon they're both growing impatient; he's bucking up into her, hands clamped around her hips and she's got her fingers curled into his shoulders for leverage. When she's getting close, she pulls off his mouth and lets her head drop back between her shoulder blades. From under heavy eyelids, Tate watches her face as she comes. Her eyes are screwed shut and her mouth pulls wide into a blissed out oval and then he's coming too, his orgasm torn from him by her body's relentless tremors. He fills her with liquid warmth and she pushes her hands into his hair, letting her head fall against his shoulder.

"I love you," Tate sighs, sleepy, hooking his arms loosely around her waist and pulling her into his chest when his hips finally still.

Violet twirls a lock of his hair onto her finger and presses gentle kisses to the bend of his neck.

Then, raising up so that he slips free of her, Violet tucks Tate's hair back and nuzzles into his ear.

His heart's thumping sluggishly against her chest and the weight of his arms around her back make her feel almost safe.

But when she breathes a response into his ear, it's two words, not three.

"Go away."

I also wanted to mention a few lovely authors I've read recently. There are so many wonderful new writers in this fandom! I love it.

Kikume and ScarlettWoman710 and Tjoek have all put out some amazing stuff so make sure you check out their pages!

Also, Gray Glube , Miss Gypsy Willow, pheromones, southern cross, and whodreamedit are some of the most fantastic writers we've got here.

I am always looking for more stories to read so if any of you have suggestions, let me know! I'll be crying with the rest of you on Wednesday! xx