The

Not

{Quite}

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{a oneshot}

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A/N: Tate and Violet...clearly one of the most messed up couples in TV fiction, but I confess I find the pairing strangely perfect. So I decided to write a one-shot about them, knowing it will never compare to what the show reveals. Hope you enjoy.

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t a t e &

v i o l e t

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he loves with rhythm, and paints with flame,

he comes in pieces with no name,

I won't need answers... I'll just know,

cause I've read the sonnets about his soul.

~ Sara Bareilles

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She tosses and turns in her sleep, limbs creaking and lips pursing as she whispers the nonsense of her nightmares. Normally he finds himself addicted to the expressions on their faces as the house takes over their consciousness. He enjoys their confusion, the way they grip the sheets with pale fingers as their mind provokes visions of people with bloodied heads and crimson eyes creeping over them like spiders. There is hardly any other way to spend his time; nothing else is exciting once people have lost their mind in the Murder House and the walls are once again splattered with blood.

But Violet is stronger than anyone occupying this room before, almost obsessively so. She seems to thrive on irregularity, takes the comments about how much of a "freak" she is with barely a smirk. She tastes like sin when he kisses her, so much like himself that it makes him sick to his stomach. She shouldn't be like him, never like him.

However, the selfish part of him is gleeful about this, because at least he's not alone. She needs him just as much as he needs her; they crave the presence of someone else who understands, who lives their life with vacant eyes, memories spilling out until they are bleak shells.

"Daddy," Violet whispers in a little voice almost scared, but not quite. She twists, fingers prying at the skin of her neck until it seems she'll rip it off. Then she relaxes again, sighs. She sees him, but allows him to live in his little fantasy that he's untouchable for a second more. Yet another reason why he loves her so much. She gets him.

"Is there room in your bed for one more?" he breathes a second later.

"God, Tate," she whispers, turning under her sheets to gaze at him with beady brown eyes, so beautiful. "If my parents saw you -"

But she lifts the sheets and lets him crawl in, lets him wrap his cold fingers about her waist and touch her bare skin. Her skin is marked with angry red lines, shivers and floods with goosebumps when he touches her. It's beautiful.

"You know I'll be gone long before that," Tate says, kisses her brow. "Besides, we both know you don't care what they think."

Violet pauses, kisses his collarbone. "I miss the days when I used to care," she says.

He strokes his hand over her blonde-brown hair, noticing that she never relaxes, not even when he's holding her like this. Her eyelids sink down, covering her brown eyes, and she sleeps. He asked her once if she trusted him not to hurt her. "I never said that I trusted you," was her response. "I know you won't hurt me."

.

She sits regal like a queen on the couch with her back straight and her eyes so vacant they look haunted, but not quite. Her father's long fingertips hover over her knee like they belong her, like he still has permission to touch Violet. She's smiling at him, and to her father it looks real, but Tate can see so much more behind the curve of her lips: betrayal, confusion in the moments when she doesn't know what to believe anymore, fear that one day her father is going to try to take her away from this house.

You wish you knew me, her eyes seem to be saying as they watch her father's movements.

"Are you sure you want to be homeschooled?" Her father asks, shifting closer. "There are plenty of good schools that I found, and they're prepared to give you financial aid. I'm sure we can manage it."

Violet's head tilts just to the side, eyes finally shifting into focus. She's surprised that he cares, for once, probably wondering if it's real. Tate can read the expressions so easily on her face by this point that he wonders if they're two people at all, or if they've managed to meld into each other.

"I'm sure," she says at last, trying not to let her eyes water. But he's acting like her father for once in his damn life and she needs that, even if she won't admit it to anyone. "How's Mom?"

With that, her father shifts the topic to that of his wife, eyes shading with guilt as he realizes yet again what he's condemned her to. Violet leans back away from him, from his touch, eyes scanning the stairwell and meeting Tate's brown eyes.

I wish we could get out of here, her eyes are saying.

I'll prepare the cards, his eyes speak back.

It doesn't take long for her to escape her father's clutches - she's managed to distract him and he can no longer focus on his daughter or the way she's changed past recognition. Her fingers hook around the opening of the carved hole and she squeezes herself into the attic, meeting Tate's questioning eyes with a questioning smile.

"Don't play games," Tate says as he lays out the cards. "He upset you."

"When does he not?" Violet responds, crossing her legs and resting her head against his broad shoulder. "For just a moment he was my dad again, and I guess I missed that. But I'm just being stupid."

"Not stupid." Tate kisses her bare lips, relishes the sweet taste of her for a minute or two. Her tears bead, seeping into his cheeks and branding them together.

"You know," she says as she leans back, "this isn't what I meant by 'getting out of here.'"

"Yes it is," Tate says, handing her the deck of cards.

Violet smiles, just a hint of one, and kisses him again. "I know," she says when she pulls back. "Sometimes I just wish we could really get away, be free and all. But beggars can't be choosers."

.

It's not hard to imagine their kind of perfection when she's all around him, surrounding him, her breasts pushing up against his chest and her breath soft on his neck. It will never be the kind of perfection that everyone else desires because they're stuck in time with their twisting thoughts and desires that will never be fulfilled; but it's perfection nonetheless, the blackest kind, when they move together on the bed and she groans and nips at his skin.

"Don't think this changes what you did," Violet breathes against him, shivering. "We're never going to be the same, Tate, not after you hurt all of those innocent people."

He tries not to think about her words, thrusts himself forward once, twice, tries to find the rhythm. It's the only thing close to perfection they'll be able to achieve now - this jagged pounding of their hearts and the way they fit together just right. One would think they'd screw it up, considering how screwed up both of them is, playing this game with darkness.

"Nothing's ever going to be the same," Tate says, kisses her pale lips. "We finally have our forever, though."

She stares at him with those brown eyes so assured and so horrified, pausing as a rush of pleasure shoots through her body.

"You'll have an eternity to pay for what you did then," Violet says, resting back against him. "I'm never going to forgive you, Tate."

Don't think, his eyes say. Thrust once, twice, find the jagged rhythm and remember when she didn't know what you did and could just be in love with you, he tells himself. She must be thinking much the same.

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Sometimes Violet doesn't want him anywhere near her. There are days where she has nothing to do - time, what a misunderstood concept - but remember all that he's done and hate him for it all the more, where she'd rather lie alone in a cold bed than speak one word to him.

Tate watches the way she curls into a little ball, watches her eyelashes flutter as though she's dreaming. But she's probably only pretending, trying to show him defiantly that she doesn't need him, that she can sleep fine on her own. But, if she were being honest, she'd most likely tell him that she could feel the ghosts staring at her, begging her to listen to their horrible stories, asking her to play, and she feels afraid. She never wanted this, didn't know what she was getting into when she swallowed all those pills.

He knows Violet gets scared all the time, but he also knows that she's stubborn beyond belief and isn't going to admit it, ever.

"I love you," Tate says softly, smiles as she purposely turns the other way and burrows her head into the pillow.

Even if she despises him tonight, at least she feels something. Hate is an emotion, something he will take over indifference any day. Besides, she always comes wandering back eventually, raising her eyebrows and waiting for him to apologize for wrongs he'll never be able to right. When you have eternity, it's nice to have someone by your side.

He thinks that's another reason he loves her, or that they're meant to be in this shit-hole of a house, in the wreck of their own lives.

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His feet are silent against the ground but she knows he's there anyways. She turns, pressing her cheek into the side of the pillar so that he can only see one brown eye gazing cautiously at him.

"When I grow up," Violet says with a wry smile, "I want to plant a garden like the one here. It's just so free."

Tate wraps his arms around her waist, cheek pressing into hers.

"When we grow up," he whispers, "I'll plant you the most beautiful garden you've ever seen."

She turns, eyes filling with tears, and kisses him. She knows he's lying, expects him too. This whole life they've built up for themselves here is a lie, because it's all that will ever be. They can't leave even if they want to.

But this, Tate reflects as his lips press against her cheek, and she mumbles "shit-head" before turning back towards the garden, isn't a lie. Their love is the only truth he's ever known and he'll never let it go. Not even if she's determined to hate him for all of eternity.

She loves him, too, because even as a ghost he's been the most real thing to ever enter her life.

Their fingers twine as they step towards the lawn and find themselves in the parlor of the Murder House.

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