Author's Note: This is the beginning to a long fiction I have in the works/planned and I'll be sure to update whenever I can. Takes place very much post American Horror Story, Season 1 and the dynamics have shifted a bit. The warnings should speak for themselves, but I will tell you that there's violence/gore and there will be smut. I guess I'll have more to say about it, the longer I've worked on it- but for now; enjoy and feel free to leave a review because that'd be lovely. Thanks for reading!

She feels the same, but different in a way that was something at both a relief and a frustration for the blond ghost. With lips painted cherry red and hair unpinned, he's got her facing away and his eyes closed to be sure he can keep his focus on one thing. He doesn't kiss her, doesn't utter her name; hell, he's hardly even paying much attention anymore. It's just to let off some steam and maybe it's sick, but he knows that a certain teenage girl is off somewhere and she knows that Tate is busy fucking his way out of his perpetual depression—or maybe it's not depression anymore. No, lately he'd been angrier than anything, and maybe that was why young Moira's porcelain skin was riddled with bruises that flowered out blue and yellow like ink dripped into a cup of water.

When he's finished with her, he doesn't mind to speak, or clean up the mess—he simply pulls his jeans back up to rest on bony hips and straightens his belt, before exiting the room like a pouting child.

The house is old and it's quiet just like always—save for the groaning that the drywall makes as it fights against the wind from the outside. Like the sound your stomach makes when it's tossing and turning, just before it lurches and spills its contents onto the cement.

Violet's got honey hues lowered and a cigarette between pursed lips at the filter as she runs careful digits over a tiny plastic pawn for a forgotten chess board. She'd taken to melting a few of them a couple months back—watching carefully as the shapes warped and burned her fingertips. She tries to tell herself that it's just boredom, but she knows it's something else that fuels her need for destruction. She'll settle for the first for now.

"What are you doing?"

Of course she recognized the voice, because it was just in the basement, telling Moira to put her nose to the brick and keep quiet.

She knows why he does it and she knows that Moira isn't the only lady of the house that Tate takes advantage of anymore and the idea makes her want to dry heave—nearly does. Not out of jealousy, more out of disgust. Eyes roll in their sockets and the ghost-girl looks up to meet his gaze with disdain. The only way she'll ever look at him anymore is as if she's looking at something that's dying and unraveling before her. The way someone might look at something dead, or something broken. He was both things, though the second one was more a secret than the first.

"I'm counting the tiles on the floor. Go away." She doesn't mean it, so he's still there and he's taking a few steps closer, before he's standing just off to her side. He remembers a time that she said those words with meaning behind them.

"What's that?" he asks, canting a chiseled jaw to the side as dark irises hone in on the chess piece that's still clutched between angry fingertips. With the question, she flicks her wrist and sends the hollow pawn skittering across the room, both of them watching as it spins and sputters to a still out of the room and down the hall.

"Fuck off."

And he does—but not before he walks out and picks up the chess piece, inspecting it in his careful fingers like something that was fragile, something that would crumble and whither away like sand held together with water. He recognizes that he's holding something he held a long time ago while he and Violet shared smiles and stolen glances, instead of slaps and snide remarks.

It doesn't mean much to either of them anymore.

She can't remember how long it had been, or if it really mattered at all in the first place. Some days felt like minutes and others seemed to go on for years at a time. She never saw anyone anymore and it was by her own choice—others had only proven to complicate things. Loud, too much talking; and it reached a point to where even the sound of anyone's voice at all made her cringe. So, she kept to herself and she hadn't even spoken to her family in God knows how long either.

Violet was beginning to think that she'd told everyone in the Murder House to 'go away' at one point or another.

She's found that if she turns off all the lights and immerses herself in darkness, before lying in bed and shutting her eyes, she can still see the way his face screws up when he screams for her to let him stay. She really doesn't think that he would care anymore—she hasn't seen him cry in a long time. Tate doesn't cry when he's alone, not anymore. He used to, back when things were still new and she was getting used to being a corpse in a catacomb. He would curl up into a corner in the basement and let tears cut paths down his cheek; he'd even call out her name sometimes, so loud his voice broke and splintered like a chair that had supported one too many bodies. He used to be broken, but she's not so sure anymore.

She preferred him broken, because at least then she could get some sort of sick satisfaction out of his pain.

Oh, but she's going to feel satisfied after tonight; she's sure of it. She's already knocked him out and taped his ankles and wrists to a chair in the basement so she can carve him like a jack-o-lantern. He'd been pouring himself some whiskey with eyes lowered and long, dexterous fingers wrapped around the circumference of the glass when she snuck up on him with a metal baseball bat in hand. The sound it made when it collided with his skull was enough to elicit a sick grin on the girl's lips as she watched him go limp and fall down to the floor. Duct tape wound over and over around his wrists and ankles—keeping them tight against the framework of the chair so he couldn't get free; only then did she leave him slumped over and out like a light while she smoked another cigarette.

When he wakes up, she's made sure that she's the first thing he sees. Long honey tresses that hang past her shoulders and a tiny smirk on her lips- smoke billows out through Violet's nostrils like two angry twin dragons as she taps the filter of her cigarette. She's contemplating what to do with him and it sparks a fear within the male that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Because after everything, he knows that she comes in with a close second for the role of angriest ghost in the house. She'll beat the piss out of him and he's aware that she has plans to hurt.

"What are you gonna do? Chop my dick off or something?" His voice is a purr in her ear, almost as if she's the one tied to the chair.

"Please- like I'm that unimaginative."

Legs uncurl from beneath her and Tate watches like he's a mouse being stalked by a cat, and with the way she nearly sashays over to him, he'd started to think maybe this was a ploy to seduce him.

The thought is quickly erased when the cherry of her cigarette is shoved into the side of his neck.

An angry hiss leaves the male's lips as his skin melts and burns under the embers being twisted in. Knuckles white hot and a curl on his lips as he grinds his teeth to try and ignore the pain—he wants to hit her, yell at her, anything to make her stop and take out the frustrations she's pounding into him. Oh, but she doesn't care; in fact, she's very much enjoying the look on his face as she uses his flesh for an ashtray. She's Zeus and she's gutted him and strung him up to deliver him to Tartarus, but she's beautiful; and that was the sickest part about it. As much as Tate wanted to slap the pretty little smirk off the ghost-girl's face, he got a thrill out of it that was absolutely downright disgusting.

"I think I'll cut your tongue out." The notion and the sound of her voice brings dark eyes to snap up and gaze at her face, as if he didn't believe her- didn't think she had it in her. She notices it, but continues anyway. "Yeah, I think so… after I put the baseball bat to better use," Violet added, scratching her chin and wrinkling her nose lightly for added effect, as if contemplating what she was going to eat for dinner.

The laugh that leaves his lips is wicked and he's wearing a Cheshire grin as he gazes up at her with a brow raised. Adam's apple bobbing in his throat and sweat clinging to his temple, it's almost like he's mocking her with the sick curl of his laughter—it makes her insides squirm and a light flush dance over her cheeks. She's doubting herself.

The slap that sounds through the basement is sharp and crisp; the palm of her hand stinging and Tate's head hanging with his laughter cut short. Yes, his cheek was definitely smarting now, along with the sting on the side of his neck.

"You know, Tate, I'm really tired. Your voice is like nails on a fucking chalkboard anymore."

She's shaking her head and tugging her shirt off; it makes his eyes widen like saucers as he watches soft and supple skin become exposed to the dim lighting. She doesn't give a shit because he's already seen her and her plain white bra keeps his eyes from wandering too much. No, she's too busy twisting the shirt up tight as if she were to wring it dry, so she can gag him with it and shut him up. Once the cloth is between his teeth and tied at the back of his head, Violet takes a step back to admire her work, and then turns around to fetch the bat.

Just a few swings—not enough to knock him out, but enough to make him want to empty the contents on his stomach.

The first blow is to the male's left shoulder, and it hits with such a crack and a pop that he's screaming into the cloth gag and his muscles are flexing under the bindings to try and free himself. She's broken something and it brings a satisfied grin to the little flower's face. The second blow is to his temple and she makes sure it's not hard enough to knock him out again—but she knows he's seeing stars afterwards because his eyes go wide and his head hangs, blinking hard as he tries to regain his vision, and possibly his hearing. Finally, she takes the gag off and discards it to the floor—Tate is spitting towards the ground and his chest is heaving for air as his brain begs for more oxygen. She can't help but like him like this; maybe even enough to forgive him, though she knew that wasn't really the case. Blood cuts a trail down the side of his head and he leans awkwardly in the chair to avoid any weight on his left shoulder—she likes him beaten and broken. He's beautiful like this.

Closer, closer, closer—she rounds in towards him until her face is mere inches from his; eyes on him and a delicate hand out to cup the hard lines of his jaw.

"My, my, my; how the mighty have fallen," she whispers to him and her breath is hot on his face. She still smells like vanilla and strawberries.

It doesn't stop him from glaring daggers back at her and shaking his head, before she closes the gap and presses feverish lips to his own. No, of course he has no idea how to react because he hadn't felt her kiss in years—so long that he thought he might have lived a thousand artificial lives in between. Her tongue slipping between his chapped lips to run over his front teeth and to his canines is enough to make his dead heart skip more than the blow to the head had.

She just wants to taste him, before she cuts his tongue out.

When they break apart, Violet wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and Tate gazes up at her with parted lips and confused eyes. He understands—she's more like him than she will ever really admit and that's half the reason why she still hates him.

"You're just a scared little girl. Violet. You're not afraid of me anymore, you're scared of yourself. You—"

His words are cut short when the honey-eyed girl fishes out a pocket knife and flicks it open; filling the house with the sounds of his gargled out screams and pleas for her to stop.

She doesn't stop until he's silent.