Title: You Will Never Win

Fandom: American Horror Story

Pairings: impliied Tate/Violet

Characters: Tate Langdon, Violet Harmon, Chad Warwick, Hayden McClaine

Rating: FR13 (there's two curse words)

Disclaimer: American Horror Story belongs to Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and company. The song "Three Wishes" belongs to The Pierces.

Notes: Contains spoilers for the whole series.

Summary: No matter what Tate does or wants, he can't save her from the house.

Word Count: 672

We'd be so less fragile

If we're made of metal

He knows the moment that she enters the house that she won't survive it. No matter how fearless or strong or brave she might be, the house will break her because underneath the facade is a fragile and lonely girl. Her lack of fear is the very thing that will destroy her.

He's not quite sure how he feels about it.

"Stay away from her," Chad warns him, his voice dark and full of danger.

But he's never been afraid of Chad. Tate just throws the older man a look and he wonders when Chad will finally give up on trying to save people from their fates. Tate smirks and melts away into the shadows. Even if Tate hadn't seen the girl, if he hadn't become interested in her, hadn't felt that spark of something, it still wouldn't matter. The only survivors of this house are his mother and sister. And it's debatable with Constance's burning obsession for this house, if she actually survived it or if she's just a living ghost.

You say you want to know her like a lover

And undo her damage, she'll be new again

His fingers trace the mark of her fragility. Scars that line her thin arms, pale white lines that are never deep enough to bleed all of the pain out of her body. Her father is a shitty psychiatrist, if he can't see the evidence of his own daughter's desperate attempts in front of him.

Tate shifts on her bed and places his lips against each one. His tongue traces the patterns that Violet has cut into her own skin. He can almost taste her blood just like he had when he had pressed his mouth to the open cut after he had begged her to stop. She sighs and pulls him closer so that she can kiss his mouth. Her lips are sweet and her kiss is full of so much life.

It's what stops him, what makes him leave her in her bed alone and untainted. The truth hangs heavily between them and he doesn't want to be the one to scrape the scales away from her eyes. Tate's only ever felt this way about his sister and Nora. And now Violet: he wants to keep her safe, protect her but he can't. Not from the house nor from himself.

You want never bitter

And all delicious

And a clean conscious

He's always on the outside looking in. He was tainted a very long time ago by this house and before that his mother. Just like the majority of the ghosts in this forsaken house. The Harmons are different. Moira's changed as well. The four of them (five if you count the baby but Tate never does) have somehow managed to hold back the darkness of the house. They're bound to it but the house hasn't claimed any new victims. Somehow the four of them have turned the power of the house against it.

And Violet is lost to him. Just as his sister is. He's locked in his loneliness, hatred and bitterness and Violet holds the key. Tate had never wanted it to be like this. He had wanted her, but he hadn't wanted her dead. Yet he had always known that he couldn't save her. Not from this house, not from himself.

Hayden materializes beside him and he silently snarls at her. Tate doesn't want to hear her pronouncements on how he's pathetic and how the Harmons are disgustingly perfect. He's heard it all too many times before. All he wants is this brief moment of being able to watch her and pretend that she's still very much alive.

"She's never going to let you in," Hayden says. "The house will fall down first."

"Fuck off," Tate tells her.

Hayden disappears with a shrug of her shoulders. And Tate's left there wishing he could be the boy that Violet had thought he was. A boy that had never existed.

((END))