and i love her ▸ tate langdon ✓

01. violet

When they get what they want
And they never want it again

-

October 1993

The beginning of Nirvana's 'Territorial Pissings' plays loudly at seven in the morning sharp, waking Marceline up from her sleep.

She groans, throwing her hand over and slapping the top of her alarm clock to silence the loud guitar and drums of the song. She sits up in her bed, rubbing her tired eyes and smearing the leftover mascara on her lashes around.

Standing from her bed, she walks into the bathroom and uses freezing cold water to remove her day-old makeup. Once it was all gone, she reapplies her usual smokey eyeliner and mascara before going to get dressed.

Dressing in her usual two sizes too big band tee-shirt, today's band being The Cranberries, and some baggy but also ripped jeans. Pulling on doc martens, Marceline looks at herself briefly in the mirror to check how she looks.

A displeased groan leaves her lips as she heads out of her room. Walking down the stairs, she sees her dad in the kitchen, her stepmom sitting at the kitchen island. Her stepmom turns to face her, her eyes scanning her outfit with a screwed-up face.

"When are you going to stop dressing like that?" she asks, her words having a sharp edge to them. "When the world ends, Gloria," Marceline bites back with faux kindness that was clearly transparent.

Her dad scoffs from where he stands in front of the coffee pot. Marceline grabs a water bottle from the fridge before leaving the kitchen and going into the hallway where her backpack sits. Putting it on, she grabs her walkman and heads out the door to go to school.

Playing the first track of Nirvana's newest album 'In Utero', Marceline walks down the sidewalk and walks to school.

Arriving at the dreaded Westfield High, Marceline keeps her head down as she guides herself through the kids who socialize so she could get into the school. The first bell rings as she gets into her classroom, taking a seat near the back of the class to avoid being called on.

Meanwhile, Tate Langdon walks into Westfield High as well. But instead of easily making it to his class like Marceline, he got pushed and shoved by the popular jocks who would call him names.

Tate just let the assholes fuck with him because he didn't have the care to fight back. He eventually navigates his way to Algebra one, sitting in the direct back of the class, askew from other students.

Marceline sits in Advanced English, her ancient teacher rambling on and on about the beauty of Shakespeare. It was only her first class and she already wanted to leave.

When she says leave school, she doesn't mean go home. She might hate going home as much as she hates school. After school, for as long as she could, she'd stay at this old and tattered abandoned house that was on fourth street.

People said the house was haunted, much like they said about this so-called "Murder House" that was in her neighborhood. She never cared much for fables.

The story for the house on fourth was that a witch used to live there and would practice her craft there until one day, she messed up a potion of some kind and trapped her soul within the house. So, basically the plot Hocus Pocus.

Marceline has been going there every day for almost a year and she's still alive so it has to be all lies.

The bell finally rings and Marceline is first out of the classroom. Walking through the flooded halls, she bumps into someone.