and i love her ▸ tate langdon ✓

28. celebrity skin

They aren't sluts like you
Beautiful garbage, beautiful dresses

-

"Just a smile or a kind word could open the gates to heaven," Constance berates Tate in front of his sister, Addie, and Larry.

His eyes water, the feeling of his mother's harsh words hitting him across the cheek as a few stray tears streak down his cheek. He quickly wipes his lips, gathering himself as he looks at his mother with a pained smile.

"No matter how much you want it, I will never be your perfect son," he says through gritted teeth, staring his mother down with hid dark eyes that held nothing but pent-up anger that had been festering for years upon years.

She stares back at him, a slightly softer look on her face. Tate stands from his seat at the dinner table as Constance reverts back to her stoic expression. Addie and Larry sit in awkward silence as Tate walks up to his room.

The moment the door to his room close behind him, he was quick to start making a mess of his room. Pushing all of his belongings off of his dresser and tearing posters down-- but being careful to avoid the Nirvana posters.

But he didn't call Marceline. The last thing he wanted to do was to bother her with his familial issues when she had it worse than him.

Unable to sleep, he stays up the whole night until his death metal alarm clock rings at seven o'clock sharp. He slams his hand down on the top of it, silencing the loud noise it produced. He stands from his bed and starts with his plan.

Pulling on a black hoodie, he sits at his desk and grabs his emergency stash of cocaine. Cutting it up with a razor blade, he uses a dollar bill to snort it up.

He grabs his stash of guns that he had relocated to under his bed and fills them with their ammunition. He cocks the 20-gauge shotgun and the other random shotgun he had found in his house before prepping the handgun and tucking it into his waistband along with slipping a switchblade into his back pocket.

With that, Tate leaves his bedroom.

-

// 4:00 a.m on April 5th, 1994 //

Marceline lays awake, unable to sleep as she listens to the soft noises the TV makes in the background. She tried everything to fall asleep and yet she couldn't.

It was this looming feeling that she couldn't explain.

Getting up from her bed, she grabs her phone that sat on the edge of her desk and dialed Tate's number. After the line trills, he quickly picks up.

"Yeah?" he answers, a sharpness to his voice for it being five in the morning. "I can't sleep. I'm assuming you can't either," she says, her voice raspy from having not used it in a few hours. Tate hums softly in response.

"Are you okay?" she asks after a long silence.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Why? Are you okay?" he asks in return.

She sighs. "Tate... I don't know if I can hold out anymore. I can't take it," she admits, sniffling softly. "Hold out on what?" Tate asks, his brows furrowed in concern for her sake.

"Life," she says with a humorless chuckle. Tate stays quiet for a moment, his thumb rubbing the side of his phone. "Sometimes living a long life isn't in our path. Maybe it's better to call it off when you're younger so you don't suffer," he says in a flatter tone than usual.

Something about the way he spoke made Marceline nervous. He sounded gloomy. He sounded disappointed.

But she had to agree with him.