and i love her ▸ tate langdon ✓

29. garbage man

Yeah, you don't want to look at it
No, you don't want to look at me

-

// Halloween 2002 //

"So I guess that's why I'm telling you all of this," Tate finishes his long-winded story. The ghost he had been speaking to-- a woman named Lina who had died a few years before Tate's family moved into the Murder House-- asked him about why he was so gloomy all the time. Hence why he went on a tangent about Marceline.

She chuckles softly, shaking her head as she looks down. The chuckling escalates to full-on laughter as Tate is stuck just watching her.

"You're a fucking idiot," she says through laughs. Tate furrows his brow in confusion. "What?" he asks, thrown off guard by her rude statement. She calms her laughing, gathering herself enough so she could speak.

"Okay, three main things," she starts. "You say you killed people you liked. Then, you say you did it for Marceline. As far as I know, those are two very different things," she explains. Tate frowns, resolving back to his boyish self.

"Next is the matter that you killed the girl you claim to love more than anything. You continue to say that 'She didn't deserve sorrow in this life' even though you brought on so much sadness to her family and the other kids' families,"

"Finally, you're just a cunt," she finishes her speaking, standing from the couch she sat on.

Tate took offense to her words. He crosses his arms, leaning back in his chair with an irritated expression on his face. "You killed those people because you were too caught up in your delusions of a perfect world. It clouded your judgment. But you're still a cunt," she says.

He watches as Lina walks out of the room, upset that she told him the truth and didn't baby him like he wanted.

After the shooting and consequently, him burning Larry, Tate's family had moved to the house next door, leaving the famed Murder House empty yet again. And with it now being eight years since the shooting, Tate hadn't seen Marceline once.

Initially, he thought she would come to the house on Halloween. But as the years went on, he realized she wasn't going to come.

Tate was so naive that he saw himself as the victim here.

On Marceline's side of the tragedy, her parents were devastated. Her father maybe a little less so than her mother.

When all Melissa, Gloria, and Samuel got the news, it was like their world had been rocked. And what made it worse was the fact that she had died at the hands of Tate. The officer told Sam and Gloria that she was found dead in a bathroom stall, a bullet between her eyes.

When Melissa was told, she broke down crying.

And now it was yet another Halloween and Tate found himself hoping she'd finally leave wherever she may be and come back to him if just for a night.

He had to admit he was in the wrong. He had to apologize and had to make it up to her. But he couldn't do that if he never saw her. Tate just wanted Marceline to give him a second chance. He knew she was out there somewhere.

Marceline walks the streets of Los Angeles like she did every Halloween. She missed living and she had built up a hatred towards all people.

The one night of the year where she could roam the world was filled with drunk idiots in cat suits and vampire capes.

She finds her way back to her old house, finding it empty of all life. Her father must've moved out. She wanders down the street and stands in front of Tate's old house. She didn't know what had happened to him but she didn't want to know.