Tainted Love - Tate Langdon x Male Reader

Chapter One: Pulling the Chain

Ever since my family moved to Los Angeles, things have been so weird. My parents moved into this place called "Murder House," or, that's what all the kids at my school call it, the ones that aren't beating me up, at least. Often when I'm in my room alone, I'll hear whispers, and I swear that I see some dark figure out of the corner of my eye sometimes. Yesterday I was sitting on my bed doing homework on my laptop, and I swear that I heard something breathing right in front of my bed, but when I looked up, it stopped. Nothing was there. It shook me a bit, and I moved into my dad's office to continue.

I told my dad about these sightings. He's a psychiatrist, so I thought he'd be able to help with them. Of course, like he always does, he brushed it off, said it was nothing. Recently, this boy named Tate started seeing him. He looked about my age, maybe a year older. He was pretty tall, as tall as my dad, almost.
I passed by him as he was leaving one day and he stopped to talk to me. He was very kind, I could tell he had a pure heart. I've been thinking about him a lot recently for some reason, I swear that I keep seeing him around the house.

The other day, I was talking to him. We were conversing about our favorite bands, he was sitting on the chair by my nightstand and I was sitting on my bed. My dad entered the room, and being the A-hole he is, made Tate leave my room. He said he "didn't want anything bad happen to me," whatever that means.

I draw a lot. If you ask anyone they can easily agree. I have gone through thousands of drawing journals it seems like. I thought of drawing him last night, so I did. It started coming along very well, but I fell asleep while drawing. However this morning I found a message written on the paper. It wasn't my handwriting, nor my mom's, nor my dad's, not even our maid, Moira's. It took me a while to even understand the handwriting, but before I could finish, a voice started.

"I'm flattered by your drawing."

I turn around, and I see a tall figure standing in my doorway. My heart skipped a beat as I saw who it was. It was Tate, a small smile playing his lips.

"You're a very good artist. I like to draw as well."

He walked slowly into my room, wearing a brown cardigan, a dark purple tee, ripped jeans and sneakers. I could tell he had something on his mind, but I couldn't tell what. His face glowed with a warm grin.

"Hi, Y/N, you mind if I sit?"

"Oh, um- not at all, T-Tate!"

It's been a few weeks since he and I first became friends, occasionally, when I was home alone he'd come visit me, most of the time in the basement, for some reason.

"I um, I wanted to show you some drawings I made of you, since you've been drawing me as well."

He takes off his cardigan and hangs it on my bedpost, removing his sketchbook from an inside pocket of it and opening it, showing me a few pages of drawings.

"Oh, wow, Tate! Y-you're very talented! Can I take a look?"

He hands me the book and I look through it, flipping between pages. He gets up, putting on some Nirvana on my CD player. It's obvious that Tate has spent all his life on his art skills, his art is some of the best I've ever seen! I keep flipping through the pages before stopping on one. Sketches of me and him, making me smile. As I look intently at all of them, I notice one that's very... suggestive.

"Hey, T-Tate?"
"Hm? What's up, Y/N?"
"What is this drawing meant to be?"

I show him it and his face goes from its natural pale to a tomato red within seconds. He immediately snatches the book from my hands and tears out the page, balling it up and throwing it away. The look on his face had utter humiliation and embarrassment on it as he sat next to me, covering his face with his hands.

"Tate... are you okay?"

He sobbed a bit before pulling me into a tight hug, burying his face into my chest, soaking my shirt with his tears. His troubled state made me feel a bit delirious and dazed. After a while of me consoling him by hugging him tightly, caressing the top of his head, he pulled away from me, wiping his eyes with his arm.

"S-sorry I just... I didn't think you'd s-see that... I..."
"Tate, do you have s-something you're not telling me?"

His beautiful black eyes looked away from me before he stood up, taking his cardigan and putting it on. Turning to me, he wiped his tears again, waving to me. I blink, and he completely disappears, leaving his sketchbook behind on my bed. Confused, I looked around a bit, but no one else was there, just my dog Hallie and I. The drawing he balled up was on the ground, he had missed the garbage can, so I decided to pick it up and uncrumble it. The detail he put into the sketches are incredible. As I admired the beauty before my very eyes, I noticed "the drawing" again. It didn't reveal much, but was quite suggestive. It wasn't then until I noticed there was something on the back of the paper, and I turned it over. It seemed to be some type of poem, but I couldn't read the handwriting. Though Tate was very kind, he was also very strange.

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