Unthinkable (Tate Langdon)

003

September 6th, 1993.

The music was so loud that she could barely hear her own thoughts.

Just a few hours ago, she'd been standing in her dresser mirror, perfecting her eyeliner and fretting over her outfit. It was important to look nice when one went somewhere one was not wanted, she believed.

She was hit with a wave of regret for putting so much thought into it; the crowd of bodies was so thick, she highly doubted anyone was going to notice her in the first place.

"Are you having fun?" Adam shouted into her ear, grinning brightly and chugging beer from the red plastic cup in his hand.

She nodded with what she hoped appeared to be genuine enthusiasm. Though she wasn't overly fond of the mohawked boy with the nose ring who seemed to have developed a crush on her, Evangeline didn't want to appear rude.

At least the deafening music prevented him from prattling on about the Misfits versus the Ramones in a punk rock battle she was less than interested in hearing about. That alone made his company slightly more tolerable.

Besides, it was nice just to be out.

She could pretend for a moment that she was a normal teenager - not universally disliked by her peers, not the daughter of an alcoholic, just normal. It was a feeling she didn't often get a taste of, aside from those lazy afternoons spent on the beach with Tate.

At the thought of her friend, she felt momentarily guilty; checking out that movie he'd invited her to would probably have been a little more fun and a lot less tense than the chaos of a house party, but she had made her decision before he'd even asked.

"Here," Adam shouted, thrusting a plastic cup in her direction and giving it the thumbs up.

Putting any guilty or stressful thoughts out of mind, she accepted the drink and took a long swill of the too-sweet red liquid inside.

No point in wasting a good night on feeling bad.

---

He couldn't see why Eve would have chosen to be there instead of a movie, even suspending his own disbelief that she wanted to be there with that leather clad idiot rather than with him.

It wasn't her scene. The music was terrible and the people were worse, one disgusting throbbing mass moving to the beat of some house electronica music.

It was a terrible place to ask a girl on a date, especially a girl as special as Eve was. If that Adam kid had known his ass from his elbow, he would've realized that.

But that was something Tate already realized - no one knew Evangeline as well as he did. She had just missed that, somehow. He would make it obvious enough that she'd have to see it.

It was easy enough to figure out what party she'd been invited to, only one major bash that weekend that the entire school - save Tate himself, of course - had been told about.

It had been even easier to find a guy that knew a guy, the same guy he scored coke from on occasion. He'd felt a little awkward buying roofies, but dealers didn't ask a lot of questions and he didn't volunteer much information freely.

He knew that no one would understand that he was helping her, no matter how he explained it. They wouldn't be able to see that he was merely setting things right, protecting her even, not the way he could see it.

He tugged on his hood slightly, keeping his head down and his shoulders slumped forward as he slithered through the crowd, as invisible as a ghost.

Everyone was too wrapped up in themselves and half drunk to notice their favorite punching bag moving amongst them, and so he was allowed to do so with minimal interruption.

All he had to do was find his mark and wait for the opportunity to act.

Luckily, patience was one of the few solid virtues Tate possessed.

---

She didn't know why her head was spinning as it was; she hadn't drank enough to merit that type of reaction.

"I don't feel good," she shouted into Adam's ear, clutching the sleeve of his jacket so as to reassure herself she wouldn't fall over.

"What?" he screamed back, leaning closer but never stopping as he continued to dance along to the pounding drumbeat that shook the room.

She tried twice more to tell him that something was wrong, each time being drowned out by the music and the shouting, before she gave up.

She would just go lay down a while, she decided. Clear her head a little, maybe drink some water until she could think straight.

Climbing the stairs was a monumental challenge, each one a minature Mount Everest in her estimation. She just tried to focus on keeping her balance and keeping the contents of her stomach down until she reached the top.

Something was definitely not right. Kool Aid and vodka never turned her out so badly, nor did they usually produce floating specks of white in her field of vision.

She couldn't concentrate on solving that mystery just then however, all of her Mystery Gang skills helping to guide her towards the bathroom.

She pushed past the line of people standing outside without any consideration, dodging in front of a guy and girl ready to occupy the room before slamming the door behind her.

She promptly emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet, relishing the feel of the cold tile beneath her, before the world went black.

×××

Hello again! As I said, I'm going to be updating frequently on this in hopes that it gets the word out and that I can branch into AHS fandom on here, too. So far, I've only published DC stories, so I know it will take a bit of time to get my legs here, so to speak.

If you're enjoying, can you do me a solid and drop me a comment or vote? I'd really love to hear from readers!