Being the eldest child, Sam always knew a few things.
That, no matter what, she was the protector of her sister. Even when scared or tired, she was still the watchful eye, the secondary caretaker. The older one always ensured the younger one was alive and well.
Sam was no stranger to this. But it wasn't easy when she and her sister were so different. Both struggled with their past and fought in the present, but the depression and manic swings Tara went through were one of the starkest differences between the top.
She doesn’t quite know if it’s because she’s the eldest or just the most aware, but Sam has her differences from Tara. Some called it a feeling, some called it a gift, but to her, it would always be her mother’s definition.
Heightened Sensitivity. That’s what her mother called it, anyway. Supposedly, Sam got it from her grandmother, who passed it to her mom, who passed it to Sam. That’s what her mother said after Sam made the mistake of touching her.
In reality, what Sam feels when she touches any object or person is empathy. She calls it her ‘little doorway into the soul’ when she’s feeling cheerful, but most of the time, it is a ‘little window to hell.’ Around the fifth moment of terror, Sam starts to realize that she picks up on the emotions of other people and things as if it was her own emotions.
At first, it’s a gift.
(She thinks it’s a gift anyway after the night she drunkenly speaks of it to her latest midnight friend).
She can excel in life- or, in her field of study, she should say- by having a cheat code into other people's heads. In undergrad, she picked Psychology as a major. She will bring it to the grace that it was to be the best psychologist ever, but really, it was just to understand her family better and dissect her past.
And it goes well. She gets her masters, and gets a job at a powerful child psychology team that will stop at nothing to help the kids they see. If Sam was honest, she wasn’t very sure about working with kids. She wanted to see adults, but after the first session with a sexually abused six-year-old named Felix, Sam understands. She understands that her gift was a tool to help kids, to help the little kids that remind her so much of Tara and her. Sam then makes it her mission to help kids who need someone to stand up for them.
It was going well. Sam hadn’t met a kid she couldn’t help. One handshake, or hug, or high fives, and Sam knew how to help. Sure, she felt guilty at times for, in a way, invading these kids' emotions, but to see them get the help they were dying for made it all worth it. She develops a routine, work, dinner, club, and one-night stand. It was going so well.
Then, her little sister starts calling again.
Sam never truly knew what was up with her little sister. Tara Carpenter was once a bubbly child. If Sam closed her eyes and focused hard enough, she could still see big brown eyes staring up at her, asking if Sam would play tea party with her.
Sometimes, Sam finds herself negotiating with her baby sister- Maybe we can play outside instead?
But Tara doesn’t respond.
After, well, that night, Tara morphed into a peculiar child. Once the media circus started and their mother’s obituary was finalized, Tara was different. She was withdrawn, soft-spoken, and a little too brooding for her good. Gone were the days of games and dances; now, there was just a shell of a little six-year-old that sometimes followed Sam around.
There was only so much Sam could do between holding herself together and trying to deal with their incompetent father. It wasn’t all her fault. Her gift was more sensitive, and she was falling, too. How was she expected to protect Tara if she couldn’t protect herself?
So Sam lost Tara. Her little sister drifted, too far away to touch but close enough to feel her presence, her shadows. Tara stopped living in Sam’s life, only lingering. She ghosted through Sam’s apartment and place of work from time to time but is only truly present in her own head.
And then came Arthur Vance—sweet, kind, and patient. He was always loving Tara despite her flaws, always keeping her afloat. From the times' Tara brings Arthur around to her home, Sam could instantly sense that this was the one.
Sometimes, she closes her eyes and relives the wedding that took away the one physical thing that made Tara Sam’s.
——-
Tara Vance.
That was a strange thought. No longer a Carpenter, but something else. Something that wasn’t connected to Sam.
Even throughout her latest wedding hookup, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. She was still thinking of the broken connection when she exited the bedroom.
(In her defense, the Maid of Honor came up to her. Who was she to refuse?)
Instead of making her way to the reception area, she bumps straight into her little sister. Tara, all dolled up in her pretty white dress, looked shocked as Sam bumped into her.
Big brown, shocked eyes met Sam’s panicked ones, and neither moved for a second.
“Uh? What?” Sam asks, trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing.
(Who sleeps with their little sister’s Maid of Honor anyways?)
She braces herself for the rejection, the final severed cord between the two. Sam believes that she can handle a new last name for Tara, but homophobic disgust wouldn’t fly. She straightens up, sets her jaw, and breaths out steadily.
Instead, Tara’s grin is wide enough to swallow Sam up whole. Her little sister opens her arms, squealing a bit. Shocked, Sam lets herself be hugged by her gorgeous (and confusing) little sister.
Tara’s voice rumbled against Sam’s shoulder, her height still permanently stuck in sixth grade.
“I love you so much, Sam,” she whispered, gripping Sam like she was six years old and scared of the dark again.
Everything in Sam screamed to let go, not to touch. The skin on skin was bad, and though Sam wore sweaty gloves, she could still feel her anxiety of being assaulted with emotions ramping up. She needed to let go.
But she didn’t. She let herself be held and comforted. She wasn’t ashamed of her sexuality, but she couldn’t deny the fear of being too open with people she didn’t honestly know. Yet her little sister loved and accepted her no matter what, even through their years of turmoil.
So Sam hugs her back, squeezing her tight. She protects her little sister from the monsters of her wedding day and holds her hand all the way to the reception area.
And Tara doesn’t let go until Sam does first.
——
That’s the last time Sam remembers touching Tara before today. A little over two years ago, Tara was alive and gripping onto her shoulders like her life depended on it.
Now Tara lay dead on the examining table, a sheet pulled up to her chest, her pale eyes closed. Sam doesn’t remember if Tara actually looks like that or if that was all due to the makeup they had caked on. Tara isn’t smiling or even brooding. She’s dead.
She's dead and Sam doesn’t know why. The cause of death was officially ruled a suicide. But Sam can’t accept that. She needs to know why. She needs to understand.
Tara had been struggling for years. Depression was a ribbon that lived in Tara, always twisted around her organs and squeezing her brain. Sam knew that Tara struggled with it and often couldn’t function like she could. Sam also knew it was a side effect of their traumatic childhood, but it was also genetic and came from their mother. But Tara had never attempted before.
Why now?
The authorities tell her they’ll never know. They’ll say that this happens to those struggling and that Sam has to be at peace with not knowing.
And Sam can’t handle that. She can’t handle not knowing why Tara decided to end it.
So, on the nights leading up to the funeral, Sam finds herself breaking into the room where Tara’s little dead body lied on the table. She didn’t really know what she expected, maybe a sheet covering her face, but she was glad the body was covered. She couldn’t handle seeing the damage her little sister caused to her own body.
Sam breathed deeply, closing her eyes. She removes her gloves and hovers her hand over Tara’s forehead. She tries to listen for her sister, tries to hear Tara say her name. Sam. I’m here, Sam. But she doesn’t hear anything.
As she lays her hand down on Tara’s forehead, she braces herself for images of death, the fall pout, the gushing blood, and the snapping of bones.
But she doesn’t expect The Nothing. She doesn’t expect her mind and emotions to shut down, her worldview instantly dull. There was no warning for the curtains being drawn. Nothing had meaning anymore. There was no value in life. It was all pointless. She was worthless. There was nothing when she died. There’s no next step or next place. There is only cold and empty.
Nothing.
Sam rips her hand from Tara’s head, scrambling backward. She trips and falls into a table, her head smacking into the side. It doesn’t matter.
A blood-tingling, organ-shredding guttural scream leaves her mouth. The sound makes her cry, tears her hair out of her head, yanks her teeth out of her mouth. It was painful. It should be painful. She was involuntarily putting everything into it.
Just finished reading the first chapter of your hunger games × Scream AU AND LET ME TELL YOU, I'M OBSESSED. You did an incredible job, can't wait to read what happens next
ahhhh thank you for all the love so far. i’m genuinely very excited for this au. can’t wait for you all to see it play out <3
(Oh! Before I forget! I have a new AU for main verse Jett that I’ve been meaning to add! It’ll be more detailed on the verses page, but it’s basically an AU where Uncle Darius manages to sort everything out after Jett disappears, finds him, and declares him the heir to his grandfather’s throne. It’s gonna be so fun! I also think I need to add an NPC page now lol)
