#Christina's guys were awful to Sam too (when she was around) but this is Tara headcanons so

[autism-swagger]

Tara headcanons :3

(it's literally just angst. Blame @lionydoorin for making me have Tara thoughts)

She can't stand the smell of cooking meat anymore. It reminds her of Amber.

After Sam left, there wasn't anyone buying groceries on a regular basis. She never starved, but there were many occasions where she went to bed hungry.

She doesn’t remember most of the night her dad left (or even the man himself for that matter). She tried to grab him as he was leaving, but he shoved her off. She slammed her head on the corner of the wall really hard, and ended up with a scar on her forehead, chronic psychosomatic migraines, and tinnitus.

She'll avoid going to the hospital unless she absolutely has to. Not only does it reminds her of being attacked, she was also a really sick kid, and she spent a lot of her childhood hospitalized. Even just going to the doctor stresses her out.

She's like. 70% stress and anxiety at any given moment. Seriously somebody get this girl some SSRIs before she has a heart attack.

Her leg and hand have permanent nerve damage, and her entire left arm is kind of fucked up after 6. She has a semi-permanent arm brace, a cane for her leg, and a whole lot of chronic pain.

Christina had a revolving door of boyfriends, and would bring them home sometimes. They were almost always awful to Tara.

She really misses Amber sometimes. She never tells anyone.

[autism-swagger]

i hate you for what you did (and i miss you like a little kid)

It’s moments like these that Tara misses Sam the most. Everything would be better if Sam were around. She’d pay the bills, she’d make sure Tara was fed, she’d love him like their mother was never willing to. Sam wouldn’t have let Tara get hurt in the first place.

But Sam isn’t here.

(Nobody is going to help.)

or

5 times Tara misses Sam while in the hospital + 1 time she doesn't have to.

or

3,095 words of Tara having an awful awful awful life. And then getting a hug at the end.

Trigger warnings: suicide attempt, child abuse, abusive relationships, authority figures being awful at their jobs, brief mention of implied past sexual assault/harassment

—

Age 15

—

Just this once, Tara wishes Amber wasn't the way she is.

If Amber were any less overbearing protective, she wouldn't have climbed through Tara's bedroom window, angry about her texts going unanswered.

(Amber never did like being ignored.)

He knows she’s pissed at him, but what else could he do? How can he be expected to keep going on like this?

Sam is gone .

She left.

She packed up her belongings and left everything behind without so much as a goodbye.

It’s been three months now, and Tara feels disconnected from everything. None of this is real, she’s sure of it.

How could Sam just leave her behind?

She left.

And Tara is still here.

So, three days after her 15th birthday, she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, followed by one of her mom’s beers.

She didn’t anticipate Amber wanting to hang out.

They pumped her stomach. Her throat hurts from the tube and her stomach hurts from Amber making her throw up. It’s miserable.

He thinks he hates Amber right now. No, scratch that. He definitely hates Amber right now.

She wishes Amber hadn't found her.

She wishes Amber hadn't called 911.

She wishes Amber just left her to die on that bathroom floor.

She’s alone in the hospital room. She threw things and screamed at Amber until she left.

He wants to cry but he doesn’t have the energy. He wishes it worked.

Everything is awful. Amber probably hates her now. Her mom is never home. There’s barely any food left in the house.

Sam is gone.

There’s nothing to keep going for.

—

Age 16

—

Tara isn't quite sure what he did to make his mom's boyfriend so angry. She doesn't even know the guy's name, for god’s sake.

(It's not the first time something like this has happened. It won't be the last.)

They're in a different hospital than the one she normally goes to. It's a couple counties away, to avoid the staff asking questions. You can only have so many “accidents” before people start to get suspicious.

“Transverse radius and ulna fractures,” the way-too-cheery-for-this-time-of-night nurse had told him, “they’re commonly caused by falls like the one you had. You sure are lucky your mom found you when she got home!”

Right. Lucky.

The story they’re going with this time is that Tara slipped and fell down the stairs while home alone, only to be found by her mom when she got home from work. It’s not true, obviously. Tara’s not sure if her mom even has a job right now. She was there. She watched it happen.

(She sat and did nothing while Tara begged and pleaded for her mom to help, just this once please mom please–)

They’re keeping her for observation overnight, just in case. Her mom is long gone, having only stuck around long enough to drop her off.

It’s fine though. That’s just their routine. Tara gets hurt, Christina reluctantly drives her to the hospital, and they both pretend like nothing is wrong. Everyone is happy and everything is fine .

(Tara wishes the hospital staff would ask more questions. He’s so tired of all of this.)

Looking at the cast on his arm, he starts to panic. How is he supposed to pay for all of this? Tara has a shitty minimum wage job and a couple hundred bucks in her get-out-of-Woodsboro fund. That’s not nearly enough to pay for all of this. She did the math, a broken arm costs upwards of $2,500. Christina’s last job provided insurance, but she just had to go and get herself fired.

The buzz and chime of her phone snaps her out of her spiral. When she checks it, she sees a text from her shift manager:

James called out for tomorrow. We need you to cover his shift in addition to yours. You’d get paid overtime.

His heart sinks at the thought of a double shift, really of working at all , tomorrow, but what other choice does he have? Who else is going to pay for this?

(Some small part inside of her rages and weeps at the unfairness of it all. The Amber-Christina part tells her she deserves it.)

It’s moments like these that Tara misses Sam the most. Everything would be better if Sam were around. She’d pay the bills, she’d make sure Tara was fed, she’d love him like their mother was never willing to. Sam wouldn’t have let Tara get hurt in the first place.

But Sam isn’t here.

(Nobody is going to help.)

It’s hard to type with one hand, but Tara manages.

I’ll be there.

—

Age 17

—

There are rules.

In the Carpenter household, that is. There are rules to follow if you want to stay uninjured and safe. They go unspoken, but Tara has them all memorized.

Don’t talk about dad.

Definitely don’t talk about Sam.

Don’t complain.

Tara is exceptional at following them. She keeps her head down and her mouth shut at home, never so much as rolling her eyes or looking sad. It doesn’t really make a difference either way, Christina always finds some excuse to get upset, but still. It’s the principle of it all, he supposes.

(Some small part of her hopes that if she just keeps following the rules, it’ll all turn out okay. Maybe her mom will finally love her. Maybe Sam will finally come back.)

Of course, she had to go and fuck up the most important rule: stay away from mom when she’s drunk.

He was just trying to tell her that his teachers and principal had requested to meet with her. He didn’t see the bottle until it was too late.

So. Here Tara is. Waiting to get her left eyebrow stitched up at urgent care.

A wine glass to the face will do that to you.

They didn’t even ask any questions this time. Just handed her the intake paperwork, directed her to a room, and told her when the doctor would be in.

Not for the first time, Tara questions the professionalism of the officials in this town. Is nobody even a little bit suspicious? Surely it’s weird for one person to get in this many “accidents.”

(Do they all know? Do they just not care?)

The room is cold. They always are. It makes the warmth of the blood almost painful in comparison. The entire left side of her face is throbbing, even with the icepack and painkillers. She can already feel a black eye forming.

Tara wishes Sam were here.

Tara always wishes Sam were here.

Sam would’ve reminded her to keep away from mom. She was the one to come up with the rule in the first place.

But Sam isn’t here.

She’ll never be here again.

Sometimes he gets so angry at her he can’t breathe. For leaving. For being absent long before she was gone. For a lot of things.

It’s not fair, Tara thinks, in his darkest moments where he’s just so resentful that it scares him, that Sam is the one who made it out. Why did she get to be the one to leave?

Sam was a burnout drug addict who just barely graduated high school and would probably never amount to anything.

Tara is good. She makes decent grades and she plays piano and she babysits on the weekends. She never complains. She doesn’t talk back. She’s good and quiet and does what she’s supposed to.

And yet he’s the one who’s still trapped in this town.

He was born here and he’s going to die here. By his own hand or his mother’s or some creep in a costume.

That’s how it was always going to be.

—

Age 18

—

“It was an accident while we were cooking! She tripped while I was holding a kitchen knife. Tara, I'm so sorry! You know I'd never hurt you on purpose.” Amber directs the last part to Tara, instead of the doctor stitching up the gash on his left arm.

Tara says nothing in return. Just nods.

She doesn't want to make things worse for herself than they already are. Even now, hours later, he can still see the quiet rage behind Amber's eyes. If he just keeps quiet, then Amber won’t get more upset with him than she already is.

It’s Tara’s fault. Really, it is. Amber is still around. She puts up with Tara when no one else will. He should be more grateful. Instead, he just focuses on the past, on people who did nothing but hurt him.

Amber found the box of Sam’s belongings Tara kept under his bed.

(He knows that she would’ve had to have been going through his room to find it. He shouldn’t be keeping secrets from her anyways.)

She’s not supposed to think about Sam. Sam left her behind, so she’s supposed to forget about her. Sam didn’t love him like Amber does. Nobody loves him like Amber does. It’s why they all leave. She makes them leave. She’s just too hard to love.

That’s what Amber says anyways.

“All done! You should be more careful next time.” The doctor says as she packs up her supplies. “You’re good to go ahead and go home now.”

Tara stays silent as she and Amber make their way out of the hospital, only half paying attention to her friend’s nonstop slew of thank-you-so-much’s and I’m-so-sorry-I-didn’t-mean-to-hurt-you’s. 

All pretenses are dropped when they get to the car. The apologetic look on Amber’s face disappears, with no sign that it had been there in the first place. All that remains in anger and indifference. Tara’s heart sinks at the sight of it.

He climbs into the passenger seat, flinching at the slam of the driver’s side door. When she risks a glance to the left, she blanches. Amber is staring straight ahead, jaw clenched and knuckles white on the steering wheel. In other words, she’s furious.

“I’m sorry.” Tara breaks the silence. “I know I shouldn’t have– I’m– I’m really sorry.”

Amber doesn’t respond, doesn’t even react. Just turns the key and pulls out of the parking lot. Five minutes into their drive, Tara tries again.

“Amber, I’m so sorry. I know I should’ve listened to you. I just–”

He cuts himself off, wincing. Amber’s eyes flash with something he can’t name.

“Just what? Are you seriously gonna try and make an excuse right now?” Amber seethes, grip tightening on the wheel.

Tara doesn’t reply, frozen in place like a rabbit spotted by a wolf. Her heart is thundering in her throat. He wonders if Amber can hear it.

“No, seriously. What were you going to say?” Amber continues her rant, steadily increasing in volume. “That you miss her? After everything I do for you?  Am I not good enough for you Tara? You think I’m just sooo awful that you’d rather have some heartless bitch who abandoned you instead of me? Maybe I should just leave you too! God knows you make it hard enough to stay!”

She’s yelling at this point, voice filling up the car. Nothing she’s saying is new. None of this is. Tara tries to hold back her tears, afraid of giving Amber more ammunition. It doesn’t work.

“...I’m sorry.” Tara sobs. At the sight of his tears, Amber softens and pulls over. She parks and turns off the car as Tara quietly weeps.

“You know I just want what’s best for you, right? I know it hurts, but you need to hear this Tara. You deserve it.” Amber sighs, wiping away his tears.

(She’s holding his arm right where the stitches are. As she speaks, her grip tightens.)

“...I know.”

—

Age 19

—

Tara can’t feel anything below her neck.

Actually, that’s not quite true. He can still feel the burning agony in his- well, everywhere .

But that’s mostly mental, she knows. She’s so pumped full of opioids she’s surprised she can move.

(Had he been more lucid, Tara would be freaking the fuck out over being given painkillers, especially ones as addictive as opioids. She doesn’t want to turn into Sam her mom.)

Her friends (minus Wes, who’s off doing- something or other. Tara isn’t quite sure) are crowded around her. None of them seem to know what to do with themselves, all of them fretting over everything she does- and doesn't- do. Her drug-addled brain draws the comparison of a flock of neurotic chickens, making her giggle.

An action that is immediately regretted, of course. Laughing is excruciating when you’ve been stabbed in the torso.

Amber snaps to attention from her place at his side when he cries out, worry evident on her face. She grabs onto Tara’s bruised upper arm, making him wince.

“Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” Amber questions. It’s nice, her concern. She’s not normally this nice about Tara’s pain. He hums in response, leaning his head forward to rest it on Amber’s shoulder as her arms wrap around his shoulders.

(Briefly, Tara entertains the notion that Amber could’ve been the one to do this, but the thought is quickly dismissed. Amber- she wouldn’t- she only hurts Tara when he deserves it. And he doesn’t think he’s done anything to deserve this.)

There’s a quiet knock on the door before Wes lets himself in, phone in hand. Tara can’t think of anything that sounds less appealing than talking (well. Last night was pretty rough), but the look on Wes’s face worries her.

“...w-what’s wrong?” Her voice is quiet and hoarse, vocal cords strained from screaming. Wes looks conflicted, thinking over his words. After a second, he moves to sit next to the bed.

“I don’t know how to– I just–” He sighs, running a hand down his face. “I called Sam. I didn’t think she would answer but she did. She’s on her way. She’ll be here in an hour.”

Tara doesn’t register Amber tensing beside her, doesn’t feel her get up, doesn’t hear the ensuing argument.

Sam is– Sam is coming here?

That– that can’t be right.

Sam wouldn’t just– she wouldn’t– she–

Tara doesn’t know what Sam would do.

Not anymore.

He’s stuck in place, paralyzed by the thoughts spiraling in his brain.

What if Sam never shows up?

What if she does?

What if Sam is the same Sam from five years ago? The Sam who yelled and slammed doors and couldn’t bear to look Tara in the eye?

(Tara doesn’t think he’d be able to handle that. He’d take that damned knife and finish the job himself.)

What if– what if Sam is better? What if she’s happy? What if she’s finally clean? What if the only thing preventing from reaching that point was Tara ?

What if Sam coming back to Woodsboro (coming back to Tara) undoes all of that?

Tara doubles over and throws up.

—

Age 20

—

Tara stares at the ceiling.

It’s a nice ceiling, he thinks, for a hospital at least. Sam laughs when he tells her as much. Rude.

“Fffine.” (God she loves opioids. Why was she so against using them again?) “See ‘f I ever– ever tell you how I feel ‘bout hospital ceilings again.”

Sam laughs. Again. Tara glowers. She could at least try to hold it in.

“How often are you seeing hospital ceilings?” Sam asks, still chuckling.

“Super often. I was in th’ hospital all the time when you were gone.”

Sam’s laughter cuts off. Tara looks over to see her sister sitting up in her chair.

“What do you mean?” There’s a weird look on Sam’s face, one Tara can’t figure out in the state he’s in.

“Got hurt. A lot.” Sam tenses up as Tara speaks.

The fog in his head clears a bit.

Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that.

“How did you– what were some of the injuries?” Sam asks, keeping her tone light.

They’re getting into uncharted territory now. They don’t talk about the years Sam was gone, preferring to dance around the topic.

Tara looks away. “I don’t– it was just minor things. Just– falls and whatnot. Nothing– nothing bad.” Her voice wavers on the last word. Fuck.

Sam is silent for a minute, before– “Tara.”

She can feel the burning pressure building behind her eyes. She desperately tries to keep the tears at bay, but it’s all for naught. Turning away from Sam, he tries again. “It– nothing happened, Sam. I’m fine. Every– everything is fine.” She scrubs at the tears on her face, willing her eyes to dry. It doesn’t work. “Fuck.”

Sam reaches out and lays a hand on Tara’s arm, urging her to turn around.

(Tara has to fight the instinct to pull away. She doesn't like people touching her, not anymore. It reminds her of Frankie's hands and Ethan's words and Amber taking and taking 'til there was nothing left.)

“Tara. Please look at me.” Sam’s voice is soft and gentle. It just makes Tara cry harder. His throat hurts from holding in his sobs.

Tara wishes none of this was happening. She wishes Ghostface was just a villain in a movie and her best friend was still alive and her mom didn’t hate her and her dad was still around and Sam never left and she bled out on the kitchen floor and and and.

Tara turns around.

Sam’s face falls.

“Oh, baby boy.” She breathes, voice full of regret and sorrow and love and a million other things Tara doesn’t deserve.

“...It’s not fair.” Tara cries. “Why– why did– I don’t– why did they hurt me? I loved them and– and they hurt me.”

He doesn’t resist when Sam pulls him into her arms, hand cradling the back of his head. His stitches are pulling and his left arm is in agony but he doesn’t care. Sam’s embrace is warm. He hasn’t been warm since she left.

Tara wails. She’s been holding it in for a long time. Her whole life, she thinks. Sam just hugs him closer to her body.

“Please don’t leave me Sammy pleasepleaseplease don’t leave again please.” He’s barely intelligible at this point, reduced to begging through his sobs.

“I’m not going to leave, I promise. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying.” Sam whispers into his hair. He’s just barely able to hear her over his weeping. She says it again and again, repeating it the entire time he cries.

Her face is covered in tears and snot and her arm is excruciating and she thinks she popped a stitch but none of it matters.

Sam is here.

—