Sam Carpenter Imagine - Tumblr Posts
a novel life pt.4
Summary: You were really starting to understand a few things about the younger generation. For example, every time you looked at Sam, you thought "I can fix her." It was happening a bit too frequently for your liking.
Word Count: 4.8k Warnings: Swearing, Scream levels of violence, suggestive themes Pairing: Samantha Carpenter x Reader (pt.1) (pt.2) (pt.3) (pt.4)
“Baby?”
You kept your eyes on whatever was on the floor.
“You broke it.”
“Tara, shut up.”
“Look at me.”
It wasn’t moving.
“Hey.”
The red creeped and crawled toward the flowers on the ground.
“Baby.”
Hands held both sides of your face and tried to pull you in the other direction. Gentle, but firm. It didn’t matter, they could pull all they wanted, it didn’t stop your eyes from staying glued to the thing in the middle of the living room floor. The shape was familiar, and you were aware that you should recognise it. But the harder you looked, the more the shape seemed to blur and distort.
“Stop looking at it.” Sam. “Look at me.”
You couldn’t.
You opened your mouth to answer, stopped to clear your throat, and started again. “Is that a body?”
Everyone seemed to hesitate.
“Yes,” Sam answered.
You nodded slowly.
“Is it dead?”
“I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
A sigh. “Tara.”
“Yes,” Sam repeated.
You nodded again. The red almost touched your shoes.
“It’s a dead body?”
“Jesus fuck, Sam, get them out.”
“Come on,” Sam said softly, keeping her hold on your face to pull you with her.
Your eyes never left the scene until she had pulled you into her room and shut the door behind you both. There was a dead body in Sam’s living room. A body. A dead one. In the living room. Right there on the floor. Visible to god and anyone who opened the front door. Which included you.
“You need to breathe,” Sam said. “Look at me and breathe.”
You inhaled deeply and blinked slowly. Only when you opened your eyes did you actually see Sam for the first time that evening. She looked stunning, as usual. Her beautiful brown eyes looked lovely in the artificial light of the apartment. You tried not to notice the blood on her arms.
Not even her beautiful, kissable face could distract you from the scene that had plastered itself behind your eyelids.
“There’s a dead body on your floor,” you said.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Sam said with a humourless chuckle.
“It looks like a dead body,” you repeated, “in your living room.”
She sighed. “Maybe it is what it looks like, but I can explain.”
You shook your head and took a half step back. Did you want an explanation? Perhaps you could act like you hadn’t seen anything. That would create plausible deniability, would it not? No, not entirely, you had still seen a body in your girlfriend’s apartment. Your deniability wouldn’t be that plausible.
As you took another half step back, you were finally far enough away to realise what was hanging off Sam’s frame. A black cloak. Or robe. Whatever it was, it was familiar. Very familiar. The only thing missing was the mask. Your head tilted slightly.
Perhaps you liked the robe. It looked… nice.
“Please let me explain,” Sam said as she stepped closer.
You took a step back, but nodded in her direction.
“He followed Tara home because he thought she was a kid,” she said. “It was for good reason.”
Good reason. Someone had died. Horrifically, if the amount of blood was anything to go by. And the amount of knives. Someone had clearly suffered. What about that explanation made it such a good-
-oh.
Okay, perhaps it was a good reason.
“Is this the first…” you sighed and shook your head, “accident?”
The way Sam’s face fell was answer enough.
“Okay,” you said with a nod. “Okay, I need to go home.” You couldn’t look at her. “I need to think.”
“I can walk you home-”
“-it’s okay,” you said. She stopped moving closer when you held your hands up in front of you. “I promise I’ll call.”
The look on her face was enough to break your heart, but it was sitting backseat to the body that you couldn’t help but look at as you walked out of the bedroom. J was already dragging it to the bathroom. They stopped, smiled, and waved at you before continuing to move. Beside them, Tara gave you a look that was akin to what you would give a dog at the shelter.
You bent down and picked up the flowers from the floor, placing them gently on the table. Blood started to pool underneath the petals as you left the apartment.
—---
Sleep had evaded you since you had gotten home a few nights ago. The world had simply kept turning. You had handed out the graded essays in class; you had introduced new material. You had ordered takeout because the last thing you needed was burnt food from your own kitchen. The world kept turning, and everything kept moving forward.
And you still hadn’t called Sam.
You had turned the volume off on your phone the moment you had gotten home. If you saw the notifications from Sam, you would cave and call her back instantly. Against all your better judgements that told you to think everything through, you would have called her and gone back to her apartment to face whatever trouble came your way.
There was no promise you wouldn’t still do that. But the least you could do was think through every aspect.
And you did. You tossed over every possibility, every facet of truth, every miniscule detail that may or may not have mattered, starting with the biggest fact; Sam was Ghostface. Or she was a Ghostface. Clearly Tara and J were involved to some degree. So on one hand, Sam was the only one, on the other hand, there were three Ghostfaces.
Splendid.
That knowledge forced your hand, and you bought all the books and movies and every little news article you could find, old and new. The movies were on in the background - they were far more disgusting than you had planned, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly pay attention - while you read the books. The majority came from that news reporter, Gale Weathers. They were a little tasteless, but seemed legit nonetheless.
Your handwriting littered the books, pointing out motives, tactics, patterns, anything you could find. Most were petty, certainly not worth killing for. At least Sam had given a fair reason; you could understand that one. Not killing people because your father had cheated on his wife.
Thankfully Sam hadn’t gotten that level of pettiness from her father.
Inevitably you found the online forums that claimed Sam had been the killer after Woodsboro. All the theories were, quite frankly, baseless. From an academic point of view, they would have been tossed out within the first few words. There was no reasoning, no critical thinking, simply everyone jumping at the chance to blame someone else because it was popular.
It was no wonder Sam had thought you were stalking her on the day you met her.
When all your research was said and done, you had what amounted to the entirety of a second thesis at your disposal. Everything from past Ghostfaces, their motives, conspiracies being disproved, all the way up to the most recent sighting not too long ago. In New York City. With J, Tara, and Sam in the news.
Things had added up, and you were ready to face the solution.
Sam answered before the first ring had finished.
“Are you all at the apartment?” You asked.
“Yeah,” Sam said; you could all but hear the relief in that one simple word. “We’re here.”
“Stay there, I’m coming over,” you said quickly. You nearly hung up, but spoke again. “I’ll bring dinner.”
You didn’t wait for Sam to say anything else; you were in the proper headspace you needed for the upcoming conversation, and you couldn’t risk losing it because you missed her. Stay strong, you told yourself, say what you need to say. You weren’t going to get sidetracked, this was going to be solved, and you weren’t going to let anything get in your way.
Except for the rundown pizza place on the way to the Carpenter apartment. It was a rather delicious place, somewhere you wouldn’t have imagined visiting if it hadn’t been for Sam. You grabbed the three pizzas you knew everyone would eat, making sure to tip generously before continuing the trip to the apartment.
You also stopped for some more flowers.
And a few sweets.
And that new game you knew J had been wanting.
But then you were finishing your walk to their apartment because nothing could stop you. You were brave. You were going to talk with Sam, and you were going to talk with everyone, and you were all going to come to some form of conclusion so you could close out this thesis and move forward.
The walk up the apartment building stairs was more terrifying than it had ever been in the past. But you were brave. You took it step by step, giving yourself a pep talk with each flight. By the time you got to the apartment door, you were feeling thoroughly hyped. Nothing could stop you. Not even the… door that you… couldn’t open… because your hands were too full…
You set the bags on the floor to open the door, but then you were walking back into the apartment. A man on a mission, that’s how your dad had always described people that walked with the same attitude you were in that moment. It didn’t matter that you wouldn’t look up just yet even when you knew they were all looking at you. You closed the door, set the bags and flowers and pizzas on the table, and then you looked up.
And oh god, you had missed Sam so much.
When it was all said and done, you had actually only been away from Sam for eight days; barely over a week. No time at all where most things were concerned. But each minute that ticked by had been agonisingly slow, almost painful to the very atoms that made up your being.
“Grab your dinner,” you said with authority. And a shaky voice. “And back on the couch so we can talk.”
Tara tried to hide a laugh, and J wasn’t far from doing the same, but that was okay. They could laugh at your attempts at being brave; as long as they listened. And they did. You got out the plates and handed them to everyone so they could grab their food before they politely made their way back to the living room.
You made sure to give Sam a kiss on the cheek when she passed.
“Now,” you said as you stood in front of everyone on the couch. “We’re going to talk about what happened.”
“Hell yeah,” J said around an already full mouth, “lay down the law.”
“Thank you,” you said. They gave you an enthusiastic thumbs up. “We’ll start with last week.”
Everyone was silent, sans the occasional sound of chewing. That was good, they were going to let you talk. Perhaps they had prepared for such a situation. Surely they had seen this coming at some point, right? It wasn’t like they thought they could get away with murder forever, right?
Right?
“Sam told me the reason you-” you sighed and shook your head, “-and it’s an understandable reason.”
“Understandable?” Tara asked. “I think it was a bit more than that.”
“The Professor is talking,” J said, “don’t interrupt class.”
“Please continue,” Sam said with that small smile that always made your knees weak.
No, focus. You had a mission.
“We all know murder is wrong,” you said. “Illegal, even.” You looked each of them in the eye. J was nodding enthusiastically, Tara rolled her eyes, and Sam… wouldn’t meet your gaze. “Since we’re all in agreement, I have a few questions.”
“I didn’t study for a pop quiz,” J said.
“I’ve seen you study,” Tara said, “it wouldn’t have helped.”
“Have I told you I love when you’re mean?” J asked with a lovesick smile. It was precious.
And unnecessary.
“A few questions!” You repeated a little louder. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sam pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Please just ask,” Sam said without removing her hand.
“Okay,” you said softly, folding your hands behind your back, “when did all of this start?”
“After the New York attacks,” Sam said.
“I’m still salty about that,” J mumbled, quickly taking another impossibly large bite of their pizza.
“They’ve healed well,” Tara said softly. In a rare gesture of kindness - at least in front of you - she lifted her hand and gently brushed her thumb over the scars on their cheeks.
You gave them a moment before clearing your throat to get their attention once again.
“Who all is involved in these…” you bit your bottom lip as you considered your wording, “activities?”
“You mean murders?” Tara clarified.
“Stop it,” Sam said with a pointed look before facing you again. “All of us.”
“I feel like we’re in detention,” J whispered.
“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Tara asked. The niceties were long gone, it seemed.
You nodded at the information, ignoring Tara’s gibes. “All of you,” you said to yourself. Your feet froze in place, stopping your pacing. “Which one of you did I see in the alley that night?” You asked, turning to face them.
“That was me!” J said proudly with their hand raised high. “Did I scare you?”
“So badly I was sick,” you said instantly.
“Hell yeah,” they mumbled with a cocky nod of their head as they leaned back on the couch. “That was a good night.”
You stood there and watched as they looked at each other with not shame, but abject exasperation. So that was their attitude about the entire thing. You should have known, it wasn’t entirely a surprise. The fact that J had waved at you before you left last week should have been enough of a warning. But it didn’t exactly sit right with you.
There should have been shame from murdering someone. Your research had told you the Ghostfaces of the past had been particularly remorseless in their actions, but the three people in front of you weren’t like them. They were troubled, but they were kind. They had accepted you - even if it took Tara a bit of time - and had allowed you to care for them.
Sam was your Sam. Nothing about her was indicative of some internal Ghostface turmoil. She was soft. Night after night, she sat with you and talked out her feelings from the week. Multiple times she had voiced her frustration at being a Loomis, stating she was better than her genetics.
Nothing was adding up.
You had walked into this meeting with a plan; measure their responses to the allegations and get them to stop. But you very well couldn’t convince them to stop if they suspiciously felt no remorse or shame, could you? There wouldn’t be near as big of an impact if they didn’t agree with your arguments in the first place. That alone left you with very few options.
You stood up straight.
Very few didn’t equate to zero.
“Would any of you be willing to stop?” You clarified.
Sam opened her mouth.
“No,” Tara cut her off. Sam didn’t argue. “We just wouldn’t tell you.”
“Very well,” you said with a nod to yourself. “Then we’re going to come up with a few rules.”
“You’re putting rules?” Tara asked. “On Ghostface?”
“No,” you said, “I’m putting rules on the three of you.”
“Oh shit,” J said while Sam tried to hide a smile, “we got ourselves a mastermind.”
You did your best to hide your visible flinch. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be such a wonderful idea. Would you be connected to all of this? What if they were found out? What if you were found out? You couldn’t hold up under pressure, what if someone interrogated you? No, no this wasn’t going well at all.
But they all sat dutifully in front of you, waiting to hear what you had to say. You couldn’t just leave, or change your mind, and it was far too late to pretend you hadn’t seen what you had. No, you were going to have to be brave. You were brave.
You were brave.
—---
It turned out you were, in fact, not brave.
In the moment, you hadn’t been able to come up with a genuine rule for any of them. The only one you had managed to get out was “please don’t do it in my apartment.” Which, to your delight, they had all readily agreed to. Aside from that, you had stumbled over your words and decided you would come up with rules later.
Tara had laughed. You couldn't even be upset about it.
At least you could see Sam again, which, in the end, made everything worth it. You had missed holding her, and feeling her hands on your neck, and her lips pressed against yours. No one said a word when you stayed the night, doing nothing but holding Sam close and reminding her how much you had missed her.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said from your couch; her books were lined neatly on the table. Something you had loved about her from the very first moment you had seen her study.
“For what, darling?” You asked as you sat down beside her. She mumbled a “thank you” as she took her plate from you.
“Ghostface,” she said softly. You quickly turned to look at her even as she averted her own eyes.
“Oh,” you said before looking back down at your plate. You didn’t quite know how to respond to that. “It’s alright.”
“It’s not,” she said quickly.
You sighed and placed your plate on the table. Not on her books, of course. Then you took her plate as gently as possible, placing it down as well before turning to face her. Not just look at her, but to properly face her. If she wished to talk, you would give her your full attention.
“You deserve more,” she said.
So that’s where it was going. Okay. Now this, you could handle this.
“Before you go on this tirade of self-abuse,” you said, reaching out to grab her hands and pull them into your lap, “may I say something?”
After a slight hesitation, Sam nodded once.
“You and I are both old enough to make our own decisions, yes?” She nodded slowly. “Then trust I am old enough to know what I do and do not deserve.” Her eyes fell to her hands in your lap. “If I felt you were not what I truly wanted, I wouldn’t have stayed.”
“You don’t need to be brought into all of this,” Sam said anyway with a shake of her head. “You’re better than some traumatised Woodsboro kids.”
“I’m not better,” you said quickly, “just different.”
“Sounds the same to me,” she said with a humourless laugh.
“Samantha Carpenter, my darling dearest,” you said. You waited until she looked back up at you before you brought her knuckles to your lips, leaving the softest of kisses upon them. “I love you dearly and no, ah,” you laughed lightly, “hobby of yours will turn me away.”
There was a light blush on her cheeks when she met your eyes. “You love me?”
Oh.
Oh dear.
“Was that the first time I’ve said so?” You asked.
“Yeah,” Sam said with a smile.
You sighed. “Far less romantic than I had planned.” Your eyes widened as you looked back up. “But no less true,” you said quickly.
She shook her head before leaning forward, and you eagerly met her halfway. Her lips were soft; they always were. The faintest taste of tobacco always lingered no matter how long it had been since her last cigarette. A constant in the ever-changing lives you both led. If you could have found a way to frame it all to keep with you forever, you would have.
“I love you too,” she mumbled against your lips.
You held still as she moved across the couch, crawling into your lap and kissing you again. Her hands rested on your neck and not for the first time, you did your best to keep your cool. It was something about the contrast between the gentleness of her kisses and the strength in her hands. You were putty under her fingers; she knew it.
It wouldn’t be polite to ravage her before she had eaten dinner. If there was one thing you knew about Sam, it was that she would forget to eat. Often. And as ready as you were for a very particular meal of your own, you couldn’t push back the concern of when she had eaten last. Truly eaten, because everyone knew neither she nor Tara had enough free time to cook for themselves very often.
“Darling,” you said softly. Her nails scratched lightly against your neck as she hummed for you to continue. “You need to eat.”
“I’d love to,” she said, her lips already starting to move across your jaw.
“Real food,” you clarified.
You felt more than heard her huff before her head fell into the crook of your neck. She didn’t like when you laughed at her, so you didn’t. Not out loud, at least. Your thumbs rubbed against her lightly exposed hips until she relaxed a little more under your touch.
“Now?” She asked.
“Now,” you repeated.
Sam sighed again, but lifted her head and looked down at you. The unhappiness was clear on her face. Quite frankly, at that moment, you didn’t care. There was plenty of time left in the evening to have your fun, and she would thank you later for making sure she had eaten something.
“Do quickies require food first?” She asked. Her eyes fell slowly along with her hands, raking her nails lightly along your skin until she reached the first button of your shirt.
“Yes they do,” you said.
She undid the second button.
“Are you sure?” She asked.
You swallowed loudly. She undid the third button, and you could feel her fingers ghosting across your skin. Perhaps she made a good point, perhaps you didn’t have to have food before a quickie. After all, that was the whole point, was it not? To do it before getting back to everything else? And when she bit her bottom lip and looked at you, you knew you were a goner.
She knew it too.
“Maybe we have a little time-”
-the door to your apartment flew open, hitting the wall with a bang. Your hands gripped Sam’s waist as you both jumped and looked toward the commotion. The door slammed shut once again before you could properly get a good look at who was in the two black robes.
“Hey guys, wanna watch a movie?” J asked breathlessly.
“Are you serious?” Sam asked; she still didn’t remove herself from your lap.
“I just wanted to freak him out,” Tara said as she held her arm. You noticed a single drop of blood on the floor. “He had creeped out Anika.”
“There was one rule, Tara,” Sam said.
“It was this or go to jail, which would you prefer?” Tara asked.
“I’d prefer if you were more careful-”
-a knock at the door caused everyone to shut up and freeze.
“NYPD,” the muffled voice said from the other side of the door.
“Fuck,” J whispered.
You couldn’t really argue with that statement. No one had moved, and the police were still right outside the door. Sam’s nails dug into your skin, leaving behind a sting that, in any other situation, would have been lovely. But this wasn’t any other situation, you were all frozen while the police knocked on the door again.
“Go to my room,” you said as you lifted Sam off your lap and stood up. “Lock the door.” Tara and J nodded before running as quickly as they could to your room. “Stay here,” you told Sam.
You gave her a quick kiss before heading over to the door. Your fingers played with the buttons on your shirt before you decided better of it. Behind you, you could hear Sam stand up. With a deep breath in and a slow exhale, you decided to be brave and opened the door.
The policeman instantly looked you up and down before looking behind you. You hoped he saw Sam in slight disarray. A second policeman was leaning against the wall outside, not even having the decency to look at you before speaking.
“Did two people in black robes come in here?” He asked in a gruff voice.
“No sir,” you said quickly, “no visitors today.”
“You sure?” The first officer asked. “We saw them run into this building.”
You needed to come up with a better lie. Something more convincing. What could be convincing enough? You couldn’t blame the neighbours, you knew nothing of them. If they saw the two coming into the building, you would have to think of something. What would work? Clearly those fancy degrees you had meant nothing.
Ah.
Maybe not entirely useless.
“I’m really sorry, I haven’t noticed anything,” you said. “I’ve been a little, ah,” you cleared your throat and looked back at Sam. She gave you a small smile, and you turned back to the police, “preoccupied tonight.”
The officer looked behind you. You didn’t dare turn away and waited patiently for him to focus on you once again. Hopefully he couldn’t hear your heart attempting to beat out of your chest. He just needed to hurry and leave.
“I’m sorry we interrupted your night,” the officer finally said. “Thank you both for your time.”
You nodded and gave them both a smile. “Stay safe, officers.”
They tipped an invisible hat at you before leaving, and you didn’t wait for them to be very far before closing and locking the door. You let out a heavy sigh and let your head fall against the door with a solid thud. That was… far too close. Was that something they had all dealt with before? Had the police come to their doors before?
You took a deep breath and stood back up. Okay, you were brave, you had been very brave. When you turned around, Sam was still looking at you, but there was a different look in her eyes. You didn’t know what it was; at that moment, you were still too wound up to care.
“Come on out,” you said once you had walked over to Sam and wrapped your arms around her waist.
“They’re gone?” Tara asked while J opened the door.
“Yes,” you said with a nod, “they’re gone.”
“I thought we were fucked,” J said.
“I wish I was,” Sam mumbled softly enough for only you to hear.
You ignored the heat in your face. “Not tonight,” you said.
“Thank you,” Tara said in an uncharacteristic show of gratitude. “We didn’t know where else to go.”
“You can always come here,” you said. Tara nodded and made as if she was going to leave the apartment with J. “Don’t even think about it.”
Sam sighed.
“We need to go get cleaned up,” Tara said.
“You can clean up here,” you said forcefully. Or you hoped that’s how it came out. “Then we’re laying down some ground rules.”
Tara kept eye contact with you. You would have caved at any other point in time; there was nothing more terrifying than a Carpenter. It wasn’t questionable, there was no room for argument, it was a matter of fact. But you had just lied to the police for the first time in your life. Ever! If this was going to be a common occurence, then you were going to stand your ground.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Tara mumbled, but grabbed J’s hand and dragged them to the guest bathroom anyway.
“Thank you,” Sam said softly once she heard the shower turn on.
“Of course,” you said, placing a lingering kiss behind her ear. An idea sparked in your mind. “How long do you think it’ll take them?”
“Tara showers slow,” she said as she turned around in your arms to face you. “And if they’re both in there, it’ll be a while.”
You hummed and pressed a kiss to her lips. “I did tell the police we were preoccupied,” you said as you started manoeuvring her to the couch.
“Yes you did,” she said with a slowly growing smile.
“I’d hate to lie to them,” you continued, followed by another kiss.
Sam let herself fall onto the couch, pulling you down with her. She wasted no time in getting to work on the remaining buttons of your shirt. Her lips felt heavenly. You knew she still needed to eat, but something more important had come up.
Besides, you were happier to eat out anyway.