sorry about the terrible not-even-worthy-of-being-called-a-pun title, but it ain't a globherman fic if i don't shove some sort of musical reference in

When Lara hears Sam's key in the lock, she realizes that she doesn't have enough time to try and act normal. Not that acting normal has ever actually worked for anybody, but still, the option would be nice. She makes a split second decision to aim for casual, instead, and shoves her hands into her pockets.

Though it's not that her hands make a difference, because when Sam walks into the living room, all she can see are Lara's feet. They're currently sticking out from underneath a draped bed sheet.

On second thought, she might have been better off trying to look normal. Just folding bedding, perhaps. Folding one single piece of bedding in the middle of the living room for reasons left unexplained, but still, she'd just be folding bedding. Not wearing it.

Because standing there, with her hands pointlessly tucked into her pockets—casual style—she's hit with the sudden painful truth that it's hard to look or act casual when there's a sheet draped over your head.

"Clothesline break?" Sam watches a lump move up under the sheet to rest on Lara's face.

Lara's unsure whether she's facepalming due to her own sheer stupidity or Sam's terrible joke. She grumbles, and the sheet takes on a triangle shape as she throws her arms up. "We don't even use a… ugh, whatever. You told me to find a costume."

"This," Sam's arms flail towards Lara. "This is not a costume. It's a piece of cloth. It doesn't even have eyes. And it's paisley."

More lumps and bumps move around under the cloth as Lara folds her arms. "I'm not going to start cutting things up right away. I was just trying it on."

"You were trying on a sheet," Sam's say dryly. "What is there to try on? And you can't even see out of it. So what's the point?"

"I don't know, Sam. I just- why are we bothering with costumes and decorations? It's not like we're not going out. We're just going to be constantly interrupted while trying to watch supposedly scary movies."

"It's Halloween! How do you not dress up? And who doesn't want all sorts of spoopy decorations all around?"

"Spoopy?" Lara raises an eyebrow, not that Sam can see it.

"…Spooky."

"No, spoopy." A grin takes over Lara's face. Sam's just handed her a Get Out of Unwanted Conversation Free card. "Go put your spoopy money in The Meme Jar."

The Meme Jar had started as somewhat of a joke. Lara and Sam had been shopping one day when Sam spotted a bargain bin full of DVDs. She was digging through them before Lara even finished reading the sale sign, and she had five in her hand by the time Lara had caught up to her. Lara, of course, asked if it was really necessary to buy out the entire store just because of a sale. Sam stopped her digging and looked at Lara like she was out of her mind. After informing her that you just don't pass up shitty movies at discount prices, Lara asked why she was buying them if she already know they were shit. Sam kept digging through the bin as she absent-mindedly informed Lara that she was always a slut for shitty disaster movies, and how did Lara not know that? Occupied with her disaster movies, Sam had missed the piercing death glare that a passing woman had sent in their direction, as she shuffled her child along as quickly as possible.

Sam didn't ask about the jar that Lara had purchased until they got home, and Lara markered "MEME JAR" onto it.

Since then, it's generally forgotten about until Lara needs to win an argument or worm out of a conversation. And it would be nice to use the money for a date night, although at the rate that they actually put money in, Lara figures it'll take approximately six more years before there's anywhere near enough for anything. Winning arguments and sneaking out of certain conversations are reward enough, for now.

Lara hears a sigh, and then the sound of steps stomping away from her. She can vaguely see Sam leaving through the paisley. She throws a threat back over her shoulder, "The Meme Jar will not be saving you from Octoberween. It cannot be stopped."

Unfortunately, Lara doesn't doubt that at all. Having filled her "looking stupid" quota for the day, Lara pulls the sheet from her head and drops it onto the sofa before following Sam. When she catches up, she spots a fair amount of change spread out on the counter beside The Meme Jar. Sam picks some coins up and plinks them into the jar.

"Happy?"

Lara unenthusiastically shrugs.

"Well," Sam plinks a few more coins through the slot in the lid of the jar. "It really doesn't matter because we're going to have the spoopiest," A few more plinks. "Of all the spoopy Halloweens," Plink. Plink. "That have ever spooped."

Briefly closing her eyes, Lara convinces herself to refrain from any snarky remarks that might further fuel Sam's determination. Despite her silence, she ends up receiving a shit-eating grin before Sam nods in, causing the sunglasses that she had propped on her head to drop down over her eyes.

"Deal with it."

Again, Lara's palm covers her face, and she listens to a few more coins plink down into the jar.

When Lara props her feet up onto the coffee table, the credits have just started to roll on a costume special that Sam "just happened to come across".

Feeling her patience start to slip away from her, Lara asks, "You don't honestly expect me to make a costume, do you? I'm not going to put in all that effort for one day. Night. One night."

"It wouldn't just be-"

"Oh, yes, it would be just one night. There's no way you'd let me get away with repeating a costume. God forbid the six year old down the street recognize my fashion faux-pas." Lara reaches for the paisley that was left on the floor, and tosses it over Sam. "That's why I was modelling this."

"That's because your costume last year was a witch hat. Just a witch hat. Not even a cloak or anything. I don't know how I let that slip by me." Sam sounds more disappointed with herself than with Lara.

"If I have to dress up, can I at least buy something, please? I'd rather spend an absurd amount of money than spend an absurd amount of time sewing."

Sam perks up, presumably at Lara accepting the concept of Halloween costumes. "Yes!" She flies out of her seat, and starts pulling Lara up with her. "Yes, we can buy something. Let's go experience the wonders of internet shopping!"

Lara's confused about the situation. Mainly because Sam is making it sound like she's never before been forced to endure hours of web browsing that usually end up as the equivalent of window shopping.

With the distinct feeling that this whole operation will go smoother if she relinquishes control of the laptop to Sam, Lara does just that and leans back in her chair. "Do you have anything specific in mind, or can we just buy the first costume that we can find in the right size?" Lara's taking a gamble with this, but she can't see how the specifics of her costume will matter, as long as she has one.

"Have you no sense of fun? Seriously Lara, how many Octobers have we spent together? Enough for you to know how amazing Halloween is, surely." Sam types halloween costumes into the search bar.

"I know you enjoy it, yes. But you've never been so intent on getting me into the spoop-" Sam's attention briefly leaves the laptop screen at the sound of Lara's pronunciation of the p. Her attention returns to the computer when Lara glares at her as she continues, stuttering, "-ooky spirit before."

As soon as the search page loads, Sam blindly clicks on the first link. "I was waiting for you to find it on your own, but I'm starting to think that's never going to happen, Scrooge McCroft."

"That's not even-"

"Same idea. So, you're the one who's gonna be wearing this. Do you have anything specific in mind?" The cursor flies wildly across the screen as Sam impatiently fidgets.

"I was thinking I might try a ghost costume." Sam's eyes narrow, and Lara sighs. She looks over the screen. "I don't know. Just click on the "women's" category, I guess."

Lara doesn't quite understand the look that Sam gives her before doing as told. When Lara sees the thumbnails of all the "women's" costumes, it makes a little more sense to her. "Oh," She leans in for closer inspection, and then turns her head to look back at Sam. "So that's why we need costumes. You just want to objectify me."

Sam grins. "Well, no, that wasn't the master plan. You were the one who told me to go to this category." She shrugs. "But I'm not gonna complain."

"Could we at least find something that involves sexy pants? I'm a fan of pants, Sam. I enjoy wearing pants." Lara watches a plethora of tiny pictures, some not properly loaded, scroll down the page. "Preferably pants that are mostly intact."

"Now you're clearly missing the point of these."

Lara shoves Sam with just enough force to knock her out of control of the laptop, and takes over scrolling. "Sexy bumblebee, sexy construction worker… is there anything without the word sexy in front of it? Sexy nurse, sexy… potato?"

"Potato? A sexy potato. No fucking way."

"I don't know, Sam. It's obviously the sexiest of all the root vegetables," Lara deadpans.

Sam rolls her eyes. "That's gotta be a typo."

It's one of the costumes with a glitchy picture beside it. Lara hovers the cursor over the link and looks at Sam, who shrugs again. Lara shrugs back, a silent "why not?" exchanged, and she clicks. The missing picture enlarges and reloads, properly.

"Good god!"

"Jesus fucking Christ!"

Four hands fly up to the laptop lid, though it's one of Sam's that ends up slamming it shut. "Not a typo, Lara. That was not a typo. Also not sexy. And I'm not sure how long it's gonna be before I can even think about eating a potato chip again."

"I think that would be sufficiently scary, though. Terrifying, even"

"When did I ever say the costume had to be scary?" Sam flops facedown onto the desk. "God, I'm gonna have that fucked up nightmare where I'm chased by french fries and ketchup bottles again tonight, aren't I?"

"I could try and dress up as sexy mustard, if that'd help." Lara slips the laptop out from under Sam's face and opens it back up, hand obscuring most of the screen until she's able to hit the back button. "Surely there's a sexy mustard costume somewhere in the depths of this cesspool."

"Please be quiet. I'm trying to have a moment of silence for all the starchy foods I'm going to be missing out on."

When Lara walks into the kitchen, she expects to find some dirty dishes, maybe. Perhaps some orange juice that's been neglected and forgotten on a counter. What she doesn't expect, however, is the row of pumpkins waiting to greet her.

"Surprise!" Sam's clearly been waiting around for a while, with how neatly the pumpkins are arranged, and how nicely she's got a whole load of knives laid out.

"It certainly is." The sheer quantity of lumpy orange spheres surrounding her is making Lara slightly nervous. "Why is it that we suddenly have a pumpkin patch in our kitchen?"

Seemingly satisfied with Lara's arrival, Sam ruins her display by grabbing a pumpkin and plops it onto a countertop. She proceeds to stab the top of it with a large knife, rather violently. "You're hopeless, you know that?"

Lara thinks that she'd pick hopeless over "pumpkin serial killer" any day of the week, but Sam seems intent on hacking away at what may potentially be the lid of the Jack-O-Lantern that she's probably carving. "Give me the sharp objects, and then a few minutes to buy pumpkin carving tools that we won't lose appendages to, and I'll join in on whatever pumpkin ritual you have planned."

Sam stops, knife poised mid-stab. "Really?" There's a big smile on her face, but in the stabby context of the situation, it's more creepy than anything else.

"Give me the knife, please."

After a quick shopping trip (Lara briefly considered dragging it out as long as possible, but was then hit with possibilities of what bright orange carnage she might return to), Sam is ripping apart carving tool packages like it's Christmas morning. Lara's sitting beside her, searching for pumpkin patterns on her phone. If she has to do this, she might as well do it right.

"Okay," Sam slides a set of tools towards Lara. "We are good to go. I think I've got everything sorted out." Perhaps she does, but she also seems to have about twice as many little knives as Lara does. Not exceptionally bothered by the fact (more bothered by the concept), Lara grabs a pumpkin and places it in front of herself. If it was Christmas morning, it would be as if she just received ten pairs of socks.

Sam notices Lara's obvious lack of enthusiasm, and starts an animated pep-talk. "Oh, come on, Lara. Could you at least try to have fun?" Lara picks up a marker and starts mapping out the lid of her pumpkin. "Do you know what fun is? I'm starting to doubt that you do."

Before Sam has a chance to react, Lara's grabbed one of her flailing arms, stopping it dead in its tracks. "I assure you. I will have far more fun when you stop waving knives around in the air."

Sam lets the little carving knife in her hand clatter down onto the table, and Lara goes back to her pumpkin after relinquishing her grip. She's involved enough that she's completely oblivious to the glare that Sam is giving her. The intensity of the glare lessens as Sam realizes why she's being ignored, and she smiles smugly to herself when Lara starts marking out a pattern on the front of the pumpkin.

The table slowly turns into a graveyard for unwanted pumpkin bits. As the pumpkin casualties start piling up, silence starts to stretch, Lara and Sam becoming more and more involved in their carving.

Eventually, Sam dramatically drops the scooper she was using to level the bottom of her pumpkin, and plops down onto the chair behind her. "And, done."

Lara looks up, and her brow furrows. She's not even finished carving yet, let alone cleaning up the inside.

"Take your time. You're just a little out of practice." Sam reclines and props her feet up beside her pumpkin. "I, on the other hand, carve the flesh of the pumpkin every Octoberween."

A full out frown takes over Lara's face. "Please don't ever say that again." Sam just smiles at her, and Lara figures it best to just get this whole thing done with. Doing her best to ignore Sam, she goes back to concentrating on her carving. When she catches up and finishes, she carefully places her knife down, lining it up nearly with the rest of the garish orange tools. Sam excitedly leaps up, and bounces around the table, giving Lara the impression that she's going to need to buy more Halloween candy. And then hide it.

"Before we do the rest, I wanna watch some of the pumpkin carving shows I DVR'd." Lara groans. "You should see some of the amazing stuff people do! I think we should at least try something a little fancy, maybe just some shading or something."

Lara looks down at her finished pumpkin, confused. "Shading?"

"Yeah! Don't look so worried, it can't be that hard. Like, all you do is stop before completely cutting through the pumpkin."

"Oh. Okay, you're right. It really isn't all that hard." Lara spins the front of her pumpkin towards Sam.

"What the fuck?" Lara flinches as she realizes she's made a huge mistake. She suddenly wishes she had decided to carve a simple face. "How did you do that? How long did you say it's been since the last time you carved a pumpkin?" She would have carved a simple face, but the pattern she saw for a mummy coming out of a coffin just looked too cool not to try (though she'd never admit that out loud).

"Er. I'm not sure, really. Years." She'd like to scoop all the pumpkin guts off the table and smoosh them back into her pumpkin. Forget it happened. Why didn't she just carve a face?

"Really." Despite how amazing Lara's pumpkin apparently is, Sam seems unimpressed. "Well, like I said, I carved one last year." Sam heaves her pumpkin up and drops it beside Lara's. "Take a look at this pile of shit. I mean, I thought it was decent, but no. It's a pile of shit."

Now, Lara wouldn't use those exact words to describe the disaster that she's currently looking at, but she's not coming up with any positive words either. She's staring down at a nondescript monster with a wonky nose, a crooked smile that might be intentional, and two very uneven eyes. "Huh."

"Huh, indeed." Sam slides all of her carving tools towards Lara. "Guess you're doing the rest of them, then."

"Excuse me?"

"Why would I want this," Sam motions at her mess of a Jack-o-Lantern, before motioning at Lara's, in a far more grandiose manner. "When I could have this? More specifically, multiples of this. We can't go back now, I refuse to downgrade. You've even got a bit of that 3D carving going on! If we're putting pumpkins out, they're gonna have to be your masterpieces."

Visibly deflating, Lara asks, "Have you considered that I might now want to carve six or seven more pumpkins? We could, and I know this might sound crazy, but we could just… not put pumpkins out."

"Think of the children, Lara!"

Lara blinks. She continues blinking as she tries to figure out which children she's meant to be thinking of. Coming up blank, she hesitantly asks, "Why am I thinking of children?"

"Because kids love kick-ass pumpkins like this! Everybody loves kick-ass pumpkins like this! You don't want to disappoint them by wasting your skills, do you?"

"How would they even know the differ-"

"They just would." Lara doubts that. "Okay, this changes everything. We're going all out this year."

While Sam busies herself with hollowing out another canvas for Lara, Lara busies herself with covering her face with her palm, once again. "What have I just done?" She's muttering to herself low enough that Sam doesn't pick it up. "Oh god, what have I done?"

Sam shortly interrupts Lara's grief by shoving an empty pumpkin into her hands. Lara sets it down and sighs. Then she starts carving.

When Lara announces that she's finished, Sam isn't even halfway through gutting another pumpkin. That fact apparently doesn't strike her as odd, and she wastes no time bounding around the table to see what new creation Lara has for her. She stops herself from immediately praising Lara as she does a double take.

The pumpkin is missing exactly three triangle chunks as well as one crescent shaped chunk. Two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

"Pretty good, yeah?"

Sam keeps staring at the pumpkin in disbelief.

"That other one must have just been beginner's luck, huh?"

Pointing at Lara, Sam opens and closes her mouth. Not just once, but twice, before she gives up on words, and opts to forlornly glance at Lara's original pumpkin instead. Her silent message is clear enough.

"Yeah, I'm pretty disappointed, too." Lara shrugs. "Seems a real shame, doesn't it?"

"Goddammit, Lara."

When Lara opens the front door of her flat, a high pitched shriek rings out. It's closely chased by Lara's own scream, albeit at a much lower pitch. Almost immediately, Sam comes sliding around the corner, at top speed.

"So?"

Still recovering from… whatever just happened, Lara has no idea what Sam is asking about. So she vacantly stares at her instead of replying.

Sam's arms start motioning towards a little sensor stuck to the top of the door. "What do you think?"

It takes Lara a few more moments to process what's going on. Sam spends the time bouncing on the balls of her feet, impatiently awaiting a reply. Or maybe just working off a sugar high. Lara has an inkling that Sam found the candy that was stashed away.

"Well, my initial opinion was that I had just happened to walk in while you were being murdered. Now that I've taken some time to reevaluate, my new opinion is that I would like to be the one murdering you."

Sam reaches out and grabs the door, opening and closing it multiple times, effectively creating her own remix of bloodcurdling and eardrum-shattering screams. "You don't mean that." Rather than try and prove her point by actually attempting to murder Sam, Lara wrestles for control of the door and, after overpowering Sam, slams it shut. "Okay, okay, I get it. A little out of context." Not really her main issue with it, Lara would like to point out. "But hold on, it'll all fit together in a minute," Sam says as she pulls out her phone. A few taps on the screen, and suddenly Lara is surrounded by what she could only describe as "ambient Halloween sounds". Ominous music, whistling wind, howling wolves, and the like.

Lara's occupied with trying to figure out where all the sounds are coming from, and she jumps when Sam triggers the door scream again. "Just wait 'til you see the skeleton!" Sam's phone comes out again. "We're gonna be The Cool House."

Lara really doesn't want to see the skeleton, so she grabs the phone from Sam's hand before it can show up from wherever it's meant to come from. "No. Please, no."

"Fine," Sam huffs. But come check out the fake mist rig I set up!" She flies out the door, triggering another shriek that might as well have escaped from all the silent, inner screaming that Lara's been trying very hard to contain.

She follows Sam anyway. "Sam, it's the twelfth, do we really need to set everything up this…" The sight of the overwhelming amount of fake mist surrounding her stops Lara dead in her tracks. "I… do we really need to set any of this up?"

Sam's in the middle of flipping a switch when she replies, "The Cool House, Lara. I told you that we're going all out this year. Even if somebody won't do more pumpkins." Moments after the switch clicks, a witch pops out from behind a bush, cackles, and then slowly slips back to its hiding place.

Lara has no words.

Sam flips another switch.

In front of a tombstone that Lara, being far too distracted by the fog, had not spotted, there's a pile of leaves. They may or may not be fake, Lara isn't ruling anything out at this point. She watches, utterly bewildered, as a zombie sits up, bursting out from the pile of leaves. It makes a groaning noise and then falls back.

It takes Lara a moment to completely absorb everything that's happened in the last five minutes. Sam switches the witch on and off a few more times while she waits for Lara to respond.

"Sam, this isn't The Cool House. This is a movie set. I… How long did you spend setting this up? I was barely out of the house for… actually, no. How much did spend buying all this?"

"We're. Going. To. Be. The. Cool. House." Sam punctuates each word with a shriek from the door. "Now follow me, you never got to see the skeleton!" After another quick scream remix, she bounces back inside.

Lara takes a steadying breath and then calls out after her, "Could we not just give out full-sized candy bars?"

When Sam finally turns the porch light off, Lara can't quite figure out how she feels about the situation. Tired, mostly.

"I went through thirty-one days of excessive spoop for fourteen kids? Six of them with sheets thrown over their head."

"Well, all the other houses probably only had eleven kids. Also, Meme Jar."

Lara sighs and leans fully back into the sofa. "Yes. Fine. I will contribute to The Meme Jar when I get up. For now though, I'm going to continue sitting here, evaluating my life choices."

"Oh, shush." Sam launches herself onto the couch, and ends up sprawled out over the entire surface, effectively pinning Lara down. "You love me."

"Hold on," Lara starts rolling up Sam's Spider-Girl mask. "I cannot take you seriously while you've got that on your head." Under the mask, Sam's sporting a big, goofy, smile. Lara rolls her eyes. "Better. But yes, for some reason, I do love you. I do not, however, love the spoop."

Sam gasps.

"Yes, I will put money in the-"

"No, no." Sam's arm shoots up and she pulls off the fake glasses that Lara had been wearing. "I just figured it out! Why you don't like Halloween! You can't hide it anymore."

"I didn't think it was much of a secret that I don't-"

"You're an alien! I have to say, those glasses were an effective disguise. But I'm sure if I," Reaching back up, Sam starts unbuttoning the crisp white button down shirt that Lara had pleaded to use as a costume. "Do this, I'll find a big red and yellow "S".

"Sam."

"Mm. Maybe I was wrong. I'm not seeing anything here. Well, I am seeing a lot, just not any Super-symbols."

Lara shakes her head, and huffs in faux-annoyance. "Might as well have just bought the sexy Supergirl costume, huh?"

"Hey, I don't see you stopping me."

Lara smiles. "You're just damn lucky that you're my kryptonite."

"That's not really how it works. If I were your kryptonite, you'd just get kinda weak around me. Like, physically."

"Fantastic." Lara's smile turns into a smirk. "Guess that means I'll be too tired to be coerced into setting all this stuff up again next year."

"Laraaaaa." Sam's grip on Lara's shirt loosens and her arms drop limply down. "You are no fun."

"No? Oh, okay." Lara starts redoing the buttons that Sam had unbuttoned. "Sorry about that. I'll get out of here so I don't ruin any fun you might be having." She carefully shuffles Sam around on the sofa, so she can get out from underneath her.

Sam falls onto the floor anyway after she unsuccessfully attempts to grab Lara's shirttail. "Seriously? Now you're really not being any fun." Lara keeps walking away. "Okay then." Sam picks herself up and follows after Lara. "Fine. You win. We'll lose the spoop. The spoop will go. Are you happy now, Lar- aah!"

Watching Sam walk right into the skeleton that suddenly appeared, Lara is, for the first time, glad that she didn't delete the controller app that Sam had installed on her phone.

"Oh, sorry. Is it not as fun when you don't get to control it?"

Plastic bones rattle as Sam pushes them to the side. She's scowling.

Lara taps her phone again, sending the skeleton back to its hiding place. She starts heading back to the sofa, pausing briefly to kiss Sam on the cheek. "Happy Halloween." She grins, and then carries on.

Sam grumbles loudly, "Did you really have to pick right fucking now to discover your Halloween spirit?"

"I said, Happy Halloween!" Lara yells back at Sam.

"Yeah, yeah. Happy Halloween to you, too. Well, at least you did one Octoberween thing properly."

"Thanks!" Lara replies, choosing to ignore Sam's slightly sarcastic tone. "Are you planning on coming back over here, or should I just start watching more gratuitous gore?"

Sam sighs to herself, "Baby steps. We'll learn timing next year, I guess."

oddly enough i wasn't listening to ambient halloween sounds while writing this. i was listening to assorted legend of zelda soundtracks, which, in their defence, do have a fair amount of eerie tracks

The Meme Jar is now established as existing in everything TR related that I write and have written, okay? Even if it isn't mentioned, it is there, yeah? Good.

I'm Lara in this. Except I like carving pumpkins. But last year I dressed up as a civilian superhero, only because I had to work. And I've opened my front door to be greeted by a giant spider dropping from the ceiling, accompanied by some sort of loud noise that I've blocked from my memory.

Also, because I don't give shits about costumes, I'm bad at thinking them up so I just went with the Spider-Man and Superman theme from stitches. (We're talking MC2 Spider-Girl here, by the way. Because that totally matters.) As for the sexy potato, I saw a bunch of joke sexy costumes, and one was a potato, sooooo. Since it was a joke, it was literally just a potato, but I imagine a serious one would be terrifying.

Go read the first chapter of Tomb Raidin' in the Rain if you want something slightly more spooky.