Chapter Text
Sam is distantly aware of her family's idea of success.
Her parents coasted on the money from being the legacy of a world-changing household invention, but they were socialites, through and through.
High society is as mercurial as the sea could be and her parents were sharks in the water.
They made their money move, like water, like rain, like rivers. Money talks, and the Mansons gave speeches.
No matter how much Sam hated it, her parents were good at it. They were made for it.
Sam was made from dirt, from the energies of Mother Earth, who gave back when tendered by the Universe.
Sam was decidedly not made for the glam and glitz of high society.
She knew it in her bones, down to the roots of her, and it was why she did the only thing she could think of: she went goth.
There were, after all, no high society goths on the scene.
At first it was just an abject disdain for what her parents did, for what her mother wanted her to be.
The sparkles were too bright, the laughs too fake and loud, the politics too much of a headache for Sam to even want to consider. She could, in honesty, she could, she just didn't want to.
And at 8 years old, that was all that mattered in the world. She didn't want to, so she didn't. She avoided sparkles like the plague, threw tantrums and screamed and yelled.
She learned about goths from her older cousin, Zatanna. A role model that Sam rarely ever got to visit, someone who was glam and glitz, but not high society about it.
Someone who didn't perform to navigate the complex systems of the Rich and Ornery—Zatanna was someone who performed to be seen.
Someone who performed to be herself, to smile and say to the world smile back, that's all I need, smile back!
It was her cousin's greatest trick, making Sam smile.
Almost six years older than her and always on the go, it's a minor miracle Zatanna even met her with Uncle Gio always performing on the road. But they did and Sam has never been more grateful to have her cousin during some of the harder parts of being a high society kid.
Like when she was ten, and her mother was whisper-yelling something with Uncle Gio down the hall. They had just come home from a disastrous gala where Sam couldn't keep her temper and became a mocking point for the other rich families to poke and prod at. More than usual, anyway—more than the typical she's just different; more because now, now it's like it was obvious a goth girl would ruin a gala instead of just…existing on a different plane.
It wasn't hard to know that the subject of the fight was her.
"Don't take it to heart," Zatanna had said then, sitting on the floor beside her as Sam sniffled into her knees in anger, "take it to the stage."
But Sam's never been a performer, never been a star like her cousin so clearly was. She always preferred the daylight than the glittering lights of chandeliers. She preferred fresh air and sunny patches of green over too large rooms lit softly in the night.
Greenhouses, over galas.
She angrily wiped at her face, trying to keep her voice low when she explained this to her cousin.
"Then plant it deep." Zatanna had shrugged, smiling as she leaned over to carefully pull something from behind Sam's ear: a bright red rose. "Prune the unnecessary parts, tender the soft parts and grow deadly."
She offered the flower, and Sam took it delightedly. When she smelled it, it smelled fresh. Like it had just bloomed for her for this one single trick. Her cousin's eyes softened, the sheen of her eyes glinting the way tree leaves rustle in the dredges of Summer.
"You don't have to play their game," Zatanna whispered, just for them, gently bumping Sam's chin up with the crook of her finger. "But that doesn't mean you can't weather the storm and come out the other end more vibrant than any other."
She remembered, then, how Zatanna had smoothed over the ruffled feathers of Sam's mistake earlier that night by making roses just like the one in her hand pop into existence in clouds of colorful smoke. She remembered in particular when Zachary Newman, the reason Sam had lost her temper, had grabbed the rose that appeared in front of him and cried out at sharp indents of thorns.
And it felt like she understood what her cousin was trying to say, even if only by the feel of her words.
"Bloom, goth girl," Zatanna whispered, a show just for the two of them lit by the moon, "thorns and all."
Sam remembers clutching that rose to her chest, remembers the distant whisper-yelling of her mom, remembers Zatanna leaning heavier into her side like comfort, the smell of roses flooding her system like it had no idea what else it could do.
Sam kept those words buried deep within the marrow of her bones, because she wanted to be the kind of flower Zatanna would admire. She wanted to be the rose that she pulled from behind an ear, wanted to be the petals that scattered like confetti in the spotlight, wanted to bloom and make her cousin proud.
It helped more than she could say, more than she could handle sometimes, when she was called to perform.
When she could feel her mom observing her, eying the minutiae of Sam's every movement and breath. Searching for something, but never saying what.
She was never going to be the perfect daughter, nor did she ever want to—being goth was a rebellion until it wasn't anymore. But some part of her still rankled. Some part of her still wanted to play nice, even if her dresses were all black and purple and her accessories were sharp and pointed instead of shimmering and expensive.
She wanted to be different—that didn't mean she wanted to be a failure.
And then Sam turned twelve, and they moved to Amity Park.
A lot of things changed then.
She already didn't have that many friends in high society, and while she did have a small group of other outcasts she could call friends, they weren't the type to keep correspondence with someone who left.
It meant Sam only had her cousin, Zatanna, who would send her postcards from her shows on the road.
Sam has an entire collection of them, from all over the world. Sometimes, trinkets would be included, sometimes a flower would pop out from seemingly nowhere.
Sometimes, Zatanna would personally deliver them. Those times were her favorite.
They were sporadic in nature, but there was always one constant: Zatanna would always send a postcard on Sam's birthday.
This postcard, the last one to arrive at the old house for her twelfth birthday, was the most important one; It was the one that kept her company in their big, obnoxious Mansion, located in this new town, with nobody she knew but her parents.
Her room still echoed, with nothing yet on the walls, no rugs unpacked, just boxes and boxes that she made sure the servants wouldn't open and rearrange for her.
She sat on the floor to her bedroom and tried not to cry, clutching the postcard to her chest and trying her damnedest not to wrinkle it.
Happy Birthday, to the most magical Manson I know. You got this, goth girl! -Z
That postcard bolstered her through unpacking her room, with the scent of Jasmine wafting through the air and the melodious sounds of some garage band from her previous city—friends of friends of classmates who were just starting out.
Two days later, Sam only has one final thing to unpack.
She had left a wall blank and free of furniture on purpose, a clear space that her mother had made the painters set up when they painted Sam's room dark purple—a wall covered in expensive cork top to bottom just like her previous room, framed in a somewhat understated black filigree trim.
Her parents knew how important this was, even through all the differences and screaming matches and pleading, they would never take this one thing away.
The night before she is set to go to school, Sam spends most of it pinning up all the post cards from her cousin with a heavy tin of push pins surrounded by the smell of incense. Pictures of her old friends, of her family, band posters and even ripped out pages of poetry she's particularly proud of, cover a small expanse of the wall.
It's room for growth.
She doesn't know, at this point, that Zatanna's most recent postcard is more important than she thinks it is. She doesn't realize that it's the most important and will stay the most important.
She can't, not for four more years when finally, finally—the next postcard from her cousin arrives.
It's late, and she should be some kind of mad about it. Four years too late. Or maybe it's on time.
She should be kicking and screaming or scoffing and throwing it away, but her fingers are stuck.
The postcard is of a train station, from some place called Utrecht Station. Sam heavily suspects it's European, but can't actually recall where this place might be.
It looks like one of those old timey photos, taken from the street where you can see all the windows of the station curving in black and white tableau due to the reflections of the light, simplified from the older generation of photography. All the people in it are walking briskly, like they have a destination or, more probably, a train to catch. They dress like old timey mobsters, actually. The kind that Tucker likes to mimic the accent of in those bank robbing movies.
She stares a little too long at it, mind unhurriedly processing in contrast to the busy bodies in the photo. She hasn't even flipped it over, doesn't fully know for sure who it's from but—but who else could it be?
She only has two friends, and she left both of them mere minutes ago after they planned a whole dinner and show for her at the local slam poetry night. Is planning to see them tomorrow morning before class. Bubba always uses those crisp, square envelopes, never postcards.
Feeling ridiculous, she flips it over to confirm it is who she thinks it's from.
The confirmation is quick, but only leaves her with more questions than answers.
Happy 16th Birthday. I'm sorry. I'll see you soon. -Z