Not as much an AU as a spin on the plot with the good old cast. Let me know what you think!
Headcanoned with and beta-ed byGrace
Rated M
Elsa Mars sighed in content, a light little hum in the air she expelled as she turned her head this way and that, watching her reflection in the handheld mirror in front of her. She arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips, eyes on the hazel eyed blonde staring back at her. She sighed again, a little harsher this time, and snapped the mirror down to stare the girl across from her down.
Maggie Esmeralda was passed out on a lab table, eyes far from fluttering in dreamless dreams. She looked dead, and she would have been except for the light breaths she took every few seconds. Her fingers were curled up, flexed from her surgery still. She'd gone under a long time ago, and she'd take a little while to wake up, something Elsa didn't mind. She talked too much for her liking anyway.
The alluring blonde finally reached forward and began to pick at Maggie's lip, pushing it back to gaze on the girl's new teeth.
Or what could be called teeth.
The doctor'd ripped all her original ones out, her gums were raw and red and bleeding, but they'd been replaced by shards of glass. Shards of glass from bottles she'd found near and around her monsters' tents, brown and green and clear, though most of the clear ones were up front. She'd been given four rows, and Elsa pushed her jaw down a little more, looking down to find her throat covered in glass too, her tongue cut in various places. Whenever she breathed, she contracted around them, into them, bleeding again.
The ringleader glanced sideways at the tall physician, gazing down at his newest experiment with a hint of smugness, wonder in her own eyes. "Beautiful."
"Even if she goes, she'll be one of my greatest achievements." He replied, sniffing lightly, his hands behind his back.
"Oh, do not worry Hans." Elsa whispered, fingers tracing the girl's cheek. "I wouldn't dream of letting her go."
OOOoooOOO
"Mama, have you seen her?"
Ethel Darling looked up from her newspaper, frowning as her son closed her trailer's door behind him. The sunlight glittered off her "The Bearded Lady" sign and on the ground behind him momentarily before he shut the vehicle in. "Her who?" She stood with some difficulty, shaking her head. "I've told you before to be specific. Going around with your 'her's and 'him's."
Jimmy smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I'm lookin' for Maggie. She left last night and she hasn't come back yet. The sun's going to set soon and the doors will open and she's not here." He took a small step back as his mother walked past him, reaching for a glass that he easily took. She handed him a bottle of water and motioned for him to pour himself a drink. "I don't want Elsa to get mad, she's been here and around all week and doin' real good but if she starts being late or absent, she might not stay long."
"I can't say I have, Jimmy."
"You always know where everyone is."
"If you'd given me some time to get to know her, I might have been able to tell you where she got off to when she wasn't around. But I don't know her. Because you've been monopolizing her time all week, don't think I didn't notice." Ethel added with a laugh. She sighed lightly as he pulled a chair out and thrusted it out at her.
"Sit, you're huffin' all you can."
"That's a nice way to put it." She teased, but she sat back down anyway. "I can't stay in this chair forever, you know."
"Until you tell me what's wrong with you, and until you stop drinkin' again, you will." He replied. "Do you think she went back to the hotel she was stayin' at before?"
"I don't know, I'm not a mind reader like she is. Did she tell you where that was?"
"The hotel?" He moved his grotesque fingers around the side of his glass as he looked away. "No."
"Then maybe she doesn't want to be found." His mother shrugged. "Listen Jimmy, she'll be back. She's got a stable job that pays good money with a place to stay and people to talk with, so why would she up and leave?" She settled back in her chair.
He tried to hide his scoff, but Ethel saw it.
"What is it."
"She makes good money, what kind of shit answer is that?" He asked, throwing out his hand in the air in frustration. "I'm afraid she'll leave."
"Is that why you asked Eve on her whereabouts before you came and asked me? And Paul? Oh, don't blush. The walls here are paper thin. Or metal thin." She rapped her knuckles on the side of her trailer and smiled as it echoed.
"She's not like us, mama. What if she decides she's too good for us after all?"
"Then she walks away. Like plenty have done before, why should she be any different?"
"She is. Different, I mean. There's something good about her. I feel like I can trust her."
Ethel shook her head. "You always think that of a pretty face, and then they go and stab you in the back."
"Whatcha mean?"
The woman glanced up. "What I mean is, don't let yourself get fooled by a girl you've only just met. Or a boy. Or anyone." She pointed at him. "You're smarter than that."
"I know, mama." He ruffled his hair. "Look, Dell might be runnin' the show now but I still look after my family. And Maggie's part of that family now. I just want to make sure she's okay."
"You're a kind soul. She'll be back, Jimmy." She sighed. "She'll be back."
OOOoooOOO
Night had long since fallen on the fairgrounds, and the alluring blonde with her bright blue eye-shadow hid in the shadows as she made her way to the last of the tents, far from the heart of the show. It was only ever used as storage, one wouldn't have deemed it bizarre for her to be making her way there after a performance, but she moved silently anyway.
She could hear muffled noises coming from inside and she glanced back momentarily, smiling when she found herself unable to hear the loudest of the show's happenings. If she wasn't able to hear them, then no one would hear the screams coming from inside the tent.
She pushed her way through the opening in the flaps and watched as her eyes adjusted to the dim lights. Maggie was thrashing in the corner, struggling against the ropes holding her down to her chair.
The girl had spit her rag out and was screaming her lungs out. Every time she paused and closed her mouth, she cut herself again and it only made her cry harder. She let out a shriek and the woman scowled past her awe at the operation she'd been given. If she continued like that, she'd scream herself raw. Elsa couldn't have that, not if she was to be her new headline. She pushed past the tent's scrapped belongings and swooped down on Maggie, whose dark eyes had turned up to look at her. A new scream erupted from her throat, a new wave of tears falling.
"Stop it, stop it!" Elsa's hand flew across the girl's cheek and Maggie let out a scream as she bit through her tongue, blood now flowing freely from between her lips and down the front of her dress. The older blonde grabbed her chin and righted her, light hazel eyes meeting darker ones.
"Stop screaming, it won't help you." She hissed, accent far from smooth. "You're wondering what's going on, aren't you, I can tell just by looking into your bloodshot eyes, no need for you to speak." She stepped back and reached for a cigarette, lighting it quickly.
"What's going on is that you really should learn to be quieter when sneaking around and trying to drug people, trying to get them into the back of a godforsaken car. I swear if your driver hadn't driven away, I would have had a few words with them, sharp ones. And don't think I won't catch them the next time they're here." She puffed on her cigarette. "You thought you could get away with my twins and my little girl?" Elsa punctuated her last words with a kick to the girl's chair. "You hate freaks, and yet you thought you could take advantage of the miracles beneath my tents? You thought you could make everyone your puppets, then throw them aside?" Her voice grew louder. "You thought you could walk away and take the monstrosities you've seen here, make yourself a name, send me and all my children to the madhouse and the abattoir? No one takes what is mine." Maggie's gaze began to fall with her tears but Elsa jerked her back. "Your drugs worked very well. You barely moved between here and Boston."
Maggie began crying again, saliva mixing with the red painted on her lips and chin. Irritated, disgusted, the ringleader pushed the girl back, crying still, and wiped her hands down the lapel of her suit. She bent down and picked the rag she'd dropped up, stuffing it between Maggie's top and bottom jaw again, ignoring the holes the girl'd already made inside the cloth.
"Keep it there this time, and maybe you won't hurt yourself. Don't yell again." She snapped. She began to head for the opening of the tent, but paused to turn and watch the girl, eyes hard. "You're lucky I didn't add a fin." She hissed. "Who's the freak now?"