cinderella's dead now.

.. badcompanys // a mutually exclusive series of fandomless original characters based on the idea that strength comes from within, girls are feral creatures, magic exists in the most unlikely of places and blood isn’t always thicker than water.

vex. 25+. she/her. cst. 

cd thinks over the question for a moment. he didn’t want to say that the end of the world as they knew it had given him a purpose - that putting a rifle in his hand and a target in front of him was the best thing to happen to him - but it wasn’t entirely false either.

“i’m not sure. i was never really good at anything before.” he stared up at the sky thinking about the life that he could have had. “college could’ve been cool? maybe for video game design or something.”

this is the most he’s talked about his interests in a long time. most people didn’t tend to ask - or care - what was happening before the world ended. they didn’t care that he’d spent countless nights wide awake beating a video game that he’d just bought that day and had refused to put down. how many mornings he’d gone to school barely able to keep his head off the desk and his eyes open because he’d spent the early hours of the morning grinding out video games. 

people only cared if he could aim well enough. he was respected - not for who he was but for what he could do. he’d lost the most human side of himself and hadn’t even realized. “i miss video games.”

“this is gonna sound real lame,”

 she says, starting to speak, but she leans in so that no one else can hear her - rather than face the shame of an onlooker peering into their conversation.

“sometimes i pretend i’m in a video game. like call’a duty or somethin. you know, with the zombies mode? start shootin’ like i’m scorin’ points. see if i can break my own ‘high score’ of sorts.” 

there’s a blush that works it’s way across her cheeks, faint enough, but he’d be able to see the tinge of red against tan skin.

“i didn’t used to.” she answers the question honestly. “for a long time, i didn’t talk to much of anyone - i was so scared to be seen as the weird girl talking to myself because other people couldn’t see what i could.”

she turns away from the makeshift graveyard. she can’t stomach the sight of other spirits creeping into the clearing to mourn their own loss of life - and being forgotten. 

“my mom taught me that i should talk to spirits more. you have a story to be told and you want someone to listen.”

there are some spirits that are angry, tired of living in a world where they couldn’t be heard. those spirits are dangerous. if just talking to someone and letting them know that there’s at least one person in the world that can still see them - hear them - and feel their pain helps ease that pain? she would.

“i couldn’t save people when they were alive, but maybe i can save them from losing themselves now?”

“for what it’s worth,” 

which probably wasn’t much, considering she was dead as a doornail and just a simple, everlasting remnant of the past.

“i don’t think you’re weird.” 

she offers mira a small smile in return, hoping to quash any idea that the brunette had floating around in that brain of hers. it was a kindness to speak to people that truly needed it, letting them get out their thoughts and emotions. madelaine was quite grateful for it, in fact, though she wasn’t sure just how she could come to show it in the current state of it all.

kori pieced together emma’s fragmented thoughts. hallucinations, terror, the overwhelming sense of doom. kori had felt the shift in energy in town. the animals were hidden away. people were acting out more and more. she had tried to chalk it up to the change in seasons but her instincts knew better. something dark had been unleashed upon their little town and this girl in front of her had done her part in unleashing it.

“no.” the answer was definitive and immediate. “there’s nothing i can do for you. there is no saving your friends.” it was harsh and blunt but it was the truth. “i warned you before you didn’t listen. this demon is going to tear this town apart - starting with the ones who opened that door.”

she starts to panic, pacing back and forth with her hands in her hair, causing it to go from well kept to a rat’s nest in a matter of minutes with her current anxiety, pouring through her like someone dropped a toaster in the bathtub.

“so you’re sayin’ there’s.....we’re fucked?” she says, whispering the last bit of the statement. kori doesn’t respond, but the look in her eyes tells her everything she needs to know. emma doesn’t waste anymore time, grabs one of the protection crystals from the rack beside her and slams down a twenty to pay for it before rushing out of the shop.

junior was going to die of boredom if he didn’t talk. he was willing to bet money on it. there were only a couple people at the bus stop and he didn’t know if any of them were listening - to be frank, he didn’t care. his own voice was the only thing stopping him from going insane.

the words tumbled out and they weren’t even a lie like most of the things he said - he had in fact, earned himself a special mention as “probably being the antichrist” in mrs. robbins suicide note. it was a tragedy - he shouldn’t have laughed but years later, he still considered it an accomplishment. 

his head snapped up to the woman sitting next to him. someone was listening! “awesome. my senior prank, i set off some fireworks in the school cafeteria and caught a christmas tree on fire. fully engulfed.” he pulls a bag of flaming hot cheetos from the backpack sitting on his lap and pops one into his mouth, crunching as he talks. “we’re talking, like, full evacuation, multiple fire engines, hoses, the whole nine yards. almost took out an entire wing of the school!”

a smug smirk pulls up the corners of his lips. it isn’t the only fire he’d started in his life and it certainly wouldn’t be the last - not with the backpack full of lighter fluid and the bad idea floating around his head at that exact moment. however, the memory of students and teachers all scrambling to get away from the growing flames and the sprinkler system did make it yet another fond memory for him.

“chaos reigns.”

“well damn,” she says, a laugh bubbling up from the space within her chest.

she wasn’t expecting to bond with someone this easily on the side of the freakin’ road, but it made waiting for the bus all the more interesting. the looks they were receiving from folks who came to pass, or who had happened upon their conversation were amusing enough to rebekah.

holding out her fist for a bump, she raises her eyebrows for a moment before leaning into junior’s personal space, requesting him to knock fists with her.

its hard to imagine a time when lulu had been afraid of fireworks given her brothers inclination toward them. gus could name five times off the top of his head when junior had produced random fire crackers, smoke bombs or even roman candles seemingly out of thin air. he always seemed to have some kind of danger hidden away in those hoodie pockets.

made sense that she hadn’t been afraid of them for long.

his eyes moved back to the sky - the last few brightly colored blasts were beginning. the grand finale. he took it all in. the beauty, the colors, the noise. he was glad the twins had drug him out of his house. glad for all the the craziness that seemed to come along with lulu and weston. glad he’d met them and they’d accepted him as a part of their lives.

his lips turned up into a smile as he looked back at lulu. “wanna ditch the kid and go get tacos?”

“tacos you say?” 

she’s got a wide smile spread across her lips, and she’s pushing up from her space on the ground before he has a chance to move. holding a hand out to him, she helps him lift his body from the space on the ground, almost tumbling over a bit at one of the final bursts of light and color splattered across the sky.

“come on, he’ll find his way back eventually.” she says, pulling gus towards one of the various food trucks that had been set up along the space, completely forgetting the blanket resting on the ground. it was old and ratty anyways, maybe someone who needed it more would come to claim it.

and that someone would probably be junior, tying it around his neck to make a cape when he finally tracked down his sister and gus.

she tucks a strand of hair back behind her ear and lifts up on her toes when they reach one of the aforementioned food trucks, something about tacos written in mexican that she couldn’t understand. but the food looked good on the pictures and hell, that’s all she cared about. 

“i think i want a few’a the specials, what about you?” 

she asks, reaching into her back pocket to pull a series of bills out from their current confines within her jeans. it wasn’t unlike lulu to always be prepared, and since junior was always hungry, she’d taken a habit of keeping a few dollars in easy reach. 

his pack of cigarettes is fished from his pocket before he’s even fully out of the car - smoking calms him, pushes away the incessant anxiety always lingering at the edges of his mind. cigarette smoke mingles in the air with the smoke from under the hood as he raises it, assessing the damage. 

if he was honest with himself, he didn’t know exactly what he was looking at; he was horrible with cars. he knew how to drive them but when it came to engines and belts and gaskets, he didn’t know one end from the other. 

he took the easy way out provided by his sister - a sign in the distance read “greymire - nine miles.” the turn off had looked like a dead end as far as he could see, so he had ignored it; now it seemed it was their best shot.

he slammed the hood closed again and began grabbing his things from the front seat. phone tucked into his pocket. keys. wallet. he looked over the top of his car to his sister at the passenger side. “its a long walk. you wanna stay with the car ‘til i come back with help? up to you, but i’d keep the doors locked if you did.”

there was nothing but desert surrounding them up to the base of the mountain range where trees began spattering the view, where this greymire must be tucked away. something just seemed off.

the look of ‘are you shitting’ me that is currently plastered on her face doesn’t seem to draw anything other than ire from her brother, and she rolls her eyes and places her hands upon her hips.

“you think i’m stayin’ in the dead of fuckin’ nowhere by myself. i watch horror movies, walker, i know what happens to the dumb bitch who goes off by herself.”

she scuffs a shoe into the dirt before reaching behind her to pull her hair up into a semi-decent ponytail. a few strands are falling out, but it’ll do for the time being. a huff of breath escapes her lips.

“let’s just....get goin’, see if we can make it before it turns to fuck-all night.”

she slips her phone into the back pocket of her jeans and folds her arms across her chest, bumping the door closed with a push of her hip before reaching down to tie her unlaced shoe.

it takes her a brief moment before she’s up and at ‘em and raring to go. 

like a car on blocks with the engine revving, she doesn’t like the idea of being trapped here for any longer than she needed to be.no, she had to keep moving. that was the smart plan here, to always remain in motion. a rolling stone, if you will. ( she knows that’s a dumb analogy but she’s sticking with it. )

Nathaniel stared at her, eyebrows furrowed in exhaustion. Savory scents of starch and salt made his stomach rumble quietly. Lowering himself into the booth opposite the brunette, he finally dissected her outfit. Fish out of water is what she looked like. Homeless, almost. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve mistaken her for a teenager. “I am. What is this?” his fingers flailed towards her hoodie. “It’s scorchin’ out, for Christ’s sake,” as if to make a point, he wiped at the tiny beads of sweat along his hairline. He even gave up on wearing his trusty cap, thirsty for the slightest puff of cool wind to hit his face.

Swiping a single fry, he popped it in his mouth and chewed. Licking the salt off his thumb, he leaned back into the cushions that formed to his spine and shoulder blades. “Field office picked up chatter about movement through San Antonio — likely using a club as a cover. Wanna go?” he looked back at her, exhaling. “Just gotta talk up the bartenders and whoever else we think might be suspicious — you can drink…dance…whatever the hell people do at clubs… as much as you want. Sounds like easy money if ya ask me.”

Cordova could do it himself; just walk up and sweet-talk the right people. It was how he convinced most of his informants to do anything, but he was too close to this one. A laced strain that had bodies dropping all over the Katy area, he couldn’t risk impulsive decisions. One wrong move and he, or his agents, could be in danger.

Technically, so could Rebekah.

“We would have surveillance inside and out of the perimeters, I’ll put a wire on you and the whole nine yards.”

Lifting his head towards the waitress that was approaching them, he fished his wallet out of his back pocket, pulling two twenty dollar bills. “Whatever else she wants, and a black coffee for me, please.”

“what you don’t like my informant gear?” 

she says, a snort escaping her lips as she pulls back the hood and slips the sleeves up her own arms, making herself more comfortable in the air conditioned diner.

“i’m tryin’ to be y’know, inconspicuous,” she says, emphasis on the last word of speech leaving her lips, leaning forward and going the whole nine yards with it.

in reality, she was trying to be the most idiotic she could be to see if she could get on his nerves, but when it didn’t take full effect and seem to bother him like she’d intended, she gave up on the approach.

another time, she’ll get him another time.

stuffing her face with the remnants of food in front of her, she leans back now, pulling a knee up to rest her arm on top of. she pretends to ponder the question at hand for a few moments before slapping her hand down on the table.

it wouldn’t take much to talk her into something like this. a little risk, a big reward, hell yeah she was going to want to be in on something this large.

Anxiety that ran rampant, dissipated when Lulu’s hand folded around his. His figure sat at the edge of the couch, body on auto-pilot, mind in the marshes. He breathed in slow, and let go when she released his palm. Digits curled against his knees, wiping sweat against denim, and Tommy steadied himself.

He took a beat to take it all in. Consider the pattern. The revelation that it was happening again, always again, where he resided. Ever the constant common denominator to chaos. Where Tommy went, hell sure followed.

When Lulu touches his thigh, he snaps back to the present. Every breath held released. “I heard it before.” He tried to rationalized his thinking, that every sound deserved investigation, and where evil lurked, so did he, just around the corner, “screaming, in the middle of the night.”

The wails would go on for hours. Sleep was hard. The dreams harder. Consciousness didn’t cradle him, it held him in the balance.

Her eyes never betrayed anything other than belief. She anchored him, his thoughts were real, not the recurrence of nightmares. Sleepwalker drifted through the swamplands awake. All those nights, he heard the cries, he was wide awake.

“It was formidable,” his voice was thick, he craved water, and he took a long swig from the glass she’d placed at his side, “I didn’t want to get any closer than I did,” his own height staggered over most, and the beast in the swamp had not only loomed large, “it definitely did see me, it was, it was…” he tries to find his sight in the shadow.

“It was looking right at me,” not unlike human, “the whole time,” but not quite an animal, “I couldn’t make it out its face,” but the terror did accompany the recollection of the small details he took note of, that made it worth fleeing, “its eyes were green,” iridescent, glowing in the dark, “and I left. I left.”

Tommy sat stagnant - his head reeled, considering every fixture of time and space, every alternative, every path, every mistake he could make, everywhere things could go right. The plan was already in motion, unspooling in his head.

“It didn’t follow me,” fear recognized its own reflection, and he rose from where he sat, approaching Lulu as she paced to and from the door, “I wouldn’t have lead it here,” his trek spiraled around the efficiency, trail gone cold as he went in circles prior to knocking at her door. He checked over his shoulder a thousand times. He’d made sure. He’d made damn sure.

“I wouldn’t do that to you and your brother.” Endanger them. Bring death right to their door. They were a family fragmented like his, and being close to them felt like being close to home.

It’d made sense to come here. It was the first place he thought to go.

“It’s not going to come here,” and she dead bolted the door, her instincts were attuned with his, but he didn’t intend to wait for it to arrive, “I’m going there,” further investigation was necessary, “Stay here,” the screams cut through the night - far, but they felt closer, “I have no idea what this is, and I don’t want to put you at risk,” he wouldn’t lead her to the slaughter, “do you have any way to protect yourself?”

she’s caught up in a whirlwind of thoughts when the last verbiage of his speech rings true in her mind. he’s going to go out there. alone. and she’d be damned if she would allow that to happen.

“are you crazy?” she says, voice peeking up a few octaves in an incessant worried nature. it’s a little high pitched, and she would be embarrassed if this was anyone else, but this was tommy, and she knew him far too well to let such trivial things have an effect on her.

her hands are in the air, waving about, and she comes to stand in front of them when she places them on her hips.

“you’re not goin’ out there alone! something could.....somethin’ could happen to you, and then what, tommy?” she says, and there’s a quiver in her bottom lip.’

what if he went out there and died for christ’s sake and she never got to tell him how important he was to her, to junior? she couldn’t fathom something like that happening. no. she wasn’t going to let him go alone. by any means she wasn’t the most formidable of foes, but when determined, louise could be one hell of a firecracker. and she wasn’t the type to take no for an answer.

“come on, i’m going with you.” 

she stalks off into the bathroom, goes grab a can of hairspray and a lighter she’d snagged from junior earlier that week. it wasn’t the best means of protecting herself, but it would do in a pinch.

“get your ass up, we’re goin’ to face this thing together. i’ll be damned if i’m lettin’ you risk your life for silly ole’ me, tommy. we’re a team, y’know we work better when we’re together anyways.” 

and louise was determined. she wasn’t going to let him face this own his own.

no, that would be thinking ahead too much for her to deal.

blowing pieces of hair out of her face, she groans when it slips back into her field of vision and yanks it back behind her ear, foregoing the idea of undoing and redoing her ponytail. that’s too much work. she has to remain focused.

a first-aid kit, yeah … that’s something we should have, right? 

she knew she had one. she just...well she didn’t know where the hell she kept it.

the brunette sitting in the back bed of her truck had a wound that was bleeding rather profusely, but she’d insisted on not going to a hospital, which was fine with rebekah. those places asked too many questions for her liking. but for now, she needed to keep kate from bleeding out in the back bed of her vehicle.

squinting in the bright sunlight, the brunette yanks free a series of paper towels from a half-crumpled roll and tosses them over at kate, to at least help stem the flow of blood when her fingers graze plastic. 

aha!

pulling it free from the spot underneath her seat, a little too far to the left, she relinquishes the first aid kit from it’s hiding spot and stumbles towards kate.

“got it.” 

she says, tossing it over towards the brunette, hands on her hips and a grin on her lips like she’s proud of herself for having the basic knowledge required to at least carry one around in case anyone were to need it.