towerofanimus | I was the more deceiv'd

Entry tags:

I was the more deceiv'd

Characters: France [AU2] open to all
Setting: Floor Eleven, night time
Format: Either is fine
Summary: Francisca's just returned from being 'home' for about a month, straight after her shaky recovery from the teddy bear event. Needless to say, she's lost it.
Warnings: potential violence, potential suicide, language.

She felt cold.

On her abrupt return to the tower after weeks of wandering the decimated streets of France alone, after weeks of feeling as if someone had cut her heart out with a rusty knife, after week of nothingness, she broke down. She'd barely had enough time to get to a bathroom to vomit whatever little her stomach had held and proceeded to fall into a state of hysterics, screaming and clawing at her skin in the empty cubicle, her nightgown soaked with sweat and bare feet kicking at the walls.

Now that she'd 'calmed' somewhat, she'd come out of the bathroom and found it was night, the tower lights dimmed and no one in the hallways. Restless, she'd made her way to the eleventh floor, needing the comfort of life after so long without that when she reached it tears had started streaming down her cheeks as she got trembling handfuls of flowers, holding the delicate blossoms to her face and inhaling the scent.

Following the sounds of running water, she stumbled to the lake, mutely staring at the phantoms that seemed to dance under the reversed rainbows in the darkened sky. Strange that she found the sight of such apparitions more comforting that frightening - her people had been dead and not even their ghosts had left whispers behind. The phantoms let her be as she stumbled into the lake, dropping several flowers in the process and letting the little blossoms float around her in the rippling water. Soon the water was to her knees and she felt some relief in the cold she could feel seeping up her legs, contrasting with the warm air around her, but it wasn't enough. She felt numb and soon she was crushing the flowers in her hands, nails digging into her palms as she began to have another panic attack, breath coming faster and louder.

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It was dark, Romeo wasn't scared of course; not of the dark or the thunder. But it did make doing things a little bit difficult, he came down the staircase onto floor eleven, gripping his knife in his pocket in case one of the ghosts tried to hurt him when a flash of lightning lit up the room.

He gasped when he saw miss France, she was back! His relief was followed by worry because what was she doing in the water? "Miss France?" He ran towards her.

"I'm sure the flowers don't appreciate being crushed."

Dave almost didn't approach her. He didn't know how to comfort. Add another thing to shit he can't do to his list. Still. He could try. Trying wouldn't make it worst, right? And she was nice to him and he wanted to help somehow. He was floating a few inches off the ground, taking full advantage of the powers of god tier hood as much as possible. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again.

This was a terrible idea. "Want to talk about it?" Ugh no. That was a shitty thing to say. Who wants to actually talk about the shit that keeps happening? No one. "I mean, company. You want company?"

Call it crazy, call it foolish - call it whatever you want, Shoutarou was out and about in the darkness as well. He was restless. Too many questions were about and unanswerable at the given time, and Philip was gone again. Terui was still here, though - the comfort of that was questionable, given the nature of this place.

His mind wouldn't shut off, so he thought it best to occupy it with something. Patrols. Looking to make sure everything was okay - as okay as it could be, anyway.

Reaching the eleventh floor, he steps off of the stairs, and the figure he sees out in the water seems familiar.

"...Francisca?"

Francisca didn't notice him, eyes fixated on the water as she tried to force down the panic attack. More petals scattered into the air around her and she stepped further into the water, the shock of more cold making her gasp and step away from the edge of panic. Intent to stay that way, she started humming to herself, trying to keep her breathing even and mind clear.

A vain attempt but better than nothing.

At the sound of his voice she slowly turned to face him, panic attack momentarily stifled, and her expression remained blank when she saw him floating off the ground. Her eyes turned sad and her voice was a broken croak from her day of screaming as she asked resignedly, "Are you dead too, mon cher?"

Francisca didn't hear him, her breath coming faster until they were choked little sobbing gasps for air, more flowers tumbling into the water as she gripped her arms in a pathetic mockery of a hug. Nails dug in, easily scratching over pale flesh and leaving bloody trails behind.

He drops back to the ground, eyebrow slightly raised. "No? If you mean I've died before, yeah. This place kind of does that. The whole, welp you're dead except now you're not shtick. It's getting pretty old. Guess you missed the battle royale in the labyrinth or whatever. It was a trainwreck anyways and not worth watching," he replied with a bit of a mumble. He's not really interested in talking about it at all.

"I don't think I asked yet. You okay? You're looking pretty shitty and you sound like crap. I mean. You don't usually sound like crap or anything. Just, you kind of look like someone punched your puppy and then shat on it without apologizing or something."

It's odd that she feels more unsettled with him on the ground than when he was floating. Weren't ghosts meant to stay floating? Or something...? She should have paid more attention to America's rants on paranormal activity.

"You... died again?" she asked dazedly, not completely understanding his mini-rambling. Puppies were mentioned, though she doesn't know why.

A hand flew up to her throat, realizing how horrible her voice sounded. More flowers fell, some fluttering in the air before landing in her hair.

"Are you okay?" He repeated the question, although it sounded more concern this time. He kind of waded into the water a bit now, slowly approaching her. "Yeah, I did. But it's nothing new here, right? But let's stop talking about how I'm good at dying and get back to the whole part of where we make sure you're okay."

Dave didn't know what state of mind she was in, but he was going to assume not very good. "Did you get sent back home? You kind of disappeared for a little while."

The ripples he caused in the water made her jolt and take a step back, staring at him with wide eyes. "Home..."

Flashes of desolate streets, scorched buildings completely devoid of life. The faint scent of burning flesh still lingering here and there without a source to blame it on.

"If you can call it that."

Her nails dug into her throat, her jaw clenching from the feel of bile rising at the memory of that place.

He stopped approaching her, putting his arms up. "Sup. I'm not gonna do anything. Just, standing in the water by yourself kind of sucks I would think. And I guess that was a stupid thing to ask. Mostly, because I personally think it was a load of crap and they're just pulling our legs. But hey, that's just me."

He still stood there, but he did point at her neck. "I don't think that's a good idea. You can't just say someone got friendly with your neck. Nail digging isn't quite a hickey."

She calmed, nails releasing her neck. She almost looked 'normal', even as she said in an even voice, "You're rather talkative for a ghost."

Casting her gaze down into the water again, she noticed the dropped flowers and sighed, slowly gathering them up.

"Oh my god, you thought I was a ghost the entire time we've been talking. I'm not a ghost. The floating thing is just something I can do. Seriously. If I put my arm out and you grabbed it, I'd be solid. I promise even. I don't usually make promises, but I'm pretty sure I can keep this one even." He even holds his arm out towards her to try if she really isn't going to believe him.

She shied away from his arm, now waist-deep in water. Her eyes were panicked again, the flowers clutched to her chest. "The tower... you can't trust your senses in here," she babbled, crushing the flowers again.

Dave didn't move but kept his arm outstretched. "No, look. I'm not gonna move any closer. If you want to approach me, I'll let you. So let's not go farther into the water because that would suck for both of us." Maybe he should invest time in learning how to swim. Than again, he can just float around like the cheating little god tier kid he is.

"I'm not here to fuck with you, I swear. Just thought we could talk and shit. You know. Normal people shit instead of crappy tower shit no one wants to deal with."

"Normal? Normal?" she repeated in a disbelieving tone. "You can fly and I'm a nation - there is no normal here!"

Francisca then laughed, a low, ugly sound so very unlike her usual dulcet tones. "You want to talk? What shall we talk about? About how I spent a month in a world where my children were dead? Where my friends and family were gone without a trace!? Even in this tower my friends have all been removed!" Somewhere during her rant tears of frustration had begun to trickle down her cheeks, and the mangled flowers had dropped from her hands. "My best friend's daughter was skinned and cursed to walk around the tower somehow alive in that state! She never returned- my one-time children have vanished-"

She froze, expression growing awed as she stared off into the distance, eyes widening. ".... That's......"

Oh right. He forgets he really is shitty at this try and comfort people thing. Welp. No wonder he doesn't try. Looks like he should have just left her alone because now she's in hysterics. "Cool story. Spent a month out in a desolate wasteland myself. Shit is pretty fun. Nothing as far as the eye can see." Fuck. Not what he meant to say. Being sarcastic is not really the best way to console. Ugh. Fuck. "I think you forgot but I know what it's liked to be skinned alive myself. It isn't fun. I know," he replied defensively. He wasn't sure if she mentioned it because it was him or because she was upset. Either way, he didn't want to be reminded of that particular event. It didn't help that once he started thinking about that, he thought about everything else the tower had done to him.

"What are you looking at?"

"Of course, that's it, that's it," she muttered to herself, not hearing him at all. "Why didn't I realize it before...?"

She abruptly turned and began wading deeper into the lake, a look of determination on her face.

"Holy shit, where do you think you're going?" He wades after her this time. Whatever it is, he's not too thrilled to see her go through with it. "Woah, super rude. Are you even listening to me?"

She's soon chest-deep in water and not likely to stop. "I've figured it out!" she answers vaguely, hair streaming behind her as it floats on the water. "It's been staring me right in the face-!"

"I have no god damn clue what you're talking about. Stop giving me vague answers like it'll suddenly hit me in the face. Spit it out." He really doesn't like where this is going.

She turned to him, eyes wild as she answered breathlessly, "The way out of this tower! You have to die, and not through those wretched games-!"

With a short laugh she turned and kept walking, water lapping at her chin.

Oh hell no. He wasn't letting her go through with this. One, because it was stupid. Two, because it was really stupid. Three, because she'd regret it most likely and he didn't want her to go getting herself killed. But really, this was stupid.

"Except, that's stupid. That is the dumbest thing someone could have thought up." He was trying to wade in quicker, except he was really just floating again. He can't swim and she was taller. The water reached up to him faster than it did on her. On the upside, thank fucking god he can fly. This would end disastrously otherwise.

"It's crazy enough that no one in the tower would think to do it- Don't you see!?"

When she couldn't hold her head above water any more, she glanced back at him and smiles, a flicker of her old self showing as she murmurs, "Au revoir, Dave."

With that, she dove into the water, swimming downwards with practised ease.

Terezi just got eaten by a giant spider that didn't belong to the tower. No, it belonged to Vriska. He's pretty sure that this was just going to end with her waking up in her bed.

He splashed and clawed after her immediately, trying to grab her arm or anything to pull her back in the surface. Part of him was panicked that he wouldn't be able to get her back to the surface, the other part of him was terrified that he'd go down too. Neither were too good on his conscious.

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I was the more deceiv'd

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