crack GLASS against the wall and revel in the shards, this is your heart on the ground, sharp edged glory and linoleum. you are mismatched, mistaken, misled. you are whole and apart and inbetween. break your own bones, bend them into stars and the shape of the sun. know that they are beautiful, bend them into concrete brick and stone wall, know that they are strong.
Jamie cocked his head at Frenchie’s giggling, uncertain of what to think of it when he’d only ever seen her poised and haughty. Girls like Frenchie didn’t often partake in joyous laughter while he was around. He couldn’t decide if he enjoyed it or became more skeptical of her sincerity but the glow on her cheeks said that it was better if he just took it at face value because it was unlikely to come again.
‘What better people than to get clues from?’ Jamie wrote after scrubbing her writing away. He looked dubious at her fluctuating finger, deciding to round up a couple more for good measure. If Jamie knew anything about alcoholics (and he did), it was that they weren’t very good at remembering things. The concern that she was wandering around, wasted without a voice to scream for help rose but he squashed it in favor of taking full advantage of the situation.
He bobbed his head noncommittally, vaguely indicating that he’d had some (he didn’t) before jotting a, ‘So, Frenchie, are you a virgin?’ onto her board with a little smiley face in case she thought he was being forward and aggressive. After a beat, he added, ‘Asking for a friend.’
got anything good yet? she asked, curiosity piqued by the idea of further investigation. Anything and everything pageant related was enough to garner her interest — for purely selfish reasons. It was the same old song and dance.
She blinked at him, slow and disbelieving, as if to communicate solely through a stare: are you fucking with me? With his lack of response after a few beats, she could only assume the answer was no. we need to work on ur small talk skills, she wrote first, shooting him a look to punctuate the point before moving on. i mean it, she added for good measure, underlining the statement twice.
Wiping the board clean, Frenchie brought her next answer to the table. tell ur friend, she stopped mid-sentence, pausing for a moment to give him the next in a set of disbelieving looks: what friends did he have that didn’t meet in the newspaper room? no, i’m not a virgin. is this relevant to something with darleen? She frowned, thinking of virgin sacrifices and elaborate rituals. It seemed ridiculous, but she wouldn’t put it past him.
The whispers came soft at first, so Kaz barely noticed them. Adrenaline was still coursing through him, keeping him hyperaware of the situation at hand. He nodded to Frenchie. His arm was bleeding where Tommy had slashed at it, but it wasn’t gushing pints, which made it not their top priority. He could carry Tommy despite the wound and worry about the rest later. One step at a time. That was all they had to do.
“If we see anyone,” Kaz said, “he’s hammered. Got a little too lit at his own function so we’re being good friends and dragging his ass somewhere to sleep it off.” It felt like they were covering up a murder, even though Tommy was very much breathing (a fact Kaz was all too aware of). He lifted the boy with some effort - he almost wanted to ask what the fuck Tommy had been eating lately, but he didn’t want to think about the answer.
The whispers started to grow louder as they trudged through the woods, Kaz following Frenchie’s lead. The voices sounded like a choir of Tommys, singing and hissing and spitting inside his head. All repeating the same strange phrase.
Kaz stumbled at the cacophony of sound that he knew Frenchie could not hear. His breathing was getting more ragged by the second, but he quickened his pace. He walked past Frenchie even though she was directing him, on a one man mission to get the hell out of the woods.
It didn’t take too long, thankfully. As soon as his feet crossed the barrier between the woods and the rest of Normal, the voices stopped.
He muttered a quick ‘sorry’ to the girl before giving her back the lead. "By the way, I know there’s a lot to talk about and figure out, but… might wanna take a shower first. I wouldn’t hold it against you. I dunno if you’ve noticed yet, but all that glow-in-the-dark paint everyone was playing with all night was five bodies worth of blood.”
Frenchie didn’t know what had gotten into Kaz, but she didn’t voice any complaints — metaphorically speaking — as he picked up the pace on the journey out of the forest. She followed along behind him in now-characteristic silence, offering him a small, understanding smile once they emerged from the trees.
Her mouth hung open in an O for a long moment, gaze unblinking as she stared at Kaz in disbelief. She wasn’t anywhere near Edwina’s level when it came to germs and blood and that sort of thing, but — but this was five bodies’ worth of blood? She took deep breaths in and out, nice and slow, wishing not for the first time tonight that she could let less a scream every once in a while. Like now, for instance.
Frowning deeply and resisting the urge to wipe all the caked-on paint — blood — off of her, Frenchie gave him a tight nod, looking straight ahead instead of down at her soaked tank top. “We can take turns in my bathroom, if you want,” she signed. “I could get you some of Theo’s sweatpants.”
Resisting the urge to shudder, Frenchie redirected her attention to the task at hand: getting to her house. After a dodgy shortcut through some of her neighbors’ yards, they made it to her back door, where Frenchie rooted around in a flower pot before emerging, victorious, with a key. She held one finger to her lips (stating the obvious) before turning the lock, waving Kaz inside and directing him to a nearby door. “Rope,” she signed, pointing at Tommy and miming tying him up. “Downstairs. Let’s go.”
Vi really didn’t know Frenchie all that well. They had interacted occasionally in the past, but (as per usual for Violet) had never really progressed beyond that point. So when, upon spotting the girl, Vi noticed the fact that her board was proudly proclaiming Violet’s name with two exclamation marks, the girl was a little taken aback. In a good way, though. There were no bad surprises four freezies in.
Quickly moving towards the girl with a smile, Violet greeted her with a quick “hey” before answering her question. “Assuming that my dad can be convinced, which he probably can be if someone nice asks him. Do you think I’m supposed to be playing to win? Because if so… some tips would be appreciated.”
do u want me to ask him? i can ask him! i’m a hit w/parents, she offered with a bright, hazy smile. Frenchie’s poise and eloquence had always won her brownie points with most parents — now, of course, it was a little harder to be eloquent when she couldn’t speak, but it still translated decently well. Plus, of course, her tipsy confidence made her believe that absolutely anything was possible.
Nodding at Violet’s question, Frenchie thought over her answer much more seriously than necessary. i don’t think ur about to win the pageant anytime soon, she wrote, adding a quick no offense in an attempt to cover up her blunder. Offering Violet a sheepish smile, she continued on. i’ll totally help u tho!! we can do a pageant crash course.
Just when Kaz thought he was about to get stabbed in the kidney, Tommy turned from him. There Frenchie was, in all her 5′3 glory, with a bright pink canister of pepper spray. She was his dainty, girly, totally wicked awesome hero.
As Tommy struggled with the spray in his eyes, Kaz rifled through his pockets for something, anything. His hand clutched the knife, but he knew he couldn’t. He took it out and tossed it far, settling for a nearby branch instead. It wasn’t as thick as a bat but it was thick enough to do the job. He was used to being cool and collected during a game, but that night his heart was racing impossibly fast. He was angry and scared and he really didn’t want to kill Tommy Richter at his own party.
He swung for Tommy’s temple. A loud crack sounded with the impact and Kaz’s blood momentarily froze in his veins. Had he whacked Tommy’s head off? No, no, the branch just broke. Tommy was down though and Kaz got on top of him. He grabbed the second knife, peeling it from Tommy’s grip and chucking it through the woods the same way he’d done the first.
“Help me hold him still,” he asked Frenchie. He whipped his shirt off, using the cloth to tie Tommy’s hands behind his back. They pinned him there, in the woods between the party and his house. “Water polo sucks, Tommy,” Kaz spit into his ear, tasting copper around his words and hoping the blood was his own.
“What do we do now?” he asked Frenchie. He didn’t watch horror movies; he didn’t know what the next step was. All he could think was that Jamie needed to see this, and handing Tommy over to the hackjob they called a Sheriff was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Does your house have a basement?”
Frenchie proved herself to be silent, but certainly deadly. Unbeknownst to Tommyish, the girl had taken advantage of his focus on taunting Kaz to clonk the black eyed boy in the head with a rock. Turning his head to hiss at her, he was met with a face full of lachrymatory agent. His batty laughs were now twisted into screams of agony as Tommy began to claw at his own pepper spray soaked face. His nails broke skin and the open wounds only made the mace more painful. Blood trickled down, but was hardly anything compared to Kayla from Chem’s insides coloring his chin red.
“You stupid bitch!” he spat before Kaz bashed a branch to his temple with the force of a home run baseball. Out of all the people to take him down he never thought it’d be the cheerleader. Perhaps this was his payback for telling the water polo team last year that she ‘totally gave him a handie’ behind the local Red Lobster when that definitely did not happen.
Dazed and running out of stamina to keep himself fighting the two, Tommy looked up to Kaz . “Tnullaf ailatrom mauqmun soed atca.” Tommy groaned before slumping over and finally KOing after a night of causing terror. He may have been done for the time being, but the rising and falling of his chest indicating life still there and possibly the lose of life to others if they didn’t get him out of there and chained down.
At Kaz’s command, Frenchie made a face, hesitating for only a split second before dropping to help him pin Tommy down. She didn’t want to be touching him any more than was absolutely necessary — and, well, keeping him under control seemed pretty damn necessary right now. Honestly, she hadn’t thought they’d get this far. She certainly could’ve done without the sight of Tommy’s torn-up face.
Somewhere in the tussle, she’d lost her board — no time to look for it, not now. Instead, she signed a desperate and wide-eyed “I DON’T KNOW!” at the current conundrum of a knocked-out Tommy flat on the ground between them. Frenchie’s teeth worried at her lower lip, brow drawn together in concern as she attempted to come up with some sort of idea.
“Yes,” she signed in response to his question, nodding eagerly. It wasn’t a half-bad idea — her dad could sleep through an earthquake, and her mom popped sleeping pills before bed like it was her damn job — yes, yes, this could work. Eager now to get moving before Tommy regained consciousness, Frenchie signed quickly, eyes bright. “Can you carry him?” she signed, miming the action picking up Tommy’s body and slinging it over her shoulder to make sure Kaz understood her meaning. “It’s not far. Five minutes. I can help.”
It wasn’t Abby’s first party, but so far it was her worst party. There weren’t too many others in her history to compare it to, a handful scattered across the past few years, but there was still no contest. Normally, she went as part of a group, the devoted designated driver who made sure everyone stayed out of trouble and vomit stayed out of hair, but, having grown distant from said group over the past months, she was here alone and, to be frank, lonely. She’d been playing her usual part of wall flower, searching the crowd for someone she both recognized and felt comfortable talking to while internally debating whether or not to just leave or, with trepidation, actually try the alcohol for once, when Frenchie had appeared before her.
“Dying?” Abby shouted over the music, concern twisting her features, before she saw the scrape in question. At the grand reveal, she actually laughed, shaking her head a little at the theatrics. “Yeah, I’ve got you!” She quickly scanned the edges of the space for a spot where they’d be less likely to be jostled or get unwanted freezie in the injury. Finding one, she gently grabbed Frenchie by the elbow and pulled her toward it, already twisting her grip on the purple bag to unzip it and dig out what looked like a white soft pencil-case with a blocky cross drawn in red sharpie on the side. “So how’d you manage that?”
Frenchie was perfectly happy to let herself be guided away from the claustrophobic mass of people; she trusted Abby, after all, and the throbbing bass felt like it was about to thud right through her skull. At this point, she was drunk enough that she did little more than blink at the sight of Abby’s due diligence in patching her up — but not drunk enough to disregard her meager injury entirely. She’d always been a drama queen, and who was she to deny her companion the chance to practice her first-aid skills?
Putting on a brave face, Frenchie wrote out an answer on her board as she dug through her bag. Ben smashed a beer bottle on his head. She pointed out the drunkard responsible for such antics (some lunkhead on the water polo team with Tommy; he’d never been the sharpest knife in the drawer — shocker), her posture akin to a child ratting out their classmate for some imaginary offense on the playground. I was trying to be NICE and help pick the shards out of his hair... and I got cut. It’s all his fault. She sighed dramatically, as if these efforts had been some grand burden that only she alone could bear.
Frenchie started heading toward him. Alone? Kaz tried to get her attention, waving wildly at his phone and letting out harsh whispers of “Frenchie! Frenchie.” that sounded more like sneezes. Then their Facetime session ended.
So now not only was he stuck behind a tree with a super powerful demon water polo player getting closer and closer by the second… but they were about to be joined by a lithe, blonde pageant queen. And he’d just lured her out there, doing Tommy’s dirty work for him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Kaz put his phone back into his pocket, debating the knife. Could he use it? Did he have the cajones? He wasn’t sure that he did. This was Tommy Richter. They’d been friends once. Could Kaz really stab him just because his eyes went all black and he’d killed one or two or five people?
He put the knife into his pocket, grabbing a nearby rock instead. If Frenchie was on her way, he’d have to make sure Tommy didn’t see her before it was too late. He stood up, coming out from around the tree.
“Hey Tommy?” he yelled out into the woods. “Fuck you.”
Tommy spun around at the sound of his name, his bewilderment quickly overcome by wicked glee as he gripped the knife tight.
“Nice insult, Sandlot. You talk like you’re fearless, but I can smell your fear.” He took a wild swipe at Kaz, doing little but spraying blood from his blade onto the other like a maniacal painter. Bob Ross’ unhinged protege.
“You smell like a scared little boy. You’re just like Alfie right before they took him.” He lashed out again but missed with purpose, rumbling with sick delight at the way Kaz’s face rose and fell with surprise.
“You’re going to be looking for him forever, Kaz! You’re going to stay here until you die searching for him. You’re never going to leave!” Taking another stab at the air, Tommy’s knife drew closer than before, nicking the Kaz enough to make the blood bubble out from the cut. His mouth dribbled with hunger.
[ While taunting Kaz, Tommy has his back turned. He has zero idea another person is with them.
Now is your chance to do something. How do you help Kaz? ]
@frvnchies·
@kazcaldwell — Stupid. This whole plan was the dumbest thing she’d ever done, and nothing but blind, sheer bravado kept Frenchie’s feet moving swiftly across the grass. She didn’t know what on earth she’d been thinking — she should’ve found Jamie, or Holly-Eve, or anyone, Jesus Christ. But then again, those precious minutes would’ve been wasted, and who knew what would happen to Kaz in the meantime?
Swallowing thickly, Frenchie tensed at the sound of Kaz’s shout somewhere in the mid-distance. She was close. But not close enough. Picking her way through the woods, she followed the sounds of Kaz and Tommy — or, at least, what kind of sounded like Tommy. Frenchie didn’t know if it was because of the lingering effects of alcohol in her system, but something seemed... off.
Leaning down, Frenchie quietly and carefully picked up a fist-sized rock, knowing she couldn’t get his attention with a shout. She crept closer, trying not to alert him to her presence until she got close enough — but when he hurt Kaz, she didn’t hesitate anymore. Moving in a few quick motions, Frenchie threw the rock, hitting Tommy in the back of the head. As soon as he turned, she lifted her pepper spray, aiming it right in his face and dousing him in the chemicals.
lovable alpha bitch / the speechless / so beautiful, it’s a curse
NAME.
FULL NAME: francesca eloise waverly.
PREFERRED NAME/NICKNAMES: frenchie.
GENERALLY REFERRED TO AS: francesca by her parents (which she does not like!), frenchie by essentially everyone else.
APPEARANCE.
FACECLAIM: halston sage.
SEX: cisfemale.
HEIGHT: short — she’s about 5′3″.
WEIGHT: about 115 lbs normally, more like 110 during pageant season.
BUILD: slim with some tone from working out.
HAIR: soft natural dirty blonde with some subtle highlights from the salon, often styled in loose waves.
HANDS: small, delicate, perfectly manicured hands. she has a regimen for taking care of herself, hands included (she’s got a mani-pedi appointment every tuesday afternoon).
SCARS: faded scar on her knee from a fall as a child.
CLOTHES: she dresses like a sorority girl, tbh. a lot of lilly pulitzer, some madewell and free people, kate spade bags, pearls, lululemon leggings & vineyard vines or simply southern shirts when she’s feeling lazy.
OTHER NOTABLE FEATURES: wide smile.
SPEECH.
VOICECLAIM: as far as her normal speaking voice, halston works. as for singing, i’m gonna go big and say she’s got a touch of sara bareilles.
ACCENT: soft carolinian accent, kind of like this.
VERBAL TICS: tendency to use pet names (sugar, honey, darlin’, etc).
LANGUAGE: she’s fluent in english & ASL, currently studying spanish.
ARTICULATION: she’s very articulate and sure of herself when explaining things. as with most things in her life, this is a result of excessive pageant practice.
EDUCATION: the thing about the way frenchie talks is that it’s long & tiresome, but more from the fact that she drawls her words like a good southern girl and less from the fact that she uses big words. she’s not dumb, but it’s not her style.
LAUGHTER: she doesn’t laugh loudly because her mother says it’s not ladylike. she tends to giggle instead.
BREATHING: she makes a lot of noise during club meetings, partly because it’s easier to convey her meaning through sighs and humphs than writing something out.
MANNERISMS.
FACE: a lot of times, she doesn’t mind people knowing what she thinks, so it’ll be written all over her face (i.e. when she sees the murder club being weird, it’s not hard to tell that she thinks it’s weird). that being said, she can put on a pretty good poker face when she wants to.
HANDS: being too expressive / talking with her hands / making herself too big or loud in general has been drilled into her as unladylike, so her hands usually stay folded in her lap.
LEGS/FEET: absolutely not. see above.
EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS: if anything, frenchie tends to maintain the hell out of a poker face when she’s upset and then burst into tears the second she’s alone. she doesn’t like losing face in front of others; it feels too vulnerable.
HABITS: most fidgety sort of habits have been discouraged by her mother. the one thing she can’t get frenchie to stop doing is twirling her hair.
POSTURE: her posture is absolutely perfect. that’s a pageant queen for you!
PERSONAL SPACE: depends on who we’re talking about. with friends, she’s much more likely to be comfortable with them – ex. brushing shoulders, casual touches, etc. with strangers or people she doesn’t know, she’ll back off a little, and is more averse to them getting up in her space. she’s pretty tolerant of anything, though.
OTHER: she can usually be found chewing a stick of gum.
HEALTH.
DIET: frenchie’s on a pretty strict diet as far as keeping in shape for pageant stuff. this usually means a lot of salads, lean meat, veggies, that sort of thing — if she even bothers to eat at all, which is less likely to occur during pageant season. she has an undeniable sweet tooth, though, so she’ll always cave for a shake at marie’s.
SLEEP: these days, she doesn’t sleep as much. she usually tries to get a solid eight hours, but her sleep is so restless now that she’s lucky if she can grab a few hours at best.
EXERCISE: it probably borders on a little bit too much of the treadmill / stairclimber. right now she’s more busy with the murder club, which takes away from her usual regimen.
ACTIVITY: she’ll damn near kill herself practicing pageant stuff if she thinks it’ll make her mom happy.
CLEANLINESS: frenchie takes a lot of pride in her appearance, so she’s always been the type to shower regularly and keep herself clean & tidy. she has a whole regimen of soaps, scrubs, lotions, etc. that she follows religiously.
ODOR: her signature perfume is armani’s sí. if she’s not wearing that, she’ll still smell pleasant and vaguely girly, mostly like her shampoo.
MEDICINAL DRUGS: she got a prescription for xanax last year, but she never filled it.
NARCOTICS: she’s not averse to smoking some weed at a party, but nothing more than that (she tends to worry about her singing voice).
PARASITES: does jamie count as a parasite?
PERSONAL.
INTROVERT/EXTROVERT?: definitely an extrovert — she always likes being around people, and usually feels better / more energized when she’s out and about.
OPTIMIST/PESSIMIST: optimist. she has an unwavering belief that things will work out. this is probably a result of the fact that she’s white, pretty, and well off, so things do tend to work out for her.
SEXUALITY: frenchie’s still kind of figuring this out, but she’s bisexual. as far as people she’s dated in the past, they’ve usually been the type of person people expect her to be with — hot, popular, etc. as for what she actually wants for herself, she really just needs someone who’ll make her smile.
ROMANTIC: biromantic. again, has yet to realize that anyone other than cis dudes are really an option for her, but she’s got a big heart underneath all that hairspray, and she’s secretly a hopeless romantic.
MEMORY: she has a better memory than a lot of people give her credit for. she’s especially good with names/faces/dates/times, that sort of thing.
PLANNING: she has a planner. does she use it? no. she just wanted the lilly pulitzer print to tote around. this bitch just wanders into whatever she wants to do next — her whims are wild and often.
INTUITION: she generally trusts herself and her gut. whether or not this is a good thing is still up for debate.
GOALS: as of right now, her only clear goal is to win the miss teen normal 2019 pageant. other than that, she has a vague idea of the kind of life she wants to have, but pageantry has really shaped a lot of who she is.
INSECURITIES: she’s insecure about the fact that she kind of feels like a one trick pony. if she can’t do pageants, what can she do?
ACHIEVEMENTS: little miss normal 2012, young miss normal 2014, junior miss teen normal 2017... you get the gist.
ANXIETY: pageants lol. her mother. the idea of failing her mother. anything along those lines, honestly.
SELF-HELP: frenchie is very much of the ‘ignore the problem until it goes away’ mindset. this is not working for her at all right now, which distresses her greatly.
BAD HABITS: she smacks her gum, which drives her mother absolutely insane. otherwise, she tends to drill out her bad habits before they can form.
PHILOSOPHY: she was raised catholic, but frenchie has struggled with the whole believing part of religion for years. she still goes to services every sunday with her family, but her heart’s not in it. she wants to believe in something, but she has a hard time taking the church’s word for it. she’d probably fall best under agnostic for now.
THE PAST.
PARENTS/GUARDIANS: her relationship with her dad is amiable but distant; he’s always at work, so they never really bonded the way they should’ve. she’s tied up tight with her mom, but that relationship is absolutely riddled with anxiety and angst. she wants so desperately to have her mom’s approval that she has very few positive interactions with her.
WORST DAY OF THEIR LIFE: the day she lost her voice. not only was it incredibly embarrassing to stand on stage and watch everyone whisper about her, but she’s genuinely distressed by the idea that it has yet to come back. there’s no explanation, no reason — she can’t be stuck like this the rest of her life.
BEST DAY OF THEIR LIFE: when she won little miss normal, her mother took the whole family out for a huge dinner and let frenchie get whatever she wanted. it was one of the few times she can remember having everyone together without a single sharp word or argument.
RELATIONSHIPS.
FAMILY: the only family member she truly trusts to have her back is her twin brother, theo. she absolutely idolizes her mother, but frenchie knows that she would leave her kids in the dust if she thought they needed to learn a lesson.
FRIENDSHIPS: truthfully, she has almost no true friends. her best friend is, without a doubt, theo. frenchie’s the kind of person who’s surrounded by people, but feels absolutely alone — none of them really know her, or even care to try. though she might try to resist, the rest of the murder club is on their way to being her friend, too.
NEEDING A FRIEND: she generally deals with problems on her own (read: she does not deal with them and waits until it fizzles out), or she consults theo (read: she has him take care of it).
ANNOYANCES: cold shoulder, 100%. she’s a petty bitch and it’s very easy to do now that she legitimately cannot talk.
ROMANCE: frenchie is actually very unsure when it comes to any sort of romance. she wants it, but has no idea how to invite it in.
ADVERSARIES: people who say ‘lol’ out loud, the entire state of florida, people who chew really loudly, dentists, people who want to be dentists.
ENEMIES: people who are mean to animals, probably.
FUN STUFF: getting shakes at marie’s, going shopping, taking long drives.
BEST FRIEND: theo.
INTERACTIONS.
MINGLING: when she actually tries, she’s got a certain charm about her that makes it fairly easy for her to make people like her.
COMFORT LEVELS: as a rule, she doesn’t really have any issues talking to anyone, from strangers on up to close friends or family, so she’s pretty hard to faze in that sense.
GROUPS: she’s comfortable with both big and small groups. she likes having both in equal measure — big groups for a fun time, small groups for that good 1-on-1 dish.
OPENNESS: since she doesn’t really have any true, close friends, she has a harder time opening up about real stuff. if she’s having issues, theo’s the one who will hear about it, and she’s never seen need to tell anyone else whatever’s closest to her heart.
GENEROSITY: if the murder club was a sorority, frenchie would be everyone’s big. she’s still warming up to them a bit, but she’s very generous with milkshake orders, ghost hunting supplies — whatever. she doesn’t care. she has daddy’s amex on deck at all times.
JEALOUSY: she’s jealous of people who seem breezily confident in themselves. though she seems very content with herself, she wishes she actually had that kind of easy comfort in her own skin.
TEMPER: depends on the situation. certain people can get on her nerves more easily than others, but she’s not usually the type to have an outburst.
EMPATHY: these days, she’s working on being a little more empathetic, especially since the murder club has a few people that she used to be pretty vicious towards. she’ll still lash out sometimes, but she’s trying.
AFFECTION: little stuff — private smiles just for them, attempts to fill their needs before they even know they need it, generally trying to make sure that person is perfectly content.
DISTASTE: just look for that characteristic derisive sneer. she’s not likely to hide it if she doesn’t like you.
ETIQUETTE: etiquette is frenchie’s middle name. emily post who?
RESPONSIBILITY: she does not like to admit that she’s wrong. it leaves a very bitter taste in her mouth.
SELF ESTEEM: she’s not about to let anyone she sees as ‘lesser’ than her push her around. if you’re below her on the popularity food chain, she’s not gonna act like a little delicate flower.
CONFIDENCE: depends on the day, her mood, etc. sometimes she’s all ‘i’m the hottest bitch ever to walk this earth’, and sometimes she feels like shrek. high school is magical.
LEADER OR FOLLOWER: she tends to go with the flow more than anything.
PRAISE: she loves a good compliment! boost that ego.
CRITICISM: she takes genuine criticism VERY poorly. when confronted with her own flaws, she tends to lash out and try to dig twice as deep into her critic. the notable exception to this is her mother — she’ll take that criticism with little more than an apology and promise to do better.
INSULTS: insults are much easier to laugh off, for whatever reason. they feel more surface-level to her.
EMBARRASSMENT: not too easily embarrassed, but if she is, she’ll just turn red and not really know what to say.
FLIRTING: not usually unless she’s drunk or specifically interested in someone, but she does sometimes think it’s fun to bat her eyes and smile prettily at football players just to watch them trip over themselves.
ATTENTION SPAN: frenchie is a magpie. show her a pair of earrings and she’ll forget what she was saying entirely.
LIFE.
DUTY: no real responsibilities to speak of beyond being on time for practice.
TECH: she’s been through three phones in the past year. that should speak for itself.
COMBAT SKILLS: frenchie might not have bulk on her side, but she’s vicious enough to hold an attacker off for a minute or two. those perfectly manicured nails will go right for your eyes if you try to mess with her.
HOME: she’s very organized. her room is nice and neat and very pleasant to be in.
INDEPENDENCE: frenchie is absolutely dependent on her parents. she likes to pretend that she can do anything she wants on her own, but she’d be lost without them.
COOKING: she’s actually a pretty good cook. growing up, her nana made sure she knew all the good southern recipes passed down through their family so she ‘could take care of her husband properly someday’.
BUILDING: the idea of frenchie building anything is hysterical.
SHOPPING: she shops constantly. i’m sure she’s bought things online literally during murder club meetings, and has come home with bags on bags of stuff before.
DRIVING: she’s got a cute little baby blue VW bug, courtesy of daddy’s big bonus and presented to her on her sixteenth birthday.
FINANCES: virtually all her money comes from her parents, who are very comfortable financially. her dad is a very successful lawyer, so frenchie will usually end up getting some sort of ‘allowance’ from him each month. this is often flexible — if she really wants something, she’s pretty much guaranteed to get it.
PETS: she has a golden retriever named ollie.
LAW: no ma’am, no sir. unless you count underage drinking.
MEDICAL: she currently has doctor’s appointments out the wazoo to try and figure out what’s up with her voice. before that, she was pretty vigilant about going to the doctor/dentist. she takes care of herself!
WORRIES: these days, it’s her voice. day and night, she wonders — will she get it back? is she stuck like this? what will she do if it never comes back? it’s an endless cycle, and the answer is always the same: she doesn’t know.
PARTYING: frenchie actually loves to party. her mother supports it if she has ‘a nice young man to escort her’, AKA she’ll probably call up kaz and ask him to take her so she can go.
HOBBIES: y’all, we all know this bitch does pageants and nothing else.
When Frenchie lost her voice and joined the Murder Club, she and Kaz had been naturally drawn together. They were more used to being around each other than the others, having come from the same social circle. So there had been afternoons at Marie’s spent learning ASL, which always seemed a lot easier to him than writing lengthy essays or figuring out what was going on in his mother’s telenovelas.
So when she signed to him asking if he was okay, he understood. He shook his head. He set the hunting knife on his knee and held a hand up to sign back.
Tommy, he said, trying to act fast and remember the ASL alphabet at the same time. Bad. Five dead people.
She looked confused and from the sound of Tommy, he didn’t have a lot of time to convince her this was real. He grabbed the bloody knife, bringing it into her view.
Help.
He swung the phone around then, to show her where he was, then focused it back on himself.
Help.
At the sight of the knife, she audibly gasped, then clapped a hand over her mouth as if she could contain the sound once she’d already made it. A flash of guilt ran through her like fire, and she was suddenly, intensely grateful that any scream she could’ve made was robbed from her before it could ever leave her mouth.
It suddenly made a lot of sense as to why Kaz had called her.
“Forest? Near Tommy’s?” she signed, only vaguely recognizing where he was. Frenchie had already begun moving away from the party, but she wanted to make sure she was heading in the right direction. “I’m coming.”
She set off toward Tommy’s, her heart beating against her ribcage, one manicured hand grasping the pink pepper spray her mom had always told her to carry in her purse. She'd never thought she might be using it on Tommy, but she was sure as hell glad she had it now.
Holly was only half aware of what was going on around her. She’d reached the tipping point between just enough and one too many freezies. No doubt her tongue was a florescent shade of blue that would put a smurf’s skin to shame. But tonight she didn’t care. It felt nice to stumble through a crowd uncaring that she was bumping bodies with people she didn’t know, breathing in air that was sticky with….something undetermined.
At first, when she saw someone frantically waving, she thought the gestures were for someone else, until she recognized the bedazzled clip board in Frenchie’s hands. She looked up to see the man encroaching way too close, watching them with a drunken gaze.
“Fuck off, dude, she’s not interested,” Holly waved the guy off, taking Frenchie’s arm and helping lead her away. “You okay? He didn’t hurt you or anything right? Just invasion of personal space?”
She shot a grateful look at Holly-Eve, resting her hand delicately in the crook of the other girl’s arm as she led her away. “I’m okay,” she signed simply, then put her board to use once more. You ready to defend my honor? she wrote, an amused expression overtaking her features now that they’d moved away from her temporary tormentor. The club would probably make a terrifying tag-team on that dude. She paused, adding something. Except Edwina, maybe. She huffed out a laugh at her own projections, then turned a little more serious.
Kidding. He’s just your run-of-the-mill drunk asshole, she explained, shrugging it off lightly. And you’re taller than me. Better buffer. She offered her a smile to bolster the explanation, leaving it off on a lighthearted note. At that point, Frenchie was just grateful to get away, and she’d much rather get herself another drink. She pointed to Holly-Eve’s mouth, the colorful stain apparent even in the low light. Freezies?
Jamie didn’t expect to run into just about everyone in the club at the party but it was just his luck. The all-black ensemble did little to spare him recognition when his brother was a party monkey, jumping from one blonde to the next like their flaxen locks were a glowing welcoming sign, inviting him to come in. It struck him that maybe Frenchie had come to him for that very reason until her confusion had him both relieved and worried.
“It’s Jamie,” he said aloud for the umpteenth time that evening. He signed his name, the given one, with the prongs that also signaled ‘weird’ or the devil. Or whatever. He wasn’t about to assume that he knew what deaf culture was like, other than the fact that he knew that he didn’t have much of a choice on what people called him.
Jamie said something that got swallowed up in the noise before deciding to take her pen and board. I’m looking for clues, he wrote. How many freezies did you have?
She nodded enthusiastically at his signing, letting out a giggle — one that would not have been as forthcoming as it was if she were anywhere near sober — at the choice of sign he used to describe himself. It was pretty appropriate, honestly. And just the kind of confirmation she needed.
Watching someone else write on her board for once was a weird perspective. Frenchie tilted her head and squinted at it in the low light, stealing her pen back from him to scribble out a response of her own. clues about darleen? from drunk people? she prompted, somehow managing to appear intrigued and apprehensive all at once.
At his next question, she moved to hold up three fingers, then stopped, hesitating, a fourth finger uncertain as to whether it should join the group. After a moment of consideration, she shrugged, sticking with three. In reality, she’d had five. have u had any? they’re good!!! she added with a slightly sheepish smile, as if the extra exclamation points alone meant she could convince him to partake.
Kaz ran from that demonic version of Tommy faster than he’d ever run before. If the scouts could’ve seen him out there in that dark night, he would’ve been fielding offers from every major baseball team in the country. But it wasn’t enough. Tommy was fast too. Whatever was possessing him had given him strength he’d never normally had. The dude played water polo for fuck’s sake. Water polo was barely a sport!
He stumbled through the woods, whipping past branches and thorny shrubs that tore up his shins. When he found a particularly fat tree trunk, he slipped around to its other side to catch his breath.
He crouched, listening to Tommy’s voice taunting him. The fear was heightening his every sense, which he used to track how far away the other guy - monster? - was. He had a death grip on the hunting knife in one hand as he used the other to dig his phone from his pocket.
Who to call? Who to call? Jamie was the obvious choice, but what had happened to him after he was shoved in a closet with Edwina? Was he still locked there? Weren’t most of Kaz’s friends currently wasted at the warehouse? God forbid he call any of them and they shout drunkenly through the phone at him, attracting the attention of everything within a too-close radius.
He thought of the field, where pitchers and catchers could communicate silently so as not to alert the player at bat to their strategy. If only there was a way to do that in real life…
Oh fuck.
Frenchie.
Trying to keep his breathing quiet and under control, Kaz unlocked his phone with a swipe. His hand was shaky as he navigated the apps until he found Facetime and Frenchie’s name in his contacts. He muted his phone to block the ringing and any noise from the party, then called her. His own whispered pleas filled the silence as he waited.
“Please pick up, please pick up…”
@frvnchies·
In between the haze of freezies and cups of punch, Frenchie had made her rounds more than a few times. She’d weaved her way between the Murder Club and her typical friends, making regular laps from the bottom of the food chain to the top — but by now, she was starting to droop, poking idly at the paint that Raquel had smeared across her skin an eternity ago. She’d had enough of shoving her board at drunks in the dark, and the feeling of her phone vibrating in her pocket gave her a perfect excuse to wander away from the loudest parts of the warehouse.
“Kaz?” she signed once the call had connected, frowning at the screen and a little relieved that he had one of the shortest (and easiest) names to sign. It had been fairly simple to teach him, and she could only hope that he’d called her because he remembered some semblance of ASL. Honestly, she wouldn’t put it past him to forget the fact that she couldn’t exactly talk on the phone — but, then again, he’d had the forethought to use Facetime. Maybe all wasn’t lost.
Once she’d managed to pull herself from her own internal monologue, Frenchie’s freezie-soaked mind was able to recognize the fact that he looked scared. The very expression sent a chill down her spine.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
Straightening up instantly, a flurry of emotions flickered across Frenchie’s features: worry, confusion, and, well, fear. “Are you okay? Where are you?” she signed, as slowly and deliberately as she could manage, trying to keep it as basic as possible to make sure he would be able to understand. Though Kaz had taken to ASL lessons like a fish to water, there was no telling what he’d remember under duress. If he remembered anything.
Raquel had been at the party for a while, making her way to the warehouse where the party was taking place as soon as she had heard about it. She wasn’t going to turn down some free drinks. It was also easier to sell oregano and sugar pills to dumbass meatheads when they were already sloshed, before cracking out the real stuff. If they were dumb enough not to realize it when they bought it, why should Raquel feel guilty about it? It was easy money to feed some of her own habits. She had possibly already dipped into the stash and popped a pill of her own as she played with the paint before working on others, who could blame her? It was a party, and it only made the colors seem even more bright and beautiful to look at as she swirled the paint around.
She was just finishing up on someone when she caught Frenchie’s gaze from a few steps off. Raquel smiled brightly back at the girl when she saw her, gaze dropping down to her little, bedazzled writing board. She nodded when she read the message, wiping her hands carelessly on the person in front of her, ignoring their little outcry of ‘Hey!’ as she made her way over to the other girl. “Why Frenchie,” she said, smirking at the next thing the blonde wrote. “Are you flirting with me?” she asked. “I would have done it anyways, but if you’re going to be handing out favors,” she teased with a wink before picking up a paint brush again to start working on her. “Any requests, or do you want me to just go wild?” she asked.
A rather unladylike snort escaped her at Raquel’s nonchalance, but she found herself uncharacteristically pleased that the action was on her behalf. She was — horrifyingly enough — starting to consider the members of this little club to be some semblance of friends. She only supposed that it felt sort of nice to have the appearance of being treated the same way in return. Counting your lucky stars already? Frenchie scribbled back, raising one eyebrow at her new companion. Don’t get your hopes up. I’m told my attentions are fickle. She added an exaggerated pout for effect, as if it were all beyond her control.
At Raquel’s acquiescence to her request, Frenchie shrugged carelessly, glancing down at the white tank top she’d donned for the evening. It was simpler than many of her usual ensembles, but there was a purpose: she knew what this party entailed, and she didn’t intend to get her night started until she was glowing from head to toe. Leave it to the pageant queen to take pleasure in looking like a traffic cone. Paint me like one of your French girls, she wrote, modifying the iconic line and echoing Raquel’s grin as she did so. It’s in my name, after all. She gestured vaguely to the skin she had on display, mouthing the word WILD to clarify her point. Holding her arms out to the side, Frenchie raised her eyebrows expectantly, patiently waiting for Raquel to begin her newest masterpiece.
@screamqvccn — For once, Frenchie felt in her element. Recently, she’d been pulling away from her ‘traditional’ friends, placing orders at Marie’s for the likes of the Murder Club instead of the cheerleading squad. Even though she came from a higher section of the popularity bracket than most of the other members of the club (Kaz excluded), she’d felt almost like a fish out of water amongst them; but here, at this stupid party thrown by stupid Tommy, Frenchie felt more or less at ease. It was likely that this feeling was due to the fact that she’d been at parties like this a thousand times before.
Try as she might, she couldn’t avoid the club members forever. She’d found Edwina a little while ago, and like a mother hen gathering her chicks, Frenchie had taken her under her wing. There was no way she could leave the girl alone, not in the absolute clusterfuck that this party had quickly become — so she’d shuttled her along quite nicely, finally deciding that they needed to make a pit stop for more drinks. “Edwina,” she signed, patiently waiting until she had the other girl’s attention before balancing her board on one hand and scribbling out her query. Freezies or punch? she asked, the grave expression on her face implying that this decision was of the utmost importance — as if this were a new iteration of the trolley problem, and only one alcoholic beverage could be saved. But then, genius struck: OR, she scribbled, a lightbulb hovering in her eyes, you get one, I get the other, and we split them into two portions.
@violet-matthews — Violet had always been something of a mystery; it was possible, Frenchie supposed, that that fact was entirely on purpose. Though she could pinpoint most people at their school to one or two distinct groups, the blonde had never really pigeonholed herself the way other students seemed to do. The good news? It made her a good candidate for the club’s brewing pageant plan. Being versatile was always a positive skill to have on your side. Violet!!, she wrote sloppily, smiling widely with a freezie clutched precariously between her grinning teeth. As she made quick work of downing the rest of it, it became abundantly clear that she’d had a few already. Or more than a few. ur doing the pageant right???
She had obviously been excited by the idea when it’d been brought up in the first place; Frenchie had been itching to work her magic on nearly every member of their little club. The outlook wasn’t utterly hopeless — in fact, she was pleasantly surprised by what she had to work with. A manicure here, a lesson in proper posture there, and she could make any one of the girls into a passable pageant contestant. It might be on a wing and a prayer, but it still counted. The idea of roping Violet into becoming a contestant was even more appealing: she had such pretty hair, and even if she could still use a little polishing, she was certainly eloquent enough to answer any question thrown her way. Frenchie was dying to convince her of the endless benefits of pageantry.
@hollys-eve — Though she’d made her way through most of the Murder Club at one point or another, Frenchie had quickly become tired of the one constant throughout the evening: a belligerently drunk basketball player, swaying and altogether much too vocal about whatever boring shit his remaining brain cells could muster up. An icy glare could usually send even the most determined suitors running for the hills, but this one seemed blindly fixated on remaining by her side (or, rather, trailing five steps behind her). All she wanted was to gorge herself on freezies and irreparably stain her shirt with neon paint in peace. Even this, it seemed, was impossible.
Suddenly, a potential savior appeared: through the darkness, Frenchie caught glimpse of red hair. Thanking her lucky stars, she shoved her way toward none other than the fearless editor of the newspaper: Holly-Eve. Within milliseconds of getting her attention through a series of waves, Frenchie made her intentions clear. The writing was shaky and obviously written as she’d walked over; it almost appeared to run together into one long word by the time she flipped the board to face Holly. no amount of insults got this meathead to leave me alone lets ignore him and hope he goes away, the message read, punctuation and grammar thrown out the window in favor of pure efficiency. Frenchie raised one eyebrow at her chosen companion, willing her to accept the situation being thrust upon her with no warning.
@abby-rosenthal — Under any normal circumstances, clumsy was hardly the first word someone would use to describe Frenchie. Graceful, perhaps, as she glided across the pageant stage; stuck-up on a bad day, when her sneer was ever-present on her face. But there’s always a first for everything, so it seemed that today was Frenchie’s day to bear the brunt of being uncoordinated for once in her life. Desperately, she searched the crowd for any semblance of a familiar face — and as a direct answer to her prayers, none other than Abby Rosenthal herself emerged from the masses. If there was anything for certain in life, it was this: death, taxes, and the fact that Abby would inevitably have anything she could ever possibly need hidden somewhere in her ever-present backpack. As such, Frenchie made a beeline for the brunette, planting herself directly in Abby’s path to ensure there was no mistaking her intentions.
ABBY!!! I’M DYING, she scribbled in greeting, drama etched in every facet of her expression as she shoved her board toward the other girl. Tell me you have a band-aid, she added, looking for all the world like she truly believed that she needed fifty stitches. When she held up the offending injury, though, only a tiny bit of blood trickled down her finger from a thin little cut. Though the reveal was anticlimactic, there was no denying the fervor with which Frenchie was pleading her case. “Please,” she signed, the pout on her face rivaling that of an unruly toddler.
@devilsward — Everything at this party was so loud. Even if she could talk, it wasn’t as if anyone would be able to hear her; in a way, it was comforting. Here, everyone was in the same boat as her. Even so, she’d lost Theo about a half hour ago, and he was the only one around who’d sign with her. And so she’d been left to wander, freezies clutched in her hand until her gaze caught on pale hair and dark skin. Eyes lighting up in recognition, she followed a wobbly line toward her newest target, nearly tripping and falling over the wedges on her feet with every careless step. By the time she arrived, it was a miracle she hadn’t taken a tumble onto the sticky warehouse floor.
“Jamie — Johnnie? — Jamie,” she signed indecisively, squinting in the low light of the warehouse. She was a few drinks deep, which was not nearly enough to deal with this. A few drinks too deep, it seemed, to remember that Johnnie would have no idea what she was saying; at best, Jamie might recognize his own name somewhere amongst the mess. Taking a quick, sweeping glance of his posture and expression, Frenchie relaxed slightly when she made a calculation that it was Jamie and not his twin. This, of course, quickly devolved into confusion as she remembered where they were. A party hosted by Tommy Richter wasn’t exactly the first place she’d look for Jamie — it didn’t even rank on the top five. Brow furrowed, Frenchie fumbled with her board for a moment before pushing it toward his face. why are u here, it read, her neat handwriting a sloppier than usual. this isn’t really ur scene is it?
