castiel beaumont {district two} fin

He declared it a rule- finders keepers. There was nothing wrong with being a thief when he was just a boy. It was an innocent thing- a harmless hobby he picked up from a classmate. His intentions had never been dark-

but when his father saw him swipe a woven bracelet from his sister, he pulled him back by the collar of his shirt and struck his face with an open, rigid hand. It left a purple stain.

When his father spoke, it was like the growl of a wolf. "You are a Beaumont- practically a prince. Only street rats steal, Castiel. Are you a street rat?" His eyes were lowered to the ground, so his father grabbed him by the chin and yanked his head up the sky.

"No," he said. The words were soft- weak. (I'm your son I'm supposed to be your pride and joy I'm your heir I hate you.) There was no room for hearts like his in this house- this castle. If one were to let their fingers soak through his flesh clench their hand around it, his heart would feel the way clouds are imagined to feel. Soft, caressed by sun, but utterly fragile. Drive through it with your fist, and it will disperse and fade as if it was nothing but air.

His heart is not a heavy one to carry, and yet so few can bear to hold it. He once tried to paint himself hollow, to draw dark curtains over the truth and delve into secrecy, taking his heart and all of his gentle nature with him. But the truth demands to be seen and it will not tolerate fugitives- he was no exception. And so he learned to keep it under lock and key, to tangle it up in chains- but they always seem to unravel.

A heavy crown weighs down his head, forcing his neck into a bow. He was named the heir of the Beaumont kingdom and its legacy. He was named a golden boy, soft or not. His mother taught him to throw a punch and wield blades just as easily, but he was not brought up drenched in the glory of blood, taught to have eyes for only the Games. That was a path for the other Beaumont children. But he alone has always been the crown prince, from the moment he was born.

When he was a boy, his days and nights unraveled within his mother's art workshop, a small white house on the outskirts of the Beaumont grounds. He remembers the sculptures and paintings and jewelry and drawings cramming every nook and cranny. The rest of the vast space was filled with tables and art supplies. Paint would dry on his fingers, made into a multicolored wreck, from a hard day's work, and sometimes their bones would ache from gripping the brushes so tightly for hours upon hours.

He was raised to be an artist by his mother, but a businessman by his father. He was molded into a man with a sharp wit and silken words, but he could never seem to get the iron fist part down. His family placed the weight of the Beaumont family business on his shoulders. They turned him into Atlas and gave him their sky as a gift- but it is a curse. The say their sky is golden, but all he sees is black.

But he does not cry out at the weight, pressing down on his shoulders, for he knows if he denied the destiny they carved into stone just for him, the crown will be passed down to the next in line- Juliet, or her twin, or both, if they are feeling greedy. And he has always protected his sisters, always been their knight in shining armor.

The Beaumont legacy and business is a dark and dirty one. He had always known that for generations upon generations, riches were piled up into mountains, all from dark deeds. The foundation of their home is built upon a fragile web of lies. It is a delicate system.

They sell firearms and alcohol and drugs (and anything else illegal they can get their hands on) on the black market. It makes a fortune, being one of the largest black market businesses in District Two. It was all revealed to him when he was of age- and then it hit him, and he understood the harshness and the lessons and the pressure bearing down on his back. Their dark legacy would become his.

But he never wanted to be a royal, let alone a king.

He wears his father's scars fearlessly with feigned pride in his eyes. (But the shine is tainted by the shadow of resentment.) He bears all the same poisons, but he has grown tired of trying to tuck away the black that runs in his blood. His mother softens out the sharpness of his father's features in him, tones down the sharpness of his jaw and cheekbones. He inherited fair hair, but not the pale gold of his mother. It is his father's sandy waves of hair that leak from his scalp to the sides of his head.

Dark oceanic blue fills his irises like a great sea. They are even darker beneath the slight shadow cast by his brow bone and eyelashes, but if the light hits them just right, they are washed out pale. The pair of optics embedded into the hollows of his skull belong to his mother- they are blue as the sea, not green as the forest as his father's eyes are. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul- if one were to peer into their depths, they would see the softness inside. But it dances with a steely defiance, no doubt from his father.

He wears his father's scars fearlessly.

SAVE MY SOUL, SAVE MY SOUL
I FEEL IT IN MY BONES
IN MY VEINS, MY BLOOD IS RUNNING COLD
JUST LEAD ME ON