Coco {{ PK (FIN)

Coco {{ PK (FIN) Feb 6, 2016 10:15:13 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Feb 6, 2016 10:15:13 GMT -5

C O C O
G A T L I NG

P E A C E
K E E P E R

The heavens cried the day she was born.

Pitter patter of raindrops on the windowsill, Coco Gatling cried and screamed and wailed and kicked amidst the chocolate satin they had wrapped around her. Her mother's fingertips curled around her tiny digits, gently rocking the infant against her chest.

"Shhh-" Interrupted by the gunshot of her child's cries, her mother instead gave into the silence of her newborn's wails. Hospital beeps and screaming tossing children, her mother glances once towards the window, watching the rain shatter the glass, sprinting down the edges and out of sight. In the wake of the storm she feels her husband's hand rest on her back, rubbing a circular motion into her spine with his palm. Her blinks quicken, rapid fire as the rain instead chooses to occupy her eyes.

Deep down, he wanted a boy.

"She's beautiful." He murmurs.

Deep down, she did too.

She twists her gaze to meet his. Two years since he retired from his position as peacekeeper. Two years and she still sees stone in his irises, ammunition and triggers in the back of his mind. It never left him, she deems. It was written in his blood, after all, passed down from father to son for generations. His hand slips in between hers and for a moment, she nearly pulls away from the stone cold callouses that line his palms.

But she gives in. She has always given in.
After all, she had chosen to marry him, hadn't she?

"You're a big brother now, Avery." Her husband says, rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand, tracing the cracks in her skin, rubbing the whites out as a result from gripping the bed handle too hard. Her eyes move from man to boy, staring deep into the saucers that are his eyes. Eight. Eight years young and already he is being infused with the mind set of a peacekeeper, and the skills to match. It was a cycle, a dance, almost.

Except, she was the only one dancing.

Wake up. Bask in riches. Enjoy the Capitol lifestyle. Go home. Make dinner for her husband. Serve them accordingly. And when it all ended, her husband and son would escape to the basement, stone cold plates left on the table in expectation of female hands to clean them up.

Wash the dishes. Stare out the window. Wonder where it went wrong. Wonder what happened to dreams. Finish the dishes. Move to the stairs. Take a seat and listen to the training of a child peacekeeper.

"I'll love her forever." Her son whispers, taking his baby sister in his arms and coddling her, returning to his seat beneath the window and plopping down. Slowly, gently, her daughter's wails subside to the pitter patter of the rain, and it is in her brother's arms that she sleeps.

"Coco." She says softly, her voice almost a whisper compared to the screams of the rain. Her daughter is wrapped in chocolate, dipped in riches and spat out by luxury.

She would live the life of a dream, surrounded by wants, not needs. But it would not be her wants, that much her mother knows. Because amidst the screams and the wails and the kicks and the sobs she'd seen fire in her daughter's eyes, kindled by her spirit.

Fire was not meant for the women of the Gatling family.
She dreads the years in which that flame will be smothered.

"She's beautiful." Her husband repeats. But there are no tears in the corner of his stone eyes. It is not the same as when Avery was born.

"Yes, she is." She replies, lacing her fingers with him and squeezing just a little bit tighter. If she squeezed hard enough, she may find the fire that'd been lost so long ago deep down.

At least, that is what she tells herself.

"I love you." He says, pecking her on the cheek.
There is no hesitation. There is no stand.
"I love you too."

The rain cracks against the windowsill, applauding the dance she's mastered.

I do not remember the days of my childhood fondly, but I remember them vividly. Our house was built on honor and pride, gold embedded in its walls and masks sewn onto our faces. The Capitol, after all, is always one for appearances.

I'd wear my stitched up heart on my chest, smothering the flames that raged directly beneath it. At thirteen, Avery was already the embodiment of what dad wanted for a son. Tough, smart, cunning, calculating. I can remember, sitting across from Mother at the dinner table, picking at my food.

(by this point, Avery and my Father occupied the two seats at the ends of the table- my mother hadn't argued.)

Battle tactics and strategies, my father's teeth would scrape against his fork as he plucked the food into his mouth, before pointing the end of it at my brother. In between the gnawing of his food, he'd praise him.

"You're gonna make an incredible Peacekeeper, son. Trust me. I have an eye for these things."

His eyes never drifted to me, only rested on the halo above Avery's head. I was only five, at the time, so the brush of rebellion and angst had not painted my mind with its fiery strokes and style. So, i'd sit, pressing fork into and through my food, watching the mashed potatoes I had massacred press their way through the holes in my silverware. I'd glance up at my mother, every once in a while, in between the pluck of food from fork.

My mother's beauty was of a blank canvas, a rarity in the Capitol. It did not flash, it did not blind, it was not made of inks and dyes and prosthetics and riches. It was gentle, warm, the type of beauty that captivates, lulls you in softly, slowly. Her eyes would switch between my Father and Avery, gently pressing her fork into her food before raising it to her mouth. Silent, wordless, she would never speak more than what was asked of her at the dinner table.

Even in silence, her beauty would scream to me.

"Dear, could you get me some more chicken?"

My father pushes his plate towards her, fork still raised into the air and twirling like a baton. My poor mother hadn't had a hot meal in years, always busy tending to the needs of the unappreciated . She stared at his plate for a second, food and fork stopped directly before her mouth, steam rising from the metal silverware.

She placed it down on her plate, and takes my Father's without a word.

When she was in the midst of standing, her eyes met mine.
I melted, childish role-models and superheroes sewn into the fabric of her very being and she smiled at me, lips curling up and beauty melting into her features.

I remember thinking, "She's happy with how this is- with getting plates for everyone."

And I remember asking myself, in that fleeting moment,"Do I want to be like her?"

"The Academy is tough but you'll pass it no problem. Trust me, Avery-"

"Dad?"

My words were breathless, stolen from the heart of a woman who balanced her life with plates and riches, the finer things versus the fine china. My words were a question, five year old mind not understanding what it would be like to know that you didn't have the right to interrupt a conversation between two men.

For a moment, my Father was speechless, not realizing I had been listening, even though he was all I had to focus on.
(Certainly, my mother had no show to put on.)

His eyes darted from Avery to me, as if trying to decide which was more important to him. Finally, he placed his fork down and switched it for napkin, wiping his lips before speaking to me.

"Yes, Coco?"

Ignorance as a child always has a way of coming out in the most dangerous ways.

"Will I be a Peacekeeper, too? Like Avery?"

My father's shock crept onto his face, for a few moments.
And then, he chuckled. Gently, delicately he reached out and took my five year old hand.

"No, dear. Being a Peacekeeper is much too dangerous for you."

My head tilted.

"You're going to grow up to be just as beautiful as your Mother. And when you're old enough, you'll be married like her, too."

It all seemed so perfect, my Father's words wrapped in silver wrapping and presented on a platter fit for a Queen. Five years old and my ignorance held no defense to my Father's wishes.

"Oh...okay, Daddy."

When he let go of my hand, I glanced back at my Mother.
In between spoonfuls of mashed potatoes she was staring out the window, watching the rain start to fall against the windowsill.

With mashed potatoes laced underneath her fingernails, she had watched the rain splatter against the window in front of her.

"Oh...okay, Daddy."

It had come slowly, the rain on the window. Starting off as just echoes in the distance, too far gone to realize the dangers it held. And then, step by step fall by fall it had come all at once. Boom.

Thunder rings in the distance, echoing her Daughter's words. She had nearly flinched at them, metal voice scraping against her skin. Okay, her entire marriage had been defined by that word, had been poisoned by it, had been killed by it. Her eyes glance towards her daughter, watching as her Father runs a thumb across five year old knuckles, tracing the outlines of her innocence with his finger.

On the day her daughter had been born, she had nearly been consumed by the flames that reverberated in her heart. And now, glancing over to her daughter with dead ice orbs, she watches as the first flame is smothered- poof

Smoke billows up from the echoes in her mind and she watches her husband wrap calloused fingers around Coco's hopes and yank them from her mind. She hopes, prays under the alias of fresh washed bed sheets every night that her daughter will not grow up to be what her father desired.

It had come slowly. When she had married her husband she had been too blinded by the love propaganda that he had spewed at her to realize she was walking into a trap.

She had been fire herself, the fragments of the sun plucked from space and sewn together into her soul.

And then, she had drowned herself for him.

Boom. The lightning snaps her into reality to meet her husband's words.
"Dear, the chicken, please?"

Her fingernails curl, but she does not feel the fire in her palms that she had used to been able to conjure so easily.
"Coming, dear. Sorry."

The next day, her Husband and Son leave for training, and the day becomes filled with the emptiness of painted nails and tea. In her bedroom they sit, dancing with the shadows that paint her walls. Her hand is outstretched into the sunlight that is peaking between her shades, warmed by the fire of a sun that she had given up long ago.

The Gatling household was branded by luxury, but it was defined by emptiness. Unholy, unknown, the public just never could glimpse the shadows that danced between its walls, harbored by the regrets of a retired peacekeeper and a legacy that was too heavy to uphold. Coco dips brush into nail polish, too busy messily painting her mother's fingernails to drown in the shadows that clung to her.

"Coco." She murmurs, but her words are lost in the roar of the flame that is her daughter.

"Coco.." She repeats, catching her daughters hand mid brush stroke and stopping it. Brown eyes stare up at her, shattering the silence like the boom of thunder in the distance, like the cackling of flames as they burn.

"Yes, Mommy?"

Smoke billows from the windowsills of her daughter's eyelids, remnants of torn up dreams and flames that had been drowned against their will. She takes her daughter's hand in hers, ignoring the nail polish that smears against her chair (it is replaceable, all of it is replaceable)

Except Coco.

She caresses her daughter's fingers, tracing the white outlines of a flame that had burnt too bright to be smothered by her husband. And for the first time in years, she can swear she feels warmth spread beneath her obsidian skin, consuming her.

"I want you to know that you can be anything you want. You can be beautiful, you can be confident, you can be the flame-"

Her Daughter's head tilts and the smoke clears from her eyes.

"You can be whatever you want to be. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Her five year old's attention span snaps and she releases her hand. Within moments it is preoccupied by a doll-

Instead, she drops it and replaces it with one of her Brother's action figures.

"Okay, Mommy."

On my tenth birthday, the only gift I received was abandonment. It had gold laced into its wrapping, a bow threaded and wrapped and plopped on the top. An hour earlier, the four of us had sat around the dinner table, plates wiped clean by my mother and a Capitol cake placed in front of me.

Ten years of birthdays had taught me to expect little and receive too much. Everything was presented with cut strings, cyanide laced into the wrapping instead of heartfelt emotion.

I had learned at an age too young that my Father never wanted me.
And he'd spent the next eighteen years trying to convince himself he did.

I remember the tension pressing into my shoulders, images of a shattered shot glass engraved into my mind from the night prior. My father wanted dresses and designer, and I wanted to be who I was.

Tomboy, different, unique. Whatever it was called, it was not what my Father wanted. He didn't handle defiance well. When I was five, I had defined my Mother by her beauty, too ignorant and childish to see what she really was.

My father held her hand as Avery brought out my gift, tracing the whites of her cowardice underneath his calloused thumbs. She smiled at me, ice cold emotions locked behind doors that had been closed for far too long. My gaze dropped, letting her sink into the sea she had already drowned in too many times.

The month earlier, we had celebrated my brother's birthday, and it had been a hell of a lot more fucking festive. Eighteen, for his eighteenth birthday my brother had been given the life I was never meant to have, and a speech to go along with it.

"I'd like to propose a toast." My father had said, tapping his spoon against his glass one two three times, commanding the attention of the room around him. It had been needed, since the whole family and their families had been invited to the momentous occasion.

The kid's table had become my castle for the night, with all the other forgotten children of the households.

"Tonight, we celebrate a very important occasion- to me, to my family, to all of us."

Avery had smiled. I couldn't fault him for being happy with the life of a warrior's luxury.

"Son, we are so proud of the man you have become-"
The tears are what got me.
My father had never cried for anything before, the heavens had done his crying for him.

He wiped away tears with hands that were far too accustomed to harboring shadows instead of the sunlight.

"I never dreamt I would have a child- a son, like you."
My father's dreams had come true with Avery.
His nightmares had done the same, but with me.

"That is why, for your eighteenth birthday, I am giving you my blessing to become a Peacekeeper. I know you'll do great things, Avery."

With tears in his eyes Avery had opened his second gift, tugged on golden laced heartstrings. My father's old peacekeeper jacket, complete with badges and all. Brown eyes had watched them embrace, bond between Father and Son too strong to be broken by the abuse my Dad held on his shoulders.

I remember thinking, as I watched them hug with tears in their eyes, What will I get for my eighteenth birthday?

Avery dropped the gift in front of me, my face reflected in its silver wrapping, distorted and bent, a gold streak through it where the ribbon cut my face in two.

"Go ahead, Dear, open it."
My mother's voice was laced with fear of the unknown, and fear of the known.

When the ribbon fell to the table and the wrapping was ripped to shreds and the box cover slid off the top, I was met with the riches of my family.

In the Capitol, even abandonment is luxurious.

It was the biggest blue gem I'd ever seen, wrapped with silver charms and necklace around it. Simple, elegant, luxurious, it reeked of high class and power.

It was everything a Capitol girl would ever want in life.
I hated it.

"You don't even want to know how much it was, Coco."
My father chuckles, and my mother laughs with him.
I remember thinking she looked ugly with a fake smile.

"Go ahead, try it on, dear."

The gentle tone of my Father's voice was lost in the commands he issued. It'd been years since he'd left the Peacekeeper corps, but his personality still reeked with that of a Commander's whose pride was too big for the uniform he wore. I hesitated, grasping the necklace, lacing the chain between my fingertips. I remember it being cold like ice, in stark contrast to the flames I'd lived with all my life.

"I..."

"Avery, help her put it on, clasp it for her."

And for a split second, my brother hesitated too, sensing my uncomfortableness. In the end, though, the expectations of my Father too heavy to rest on his shoulders.

When it slapped against my chest, I felt my personality stumble and falter and smother and die.

"You look beautiful, Coco. Like a true woman..."

Just like he wanted.

"Doesn't she, Dear?"

At five years old my Mother had told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, and to not let anyone tell me otherwise. It had been the only stand she'd ever made, and it'd been behind closed doors, in the safety of the luxury she flaunted.

I remember begging her, pleading her with my eyes to stand up again, to tell my Father that it just didn't look right on me, to tell him that I didn't like it, to tell him to take it back.

For a second, I had thought I'd seen a flame in her eyes.
And then, I saw the ocean she had drowned in.

"Beautiful..." She had murmured.
On my tenth birthday, my Mother had died.

Hours later, when the smoke of blown out candles had choked me until I'd given into the darkness that was my Father's pride, I sat at my desk, blue necklace draped across my bedside table. My Father had told me to take good care of it, so that I could wear it to the Capitol balls and get a good man to go home to every night.

So, I had tossed it to the pile of unwanted shit that I would never use.

"Knock knock." A voice breaks the silence of my prison. Avery stands at my door, a white box in his hands.

He smiled, taking a few steps in before closing the door behind him. With a turn he plopped down on the bed, falling back against the covers with his legs hanging off. After a moment of realization, his hands reached for the blue necklace, gently grabbing the chain as it dangled off my bedside table. He laced it between fingers, before sitting up and holding it up to me.

"Should really take care of this, Coco. If Dad ever saw it thrown away like this-"

"I don't care what Dad thinks."
I gulp.

He arched an eyebrow at me, before shaking his head and chuckling, returning the necklace to it's place on my bedside table, if in a little neater position.

"You're not even a teenager yet, save that angst for the teen years Coco."
I hadn't even known what angst was.

"Anyways, I came to give you this. Figured they were more of your style than a fancy necklace."

No wrapping, no ribbon, no bow.
For once, love hadn't been shown with luxury and riches, just a white box.

My fingers curled around the edges of the box, gently lifting it up and off its bottom half. Inside, amongst white tissue paper was a pair of sunglasses. Black, circular lenses, they looked-

flashy, but not the flashy that had come from the weight of a gemstone on your chest. They were just my style.

"Aren't I just the best brother?" He said sarcastically, getting up to leave.

When he stood, I hugged him, wrapping arms around his waist and squeezing. His hands had fallen against my back, and for the first time in ten years I had realized that I was not the only flame in the Gatling household. Avery had a flame, too, but his was nurtured, tame, controlled.

Mine was wild, feral, dangerous. And maybe they had worked well together.

"No problem, Coco. Might not want to wear them around Dad, though."

When he gets to the door, he looks back over his shoulder. "I love you, Coco. Mom and Dad do too, they just...have a hard time showing it."

Her Daughter is fourteen, her son twenty-two the day Coco Gatling comes home from school with her hair cut short, orange and red streaks running through it- like fire

It was one of the rare weekends when her son had made it home from the Academy during his senior year.

"I'm so happy you made it home, Avery." She says, kindling the oven's flame. She glances at her son, obsidian skin rippling from the heat as she closes the oven door. At the kitchen table, she sees stone, ice block chiseled into a man. She sees everything she never wanted, she sees everything he ever wanted.

"Me too, Ma." He says between bites.

His performance had been praised at the Academy, her husband told her so nightly, underneath the covers they shared but never embraced. When the word Avery slipped from his mouth, she saw pride on his face.

She had forgotten what her Son had sounded like before his childhood innocence had been chiseled away by the training her husband insisted upon.

"Yes.. Coco should be home any minute now. Your Dad is home at six... We'll all have dinner together again, as a family."

She smiles to herself. As a family. Such a rarity.
But when she turns, Avery's knife has clanked against his plate and his jaw has hit the floor beneath him.

"Avery, what's wrong-"

The plate she's holding hits the floor, her jaw following suit.

There's a flame standing in her kitchen, hair on fire and brimstone sunglasses resting on her face. She stands with a hand on her hip, before tilting the sunglasses down at the both of them.

"What?" She says, as if nothing is wrong.

Her mother has already reached for the broom, whites of her knuckles showing as she grips it, hands shaking as she sweeps.

"Coco...your hair...it's-"

She's cut short.

"Yes, it is short, with streaks of orange mom. Great observation."

Her son stands, eyes drilling holes into his little sister.

"Coco, don't be rude to Mom."

Her daughter lays a hand on her chest in mock surprise.

"I'm the rude one? She didn't even tell me it looked good. Right mom?"

Her daughter turns her flaming fury on her mother.

"Does it look as good as that necklace I got for my tenth birthday?-"

Her son's voice cuts the tension and for just a split moment his Mother fears that her son has truly become her Husband, because everything he does his voice his gesture his expression it is all him.

"Enough!" He slams a fist down on the table and the whole world shatters. Her daughter rolls her eyes, crossing her arms before leaning back against the kitchen counter.

"So... Mr. Peacekeeper, did they teach you how to handle that "teen angst" as you called it in the Academy?" She arches an eyebrow and her brother shoots daggers at her.

Two flames collide and her Brother's stands victorious. His sister removes her sunglasses and sighs.

"We're going to get ready for dinner and have it ready for Dad when he comes home. We'll deal with what happens when it happens."

His sister lets out a laugh, opening her mouth to retort. Instead, her Brother's hand stops her.

"I'll put this in a language you understand, Coco. Shut the fuck up, and go fucking get ready for dinner."

She stares at him with fire in her eyes for a few moments, before rolling her eyes and going upstairs.

Their mother sits with her hands crossed at the kitchen table, hot meal placed in front of them. Her eyes glance from Son to Daughter, icon to rebel, before dropping back down to the table. Obsidian fingers are shaking, trembling against the hard wood.

Bang. The front door slams shut.

"I'm home." Her husband says, and Avery gets up to greet him before he can make it to the kitchen. Her daughter, on the other hand, sits motionless, hair draped down across her face.

She is beautiful in her rebellion.
But it does not last long.

"What the fuck did you do to your hair?" It took ten seconds for her husband to notice his Daughter's most scandalous act of rebellion. Avery stands behind his Father, head bowed down, biting his lip.

"You...Did you know about this?" He turns to her. Her blood rushes before freezing solid.

"N-no..I didn't know she was doing it, she just came home from school with it and-"

She's interrupted by her Husband digging his fingers into her Daughter's skull, pulling her out of her chair in one yank and dragging her towards to stairs.

"Agh!-" Her daughter reaches for her Father's hands, stumbling to readjust herself instead of being dragged all the way up the stairs. "Dad...let go..Dad no please- Dad!"

Her mother's hand covers her mouth as her Daughter is dragged away, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. This was it, this was the end of her daughter, this was the smothering of the flames.

"Wait!" Avery's words follow after them and he breaks from his shock to sprint up the stairs after them. Her Mother makes no such movements, she has never been the one to take a stand.

She sits at an empty table until the meal turns cold, listening to the screaming and eventual settling upstairs. Her Daughter does not come back down.

Four years later and I could still feel the ghost of my Father's anger dig into my skull, pulling hair from scalp and soul from body. That had been the first of many outbursts, and the last of the ones in which my father had laid hands on me. I remembered being dragged by my will up the stairs, my Mother frozen in cowardice at the table.

I remembered Avery bounding up the steps after us, barreling into my room just after my Father had tossed me against the bed in a tumbling heap.

He'd raised his fist at me.
And Avery had stepped in front of him.

"Dad, wait! Just wait."

My father's fist had remained in the air, but the perfect image of his son had fallen over the broken remains of an unwanted Daughter. "Please, Dad." Avery's hand wrapped around my Father's wrist, gently lowering it down. My hand had gone to my head, staring at the blood droplets that my Father's fingers had left in my scalp when he'd grabbed me.

In and out of reality, in and out of listening to the only person who'd ever protected me.

"It won't happen again, Dad. I promise. Right Coco?"
Avery looked back at me.

I rolled off the bed and sprinted to my room.

Four years later and my Eighteenth birthday was just as uneventful as my 10th. Avery hadn't been able to come home, too busy with Peacekeeper duties. No cake, no presents, no family.

My father sat with a bottle in his hands, tracing the white outlines of the labels on it. My Mother's hands had been clasped together, bony fingers locked tight. Her own fear had aged her ten years in the four it'd taken me to become a full fledged parental delinquent. She wore her cowardice like a mask, and every time my brown eyes looked up at her all I saw was the ugly remains of a Woman who'd been lost too long ago, too afraid to stand and face herself.

"Eighteen years....Ha!" My Father stood and walked from the table to the cabinet, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it for himself. "For Avery's eighteenth birthday we'd had the whole family here- now look at this-"

"I get it." My voice was steel, daggers piercing through my Father's words.

"Oh..oh you get it. Okay, Coco. Since you're so fucking all-knowing, why don't you tell me why we didn't invite the family for your eighteenth."

My hands gripped the edge of my seat, listening to his footsteps as he walked from counter to table, pulling out the chair beside me and sitting down.

"Go ahead, Coco, tell me."
He blows the smoke from his cigarette into my face.

My Mothers eyes were locked deep onto the table she sat at, hands trembling ever so slightly against the table. No help from her, I remember thinking.

My Father raised the cigarette to his mouth, taking another long drag as me eyes turned to him.

"I don't know what you think you're implying, but-"

His smoke cloud interrupted me, suffocating the room.

"I'm implying that you're a failure, Coco. Too caught up in whatever you call yourself to recognize that you will never, ever amount to anything like Avery-"

Like Avery. Like fucking Avery.
I snap, silently.

"Then let me make something of myself, Dad."

He nearly chokes on smoke filled laughter, slamming his palm against the table before leaning back in his chair. "And how do you suggest I do that?"

Calm, cool, partially collected. I had practiced it a million times in the mirror, and another million times in my head before this very conversation.

"Give me your blessing to become a Peacekeeper."
Silence. The worst part was watching his face go from amused to pure, raging hatred. And this time, Avery was not here to protect me.

He stands, and I braced my left cheek for the worst.

Instead, he laughed, taking another drag of his cigarette before walking to the counter and pouring himself a drink. He chuckled again, and again and again before full out laughter. I had sat motionless in my chair, frozen amongst the flames that oozed from my soul.

"You really are one dumb piece of shit, aren't you?"
I bite my lip.

"You wanna be just like Avery, don't you? You want fame and fortune, all without Daddy's money, huh?"
My knuckles turned white against the chair.

"Well, let me tell you something, Coco."
He walked three steps, placing his hands down on the back of my chair and leaning down to whisper in my ear.

"You won't make it more than a month in that school. Eat you up and spit you out, that's what they'll do. And then, when you're dead, you'll come crawling back to me and my money. You're nothing, Coco. You're-"

"So, is that your blessing or not?"
He laughs.

"No, that's me signing your death sentence."

I left the next day.

His sister was a wildfire, made of shattered obsidian and kindled flame. Three weeks after her Eighteenth birthday he had come back to the Capitol for a short week during the Games.

He'd returned home to a house whose shadows had finally engulfed it, drowning it under the sorrows they held. For the first time since he'd left home for the Academy his father hadn't greeted him at the door, too preoccupied with a bottle and his fury to recognize anything else.

"I'm so happy you're home, Avery..."

"Mom, what the hell happened to your eye?"

It hadn't taken long to find his sister once he left his home. Or rather, she'd found him, three knocks on the door of his apartment at the crack of dawn. She had stood with a devilish smirk on her face, hair tied back in a ponytail, orange streaks just noticeable in the morning sun.

"Sup, bud."

He had yanked her into his apartment and slammed the door with as much force as he could muster. "Sit." He had commanded, motioning her to a chair at the kitchen table.

She was calm, one hand on her hip and a smirk on her face. Maybe that's what had shocked him the most, that after weeks of being cut off from everything she had once known, she was doing just fine.

"Coco, what the fuck we're you thinking-"

Her sunglasses rested against the table, brown eyes glancing over at him. "Don't try that shit on me, Avery. You saw this coming."

His silence was complimented by the pouring of tea, two cups set down on the table in front of them. His sister's eyes glanced down at the tea, arching an eyebrow before resting back in her chair.

"What have you been doing for the past three weeks? Your source of income?"

She shrugged, running a hand through her hair. "Got a job at that fashion store down in the city. Pays well; I get a nice discount on the outfits too." She motioned to her designer shirt, then to her sunglasses.

He sighed, taking a sip of his tea before speaking again.

"Coco, this isn't just some spur of the moment thing. You can't just run away from Mom and Dad."

"I want to become a Peacekeeper."

The silence that was between them was deafening, strangling him with every second that passed. His mouth opened to retort, but this time it was her hand that stopped him.

"I don't want to hear it, Avery."

Another sip of his tea. Her's had gone cold by now.

"Well you're going to hear it, Coco. So shut up and listen."

It was mutual respect, two flames brought together. She rested one arm on her armchair, cradling her chin in her hand. Her brother leans back too, running a hand through his hair nervously. Rebellion ran in her veins, he worried it would be her downfall.

"How long have you wanted to be a Peacekeeper, Coco?"

Her smirk wiped off her face and the fire in her eyes died- if only for a moment. She leaned forward, resting her hands on the table before staring up at her brother.

"Since your eighteenth birthday, Avery."

Silence.

"Dad wouldn't give me his blessing. So i'm going to do it on my own."

Pain, fury, raw determination. His sister stared deep into his eyes, unmoving, uncaring.

Her brother sighed.

"Then you have my blessing."

The shock across her face was almost laughable. "What?" She asked, eyes dropping before looking at him again.

"If Dad will not give you his blessing, then I will."
Silence and tea cups, the morning counted down the hours until he left again.

I was more than prepared by the time my nineteenth birthday rolled around, flames let loose after years of smothered resistance. I torched the entrance exam, burnt the qualifications to the ground with every second of the mile test.

And yet, people still doubted that the fire was burning.

"This school ain't a place for you, darlin'. You're much too small."

5'2" and I never had a problem standing up to boys who had more than a head on me and no brains inside of them to show it.

"Sweetie, the only small thing here is what's in your pants."

I was a fire and my words were venom, laced with cyanide and eighteen years worth of abandonment. In my first year of the Peacekeeper Academy i'd made more than a few enemies and more than a few allies, those who respected my brash and explosive personality and those who didn't have the right mind to realize that they should too.

Thaddeus Lockwood was one of the latter. Salt in his veins and dead ice in his soul, i'd humiliated him more than enough times in his fourth year of the Academy.

I'm flaunting designer clothes and wielding a handbag worth more than his entire life in my hands the day I broke Thaddeus Lockwood.

"Coco." There's people milling around her but i'd have recognized the voice of broken pride anywhere.

"Hmm?" I tilted my sunglasses down and turned to look at who was calling me. A grin danced across my face, eyes rolling quickly before I spoke again.

"Thaddeus, darling. Come to apologize?"

His fury was ugly, the way it danced across his face, the same way my Mother's fear was.

"I want you to shut the fuck up about me at the Academy."

My eyebrow arched and my grip tightened on the handle of my bag, a small chuckle escaping from my lips.

"Honey, if you can't handle the truth-"

I'm cut short by his fingers curling into fists and as he raised one up into the air I remember images of my Father's fingers digging into my scalp, of my body slamming against the stair as he dragged me, of his fist in the air. Of Avery stepping in.

He wasn't there for me, when Thaddeus Lockwood raised his fist.

Instead, my handbag bitch slaps the boy into the next dimension of whatever fucked up reality he was in.

And then, black and gold boot (designer- none the less) found it's place in his crotch.

He dropped to his knees and for the first time i'm taller than him in both attitude and height.

He was just as ugly with pain on his face as he was with anger. I leaned down, readjusting my grip on my handbag and fixing my sunglasses on my face.

"Drink bleach, Thaddeus."

I brought the bag down onto his head, before stepping over him and continuing on my way.

The outburst earned us both thirty extra laps on the track.

"This type of behavior will not be tolerated by either of you. From this point on you are on probation. Watch it."

Our commander's eyes burned holes in both of us.

"Both of you."

I left the Academy that day feeling somewhere between regretful and destructive, unfolding my sunglasses and fixing them on my face as I entered into the afternoon sun.

There'd been people around me when i'd beaten Thaddeus, so there had been no hope of trying to weasel my way out of it. Not that Ihad wanted to, anyways.

I'd wanted to confirm my position as someone who couldn't be fucked with.

She'd succeeded.

The same day I broke Thaddeus Lockwood was the same day I met my first step towards Capitol infamy.

"Coco Gatling...I love your hair."

Capricious King had always been seen as a myth by me, always in the magazines but just out of reach of the paparazzi.

I'd tilted my sunglasses down, feigning ignorance.

"And you are?"

Capricious King smiled at me.

"Sweetie... You know who I am."

It was the beginning of a pure Capitolite friendship.

Avery's hand covers his face, mirroring the disappointment that runs through his veins.

"You beat a fellow Peacekeeper in training with a handbag."

"Yes, but you don't-"

"And also told him to drink bleach."

A smile forms on my lips, leaning against the armchair as the waitress makes her way to our table. She smiles as Avery glances up at her, positioning her pen on her notepad.

"Tea." Avery says simply.

The waitress scribbles it down before turning to me. "Tea for you too as well, Ma'am?"

I grin. "Coffee."

When she leaves, Avery turns to face me, biting his lip before running his hand through his hair. I speak before he can, confidence laced within my voice.

"Listen, Avery. He tried to fuck with me, so I took him down a peg-"

His fist slams into the table and my voice is cut short.

"God dammit Coco! That isn't how you deal with things. You can't just beat someone senseless every time they disagree with you. When Dad hears about this-"

"Oh fuck you Avery."

He realizes the trigger he's pulled.

"Dad hasn't talked to me for two fucking years and you're going to try to threaten me with him?"

I take a sip of my coffee, before slamming the cup down on the table, liquid splashing up onto my fingers.

I grab a napkin and wipe my hands, before leaning forwards.

"Y'know, after all these years of being a big tough Peacekeeper, I would have thought you'd grow some balls."

My words pierce the air, but fighting fire with fire only leads to both people getting burnt.

Avery sighs, before taking a napkin himself and clicking a pen from his pocket.

"This is the name and contact details of a guy I used to work with. When you're done with the Academy I want you to give him a call. Your talents could be used where he is."

There's a coffee stain on the napkin when he gives it to me, and I shove it deep into my handbag. Avery rises, brushing himself off before sighing again.

He looks up at me, smiling a little bit.

"You've done well, Coco. Just don't ruin it."

The sun burns like fire as he walks past me, patting me on the head.

"I love you."

Three years later and the only thing that's grown about me is my attitude and my skill.

Top of my class, top of the bitch list.

There's a phone in my hands and a fresh pair of sunglasses on my face.

It rings three times before the person on the other end picks up.

"Joey Pell? This is Coco Gatling. I believe you've met my brother before.."

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