all my problems are handmade >> tat&cat

t a t t o n    l e   r o u x   .

Cathy drops a popcorn chicken into my hand and I scoop it into my mouth without a second's hesitation. Mmm, nuggets, and it's still warm! 

"Thanks! I'm starving," I say before taking a deep slurp out of my iced mocha. I sip until I feel a headache forming, and honestly I sip a little more after that. The barista man put his whole baristussy into this, let me just say. Gemcut Malls has it alls, really, whatever you need this is the place to go! I'm curious to know why she's here, or with what money she's buying anything with. Eurydice is a stingy woman, and the stingy apple doesn't fall too far from the stingy tree. 

I'm talking about Cathy there, me on the otherhand? That bad apple grew legs and got the hell out, word on the street is Cat's trying to do the same again. "Did you drop this?" She asks, and I feign a surprise as I look to the cup of nugs in my hand. "Well by gosh, I think I did!" My hands are full now between the chicken and the coffee so something's gotta get devoured, I take another fat sip of my coffee as some guy shoves past me and Cathy to get to the escalator. Um, excuse me? Family bonding moment here, what the fuck! 

Yada, yada, proper this, proper this. I roll my eyes at it - how about you properly get off these nuts? "Oh, Cathy," I say as patronizingly as possible, "Cathy, Cathy, Cathy," younger by seven minutes and none the wiser. How have I let her get this far in life like this? She's just so uptight, I don't know how we're siblings nevertheless twins. Guess she's doing it right though, considering she's the favorite.

"Sometimes you just have to ask yourself: who's watching!" Who cares! 

Have a little fun, forget about doing things the right way. I grow a grin that says just watch before hoistering my coffee under my arm, popping the lid off my chicken and stuffing another in my mouth before dumping the few remaining bits over the edge. It's a mall and we're teens, the whole point is that this is our stomping grounds, y'know? 

"Proper that! Oh shit-" the smile runs off my face as soon as I realize who that just landed on. "Shit, back up," I say, ushering her from the glass railing out of sight, "I totally just dumped that on a mall cop, I gotta go!" Disrupting the peace is like, my whole thing, dude. I grab Cathy by the hand, pulling her in front of me before pushing her, and by extension myself, into the closest store front to hide in. 

Ooo, lingerie. Come through, Opal's Secret. 

t a t t o n    l e   r o u x   .

"I think they saw us come in here - what is your plan now?"

"Uhh," oh sweet Cathy, "I don't know," this is the part where you let the universe have its way with you, you know? Things tend to just work out for me when I get myself in these situations, mostly because I know how to get out of them without getting caught. Kinda hard with 145lbs of dead weight in the shape of my sister hanging around me, but in her defense I did literally drag her into this. I just take us deeper and deeper into the store, passing by mannequin babes until I feel the heat of the store attendant's glare leave my neck. 

Phew, if anyone asks, we've been in here the whole time. Easy, I think? I hold my thumbs in the strap of my backpack as I eye up the merchandise: panties, thongs and everything in between. They've got some cute ones out today, I keep checking over my shoulder to make sure trouble's not coming our way. Lord knows Cathy has never done this before. She gives me a half ass thanks, but you know what? 

I'll take it, "you're welcome, Cat!" 

I say it with a beaming grin - she probably wants to kill me right now. And what is she in such a hurry for anyways? "What, don't have time to run from the cops with your own sister?" She has half a thought to wonder where Dante went off to; probably back to the food court, that's what I would've done. I take another sip of my iced mocha latte, obnoxiously loud on purpose as I suck up the bottom contents of the cup. 

"What happened to loyalty?! I swear," and I stuff a peach colored shaping panty into my bra as I tell her so. Shhh, she better snitch or I swear to god. I give a staged huff before turning on my heels away from her and head through the perfume section, the last place any sensible person would go. If anything'll deter a mall pig, it's this.

"Need anything?" I offer, "heard there's a pretty good discount going on." Five fingers, baby.

t a t t o n    l e   r o u x   .

When little Cathy Cat calls me obnoxious, all I can do is beam with pride - that's the reaction I wanted. 

Thanks for playing along, sis. It's all empty now so I just tuck it behind a pile of thongs and try to forget about it. Littering is for ugly people but I don't see any trash cans, so what's a bitch to do, y'know? All things considering, Cathy is a pretty tough nut to crack, and I'm... pretty easy. I fall apart quick and I have a bad temper, but not her, the worst I can say about her is that she's a judgmental little snitch. She doesn't yell though, she doesn't kick and scream and throw tantrums quite like I do, so I have to get her some props where they're due. 

"All the money our family has, and you really have to do that?"

"Yeah, it's like, the principle," I say, adjusting myself to feel a bit more nonchalant. Steal from big businesses, Opal's Secret isn't even a District 1 brand, it's from the Capitol. That's how they trick ya, all the tags say made in 8 so there's nothing about this place that says my money's going to hard working people of my district. Plus, I don't want gramps to know I'm out here buying lingerie with his money. That's just embarrassing, the less he knows the better.

I eye up a bottle of fleur de bouquet as Cathy complains - you know, I don't know what that means but it smells like flowers. I spritz myself on both wrists and then an extra puff just for my dearest twin, spraying her at the chest before putting it back on the counter. The travel office? That's why she's here, "so you're trying to leave again?" Typical, for all the loyalty in the world us Le Rouxes have been pretty awful at sticking together recently. 

Whatever, I don't know why I'm so bitter. It must be desperate though, because she's asking for my help and that's something I rarely ever hear from Cathy. Sure, I got her into this mess, but it still feels good to be needed for once. She's got these puppy dog eyes she's never grown out of and I just roll mine in response, "fine, I guess I can help," I say with fake hesitation. 

It would be nice of me, I guess. 

"Stay here," I command before squeezing my way out of the department store and checking if the coast is clear. Sure enough, that pig is on our floor, two stores down talking to some lady with teal hair. It's time to get creative here; the travel office is right across the gap in the second floor, a dark and dingy closet of a room with a flickering light. Government funded, I'm sure, I make my way back to Cathy pondering how to do this. 

Okay, let's figure this out. I start digging in my bag looking for anything to disguise Cathy or myself or both. "We're gonna have to sneak past him. No problem for us," well, for me, I pull Cathy's hood up to her hairline and giving her a thumbs up. I check my six and nine (lol 69) before placing my bag on the table, quickly swapping my crop top for a collared tee I have. A Freezie work shirt from over the summer, I keep forgetting to throw it away already. Then I slip on a beanie and some shades. 

"Inconspicuous as fuck, am I right?" Plus they both smell like roses, that should help. 

t a t t o n    l e   r o u x   .

"This is not going to work, Tatton," my dearest twin says, negative as always.

Not with that attitude it won't, pigs can smell fear from a mile away. Or maybe that's truffles. "Sure it will!" I say, speaking out my positive manifestations. It works like a charm, speak it out into the universe and it will be, you know? We walk a little bit, some old lady bumping into me with her ugly kid but I bite my tongue trying to keep my disguise up. I'm not Tat, in this moment I'm, uh... Pat. Sure. And Pat has balls of steel and the patience to match. 

So anyways, this is the part where everything goes to shit. I swear my sister just has this aura about her that makes it impossible to get away with anything, the staunch "you!" being met with a practical yelp from Cat. I look over and she's been snatched, bitch, hoodie down and long blonde hair freeing itself in the air conditioned wind. "Hey, hands to yourself, bro!" I shout back, standing up for her the best I can.

But it's that damn mall cop again, of course.

I thought the coast was clear! Sorry sister, usually I'm much better at this. But also, usually my entourage is too. She pleas desperately, tossing out a red herring that lands three feet ahead of her. He doesn't even look over his shoulder, instead scanning Cathy and then myself after. "What's with the shades, boy?"

"Uh, I ain't no boy," I say, scowl on my face. This is why we don't fuck with cops, they're always assuming people are up to no good for no good reason. I might be disrupting the peace, shoplifting lingerie and disguising myself in public, but I'm an upstanding citizen otherwise, damnit. It's obvious the jig is up though, especially with my sister blubbering on the verge of tears, so I guess it's time for me to step up.

Sigh, and do the right thing, I guess. 

I take off the shades first and the beanie after, my own hair a mess as I let it down. "Look, it was an honest mistake, I got jump scared by the terrible prices here and dropped my chicken right off the edge. Swear by it," I lie like my mother taught me. The hard way, of course, lying to her and testing if I can get away with it - very rarely I could, but I could! "And she didn't do anything," she never does, good little Cathy Le Roux, "so let her go, yeah?" 

I don't know who I am bossing around a cop, but it's kind of fun. He looks me over with his hands on his hips before calling something over the radio, a 456 or something, "what's that mean?" 

"Means you're coming with me, both of ya." 

A fat grimace takes place on my face as I look to Cathy, well shit.

t a t t o n    l e   r o u x   .

So, this may or may not be all my fault. I genuinely feel bad that I dragged Cathy into this, she's probably seconds away from pissing herself and the pig in white doesn't seem interested in going easy on us. It's a little embarrassing, how I fucked this up so hard. Whoops, you live and you learn, right? Haha- how much jurisdiction actually have though? He's just a mall cop at that, are they even like, real cops? Be for real.

Cathy takes over and that is what actually makes me nervous. What does she know about handling this? She questions him about what will happen to us, and my bet's that we're gonna get two jacked up mugshots and get banned from the mall. Which sucks, don't get me wrong, but I'm not gonna panic until I'm in handcuffs somehow. But get this: she fucking bribes him, bro! I look at Cathy just like what the hell are you doing?! Even I don't have the balls to do that, pulling the Eurydice card both ways - paying off the enemy and flexing political status at that. 

In a way, I'm really, really proud. I can't lie, I never expected it from her.

She looks to the cop, and then me, and then the cop looks at me. "Now, my sister is sincerely sorry for the accident, right?" She says, taking control of the situation entirely in a way I never expected. I swallow my doubts and spit up a "yup! So, so sorry," as the mall cop counts through the bills. Easily a hundred bucks for some spilt chicken, hell, I'd take it too. "Are you really trying to pay off a cop?" He says, stuffing the cash in his pocket regardless as he puffs out his chest. 

"Nooo, no way, consider it like a tip. For your great job at keeping the mall clean," his big old head did a great job at catching all that popcorn chicken. Credit where credit is due, he looks us both over before resigning. "You two stay out of trouble," he says, before pushing past me. For a second I just let myself be stunned before turning to Cathy, "you are batshit for that. I'm so impressed," she might just be my sister after all. 

I nudge her with my elbow with a laugh before starting towards her destination. I honestly don't know much about getting a travel permit besides where the pop up station is, "I'll pay you back by the way, it's only fair." And I'm not one to break a promise, I won't even use gramps's money, I'll use my honest to god green goods. We're staring down the travel station now and I let Cathy take the lead, she seems to know what she's doing more than I gave her credit.