đJust call me Artemis or Artieâ°Draco Malfoy'sâ°Potterheadâ°Gryffindorâ° ENTPâ°Romione hardstanâ°young Snow's First Ladyâ°reading fanfic could just be my job rnđ
Obviously, it's not my real name. But you can call me Artemis or Artie.
I love a lot of things. But my main interest are Harry Potter (and everything inside that world), Henry Danger, Heathers, Gladiator, The Hunger Games, and rom-coms (I just started this one). Safe to say I'm a movie enthusiast. Current obsession; Coriolanus Snow (yes I'm so late)
I listen to everything that I found catchy. But mostly Arctic Monkeys and Olivia Rodrigo.
I love reading, but still around my country's literature.
I hate some ships (especially fanon) so if I show hate to your favourite ship, I'm sorry because I couldn't help it.
Guess who's back after nearly a month disappearing!!! Okay so I was focusing on my college entry test and tommorow is the test (so so so nervous pls I'm gonna combust) wish me luck!!!
SOOO TOMORROW THE RESULT OF MY COLLEGE APPLICATION WILL COME PUT AND I'M SO NERVOUS BECAUSE EVERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE THEIE HOPES ON ME AND I REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT THAT COLLEGE!! Wish me luck guys
SOOO TOMORROW THE RESULT OF MY COLLEGE APPLICATION WILL COME PUT AND I'M SO NERVOUS BECAUSE EVERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE THEIE HOPES ON ME AND I REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT THAT COLLEGE!! Wish me luck guys
SOOO TOMORROW THE RESULT OF MY COLLEGE APPLICATION WILL COME PUT AND I'M SO NERVOUS BECAUSE EVERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE THEIE HOPES ON ME AND I REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT THAT COLLEGE!! Wish me luck guys
No. No she doesn't. A character who explicitly appears in the narrative cannot haunt the narrative.
The character who *actually* haunts The Hunger Games's narrative is Crassus Xanthos Snow.
He stole the idea for the games from Highbottom and presented it to Gaul. He is the creator of The Hunger Games: an event that occurs over 75 consecutive years and takes thousands of lives. (A likely reason why Gaul is so drawn to Snow and thus grooms him to be her little pet).
He is a contributing factor in Snow's character development, from the Grandma'am's pressure to Tigris's final remarks. ("Snow Lands On Top" is not a saying that Coriolanus came up with on his own).
Finally, it is his fucking handkerchief that 1) saves Lucy Gray from the snakes and 2) condemns Snow to District 12 which kills both Sejanus and Lucy Gray.
â important! please reblog if you enjoyed this. i have been shadowbanned meaning it's going to be super hard for anyone to see this, and it's super discouraging to write all this just for tumblr to not let anyone see :(
m/f âą President!Coriolanus Snow âą therapist!reader âą power imbalance âą slow burn (kinda) âą Capitol politics âą reluctant vulnerability âą touch-starved men âą ethical gray areas âą reader is emotionally intelligent âą emotional repression âą intimacy as control âą emotional intimacy âą soft x guarded dynamic âą smoking âą fantasizing âą descriptions of sex âą insomnia âą paranoia âą post-canon âą romantic tension âą sexual tension âą unethical relationship lol.
likes and reblogs appreciated â»
previous â next incoming!
read below đ
"In what world is silk a rare earth mineral?"
"It's rare. And, it's a natural resource. It comes from worms," deadpans Coriolanus.
âIt's still not a mineral," she huffs. "And you rerouted half the textile sector into natural resources so you could give your friends tax cuts for their dresses.â
He hums lazily in response, the sound vibrating against her shoulder. âNot friends, allies. Thereâs a difference.â
She shifts, propping herself up on one elbow so she can look down at him properly. His hand smooths down her back and settles on her ribs. Sheâs curled across his stomach, her legs stretched over his lap while his own are bent underneath her to fit on the tiny office couch. His jacket is tossed somewhere on her desk, her heels lie long discarded on the floor.
âDo you hear yourself?â she asks. âYou sound like a villain in a very boring historical drama.â
A corner of his mouth curves. âCareful. That implies tax cuts aren't interesting.â
âIt implies youâre ridiculous,â she corrects, poking his chest lightly. âEntire districts are restructuring because you decided you wanted cheaper fabric.â
His eyes are half-lidded with desire as his thumb traces idle patterns against her side, brushing softly over the swell of her chest underneath her shirt. âThe Capitol wants more silk. I'm ensuring that. Itâs a very simple equation.â
She tips her head back to look at him. âOne day Iâm going to undo every silly policy youâve ever put into place.â
His gaze drifts over her face, slow, amused at her words but with intent brimming underneath. âYouâre welcome to try.â His other hand reaches up to card through her hair, holding her cheek as he leans up to kiss her temple, then her cheek, the corner of her mouth and then finally her lips again.
Her eyes flutter shut, the soft brush of his mouth radiating like sunlight through her skin. She hates that the warmth of him steals her momentum. Defeated, she sighs and drops back down onto his chest, where his arms curl up immediately around her.
âYouâll use the profit to buy yourself another absurd coat,â she says weakly, cheek squished into his sternum.
âMm,â he murmurs. âOr a dress for you.â
She snorts. âAbsolutely not.â
âBut you look so beautiful in silk.â
âStop talking.â
He grins, obliging herâ by flipping her underneath him, her knees coming up to curl around his waist as he kisses the little squeal of surprise off her lips again.
Her notebook is burning a hole through her cupboard wood, where it lays abandoned. She hadn't even bothered taking it out today.
Lately, it just ends up flung somewhere across the floor, nestled in her plush white carpet, next to a small, burnt patch of faux fur.
Coriolanus Snow
Six Weeks Ago | Vesca Centre for Restorative Care
It had been another session where her office was bursting at the seams with the nervous, jittery air that now seemed to perpetually occupy any room Coriolanus and her were in. Not that they had ever occupied a room together besides this one.
And, he reminded himself, they never would.
The only room they would ever share was a therapist's office. The only relationship they would share was therapist and patient. The only reason he had not yet lit a cigarette from the box sitting like a deadweight in his coat pocket was because he still could not bear to see disappointment in her eyes.
What had he become?
President Coriolanus Snow. He had resolved to take a wife the last year of this term, to help his next campaign. One who he would never love⊠but one who he could stand. He'd learned that lesson when he'd tried to court Livia Cardew (his first choice, they detested each other, but she loved his newfound power) and had almost gone mad by the third month of their relationship. He had known he would never love, not since Lucy Gray had left him, voice hoarse and with an empty rifle in the Appalachian woods.
So what exactly was this pathetic fixation with her?
Lust. Yes, yes, he'd told himself that plenty. But it was clear enough to him, now, that she affected him more than just physically.
Unfortunate. He could not afford attachment. He also could not afford to be dishonest with himself.
She was in the middle of asking him about his sleep. Monotone, routine. But his lungs still went empty when he heard her voice.
"And how many hours?" she said softly. "Rough estimate's okay."
"MaybeâŠ5."
"âŠPer night?" she asked hopefully, the grim number giving her pause.
He smiled slightly, a rueful thing. "Weekly, as always."
She let out a breath through her lips. Not disappointed, but disconcerted.
She had never seemed troubled by his answers before, even when his answer was thirty minutes, maybe, or not at all. Just a clinical, nonjudgmental sort of concern. And now? Why the change?
He dared, for a second, to wonder if it was because she cared. Then wondered if it was because she was losing hope in him, now.
"That's not great," she said, voice careful.
"I know," he explained, feeling as if he were a child again, desperately rationalizing a crayon-drawn map of Panem to his father's discerning gaze. "It's been an eventful week for the country. Not much more."
She nodded, tugging on her necklace pendant. He'd noticed her do that more often.
"Alright, well. I suppose we canâŠmove onto something else. Perhaps today your relationships?"
He felt his guard snap into place immediately. "My relationships," he repeated.
"âŠYes. They're a vital, central part of any life, and anyone's mental state, and we've rarely touched on thatâ"
"Because I've told you I do not have the luxury of a social life."
"Butâ you have had relationships," she insisted, voice soft.
His jaw clenched, a muscle feathering there. "Women?"
She let out an exhale. "âŠYes. I mean, not justâŠromantic, but alsoâ"
"Sexual. Not romantic."
Her eyes flickered up to his. "âŠStrictly?"
"Yes," he lied, tongue tasting like ash.
Reader
She had been fighting with herself for the past half hour over how to approach transference. Every time she thought of asking him of his previous girlfriends, she felt vaguely nauseous. But that was the easiest way. Bring up old girlfriends. Identify patterns. Discuss how he might be projecting them ontoâŠother relationships.
Once she finally won that battle and broached the topic, she found herself fighting with him to be able to actually continue doing so.
"Sexual. Not romantic," he said coolly.
Her gaze flicked up to his, stomach twisting. Her mind flashed to two sessions ago, the heady taste of his lips. Did that statement hold true then, too?
"âŠStrictly?" she asked, voice hesitant.
"Yes."
Oh.
"AllâŠyour relationships with women? Have you never had a committed partner?"
He sighed, irritably tugging on his tie. Grey today, she noticed, throat tightening. It suited him. "Why is this relevant?"
"It's part of your life," she offered weakly.
"Something I don't have is something that's not in my life."
"The lack is also part of your lifâ"
"Do we have to do this?" he snapped.
She blinked, mouth closing. He shut his eyes at the sight, exhaling through his nose.
"We don't have to," she murmured. "I just thought it might be a productive area for discussion."
He kept his eyes fixed on the floor when he spoke. "I don't want to talk about the women I've been with. Not whenânot when it's you."
Her breath caught in her throat. That was the problem, wasn't it?
That she was still his therapist when he felt there were things he couldn't bring up to me. Because of something that had happened between us. Something that was still begging to keep happening.
"Why is that, if you feel comfortable sharing?" she asked, because that was what she was supposed to ask.
"You know why."
She met his eyes, then. The muscles around them were tense, as if he were staring down the sun, emphasizing the prominent little plane on his left cheekbone that you could only see ever so often. Like it was hard to look at her.
He jerkily glanced at his coat pocket (he hadn't even taken it off all session) fumbling for something with a hand that was slightly shaking. "I'm going to light a cigarette," he gritted out, trying to turn on the lighter. "Go ahead and lecture me, but I justâ fuckâ"
It tumbled to the ground, the small, silver thing burying itself somewhere in the tufts of the furry carpet that sat between them.
"Oh, let meâ" she dropped to her knees, ankles propped up on her heels as she went to search for it.
He reached down at the same time. "You do not need toâ"
"Oh!"
She yelped as she saw a flame arise, the fibers of the carpet ample kindling for a small blaze to begin forming almost immediately.
Immediately, she felt a strong arm knock into her ribs and push her back against the sofa.
"Shit," he snarled, throwing his coat down on the carpet and giving it a nudge. To her surprise, the flame fizzled out almost immediately.
"How did that work?" she breathed.
"My clothes are all fireproofed," he said. "And bulletproofed, of course. Safety and all,"
"Oh." She was still kneeling by the couch.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah."
He offered her a hand, etiquette as imperishable as ever. She took it tentatively.
His hand lingered on hers, thumb absentmindedly brushing over her palm.
It was the tie's fault. Grey suited him too well.
She could not explain why, nor could she count a single thought in her head when she tugged on his hand, then his tie, until his knees buckled and she caught his lips with hers.
He groaned into the kiss immediately, hand coming to lace through the hair at the back of her head. Thenâ he pulled away, breath erratic.
"I will stop. I promised. I would notâ youâ"
Oh. The way she'd made him promise, last month, that this couldn't happen again. The hurt look in his eyes when he said youâve decided I made you uncomfortable. He was probably wondering whether she'd cry again. Whether he'd have to regret it, for her sake.
She shook her head, breathless. "No," her hands tightened on the silk of his tie, and she pulled him down closer to her, to the floor. With his strength, his size compared to hers, his knees must truly have been weak to bend so easily to her will. "Don't stop. Please,"
His hands came up to cup her face, bringing her to his lips like a flask of water in a desert.
She sighed, a desperate sound coaxed out by his tongue seeking entrance to her lips, which acquiesced happily. She leaned into him, and he let her, until his back was flat on the burnt carpet with her stretching over him, hands trailing over his shirt. His warm palm came to cover hers, guiding it across his abdomen.
Buzz! Buzz!
Both their heads whipped up.
"Doc?" came her secretary's voice through the buzzer.
"Uh, yes?" she breathed, scrabbling to sit up, forgetting that it was square on his knees. He craned his upper body up, too, hand coming to rest on her waist in a way that was so natural, so dizzyingly casual that she almost descended down on him again.
"Your 9:30's here. It's three minutes past your last session? I haven't let her in order to protect your current client's privacyâ"
She swore silently, scrubbing a hand down her face. "Yes, I'm so sorry. The session just took a little longer. We're wrapping up now, thank you,"
"Of course, ma'am." The buzzer shut.
"I have a client," she murmured.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Well," he murmured, brushing a strand of hair off her forehead. "You'd best get to that, then."
"Coriolanus, I'mâŠsorry."
His gaze hardened. He sat up, helping her down from his chest to the floor, even as his posture stiffened. "You are?"
"Yes, but notâlike that. I mean, as in I don'tâŠregret it! I mean, Iâ Maybe I should." She sighed, blinking rapidly. "I justâŠI don't want to hurt you. I'm afraid I did."
He leaned down to her ear, pausing before brushing the slowest kiss there, gentle yet firm. Intentional in a way that had her toes curling, thighs tightening and rising just to be that much closer to his body. "The only thing that hurts is the fact you have a client right now."
"Oh," her voice was soft, stupidly high.
He drew back with a slow smirk, rising with her as he put on his coat, moving to the door. "And I think my wrist might hurt, too, tonight. After what you've done to me."
He shut the door on her before she could respond.
She had the feeling her hands might suffer similar exertion tonight, as well.
Four Weeks Ago
âHow soundproof are these walls?â he murmured against her skin. No answer. He nuzzled a few velvety little kisses underneath her ear, tongue darting out. She shivered. He had known she would. âMm, Doctor?â
âUmââ she whispered, voice shuddery and even more syrupy than usual. âFully.â
He grinned against her neck.
She had sworn to herself that this would not happen again, but of course, it had. Every time.
As he kissed down the column of her throat, gently massaging circles on the soft peak of her chest through her sweater, she shyly slid her hand down to his belt, feeling the evidence of his desire pressed against her thigh.
"Mm, wait," he breathed, kissing her cheek. She drew back with wide, soft eyes. He pulled her hand away, kissing the palm, the tips of the fingers.
Her brows furrowed. "I thought you wantedâŠ"
He smiled. "I do. Trust me."
"ThenâŠwhy?"
"Not like this," he sighed, placing the gentlest kiss to her temple. "Not here. If IâŠhave you, I'd want it to be properly. You deserve more,"
Her heart felt like it was being squeezed.
"Oh," she breathed.
He smiled. "Oh? You always say that. Are you upset?"
"No," she shook her head. "Of course not."
"We mightâŠhave to cool down a little, though."
"Oh," she flushed. "Yeah. Of course."
At first, every time it happened, it felt catastrophic. Breathless. Reckless. Like something that would surely explode the room apart.
But then it becomes routine.
The door clicks shut. He doesnât sit in the armchair. He walks straight past it and drops onto the couch.
She stays behind her desk for a full five seconds.
They talk. They always talk first.
About sleep. About unrest in District Eight. About why silk imports are down and whoâs sabotaging what. He speaks lazily, but his eyes sharpen when he explains strategy. He tells her more than he tells anyone. Names. Numbers.
She shouldnât let him.
She tells herself she is keeping him regulated. That he leaves calmer. That he is less cruel when he leaves her office steady instead of wound tight.
She knows thatâs self-serving.
She also knows she waits for the moment he pulls her into his lap.
Thatâs the part she canât defend. But when his mouth is on hers, it cannot do anything but stay silent. And then her head is silent, too. Devoid of caution, or guilt, or anything but how much she wants him.
Today
He huffs. âPerhaps I should revoke those cuts. Arlo Selkis loves his silks, and I spent four hours arguing with his committee about infrastructure funding like weâre choosing wallpaper.â
She smiles faintly. âWhatâs the argument?â
âThey want to redirect funds to Capitol beautification.â He rubs his eyes. âFountains. Public sculptures. Something symbolic and patriotic.â
âAnd you said no?â
âI said not right now.â
Her eyebrow lifts. âWow. Growth.â
He gives her a look. âDonât start.â
âIâm not starting,â she says innocently. âThat sounded almost⊠responsible.â
He shifts onto his side, propping his head on his hand to look at her properly. âYou assume Iâm irresponsible.â
âYou assume youâre not.â
He studies her, amused but faintly wary. âYouâd have me redistribute everything evenly tomorrow if you could.â
âI would,â she says without hesitation.
He clicks his tongue. âYouâd bankrupt the Capitol in a month.â
âYou bankrupted the districts in a week. In the first week of your term, if I recallââ
His mouth twitches despite himself. âCareful.â
âOr what?â she challenges, leaning back on her palms. The first time he'd said something like that, she'd snapped on the defensive. But nowâŠnow he felt safe. Dangerously safe. Safe enough to express opinions you could hardly tell your mother in Panem, let alone its President. âYouâll put me on a list?â
He goes still for half a second.
Then, quietly, âYouâd be the only name Iâd take off.â
"You canât mean that.â
âI mean,â he says, eyes steady on hers, âthat youâre the only person who disagrees with me to my face and still gets to sit this close.â
"Because the rest sit in jail?"
A smile tugged at his lip. "I suppose so."
âWell,â she mutters, âmaybe your advisors should try being less awful.â
âMy advisors donât tell me Iâm morally bankrupt.â
âYou are morally bankrupt.â
He laughs under his breath, reaches out, and nudges her calf. âAnd yet youâre here.â
"You always say that."
He exhales slowly, the sharpness draining from him.
"What?" she questioned at his groan.
âJust, today was exhausting. Everyone wants something. Money, favors. No one just talks.â
She softens despite herself. âWe're talking.â
âI know," he murmured, gaze admiring. "You donât want anything from me.â
Thatâs not entirely true anymore, is it? She wantsâŠhim.
Instead she says, âI wantâŠyou to sleep more than five hours a week.â
He smirks faintly. âThere it is.â
âIâm serious.â
âI know.â His thumb hooks absentmindedly in the hem of her sleeve. âYou always are.â
Silence settles for a second.
Then she flops back against the cushions with a dramatic sigh. âMy mother called again.â
He sighs immediately. âWhat did she say this time?â
âThat Iâm âwasting my potentialâ working at the Centre instead of consulting privately.â
âIt would be more profitable,â he says lightly.
She glares at him. âWhose side are you on?â
âYours,â he says without hesitation. âAlways yours. I just enjoy provoking you.â
âShe said Iâm too soft,â she mutters. âThat I let people walk all over me. Just because I don't want to be an entrepreneur.â
His expression changes at that.
âSoft,â he repeats, quieter.
âMm.â
He rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. âYouâre not soft.â
âNo?â
âNo. Youâre stubborn to a fault. You argue with me about national policy like youâre not talking to the most powerful man in the country.â
âYou hate that.â
âI love that.â
She turns her head toward him.
âYou donât treat me like Iâm something above you.â
âYouâre not above me.â
His eyes flick sideways. âSee.â
"Besides," she shifted on his chest. "I'm literally on top of you."
He reaches out and pulls her gently by the wrist until she tips sideways against him, and her shoulder lands against his chest. His arm slides automatically around her back.
She stiffens for a moment.
She should move.
She doesnât.
He speaks softer now, almost into her hair. âMaybe I should have my secretary schedule us some more sessions. Twice a week?â
âYou canât,â she says.
âI know.â
Her hand rests against his shirt. She can feel his heartbeat. Steady. Controlled.
âThis is so unethical,â she murmurs suddenly.
âMm.â
She shifts, trying to sit up, and his arm tightens just enough to keep her there.
âCoriolanus.â
âWhat?â
âYou make it very hard to be good at my job.â
He smiles faintly against her temple. âYouâre very good at your job.â
âI am actively failing at it,â she points out as he places a kiss there.
âYouâre letting me talk about my day. That seems productive.â
âIâm not supposed to let you hold me while you do it.â
He lets out an amused huff at that. Not mocking, but not really considering it properly either. âWhy?â
She scoffs, not unkindly. "Because I can't be your therapist and beâŠwhatever this is. To you. How could you possiblyâ" she sighed. "It crosses boundaries.â
âAnd if I donât want boundaries?â
She closes her eyes. âYou need them.â
âDo you?â
She pulls back just enough to look at him. âYes.â
They stare at each other for a moment. She drops her gaze first, but his follows her head as she shifts around on the couch uncomfortably.
He sits up too, a bit ruffled. "You're upset with me."
"No, I'm not."
"You are," he presses, voice calm as he straightens out his cuff.
"I'm not. I'm disappointedâ"
"So triteâ"
"At myself," she finished. "I could get fired for this. I should get fired for this."
"I can pull some strings," he says nonchalantly.
She shakes her head. "You shouldn't have to."
His phone buzzes slightly. He'd started putting an alarm, so that he'd remember to actually leave before her next client came. "Shit."
She sighs, too, despite herself. "Um, where's your blazer?"
"The desk," he says gently. He didn't forget. Anything, really. Ever.
"Right," she stands, straightening her blouse as she crosses over to hand it to him.
"Thanks," he murmurs, shrugging it on, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth to wipe her lipstick off before some tabloid pictures him with gloss smeared on his lips and plasters it across Panem.
He leans down to kiss her anyway. "I'll see you next week."
The first time he'd done that before leaving, she'd laughed and asked him if he was about to go off to war.
It works to diffuse the tension a little.
"Remember to put on your heels before your client comes in," he whispers against her cheek.
"Oh," she glances back at them. She would have forgotten. "I will."
"Bye," he murmurs, with an amused smile.
"Bye."
a/n: sorry it ends kinda abruptly but i wanted to stop starving u all :)
in which the president gets a late-night drunk call from an ex-situationship.
young!president!coriolanus snow x ex-situationship!reader
warnings: intoxication, mild angst, hints at slightly toxic relationship but not rlly?, smoking, attempts at initiating intimacy while drunk, situationships
Coriolanus was awake. He was always awake. He'd been at his desk for the past two hours pretending to read a trade proposal from District Six, which amounted to the same stack of paper shuffled from one side of the desk to the other while he smoked and stared at the middle distance and tried, with middling success, not to think about her.
He was getting better at it. He thought. Some days.
A buzzing caught his attention. He saw his phone, vibrating on the edge of his desk.
With a sigh, he picked it up. Probably Tigris or Grandma'am.
But no. It was her.
His chest did something he refused to name. His thumb hovered.
She never called. Not sinceâ not since it all went wrong. He'd half-convinced himself she'd deleted his number. He'd considered deleting hers. More than once. Hadn't.
He picked up on the third ring. "Hello."
"Coriolanus." Her voice was warm and slightly blurred at the edges. Loud music somewhere behind her, the clink of glasses, the ambient roar of a crowded room. "Hi."
Oh.
She was drunk.
"Hello," he said again, because he was apparently capable of nothing else.
"Iâ" A giggle, soft and helpless. He had never heard her giggle before, not like this, at least. It did something catastrophic to him. "I'm out. With my friends. It'sâ we went to Marchetti's. You know Marchetti's?"
"I do not frequent Marchetti's, no."
"It's on the Corso," she whined, as if trying to convince him he did in fact frequent the club. "The one with theâ the hanging lights, all gold, it's very pretty. You'd hate it."
"Probably."
"I had four drinks," she announced. "Maybe five."
"That's very forthcoming of you."
"I'm a forthcoming person." She enunciated the word as if he'd made it up. A pause. The music swelled behind her and then muffled, like she'd moved into a quieter corner. Her voice got softer. "Corio-laaaanus."
"Still here."
"Can you come get me?"
He was quiet for a second. Just one. "Is something wrong?"
She gave a dramatic sigh. "No, not really. My friends are all with guys, and⊠well the guys are annoying, and the drinks are expensiveâŠ" She cut herself off with a little hiccup.
He was already closing the trade proposal, already reaching for his keys â not his driver, he decided without fully examining why. Not tonight. He grabbed his coat off the chair.
"Stay where you are," he said.
"Okay," She sounded relieved in a way that he could tell she was smiling. "Thank you."
He hung up before she could say anything else.
Marchetti's was exactly as advertised.
Gold hanging lights, yes. A crowd of well-dressed Capitol C-listers and twenty-somethings brushing up on each other as some artsy DJ mixed songs he'd never heard but sounded vaguely synthlike. Something with too much bass. Not somewhere he could ever go. Not elite, not tightly exclusive enough to avoid paparazzi, stares, whispers. At least it was less suffocating, in that way.
The coat check girl recognized him immediately and had the grace to look terrified.
He found her at the bar.
She was laughing at something one of her friends had said, head tipped back, one hand loose around a mostly-empty glass, her dress a short thing with a low back, the color of deep water. She hadn't seen him yet. He watched her laugh for two seconds longer than was defensible and then crossed the room.
She turned, some instinct, and her faceâ
There it was. That thing. That specific, involuntary opening of her expression, like something released.
"Coriolanus," she said, too brightly.
He stepped close, quick, dipped his head toward hers. "Keep your voice down," he murmured, low near her ear. "I'm not exactly dressed for an anonymous Tuesday night at Marchetti's."
She blinked. Then looked him up and down â the coat, the cufflinks, the general unavoidable fact of him â and pressed her lips together against a smile. "Right," she whispered. Conspiratorial. Delighted. "Sorry. Hi."
"Hi." He straightened. "Ready?"
Her friends were watching with enormous interest. He was aware of the whispers even if he couldn't make out the words. He didn't need to. He'd been in enough rooms to know the specific frequency of wait, is thatâ
"âis that actuallyâ"
"âyesâ"
"âbut she said a friend was picking her upâ"
"âshe voted against him in the generalâ"
One of them, a girl with silver-dusted cheekbones, was very clearly trying not to visibly react to the President of Panem appearing at their bar to collect her friend. He appreciated the effort."She called the right person," she smiled.
"Apparently," he said, which made her laugh.
He helped her off the barstool. She came off it sideways, heels not entirely cooperating, and his hand went to her waist automatically â steadying, nothing more, just making sure she didn't pitch forward onto the marble floor of Marchetti's, which would be unfortunate for everyone. She grabbed his lapel with her free hand and looked up at him and smiled, slow and warm.
"You came inside," she said.
"I wasn't going to have you standing on the street."
"You saidâ"
"I said don't wait outside," he reminded her as he guided her forward gently, hand still at her waist.
"Oh, yeah," she giggled.
"Say goodbye to your friends," he murmured, gently turning her to face them as she clung to the arm he had politely at her waist.
She faced them, beaming as she waved. Her friends waved with the barely-contained energy of women who would be dissecting this the moment the door closed behind them. He kept his expression politely neutral and his hand on her back and got her out the door.
The night air hit them and she inhaled deeply, tipping her face up for a second, and then turned to him and tucked her arm through his without asking, her hand curling around his forearm. He let her. She came up to his shoulder and she leaned into him slightly as they walked, compensating for the heels on the uneven stone, and he adjusted his pace accordingly and said nothing about it.
"Cold," she declared.
"Yes, it is. I told you to take my coat."
"You're warm though."
He said nothing. She pressed fractionally closer.
The car was a block down. She managed it, mostly â one near-stumble off a raised curb that his hand at her arm caught before she noticed it herself, and one pause where she stopped to look at a floral arrangement in a closed shop window with an expression of profound interest that had him waiting with what he privately considered extraordinary patience.
"Come on," he said eventually.
"They're beautifulâ"
"They're carnations."
"Well yes," she said, as if this proved her point entirely. "I love flowers," she sighed dreamily.
He watched her. Allowed her to watch the flowers as he watched her.
He eventually got her to the car, and opened the passenger door. She looked at him and then at the seat and made a small deliberate effort to get in gracefully, which he tactfully pretended to observe nothing about. When she reached for the seatbelt and the buckle evaded her twice, he leaned across, took it from her hands, and clicked it into place himself. His face was approximately six inches from hers in the process.
She looked well. That was the problem. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the cold and the drinks, her lipstick mostly faded, a few strands of hair falling across her forehead. She looked soft. Happy-drunk, not sloppy. Which was its own kind of torture.
"Tell me your address."
She gave him the address in pieces, losing it twice before getting the cross street right.
He pulled out into the road.
Twelve seconds of silence.
"Where are we going?" she said.
He exhaled through his nose, which was the closest he'd come to laughing in weeks. "Your apartment."
"Oh." A beat. "Right. Yeah."
He drove carefully. He didn't usually â on his own, the car was the one place no one was watching and the roads in the Capitol at 2AM were empty and long, and he drove the way he did most things when no one could see: without restraint. But with her buckled in beside him he kept both hands on the wheel and the speed reasonable and took the turns smooth, none of the sharp decisive cuts he usually took through the Corso.
She didn't seem to notice, her cheek dropping against the headrest as she watched the Capitol lights smear by through the window. Gold and neon. He'd driven this route a thousand times and never looked at it. She was looking at it like it was beautiful.
"Coriolanus?
"Yes?"
"What if I don't want to go to my apartment?"
He hesitated. "Then you can tell me that."
She turned her head on the headrest to look at him. He could feel it. Kept his gaze forward.
"I want to go to yours," she said.
He said nothing.
"Coriolanus."
"I heard you."
"Thenâ"
"No."
She was quiet. He felt her shift in the seat, resettling, and he made the mistake of glancing over. She was looking at him with those eyes â wide and soft and slightly glassy from the drinks â and the expression on her face was not the face of someone asking a casual question. It was the face of someone asking something they'd been not-asking for a long time.
He looked back at the road.
"You've wanted to for months," she said. "I know you have. And Iâ" she stopped. "I want to. I really want to, Coriolanus."
"I know," he said. Evenly. With great effort.
"So whyâ"
"Because you're drunk."
"I'm not that drunkâ"
"You are." The light changed. He drove. "And we're not doing this."
"We were doing it fine forâ"
"That was different."
"How?"
He pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek. "Because now you're drunk and I'm stone cold sober and the answer is no."
She was quiet for a moment. Thinking, he could feel it. Then:
"Come on," she said, and her voice had dropped into something lower, something deliberate, and he felt her hand settle on his forearm where it rested on the gear shift. Light. Warm. "Don't you want to?"
"Take your hand off my arm."
She didn't. She traced one finger along the inside of his wrist instead, barely anything, and he was suddenly aware of every individual nerve ending in his left arm.
"Please," she murmured. "It's not complicated, you justâ"
"I said no." Firm. Final. He kept his voice even. "And if you do that again I'll pull over."
She withdrew her hand. Sat back.
He turned onto the Corso, the familiar stretch of it, the lights of the mansions bleeding gold across the road. "Go to sleep."
"I don't want to go to sleep, I wantâ"
"I know what you want."
She went quiet at that. Something in his tone, probably. He hadn't meant it to come out like that â too tight, too much in it. He pressed his teeth together.
"Are you angry at me?" she said quietly.
Shit. "No."
"You soundâ"
"I'm not angry." He glanced at her. She was watching him with something gone uncertain in her face, the confidence of a moment ago folded back, and she looked suddenly younger, softer. A little worried. "I promise."
"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." She pulled at the hem of her dress absently. "I justâ I thought maybeâ I mean you're soâ" she stopped, and laughed at herself a little, embarrassed. "God. Sorry. I know this is weird. It's weird, right? We're so weird right now. We're in a weird place and I justâ I saw you and Iâ" she pressed a hand briefly over her eyes. "You're just very big and gorgeous and I've wanted to for so long and I'm sorry, I shouldn't haveâ I don't want you to be uncomfortable, I'm being meanâ"
His voice came out gentler than he intended. "Stop apologizing."
"I justâ"
"I'm not uncomfortable," he said. "I'm not angry. I'm notâ " he paused, choosing. "I just don't want you to wake up uncertain about it. Something you have to piece back together the next morning and decide whether you regret."
Silence.
"I wouldn't regret it," she said, quieter now.
"Maybe not. But I wouldn't know that, would I?" He turned onto her street. "And I'd like to know."
He could feel her looking at him again. He didn't look back.
"Okay," she acquiesced softly.
When he looked at her she was smiling at something outside the window again.
He finally parked on the street outside her building, and came around to her side before she'd fully negotiated with the door handle. She took his hand getting out and then didn't quite let go of it, which he allowed.
She made it across the pavement fine. It was the stairs that presented the problem.
There were only six of them, leading up to the building entrance, but somewhere between the third and fourth her heel caught the lip of the step and she lurched forward with a small sound of surprise and he caught her from behind without thinking â arms around her, her back against his chest, her weight light and sudden in his hands.
"Oh," she said.
"Mm," he said.
She turned in his arms to look up at him, their faces close in the lamplight, and for a moment neither of them moved. He was very aware of his hands at her waist. She was very aware of everything, by the look on her face.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"Can you walk?"
"Probably."
"Probably," he repeated. He looked at the remaining stairs. Then he bent slightly, tucked one arm behind her knees, and lifted her. If she had any protests, she didn't voice them, letting her head drop to the crook of his neck.
He carried her up the remaining stairs without particular effort and set her down at the top with complete composure, as if this were something he did regularly. "Key."
She stared at him for a second, puzzled.
"To your apartment," he said again.
"Right." She opened her bag. Found it on the third attempt.
Her apartment was dark and warm, the particular specific warmth of a lived-in place. Something came barreling out of the dark with a scrabble of claws on the floor. Fig launched himself from somewhere with absolutely no sense of occasion, skittering on the floorboards in his frantic bid to reach her. She caught him, laughing breathlessly, burying her face briefly in his curls. The dog then transferred his attention to Coriolanus with equal enthusiasm, apparently harboring no grudge about the months of absence. Then the animal transferred itself entirely to him, paws on his knee, looking up with an expression of immediate and unconditional faith.
Coriolanus looked down at him.
The dog looked up at him.
He crouched and allowed it.
He crouched, because apparently that was happening, and let it sniff his hand and then his face when it decided to go further than invited. Its paws on his shoulders were slightly damp. It smelled like biscuits.
"He likes you," she noted, from where she was tugging off her shoes.
"He likes everyone."
"He really doesn't, actually." She stood, slightly wobbly, and padded toward her bedroom. "Fig hated my last boyfriend. Barked every time he came over."
"Good instincts."
She laughed from the other room.
He found a glass in the kitchen, filled it with water, found another and left both on her nightstand. She was sitting on the edge of her bed looking approximately forty percent asleep, her coat already discarded somewhere in the hallway. He picked it up on his way in and hung it over the chair in the corner.
"Here." He handed her the water.
She drank, obedient, looking up at him over the rim of the glass with those sleepy, soft eyes. The room was dim. One small lamp. She lookedâ he didn't finish the thought.
"Thank you," she mumbled sleepily, suddenly leaning into his chest and wrapping her arms around him loosely.
He hesitated, but cupped the back of her head and rested a gentle hand on her shoulderblades, just for a second. Her embrace brought in the cold air and the faint smell of something floral and sweet â her perfume mixed with whatever she'd been drinking.
"Lie down," he said.
She did, rolling sideways, and he pulled the blanket up over her with perhaps more care than was strictly necessary.
"Sleep," he murmured.
Mm." Her eyes were already closing. Fig circled three times at the foot of the bed and settled against her legs. "Coriolanus."
"What?"
She sighed, paused long enough that he thought she'd gone under.
"Don't go yet."
He stood there for a moment longer than he needed to.
The lamp made everything warm. She lookedâ she wasâ
He looked at her and the thing in his chest that he'd been pressing down for months sat there quietly, waiting to be named, and he refused. He refused, and he turned off the lamp, and he stood in the doorway for exactly one second.
Then he let himself out.
He sat in his car for eleven minutes.
He knew because he watched the clock without meaning to, the numbers cycling in the corner of his vision while he sat with his hands loose on the wheel and the engine off and the city doing its indifferent, glittering thing around him.
She'd asked him to stay. She'd asked him to come home with her in the car and he'd said no, and she'd apologized, I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, you're just soâ and she'd looked at him with those drunk-honest eyes and he had stayed firm and unmoved and driven her home and carried her up the stairs and pulled her blanket up and it had been the right thing, it had absolutely been the right thing.
He started the engine and drove home through the gold-lit empty streets.
Did not sleep.
He went home, poured two fingers of something he didn't taste, sat at his desk with the trade proposal still open in front of him, and watched the city lighten incrementally from black to grey to the pale, reluctant gold of early Capitol morning.
At 5:30 he changed and went out.
He ran the Corso route. Six kilometers, the same circuit he'd run since coming home from his Peacekeeper days when his body had gotten used to the exertion. The city was quiet at this hour, just his security detail, the street cleaners and the early delivery vans and the occasional dog walker. He ran hard, fast enough to make his lungs work for it, and it helped him shut off his mind for at least forty minutes.
He'd been on a poster on this street. The infrastructure one. He passed the spot without meaning to â the column where it had been plastered, replaced now with something about the Spring Civic Festival â and his pace faltered for half a stride before he corrected it.
She'd rolled her eyes at it, probably, she hated his campaign. Told her friends she wasn't voting for him.
Then called him at 1AM because her friends were all with guys and the drinks were expensive and she wanted him specifically, for some cruel reason, to come get her.
He ran harder.
The gym was in the lower level of his building, private, nobody in it at this hour. He went through the routine mechanically â weights, then the bag, then weights again until his arms ached in that productive, emptying way. He was good at this. Discipline. Routine. Giving the body a problem it could actually solve.
He was not good at the other thing. The thing where someone tucked their head against his neck in a dimly lit hallway and said don't go yet and he stood there wanting to stay more than he'd wanted anything in recent memory.
He hit the bag.
She'd only reached out because she was drunk. That was the part he kept returning to, the part that sat worst. Sober, she kept the distance. Sober, she was careful, managed, aware of everything between them. It was only when her defenses went down that she reached for him. Which meant that reaching for him was something she was actively, consciously choosing not to do.
He couldn't blame her. He'd given her reasons.
He hit the bag again.
He thought about her waking up. Right about now, probably â the particular grey of early morning coming through her curtains, Fig shifting at the foot of the bed, that slow reluctant return to consciousness. He thought about the moment she'd piece it together. The shoes by the door. The water glasses. The blanket tucked. His name in her recent calls.
He wondered what she'd do with it. Whether she'd text. Whether she'd pretend it hadn't happened.
Probably the latter.
He wrapped his hands, started again.
He hadn't meant to come inside the bar either. He'd meant to wait outside, and then he'd pulled up and thought about her sitting alone on the street in a dress in the cold and had gotten out of the car instead.
He hadn't meant for any of it, if he was honest. Not the months of her. Not what she'd become in them. Not the fact that he'd sat outside her building for eleven minutes like someâ like someâ
He stopped.
Stood with his hands against the bag, breathing.
The gym was quiet. His reflection in the mirror across the room looked back at him, shirt dark with sweat, jaw set, and said nothing helpful.
He showered. Changed. Went back upstairs.
His phone was on the kitchen counter where he'd left it. He looked at it the way he looked at things he wasn't going to touch and then made coffee and stood at the window and watched the Capitol do its morning thing, all pale gold and pigeons and the distant sound of the city waking up.
He picked up the phone.
One notification. Her name.
He looked at it for a moment. Put the coffee down.
Opened it.
hi :) sorry for calling so late you really didn't have to come all the way out but i'm very glad you did
thank you for being very gentlemanly about everything lol. and fig thanks you too probably
are you busy this morning? do you want to get breakfast?
He read it twice.
Then a third time.
She'd woken up and pieced it together and her first instinct had been â this. An open door. Are you busy this morning. Like it was simple. Like she was choosing, clear-eyed and sober, in the morning light, to reach toward him.
The thing in his chest that he'd been refusing to name did something he was going to have to deal with eventually.
He typed back before he could think about it too hard.
cw: smut, sextape (???), ooc young pres coryo, dom/sub dynamic (ish), soft dom coryo, light hair pulling.
young president!snow loves to film you during sex.
He knows itâs a bad idea, but he canât help himself, he needs to have a visual reminder of how gorgeous you look when youâre all fucked out for him.
This is your third time riding him in one night and you still need more - if coryo didnât love you so much, heâd lift you off of him and tell you to go to sleep. Your thighs were aching and you couldnât move even if you tried, so you sat there on his lap, face buried in his neck with your arms wrapped lazily around his shoulders, whining and begging for more.
Who was he to deny his sweet, greedy girl? Especially when you were squirming on his lap, all flushed, your skin damp with sweat.
Eventually, his resolve faltered and his hands moved under your thighs, just by your ass. He was undeniably strong; stronger than you, anyway. His big, warm palms bounced you up and down onto him, making you mewl desperately into his skin, tugging on his hair lightly.
Suddenly, one of his hands left your thighs, and he stopped helping you ride him. You were dazed, to say the least, and all you could do is whimper in protest into his neck, your face shielded from the camera he had grabbed from the nightstand.
âC'mon, baby. donât hide your pretty face. wanna see it.â he cooed into your ear, although his tone was almost a little patronising. You lifted your head slightly, opening your eyes. When you caught sight of the camera, you whined embarrassedly, ducking your face back into his neck.
A smug little smirk grew on his lips at the way you hid your face from the camera, trying to hide the needy, desperate state you had put yourself in for him. âOh, baby. Donât be like that. No need to be shy, beautiful girl, âs only for me.â he murmured into your hair, his other hand leaving your thigh to tangle in the hair at the nape of your neck firmly.
All it took was a little tug, so gentle it was almost unnoticeable, but it made you moan and lift your face from his neck obediently. He used his grip in your hair as leverage to turn your head to the camera, forcing you to look into it.
âLook at my pretty baby. so goddamn needy for me, wanting orgasm after orgasm.â slipped in a mutter from his lips, mostly talking to himself and the camera, but he also wanted to remind you how gorgeous he thought you looked (even if it was followed by a few teasing words).
I decided not to throw a party like before since the announcement of college acceptance will happen in the end of the month, especially with the war looming on us. I don't feel with celebrating anything.
But even though this year was my 'quietest' birthday, I feel there's a lot more of people who reached out and sincerely wished me happy birthday. Since I've gained a lot more friends for this past year. And I realize that I don't need another fancy party or tons of presents to celebrate a birthday, but a couple of donuts and warm love are more than just enough.
Happy birthday to anyone else who's probably celebrate in the same day as me!!
