Coriolanus Snow is a meticulous man. He has been for all his life. There is something rather pleasing, he muses, about careful planning and calculations and organisation.
After all, without all these particular measures, how much control could he have over anything? Too little, no doubt. It would slip right through his fingers.
Life would be unpredictable. And if there is anything that Coriolanus despises most in the world, it would be all things unpredictable.
He'd learnt this the hard way in his ugly past; from the Dark Days, to the 10th Annual Hunger Games.
Even Lucy Gray.
Now, Coriolanus is determined to no longer yield to drunken illusions and fleeting romances. No matter how fun and all-consuming they can be. They're merely illusions after all. All the unpredictable things in this world are dressed in wonderful bright colours. It's the perfect way to lure one into a sense of love and comfort.
To fall for such a trap again would be to fail himself once more. It would signify a lack of strength.
This reminder resurfaces with every glance in your direction. And it comes much harsher when he catches his gaze lingering a tad longer than it should.
But no. This isn't weakness. Weakness has nothing to do with this fixation. Its only natural. Biological. All men have penchants for beautiful women, especially ones like you, with your sweet fawn-eyes and your girlish innocence.
Why should he be exempt from having such inclinations? Surely he could indulge every once in a while. And denying himself of a slight, lovely girl like you is more often than not an onerous task. What would be the harm in admiring from afar?
The pen in his fingers halts halfway through his scribbling and he takes another look at you from the corner of the lab. Dr. Gaul has one gloved hand pressing on your neck for a pulse as you lay unclothed and motionless on the operating table.
His own heart begins to thud louder than usual. With a clenched jaw Coriolanus looks away and attempts to concentrate on the report in front of him.
It shouldn't matter how pleasing you are to the eye. How delightfully sweet you appear, especially now, as you rest unconscious. It is none of his business if you live or die. At the end of the day, you are Dr. Gaul's little lab rat. Not his pet to touch and admire.
“Alive," says Dr. Gaul, her bored voice echoing across the cold room. His grip on his pen loosens slightly. For a moment he pauses his scribbling to watch the strange woman lift both your eyelids open. She then shines a light in each. "Rather strong for such a docile little thing. Pupils have returned to normal. No sign of scale growth."
Coriolanus jots the information down in your report. Dr. Gaul's dissatisfaction is palpable even from a distance. He's adapted to it by now; her fickle moods often radiate throughout the entire Citadel, keeping every employee on their toes.
At the sight of Dr. Gaul approaching his table Coriolanus straightens up and sets your report aside. She snaps the rubber gloves off of her hands. Here comes the storm, he thinks bitterly.
"This project has been a complete waste of time," she scowls. "Perfecting the formula for this serum is proving to be much more of a challenge than I had thought it would be. Two of our subjects have been completely immune and four have suffered scarcely any significant effects besides minor changes in the iris and pupils. There was, of course, that runt from 12 who showed all the signs. But even those changes lasted no longer than a mere 5 days."
A part of him feels glad about the turn of events. Besides evoking a series of bad memories, this experiment has done little else.
Clemensia Dovecote's strange 'flu' often comes to mind; flashes of her high pitched shriek and the vibrant snakes slithering in the tank appear as vivid now as the very day it happened. He doubts the memory would ever fade.
Dr. Gaul had always been rather proud of that incident. With Coriolanus as her apprentice, they worked hand in hand alongside her fellow scientists at the Citadel to formulate a new serum; one that would result in similar effects, from scale growth to other grotesque reptilian features.
This time, however, the aim is to bring about life-long consequences. Where Clemensia only endured those unsightly side effects for a few weeks, the new serum is intended to permanently transform its user.
It's taken 3 whole months of unproductive testing for Dr. Gaul to finally throw in the towel and admit defeat. What a mess, mocked the voice in his mind. They were lucky all her experiments hadn't started another Mockingjay catastrophe.
If only he could skip to the future, a future free of Dr. Gaul and her loose screws...
No matter. All he has to do is stick to the plan.
There are only a few months to graduation; that's the time Coriolanus has left before he can claim the official title of Game-maker. Once the position is solidified, perhaps after a year or two, he will no longer have to be bound to this awful laboratory.
Coriolanus will finally be able to carve his way through politics, and move on to bigger and better things. Oh how perfect it would be; how nice to work someplace without the hideousness of cold bodies and blood and needles. Someplace that never reeks of rubber gloves or strange chemicals.
"Perhaps," Coriolanus begins, treading carefully. "It would be a good idea to allocate our resources towards other projects."
"Don't tell me what I already know, child," she snaps with a glare. Right, Coriolanus thought to himself. Of course you know it all, now that you've wasted 3 precious months of our lives.
It is the sound of your faint coughing in the background that distracts her from her dour mood. Coriolanus's eyes dart towards you, heart pumping at an uncomfortable speed. He finds it rather unsettling, the way his shoulders immediately feel lighter at the sight of you awake and stirring on the operation table.
"Another lab rat that needs putting down," mutters Dr. Gaul, eyeing you from afar with a bored look. "I have no more use for the thing. Make sure she's out of my sight by the end of the day."
Coriolanus's stomach twists into a knot. This is it. He will have to do to you what he has done to the others.
He glances over to the corner of the laboratory once more, where you shifted in place without as much as a squeak. It reminds him of the first thing that struck him when you first arrived at the Citadel.
How strangely quiet you were, despite your trembling. As opposed to the other test subjects, all of whom made sure to give him a hard time with their screaming and kicking and cursing prior to sedation, you seemed quite docile indeed.
And yet deep inside you were terribly afraid. He could tell; it wasn't hard to. In the early mornings he could see you shaking like a leaf at the mere sight of him stepping into the lab. Sometimes he would catch you blinking back tears from your glossy eyes.
Doing his job felt most challenging in those moments, when you would peer up at him through damp lashes and that half lidded gaze. Pliant but afraid as you awaited your slaughter.
The look of the lamb.
The skin that covered his palm would burn and tingle as it curved over your outstretched arm, preparing you for another round of injections. And you allowed him to, every time, without a single sound of protest.
A bunny trotting into the bloody jaws of a wolf.
And now at last he has to chew you down and spit you out.
"On second thought," Dr. Gaul pauses in her trail and turns to look at him with a smirk. "It would be quite a shame, wouldn't it, to let go of such a pretty face? Capitol men do love their District whores. I know one or two who would pay me good money for your little pet."
His heart beat begins to thump so loud it sounds queer to his own ears. Suddenly inhaling and exhaling feels rather arduous.
He thinks of those men in their crisp tailored suits putting a price on you. Coriolanus swallows the lump in his throat, fingers curling tighter and tighter around his pen.
From afar he can see glimpses of your bare chest and exposed legs. It is far from an unfamiliar sight, though no less pleasant; like every other one of their test subjects, he's seen you naked a few times.
And when you were, which was quite often, Coriolanus did his best not to let himself stare for a second too long. Especially when he had to sit so near to observe your progress and collect data. He allowed himself brief glimpses at best. Anything besides only forced all his blood down south, something he learned the hard way.
On occasions where his mind and body refused to cooperate Coriolanus would feel his cock twitching and aching in his pants. Begging for a release only you could bring.
It was quite strange; you had a little more meat on your bones than one would expect of a district girl. In all the right places too, places he sometimes longed to touch. You were a pleasure any man would wish to hold and admire and indulge in. Coriolanus wanted to learn for himself how soft your body truly is — if it's as heavenly to the hand as it is to the eye.
The sight of your puckered lips, your rounded breasts and the plush flesh of your thighs — shivering and pinned close at times when the dry air in the laboratory grew unbearably cold — was often so potent it left him lightheaded. But a quick trip to the bathroom usually straightened him out.
Capitol men do love their District whores. I know one or two who would pay me good money for your little pet.
They would, they really would, he's certain of it. The idea of their grimy paws pouncing on your innocence makes his stomach coil. Would you cry? Would you tremble and quiver in fear the way you did around him?
At the thought alone his breakfast threatens to make a reappearance.
The sound of the door clicking shut plucks him out of his trance. Dr. Gaul appears to be long gone now, no doubt off to the pantry for her milk and crackers.
A plan. Coriolanus needs one before the mad woman returns.
His fingers hover over your report, hesitating to flip the last page. He's never read the background information on any of the test subjects before, afraid it might stir up sentimental feelings that would only interfere with his work.
What did their past life matter anyway? Their fates were already sealed. What good would his curiosity do?
But in desperation to choreograph your escape, Coriolanus finds that his hands had already made quick work of the documents containing your information. He scans the pages hastily, reading top to bottom.
You come from a small family of bakers in District 9, he discovers. You had volunteered to be apart of these experiments in place of some pickpocket named Mary.
It's beginning to make sense now — why you yielded to every procedure, always so docile and pliant. Volunteering meant you had long accepted that there was no other choice, that this was to be your fate.
You must have known it would have been the other girl's unless you interfered. Which you did. You saved her from a harsh sentence, a cruel ending you did not wish her to endure.
That could only mean you had long embraced your own demise in place of her suffering. Even the possibility of death.
His heart expands with a painful stretch. Why had you offered to bear another person's sin? You were an angel of salvation. Who is this Mary to you, he wonders.
Tigris comes to mind. Coriolanus ponders over how brave she had been for him during the war. How her frail, bony frame shielded his whenever bombs rained down from the sky. How she never once put herself first before him & their Grandma'am.
A strange tight knot forms in his gut. All this time hidden behind your frailty was a selfless valour. A rare gem he was yet to find in anyone else besides his cousin. Most people are rather self-concerned.
Not that he is one to judge. He doesn't care much for kindness. No, not in the way he used to. Who could afford being kind anymore in such a cruel world?
He had risked everything to save Lucy Grey and what did she do? The little songbird betrayed him at the first opportunity.
Had he not retaliated against her tricks Coriolanus was sure he too would have died and rotted amongst those trees in 12. Silly, treacherous girl, thinking she could hurt him with her ugly snakes and menacing riddles.
Yes, Coriolanus mused bitterly, the good are cursed to be punished. This wicked world only hurts them and batters them and spits on their kindness.
Look where you ended up.
How evil does this make him, then? Now that he has, at last, found an angel among heathens, but then sentences her to imminent corruption? To be cruelly debased and degraded and dishonoured by the grimy hands of the lustful. Hands of the men that will strip this angel of all semblance of goodness.
To release you would be watching a sinless litte kitten get clawed and de gloved by starving dogs.
His chest rises and falls with every heavy breath. Perhaps now it is far too late to protect Tigris from the lengths she had gone to save their family.
But it isn't too late to save you.
Well i'm not made out of sugar.
No. With a shake of his head Coriolanus banishes the voice from his consciousness. He's now a great distance from the evils of District 12, from Lucy Gray. He is safe and this is different. There are no wild snakes slithering in the dark. Only mutts. And even those beasts are trapped here in the lab, all within his control.
Here in the Capitol, the power is in his hands. And yours? Well, as long as you're here under his surveillance, your hands are, and forever will be, shackled to him. Yes, Coriolanus will make sure of it.
“The hunter did not hate the wolf. The wolf did not hate the sheep. But violence felt inevitable between them. Perhaps, I thought, this was the way of the world.”
*through gritted teeth* the world is GOOD. people are kind. Humans are NOT inherently selfish. you will make it through this year. recovery is possible. people you don't know yet will love you. You are going to do things you can't even imagine right now. You are going to read a rlly good book. You are going to eat some rlly good food. You are going to experience joy again. Things can get better. Situations can change. You can choose to be kinder. The world can change for the better.
Dont think 'baby' has ever been more loaded than coming out of this mans mouth
yayy thank you to my darling angel @irregularcollapse who was minding her own business when I dragged her into hell to help me find this fucking movie.
me: i should update n post another chapter to pet its been so long
also me: ok but how abt saying fuck it to all that n just writing a professor!coryo x pregnant!college student reader fic, where coryo is obviously delulu, and slowly becomes more and more obsessed with reader, who he had initially hated out of his sense of superiority as well as due to the conservative capitol-indoctrinated ideas he carries related to honour and shame.
like when u think abt it coryo obv hates anything unconventional or unorthodoxed so when he sees a single mom college student??? unmarried and pregnant?? who does not give much of a fuck of what other people think?? coryo feels smug at first, thinks hes above her, but then we know he always pines for what he cant have and secretly wishes for that kind of freedom himself so he starts going a lil cuckoo yfm!!!
writer culture is sometimes re-reading your fic because sometimes you write what you want to read and then almost commenting and leaving kudos on your own fic because you think to yourself "wow, that was pretty good well done author... oh wait, I am author."
✭ 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 :( so pls help a girl who finished this instead of studying for her finals out and reblog!!
Word count: ~4.6k
Summary: Coriolanus does not care about what happened last session. It's certainly not why he hasn't slept since then, smoked three cigarettes on national television and fired four of his PR people for protesting. And across town, his therapist is grappling with some very unethical feelings that the same mouth that just cursed out a host of diplomats had awakened in her last week.
Even if she never said his name or title, even if she stuck to the most guarded of phrases, the thing had weight. Consequence. A thudding, career-ending kind of consequence that kept her up at night.
More often lately than not, thanks to a certain pair of lips.
She should be fired. She should be either referring him out immediately or reporting herself for a violation. And she had told herself, promised herself, despite probably already having crossed the threshold of immediately, that she would.
And yet here she was.
Lying in bed, the sheets cool, her skin warmer. Her hand on her stomach, unmoving, but close.
Remembering him, in the most human way she ever had. Thinking of Coriolanus Snow had first been glances at posters and TV screens, the box on the ballot she never checked. Then it was deciphering his snark across her office table, reminding herself he was a person, not a candidate, to…this.
m/f • President!Coriolanus Snow • therapist!reader • power imbalance • slow burn (kinda) • Capitol politics • reluctant vulnerability • touch-starved men • ethical gray areas • reader is emotionally intelligent • emotional repression • intimacy as control • emotional intimacy • soft x guarded dynamic • smoking • fantasizing • descriptions of sex • insomnia • paranoia • post-canon • romantic tension • sexual tension • unethical relationship lol.
likes and reblogs appreciated ↻
previous ↔ next incoming!
read below 💌
Coriolanus | Monday, 7:01
He was Coriolanus Snow.
President Coriolanus Snow.
And he had no time for sentiment and simpering.
He reminded himself of this as he stared down his reflection, fastening his starched cuffs in the mirror, pressing the pearled link too forcefully into his wrist. Tugging the crimson knot of silk up his throat tighter than necessary. Pristine, polished, and unforgivingly perfect.
That is who he was.
That was all.
He was not the softness that flickered in his chest at the tentative slide of her lips on his. It was not softness. Nor was he the gentle-knuckled hand he cradled to her waist because the way her soft, manicured fingers clutched at his shirtfront seemed like a weathered anchor searching for purchase amidst a storm, stranded and seeking shelter. It was not gentleness.
It was simply lust, he reminded himself. Baser, chemical, and inevitable, honestly. It was simply a secondary need he had to fulfill from time to time, a scrawny cat that surfaced, from time to time, at his ankles, and that would slink away once given a scrap.
Coriolanus was disciplined, better than most men in most senses – this included. He was not privy to the ravenous urges that reduced so many men to distraction or desperation from a dry spell, sent their careers careening through easily avoidable affairs and weaknesses and scandals. He could easily go a month without release, and almost never had to reduce himself to dealing with it on his own.
If he had to do it, he might as well do it right. Better not to render himself an addict, anyway.
But he was, still, a man. And he had gone too long without.
So it was, he assured himself as his driver clicked open the door of his onyx sedan, inevitable. Entrapped into an hour of confinement and proximity every week, surrounded by her honeyed scent and voice. Talking about sleep, that too: dreams, what he did in silk sheets at midnight—she’d even told him to touch himself to sleep!—God, it was so on the nose. Of course he would think of it.
Of course he would, speaking of bed while she stared at him with those wide eyes and soft mouth. With those endless legs of hers that she kept wrapped in tight little skirts, her pendant dipping down into the soft valley underneath silky blouses – well, it was bound to surface eventually.
He had allowed himself a moment of indulgence: practical, really – he’d have to nip it in the bud soon enough, anyway. A release from weeks of sleeplessness and inconvenient tension, and she’d–
He exhales sharply through his nose.
She’d cried.
He frowned down at his knees as his car came to a halt. Not at the memory of her glistening cheeks. He wasn't remembering. Wasn’t regretting. He refused to.
He snapped the door open and shut before his driver had a chance to do it for him.
Reader
She was a good therapist.
She had to remind herself of that, lately more than ever. Weekly check-ins with her own therapist helped, and she never missed them— unlike some of her own clients. She believed deeply in the practice. Everyone needed mirrors held to themselves, even those who held mirrors for others. Especially those.
Yes, she had friends. Yes, her life was full. But it had been a long, arid year without love. Even longer without sex. She didn’t pretend it didn’t bother her; it did, just not urgently. It sat under her skin like dust in corners she never got around to cleaning, an itch no one had scratched. She’d admitted so much to Dr. Valerie from time to time, her moments of unscheduled vulnerability, between updates on gallery visits and brunches with friends and the small, privileged troubles of a generally happy, stable life.
“Not lonely,” she’d clarified with a smile. “Just… out of use. A little dusty.”
“You’re someone who feels better giving care than receiving it,” she’d replied gently. “But it’s okay to want the other thing, too.”
She’d nodded, eyes bright, fingers tugging at the hem of her blouse as she shifted on the couch. “It’s been a dry spell,” she admitted. “No romance, no sex. I miss being…well, I miss being wanted.”
That conversation had been months ago. Before the kiss. Before her client kissed her. Her client, the President.
She hadn’t told Dr. Valerie about it. Couldn’t, really. Even if she never said his name or title, even if she stuck to the most guarded of phrases, the thing had weight. Consequence. A thudding, career-ending kind of consequence that kept her up at night.
More often lately than not, thanks to a certain pair of lips.
She should be fired. She should be either referring him out immediately or reporting herself for a violation. And she had told herself, promised herself, despite probably already having crossed the threshold of immediately, that she would.
And yet here she was.
Lying in bed, the sheets cool, her skin warmer. Her hand on her stomach, unmoving, but close.
Remembering him, in the most human way she ever had. Thinking of Coriolanus Snow had first been glances at posters and TV screens, the box on the ballot she never checked. Then it was deciphering his snark across her office table, reminding herself he was a person, not a candidate, to…this.
Her life and her thoughts had wound closer and closer and closer to him, till thinking of him was thinking of herself, too. The way his hand on her lower back, so gentle, had set her veins numb and aflame, sent her heart hummingbird beating in her throat and her traitorous head wishing, even now, that it was in his hands, pressed into his neck as if he were hers.
Remembering the scent of him, the press of him. The solid, steady weight of him holding her. The feeling of those broad arms around her back.
He had kissed her. But she had kissed him back, hadn’t she?
And not just kissed. Melted. Tilted. Sighed.
It had felt... God, it had felt so good. She hadn’t even realized how touch-starved she was until she gave in to it. And yes, he was undeniably gorgeous. She’d thought that, years ago from the moment she saw him in one of those senatorial posters he’d had plastered around the Corso, long before he was her client. Even if she'd rolled her eyes and told her friends I am so not voting for him, but damn, he's cute.
The sentiment was shared by most of the country, she’d soon discover.
But now, now she knew how he smelled. How his lips felt. Now she had memory to match imagination.
And she’d imagined a lot.
She let herself think it just for a moment, let the want unfurl like a slow, shameful ribbon behind her ribs.
She wanted to be the girl who could be kissed by him again. To wake up tangled in his sheets, self-satisfied because he was gorgeous, intelligent, intoxicating, and he wanted her. To have no reason to abstain from him.
To be the girl who could nestle, unburdened, into the curl of his bicep and the heady blanket of cologne, skin, smoke, and roses that always hung around his shoulders.
Roses were so feminine, she'd always thought – her favorite scent since she was thirteen, lathering lotions and spritzes of the sweet scent onto her collarbone until it shone. But on him it somehow seemed more masculine, calm and knowing; there was something rather more fresh about it – he smelled less of the cloying nectar that bled crimson when expert hands crushed it into crystal vials. No, his rose aroma smelled real – despite her partiality to the honeyed, perfumed version, she couldn't help but find the lithe, papery soft floral that clung to him all the more intoxicating.
And oh, she could picture it too easily, feel it too vividly.
The way he'd slip his fingers through the soft ribbons of hair at her nape, the other firm at her cheek, tilting her face to tuck into the crook of her neck so he could send her dizzy with a sweep of his tongue, be soft with her mouth.
She hadn’t even shaved in months. Hadn’t had a reason to. The last time she did it had felt stupid, performative. But now she felt absurdly caught, the kind of irritated you get only at yourself.
Because she couldn’t stop thinking about it: not just the kiss but everything that might’ve come after. She imagined it: his palm on her lower back as he pulled her into that impossible penthouse suite, tucked far above the rest of the city. The weight of him, his burnished angles pressing down on her soft curves as he lowered her gently onto sheets she was sure were expensive as sin. Gazing down at her as he unbuckled his belt, like she was something precious, tousled and curled like a string of diamonds on his silks and awaiting his touch. Her thighs falling open as he–
She shut her eyes. Clenched her fists.
Oh– she knew he’d have her good. He'd said as much, didn’t he? Keep saying my name like that— she closed her eyes around the sound of his voice, reverberating in her skull—I'll fuck you right here. The way he’d drawn her in with less than two strides, like he was tasting something he'd been starving for. She could feel it, how he’d be impossibly soft even as he held her down and made her—
She blinked.
Shook her head.
And then she was furious.
Because she wanted him.
That kiss had cracked something open and she couldn’t stuff it back in. She was thinking about it still. About him. That was dangerous. Unethical. Manipulative, even.
She was a woman fantasizing about a man whose mental health she was entrusted with. Who had power and scrutiny and instability coiled beneath the surface of his still, poised face. Who deserved all the help and support he needed, just like anybody else. Unburdened by the follies of attraction.
It was wrong. And she knew better. She was better.
Coriolanus Snow | Today
Coriolanus had snapped at his aids a few times.
He wasn't proud of it. Usually, he treated them with airtight civility, just the right amount of familiarity and charm to keep them sweet yet not coddled, the frequency of his jokes and how wide he smiled adjusted just so to make them understand their role to him. To make them feel important to him, but not too important.
But there had been times. After the riot at the train station in Eleven. Once, when the video editor somehow got his hands on footage of District 13, mapped over with dotted panes of metal that no doubt concealed bunkers of survivors, not the heaping mess of radioactivity they painted it as for Panem.
If he had been snappish then, this week he was downright tyrannical.
He’d made it through last night’s gala by sheer mechanical endurance. Not grace. Not even force of will. His half-dead current of unspent adrenaline, chain-smoked nicotine, rage bottled so tight his voice was almost pleasant before he barked at the defense secretary for standing “too near the floral arrangement.”
He hadn’t slept in two days and a night.
The oil she’d given him, still tucked in the drawer where he’d once kept a pistol, stayed untouched. It had a handwritten note wrapped around it, sweet and hopeful, advising him to dab it on the corner of his blanket so it wouldn’t get on his skin. He’d thrown the blanket out, too, two nights ago, like a lunatic. Thought if he could cut out all the soft things she left in his life, he’d stop missing her. No, not missing her. Thinking about her. So he’d stop thinking about her. Stop thinking about her, his head hissed.
Instead he was chewing through Marlboros like breath. Skipped meals. Couldn’t eat. Every time he thought of food, he tasted her lip balm.
She’d kissed him back. For real. For several long, beautiful seconds, she’d kissed him back.
And then, Snow, he hissed at himself, she’d pulled away shaking. Tears streaming.
Fuck.
The second he lets himself remember, he wants to tear out his throat.
But instead, he grabs another cigarette and lights it right in front of the Capitol communications rep, who flinches and mutters something about fire safety codes. He ignores her. Because it’s his building and if she doesn’t like the smoke, she can get out. Same to the aide who gets water with lemon instead of the citrus-free kind he asked for, and to the Vice Chancellor who dares to suggest extending the refugee agreement without consultation.
He snarls at his scheduler for writing her name, her full name, handwritten, soft cursive, on the list of appointments. “Don’t ever write that name again,” he snaps. “Use initials. Or I’ll have you reassigned to the data floor.”
She nods, wide-eyed.
He’s not usually like this. Not even when he’s angry.
Even Tigris had tiptoed around him last night, eyeing the untouched dinner plate and the overflowing ashtray. “You should sleep, Coryo,” she’d said, concerned.
“No,” he’d said, flat. “No need.”
Because he was the one who crossed a line. He kissed her. Was she repulsed by him? Maybe—God, maybe she was just scared. And maybe he made it worse. Because he’d never been afraid of his desire before, but when it came to her?
No.
No, he didn’t care.
She was hot. That’s all. He needed someone to fuck. That was it.
Just another inconvenient, civilian complication.
He could snap the damn cigarette between his thumb and his forefinger. His vision’s swimming, his head droning with his advisors’ words. One more drag off the cigarette. One more.
And when he exhales, he smells it.
Not rose.
Not vanilla.
Not mint.
Certainly not her.
Just tobacco.
Reader
Vesca Center for Restorative Care | Today, 2:00 PM
The cursor blinks.
It's the only movement in the room, other than the soft sway of her leg crossed over the other, jittering ever so slightly. The referral form is complete. Signed. Scanned. Uploaded. Ready for final submission. All it takes is one click.
She doesn’t click it.
It shouldn’t have happened. That part is clear. She doesn’t struggle with that. She knows the rules. She’s taught them. She’s enforced them with others.
And it would be simple, easy, ethically sound. To simply run away.
But it isn't. The terrifying thing isn't losing him, as a client, as a patient, as— whatever he is. Running away is easy.
She presses her fingers to her temple and exhales slowly, like she teaches him to do. It doesn't help.
She knows what this is. Transference, plain and simple.
It feels too clinical for how personal it feels, too neat for something that’s gotten under her skin. Old pain looking for a new place to land. It makes such perfect, sad sense. Isolated so young by his power and responsibility, and as she'd come to learn, by his past. His late father. Mother died in childbirth. Sejanus, oh, Sejanus, the only friend of his I knew, and he still had nightmares where he held the noose. Something else, I sensed, that made him so opposed to the idea of taking a lover that he'd so defensively spit out that he wouldn't by their second session.
He came to her exhausted, guarded, half-raw from sleepless nights and things he doesn’t say out loud, to anyone but her. She gave him consistency. Safety. Attention, an hour a week, that didn’t demand anything in return— besides, she supposed, money. And money he had plenty. Midnight phone calls on the house.
But then what does that make the way he looks at her? The way he leaned in like he already knew she’d be there?
It makes it not about her. It makes it about Sejanus, and his parents, and his Peacekeeping days and the shields and secrets and venom of rising to the Presidency.
And that thought stings in a way she doesn’t want to examine too closely.
She presses her face into her hands and exhales shakily.
She likes him. She admits that now, in the privacy of her own head. Likes the sharpness of him, the way his mind moves, the rare moments when his guard slips and something almost boyish shows through. The way he'd brazenly spoken to her, looked at her for the past two weeks should have made her uncomfortable. And it had gotten her bothered. Just not in the way it should have.
She wipes at her eyes, annoyed at herself. This isn’t about her feelings. It can’t be.
She knows what she’s supposed to do. She can almost hear her own voice explaining it to someone else: name it, contain it, don’t let it deepen. Help him separate what he feels from what he needs. Guide him back to himself.
Reset it.
The thought makes her stomach twist.
Because she can't drop him like a stone, when he'd kissed her, seen her cry. That would only hurt him more. Would only convince him of the things he thought true of himself. She sighs and glances at her keyboard, flashing a Times New Roman farewell at her.
If I refer you out now, she thinks, it will feel like punishment. Like rejection. He’ll assume he crossed a line and paid for it. He won’t hear this isn’t your fault. He’ll hear you ruin things. She knows him. He'll let it curl, bitter in the bottom of his throat and hammer another nail into the boards he keeps his heart underneath.
And he'll smoke. Won't sleep.
She stares at the blank document, then deletes it. Shuts her computer and fishes her notebook from her bag, sighing as she flips it open, clicking her red pen.
Issue: Attachment intensification following increased emotional safety → transference
Just a nervous system reaching for what calms it. Old patterns reactivating because they finally have somewhere to land.
He doesn’t want her, not really, not in the way he thinks. Not in the way she might dream of. He wants the feeling of being steadied. Seen. Met without demand.
The thought aches.
Because some small, traitorous part of her wants to believe it’s different. Wants to believe the way he looks at her is about her. Her mind, her presence, the way she doesn’t flinch when he speaks, the jokes she sometimes makes. Not because she had a high EQ and passed her licencing exam with flying colors.
She swallows and keeps writing.
Encourage internal coping strategies
Reinforce boundaries of the therapeutic space
Address that it was transference
Shift focus toward his autonomy + external supports
She’ll be calm. Gentle. Firm. She’ll put the boundary back where it belongs. She won’t let it happen again. She’ll guide him back to himself, slowly, carefully, without ever making him feel foolish or exposed. And she'll try not to feel like it either.
He hasn't come.
It's technically still 2:57.
It's just…he comes early. Usually.
She sits curled on the chaise in her office, ankles tucked beneath her, arms wrapped around a lukewarm mug of tea she hasn’t sipped, and her heart kicks harder with each second that passes. He won’t come. He’s the president. A study had gone viral last year, reporting that 12% of his voters mentioned his good looks as a factor that influenced how they voted. The whole country wants him. And he knows it. He's known to be a bachelor, a playboy, a heartthrob. He kisses a woman and makes her cry and just moves on, right? Right.
But at 3:00 sharp, the security chime clicks. And he's there.
She’s painfully aware of him now in a way she wasn’t before. Of his height when he steps past her into the room. Of the breadth of him, lean and controlled, his hands: long-fingered, restless, forcing her to look away before the memory sharpens too much in her mind.
“President Snow,” she says.
Coriolanus Snow has told himself a thousand justifications for showing up.
You have to. You're attending that diplomatic summit Monday and you can’t afford to be sleep-deprived again. She’s just a tool. A tool that works.So what if she cried?So what if you kissed her? That was... a blip. Not even lust. Just the moment. Tigris will keep poking until she gets what she wants anyway. And it's not like she said don’t come back.
He notes, almost against his will, that she doesn’t greet him with her usual soft “Coriolanus.”
It’s “President Snow,” this time.
Her voice is steady, but her face is pale.
She sits opposite him and immediately feels the difference. The table that he'd walked around so he could kiss her last week stretched flat and white between their knees.
For a moment, neither of them speaks.
He knows she feels his eyes on her. Hers keep flicking away whenever he looks up. He’s watching her like he’s waiting for a verdict.
He doesn’t mention it. Just smooths his coat over his thighs, casually as ever.
“I’ve had more cigarettes this week than I did the month before,” he says, forcing a smirk. “Go ahead. Say your piece. Tell me to do more of those little square-breaths.”
She doesn’t answer.
His jaw ticks. “Aren’t you going to admonish me? Suggest yoga? Warm milk? Another metaphor about safe spaces?”
Still nothing.
“Are you listening, doctor—”
"I am." her voice is tiny. She finally meets his gaze, and God, those eyes. He's glad he isn't standing. His knees might just buckle. She reaches for her notebook, more for something to do with her hands than because she needs it. "So, um. More cigarettes." Her fingers fumble slightly with the pen. She hopes he doesn’t notice. “And your sleep?”
A pause.
“Improving,” he says. “Mostly.”
A lie. An obvious one.
Obvious, because she notices the way his jaw tightens when he says it. Notices how he doesn’t elaborate. She wonders, guiltily, how long he lay awake last night. Whether her absence had anything to do with it. She pushes the thought away, ashamed of how quickly it comes.
He knows it's obvious to her, yet she doesn't call it out. His gut twists slightly.
They talk around things at first. Grounding techniques. His schedule. The same neutral ground they always return to when neither of them wants to risk saying too much. But she isn't smiling that small, amused smile she puts on when she wants him to know that there's more to come. That she isn't letting him off this easy, he'll actually have to open up to her.
He’s careful with his words. Polite. Mild. Almost deferential in a way that doesn’t suit him at all.
It makes her ache.
She keeps her voice gentle, deliberately so. She doesn’t challenge him when he glosses over things. She lets silences stretch instead of filling them.
It makes him ache.
He shifts in his seat, restless now, casualness cracking at the edges.
“You’re quiet today,” he says, attempting a half-smile. “Should I be concerned?”
The question is light. His eyes are not.
“…I’m listening,” she says.
He studies her for a moment, as if weighing something, then exhales through his nose and looks away. “Right,” he murmurs, throat rippling. “Of course. So. What’s the plan? More breathing exercises? Or have you decided," he continued sharply, "that I’m cured.”
Concern flares in her chest first, quick and instinctive, followed closely by defensiveness. Because the way he says it isn’t teasing, like it usually might be, it's…testing. No, it's bracing.
“No,” she says too quickly. “That’s not—why are you asking that?"
“You cried,” his voice is taut, hoarse. "And you haven't mentioned it." he continues, quieter.“So I thought I’d ask why.”
She blinks at him. “Because… you kissed me.”
He nods slowly, as if fitting the pieces together in a new narrative. Right. She’s afraid of you. You made her cry. She thinks you’re a monster.
He crosses one leg over the other. “So that’s it, then. You’ve decided I made you uncomfortable.”
She shook her immediately, vehemently. “No—I mean. I was just as—” a flinch, at her own words, her traitorous mouth, still so entranced by the memory of his that it almost made her admit how badly she wanted him. She cannot say that. “That’s not why.”
"Then, what, exactly, is?" he asks sharply.
She could say it now. She should. She could explain boundaries, ethics, transference. That he didn't make her afraid, but he kissed her because he's traumatized, actually, and we're going to spend the rest of our sessions discussing why, something I know you'll most certainly hate, see you next week!
Instead, all she can think is how scared he looks beneath the restraint, the cool, sharp bite in his voice. How young he seems when he’s waiting to be told he’s done something wrong. And she knows she can't, but all she wants to do is tell him the only thing she was afraid of was how much she wanted him to do it again.
“I was overwhelmed,” she says. “And what happened…" was transference, she should finish. Often, when a patient has romantic feelings or expectations for their therapists, it's a very common case of projecting expectations from past relationships. We're going to have to dive into that a little, is that okay? is what she should ask him.
But the thought of telling him, of watching his expression change when she explains that what he feels is old hurt, not new desire, makes her chest tighten painfully.
She can’t do it yet.
So she makes herself a promise instead. She will tell him. Later. When he's ready. She can prime him for it first. She can tell him it crossed a boundary without overwhelming him so soon with what it reflected about him.
She clears her throat. "Um, what happened just caught me off guard. And it crossed a boundary. It wasn’t appropriate."
He looks at her for a long while. "So. I misread it."
Her throat works. She wants to tell him no. No, you didn't misread anything. If only you saw the things we do in my head. She doesn't, but she also doesn't say yes. “It's just, there's a very strict code of ethics, and I can’t be romantically—”
“It’s fine.” His voice cuts in, too smoothly. “I won’t do it again.”
"It can't," she whispers.
"It won't." The words are flat. Controlled.
"Okay," she returns his gaze and forces herself to mirror the calm she’s asked of him.
No touching. No lingering looks. Just enough gentleness to keep it from feeling like punishment.
She's just drawn a thinner line. One they’re both painfully aware of, one they’re toeing instead of crossing. Don’t kiss. Don’t say it. Don’t ask what it meant.
Still, she feels it. The awareness of his scent, his sweat, the salt on his skin, humming just beneath hers. The memory of how close he felt. How solid. How easy it would be to lean forward and ruin everything again.
She almost wanted to tell him that if he dropped her off his schedule, crossed her off and stopped being her patient now, in six months' time, he could kiss her without breaking any codes. But she doesn't.
He gives a single nod, like he’s closing a door he doesn’t intend to reopen.
"Okay."
a/n: guyyyys its finally done tysm for everyone who reached out asking ab it bc this stupid af shadowban almost made me give up :( this ch def has had a lot of different lives + directions. one version had a lot of very delicious angst but i think this is going to make the overall story much better and i hope this is the best one! hope u enjoy lovelies.
taglist: ppl asked to be tagged + ppl who have asked me ab this chapter! lmk if you want to be taken off or added. also pls lmk if it works, bc the shadowban might make it not :(
