Work Text:
Think Of Me Once In A While, Take Care
-Take Care
;
“Coryo.”
Coriolanus startled, just slightly, from where he sat on his bunk. He was skipping lunch, would rather use the time to think . Food was privilege, hunger was discipline. Or maybe, he thought, I just wanted to be alone. Sejanus was standing in the doorway of their room. Distantly, Coriolanus wondered if Sejanus had intentionally followed him, if he had cornered Coriolanus to discuss the treason Sejanus was planning to commit. If Sejanus had blackmail. If Sejanus would-
“Coryo? What are you doing in here?”
Annoying. Clearly, Sejanus followed Coriolanus. There was no point in sounding confused by his presence, unless Sejanus really was daft enough to think Coriolanus wouldn’t notice the manipulation. It was perfectly in character for the Plinth to assume Coriolanus was incompetent. The Plinth’s, so ready to remind the lesser of their weaknesses, so ready to put a Snow in their place.
Sejanus was still by the door, now awkwardly leaning against the frame. Coriolanus licked his lips, shifting slightly on his bunk. He tried to redirect his thoughts, to calm the hot, aching tightness in his chest. “Silver tongue,” his teacher had called him in primary school. The tightness grew. He wasn’t sure why. Silver tongue. His mouth tasted like copper, jaw heavy as lead.
“I wasn’t hungry.” Coriolanus finally said.
“Oh. You’ve been eating well. Putting on weight.” Sejanus spoke as he finally walked farther into the room, although his face twisted around the words. Clearly, he regretted saying something so crass. The guilt on Sejanus’ face did nothing to prevent the anger his words ignited in Coriolanus.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Coriolanus tried to keep his tone neutral, although his fingers twitched from where they rested in the space between his crossed legs. Sejanus had finally traversed the room, lowering himself onto the bunk beside Coriolanus’.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It was rude.” Sejanus paused, seeming to chew on another string of useless chatter. He was still nervous, still unsure. Was he nervous because he lacked the confidence to confront Coriolanus? Was he nervous because he was intimidated by Coriolanus? “I just mean… sometimes you would look sick, at the academy. I worried for you, Coryo. Nobody else minded your slightness, I’m sure they considered it fashionable.”
Why, Coriolanus wondered through fire scorched thoughts, was Sejanus saying any of this now? Sentiment. Sejanus must feel guilty for betraying someone he thought of as a friend. Coriolanus didn’t feel betrayed. This was just the latest among many messes the Plinth had caused.
“I’m not sure what you mean. I was not-”
“Coryo.” Sejanus said so softly, it was nearly a whisper. Coriolanus’ chest twisted impossibly tighter. Anger, anger, anger. Like his grandmother’s roses, his grandmother’s thorns, stabbing into the pad of his finger. Always a test of control.
Sejanus stood again, and for one sacred moment, Coriolanus hoped he’d leave. He didn’t. He shuffled closer to Coriolanus, dropping beside him with a warry exhale.
“Coryo, I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for inconveniencing you with my rashness, all these years.” Sejanus said to his hands. His nervousness increased with the hunch of his shoulders. “I’m sorry that I’m going to do it again.”
Ah, and here is the confrontation. The admittence. The guilty conscience. Always Distrinct, never changing. Control, Coriolanus thought, was the discipline of hunger.
“And what are you going to do, Sejanus?”
“Maybe nothing. I can still… I can change my mind. I’ve just been thinking, haven’t fully committed.”
Coriolanus wondered if Sejanus had come here expecting guidence. A friendly voice, pulling him back to reason. More anger, more thorns, more hunger. Why was it always the most fortunate who seemed addicted to self destruction? Watching suffering from their ivory throne, romanticizing their own heroics. Sejanus would know what it meant to be starving, soon enough.
“Coryo.”
“Stop calling me that.” Coriolanus snapped. His fingers flexed once again. Control, the loss of it. Starvation in the face of gluttony. Sejanus finally glanced up from his own clenched fists, surprise and guilt muddling the soft lines of his face. Boyishness. Innocence. Coriolanus bit the inside of his cheek until his silver tongue tasted more and more copper. There was a delicate beauty in the way Sejanus’ eyes shined with emotion. When Coriolanus looked in the mirror, he saw sharpness. He saw hunger.
“I’m sorry, Coryo.” The glimmer in Sejanus’ left eye spilled down his cheek. His hand reached towards Coriolanus’ leg.
“ Stop it. ”
“I fell in love with you.”
Life froze. Sejanus’ hand froze in the air. Coriolanus’ perpetually shuddering heart froze. Two pairs of eyes, locked together. Death, and endless life. Somehow, they were both hungry. Coriolanus bit down harder, like a man and a long-ended war and hunger for human flesh. What are you hungry for, Sejanus? It can’t be me. Inexplicably, Coriolanus saw grief in Sejanus’ face, open like a fresh wound.
“I fell in love with you two years ago, when I started looking for you. Not- not- I’m not making any sense.” Sejanus had once again become a flurry. His hand finally reached Coriolanus’ leg, resting against it like a brand. Coriolanus still sat motionless, eyes flitting between each of Sejanus’. “I started seeing you, I think. The way your eyelids dropped when Livia and the girls finally turned towards each other instead of you. God, I’m an idiot. The first day you sat across from me at lunch, I watched you eat like you couldn’t stand the taste of food. You still stared at your plate like you were starving.” Hunger. “Coryo, you’re spectacular. You decided you would create everything you wanted, and you had. But you…”
Coriolanus held his breath. This, this was betrayal. Betrayal was not another mess to clean up. Not the stupidity that always caught Coriolanus in a storm of chaos. This time, Sejanus attempted to make a mess of Coriolanus. Why? Why? To distract him from his potential? To manipulate Coriolanus into caring for him?
“You always wanted more,” Sejanus finished. He spoke like a flurry of snow, carried by careful breath.
To trick Coriolanus into saving Sejanus, yet again. To delude Coriolanus with companionship. Ever the Plinth, for believing Coriolanus was too stupid to see the truth. To conjure the most absurd lie ; that a Plinth (Sejanus, better than him in every way) could see anything valuable in a Snow (Coriolanus, destined to lose his mind so long as it fell into the right hands). Heat, blazing a path through the cold of every nerve in Coriolanus’ body. Bringing him to life.
“You, you were never my friend.” Sejanus didn’t even falter at the words. Another tear rolled down his lax face. “I hated you. I hate you. I have always hated that godawful nickname. ‘Coryo, how have you been?’ You are delusional, Plinth. You’re mad.” Does Sejanus know anything of madness? “You are a selfish, absurd, idiotic clown. Dancing through the halls of the academy; you always knew you had no place there! District born, God! You- you never grew up. You tortured everyone with your useless tangents about what's right , as if you have any place to question what is right and wrong!”
Coriolanus paused to control his heaving breaths. Finally, he noticed the way Sejanus’ hand had begun twisting the fabric of Coriolanus’ pants in his hand. Like a child, clinging to his mothers skirt. How could he hold onto Coriolanus, even now? Like he was begging Coriolanus to stay, even after an arena became nothing but rubble. Even after Coriolanus’ life became wreckage. There was no hope of calming down.
“How could you speak so much of goodness in a room full of evil? What is wrong with you, Sejanus? It’s not- it’s not fair. ”
The Plinth, the freak , the idiot- Sejanus, reaching for Coriolanus’ face with both hands. Deft, warm fingers, wiping away the tears that Coriolanus never noticed. This was betrayal. This was a free man, holding fresh meat through the bars of an iron cage. Painfully, Coriolanus realized that he loved Lucy Gray because she unashamedly carried everything Coriolanus was terrified of. He realized that he loved Sejanus for holding onto everything that Coriolanus let go of.
“ Coryo. ” One word. His name.
Coryo crumpled inward, right into Sejanus’ hands. His grandmoth’s thorns were tearing through what was left of Coryo’s skin. Control, control, control. Coryo has never been this hungry; hungry enough to bite down to bone. “It was just hate.” Tigris had said, as he floated from his body. There had been blood seeping through his shirt, yet none on his hands. Now, mangled into knots on his bunk, far removed from everything he thought he was, he stared down at his palms. They were still bloody.
“You can be good. You are good.”
“Sejanus-” Coryo gasped, ravenous for air. “I don’t want to be him, Sejanus. I don’t want to be my father. I don’t want to be hungry anymore. And- and I think I’m insane. I think I’ve gone insane, or maybe I’ve never been sane. I- I miss my mom.” Sejanus’ hands had drifted to the back of Coryo’s neck, holding him against Sejanus’ shoulder. Coryo is tearing Sejanus’ pity through iron bars, swallowing bloody mouthfulls, body bent and contorted.
But it’s funny , he thinks. I’m still in a cage, and he’s still outside of it.
It’s funny how I believed I could be satiated, if I was free.