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The Hob was bustling. Lucy Gray’s return from the Capitol brought people from all across the district. Miners, merchants, peacekeepers, medics, everyone was eager to see the Victor of the Tenth Hunger Games perform.
And perform she did, with her guitar in her arms she twirled around the stage; the feathers in her hair shining under the stage lights. Even from across the room, Sejanus could see the shimmery blue pigment on her eyelids, which matched her skirt. Over top of her gauzy white blouse was a cream waistcoat adorned with embroidered flowers of every color in the rainbow. Her worn-in cream boots featured flowers as well, and Sejanus admired her outfit as she danced along with the crowd.
She finished off her song with flourish, and bid farewell to the crowd with a curtsy and a promise to be back next weekend, before she exited the stage. With the rest of the Covey playing strong, Sejanus searched the room for familiar faces; Smiley was at the bar chatting with a merchant girl, Beanpole and Bug were dancing with the District Twelve folk, clearly stumbling to learn the line dance everyone else was so familiar with, and Coriolanus was still nowhere to be found. He had probably gone backstage to talk to Lucy Gray, but his heart fluttered anxiously nonetheless.
A flash of blue had pulled his attention back to the crowd, where Lucy Gray was now standing right in front of him, her hands on her hips.
“Lucy Gray,” he greeted shyly.
“Hey soldier,” she said, “‘you seen Coriolanus?”
Sejanus shook his head.
“He stepped out during your last song, haven’t seen ‘em since.”
He thought that would be the end of their conversation, but all it did was elicit a small frown and a shrug from the girl.
“Shame, guess you’ll have to keep me company till he gets back,” she said sweetly, sliding into the seat across from him.
“I guess this is our first time actually meeting without Coryo as chaperone,” he joked, and she huffed out a laugh in response.
“So it is, ‘seen you hanging around Coriolanus plenty, never been able to properly introduce myself, with me being in chains and all.”
Lucy Gray’s mention of chains caused his heart to thump like a jackrabbit as he was reminded of Marcus. Marcus at the zoo refusing his Ma’s food, Marcus chained to the table during their interview, Marcus bound by only his wrists as he hung fifteen feet above the rest of the arena. He wondered if Lucy Gray saw him as Marcus did, as nothing but a district traitor turned Capitol rich boy.
He took a moment to steady his breathing as Lucy Gray watched curiously.
“Maybe it’s better we met like this, instead of you behind bars in the zoo,” he supplied.
She hummed at that, and they lapsed into comfortable silence as Lucy Gray turned to watch the crowd stomp along to the beat. He was glad that she didn’t choose to pry at his odd reaction, he wasn’t sure how to explain to the girl that ever since he had sprinkled breadcrumbs over his former classmate’s corpse he had been in pieces, and even though he had begun to put himself back together he was still fragile.
After his heart had settled and his hands stopped shaking, he decided to break the silence.
“You talk like me.”
Lucy Gray’s head snapped back at Sejanus’ statement.
“Pardon?”
“You talk like me,” he replied, “obviously our accents differ quite a bit, but we both have a way of speaking that’s distinctly district.”
It’s the way Lucy Gray doesn’t drop the r at the end of words, like the way she says after instead of aftuh. There were many clear giveaways of someone's place within Panem just by listening to the way they spoke, and unfortunately for Sejanus his district blood had been sniffed out the moment he had stepped foot into elementary school. No amount of gumdrops could win his classmates over after they heard him pronounce water like wadder.
Lucy Gray looked at him like she was genuinely interested in what he had to say, which shocked him into continuing his explanation.
“I don't know, it’s comforting. Before coming to Twelve I hadn’t heard a non-capitol accent in years,” he said, a small smile forming on his lips, “except for my Ma, of course.”
Not his father, in an attempt to integrate properly into Capitol society, Strabo Plinth had paid to have his District Two accent trained out of him. He had made it a family affair, much to the dismay of Sejanus and his Ma. Losing their accent meant losing their last piece of home, and Sejanus made that clear every chance he could.
Luckily, the Capitol accent never stuck for Sejanus or Ma, making Sejanus’ father the only Plinth to adopt it. It was one of the many reasons that Sejanus often avoided conversations with his father altogether, the perpetual argument they seemed to be in was another.
Lucy Gray smiled at him, resting her hand on her chin; the way the warm light cascaded down her brown hair and lit her face made her look angelic in a way, and for a moment Sejanus understood why Coriolanus was so enamored with her. She was beautiful, and in another life – one where they didn’t love the same boy – he could see himself loving her.
“Being away from the capitol must be… freeing, in a way,” Lucy Gray replied.
She was testing the waters, he could tell from the way she stiffened a little before she spoke, as if she was bracing for impact.
Sejanus didn’t feel like lying to her, not when she was the only person to ever see him like this – vulnerable and open – and hadn’t laughed him off immediately.
“Honestly? I feel more at home here than I ever did in the Capitol.” He confessed.
She softened at Sejanus’ admission and tilted her head forward, leaning closer to Sejanus.
“You can take the kid away from the district but you can't take the district away from the kid,” she asserted, and Sejanus can’t help but smile back.
They had only spoken a handful of words to each other before she had approached him earlier, but it felt like Lucy Gray understood him in a way no one else did. Not Coriolanus, not his Ma, and certainly not his father.
He thought back to before the games, when he begged Coriolanus to trade tributes; what would have happened if Coriolanus had said yes? Would Sejanus have fought tooth and nail to get her home safe? Would he have cheated for her, as Coriolanus did? He mulled over the endless stream of what-ifs in his head, when Lucy Gray spoke.
“I know how it feels to be homesick for a place you can never go back to,” she started, “me and the Covey miss being able to travel whenever the fancy takes us.”
She looked back towards the stage, and Sejanus watched as her expression flickered to something wistful as she watched the rest of the Covey perform.
Unsure of how to proceed, with the girl across from him clearly lost in her own thoughts of a life snatched from her grasp, he interrupted her trance with a question.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
This does the trick, snapping her back to reality as she takes in what he asked. Then, like it never left, her spark returned and she gasped in mock offense.
“Sejanus, are you makin’ a pass at me?” She asked, playfully scandalized as she clutched her nonexistent pearls.
“What? Oh god no- seriously it’s not like that,” he felt the heat rise to his cheeks as he stuttered out a response. He was sure that if this got back to Coriolanus it would be the end of them.
“I’m not like that.” He finished, hoping that his confession would dispel any potential rumors of stealing his closest friend's songbird.
“Don’t worry darlin’ i was just pullin’ your tail,” she said, before she continued coyly, “not like I mind sharing anyhow, I see the way he looks at you.”
A hand reached up to tug at his curls, but was met with the prick of a freshly shaved buzz cut. He shifted in his seat, having been overtaken by a sudden bolt of nervous energy he wasn’t sure how to handle.
“Looks at me how?” He asked, his voice rough all of a sudden.
He tried to feign casual interest as he spoke, but could tell that Lucy Gray was staring right through him with her wide, brown eyes.
“He looks at you the same way he looks at me, like we’re his,” she said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Sejanus stilled, the room suddenly felt five degrees hotter. He kept his gaze firmly on the cuff of his sleeve, his fingers pulling at the blue fabric gently, doing and undoing the button compulsively. For all of his observations, he had never noticed this.
Before he could work up the courage to ask her how exactly she knew this, how she spoke of it like a fact instead of an inference, Coriolanus had appeared on the staircase, his eyes searching the stage for his songbird.
Lucy Gray had noticed him as well, and the knowing look in her eyes was gone and replaced with a flat smile, as she turned back to Sejanus.
“Speak of the devil, I should go before he sees us,” she placed her hand on Sejanus’ forearm, “don’t think he’ll take too kindly to us talking like this, might think we’re conspiring against him.” She said with a wink, and before Sejanus could reply she hopped off her stool and disappeared into the crowd of dancing people.