Chapter Text
The cold comes first, sharp, and intrusive. It surpasses the wool and thick cotton of the sheets and settles deep into the depths of her bones.
The realization that she is lying in a bed far away from home, comes second.
She pulls the duvet tighter around herself, legs curling upward. Maybe, just maybe, if she can’t see beyond the dark cave she's created for herself, the world outside won’t be able to tell if she exists or not either.
She tries to think of home.
The scent of tangy bubbling cherries. The whispers of Ma's humming as she walked through the kitchens, clattering cutlery, the sound of the oven whirring.
The little taps of a pen on the wood as Sejanus flipped through his textbooks at the dinner table.
“Sejanus, keep your books away before dinner, love”
She had joined him on the table then, taking a peak at his books, she was excited to attend the Capitol Academy in a few years.
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, you know they don’t like us here” He’d tell her, when she’d tell him about friends she had made at school.
She’s pulled out of her thoughts by the howling of the wind, followed by a sudden deafening thunder, a jarring sound to her ears, a reminder of what’s real.
Her brother is dead and her parents have given her away to a man that can’t even bear to sleep in the same bed as her.
To her parents, Coriolanus was the best they could ever have for their daughter.
“He’ll take care of you” her mother had whispered wiping away her tears on her wedding day. “Just like he took care of your brother”
She’d sniffled, murmuring to herself “Right, that’s why he’s dead”
Clearly, giving away their dead son’s fortune wasn’t enough, they had to give away their daughter too.
She turns on the lamp, before reluctantly getting out of her make-shift sanctuary.
The storm had made the room darker. Normally, sunlight would filter through the heavy velvet curtains, casting long gleams across the furniture.Today although, the grey of the sky complimented the monotony of the Mansion.
She quite dislikes the Presidential Palace, all white marble and breathless silence, filled with the cloying scent of Coriolanus’s roses, and goodness, so many rooms.
Her feet hit the carpeted floor, and she puts on her robe before going to the bathroom.
She doesn’t want to get ready, why should she? She has nowhere to go.
But God forbid The First Lady come out of her room in a nightgown, that would simply be too scandalous. So, she wears a simple dress with bell sleeves instead and makes her way to breakfast.
Coriolanus is at the table already, holding a cigarette in his hand as he goes over a file.
He doesn’t look up when she sits down beside him, exhaling thin ribbons of smoke that curl around the air.
He looks achingly gorgeous.
Soft, loose and pale curls forming an entirely unearned halo, glacial eyes that seemed to drink in the colour of the room, long and nimble fingers toying with the cigarette whose end is lit with embers.
“Good morning, Coriolanus”
He looks at her then, taking a languid drag, before releasing the air in thin swirls, head slightly tilted.
“How nice of you to finally grace me with your presence”
An avox puts a plate of fruit and toast in front of her, to which she gives a little smile and a “thank you”.
She pierces her fork through a strawberry, “I couldn’t quite tell if it was morning or not, the sky is grey you know”
As if to prove her point the outside rumbles with thunder, and she catches a glimpse of lightning from the large palace windows.
He pushes the end of the cigarette into an ashtray, the embers suffocate, forming slaty particles.
Coriolanus isn’t the one to talk much, at least not with her. He doesn’t know why he had agreed to the marriage, and that irked him.
After all, why would he want a woman in his home that held the same glint in her eyes as Sejanus?
He loathes even thinking about him, and now he has his younger sister to babysit.
The Plinths were more than generous with their money, using him as a replacement son almost, grief makes you do weird things.
Oh, If only they knew that he was responsible for their darling son’s demise.
But they wouldn’t know, he had made sure they would never know.
And if their daughter is as naive as their son was, that makes it easier.
Makes it easier for him to control her.
She was no older than fourteen when he first saw her. He had come to offer his condolences and she had been sitting in the corner of the room, knees drawn to her chest, staring out the window.
When her mother called her to meet him, she didn’t come. And when they sat down for dinner, she had stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
“Please excuse her dear, she hasn’t been taking it very well, she was really close with her brother”
He knew that.
Sejanus had mentioned his sister quite a lot. How she had made the cupcakes he bought to the Academy to share, how she was the one that had made the intricate diagrams for his classes, how she had put star shaped stickers all over his notebooks.
And when they were on the train to 12 he had whispered, “my sister’s going to miss me”.
When Coriolanus had seen her at the altar, eyes all puffy and red-rimmed, he felt unusually relieved, and powerful.
He knew that he wanted to be in a loveless marriage, but what else was better than being in a subjugative one?
She watches as an avox pours coffee in his cup, deep umber, settling with a glossy sheen. She puts three teaspoonfuls of sugar in her own mug, dragging the cream across the table, closer to her.
His voice comes with a silken rasp, mocking, almost teasing “would you like some coffee with your sugar?”
She doesn't realize that he was watching her and looks up to see his brow arched. He settles back in the chair, bringing his cup to his lips.
He looks so painfully bored with me, she thinks to herself.
Her own coffee is poured, and she puts in a generous amount of cream before replying to his jab.
“I like it a little sweet”
He stares at her as he brings the rim of his cup closer, the coffee is bitter on his tongue. He watches the inside of her mug begin to blossom with white and frothy swirls as she mixes it with a spoon and licks it clean after.
Sometimes Coriolanus forgets that she’s so young, so oblivious about the outside world. She might have her brother’s conscience and fire, and although it is beautiful, it is untested. Untested and sheltered.
He plans to keep it that way.
“Of course you do”
There‘s a popping sound as she opens the jar filled with jam, and she applies a thin layer of it on her toast, gliding the butter knife across the crisp surface. He follows her hands with his eyes, and his gaze falls on her ring finger, her bare ring finger.
Had he married someone else, an obnoxious daughter of a Capitol elite, or even someone from the pretty girls he liked to frequent, he couldn’t have cared less, but it’s different with her.
He needs to show the people that she’s his, that the Plinth girl isn’t as stupid as her brother, that even though she’s “district filth”, (as people would call Sejanus in the Academy) she's a Snow now.
He doesn’t believe in her being different from her brother, of course not, she’s as pathetically sentimental and recklessly altruistic as he was, but what Coriolanus Snow does believe in is ownership.
She belongs to him, and no one, including her parents, should think otherwise.
“Why are you not wearing your ring?”
She stops chewing, the toast a hair’s breadth away from her mouth, lips glistening with the jam. He wonders what it would taste like to kiss her when they were so sweet.
She didn’t hear him the first time, so she mumbles a little “mm?” around the bite.
This time, there was a sliver of vexation in his tone, “Where is your ring?”
She swallows, and holds out her hand, studying her fingers as if noticing the absence for the first time.
“Oh” she blinks, “l forgot”
When she sees that he still has the monotonous expression as before, she speaks up again, a little louder this time.
“I’ll wear it if you want me to, Coriolanus. I only fear that it might slip off my finger and get lost, it is diamonds after all”
He drains the last of his coffee, the cup landing with a soft clink as he puts it on the saucer.
“I assure you, it will be replaced if you lose it”
“Of course”
The room falls silent once more. He gets up, his chair dragging against the floor. She wants to tell him to stay a little longer, talk to her about something, anything.
I feel like a trapped bird inside this place, Coriolanus
She wants him to acknowledge her, her feelings, her loneliness. In the 6 months they’ve been married, not once have they said more than a few hollow sentences to one another.
I’m your wife Coriolanus, please treat me like I matter, I’m afraid I’m slipping away.
Her thoughts are cut off by his voice.
“Right,” he adjusts his cuffs, hands coming to tug at his tie after, “I’ll see you at dinner”
And just like that, she is abandoned to succumb to her thoughts and the mocking glare of the white marble.
She tracks the sound of his shoes against the floor as he leaves, and then hears the thud of the door that echoes through the halls. Final and absolute.
The air smells like him, like his roses.