Work Text:
“Who’s the third?”
The forest buzzed around the pair, raucous with the sounds of life that had never failed to put Lucy Gray at ease. On this day, however, even the sounds of the forest could not keep the furrow from her brow as she regarded Coriolanus.
The grip on his walking stick faltered at the question, splintering his finger as his hand slid and eliciting a yelp. She only watched, a sense of unease unfurling in her stomach. “What?” He asked.
“…Person you killed. You said you killed three people this summer,” she answered, keeping her tone even and impassive. She knew better than to make a man feel accused, even one she loved and trusted dearly.
He only busied himself with his injury, sucking on his finger before asking for her help in removing the splinter. She obliged, holding his hand to her. Better to keep an air of nonchalance, even as his blatant dodge of the question grew the pit in her stomach. She had hoped he had just misspoke, an honest mistake to be smoothed out and forgotten. Instead, Coriolanus stayed avoiding the question. Why?
“So - Bobbin, Mayfair,” Lucy Gray picked at the splinter, “who’s the third?”
She observed him in her periphery, that placid mask that sat on his face, giving nothing away. A conversation had not too long ago came to mind. She had told him she thought he had the potential to be quite the card-sharp, if poker ever took his fancy. ‘That face could hide a hundred sins,’ she had said.
“Myself,” Coriolanus finally answered, “I killed the old me, so I could come with you,” he ran his free hand through his hair, giving an easy smile - but it was too late. he’d floundered too long, and they both knew it. The pit in Lucy Gray’s stomach became a chasm.
There was a third. He had killed a third person, and he was keeping it from her.
She pulled the splinter and returned his smile, offering some half-hearted quip of her own about the ghost of Coriolanus’ old self. He was not the only one who could put on a poker face, after all.
They continued their hike in silence.
***
Trust is a fickle thing. Such a task to weave together, and yet so easily undone. One pull on a poorly laid thread and it all falls apart.
Lucy Gray knew this better than most. Her trust was not so easily won. When she found it, she held on and nurtured it as best she could. And why wouldn’t she? Nobody wants to let go of such a beautiful thing, especially one so rare.
So, she tried to rationalise away everything her body already knew - told herself that she was overreacting, that Coriolanus really was just trying to make her laugh.
And yet, try as she might, she could not silence the chorus of ‘who? who? who’s?’ swarming her mind.
And she couldn’t stop the image of Sejanus that answered.
Dread, disgust and denial. Now, that was just silliness. Coriolanus wouldn’t do that, she reasoned, even as her extremities took on that awful, tingly numbness she only felt when she was anticipating danger. He just wouldn’t. Not to his best friend, not ever. It wasn’t even worth thinking about, and Lucy Gray felt guilt at even considering it.
Her guilt was worth squat, though, her thoughts continuing to swarm and grow in intensity against her will. She had been so fast to accuse Spruce of Sejanus’ demise, him being in custody and all, but why only give Sejanus’ name? Why not Coriolanus’? Why not her’s? If he was already bringing Sejanus down, why not bring them all down with him?
Or better yet, give their names instead of Sejanus’? As far as Spruce was concerned, the two of them were outsiders, brought in at the last, gorey moment. He shared no kinship with them, no loyalty, not like he might have with Sejanus. He owed them nothing.
She hadn’t known Spruce well, but it suddenly became hard to imagine him talking at all. He detested the Capitol as much as the rest of the sorry lot of ‘em. He was planning the ultimate act of rebellion - to run. He wouldn’t’ve given those bastards anything.
Lucy Gray rubbed her eyes and it was Sejanus’ face she saw behind her eyelids. His tear-stained, terrified face as the rope was placed upon his neck. And Coriolanus, stood smart as ever in his uniform mere metres away, eyes squeezed shut as the trapdoor came loose.
Lucy Gray let herself fall a couple paces behind, feeling her mild expression begin to slip and the numbness intensify. She forced herself to take a few deep breaths.
He couldn’t of done that to him. Why would he do that to him?
But she knew why. Quietly, regrettably, she knew. That side of her lover she had oh-so-often chosen to ignore, always turning a blind eye to, came all too clearly into focus.
Oh, Coriolanus; so clever, so concealed, so capitol. She’d have been a damn fool not to see the toll district twelve life had had on him. He kept his mask well, but nobody could be perfect all the time. Not even her Snow was exempt to fatigue. No one could blame him - it was a huge change. She had initially assumed he just needed time to adjust and to grieve but that, soon enough, he would settle in and they could be enough for eachother.
How naïve it all sounded now.
He wanted more. He would always want more. She vaguely remembered his mentioning of the officer candidate program, all casual and laidback-like, but she could make out that excitement – a longing she had never quite seen directed at her own. Lucy Gray had felt an ambition inside him, then, she just hadn’t quite understood it’s scale.
She could see it now. In the tears of Sejanus Plinth, she could see it.
And it made sense, really. A cruel, relentless sense. Her capitol boy - starving and impoverished - stripped time and time again of the life that he had been promised, the title he had been born to. Oh, the man could act but Lucy Gray was no stranger to the arts. A con knows a con, and so she had glimpsed it; a hunger that went beyond body. Always craving, chasing.
The further they walked, the more sure she became. Leaving district twelve was sure as hell no walk in the park for Lucy Gray, but it was hard to mistake the utter misery radiating from Coriolanus. All that promise, all that pride - everything he was - forsaken in the name of survival. Just how long would it take for that discontent to turn on her?
She wondered, manically, if all the men she loved were destined to want to kill her.
In the face of terrible certainty, a wave of preternatural calm doused her nerves and electrified them all at once. Sejanus had changed everything and nothing at all. The pieces had been laid bare to Lucy Gray for so long - too long - but a part of her, the part that loved, that yearned, had barred her from putting them together.
The grip on her walking stick tightened as the silent conclusion reached her; the man in front of her, the man she loved, could no longer be trusted.