cold nights // coriolanus snow

thirty-one

"He's lucky to have ya. Hell, we all are." Lennox says after a moment. "If any of these stuck-ups had any humanity they would treat you just the same. I'm not here to convince you to come home, but I think you're better off with us. That's all. At least at home, you're treated normal."

"But I'm not." You reply. "Not anymore. I might as well take this chance to get an education, so I can get a good job and go home and provide for you guys. Dad could retire instead of workin' himself to death in those mines, and Ma would never have to patch another pair of coveralls for as long as she should live. You could do whatever you wanted, bug. You could go to school too if that's what you decide. I could buy you a house, a bike, anything you want in the world."

"That's great and all, but I don't give a shit about that stuff anymore." Lennox tells you honestly. "As long as you're... alive, I guess, we're happy just the way things were. We talked about it a lot. That we'd give anything just to have you back."

A smile twitches on your lips. "I get it." You agree quietly. "But if I can get something for all of us out of having to go through... all of that, I'm gonna take it. Then we can all be together and all the better for it."

"For how long? Until one of us gets hitched and has kids, and then in twenty years we're sending them back here to go through the same shit you did?" He argues. "It's all for nothing. We just gotta make the time for each other while we can."

You chew on your lip, sick at the mere mention of your kids possibly getting picked. Or, god forbid Lennox getting picked in the last three years his name is entered in the reaping, and the number of entries increasing with every passing year. "I suppose." You agree. "But, can you keep a secret?"

He smiles at the familiarity as he looks over at you. "You know I can."

"Coryo is gonna be the next president. I'm sure of it." You whisper. "He's sure of it, too, it's all he's been raised for."

"Forgive me for not feeling reassured by that fact."

"No, but you should." You insist. "He's... He's a good man. He knows how to do the right thing, and I'm sure he'll call off the games one day. He has to."

You can hear your brother's sharp intake of breath. "If he's got you, he will." He mumbles in realization and you nod slightly.

"I think I'll be able to help. To actually do something good if I stick with him." You whisper.

"That's... a lot of pressure." Lennox agrees. As of right now, Coriolanus Snow is far from in his good books. 'If he was, I'd burn my library.' He recalls you laughing over the line in the book, recounting it to him just a couple of months prior. He wants to see you like that again. Happy. Yourself. But if you have to throw that away to save a future of who knows how many children, would that even be worth it to him? He feels guilty for thinking that it wouldn't.

"I love him, Len. I do." You assure him, somehow seeming to track his thought process. "I just don't know... If he truly feels the same way about me. I thought he did, when we were back home. When he came to Twelve, he was different than he is here."

"That's not fair." He replies quietly, deciding that now would certainly not be the time to bring up the fact that if you did end up marrying the future President of Panem, that would mean there would be no "coming home" for you. This, here, a city that tore you apart and left him to try and pick up the pieces, would be your home. He knows that as much as you love him and your parents, you're too noble to give up the chance to spare his children from your fate. He wants to hate you for it, but he never could. "That you have to defend him at all, I mean. You deserve to be angry sometimes, Y/N/N."