CHAPTER EIGHT — Unintentional Confession ..
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The first and only time Daphne had tried to tell Coriolanus about this was two years ago. Perhaps because he remembered that winter night so clearly now, he felt especially burdened with guilt that he hadn't actually pieced together the full extent of what she meant — there was no defense to his ludicrous ignorance but the pitiful admission that he didn't think neither the president, nor her brother capable of such lack of humanity.
That night was now flashing before his eyes, the gentle snow falling over the entire Capitol in a curtain of white slowly being lowered and thus brining monochromatic duality to a city long lost to its slumbering hours. From the top of the bridge on which they had paused their walk, leant against its intricately disigned railing, they could see how far into the horizon the Capitol spread and how so much further, Panem continued into pitch black. Right below them, the streets were empty and it felt, for just a moment, that the whole world was gone and they were the last two people left.
Snow remembered he was freezing in as much of a silence as he could — winters have always been rough for his family, at the very least since the war broke out. Furs, coats, even as much as a winter hat, they've all turned from a common necessity into a luxury overnight. The best they could do anymore was a thin turned leather coat that he wore over four other layers, all more suitable for the warmer seasons than the cutting winds of winter.
"Did you love your parents, Coryo?"
The past tense hammered over his head and got him stammering — certainly, it wasn't the cold shaking his jaw outside of his control, "Every child is bound to respect their parents."
"You know that's not what I meant," Daphne had chuckled at his nervousness to give a honest answer, though she didn't notice it had taken him off guard to know she was aware he had been orphaned during the war. "Respect and love are very different things. For example, I respect my father, but I don't love him. Much as I respect his status of power, while not condoning or agreeing with most of his decisions."
It used to make him so anxious every time Daphne entrusted him with listening to her radical views, not because he would disagree and thus fear causing a rupture between them, but rather because he agreed and that frightened him terribly.
After a deep sigh, Daphne continued, her gaze watching her pale hands dig into the soft snow that has gathered on the top of the bridge's metal railing, "I can't even say that at least I have the love for my mother to keep me warm, because I can't help but hate her for dying during the war and leaving me here with them. Most of the time I wish I was capable of loving my father really, but sometimes... Sometimes I just wish they had killed him too."
"They?" The word shivered off of Coriolanus tongue.
"Don't make me say it, Coryo," Daphne shook her head, sadness clinging to her tone. "You know who."
That was the most egregious of things Coriolanus has ever heard Daphne insinuate, so before he could even properly think past the cold's grip on him, he hurried a puzzled inquiry, "Why would you want such a thing?"
"Purely selfish reasons really," she admitted with ease, her tone slowly descending even further into burdened guilt, of the sort that looked tragic hanging by the consonants of a teen. "I know how much he matters to Panem, I know how much worse things would have been for us if my wish came true, but sometimes I just hate him that much more that it seems like a fair trade."
"How about your brother?"
"He's just a violent prick."
Now, embraced by the heat of summer as it instantly took his fret and turned it into a cold sweat running down his spine, Coriolanus understood that night on the bridge Daphne had tried to be as frank as she possibly could, even as she followed her confessions with a chuckle or two once their weight became unbearable. For people like them, being honest about the situations waiting for them in what was supposed to be called 'their home' was merely what most would understand as an equivalent to stripping themselves bare in public — being seen mattered, how they were being seen was ever the more significant too.
However, to see Albert's hand wrapped around Daphne's neck awakened in Coriolanus far more than a guilt-riddled memory. Anger sparked up in his veins, forcing him to close his hands into fists long before his thoughts have been fully formed.
He had to do something and he had to do it fast, but in front of that awareness stood taller an option that was first and foremost utterly outrageous — his instincts told him to run into that ally and put Albert in his place.
But this was no private encounter, within the span of a second his mind started dissecting his instinct, tearing it apart to its smallest flaw. Any passing witness would only be seeing a nobody attacking the president's son next to the Justice Hall, not Coriolanus Snow defending Daphne's honor against her tyrannical brother.
And what was it that he hoped to achieve by starting a fight he so obviously couldn't finish?
Though Coriolanus couldn't exactly consider himself malnourished, it would have been dumb of him just then to overlook the fact that Albert looked the part to have twice his strength and just about enough madness in his eyes and power tucked under his sleeve that he could kill Coriolanus and get away with it too.
No — though his fists clenched, he couldn't follow through with that instinct of violence and fight his way to a resolution.
However, he couldn't stand by and watch either.
"Daphne!" He unclenched his right fist and raised his hand as he shouted her name, giving the impression that he had just spotted her, not that he had rushed out of a moving car in panic to get to her a moment before.
As soon as his loud voice sounded across the street, he witnessed his fast response had earned the desired reaction from Albert, whose hand left Daphne's neck, as if electrocuted by the contact with her skin. And he might as well have been, because if anything could scare people like them, then that was the promise of a ruined reputation.
Coriolanus unfroze himself from the place and, lowering his hand, he kept his hurried steps looking as natural as possible, walking towards the ally. It should have chilled him to the bone to meet Albert's eyes, because such mindless fury was unnatural to be found outside of some wild forest filled to the brim with hungry predators, but for some unknown reason, Coriolanus felt fear drain out of him and get left behind with each step he took closer to the scene. Maybe that's how victories tasted, as sweet and as sour as pride.
"Oh, Mr. Albert Ravinstill," Coriolanus greeted like he had just noticed the man, even going the length of extending his hand forward too, for a handshake that wasn't going to happen.
Albert muttered some incomprehensible curse, taking one last glance at his sister before pushing his way past Coriolanus and returning with a cloud of anger shadowing his features towards the Justice Hall. That glance prompted Coriolanus to finally look at Daphne and every single ounce of pride turned to lead, sinking his heart.
It was only normal for one to be cross with the origin of their restlessness, with the cause of their deepest frustrations and most destructive waves of thought, but even so, Coriolanus feared he may never be able of such a feat, no matter what happened, no matter what Daphne did to him — he feared he will always be a forgiving man for her and goodness, that was a weakness like the heel was to Achilles, unraveling before him now, plainer than day.
Daphne had raised her trembling cold hand to the left side of her face in futile hopes of diffusing that red stain, a hurtful proof that she wasn't nearly as important as she liked to pretend she was. In doing so, she had averted her eyes from looking at Coriolanus too — she didn't know if she was ready to look at him. There was a high chance she wouldn't be able to see something else other than the hatred she had harbored for Lucy Gray over the span of barely a day. All that bitterness choked her almost as much as her brother's hand had a moment ago and she was thus petrified by the possibility of simply bursting into tears.
"Are you alright?"
Something in Coriolanus' soft tone as he asked her that simple question however felt an awful lot like a flame, melting the ice statues created in her heart by her own jealousy. The way he had asked her that, so devastated by concern, so tender with his nuanced speech, it brought the flame close to her heart that even Daphne's insecurity had to be placed on the sideline — How could she ever believe her beloved Coryo would care for some district girl more than he cared about her?
She felt like a traitor, all of a sudden — a traitor to their alliance, to their friendship, to all they have build over the years.
As anyone in the wrong, Daphne felt the need to apologize as soon as he finished uttering his question, so there came his answer.
This was the first time Daphne had been this close to him.
From the moment her arms wrapped around him and he could feel the tip of her nose resting on his neck, Coriolanus Snow no longer had a say over the two most important instincts of the human body: neither his heartbeats nor his breath were operating as they should.
What little of his consciousness remained with him and had not scattered away the second he was met with such warmth told him to wrap his own arms around her, but try as he might, he was numb, left frozen into place and paralyzed by an emotion threatening now only to grow within his chest. Truth was, he's never let anyone this close to his heart before and all at once, he was provided proof that it had been one of the worst mistakes of his life to fear melting over another human, to let go of his distant strategies and his hard-as-ice tactics, even for just a second. One embrace was not going to turn him into a puddle forever, because this world was cold enough to freeze him in an instant anyhow; how stupid he had been to avoid melting!
Before he could even finish his thoughts, the embrace was over.
Daphne leant back with a chuckle forming on her lips. Coriolanus couldn't take his eyes off of her, and he knew that to see her leave their hug with a blush was working that same flustered shade onto his own cheeks. However, Daphne was flustered for a whole other reason than the one he would have expected.
"Shit," the curse was breathless leaving her lips and he had only just then noticed the slight smudge of her lipstick, drawing a faint streak to her chin. Daphne lifted her hand to grasp his collar and tugged on it ever so lightly — he should have enjoyed that far less than he actually did in order to be able to ever call himself a decent man again —, before grimacing. "Sorry about that," she looked up from the red stain she left on his blue collar briefly, before fumbling around to get to her purse. "Let me get it cleaned up for you."
Coriolanus looked down, grabbing his collar and straightening it out to get a sight that had him dry gulping and tensing his jaw.
There it was, her faint, deliciously red lipstick with the scent of cherries, staining the collar of one of his few well fitted buttoned shirts.
He should have, by all means, cared about the integrity of his clothes, but all he could think of was 'Good, this should do well in reminding everyone that I'm the only man in her life.'
On the back of that single thought, when he spotted the white napkin Daphne retrieved approaching his collar, he let go of the latter and took her wrist instead. His thumb slid into her palm and coerced wordlessly that she released her napkin.
She believed he merely preferred to clean it up himself, so when he instead touched the napkin covering his thumb to her bottom lip, her heart turned into an acrobat taking an unexpected and unintended leap off their high pedestal.
Every bit of self-control he had left in him was engaged into keeping his eyes from lifting from what he set himself out to do. He's never before dared to come this close and actually touch her tender skin, but all of a sudden, the thin napkin separating his thumb from her chin felt like an outrageous constraint, holding him back from what was promised to be salvation.
"Hold still," Coriolanus hummed with a little line of stress appearing between his brows when Daphne's lips twitched in her attempt to find her voice and question what exactly he was up to, being there to begin with. She was well aware he should have been at the Academy that morning, but what she didn't know was that Coriolanus, much like her, had had no sleep last night; he had been thinking about her and he would rather not let his mind trail back to his duties, at least not for a while now.
To consolidate his point about needing her to be still, he reached his free hand up and cupped the right side of her face. His thumbs brushed back across her cheek and the very tips of his fingers were met with the softness of her hair — goodness gracious, he thought. He has never dared imagine how it might feel to have his hand in her hair, but now his mind's integrity was actively degrading, being threatened into submission by that very sensation he tested.
Was it bad that he had intentionally slowed down the motions he took into cleaning her chin of smudged lipstick? Was it bad that he wanted to stretch this moment out even but a second longer than it had to be?
Was it really that bad that he had forgotten Sejanus had come there with him in the first place and that once his presence was made known to them both, he almost wished to strangle his classmate for making both him and Daphne take a step back from one another?
Bad or not, Coriolanus had done and felt them all, exactly in that order.
He scrunched the lipstick-stained napkin into his fist and propped both hands behind his back, clearing his throat so to signal Sejanus, as clearly as possible without saying it outright, not to push his luck across any joke or tease that might flash in his mind. Discretion, Plinth, Coriolanus' eyes warned him.
The Plinth boy had seen very little of the scene that had occurred in the ally to have made Coriolanus demand the car stopped in an unmarked parking spot. In fact, he barely even recognized Albert when he ran from the scene and all he did manage to understand once he approached the ally besides the Justice Hall was that he may have been interrupting something personal happening between Coriolanus and Daphne.
So the rumors are actually true, he couldn't help the smile when the thought sparked in his mind.
Though at first confused by the interruption, once she recognized Sejanus, Daphne's eyes were quick to spot the envelope in his hands as well. She pretty much flew from Coriolanus' side, much to his despair on the matter.
"Tell me that's what I think it is," she beamed, looking between Sejanus and the envelope. The boy was almost insulted by how ever the more obvious it was that her joy was to see that object rather than him. His frustrations were however infinitesimal compared to Coryo's.
"I don't exactly know what it is," Sejanus handed the envelope over, the immense weight of its burden still lingering into his shy tone and hesitating hand. Whatever that envelope held felt important and Daphne has always seemed like a dangerous individual to him. "But my father told me you should have it."
"You can tell your father that he made the greatest choice of his career, Sejanus."
"Well," with a deep breath, Coriolanus stepped to stand besides Daphne, his arm brushing against hers, "aren't you going to open it?"
"I already know what's inside," Daphne admitted dismissively, placing the envelope in her purse before looking at the boys with a changed look in her eyes — she was about to scold them. "You both should be at the Academy right now. I've heard today was supposed to be all about Mentor duties and last I checked, both of you are mentors of some promising Tributes. You can't risk attendance by playing mailman for me."
"We aren't planning on running late," Coriolanus explained before Sejanus even minded opening his mouth. "If we start walking now, we'll be back before they even realize we were gone."
"Walk?" Sejanus frowned. "But the car's still waiting for us."
"And you can take the car to get back, Sejanus," Coriolanus responded, "but I believe I would rather have the fresh air." To extend an invitation to Daphne, he hooked his arm with hers. Her hand patted his arm and that counted for an agreement almost as clear as the smile she had followed the gesture with.
Sejanus got the hint with much more ease than Coriolanus dared to hope for and after Daphne colloquially made sure he knew she was grateful he had delivered the envelope so very promptly to her that morning, their fresh-air-seeking walk commenced, arm in arm, at anything but an alert pace.
At first, it had been quiet.
It wasn't a long walk ahead of them and it so seemed that the whole of the journey was about to be a silent battle taken innerly, inside their minds, where they fought their thoughts for order and coherence to actually have the guts to say anything at all — much needed to be said indeed.
However, once they reached the middle of the last bridge they needed to cross in order to get to the street corner across from which stood tall the prestigious Academy of the Capitol, the memory Coriolanus had remembered when he saw Albert's uncivilized behavior prompted him to stop and turn them towards the railing. It wasn't the same bridge as the one that they had stood on back then, during the snowy winter, for their talk, but it felt right to pause there nonetheless.
"I was the one who convinced Sejanus to get the envelope to you now rather than later," Coriolanus started the conversation by correcting her on her gratitude to Plinth's thoughtfulness of her. He unhooked his arm from hers and, with a sigh, allowed his palms to rest on top of the concrete margin of bridge's sidewalk. He wondered briefly if the cars passing behind them every once in a while recognized who were the two young adults having a chat as they gazed upon the city bathing in light.
"I figured as much," Daphne confessed, wearing a faint smile and thus effortlessly making Coryo's heart falter. "About Albert..."
"I won't tell a soul," he vowed before she even had the chance to finish her sentence.
"Thank you," she whispered, leaning forward into the railing.
"Yesterday—"
"You did great with your tribute," Daphne interrupted upon the confidence of a sharp inhale. There was an unspoken stiffness to her smile, but she maintained it nonetheless. "At the Zoo, I mean."
"You watched the broadcast?"
"I was there, dummy," she chuckled.
Though he was forced by the usage of that darn nickname to straighten up his posture, Coriolanus didn't miss a beat in shaking his head, "I didn't see you there."
"You were probably too worked up on adrenaline from being in there with those tributes to notice me," she shrugged. "Either that, or your tribute's skirt stole all your attention away. I don't know which option I hate more."
Coriolanus' features scrunched down in confusion, because surely Daphne did not mean to make it sound like jealousy twisted into her words. Jealous, he thought. What would she have to be jealous over?
She brushed her unintentional and risky confession off into a chuckle, one that was bound to fade away once her gaze unfocused and the vision of the city drowned away her joy and relaxation, replacing it with a glimpse in the distance of her supposed home. "Can I tell you a secret?"
All but uninterested in watching the city over the finesse details of her side profile, Coriolanus replied within the second, "Always."
"I'll kill them."
There was no 'wish' anymore, like it had been when they were a little younger. The want turned into a plan sometime along the way.
She didn't have to say their names, because Coriolanus knew who she was talking about and that they were both dangerous targets to hold in mind; so dangerous that even he had to look away from her and into the distance, where he took note of the presidential house.
"One day," Daphne nodded shortly. "I'll kill them both and this will all be ours."
'Ours', Coriolanus' thoughts echoed back. Could it be, he wondered, returning his gaze to her again, you see our futures intertwined as well?
He answered in the only way that would do justice to the honor she had bestowed upon him just then — Coriolanus' hand inched closer and slowly, bit by bit, made its way over Daphne's, where he held her with that vocal squeeze which screamed on his behalf, 'I'm by your side. For better or for worse. Just as you'll be by mine, no matter what.'
It had been a bit of stretch to actually not be counted as absent when the Mentors have been taken to meet their chained tributes, but Coriolanus made it, breathlessly sitting down across the table from Lucy Gray, a minute after everyone else had already taken their seats.
"Who's the lucky girl?" Lucy Gray, who until then was leant back in her chair, gloomed over by having to wait so long, suddenly leant forward and, with the sound of chains being dragged across the floor, motioned up to Coriolanus' collar. After he looked down, flustered to follow the direction in which she was pointing while well aware it was the lipstick stain from Daphne that had gained her attention, she smiled, "You look like you barely made it away from her."
"I am not here to talk about myself," Coriolanus sported a little grin as courtesy begged of him to dismiss her comment, much as he rejoiced knowing that if Lucy Gray drew that conclusion, surely everyone else from the Mentor program did too. He pointed nonetheless to the questionnaire he had to fill as a formality with details about his tribute, "We are here to talk about you. But, if all goes according to plan, you might be meeting her soon."
He hadn't had the chance to ask Daphne for that favor yet, as it hadn't seemed proper immediately after seeking forgiveness to demand help from her too. However, Coriolanus reckoned that now, if he were to ask, she'd agree to join him on one of the Zoo visits to his tribute — he imagined it could only do great things to the public image of Lucy Gray for her to be seen as favored by the president's daughter.
"Oh," Lucy Gray hummed, shaking her head as her thin lips curved into an all-knowing smile, "you truly shouldn't have given me that rose, Coriolanus Snow. Giving me false hope like that is cruel."
"I don't think I understand." Behind his many blinks hid uneasiness.
"Well, you are a taken man. You shouldn't go around giving flowers to every girl."
"It's common courtesy around here," he argued. "And I thought you liked the rose."
"I did," Lucy nodded generously before tilting her head to the side. "But did she?"
Coriolanus had to divert the conversation back on track, onto the questionnaire at hand, because what Lucy Gray was telling him puzzled him deeply, too deep to have those ideas tackled by a hardly rested mind.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE :
It's been a streak of longer chapters lately and I am sorry for that, honestly. I've noticed longer chapters draw with themselves a drop-out in terms of comments, so I will try to regulate as best as I can chapter length from here on. These past chapters have simply been too packed and it would have felt unnatural to cut them in the middle of all the tension too.
However, I do believe this chapter was *packed* in the best way possible 😭 Coryo's possessive side is showing and I love it okayy