murphy

You’re glowing. You’re fucking glowing on stage and you know it. You were never the star, but you’ve always been okay with being a literal second fiddle to Clerk Carmine, okay with being the harmony to Lucy Gray’s melody. You’re just glad your little family is together again after the Games, that Lucy Gray had returned home.

You strum your banjo, you have a little competition with CC on your fiddles (he’s crowned victorious, determined by how loud the crowd would cheer for each of you), you sing and stomp and twirl around with your tambourine. And then you see him. A Peacekeeper in the crowd of District 12 citizens. He’s standing with his little groups of other Peacekeepers, brown hair shorn close to his head and large puppy-dog eyes that watch you in awe. All his friends are staring at Lucy Gray, of course they would. She’s beautiful, talented, your best friend. But he’s only looking at you.

You swish your skirts and blow him a kiss, winking and earning hollers from the Peacekeepers who clap him on the back as he averts his gaze, blushing madly. Shows have always been special, they’ve always been electric, on stage with your pseudo-family, getting a chance to perform for all of District 12. But knowing he’s watching you makes you feel like you’re flying. Not Lucy Gray, not Barb Azure, but you. 

After the show, as the crowd starts to disperse, you search for him. Lucy Gray warned you to not mess with the Capitol boys, but you insisted you’d be safe, so she let you go. You find him easily, still with some of the other Peacekeepers. As you approach, they nudge him and shove him around, clearly teasing him over you. 

Before you could get to him, one of the other Peacekeepers approach you first. The one that stood closest to him, with white-blond hair, who asks you, “Where’s Lucy Gray?” You recognize him—Coriolanus Snow, Lucy Gray’s mentor.

You point him in her direction. “Thank you for bringing her home,” you say. He largely ignores your thanks, moving to where you told him Lucy Gray was. 

“Sorry about him,” the boy who was staring at you says. “He’s pretty much got a one track mind. I’m Sejanus.” He holds out a hand for you to shake, to which you instead bring your hand up in front of his face, palm down and fingers dropped, looking at him expectantly. Sejanus laughs, taking your hand and pressing a light kiss over your knuckles.

You smile when he gets it, not many people do, and introduce yourself as you re-fluff your skirts and straighten the ribbon that’s holding your corset closed. 

“You were wonderful up there,” he says. “I didn’t know one person could play so many instruments.”

“There’s not much else to do,” you shrug, laughing. “I’m too shoddy of a dancer, so singing and strumming’s all I’ve got going for me.”

“I’m sure you can’t be as bad as me,” he tells you. “I’ve got two left feet. You were jumping around up there and spinning so much I was getting dizzy. And you did it in heels.”

“Jumping and spinning are two very different things than dancing, Sejanus.”

“I suppose so,” he cedes. “You are a good singer, though. Lucy Gray is good, but I think your voice really brings the whole thing together.”

“I think you’re sucking up,” you say.

“Maybe. But maybe it’s just because I want you to say yes when I ask you to lunch tomorrow.”

“Is that allowed?” you ask. “I don’t think I’m even supposed to be talking to you right now.”

“Maybe not, but what are they going to do? Make me a Peacekeeper?” He grins at you and you almost melt.

“They could move you to another District,” you point out.

“You’re worth the risk.”

You’re about to respond when Maude Ivory calls your name. “I live in the Seam. Find me some time if you can and maybe I’ll go to lunch with you, Sejanus.”

“Is that a challenge or a promise?”

“Both,” is all you say before you turn to rejoin the Covey, your skirts swishing as you walk off, Sejanus gaze following you until you’re out of sight. 

 ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ 

He does in fact find you nearly a week later, laying under your favourite tree in the Meadow, your back against the grass as you stared up into the clouds, searching for shapes, the sun blinding your eyes. The light is blocked by Sejanus’ head as he stands over you, looking down with an amused smile on his lips. 

“Found you,” he says, sitting down besides you, his back leaning against the trunk of the magnolia. 

You sit up to look at him properly, straightening out the skirt of your dress and fixing the little ribbon belt around your waist, making sure the bow is symmetrical. “Gonna take me out to lunch now, Sejanus?” you ask.

“Where would I take you?” he asks. “The Hob’s not the most romantic place in the world. No, I’ve got something else.” He lifts up a small basket, setting it between the two of you and opening it. “Not the most luxurious things in the world but I tried my best.”

You pull out a few loaves of pumpkin bread, a rind of some sort of goat cheese, some fresh strawberries, a small glass bottle of lemonade, and a foil-wrapped bar of chocolate. “This is more luxury than I’ve ever had in my entire life,” you say, shaking your head in disbelief. “You Capitol boys really don’t know how lucky you are, do you?”

“Some of us do.”

“Are you in this ‘some of us?’” you ask, tearing off a piece of bread. 

“I’d like to think so. I know I’m luckier than most people. I wasn’t always Capitol,” he tells you.

“No?” you question between bites of food.

“No. Granted, I was still pretty lucky. District 2. President Ravinstill liked my dad so much that we became Capitolites when the war ended.”

“Huh,” is all you say in response, taking a strawberry and holding it out to him.

You expect him to take it with his hands and laughs when he eats it straight from your fingers, maintaining eye contact with you as he does so, a little flutter happening in your stomach. Is this what Barb Azure told you she felt when she met that girl down the road? 

You clear your throat a bit and avert your gaze, taking out the lemonade and taking a sip, handing it over to Sejanus afterwards. 

“Is something wrong?” he asks, accepting the bottle.

“No, no, nothing’s wrong,” you assure him, shooting him a smile before looking back up to the sky, continuing to tear off bits of the pumpkin bread to eat.

“What are you looking at?” he asks.

“The clouds. That one looks like a rabbit,” you say, pointing upwards.

He steals some of your bread, trading it for some of the cheese. “I don’t see it.”

“Come on, look, the head’s right there, and the long parts are the ears. And there’s the fat body,” you take his hand in yours to help him point it out. His hand is warm, calloused, most likely from gun training. The feeling of his skin against yours sends shivers down your spine, despite the summer heat. 

He laughs at your attempts, taking another strawberry from the basket, holding it out to you this time. “I still don’t see it.”

“Are you blind?” you tease him, turning your head to face him. You eat it from his fingers in the same fashion he did to you, some of the juice dribbing from your lips as you smile at him. You reach for a napkin in the basket but you’re too slow, Sejanus wiping the strawberry juice from your bottom lip with his thumb before sucking the sticky sweetness from his finger. 

You force yourself to look away from him again, much to his confusion, but neither of you say anything about the way you avoid his gaze. You’re surprised he doesn’t notice how incredibly red you’ve gotten, doesn’t notice the way you use the bread and cheese to hide your blushing smiles every time he compliments you on something or other.

When most of the bread and cheese is gone—you decided to save some for the rest of the Covey, knowing Maude Ivory would probably appreciate it—and the strawberries were finished, you move to unwrap the bar of milk chocolate. 

“How did you even get this? They don’t sell chocolate at the sweets shop,” you ask, breaking the small bar in half, the chocolate partially melted and soft due to sitting in the sun while the two of you ate. “And if they did, it would be expensive, wouldn’t it?”

“My Ma,” he explains, accepting his half of the candy. “She keeps sending me these little care packages of things she’s gotten from the Capitol. I wrote to her, telling her I met a pretty girl here that would probably like some chocolate. She sent some over as quick as she could.”

“You called me pretty to your Ma?” you tease as you let the chocolate melt on your tongue so you could savor the sweetness.

“I’d call you pretty to anyone,” he says, taking a bite out of his own chunk.

“You’re a suck up, Sejanus, you know that?”

“Only for you.”

“The Covey and I are going to the lake in a few days. I think Lucy Gray is bringing that Coriolanus with her. Would you like to be my plus one?” you offer.

“I think I’d like that a lot.”

 ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ 

During the lake trip, you and Sejanus had run off to pick some blackberries to bring back to eat and sell. As you harvest the fruits, the two of you occasionally popping a few into your mouths, staining your lips and fingers a pinkish-purple, you say to Sejanus, “I know you’re in cahoots with Billy Taupe.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, turning to face you, dropping another handful of berries into your basket.

“Just because I’m pretty doesn’t mean I’m not smart, Sejanus,” you say. “Look, we’ve hardly known each other for a week, I’ll admit that, but Billy Taupe is bad news. And not just because we all hate him for what he did to Lucy Gray. I don’t like the Capitol and the Games as much as the next person, but I don’t want to see you getting killed. Watching Lucy Gray in those games was bad enough, she’s like a sister to me. I couldn’t bear to see you hanging from that foul tree.”

“What do you want me to do, then? We can’t let this go on forever.”

“I want you to survive, Sejanus,” you say. “You’ll be done Peacekeeping eventually, you’ll return back to your mansion in the Capitol, won’t you? You’ll be safe there. You can break them down from the inside out.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” you ask. “I’m eighteen. I’ll be out of the Reaping by next year. They can’t touch me.” It’s a lame lie, both to him and yourself. No matter how old you are, as long as the games exist, you’re not safe. 

“And what if I want to stay?”

“Why would you ever want that?”

He doesn’t respond, only smiles and steals a blackberry from the basket, holding it up to your lips. You take it in your mouth, teeth nipping at the tips of his fingers.

“Just— stop messing around with Billy Taupe. That’s a one way ticket to being six feet underground,” you warn him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“I will,” he promises. “I’ll stop.”

 ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ 

Sejanus keeps his promise. He stops working with Billy Taupe, avoids the violence of Billy Taupe’s and Mayfair’s deaths. The unavoidable, uncontrollable parts of your life, such as the disappearance of Lucy Gray, he comforts you through. Even when Coriolanus returns to the Capitol at the end of the month, Sejanus stays with you. He gives you comfort in the form of kisses; on your lips, against your neck, down your chest and stomach.

Years pass. Games are held and victors are crowned and Sejanus has been unofficially disowned by his father at this point, though his mother still writes, sending him care packages of chocolates and baked goods. But the two of you are as happy as you can be together.

You’re happiest when, three years after the two of you had met, Sejanus takes you to the same magnolia tree in the Meadow the two of you had your first date. As he takes a small brass band from his pocket, inlaid with some sparkling stone, he asks you to marry him. You recognize it as Tam Amber’s handiwork and kiss Sejanus with a smile as you accept his proposal.

The wedding is small and quick. The two of you and the rest of the Covey run out to the lake in the dead of night, the ceremony lit by candles as the two of you say quiet vows under the stars. Music had been banned from the Hob when the new Head Peacekeeper took over, but this doesn’t stop you and the Covey from playing music in the little afterparty that occurs. It’s not perfect, not the same without Lucy Gray, but you sing and play and dance like she would’ve wanted you to do.

You and Sejanus twirl each other around in the grass, tripping over each other’s feet and your own. Your wedding cake is a small thing bought from the bakery in the town square. A little dry, but the frosting is sweet, some of it getting on your face as Sejanus taps the tip of your nose with a piece of the cake before feeding it into your mouth. 

You don’t have much of a wedding night, a honeymoon is completely out of the picture, but the two of you escape to the Meadow under the moon and stars to spend your nights under that magnolia tree. 

On the night of your wedding, early in the morning, well past midnight but before the sun would begin to rise and after the trek back to District 12 had been made, you and Sejanus lay under the stars, tangled up in each other.

“You see that real bright star?” you ask, taking his hand to point at it.

“Yeah,” he answers, voice soft. “Does it make some sort of shape I won’t be able to recognize?”

You laugh at his jab to himself. “No. It’s a planet. They call her Venus, the planet of love.”

“Who’s they?”

“Tam Amber. Some of the other Covey. The people in the old books we’ve still got hidden away,” you prattle off. 

“You think that’s our planet?” Sejanus asks, mostly joking.

“Yeah,” you say, completely genuine. “Yeah, I think she is.”

He kisses you unexpectedly, this kiss unlike any others you’ve shared in the past few years. It’s desperate, wanting, hungry. His teeth clash with yours as his tongue pushes past your lips, his hands grasping at your skirts, pulling them up as he ends up on top of you.

“I love you,” he murmurs, voice strained, as if he was holding back from something.

“I love you, too,” you respond easily, sitting up, hand moving up to cup his face. “What’s this all about?”

“You’re my wife now,” he says. “I get to kiss you like this. I get to touch you like this.” He has a death-grip on your thigh.

“You’ve touched me before,” you point out.

“I know,” he laughs, pressing a kiss to your jaw, then down your neck. “But this is different. You’re my wife now. I’m your husband. I’m your fucking husband.” He says it as if he can’t believe he’s married to you.

“I’m just some Covey girl from District 12,” you argue.

“No, no,” he shakes his head as he murmurs your name against your skin. “No, you’re not just some Covey girl. You’re my everything, honey. You’re my Venus.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“I don’t care,” he says, pushing you back so you’re lying flat on the grass again. He’s hovering over you, supported by his forearms. “You’re my Venus, honey. You’re my love, my stars, my everything. And I get to be your fucking husband.”

“I love you, Sejanus.”

“I love you, too,” he kisses you deeply. “I love you so damn much.”

a/n: your girl locked the fuck in hellooooo two fics in one day and this one is SO CLOSE to 3k

You’re exactly where he’s expecting you to be when he gets there. Right at the edge of the pond, knee deep in the tall grass, squatting to feed the ducks. They’ve just had ducklings about a week ago, and you’re enamoured by them.

“Don’t be frightened, little ducks,” you’re saying in your lovely soft voice, as Sejanus approaches from behind. He tries to be quiet, so as not to startle you or your gaggle of ducks. There’s two adult ones, and four tiny fluffy ones, all crowded around your hand, which is filled with what looks like bits of stale cracker.

As Sejanus gets closer, he accidentally steps on a branch and it snaps, breaking the silence. One of the adult ducks spots him, gives a loud quack, and they all take off across the pond, the little ones in single file following their parents.

Whoops, Sejanus thinks.

“Hello, Sejanus,” you say knowingly, without turning round. Sejanus has no idea how you know it’s him, but he can’t say he’s surprised.

He watches as you pocket the remains of your crackers and dust your hands off on your flowy skirt, then turn around to face him.

“You scared my ducks,” you say, giving him an indignant look.

He’s well aware. “Sorry. I don’t think they like me.”

You shrug, then lift your skirt, the bottom hem stained with mud, and start wading through the grass towards him. “They would if you sang to them,” you say, like it’s obvious.

Sejanus highly doubts that. “Do you think so?” He asks, indulging you.

“Worked for me,” you say simply, coming to a stop right in front of him. You’re rather close — you tend to do that. He knows you’d give him his space if he cared, but he doesn’t.

“That’s ‘cos you sound like an angel, sweetheart,” he tells you. He’s not sugar-coating it. You really do.

You beam. “Well thanks, handsome,” you say, swaying happily on the spot, your skirts swishing. “What’ve you got there?”

You point to his pocket, where he’s got his hand shoved, keeping your gift out of view.

“It’s a surprise,” he says, dipping his head down towards yours like you’re sharing a secret.

You hum, and lift your chin a bit, like you’re meeting him in the middle. You seem to do it without noticing.

“For me?” You ask hopefully.

Who else? Sejanus thinks. “Maybe,” he says conspiratorially. “You wanna see it?”

You nod eagerly.

“Alright,” he says. “Close your eyes, pretty.”

You do as you’re told, letting your eyes slip shut. Sejanus takes a moment to admire you, your hair tied back from your face with a cream coloured ribbon, your dewy skin, and the way the sun dips you in gold. You’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

“Put your hands out,” he says. You obey.

Sejanus pulls his hand out of his pocket and places a small box wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine in your cupped hands. Your shoulders go up excitedly.

“Okay, you can open ‘em,” he says.

Your eyes fly open and land on the box. “It is really for me?” You ask, practically buzzing, and lift your eyes to meet his.

There’s a look in your eyes that Sejanus doesn’t quite understand, but it makes him nervous anyway. It’s quite often that you make him nervous seemingly without even trying.

He rubs the back of his neck. “Well, yeah,” he says. “‘Course it is. Open it, yeah?”

“Okay,” you say.

Sejanus watches as you open his gift with so much care you’d think he’d spent millions on it. You untie the twine, and that goes into your pocket, along with the brown paper wrapping. Sejanus holds his breath as you lift the lid of the box to reveal a silver heart pendant, engraved with a swan. Your favourite bird.

You go dead silent for a long moment. Sejanus wonders if you hate it.

“Sejanus…” you whisper. You pull the pendant from the box and brush your thumb over the engraved swan, as gentle as if it were a real one. For once, you seem lost for words.

“They didn’t have any chain,” Sejanus explains quickly. “But I thought you could tie it with one of your ribbons. Do you … like it?”

You lift your head, blinking rather rapidly. Sejanus realises with horror that your eyes are shining with tears.

“It’s beautiful,” you say. “I love it.”

Your bottom lip wobbles. Sejanus panics and grabs you.

“Don’t cry,” he says frantically. He wraps his arms around you and pulls you into him. The box digs into his ribs and you’ve made a fist around the pendant, your knuckles pressing into his chest.

“Sorry,” you gasp.

Sejanus frowns. He’s happy you like the gift but hates to see you cry. After a moment you come out, pulling your face away from his chest, freeing one hand to scrub at your damp cheeks. You haven’t cried much, only a few tears. You blink up at him, a bit like a doe.

“Sorry,” you say again. “I don’t mean to, but I always cry when I see something beautiful.”

You open up your palm and gaze at the pendant again, as if checking it’s real. Sejanus waits for you to say something else but you don’t.

“So you like it?” He asks tentatively.

You laugh, and it sounds as pretty and as light as birdsong. “Yes. I love it, it’s perfect.”

You squeeze your fist back around the pendant and hold it to your heart. Then you lift your eyes to Sejanus’, giving him this look that makes his heart race.

“Thank you, Sejanus,” you say softly, reverently almost, like he’s one of your wild ducks.

Sejanus feels flowers blooming in his chest as if you’ve put them there and nurtured them. He’s about to wrap you up in his arms again when you say,

“Do you think I could give you something, too?” In this lilting, hopeful tone.

Sejanus blinks. “Yeah, sure, honey.” He can’t imagine what, but you tend to carry a lot of miscellaneous things you’ve foraged in your pockets. A pretty rock, maybe?

“Okay.” You sound almost shy, which is completely new, and trips Sejanus up a bit. He wonders what on earth it is that you’re about to give him. “Close your eyes, then.”

Sejanus does as he’s told. He hears you rustling around in your pocket for a second, before he feels you step closer, the toes of your boots touching his. He smells all your smells, that sweet flowery scent you seem to live in a cloud of, plus the warm vanilla in your hair. Then come your hands, both palms flat on his chest.

“Stay still,” you whisper, and Sejanus startles at how close you sound, your breath actually brushing his lips.

He realises what you’re about to do a second before you do it. Your hands press to his chest for stability and then your mouth lands on his, soft and gentle, but earnest all the same. You kiss him gently, shyly, but with so much warmth it tingles, and you taste like sugar. Sejanus grabs you, hands hot on your waist, and kisses you back.

He forces himself to exercise a bit of restraint so as not to scare you off after the first kiss. When you pull away, you’re flushed, and you won’t look him in the eye, though he thanks you and gives you another kiss on your warm cheek.