see some very slight minor tw. Also general mature content warning ahead

"How do you know where I live?"

"You didn't think I would forget your birthday, did you?"

Plutarch stood in the frame as the sun warmed the freckles and hair on his crossed arms. His brows had raised and lips moved into a grin. Was it amusement? The usual deep laugh shook his chest. "No, I didn't."

With a last glance back to the dark car—Gratia had promised a two hour break of the usual schedule—Virgilia passed the steps inside his home.

Nature breathed inside. Vines and leaves crawled along a sleek black wall, which received light from a larger window above. The hallway led further down with shorter trees by the windows, soaking in the lights from the outside as they looked onto a green garden. There was a staircase nearby, entirely centred around a collection of trees she had only seen in holiday resorts.

No matter where she looked, there was nature. Inside against sleek black, or outside, wind speeding through the lines of trees and bushes.

Echoes resounded from her steps, and a faint second pair had followed close behind. "It's a nice—a great place."

Stopping by the kitchen carved into uneven black stone, she undid her scarf and jacket. Black to black, the rose strangled underneath.

There were windows everywhere. Privacy was never afforded, never certain. Every hint of an emotion was a risk. Her mere presence was a risk. But they hadn't been caught yet, their crimes yet to be uncovered. Once done, there was no stepping back anymore. No amount of guilt, no atonement could undo what they had done.

What more was a hand on his shoulder? What more was a brief kiss on his lips?

"Happy Birthday," she repeated faintly. The congratulations lingered between their lips, pushed from one mouth to the next and imprinted between the freckles and the red colour of his own.

"Thank you," Plutarch replied, stretching each syllable in a deep whisper, as if their conversation could get lost, as if this moment was never theirs. "May I?"

The intention of his question remained a mystery, but Virgilia decidedly nodded.

It was a prickle, a nerve reaction from the tips of his fingers brushing her cheek up to her temple. It jolted though her body—through stomach and knees—that she closed her eyes. He was the summer's rain prickling against her face, only this time each movement, each touch seemed purposeful. By the time he had reached her hairline, Virgilia's eyes had closed.

When he spoke, his hands had lost themselves in her hair to trace along the braids. "I can never figure out how you do them. They are a riddle."

Virgilia could hear his smile. It was in his speech pausing and the huff of air releasing. He seemed different when smiling, when, despite all, there was a pause for happiness. When his shoulders relaxed and he allowed something to wear off.

"You want help for the solution?" Her eyes opened in a flutter.

"One day. When we have more time."

Her fingers moved around his wrist. "All the time."

Plutarch shifted, and with it his shoulders dropped, the tension between his jawline undid itself. His lips pushed into a faint smile.

"How much time do we have?" He asked dryly.

"Two hours," Virgilia replied and searched the pockets of her coat. "Would you like to unpack your gift?"

"A gift? I thought the two hours were one." Gentle fingers touched her own to exchange a square box.

Plutarch's fingers moved along the wrapping paper, followed along the folded lines and undid the folds with little effort. The box underneath was velvet, and it seemed as if he knew his way inside, adept hands brushed along and dug deeper.

He lifted up a golden bracelet. Plain, simple, and yet elegant and beautiful.

Virgilia stepped to his side, arm bumping into arm, and moved his wrist to tilt the bracelet, hands slipping along his own, and brushing over the writing. "See, I've had it engraved on the inside."

"P-V," he read out loud.

"Now you always—you have something from me, no matter how long it's been since we last saw…"

Soft lips pressed against her temple for a mere moment. What lingered was his touch and scent, causing a heart to flutter as if it was a bird.

His voice was the rumble of fire eating wood. It warmed her just the same. "Thank you. I need your help with this one."

The bracelet opened with a click, and she shut it with the same noise around his wrist. Virgilia's hand squeezed his.

"I owe you a tour," Plutarch said, gesturing with his hands in an unusual motion. One hand slower than the other, the feeling of jewellery did not seem a common one for him.

Old money built on old foundations, but that thought did not have passed on to Plutarch. His kitchen and living spaces had pushed together, in between dark stone and green trees. There were the usual places for Avoxes, albeit she did not spot anyone, neither in the last nor current season fashion.

The staircase seemed to be hovering above ground. It was an intricate design, something not entirely visible on how it all held together, and Virgilia had to grab Plutarch's hand so as to not fall.

They held tightly onto each other when making their path upstairs, where the floods of light streamed inside, accompanying vines and plants along the walls.

Plutarch took a shortcut, and she followed, deep inside along a corner and through a door.

His office seemed alive. It wasn't only the plants by the window, but the shelves stacked with books. Far too many to truly squeeze inside the space. Books on top of others, a second row to contain ever more knowledge. There were papers in between some pages and she pictured him scribbling something inside. A thought about a passage, an inspiration from the reading, or an idea altogether different from the material itself.

There was a chessboard in a seating corner. The figures seemed all over the place. Some still on the board, others placed aside. Had it been a game he played all by himself or had he invited a friend here—someone who at least did not confuse the bishop with the rook? Bound in leather, a familiar looking notebook lay on the side. Virgilia pressed her fingers together, skin growing light around the bones, and she remembered to not remind him of her new possession.

He spoke up when she moved around the table to look closer at the pocket watch. Its golden hues were familiar, its inner work much more so, even if she couldn't see it.

"The chair is comfortable," he mused.

With a pang, she was back at her father's office. The stern man who had worked there too many hours. How he had kept inside and the world remained outside. No entry, least for children. Anything inside would only be destroyed if she entered. Too precious.

Another pang. Coriolanus had closed the door before her. There was chatter inside, faint through the wooden door. They had been married for a year, but the inside remained a mystery. Glimpses caught of dark wood and marble statues. Few books behind display cases. They must have been rather important.

She looked away from the chair and its table.

"I remember that one," Virgilia said, stopped right in her tracks and hovered to the sight she caught. It seemed all colours had drawn to this place, contained within a rectangular frame. The paint strokes were that of yellow and blue, of red and green, of purple and orange. There were more colours than she could count, all brushing into each other and yet separate. Each dot a person, and all dots making a crowd. One might struggle to recognise the people. They lacked faces.

Her hand touched the frame.

His hand brushed her arm.

He had bought the painting from the gallery.

It seemed Plutarch was standing behind her, but not quite daring to stay all too close.

"I liked your interpretation—it kept me thinking. Sometimes all we can do is feel lost when we are with others." His voice edged onto something, scratching deep as her hands followed the paint brushes.

The crowd had cheered on as Finnick Odair had received his crown. They had applauded and gasped when he had killed other children. And they had cheered and roared when he had been shown the many times he had killed other children.

An uneven breath. A sudden blink. Lips pushing together.

Did she always feel that lost in a crowd?

Her voice rushed, stumbled, and tried to think of something else. Something light-hearted, something that wasn't skulls cracking open. "Do you feel lost with me?"

"No—" Plutarch stammered, far too fast and too high. Virgilia pictured him flustered, with a fire back in his cheeks and eyes widened at the sudden pressure. She didn't turn around to see for herself. Reality certainly could not hold up to her imagination. "Not in the bad ways. In the good ways… if there's any—"

He mumbled something about being lost together when she noticed the stream of light. It wasn't uncommon at his place, with the plethora of windows, but the clouds must have lifted from the sun, granting new light touching leaves and stone and floors and her cheek. It had glinted in her eyes, too, and she turned away from painting to the source of the disturbance.

Light came in floods, streaming open from one place to the next. The sun had come from one room, bursting out of its half opened door.

Few places counted as unexplored. The mansion had been that, once, when each corner counted as an adventure, each room as an entirely new place that had remained hidden for centuries. Not every room was hers to see, but enough to take each step at a time. Every day counted as an adventure, until they slowed down, growing from frequent to ever-so-oftens.

The adventures had helped—for a while.

This time, the exploration was not in solitude. Steps close behind her, louder than hers, more certain, and no intruder to the place behind the door that she pushed open.

Through the window, the sun had bathed this bedroom in light. It seemed that she hadn't merely explored a new room, but a new world altogether.

Quietly, Plutarch waited by the frame. Today, the adventure couldn't wait, couldn't be taken in each step at a time. With greed, she stole every inch of this place from him. To remember the light through the window, the winds rushing through the trees outside, the way he did his bed, the seats looking outside, the plants yearning for the sun, the well loved book on his nightstand—

The book on his nightstand.

Something that was hers could not be stolen.

"You—Are you reading—" Her voice failed, words scattered inside her mind.

"You lent me the book," Plutarch reminded her, his throat dry.

The edge of his bed gave in. His sheets were dark and neat, and a brief glance to the window offered sight of the sky. Surely, at night, he could count the stars—each one at a time—until falling asleep.

"I didn't think you would… it's different to you actually reading it," she admitted.

Hands in pockets, Plutarch crossed the room. It was this time that she looked, truly looked, at his dark clothes blended into the dark stone. How the light painted on his face illuminated the tips of his hair. He glowed in a faint orange warmth, standing out and yet being part of everything around him.

His knee against hers, root against root. Did she fit in here? Could she ever have fit in?

"How do you like it?" Fingers brushed along the cover wilting away. Its edges had peeled off over time. Each page had grown rough to the touch. Too many corners folded over and over in an attempt to mark where she had left off. Plutarch used a proper bookmark. He was somewhere between page eighty four and eighty five.

There was a glint in his eyes. "I see you in the pages."

"Oh—What…" Virgilia's hands tightened around the book. Her chest heavy, voice elevated, and lips pulled into a thin line. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Only, Jil, only that the character had been in a similar situation," Plutarch said, his voice a calm day in summer as winds ruffled through the leaves. It placated the line between her eyebrows.

"That's true…"

Plutarch looked on in the way she had gotten all too used to. The silence that they embarked on together, the one that put the summer day into a place within her mind, that ordered it, gave meaning to the feet in the grass and the shape of the clouds.

"I grew up with those books. I—I thought my life would be like that. It was all the learning … the education I had to do."

Silence. The grass underneath her feet never hurt, nor the touch of the book. But the sharp pang of memories unravelled just the same.

His fingers slipped in between hers.

"I fooled myself. I was a fool for so long, Plutarch. He cannot love anyone, no?"

Silence. He squeezed her hand.

"I started reading this book… I read it over and over, but—the day of the proposal I waited for an answer to the arrangement. He was old—is old, but I thought maybe… maybe it could work."

"But it didn't," Plutarch replied. His voice was faint, like that of a ghost in the woods. Dragging her away from the grass and the clouds and the window with her brother reading. Dragging her away from the wedding and the pain.

But where were they going?

"It didn't." The bitter truth slipped from her lips. "It was good for the family. And you cannot say no to the President."

The laugh shook her chest and hurt her throat. "... I tried, Plutarch. I really tried."

"I know," he whispered. Lips pressed to her temple. Another squeezing her hands. "I know you did, Jil."

"I was so happy when he proposed. I really… I thought that this was good. That I did good. I convinced him, somehow, to marry me. He was even nice, at first. I thought he listened to me, cared about what I said. He seemed interested enough, but—but he grew bored… of me. His first wife—he must have grown bored of her, too. I can't let him think of me like that."

Plutarch remained there, knee against knee, his hand in hers, but quietly so. A presence not overbearing, not underwhelming. Silence was a peculiar thing. It often grew too tense, in ways that it took up a conscious presence inside one's mind. It didn't seem the same with Plutarch, who existed on the margins of her mind, ever present and never straining.

"Virgilia." It was a demand for attention, a moment of bringing himself into the centre of her thoughts, whisking anything else away. A moment where she looked his way and got lost in the depth of his eyes, the wrinkles around his mouth, and the freckles kissing his lips.

"Yes?"

"One day you will be free of him. I promise you that." His gaze had hardened. A shadow from his thick eyebrows cast over his eyes.

Her throat came dry, clinging onto words that had stuck in her mind. Everything had seemed to stop moving, everything but her heart, pushing heavily against its inner cage. "Remember when I said you would make a better spouse?"

"Yes," he said, far too clearly and far too quickly for that to require remembering.

Her hands touched the finger that was empty. The finger that would have been carrying a ring had the past been different.

"You weren't among the suitors on the list."

"I foolishly believed romance was a distraction."

From what? She wanted to ask, but it stuck in her throat. His career, of course. It was silly to even ask. Head Gamemaker was too prestigious. Instead, she moved along with the next beat. "Would you have done differently knowing what you know now?"

Plutarch's mouth opened, but nothing came out. A second attempt, his voice smooth like honey. "I would."

He hadn't been wrong that they were alone together. It was easy to imagine. Reading one of his books underneath the trees, letting the air breeze through their crowns. Playing a game of chess against him in his office. Working on a new watch together—one that they had found in the side streets.

Tentatively, her thoughts spread to other ideas, those far more outrageous. He dragged her away from the garden, away from the grass and the clouds, away from her family and the study room of her brother. He dragged her away from an unhappy bond. Her voice was unsteady when she spoke: "We might… maybe I could have shared your office."

"Are you moving in?" He laughed, and his chest and belly shook along with it.

Her heart skipped a beat. "Is that bad?"

"No." Hot breath tickled her temple. Once—twice, his kisses were a flutter in the wind. A bird soaring up the sky. "Sharing sounds wonderful."

"Do you see the stars at night?" She asked, hands no more entangled with his own, they lingered on his sides—tucked into the fabric of his shirt. Every breath underneath her fingers. Every movement of his.

There was something new. A new kind of emptiness inside her that left a craving for something she could not decipher. His answer—that he saw the stars whenever the sky was clear—was less satisfying than the fleeting touch holding her waist.

It seemed like hunger, one that couldn't be ended with food. A hunger that raged inside of her, that ravaged through her ribs as if they were mere tree branches amidst a storm. Virgilia had never craved, never felt hungry.

She kissed him the way that flowers looked up at the sun, desired every ray of its warmth, every attention of its light. Her hands had grown desperate in hunger, moving from the stubbles of his cheeks down the muscles in his arms to the softness of his belly.

When he pulled away, it was like clouds over the sky, a darkness she had not expected, a heart beating inside yearning for more. Her hunger had not passed. It had wreaked havoc when it learned what it needed. It wanted for more.

"Are you sure about this?"

Virgilia didn't know what to expect in his eyes, but the everlasting kindness within, those that came with his eyebrows pushed into concern, was not among her expectations.

"Yes—" Her breath was shaky, trembling as if uneven winds had taken hold of them. She undid the first button of his shirt. The freckles continued. Light hair had become golden in the sun. "—very… very sure."

His eyes asked on every step of the way. When he kissed her knuckles right after and looked at her through his brows. She had barely begun to unbutton his shirt and saw the freckled chest when his hands moved around her in an attempt to undo her dress. His scent had been everywhere, the wooden notes lingering even when her dress slipped away.

It was then that she recognised something in his eyes—that she was not alone in her hunger. Plutarch stole her away, took her in as if she had become a painting, every detail at once, every inch, every unevenness of her skin, every goosebump that greeted his starved gaze. She was art, in every perfection, in every flaw. He seemed to paint her anew, to recreate every brush stroke envisioned in the unmasked truth that sat before him.

It was that kind of gaze she knew to yearn when they parted. The kind of gaze that did not want an ever changing, ever younger body. The kind of gaze she could bathe in, that warmed her and tickled parts of her body.

Touching him had been different than she expected, and yet all what she had hoped for. Plutarch was not like the people in the Capitol, whose latest craze seemed to have bones poking out everywhere. Her hands trailed across his chest, led by the soft hair that adorned his upper torso. Each breath of his lifted chest and belly, bolstered his shoulders and changed the shadows cast across.

Eventually, the hair was gone, far too few in between, and she had been left alone as her fingers traced to his belly button. It was then that something had tugged on the edge of her mind.

Her gaze rose, but his stayed the same. Recognition emerged. That of being looked at directly, no longer alone in her adventures. Plutarch composed himself anew.

"May I undo your braid?"

Heart hammered inside her chest. Undone, entirely, a new nakedness around him. They had such little time, too little. Others might grow suspicious, might wonder why. Before she knew any better, before her mind could convince her heart, she nodded.

All of him moved forward. Knee ever closer against hers, the breaths of his chest inches away. Plutarch's aftershave hung in the air. It was better than the roses, and yet quite so alike getting lost in a flower garden. Its scent resembled a scene she had read over and over. One before the characters would meet, right before, and one where they would fall in love.

His hands were not adept, did not understand the patterns, could not undo the complicated twists and turns that decorated her head. Her hands touched his, led him along, and showed him the intricate arrangement without any words attached.

Plutarch emerged with a hand of ties and pins to place on the nightstand, and looked just as lost as Virgilia when he had opened the first pocket watch.

"I can show you one day," she explained, her hands sliding back to where they were, tracing along his belly and finding themselves stuck around his tight belt.

"One day," he repeated. But the words cut off, muffled as his lips graced her own. Like the sun, he was everywhere at once; his lips against hers, his hands on her hips, his body breathing right by hers. Like the sun, he was a warm and welcome presence, one cherished after a far too long time where the cold clouds had denied her the view.

His voice resounded in her ears. It was muffled—lips against her skin—but vibrated against her cheek. Its sound was the excitement of being dragged into the meadows, away from the orderly gardens. She trembled at the sound. The sun reached places that it couldn't ever have seen. All at the mere sound of his voice, the 'Allow me' plunging her into mysteries that she didn't bother to ask when nodding at his request.

Virgilia didn't know what he meant, but fingers graced her body and he truly began to be everywhere. Shivers were left in places that were hidden away, her own hands lingering, holding tight onto his belly, onto his arms, onto his face. But then Plutarch slipped away as the last piece of her clothing fell to the ground.

A jolt. As if the sun had suddenly risen in temperatures. The feeling was unknown, so suddenly did her heart hammer against its cage, ravaging inside, returning ever more hungry for something she had never tasted. He paused, his gaze must have burned down on her, and despite the mystery ahead, he was not allowed to stop—simply couldn't end it here!

The reach for his hand had only been a natural anchor, a way to hold tightly onto him as the hunger grew, as the hunger desired for ever more, and she squeezed it tight in a silent wish. For far too long she had been in the cold, in the winter of a far away reality, and the warmth of his touch finally melted its snow away. In any other place—in any other bed—the creaking, the whimper, the gasps, all would have been far too public, far too seen. Yet, they were alone in their meadow, far away from any prying eyes and ears.

Fingers dug inside the palm of his hand, body shaken when the hunger came to its finality, when it concentrated so entirely on the place the sun had never graced before. Her heart hammered inside her ears, and she had wanted to ask what he had done, but the sunlight fell on his face and the smile spread to his freckled cheeks. All else was left forgotten.

There were whispers exchanged, like small gusts of wind carried into the woods.

She sunk deeper into the bed, deeper into the black fabric. Blonde hair appeared, then his thick brows, the warm gaze, and lips smudged with her lipstick. Plutarch had climbed on top of her, and what seemed a not-too-uncommon place, whenever she moved, he responded by shifting his weight; enough that she could break away if needed—except she did not want to. There was trust in the heaviness of his on top of her, and, for once her heart ached not for escaping, but for more.

Words carried into her ear, lips having found its way through her hair. It was a question for permission, a reminder that there was freedom and trust deep in the woods and far away from the orderly gardens. His lips tickled her neck, her hands held tight onto the sides of his body, shaking with every push of his deeper into the forest.

Plutarch dragged her inside those woods, with every heartbeat, every digging into his sides, every moment their lips met. For far too long, the wild nature inside of her had had no place in the orderly gardens. Its flowers could not grow, its soil remained dry. But it seemed that here, deep within the woods, from in between the tree crowns, the light did return.

Desperate hands moved to his back. Fingers held tight onto him. Her eyes opened as her heart jumped and her body tightened. She could see the trees, could see the light. Plutarch sounded into her ears, laboured breaths, deep rumbles coming from his lung turned into branches of trees, winds shaking through.

His weight lifted from her, and he moved to her side. Its absence was a loss she wouldn't recover from.

Eyes closed. A deep breath. Virgilia had to remember each grace of his hands, each touch of his lips, each motion of his body.

She could feel his fingers playing with her hair.

Turning to him, Plutarch had already tugged his arm underneath his chest, and had moved enough to properly look at her. A sudden cold on her skin mixed with his gaze, but she rejected the desire to cover up.

"Are you okay?" He asked, his chest lifting and Virgilia's focus returned to the light hair and freckles.

"Yes… we should—we are rather naked." She thought about how bad of an idea that would be at the mansion, but the concept couldn't quite be completed.

He laughed, and his entire chest, its freckles and hair, shook with it. "Truly shocking, Jil. After all we've done today—and you didn't even catch yourself a younger one."

Virgilia blinked. "Why a younger one?"

With an equal amount of confusion, much as if she did not understand that the sun rose every morning, he opened his mouth far before words could come out. "Most might prefer someone who is stronger or taller or younger and certainly with less grey hair."

"But I like your hair." Her gaze moved from his chest to the top of his head. "And I like you."

His kiss was one of secretive words written on her lips. Those that would stay between her and him, never escaping that day or home.

When he spoke again, it was done between quickened breaths. "When can we see each other again?"

Her gaze was fleeting, roaming from the windows and the trees to his arm and the sun to the chest and its hair to the face and his freckles.

"I don't know… it's—he's going to take me with."

Between Plutarch's brows, a wrinkle emerged. Its silent question pressed on.

"I'm going to the Districts, Plutarch."

tw - Virgilia mentions some bits of her marriage + small mentions of her discomfort sleeping with Snow that are not elaborated much on