Chapter Two
Ice blue eyes glance over the sheet of scribbles, each line of writing numbered.
"Why would we allow them to take weapons into the arena when weapons are already provided?" He questions, raising his brows in anticipation for the thoughtless response that's a stuttering, "W-Well…" from Philo Marius as he struggles to keep up with the Gamemaker's stride.
The young man was five years Coriolanus' junior, having been assigned as his apprentice.
Gaul had to have been punishing them both for some unknown misdemeanor.
"The more weapons one has, the greater their chance of survival." Philo suggests, hopefully.
Snow takes in a deep breath, his knuckles itching with irritation at the answer while Philo adds, "I mean, we don't want them to survive. We want them to maim one another to the death. Any victor left after the fact is merely fortunate enough to have grown the gal to defend themselves, or fortunate enough to stay hidden away for long enough time," to which Coriolanus hands him back his list of ideas.
"We don't arm pissed off barbarians until after they're no longer a risk to the safety of Capitol citizens." Snow says it as if scolding him for being so empty minded, the two of them approaching the laboratory that a familiar face is seemingly guarding.
"Darling?" Livia questions, seeing her husband growing closer to her.
"Is Dr. Crane occupied?" He asks her, accepting her chaste kiss to his lips.
"Oh, she's…gone. Abandoned her students there by themselves in the middle of an exploratory lesson."
"What?" He glances inside the lab, seeing the small group of students circled around a table, disguising how bothered he is by the revelation.
"There is a cut-open mutt on the table. And she left it. With her gaggle of amateurs." She shakes her head, disappointment lacing her quiet voice.
"Did something happen?" He asks next, casually, to which his wife's dark lashes bat rapidly.
"She's just off her rocker, Coryo. I mean…the only reason she's still employed here is because her aunt is Dr. Gaul."
"Liv." It's her he's scolding, now, only for her to raise a brow and state, "If I did what she does – if either of us did what she does – we'd be gone in less than a day."
He won't argue with her, not here, his eyes instead going back to the group of students his wife is monitoring before he's taking a step inside.
"It's a sterile environment." Livia insists, grabbing at his hand to keep him from going.
"What are they working on?" He nods to the Avox lying sedated on the table.
"I have no idea. That's probably just a next door neighbor she hates." She scoffs.
"Or a rebel." Philo reminds them both of his presence.
The sound of shouting from down the hallway pulls their attention, Livia grasping his hand a little tighter as if keeping him in his place before asking, "Is that..?"trailing off at the sound of Tawny, her eyes widening.
She has to hide the grin that wants to creep to her lips.
There is no way she could come back after such a ruckus – especially if she's screaming at one of her bosses.
Coriolanus has to plant his feet on the ground, refusing to move them despite his skin growing hot and prickly at the sound of her.
Something had to have happened to get her so upset she'd leave her students just to cause a scene, here of all places.
He wants to go tear into her for being so unprofessional. Embarrassing herself. Embarrassing him.
No, he doesn't dare go see for himself.
"Did you need her for something?" Livia asks him as the sound of Tawny's yelling fades further away.
"Hmm?" Snow is plucked from his thoughts, his pretty wife smiling widely.
"You came here for a reason? I'm assuming you needed to speak with Dr. Crane about something." She explains.
"I was going to speak with her about one of her cases." Or five, He wants to add as he informs her, to which she rolls her dark blue eyes.
"I know her aunt isn't allowed to examine her work due to potential breach of ethics, but if you have to trek all the way down here every time one of her experiments doesn't go the way they need to –"
" – It's a part of my job, Livia, to collaborate with you all."
"Not with me ." She bitterly lets out.
Ceres Byrne was her collaborator to keep bias to a minimum, just like Dr. Gaul couldn't be Tawny's, so Coriolanus was assigned to her.
"And I still get to see you. So the trip is worth it." He assures her smoothly, causing a blush to redden her cheeks.
"If you say so." She nudges him as he lightly taps at the tip of her nose with his finger, turning to go.
"I'll be late getting home." He adds as an afterthought.
"I might be, too, depending on how long this all takes." Livia replies, stopping him in his tracks as he looks at Philo, a new thought crossing his mind.
"I'll stay here until they finish up, you go tend to whatever else you need to do." He offers, seeing her give him a curious expression that's cloaked in her sweet grin.
"Coryo, that's not necessary." She assures him.
"Like you said, Liv, there's no telling how long you'll be here. You have to be here earlier than I do in the morning. There's no sense in you staying if you don't have to, so you can go and I'll wait for the gaggle of amateurs to finish or for Dr. Crane to get back."
"If she's still employed at all." She sighs out before kissing his cheek, quickly stating, "Thank you. I love you. I'll see you at home."
"See you at home." He says to her as she heads down the hall back to her office.
Philo waits awkwardly to be dismissed, Coriolanus not paying him any mind as his own eyes focus back to the laboratory of students sewing the Avox back together.
He never knows when a good time to even open his mouth to speak to Coriolanus is, convinced Snow despises him.
He's not entirely incorrect.
"Um…I also have to be here early tomorrow, so —"
"Have a good evening, Mr. Marius." It's spoken quickly, without looking at him.
"You, too, sir."
A few more minutes pass, Cyn glancing through the window of the lab to see Coriolanus Snow where Dr. Cardew once stood.
"Shhhit, it's Snow." She hisses under her breath to her colleagues, a panicked energy beginning to bubble up.
Snow's reputation preceded him through every hallway of the Academy, the University, and the Citadel…every street of the Capital…more than likely every street of each District.
His place was Dr. Gaul's shadow.
If she moved, he moved.
If he found someone's work interesting enough to garner his attention, it would garner Gaul's, and likewise.
He might as well be Head Gamemaker along with her.
And he's standing outside the lab, more than interested in what exactly they're doing.
"Just pretend he's not out there." She adds, noticing the way Atticus' hand shakes slightly as he continues sewing up the Avox.
"Dr. Crane is so screwed." Bellamy says. "Leaving us in here is a new low. Now that Snow knows about it, she's done with. We might as well prepare for a new — "
"—What happened?"
The breath leaves their body as Coriolanus enters, a mask covering his face, being unable to tolerate the dark he'd been left in on the situation at hand.
No one dares to remind him it's a sterile environment, that he shouldn't be in here as close as he is to them, contaminating the air.
They allow him to keep moving forward until he's peering over the dead Avox.
Damn it, Crane , he stops himself from gritting it between his teeth before his eyes look at Atticus who's tying off the last of the stitches.
"Mr. Dovecote, what happened?" His voice is patient but demanding, Atticus glancing at Cyn and Bellamy before letting out a heavy breath.
"Dr. Crane's husband sent for her, and was adamant, apparently. She told me to –"
"I didn't ask why she is not accounted for." He interrupts, sternly, Atticus nodding to himself before starting, "We had it stable last night before we left. It was fine. We came back and did an exploratory, and the liver was in failure due to too much iron in a copper-based environment."
"What steps were taken to attempt combatting the liver failure?" Snow's question has Cyn and Bellamy looking to one another with wide, worried eyes.
Atticus hesitates, not wanting to get Dr. Crane in any more trouble than she surely already is in.
Bellamy seizes her opportunity to try to get on his good side, blurting, "She just killed it. She said we needed to cut our losses and pull the plug, and that we learn by wasting."
"Bellamy." Cyn sneers.
"If you want to go down with her on her aflame sinking ship, that's your prerogative. But I'm not paying for consequences that I didn't buy." She replies in the same tone before looking back to Coriolanus, who waits patiently for Atticus to finish, Clemensia's brother stripping his hands from his gloves, and plucking his mask off, before Snow says to them,"You're all dismissed when you clean up."
"I've got to get this to the morgue." Atticus insists, glancing at the corpse of another failure.
"I'll take care of it." He says flatly.
Dr. Crane will take care of it, more so.
Once all is back to how they left it, the younger peers leave for the night, leaving Coriolanus to himself as he waits for Tawny's return.
After several minutes, he glances at his pocket watch, scoffing.
He'd be later getting home tonight than he had been in months.
It's when he hears footsteps approaching the lab that he comes to his feet, heading to the door, only to grimace.
"Dr. Crane." He says to Dyess, the dark haired man searching the lab briefly in a scan of his cobalt blue eyes.
"Snow, how are you?" Dyess replies in a grin, "Have you seen my wife?" it's asked before Coriolanus can even answer the first question.
"No, I haven't. I heard her down the hallway earlier." He says, to which her husband huffs out, "Yeah, she's um…she's not happy at the moment…with me or Dr. Gaul. I let it slip that Gaul's been contemplating relieving her of her duties here."
Coriolanus has to bring faux shock to his face, having known of the matter weeks ago.
It's why he'd been trying to get it through Tawny's thick skull that lollygagging as she had been doing wasn't going to be tolerated much longer.
"Oh." He says to Dyess.
"Yeah. She was happy because two of my projects got chosen for the next Games, but then I opened my big mouth and ruined everything."
Imagine that , Coriolanus thinks to himself, his mouth starting to grow sore from hiding the frown he wants to present, getting a chance to put some of his pent up disdain for the man to good use when Dyess asks, "Were you looking for her, too?" Referring to Snow being in her lab.
"I'm actually waiting to see her, myself. We have to talk about a few things regarding her past couple projects."
Dyess' lips twitch as if he, too, is hiding a clenched jaw and frown.
Coriolanus appreciates the fact that Dyess is so easily riled, adding, "I'll have her home at a decent time."
If I feel like giving her back .
"With how she was acting earlier, you can keep her." Dyess chuckles, Snow forcing out a chortle of his own. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow morning, Mr. Snow." He adds, turning. "I better get home and make sure dinner is ready by the time she gets back or I'll be sleeping here tonight."
"See you tomorrow." Coriolanus states, his smile falling from his face as he glances once more at the pocket watch.
Moving to Tawny's office down the hall, he sits at her desk and waits for her, waiting what seems another hour before the familiar click of her heels is coming right toward the door.
She comes to a halt as soon as she realizes his unannounced presence before turning around to walk away, harshly mumbling, "I'm not doing this tonight."
"Dr. Crane, we need to talk." He calls after her, those "clicks" going quiet while he thumbs through the folder he snagged from her lab.
The sound of her coming back brings a satisfied smirk to his lips, his blue eyes raking over her as soon as she's in front of him.
Her brown eyes are puffy, swollen from crying out her anger, her rage, her resentment…she shuts the door behind her.
"I've been wondering where you went off to." He says, giving her the chance to explain everything in one sweep to save himself some questioning.
Only she toys with him.
"I had to change." She replies, waiting for him to say something else, but he doesn't. "Did you know?" She crosses her arms, finally speaking again.
"Yeah." He admits, not ever feeling the need to lie to her before, so why do it now? "I knew."
She doesn't say anything else, now, taking in a deep breath while he continues, "I wasn't present in the meetings, but I've known. It's why I've been trying to throw you a bone…though I see now that you enjoy throwing them back to me."
"I've been working my ass off, Snow –"
"-You've been wasting resources." He drops the folder to the table, the thud of it hitting the wood is thunderous and deliberate. "Toiling with time, money, lab space, then telling your students it's perfectly okay to waste those resources because that somehow coincides with learning."
"I've been trying. Hell, even things I've pleaded for Aunt V to help me with, and she has, still end up in the morgue, or rabid, or…" She trails off in a fit of frustration, turning her back to him, unable to keep herself composed with him looking at her.
It's an infuriating thing that she does anytime they go back and forth.
Refusing to look at him, refusing to acknowledge him or what he's saying…
Thirty-four year old adolescent. She's fortunate to be receiving any help from me at all.
Taking in a breath to calm himself, he stands to his feet, easing around her desk.
His hands stay in his pockets to resist the temptation of grabbing a handful of her hair and force her to look at him.
Then her mind would certainly start roaming to matters other than her work and she would drag him with her, leaving them both spent and flushed to arrive home to their spouses.
No, he keeps his hands to himself, even his body to himself, staying no less than two feet from her.
Patiently, he waits for her to calm, wipe the new tears she attempts to keep quiet from him.
It's when she gets a hold of herself and straightens her shoulders that he asks, "Are you done?"
"Mhmm." She nods, turning back to face him.
"It's not my job to nail you to the ground for being inadequate at your job. But…it is my job to tell you when you're insufficient. And this last year – especially the last six months – has made me and so many others question whether you deserve to be here or not…whether you want to be here or not." He says to her emptily, knowing she's already heard this from Gaul, but she's hearing it again from him.
He wants to make it as clear as he can that she can't afford anymore losses.
"Do you?" He asks her, watching her nod as she hoarses out a, "Yes, I do…I just…"
She just what?
"You just what?" He presses, brows dropping as he takes a step closer, damning his invisible line he drew.
"I don't know what I'm doing wrong." She says quietly. "I retrace my steps, I look over my notes, I compare notes my students have taken – I've compared notes to Aunt V's…it's like everything falls apart out of nowhere…no warnings, or preliminaries."
Apparently he's not very good at hiding his expression in this moment, her jaw rolling as she scoffs.
"Of course you don't believe me." She turns and reaches for the door but he reaches over her and slams it shut once she gets it ajar.
Her eyes close, her forehead nearly resting against the wood as the close proximity between the two of them is not lost on her.
One of his hands lays flat above her head, the other is in his pocket but that's no good when she feels the heat of his chest against her back, the idea of moving just a centimeter backward has her face burning red and her thighs trying not to rub together for some relief.
It's nothing he misses, his ego getting a good rub at the sight of her trying to keep her composure.
She's always the first to fold, melting in his hands, against his lips, his teeth, his tongue…
"We agreed not to do this anymore." She reminds him quietly, keeping her eyes closed.
She doesn't trust herself to even get a glimpse of those blue eyes that always silently coax her to her knees, greedy for anything he's willing to give her no matter how loveless or degrading.
That's all it was, really.
It started as stress relief, pent up tension between them going back and forth when she was first assigned to him, and him to her.
Bouncing ideas off one another, him checking in on her work, offering unsolicited advice to her that she despised because more times than not, he was right.
One night they split a bottle of whiskey she had stolen from Dyess' collection of liquors and wines while Livia was away for the weekend visiting her mother's estate on the outskirts of the Capitol…
At first they carried on as normal, collaborating teetering on the line of arguing, then another glass brought on the giggles.
Everything they did or said was hilarious…then more whiskey.
The speech had started slurring, the lines started blurring, and before either one of them had any grasp of themselves, they were right there in Coriolanus' living room floor, laid on the plush rug, her hands in his hair while his tongue drew any and every cry, moan, scream, plead, and curse she had.
It meant nothing. They accepted that, they preferred that. Him especially.
The next morning they awoke with pounding heads, and vomit-lined throats.
Then they sobered up, cleaned up, and tried to discuss what had happened, and in the midst of that discussion realized that neither of them fancied doing anything half-assed.
So the little hiccup of one night together broiled into a full fledged affair, the unspoken declaration of it being the entire Snow penthouse having bared witness to their actions.
Her, splayed out on the dining room table, back arched her brown eyes rolled back while his fist held her throat, somewhat muffling the evidence of her peak while he'd licked the sweat that rolled across the smooth skin of her chest before his tongue had met hers. Or in the big bathroom he shared with Livia, Tawny's knee shoved up on the marble counter, the foot of her standing leg struggling to keep balanced on tipped-toes while he watched himself fuck her in a way he was certain Dyess Crane had never done – at least she had acted as such when she pleaded with him not to stop, telling him how good it was, her head leaned against his chest, her soft hands over his where they held her breasts. Then in his room, in his bed, grabbing her hips to guide her movements on top of him, her forehead against his, her stomach in a tight knot as she chased her high, tightening around him to the point he nearly finished in her, and she was so reckless in their moments together, so fueled by gluttonous pleasures and the feeling of him that she wouldn't care.
She'd beg for it nearly every time.
But he couldn't.
That was too risky.
The idea of Dyess raising his child as his own jumped on a nerve Snow didn't know existed.
No, Coriolanus can't afford to be dumb again, especially not that dumb.
After nearly a month of using one another, they had agreed to cut it out.
They both had futures to protect, reputations to keep clean and sparkly for their professional and public appearances.
And that decision was an easy one to make because there were no feelings, no attachments.
They didn't miss one another, or long for one another.
He could still be infuriated with her, or critique her without feeling guilty or obligated to sugar coat it to spare her feelings, and she could still resent his advice and roll her eyes at him when he was being too cynical.
They still respected one another, and could control themselves.
We agreed not to do this anymore , her words repeat in his mind.
They had agreed not to do this anymore…over three weeks ago.
She turns to face him, the corners of his mouth pulling upward.
"We did, and then you did the thing which voided that agreement." He reminds her, her nostrils flaring at the memory of herself on her knees, touching herself while he used her mouth as he pleased.
"You have a wife at home to do that kind of stuff with, Snow." She reminds him, his smile gone in the blink of an eye as he steps backward. "And I have a husband."
"Dyess Crane?" He mutters bitterly.
"I wouldn't still have a job here if not for him sticking up for me. So, yes, we agreed to stop doing this ," She motions between the two of them, "Because he doesn't deserve it. And, I want to push your wife off a tall building, but she seems like she doesn't deserve it either."
He stopped listening after she said the words, "...if not for him sticking up for me…", turning to look at her again.
"What?" He asks.
"You get pissy with me for not following your advice but then outright ignore me when I'm speaking?"
"What did he do, Dr. Crane?!" His voice raises, vexed.
"There were discussions of me being fired, and he told my aunt that if I got fired, then he would leave too." She says to him, furrowing her brows in confusion.
She'd assumed that was mentioned to him already by Dr. Gaul.
He doesn't say anything else about it, he doesn't even show he's still thinking about it, instead collecting the folder on her desk, handing it to her.
"I'm going to get this last one to the morgue." He says in reference to the Avox still in the lab.
"Okay." She mumbles, grasping the folder from him.
"We'll discuss everything tomorrow in-depth. Hopefully we can get your perpetual insufficiency sorted out before the next Games. Your career depends on it, after all." He reminds her, grabbing his red coat and leaving her alone.