Notes: A slightly longer form one-shot short story, gifted to my friend, Maysrinn, who's a horndog who really just wanted an excuse for some Hob smut to read, lol. I took that as a challenge but ended up kinda getting my ass kicked with this. It's become clear that I really suck at asspulling smut, so this is what came of it… 😵 💫
This was written with some of my headcanon from my main ongoing fic, Snow Dove, in mind, but it doesn't necessarily fit into it. I pulled some ideas and themes from it for this, so some stuff here might look familiar from that!
Anyway, hope you enjoy the read! ^_^
Ghost Lights
"...Thought you said…weren't coming…this junk heap…again!"
Another couple's squabble outside, it sounded like. Woman finding her man drunk down at the Hob. Happened twice a night on the regular. Lucy Gray went back to tinkering on her guitar strings, sitting by the open window in that stuffy backroom, humming at the tune she'd been working on since that train ride back from the Capitol.
Your boy's here, Lucy girl. No more excuses. No more sitting around. Gotta finish this one for him.
Time wasn't going to wait around, no matter how young you thought you were. Seemed like the Reaping and the Games dug up a newfound fear she'd never known. One that never once ruffled her even a lick until now.
Never know when the next tide coming will sweep you up. Time ain't kind enough to tell you either. It's why you've got to do it, Lucy girl. Before those stars start cashing in on all that stupid luck you owe already.
She'd hoped this little ballad she'd been musing over would've been ready to sing that night, knowing he would be there in his usual little corner in the back.
Funny fella, that Capitol boy. Always picking the seat in the house no one ever wanted. But that was how he always was, it seemed. That strange boy that could see things no one else did. Saw a victor in a raggedy nobody like her.
No. More than that. A real, living, breathing thing. Someone with dreams and feelings and a voice like any other. A girl who mattered to someone.
"...I should just tell Daddy to shut this whole place down! Round everybody here up. Nothing but crooks and cheats anyway…"
Lucy Gray's fingers struck a sour note, humming halted with her breaths. She pressed her hand flat over the strings to kill the sound.
Like nails on a chalkboard. No mistaking that hog even a mile away. What's trouble looking to find here this time…?
She set her guitar down by her feet and peeked through the slats of the shutters behind her.
Of course they'd be here that night.
"...The godawful music is criminal enough!" The shrill voice raked the insides of her ears clear enough now.
And there Billy Taupe was, first to round that corner with that sow tethered right along behind him. Didn't look too pleased, either of them. She couldn't help that wicked little curl at the corner of her lips at that. The pair really did deserve each other, alright.
Lucy Gray watched as he dug his heels in his tracks at that dig. Even after everything he'd done, it seemed there was still some pride left in him for the craft, at least. If there was something the man loved more than his girls or his drinks, it was his music.
"Why you always gotta go making trouble for them, huh?!"
Surely, that wasn't the first time that girl got a mouthful right to the face out of him. But how she was looking then, like she'd just gotten a good backhand in it for the first time or something.
And it ain't going to be the last, sweetheart. He spits those words worse than the nastiest vipers out there.
Lucy Gray knew firsthand better than any.
"Not them." She'd winced a bit at his flaring temper, but the venom always lingered whenever it came to this sore little matter. "Her."
"And? Why you so bothered by some poor Covey girl? She ain't hassling you anymore."
Never did to begin with, if we're keeping score here. Just kicking the birdie back when it comes my way is all.
"That shifty little bitch tried to kill me with that snake!"
Hah, that itty-bitty shoelace of a thing? Sweetheart, you scared more scales off his belly just with all that hollering you did alone.
"What, that lil' garter snake? We played with those things all the time in the backwoods. Barely any meaner than a shoelace off your boot!"
She laughed out loud at that one.
And better yet, now that started to piss that sweet thing off. Nothing but daggers in those eyes. Lucy Gray always took some pride in standing in their crosshairs like she was always making some stupid daring game out of it. That is, until the dares turned into vendettas, and ol' Lucy girl pushed that luck and one too many buttons before finding her name getting called for the biggest game she'd ever play yet.
"Why do you keep defending her?" Mayfair snapped back at him. "You still messing 'round with her? Huh?"
Shrank a little in his boots there. The little weasel.
"'Course not. Ain't nothing but trouble."
Even a dumb thing like Mayfair could see through that front. The way he always turned his eyes away and rubbed his nose, squaring up his shoulders like it was supposed to make him look tougher or something. Lucy Gray could sniff a lie out of him without even looking.
And that was the thing, though. What did that mongrel have to lie about with that? The amusement waned from Lucy Gray's lips as her gaze narrowed, spying for whatever other little tells they could read. Wasn't something she'd found herself consciously doing. More like those inborn Covey eyes, always honed to looking at the littlest corners and strangest angles of things. The sort of stuff no one else ever bothered to see.
And maybe that was why they never could manage to work. All those little things stacking up to becoming the only things. It was hard to see him anymore without all of that blurring the outlines. Stealing all the bright colors. And now he was just another shape in the background of a world full of spectacular little lights.
Sometimes she did wonder if he'd lost the sight, too.
Because sometimes…she felt like she was starting to go a little blind herself.
"She ain't nothing to me, Mayfair…"
Words came out like stone cold monochrome.
"...Just a pretty face with no prospects. Ain't nothing to no one."
Funny thing, that. Mayfair didn't seem too convinced, the way she'd stormed off after. It hadn't given her the satisfaction that girl's grief usually did either. Lucy Gray couldn't help that withering pit inside, somehow feeling even worse watching those two finally scuttling off. Darkening the deeper it burrowed. And that was something she'd started becoming scared of. Going blind if it ever swallowed her up whole one day.
'Just a pretty face with no prospects.'
Said it like it's all she'd ever been.
Dumb Covey girl. Just shut up, smile pretty, sing those songs. Not like the coins are for anything else other than a good time. And she earned those coins straight and fair. Even when no one cared what little Lucy girl's dreams were. What her voice ever really had to say.
'Cause all she ever will be is just some pretty face with no prospects.
About twenty minutes later, the rest of them were already gathering with their instruments behind the stage. And fifteen more after, they'd be getting the show rolling, just like any other Friday evening after the bells tolled for the end of day down in the mines. This time around, Lucy Gray felt just a little jealous of all those busy bees finally getting their drinks in to dull their week's worth of misery a bit. And sure, she joked plenty about the habit for the crowds, but she never drank more than just a few swigs. None of them did. Billy Taupe always filled up on more than enough for the lot of them. Might've made him a smoother player on the stage some nights, but that meant nothing when it cost the bigger share of their earnings for it.
"You know, Birdies…" Lucy Gray uttered listlessly, fingers clutching tight around the strap of her guitar. "…Would it be too bad being short one tonight?"
They all stopped amid their busy tuning and warming up in unison. Wasn't just the words that struck them strange. Lucy Gray was never so quiet like this either.
"You feeling sick, hon?" Barb Azure asked.
She shook her head. "No. Just…feeling a bit the color blue is all." Even saying it, she couldn't help that little crooked smile that never told the whole truth. Clear as day that even Maude Ivory could tell when she saw it. Before her little cousin could say anything to it, she plucked harder at that curl on her lips. "Why don't you take the lead this time around, Maudie? Give 'em Clementine, maybe."
She could tell by the girl's big frown that she wasn't fooling anyone. It was a tell she could never shake, really. These kinds of smiles she gave were only broken because she could never get them to reach her eyes.
"…'Kay," the poor girl brought herself to say anyway, not wanting to disappoint anything her big cousin ever asked of her.
She nodded her appreciation before pulling her guitar strap over her head to hand the instrument over. It wasn't new or foreign to her little hands in the least, but Lucy Gray could see the reverence the girl paid to the precious thing every time she'd held it.
One day yet, Maudie. Old girl already loves your hands as much as mine.
"You going to be okay, Lucy Gray?" Clerk Carmine asked, twiddling his fiddle bow between his fingers.
"Yeah. Don't mind me nothin' at all," she beamed in assurance. "Not sure how long I'll be. But don't wait up for me or anything. Might even just head home early myself," she shrugged.
"All right," Barb Azure nodded, seeming to hold back all that instinct in her to insist otherwise. She'd stopped doting so much ever since little Lucy girl stopped being so little anymore. Hard for someone with the 'big sis' built right into her genes. But she knew, too, that space should be given when it was needed. These days, Lucy Gray seemed to need more of it than ever. "Keep an eye out for yourself, will you?" Pursing her lips with unease, she lowered her eyes with her breath. "That Lipp tart's always lurking about. Still has it out for you, and you know it. You call them Peacekeepers if needed, you hear? Ain't the best company, but they do their job mostly."
"Yeah. 'Course." They didn't need to know she'd spotted that puggy face of hers around already. With a breath, her shoulders sank with the weight eased somewhat. She let her feet drag her off to some place she wasn't even sure of yet.
"Take care, girl," Tam Amber nodded solemnly from his crate, mandolin still tucked between his legs.
"Kill it tonight, Birdies," she winked before pushing her way past the old burlap drapes.
Before she'd made it too far through the crossover behind the stage, she could hear that familiar squeak of a voice calling from back there.
"Keep on the sunny side, Lucy Gray!"
Her footfalls halted. Couldn't help that little bit of laughter only Maude Ivory could ever manage to squeeze out of her even on the worst days.
Who could forget to with you reminding us all the time?
Part of her almost wanted to forget all this moping and head straight back to them. But with a foot already out the door and a promise to Maudie for her moment to shine, Lucy Gray felt as useful as rocks in your pocket going downriver.
No.
Whatever it was weighing down on her that night…
It's fine.
…She didn't want it dragging anyone else along either.
The Covey deserved that much, at least.
It'd been nearly forty minutes since the band of Peacekeepers, off-duty in their blues trickled into the Hob. Four sets had passed with each of the four present Covey on that stage taking the center in turns. The smallest of them was at the lead again atop her little crate with the ebony guitar that was still a few years too big for her. And how she'd still managed to have the entire hall stomping and dancing rounds to the lively reel they were playing.
The music seemed to possess each and every body present except for the lone one who hadn't moved from his seat in the far back in all that time. With his untouched drink and an empty chair beside him, he sat just outside all of the revelry, deaf to the sound, eyes wandering across the lights in search of only one thing.
A loud laugh rang from somewhere in the swarm of people, drawing Coriolanus' unfettered sights to see even Sejanus swapping partners in step with the line of dancers on the floor. Surrounded by all the drunken joy and levity that this entire wretched district had to indulge in, and none of it even remotely reached him, already lost wandering away somewhere. Anywhere but there. Wherever she was.
Because Lucy Gray had been nowhere in sight there the entire night.
Without her, he may as well be a ghost hugging the shadows between the walls of this place. Unseen and unheard, Coriolanus rose from his rickety chair, pacing off elsewhere to find some quieter corner to himself.
He followed wherever the noise would fade behind him, deeper through the maze of piled goods and hidden store rooms. Slinking between stacked sacks and lined crates, the obstacles gradually deadened the commotion until he'd wandered behind some scaffolding, sitting down on the nearest bale of hay.
Part of him figured he should just head back to the barracks. There'd been no point in staying. He didn't even much like it here. The place reminded him of the seediest pits in the Capitol where only the most luckless found themselves in their wayfaring search for solace and consolation from their own dismal lives. So why the fuck was he here now? Some drifter himself, no better than the rest.
Right. He'd only ever come to this place for her. He'd come out here to the very edge of the civilized world at all just for Lucy Gray.
So where was she? She told him the previous week to come this night. Said she'd likely have something special she'd prepared for him. It wasn't like her to disappear off like this. Lucy Gray was true. She was faithful. She was honest.
Coriolanus unclenched his fists, winching when he'd felt the scabs on his knuckles split open yet again. They'd never heal if he didn't stop this unconscious habit of his. But he could never help it when such troubling thoughts constantly plagued his mind—
Where was Lucy Gray now?
What's Lucy Gray doing?
Is Lucy Gray happy?
Seeing the red bead seeping through the cracked skin, he brought his knuckle to his lips. The coppery taste on his tongue reminded him of what left those wounds in the first place, and he felt that pulsing blood begin to boil right in those veins.
Was Lucy Gray safe…?
Because he couldn't be there at all times. He couldn't always keep watch. And if that little rat bastard and his pug-faced bitch ever came within sight of his girl, he would—
"—Coriolanus?"
He blinked. Confused, he followed the voice around… Upward...
"What are you doing sitting all alone back here?"
…And all that fire inside seemed to extinguish almost instantly. The relief washing over him at the mere sight of her.
He smiled.
"Lucy Gray."
He watched as she returned it in all her brilliance, looking like the sunrise itself. Even from all the way down where he was sitting, he could catch the flash of that crooked little tooth she could never quite hide. Not when she was really beaming.
"I was…I was looking for you all night," he nearly fumbled over his words, rising to his feet as he watched her descend the narrow, rusty stairway from the loft above. He stepped forward to meet her at its end.
Standing this close, it was easy to tell when her sweet, imperfect smile faltered. How she pressed her lips when it started to slip from her gaze. This was the same kind of smile she gave trying so hard to cling to her waning hopes behind those cage bars. The tightness in his chest urged him to say something, but she moved first, eyes drawn to his hand as she took it between her tender little fingers.
"You're bleeding, Coryo."
He blinked absently, having forgotten completely.
"This was from that brawl…" Lucy Gray uttered in a withering voice. Meeting his eyes, all that gentle radiance seemed to flush away.
Coriolanus gave her small fingers a little squeeze and laughed quietly. There'd been no reason for her lament. "It's just a scratch."
She began tracing her thumb across his knuckles around the rough scabs before bringing them to her lips in trailing successive kisses, one for each blow that caused this. "I'm sorry you got dragged into that mess."
"It's fine, Lucy Gray," he urged, "I'm perfectly fine."
"I don't ever want to see you get hurt again."
He tempered his smile, slipping his hand from her fingers to cradle her by the neck. "I do my best to take care of you. Remember?"
This seemed enough to bring that light beaming back in her. He was glad.
And for the moment, it'd felt like standing in the middle of her meadow again. What he could see in her eyes. What she could feel beneath his touch. Whatever that always inevitably drew them together, pulling at their tethers once more, so close that they could nearly taste each other's breaths.
The lights then began to extinguish one by one with the fading electrical whirring all above them. Startled, they drew away and turned their sights overhead. The atmospheric cacophony had died into receding clamors and groans, signaling the end to the Hob's nightly festivities.
"Closing time…clear out, folks!"
The two young lovers dropped their heads, laughing in unison at the piss poor timing of it all.
"Looks like we've got to go," Coriolanus lamented, turning to head back to the entrance. "Come on, I can walk you home—"
"—Wait."
He stopped at the small hands wrapped around his forearm. Like a dainty little anchor, she'd planted her heels where she stood. It wouldn't take much to drag her off along with his strides, but the clear reluctance in her face had been more than enough to render those long limbs utterly useless.
"What if…what if we just stayed put…?"
Coriolanus couldn't help the curl at his lips, more so for the innocent novelty of the thought. "Lucy Gray, you know we can't. We'll get in trouble."
"Only if they find out."
Only, she wasn't being novel here.
"Last call—!"
What trace of amusement in him dimmed with those lamps all around. His throat bobbed as he considered what she was asking here. "I'll end up with a reprimand. And you…"
No. The mere thought of it was simply unconscionable. He lowered his voice with his gaze.
"…I just don't want to risk it."
Lucy Gray's fingers remained steadfast. Determined. Pleading. She passed those few paces that separated them, hands never leaving the folds of his rolled-up sleeve. Her eyes searched until they could beckon his own back.
"…Who's going to know, Coryo?" she whispered a breath even quieter.
"—Don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!"
Feeling his reluctance, she finally loosened her fingers. Gaze still locked, he hadn't stirred from his spot, his feet like lead as though they needed that first push to find their direction. So she tethered herself to him by the hand, small palm fitted to his as she wove those dainty fingers right in between his own.
"You're a fugitive like me now."
The conspiratorial breath beneath those words left his lips parted, yet none of his sense seemed remotely able to reach his voice. She smiled at this. Her funny little soldier boy. Maybe there was some rebel in him after all.
"Don't be dragging your feet now. Come on."
Like a pair of shadows, they slipped through the dark, behind all the walls and partitions as boots and voices passed them by. As though drifting just beneath the veil of smoke and mirrors, they sailed freely in the hidden cracks and corners no one looked. Even as the remaining lights left the space one after the other, the ghost girl lead them along as if by instinct. As if this had been her haunting grounds her whole existence in a world full of interlopers. And the hour had been theirs at last.
"In here," she whispered, leading her boy to some obscure place behind a series of beams and hanging burlap drapes. She opened some door to what looked like some crawl space right into the abyss.
Something primordial gripped his nerves within. Who ever willingly walked right into the nothingness like this? Into the unknown? It'd felt like stepping into the woods of the Seam again. Past the boundaries into a world where he shouldn't be. Hardly able to see more than a silhouette before him, he could feel that small, tender hand entwined in his tighten. The brush of stilled breaths against his skin.
An embrace.
"It's okay, Coryo," the warm sound followed, gracing his ears and calming the blood coursing in them.
That had been all that was needed. He stepped into the dark with her. Amongst only their stifled exuberance and laughter, they waited. The only visible traces streamed in like grid work from overhead, and he realized they must have been somewhere underneath something. A cellar or storage space, perhaps? Heavy footsteps passed over them, eclipsing across the light cutting through before it, too, dwindled to a smolder. The remaining murmurs retreated with the footfalls, followed by the echoes of heavy doors dragging across the ground, and metallic hinges and latches rang after.
Silence fell at last in the stillness, leaving behind just a boy and a girl and nothing else in the world.
"Do you…think it's clear out there now?" Coriolanus whispered, unsure of even where exactly he was speaking at. Her gentle ushering reminded him of that little hand that hadn't yet slipped from his grasp. Lucy Gray led patiently as he followed along, cautious and hesitant with each step deeper into the dark space. He heard the sound of a sliding bolt before she pushed a hatch open above, letting in a wash of something warm still glowing dimly outside. She let go of his hand then, only for a hold as she ascended the near-vertical steps right on through.
The mischief he'd spied there in her gaze as she urged him along. That tempered curl at her lips. Oh, she'd been relishing every ounce of this little excursion the entire time, surely. And now he'd been unwittingly made accomplice to her deviance here. Every bit as much as she'd been made his through his schemes and subterfuge in the Games.
The stars were right about them, he supposed.
"You ever spent time up here before?" Lucy Gray giggled, offering a hand to help him through the open hatch. The smirk she'd caught on her boy's face then. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen it. Maybe back at the Capitol. When things hadn't been so bad for him.
But things weren't so bad out here either. They didn't have to be.
Lucy Gray realized his game, then, when she felt him bearing down more of his weight against her hold. Unfair. She scowled, reaching with her other hand to grab at his arm, throwing her own weight backwards into it as she tried to haul his smart little ass along out of that musty hole.
"Stop that!"
Oh, and he had the audacity to laugh at her efforts, too. That infectious sound. Utterly unfair.
"I'm not a lightweight, Lucy Gray. Come on, put some back into it."
"You're twice my size! Help a girl out a little here!" she bit back through her teeth, digging her boot heels into the floorboards beneath them. "I'm gonna let go," she finally threatened.
"Don't—"
"—I'm gonna."
Seeing the opportune moment, Coriolanus reversed his little ruse on her, pushing himself through the rest of the way with such ease, it'd thrown her off her feet. He simply couldn't help himself. In a fit of laughter, he'd been quick to catch her before she fell, but not without a fight from the girl the entire way.
"That was a dirty trick, Coriolanus Snow!" she railed, cursing all her colorful Covey obscenities as she thrashed against his arms wrapping tight around her.
"Hey, come on. Come on—I caught you, didn't I?"
"Barely."
"Don't be like that," he continued to coax.
Only at the press of his brow to her own had Lucy Gray finally settled down. She continued to be stubborn in her coyness, so he responded by pressing his lips to hers instead, only to be shunned in a disapproving hum as she dodged them, his kiss ungracefully glancing just past her eye.
"Lock 'em, lover. I don't want 'em."
Fine, he did as was told. Begrudgingly. All while holding down that triumphant little grin of his as he let his girl go.
She raised her nose at him, making a whole show of dusting her skirts clean of all that imaginary dust tracked from his grimy Peacekeeper fatigues. "Better watch it, buster."
Coriolanus shuffled away, shaking his head as he snickered to himself. Lifting his gaze, he'd realized then just where they'd come out into, standing before the space of a hall emptied of bodies, music, and booze. The tables, chairs, and extra crates pushed off against the walls, leaving just the expanse of a vacant, makeshift dance floor. He turned his sights back down the dark hatch from where they'd just emerged, then back to Lucy Gray. All her mirth now rekindled in the warmth of her gaze.
"This is your stage…"
"Yeah," she smiled. "Ever been on one before?"
He thought about it, supposing the one with all the television cameras during the interviews for the Games wasn't exactly what she had in mind. Wasn't much of a stage when your life was on the line, really. And no, he'd seen the real Lucy Gray when she stood up here. Lucy Gray in her world. Lucy Gray right at the top and center of it. The Hunger Games paled in comparison.
Coriolanus shook his head.
"Never much for performances, I guess."
"Really?" she hummed, stepping forward across the expanse. "Could've fooled me, gorgeous."
Passing the lone standing work light still lit at the center, she idly traced her fingers across the hand-carved motif at the base of its warm bulb. She stopped at the edge of the stage, taking a seat as she reclined backwards on her hands, letting her feet kick in leisured little swings, eyes gazing out across the empty room.
Coriolanus followed, eyes fixed with unease on the seemingly haphazard lamp there, when the entire place had been cleared of any trace of the living.
"They left this on…" he uttered aloud as he joined beside her. It'd been a hard-built habit of his since the Dark Days, always turning off the lights in every room you left. The Snow home had no luxury to let power run so wastefully. And surely, no one in Twelve could afford to be burning it away like this either.
"The ghost light?"
A peculiar thing to call it. Why did it seem like everything was strange tales and ghost stories when it came to the Covey?
"I was curious," he murmured, turning his sights then at all junk that lined this space to the rafters. "Everything in this place just looks like makeshift findings from whatever you have lying around. The lamps hanging above and clamped to the walls look like work lights the miners use. The ones on the tables are just old kerosene lanterns. Half of them cracked and barely able to even hold a flame anymore."
"We make do. You've got to, to make something out of nothing," Lucy Gray spoke. It came out a bit more defensively than she'd meant for it to. It hadn't been much, but she was proud of what they could make here. The Hob was more than just their music.
"I know. What I meant was that…'ghost light'? It reminds me of the kinds we used to have in our home. A lot of our things were really old. Antiques and heirlooms the family had for generations."
What a relic it appeared to be, still bearing a fineness so out of place against all of the Hob's decay and disrepair.
"…Like your mama's compact?" Lucy Gray asked quietly.
So she'd still felt so guilty about losing it. Coriolanus could hear the remorse in her voice at the mere mention.
"Sort of." He reached for her hand. She couldn't seem to peel her eyes from whatever invisible world she'd been so enamored with before them, but her fingers responded, softly brushing over his own. "I just wondered how something like that ended up in a place like this."
Lucy Gray smiled to herself, as though searching her own memories for an answer to that. "Everything's got a story…"
Coriolanus turned to her. "Tell me one."
She laughed as she turned to meet his gaze, but her amusement shifted when she realized he'd meant it.
"Well…there was this old man, sweet as can be. Used to do a lot of handy work around here. Called himself Rusty. Just like his tools. Had a cute dog following him around just as old. A russet colored thing named Rusty Jr."
He laughed warmly at this. "He named his dog after himself?"
"No, that's just what we called her," she giggled. "Don't think she ever had a real name. It was always 'here girl,' 'atta girl,' 'who's a good girl?' She always seemed to respond to hearing Rusty's name, so 'Rusty Jr.' it was."
"Hope he was more reliable in his work," he quipped.
"Oh, mind you, he was better than anyone at what he did. Helped fixed all those work lights up there, in fact. Miners got rid of them when they thought they were broken. Rusty fixed them all right up and strung them up for the Hob. He was the one who built this whole stage, even. Just for us Covey kids when we told him what we had to give back for it."
Rather impressed, he turned his gaze down at the pile of wood they were sitting on. Nothing at all close to the performing houses in the Capitol, but worthy enough for Lucy Gray to sing and dance around on with her guitar. Sturdy enough, too, to withstand the rowdy crowds and the worst of their drunken brawls, it'd seemed.
"He had all sorts of weird junk lying around. Had this projector he could play old movies with. Some contraption he had hidden away in some work shed he said could fly. None of us believed that crazy old fart, of course. Why wouldn't he have gone and flown away out of this dump already, then?"
He'd have been shot down immediately, of course. But maybe just thinking he was a little kooky was the kinder thing to consider. "People travel by hovercraft," Coriolanus pointed out instead.
"No, this thing was different. It had…I don't know…propellers or something on the wings."
Sounded like those antiquated types of aircrafts he recalled from his old history books.
"Just a heap of scrap metal, really," she shrugged. She then nodded at the standing light behind them. "Pretty sure the ghost light was his, too."
"Why is there even one? Nobody's around. Or…supposed to be."
Lucy Gray grew silent as she seemed to muse over the thought, shifting her eyes back across the empty space in front of them. The single bulb had been just enough to illuminate the outlines of all the visible silhouettes and little more.
"You ever wonder, Coryo…what happens in the world in the places where everyone's gone from it?"
"Like here, right now?"
"There's way more to the world than just this," she smiled. "What about places like the woods? Places in between the districts? Everything beyond. Maybe even whatever's out there outside Panem. Empty stages. Empty homes. Empty cities. These places were built by people. Used by them. Left behind by them."
Coriolanus wasn't so sure what she was getting at anymore, her thoughts seemingly roaming off to places and corners he couldn't follow or understand.
"Look at all these things. Each of those work lights once belonged to someone lost down in the mines. Things like…your mama's compact…" Lucy Gray swallowed down a dry breath at this, remembering such a precious thing she'd safeguarded in her own two hands. Coryo's memory and her lifeline. "Rusty's old lamp. We hang onto these things for them, don't you think?"
"For…the ghosts?" he asked, never quite certain of these strange abstractions. The esoteric and the supernatural. He neither comprehended nor cared for such thoughts, really. And yet, he felt a weight on his heart as he listened to this uncanny girl of his prattle on about her spirits and phantoms. And that primal part of him that he couldn't quite place seemed to creep back up to the surface once again. The part of him that couldn't trust the dark. The part of him that feared the woods. Simply being a non-believer meant nothing when they already walked among the silent and unseen. For that moment, Coriolanus wondered, too, what side of the veil Lucy Gray truly existed. What a conundrum she was. A riddle of a soul that always seemed to straddle between the clear boundaries.
"I like to think we leave the lights on for them."
Reverence, awe…he couldn't find the words to describe what he found in her gaze then. It'd been the same when she spoke of her family once. When he'd stood with her in her meadow, listening to her speak about the faces of all the dead children that still followed her in her dreams. And not just the ones who died in the Games. There'd been a familiarity in it, too. A sort of comfort he'd never quite known. Something he felt he could share in her, even if he had no words for it.
She smiled then. He could see it in her eyes this time. And soon enough, her burgeoning grin. That crooked little tooth behind it. Then laughter.
He couldn't be too sure what prompted it now, how uncontained her mirth had suddenly become.
"Yeah… But mostly, the ghost light's there so that no one accidently goes walking off the end of the stage here and breaks their neck in the dark," she quipped with a tap of her heel against its wood facing, nodding at the clearance between where they sat and the ground beneath them.
Coriolanus pressed his lips, brows stitched as his shoulders began to shake with his own welling laughter. "Wait, seriously?"
She gave a shrug, nonchalant. "You know. Safety."
"Did you just…?" he smiled at her incredulously. "You didn't just make all that up, did you?"
"I don't know..." Lucy Gray's quirk of a smile only grew in its coyness. "…Did I?"
The little tease. She couldn't have.
But…then again, she had a way of spinning her tall tales with that sinister sense of humor, he'd come to learn. A babe who'd once bathed in milk and rose petals. Same one who'd only known a vagabond's life among a clan of traveling musicians who never claimed a home or destination. Sometimes, he couldn't tell where the line between truth and absurdity lied in her stories. Likely a mix of both. Things that were too far rooted in life were never that interesting. Ones too fantastical just seemed too unreal to be sincere.
With a pretended huff, he shook his head and hopped off the stage to the ground below, boots stomping off towards the open floor.
"Wait! Coryo, where are you going?" she called after him.
"You're a little weasel, you know that?" he pointed back at her.
The grin he'd worn alleviated any worry she began to feel about his mood. She knew she could tease hard sometimes, but she was still learning where all the boy's buttons were.
"No, come back! You just going to leave your girl all alone up here?"
His stare challenged her from where he stood. Sure, he could play at her little game, too.
"You're always up there on that stage. Ever spent any time down here, for once?"
She tilted her head curiously at his question. Looked at him—really looked. When she had no response, she watched his smile deepen as he held his arms open toward her, hands gesturing for her to come.
"What, you want me to jump?" she joked wryly.
"I'll catch you."
She raised her brows at this, recalling all that graceful stumbling from the hatch coming out onto the stage just moments ago. "You mean like before?"
Lucy Gray always had a way of disguising her cynicism beneath her humor. Same way he'd guarded himself behind all those unassuming good manners and charm everywhere in the Capitol. And she'd only ever seemed to resort to that when all she really needed was one last bit of persuading. Like it was her daring him to convince her.
To prove it.
Just one tiny push.
"Always."
Growing up wary by nature, Lucy Gray knew how much it served to have those 'good instincts.' She'd only gotten as far as she had for it. Didn't mean she didn't also have a reckless streak either, and ol' Lucy girl had almost bitten it too many times to count thanks to that, too. And here stood her boy, waiting there with his arms wide open, eyes bright with a simple promise. She honestly couldn't be sure whether it was caution or abandon that won out in that moment. It'd always seemed to be some strange mix of things when it came to Coriolanus Snow.
But looking to him, staring straight at those sweet baby blues…all she knew was she believed him.
Wearing a reserved smile, she gathered herself back up, one foot at a time. She took several steps back for that running start before taking that leap from the edge with a gasp, eyes locked shut and heart skipping a beat that moment midair. When she opened them again, she found herself securely in his strong arms, held fast above the ground below.
"Told you, didn't I?"
The way he flashed that self-assured little grin of his that she was sure naturally pissed off plenty. Singing those words with the confidence to back it. Arms never once letting up one bit, even as he set her down safely back to her feet.
Her heart still felt a mile high above, hardly even noticing how close they'd stood now. Any wandering eyes spying them would mistake the moment for a lovers' embrace.
"Ever wondered what it's like?" He spoke with such a bareness among the silence that even the ghosts might have envied. "Being on this side of the stage?"
Lucy Gray stifled a playful little giggle. "Being the one listening?"
"Yeah."
"Sitting in the worst seat in the house in that miserable little corner in the back, all by my lonesome, where folks are too drunk for you to even hear a thing?"
He laughed to himself, nodding. She really did see everything from up there, apparently. Taking her into hold, his feet began shifting to whatever imaginary tune was starting to fill their headspace to the rafters.
One tiny push.
Her hands trailed along with his until they'd settled around his shoulders. Her steps followed, miming and mirroring along his every sway. She had to close the height he had on her a bit on the tips of her toes, but his arm fitted around her waist helped her along. His free hand from the other found hers, pressing it to his heart. She tilted her gaze, peering from beneath her lashes with a curl on her lips.
"Just…waiting for a special someone to come ask for a dance…?"
And oh, those sweet baby blues. The way they'd made her feel like the only girl in existence. Sometimes they'd left her with such wonder, just seeing the depth of his reverence in them. Even from across the room in that shitty seat in the corner. Or across a whole wall of impassable steel cage bars. Standing face to face, alone at the edge of the world with only the grass and the breeze to bear witness.
Here, among a hall of ghosts and memories in the haunting hours of the night.
"Can't say I have. It's hard, when you're the only one dancing to the tune of your own music," Lucy Gray whispered, shutting her eyes as she felt his brow press down against her own. "It's a long wait, finding the right one to share it with."
So close they'd come in each other's arms in that moment. A whole quiet balled passing by. Faces pressed and bodies in perfect sync right down to their heartbeats. And yet, a breath was all it'd taken to pull them right back into the waking, conscious world. The music ceasing with their stilled movements. Eyes blinking back to the single dim light still remaining against the silhouettes. They were once again back among the empty shadows, their spirits somehow faded with the reverie.
Coriolanus parted his lips, now bearing a somberness in his gaze. For the suspended, fractional moment, it'd felt as if he'd meant to claim that kiss stolen away from before. But he sighed as his gaze fell, hovering touchlessly just a brush away from her lips.
"…It's getting late," he uttered instead. A reminder from his better senses.
Lucy Gray burrowed her face against his anyway.
"I know…" she breathed, warm against his skin. "I know."
He could feel her painful reluctance as she drew away, made to feel his own lament for her sudden absence from his arms. He was glad, then, for that small hand still lingering in his grasp. He doubted he could let go even if she'd tried to slip all the way away.
"Can I show you one more thing?" she asked, kneading his knuckles softly beneath those tiny fingers.
She'd been at the lead for the whole of that night. So he followed again wherever she wandered off to next. Back around behind the stage. Across those ratty burlap curtains. Through those dark passages between stacks and pallets of junk, right back to where they'd started. This time, Lucy Gray guided him in tow up that narrow coil of rusted steps where she'd come out from to find him. Its end led out into an entire loft space where there'd only seemed to be even more mountains of clutter piled among what could hardly even be considered furnishings. Between the worn old desk against the wall and the ragged old mattress strewn by the open window at the far end, there'd been papers and scraps and all manners of miscellany scattered about.
Such a bedlam always brought Coriolanus a sense of unease. How he'd fussed over keeping his own room in perfect order to stave it off among the squalor of what remained of their home. And yet something about this space felt so pure and homespun. All the little signs of life, of habitation. What came to mind reminded him of something like Tigris' room. Her little workspace in the corner with all her magazine pinnings, collections of swatches, and odd notions and haberdashery tossed about. Always perpetually in the middle of some project, starting on others before the end of the last.
He must have missed her sorely, to find some comfort in the convivial, welcoming charm of a space so unkempt.
"What were you doing up here earlier?" he murmured, navigating carefully across the litter at their feet. He'd been thankful for the full moon pouring through the open window helping to light his steps a bit.
"Oh, we all come up here for some downtime sometimes. The Covey, I mean."
"All alone?"
His quick question managed to catch her off guard. Coriolanus turned when he heard her steps halt. His eyes still hadn't fully adjusted to the dim light yet. But the way Lucy Gray's expression had paled, it'd been almost as though the sun itself had faded away. He could see her stir where she stood, averting her gaze a touch too slow to hide it from him.
"You want to see something Maude Ivory's been working on?" she suddenly asked.
Coriolanus watched as she brushed past him toward the shoddy desk across the loft. She fished out what looked like some old ledger from the mess and motioned for him to follow her closer toward the window to sit beneath the moon's veil. Plopping down on the edge of that dirty old mattress, she scooted to make room for him, flipping past some filled pages full of notes and numbers. He'd caught flashes of dates going back even more than a decade, until she'd found newer pages with crayon scribbles covering over all the entries.
"We can't afford new books for her, so Maudie makes do with whatever's lying around," Lucy Gray laughed. "The junk up here is stuff no one's really looking through anymore. Mostly old inventory. Look at this—"
She passed the open book to his lap. Scrawled across the penned numbers were two human-ish figures in blue. One with a darker head, the other seemingly bald. Both wearing the most atrociously hand-drawn on smileys across their lopsided faces. Between them was a smaller stick figure whose colorful skirt seemed to be the focus of the artist's efforts. Encircling all three figures was a perfectly traced outline of a heart in bright red.
"Three guesses who that's supposed to be," Lucy Gray beamed.
Coriolanus squinted, brows furrowed as he tried to decipher the horrid juvenile scrawlings.
Unsure if it'd been that trademark smartassery of his at play here, she gave him a hard elbow to the arm. "What do you suppose comes by the house all the time always dressed in blue, dummy?"
He blinked. "Is this supposed to be me?"
"And Sejanus. God, you're awful."
He cracked then, unable to help his laughter.
"That girl loves you, you know. And I've got half a mind to think she's probably got a crush on your friend now."
"You sure it's not the cookies?" he quipped, thumbing through more pages of the garish little scribbles. Misshapen flowers. A happy little sun. A four-legged thing he figured must have been that goat of theirs.
"Oh, it's definitely the cookies," she laughed.
Coriolanus closed the ledger and set it down. His eyes followed the silhouettes nearby, revealing little by little all the traces among the trove of all manners of things to be found here. Arranged in a neat row along the sill of the great loft window were wads of what looked to be paper. Looking more closely, he realized they'd been folded shapes and figures made from it.
"Tam Amber likes to do things with his hands. If it isn't whittling, it's something else with wood, probably. He doesn't like to leave a mess up here, so he finds pieces of paper instead. Makes things from that."
Among them, he could make out what looked to be a winged bird, a small sailboat, and several fishes of different shapes and sizes.
Piled over the seat of a chair close by, Coriolanus then spotted loose petals, sprigs, and some twine. There'd been flowers gathered into arrangements in different stages of completion. Some in the process of being woven into some sort of chain. Others made into full finished rings.
"Are those your flowers?" he asked her, remembering the crown of them she'd donned on that television screen for the Reaping.
Lucy Gray shook her head. "Barb Azure's. She's got the fastest hands of us girls for making those things. But I'm the best at picking out the flowers," she declared, chin held high at her claim. "The boys model them while Maudie peddles them out to the folks. You should help this year, too, gorgeous," she nudged his ribs, grinning. "No one'll say 'no' to a cute little girl's face when she's got the prettiest Peacekeeper in the corps showing off her goods."
How red in the cheeks she would have seen him if it weren't so dim in that room then. But she could guess as much, the way her boy hid that little pinch of a smile.
"Do you practice up here sometimes, too?" he asked, finding a makeshift stand beside another chair with what looked to be musical notations printed on the pages strewn there.
"No, not here. More cramped than I like."
"Who's music is that then?"
"Hmm…" Lucy Gray's gaze followed where he'd gestured to see where the spread of sheet music lied. "Oh, that must be CC's. If he's not playing out in the woods, he probably comes here on his own sometimes."
He watched as she walked over to the stand to collect the pages. 'Scheherazade Op. 35,' he could make out in bold across the heading before she'd gathered them all into a neat stack. Such care she'd taken storing them away into some slip cover. Coriolanus didn't know music well, but he could tell there'd been something special about those pages. Music had been their lifeblood after all.
"Boy should be careful about leaving them out like this. We keep reminding him," she uttered, returning to her seat beside him.
"I thought you all played from memory."
"We do. None of us use sheets. Can't even make sense out of those lines and dots. CC's the only one who bothers to learn them," she laughed. "See, the luthier we all go to for our instruments used to play, too. Same instrument CC does, but for big halls way back in his day. Said he even played in the Capitol once, but part of me wonders if he just makes all that up," she mused fondly. "Had all these stories about the fancy, tall windows with pictures made out of the glass, and bright show banners that hung all the way from the highest floor."
He recognized that unmistakably to be the façade of the largest concert hall in all of the Capitol. How could that be? Some poor laborer in Twelve, having once glimpsed upon the very monuments of his own city streets?
"CC asked, so the old dog teaches him everything he knows. Once a month, he makes that trek to visit him. Shows him whatever he's been practicing. Comes home with more of his old sheets. And you know, I can hear it in his playing, too. He's got the cleanest sound of us all. Hits the fastest string of notes none of us can catch up with either."
He might not have known music, but he could see her delighted candor beneath all of this. It'd been so infectious, that little glow that always illuminated every bit of her when she was sharing those pieces of her heart. What she loved most. What made her so happy. It'd been a vicarious sort of joy he wanted to keep alight forever if he could.
"It's why he practices alone sometimes. He knows it's weird sounding music to the Covey, and I think he's scared of bothering our ears with it. Poor kid..."
Lucy Gray's smile grew somber then, lamenting that any of the Covey should ever feel the need to hide their music. But she'd known too well why he'd done so. That same voice that was always saying hers was no good either. Telling her that no one cared to hear what she had to say. That the only thing that mattered was playing to the crowd's pockets and purses.
'Anything else is just a waste of time.'
'Ain't worth any more than your singin' words when you got no coins to show for it.'
.
.
.
'Just a pretty face with no prospects.'
It'd grown quiet between them again. Lucy Gray suddenly rose from the edge of the worn mattress. He watched her pace off, shoulders slumped as she appeared to rub her eyes. Perhaps the hour was finally catching up with her now. Rising to his feet after her, he took one last glimpse of all the little baubles and ends around. Committed each of the little stories behind them to mind. Every one of these things were the all the little pieces that made up Lucy Gray Baird.
"I wanna be honest about something…"
Coriolanus turned at her shrunken voice from across the room.
"…I haven't been feeling all too bright tonight," she admitted, gaze searching for nothing in particular out the window. Just anything at all to avoid looking at those baby blues she knew were staring right back at her.
He'd already figured as much. Not like he hadn't welcomed her caprice, but he could remember how she'd leaned on all that to distract from everything else, trapped behind those bars at the Capitol zoo.
"Is that why you weren't out there playing with the Covey?" he asked quietly.
He watched her intently now. Saw how she'd resorted to wringing her hands within themselves, her weight shifting between her feet.
"Lucy Gray, what's bothering you?" he urged her to say. How small she'd grown right before his eyes in that moment. Cradling herself in her own arms as though she might just slip through the floorboard cracks below. He stepped his way back over toward her, watching with such solicitude as she continued to wither where she stood.
He needed her to respond. Say something.
"You can tell me anything. You know that, right?"
And somehow, even hearing his gentle encouragement hadn't been enough. She'd never gotten enough of it in her life to know what to even do with it. Even when that little crying voice inside wanted so much to pour whatever was locked away down there, she simply couldn't bring herself to dump any of its weight onto someone else's shoulders. No, she'd learned it was better to be strong all on her own. Be a survivor. Sure, having others next to you helped, but not when they were stuck carrying all your bullshit for you along the way. She couldn't feel right doing that.
Besides, she knew all too well now where relying on others like that got you.
"I just…"
No. She couldn't do that to this boy.
"…I just wanted to say…thank you, Coryo. For sticking around tonight."
The stitch in his brows softened at this. Why had there even been any question in him doing so?
"Just getting to be with you for a bit, the time just passes, you know? Whatever crummy, godawful thoughts…" she said somberly, still trying to smile as she slowly shook her head, "…I manage to forget it all when I'm with you. A lot of things just stop mattering. Even if it's just for a short while."
Just happy being with her boy.
So why was she standing there, halfway to broken right in front of him? Hiding it all away for the better part of the night. It wasn't right. How she couldn't even meet his eyes anymore. Shoulders sunken with that dying weight of her spirit, shaking with those breaths she was taking deep in a fight to keep the sobs from catching them.
This wasn't right.
"I think it's really late now, Lucy Gray. Maybe we should call it. I can walk you back to the Seam."
"No." Her voice hitched as she shook her head in the way a stubborn child fought being put away to bed. "Please, Coryo. Won't you stay a little longer? I don't want to go home yet."
The desperation she'd tried to hide in her plea then. The only other time she'd done so was the last time she'd asked not to be left behind. To be saved from that arena and a lonely, pitiful death.
'I do my best to take care of you,' he'd told her before.
"Stay with me. Please."
How he'd hated the sight of her tears. Coriolanus could already see their glisten welling in her eyes. It hadn't just been her sorrow that broke his heart. Perhaps because they'd reminded him, too, of his own reflection. What his own tears reminded him of. The loss of his loved ones. The loss of his past. His innocence.
He hated the way they made him feel.
Hopeless.
Powerless.
Useless.
No. Never again.
He crossed the sparse distance left between them, hands outstretched until his great palms cradled her face. He wanted them to memorize every trace of her skin and all the contours of her being, branding it all right into their lines. He never wanted his hands to forget this precious girl. Brushing away at the corner of her eyes with the pad of his thumb, he wanted to make certain she could truly see him in that moment.
"I'm not going anywhere, Lucy Gray."
He pressed his lips to hers, making sure that they, too, would never forget. He drank with his kiss until he'd been soaked with nothing but her, until he'd breathed nothing but her. And this time felt nothing like before. Uninterrupted amongst the empty world, Time gave them what the waking end of it never allotted the lovers. Among the ghosts, they had forever.
In her own desperation, Lucy Gray drank to forget. Drank to erase everything she didn't want anymore. Oh, for sure, that heart of hers was pissed off at Billy Taupe. And sure, Mayfair was the pathological cunt in all of this, but that was just in her blood.
But Billy fucking Taupe...
That was betrayal.
She was angry. Lied to and left for dead, done dirty by a boy she thought, one she was prepared to love forever. Then she was sad. Cried, even. Cried 'til her eyes hurt almost as much as her stomach does, empty like their pockets at the end of each week. Until she wasn't any of those things anymore, even though the hurt was still there, etched down right into her bones. And that hurt wanted all the worst for him.
But eventually, that started to go a bit, too, with time. Time brought Coriolanus Snow back to her. The only one ever to do for her so effortlessly and so completely what no one else could. But she knew Time was never so generous to stupid dying mortals like them. She would have to take this moment then. Steal it. Keep it. Own it.
Burn it right into her bones until it'd seared all that hurt left away with the ashes. She could do that right here, now in this moment.
Just her and her boy and nothing else in the world.
Here, she was safe.
Happy.
Loved.
Lucy Gray knew and wanted nothing else other than to love him back. Love him long. Love him forever.
Their bodies and limbs moved, ushered completely by their heedless wanting then. Before any thoughts could overtake those most elemental instincts, they'd stumbled their way across the stacks of piled scraps and wares, completely oblivious to any collateral left littered in their wake. A single violent sweep cleared away what clutter covered that shoddy desk by the wall, and Coriolanus had her hoisted against its edge.
Only the sound of breaths and flesh filled the still air now. Lucy Gray grappled for purchase as he pulled her tighter in his arms, locking her close the way she'd leapt into them before. He held her with the same great fervor that feared losing her right from his grasp. Only when he'd broken away for a breath had he realized how much he'd hardened beneath his belt, stopping to gather his wits with hope that the dull ache from such need would subside once he'd calmed his blood. It'd startled him, to experience something so absolute and so overwhelming. He squeezed his eyes shut with his staggering breaths. Part of him, too, dreaded her disgust at his barely existent self-control. Like some shameless beast in rut.
The indecency.
Lucy Gray deserved better.
Coriolanus felt her hands on his face, ushering him until his gaze couldn't avoid hers any longer. She took his lips to her own then. Locked her thighs tight around his hips as she rolled herself against him, climbing to a full straddle. Her claim.
Surely, she'd felt him then. Surely, by the way the end of his cock ached so for its place between her legs, even through the suffocating layers of garments separating their skin.
This meant, then…that she, too, wanted him?
If her tongue and teeth between his lips weren't enough to convince him, her roaming hands that delicately guided his within them surely would. Lucy Gray could feel the tremble in his uncertain fingers, hampered by doubt and inexperience. So she led them. Showed where they were permitted to explore. Where her flesh wanted them to be.
How easily she'd fitted into the cradle of an arm, while he'd taken a palm full of her breast with the other. He'd still been somewhat timid in his touch, so she nipped gently at his lip to encourage him along, sighing once she'd felt those long fingers firm against the swells beneath her blouse.
"Don't have to think of me like one of your pretty roses, Coryo…" she breathed, tilting her head back to bare her neck to his lips. Even after having been hewn into the robust model Peacekeeper, this poor Capitol boy was still as demure as they came. She bit back a small laugh, but the sound only seemed to embolden him on as she felt the graze of his teeth there beneath her ear.
Good. No one's hiding here, Coryo. Show me everything under that skin.
Her deft fingers began to maneuver down the buttons of his tunic, peeling away the heavy cloth from his shoulders.
Everything that makes you tick.
Sweeping her open palms across his skin bared, she drew him down for another kiss, fingers raking through the shorn bristles of his hair from nape to scalp.
Everything that you want.
With those same sturdy arms, she felt him lift her from the edge of the desk. So she enshrouded herself over him, draped and clinging by the limbs as he carried her away with him. Still heady and drunk on his lips, she'd only registered once she felt something soft beneath her.
Give me all of you.
That battered old mattress had been the only remotely comfortable surface in that room, and she was grateful he still had the sense to make use of it. She'd nearly jolted when she felt those paws grappling at the neck of her dress. A good thing she'd chosen something knit to wear that night. Anything else would have torn clean from her shoulders beneath those starved hands.
Somewhere between the desk and their bedding, their boots had been kicked off as they'd shed each other of their undergarments. His plain singlet beneath his uniform discarded with his heavy dog tags. Her camisole tossed aside with her floral printed skirts hiked high past her hips. Limbs and lips roamed and mingled as their sweltering flesh smoldered beneath their skin.
But almost as quickly as his zeal had overcome him, Lucy Gray watched as he fell to a seeming pause, still looming over her lying sprawled beneath him. She felt his eyes on her, tracing from her swollen lips to her heaving chest. From all the tangled tendril ends that crowned her face to the contours of her bare flesh, down her flat belly, to the slopes of her legs hitched around either side of him.
She dreaded for those seconds that perhaps doubt had stayed him. That perhaps he'd come to his senses long enough to realize his own regret here.
"Coryo… If you…if you're having second thoughts…"
Something in him shifted then, hearing the melancholy in her words. And suddenly, she could glimpse it in his eyes. Clear as the light. The awe captured in his gaze she'd never seen in any other. Struck so breathless that his own solemn, conscious thought could regain itself in him, even if momentarily. He gently shook his head, as though in disbelief of himself. Of her.
"…You're just so beautiful, Lucy Gray."
This had been all his lost voice could utter.
It wasn't her first time hearing that from a man's lips. And yet somehow, those words managed to break her heart, coming from him. Something about everything he spoke. The way those sweet baby blues watched her.
Against all her hard-born judgment, she really did believe him.
For that single fleeting moment, he'd forgotten where they were. Forgotten the world. His ache. All of himself. Lost in his bewilderment and whatever it'd moved him to do or be. There'd existed only a single recognizable thing in his sights then. And she'd lied there right before his eyes. Waiting.
The gentle graze of her fingers between his legs brought him back. She'd never broken her gaze from him, even as she took him into her hand. Her touch came tenderly, meant to invite, meant to ease. Until she felt him responding again, a jerk of his hips into drawn strokes. Whatever ambivalence still restraining him, Lucy Gray rose to kiss it all away. It'd been all the assurance he'd needed then, as he finally settled whatever stalled his nerves, chasing her lips as she slowly lied back down. He dragged his heavy flesh over hers, drawing her knees high along his hips as he rolled himself between her legs—and sweet hells—how wet she'd become there. All for him. Pressing his brow to hers, he let his lips linger where their breaths mingled. Until she gave her affirmation, until she closed the distance herself.
A nod and a desperate, wanting kiss.
Please, those lips implored.
So he complied. He brushed his burning, weeping tip once more between her legs until it found those folds and pushed himself inside her. Teeth gritted and brows furrowing at the effort, he felt her small fingers burrowing into the flesh of his back. Between her hitched breaths came soft whimpers, startling him nearly enough to stop as his eyes fired open.
"Am I hurting you…?" he breathed.
She only bit her lip with a vehement shake of the head. No, but she'd needed to adjust. Breathless, no words followed, but he heeded her gaze and continued burying himself deeper, swallowing back a curse until his hips met flushed against hers.
The sensation felt like no other.
Part of him wanted to savor the sweetness, but every firing nerve in him bid him to move. He did so in steady, slow rocks, earning long-drawn breaths from Lucy Gray's lips until he, too, began to pant with his own pace. How glorious it'd felt. Like he were built for nothing else other than this. For this pleasure. This singular purpose that his entire being had pared down to. And his precious love lain beneath him, the impetus at the heart of it.
Driven harder by the strokes, his hands found hers, entwining in the tangled pool of her locks cascading over the edge of their makeshift bedding. The floorboards groaned beneath the heavy, uneven cushion at each of his thrusts as her legs anchored themselves around him. Hungry for more of her flesh, he then let his lips relish every inch of her skin they could taste. Tracing the slope of her shoulder, down over the swells of her chest, until his tongue found the pink buds at their peak. He heard her sigh with a cat-like arch of her back, pushing off from the mattress beneath her.
Coriolanus studied her then. Committed to memory each response his every touch could elicit. What tickled her. What made her go limp. What clenched each of those coils within that impossibly tiny body of hers. He moved to her every cadence until he filled that loft to the rafters with her sound. Until he could drag that sweet singing voice right from her lungs.
Already feeling at the ends of his limits, his next heavy stroke drove deep into her. Her small frame rattled as she threw her head back with a cry, feeling every one of her nerve endings ignited all at once. Her body's sudden jolt startled him before reading what it'd meant.
"There, Coryo…just like that…" she'd barely managed to utter before her mind slipped back into incoherence.
Understanding, he snaked an arm beneath the small of her back to lift her hips higher as he shifted himself. Lurching forward over her, he drove again like this. And—great stars—her mind saw nothing but those tiny pinprick lights even in the pitch dark behind her eyelids there. Her arms felt heavy as the rest of her, fingers clawing into whatever they could find, feeling like she was falling right through into the abyss. The canvas cover of their bedding. His rough-hewn flesh. Whatever remained of his poor head of hair.
Nothing of her being felt like hers anymore. Her delirious heartbeats. Whatever string of nonsense and profanities her breaths carried. Not even the remnants of all her mangled and sundered thoughts that still managed to float around her tenuous consciousness. All of her filled with nothing but this boy then, replete and teeming inside and out from her nerves to her bones.
By instinct, Coriolanus knew. She'd been so close, and he needed her to come with him. He plunged deeper with each thrust until the carnal sounds of their meeting flesh overcame their breaths. Until her singing became drowned out by the coursing blood of his own furious pulse thrumming in his ears. Until—at sweet, long last—he felt her insides envelop him whole. Taking and claiming from him the very summit of his own climax. It'd come over him, white hot, burning and blinding until he could no longer even move. When his body, too, submitted to her, bleeding itself in the dying throes of its ascendance.
Lucy Gray's lips found his first once his body failed him, falling heavy over her. She gave him long, wearied kisses as she cradled him in her arms, waiting for him to recover. The boy had taken a far harder fall back to the earth than she had, apparently. Once his breathing returned to resting, he found his strength again in his exhaustion, carefully easing his weight off from his poor girl. Now well softened from the labor, he slipped himself out from between her legs, only then realizing what he'd just done.
"Sh…shit…sorry, Lucy Gray. I didn't…I shouldn't have…" he began to apologize in a sobering panic at his own carelessness.
She shook her head, pulling his brow back to her own. This gesture of his always did wonders to calm one another, she'd come to learn. And no, the blame wasn't all his in this. The wave had swallowed them both in those moments.
"…Next time," she simply whispered to him.
There would be more chances for caution. Now was not the time for it, she'd decided.
Coriolanus nodded.
There would be far more chances to do everything they wanted.
"Here. Lie down, Coryo," she urged.
Lucy Gray could still feel his heart racing even after he'd settled himself down beside her, the poor boy. Sidled up next to him, she traced calming strokes over his skin, marking her way over to the spot on his chest where that still feverish heart lied. She leaned over him, peppering languid, petal kisses there.
She'd remembered vaguely how ill-fitted his pressed cardinal uniform always seemed from their meetings at the zoo. The same way she never quite fit into anything Mama left her either, still always a size-and-a-half too big for little Lucy girl, who never grew enough to fill them. How much fuller his flesh seemed now over this brief month. More taut and toned than she ever imagined beneath that school uniform (not that she'd imagined that much.)
Coriolanus caught her eyes staring in that moment and smiled to himself. Dipping a finger beneath her chin, he guided her lips back toward his own. They felt nice against his skin, but he liked them most there with his. He liked their taste and all the tenderness that came with it. With a thought to indulge, he let them roam this time. At the corners of her pretty lips, he felt them curl beneath his kisses. He traced them along the edge of her jawline, both so delicate and striking among her features. She yielded to his trailing lips until they caught that endearing little beauty mark he'd become so enamored with.
And oh, the swell of her breath he'd managed to draw once his kisses wandered there. He decided then that it was his favorite part of her to tease.
They passed what perhaps could have been another hour into the night like this. Basking in the pale moonlight, too lazy, too at ease to disentangle themselves from each other just yet.
"I was planning to ask you earlier today," Lucy Gray spoke across the silent creaking of frogs and crickets in the distance outside. "There's a lake outside the fence. Only the Covey know about it. I was thinking maybe you'd want to come along with us."
"…Beyond the fence?"
She could sense the hesitation in his voice. He'd broken the rules for her more than a few times already. What was one more? "Next week. You'll like it, Coryo," she smiled sweetly, trying to assure him. "Bring your friend, too. We'll make a day of it."
Sejanus…
He'd considered first that perhaps this would be opportune, if only to keep him in his sight and out of whatever schemes he'd been planning. But then brighter thoughts weighed in as well. Clear waters. The summer sun. No trace of the world to see. Something in him calmed at the prospect of this.
"Okay." he nodded. "Count us in."
Seeing how she'd beamed at his consideration already made it worth all the while.
"The stars are so much clearer out here in Twelve," Coriolanus mused once he'd turned his sights back at the spectacle through the window. Even with the full face of the moon shining that night, they'd numbered far greater than anything he'd ever glimpsed in the Capitol skyline.
Turning his gaze back to her, he could see her eyes staring in that same way she had, sitting at the edge of the stage in the empty dance hall. They could be looking out at the very same view, lying in the same exact spot in time and space, and yet Lucy Gray's eyes seemed always able to glimpse something else entirely. Something invisible, something spectacular. Such things never crossed his mind before. There were always more pertinent things at hand to think about. Everything in sight right in front of him.
But out here in District 12, at the very edge of the world he knew, things were different. Time seemed slower there, if only for brief moments at a time. Maybe that was all it was. Just a world he needed to get used to. That maybe his eyes would simply adjust after long enough.
"You ever wonder sometimes, Coryo? How many people do you think ever lived in the world?"
What a strange musing. But he humored her anyway. There'd been all the time for it now, after all.
"Trillions, probably?"
It was a number she couldn't possibly even have any concept of. Few people did, really, closer to infinity than anything else, and yet nowhere actually near it.
But that hadn't been what she was even asking about, was it?
"As many as there are stars up there, you think?"
Coriolanus couldn't help but smile to himself at her childlike curiosity. "That's a lot of stars out there, Lucy Gray. I'm not sure about that," he laughed. She'd probably known nothing about what was really out there, doubting anything of the subject was ever within curriculum for the districts.
She appreciated his answer anyway. He was probably the smartest boy she'd ever known, and yet he'd never made her feel like some stupid Covey girl who'd lost any chance at finishing school.
"What about the lives that haven't even been born yet?" She looked to him with all the light of those stars in her eyes. "That's a lot, too, isn't it?"
Unsure of what she was getting at now, he furrowed his brows in thought.
"What do you suppose those lights actually are, Coryo?"
Plasma. Giant balls of it. Impossible distances away. Basically a bunch of suns too far to do more than decorate the sky whenever their own was on the other side of the planet.
"…What do you think they are?" he asked her instead. He couldn't help his own curiosities now at what it was she'd thought of them. If she believed they'd held some power to conjure up the fates and write the destinies of their mortal lives. If she believed they were the reason why he'd found her at all.
He wanted to know.
And this had been precisely why she believed she loved this boy.
It didn't matter at all, really. When she'd lived her entire life so used to being passed over and written off. Of having to entertain others just to be heard. And still never being seen.
For once, she hadn't been alone beneath those trillion points of little ghost lights. Wasn't made to feel like she was just another one of them in the shadows, watching while the rest of the world slept.
One day, Maude Ivory's little drawings would be forgotten once she'd outgrown them. Tam Amber's little folded critters would flatten and crumble away into dust. Barb Azure's flowers coming and going with the seasons. Clerk Carmine's music going unheard to the winds.
Billy Taupe and his name, carved in initials beside the girl he'd promised his life to, burned right out of the wood that once immortalized them.
She feared how contagious Time was. That it would claim her along with everything else before anyone would ever know. Before she could leave her traces in the world. But she could see it now, all her imprints. Proof that she'd lived. That she was here—
A boy who'd loved her. Who would never forget her. Never leave her behind.
.
.
.
This would be the lasting memory of a girl named Lucy Gray.
Notes: Some brain ramblings—so little fun fact I wanted to share! The An article on Playbill puts it really nicely, "a ghost light is a single bulb left burning whenever a theatre is dark. Some argue that its function is to chase away mischievous spirits; others insist it lights the way for the ghosts that are said to inhabit virtually every theatre, keeping them happy and contented. Either way, that light ensures that no one takes an accidental tumble off the stage."
I work very often in stage and theatrical spaces and had this thought to explore a bit of Lucy Gray's personal one here, the Hob. That, along with all the neat superstitions around the ghost light, and the concept of liminal spaces all are things I really love. I thought it would be a neat sort of backdrop to set this story to. There's something a little magical about it to me, and I always had this sense that Lucy Gray's character always brought these same vibes in everything she did or said, even just how she lived her life. It was a bit of a challenge to bring it all together, but I hope it worked out for this, hehe.
I tried to let myself be a little more spontaneous with the prose in this than I normally do, but part of me worries some of the coherence might have suffered for that, so I do apologize if parts seem vague or disjointed anywhere. While working through it, I thought it might've starting getting a bit ambitious with the word count, but I wanted to try and stick to the story I was hoping to tell as best as I could.
It's always such a joy getting to explore and dive into Lucy Gray's character for me, looking at her possible past and backstories. Sometimes, I think it's easy to overlook her experiences before she ever got caught up in the Games and met Coryo. I've always been interested in getting to know the person and life she'd had before him. I love Coriolanus and his dynamic with her, but I really wanted to get a chance to look at her world through her eyes at the focal point this time around. Boi can play the secondary character for once, haha. I hope I was able to do our girl some justice with this story!
Thanks so much for reading, and if any of you guys enjoyed this, please feel free to check out my main story, Snow Dove.
Also, please check out my friend May's Snowbaird art on tumblr, her account is Maysrinn!