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sadisticsongbird · 11 days

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playing god's game

five

warnings: nothin much

word count: 4.7k

a/n: thank you to those who have enjoyed the series so far! i've decided to change up the taglist a little bit. if you would like to be added to the taglist, please comment the series masterlist (below) so its all in one place. i'll also add people that interact regularly with the series. thank you!

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When you arrived at the steps of the school, half the peacekeepers abandoned the group of you, leaving you and Coriolanus with two to escort you to your class.

“This is your fault, you know,” you whispered to Coriolanus.

“Mine!?” he attempted to yell softly. “You were just as much involved as I was.”

“Maybe. But I didn’t jump into the cage with the tributes.”

He opened his mouth to say something at your retort, but chose to keep silent. He didn’t want to argue with you, as much as he wanted to see you shy away at his insults again.

The peacekeepers walked ahead of the two of you, opening the doors to your classroom. Being a mentor in the Games meant that your class load had been trimmed down to a singular class personally taught by the dean. All you would do until the timer went off in the arena was learn more about the history of the Games and work on how to apply strategy to your mentoring assignment. The open doors revealed your classroom set up with two seats empty in between Clemensia and Sejanus, saved for the two of you no doubt. The dean began to speak from his place in the middle of the room without looking up at you or Coriolanus.

“Miss Stillwater, I expected better of you. And your little excursion was in violation of about five different Academy rules, Mr. Snow. Chief amongst them, endangering a Capitol student.”

“What? Who?” you and Coriolanus said at the same time. Both of you looked at one another, faces filled with embarrassment, raising a snicker throughout the rest of the room.

“You. I'm moving for the Gamemakers to disqualify you both as mentors immediately.”

“You said we had to get our tributes to perform, not that we had to stay away,” Coriolanus argued as the two of you shuffled in front of Sejanus to find your seats. You sat next to your best friend, giving him a faint smile as you passed him.

“I'll add insubordination as well.”

“Shaking her hand, Y/N? And Coryo, introducing her to people? You make it look as if we're one and the same as those animals,” Arachne mocked the two of you.

“Coriolanus didn't show those people anything they didn't already know,” Sejanus spoke up.

“I don't need your help, Sejanus,” Coriolanus whispered loud enough only for Sejanus and you to hear. Regardless of his comment, Sejanus continued.

“That the tributes are human beings. Just like us. That's why nobody wants to watch the Games. It's because people know deep down that winning a war 10 years ago doesn't justify starving people's children, taking away their freedoms, their rights.”

Before he could argue another word, a dark voice that you recognized sounded from behind the students, heels clicking as they walked down the aisle of stairs you and Coriolanus had just walked up. “Snow fell down in the cage. It fell down in the cage but it landed…” Gaul.

“On stage.”

She laughed at his comment. You couldn’t tell if it was in mockery or in praise, though. “You're good at Games. Maybe one day, you'll be a Gamemaker like me.”

Her comments kind of enraged you. You were at the zoo too, but where was your validation? As scared as you were to be singled out by the looming woman, you hated that Coriolanus was eating up all of the compliments for something you were BOTH getting into trouble for.

“If the Games continue at all,” Highbottom replied with a dull tone.

“Oh, they'll continue,” Gaul reassured. “With performances like young Mr. Snow's and Miss Stillwater’s in that zoo. Miss Stillwater, how did it feel to be so close to someone from the districts?”

You didn’t know how to answer her question when the truth was, it didn’t feel any different than when you would talk to Sejanus. “It was…enlightening.”

“Enlightening?” the doctor laughed. “How so?”

“Like Sejanus said. They are human beings. They’ve been painted as these monsters to us for so long, but perhaps they aren’t all like that. Maybe we’re wrong.”

Coriolanus chuckled beside you, whispering to himself. “I beg to differ.”

“Do you have something to say, Snow?” you jeered at him.

“You weren’t in that cage with them. I could practically feel the anger radiating off of them. They would’ve ripped my head off if it weren’t for…” he trailed off. “The point is, they are all the same. They hate us and we hate them.”

“You didn’t have to jump in the truck with them,” you argued. “You could have simply just come to watch like I did.”

“Enough.” Gaul’s voice thundered around the room. “This..bickering…can happen later. I’ve come here to ask you star mentors a question.” The students murmured around the two of you. Star mentor. You liked it. “What are the Hunger Games for?”

You sat, debating how to answer this. Harboring about as much hate for the games as Sejanus, you didn’t know what you could say about the games that wouldn’t offend the Head Gamemaker herself. You were always told as a little kid when you asked about it that it was simply a means of keeping order, to show the districts that the Capitol won the war. But you knew that for those in power it ran deeper than that. Before you could answer, Coriolanus spoke up.

“They're to punish the districts for their uprising, to commemorate the end of the war…” he answered naively when Gaul interrupted him.

"’Commemorate the…’ Dull, dull, dull,” she almost reprimanded. Coriolanus looked down into his lap, embarrassed. “Punishment can take myriad forms. Why not drop bombs, cancel food shipments, stage executions? Why Games?” she emphasized.

“Shouldn't we be asking ourselves whether or not they're right in the first place?” Sejanus asked beside you. You set a hand on his shoulder to try and signal him to stop, but he shrugged it off.

“Sejanus, don’t-” you started.

“You have a problem with my Games?” Gaul asked.

“Some of those kids were two years old when the war ended. The oldest of them were only eight. The Capitol is supposed to be everyone's government now. It is supposed to protect all of us. I don't see how making children fight each other to the death is protecting anyone,” he announced to the entire classroom. His head moved, like he was giving a speech to everyone, trying to see if anyone had even the slightest bit of compassion that he held toward these tributes.

“That sort of sympathy might interfere with your mentoring assignment,” Gaul taunted.

“Perhaps the Capitol students are ill-suited to be mentoring tributes. Perhaps the Game's time has passed.” Highbottom seemed to be on everyone’s tails about this. Did he not want the Games to continue? He was the creator of them, afterall. His ride to fame at the creation of them was likely the only reason that he even became the dean at the Academy in the first place.

Coriolanus stood up beside you. “Dean Highbottom is wrong. My classmates, too,” he said. “Maybe Sejanus is onto something here. Maybe we should be viewing those tributes as human beings. I mean, you saw those kids in the zoo, they just…” he paused, looking at Sejanus past you. “They just wanted to get to know Lucy Gray. If we need people to watch, we should be letting them get closer to the tributes before the Games. To make the stakes personal.”

For as long as you knew the boy, he always seemed to twist others words to exactly to his benefit. He knew that Sejanus didn’t mean for these tributes to be used to benefit the view of the Games. Sejanus only wanted these tributes to be safe, to be viewed as someone worth getting to know rather than as a form of entertainment. But you were also annoyed with Coriolanus, once again digging up all of the attention.

“Who will watch the Games if they care what happens to the tributes?”

“Everyone,” you said, standing up. It surprised just about everyone else in the room. You already weren’t one to speak in class, this day being abnormal for you. But to see you defending the Games was another thing. Sejanus spoke highly against it and you seemed to always agree with his opinions, but here you were, defending Coriolanus. Just for attention. What has become of you? “If they thought the tribute they cared about had a chance of winning. People need someone to root for and someone to root against. We need them to invest. And if we bend a few Capitol laws, we could even have them place bets.” You looked down at Sejanus, hoping that he wouldn’t be angry with you. When you met his eyes, it wasn’t anger, but disappointment.

“Lucy Gray may not win in the arena, I know that,” Coriolanus cut in. “But if you give her a chance, I would bet the Plinth Prize that she can win people's attention.

Gaul stayed silent for a moment, deciding whether to weigh in about your ideas. Finally, she cleared her throat, making sure that everyone still had her attention. “I'd like you both to write up a proposal of these thoughts tonight.”

“Wait. You mean y-you m-might…” Clemensia stuttered, “...you might actually use their ideas?”

“If it'll help the ratings, why not.” Gaul shrugged.

“Coriolanus and I are class partners, Dr. Gaul,” the dark haired girl said, standing up and grasping onto Coriolanus arm like she had a few mornings before. You scoffed at the interaction. “We do all of our assignments together.”

Gaul’s sinister laugh rang through the room. “Ms. Dovecote, Mr Plinth. Since you both seem so…eager to share your ideas too. I’ll expect them on my desk tomorrow morning.” She made eye contact with you, making your bones go rigid. “It'll be an interesting test,” she said, smirking.

The few moments you and her stared at one another seemed to go on before she turned, exiting the classroom the way she just came. When the door closed behind her, Highbottom cleared his throat, seemingly unsure what to say.

“I-I think that we’ve all had enough of the Games this morning. You may go to lunch.”

You turned to Sejanus, anticipating to talk to him as you walked to lunch, but the moment Highbottom finished his announcement, Sejanus left, swinging his bag around his body without another look at you. He left his books on his desk that you assumed that he would use to write up his proposal.

“Sejanus,” you started. But it was too late. He was already out the door.

Coriolanus watched the entire interaction, silently praising you for pissing Sejanus off, putting him in his place about the Games. He had no idea you supported the Games so much, but maybe you truly didn’t. And that was what was truly pissing the district boy off.

He thought back to what Tigris had told him about trust last night. Although he needed Lucy Gray’s trust the most in order to help him succeed, he saw how well you and Lucy Gray connected this morning. You couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything for him unless he could trust you. It would be even easier to manipulate you into benefitting him if you were right under his nose.

“Y/N.”

You turned around, surprised that he was talking to you. He didn’t say anything else, just gesture for you to follow him. As much as you didn’t want to follow Coriolanus, Sejanus didn’t seem eager to talk to you right now. You figured it was better to sit with him than sit alone. Gathering up Sejanus’s things that he abandoned, you followed him down the stairs. He was ahead of you slightly, but you caught up to him in no time.

“What do you want, Coriolanus?”

He smiled, genuinely. “What makes you think I want something from you?”

“This is the most we’ve talked to one another in one day. Ever. And the only times before that have been you picking on me or needing something from me. Why would now be any different?”

He seemed hurt at the comment, something in his face changing. Coriolanus didn’t think that he picked on you all that often, Clemensia always being the one to speak up first. It was true that you got on his nerves and vice versa, but it was only to get under your skin. He didn’t know that you took most of it to heart. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About this morning. It was my fault we got in trouble. You were right. I was the one that got in the cage.”

You were genuinely shocked at his apology. He prided himself on being right and worthy in everyone’s eyes and discrediting himself to anyone was always out of the question. Yet here he was, apologizing to you.

“Thank you?” you said, still unsure if he meant it or not.

“W-would you want to eat lunch with me today? Maybe talk through some of the ideas?” Why was he so nervous about asking you this?

“Why? You want to steal some of my ideas?” you said as seriously as you could.

He stuttered over his words. While he didn’t think of that, he didn’t want you assuming that either. “N-no, I jus-”

You cut him off in laughter. “I’m kidding. I’d love to have lunch with you, Coriolanus. As long as it’s all in business,” you joked.

“It’s all in business, I can assure you.”

Both of you went through the line, putting high amounts of food on your trays. You got enough for yourself to fill yourself up and to bring to Mizzen. You wouldn’t have enough time to grab any when you ran home later to check up on your mother. When you looked over on Coriolanus’s tray, you assumed he had the same idea. Before long, the two of you were sitting at a small table in the middle of the luncheon room, yourself sitting across from the blonde boy. You had barely gotten a word in to one another nor taken a bite before a tray slammed down on the table to your left.

“You trying to fatten that poor girl up so you can finally start taking bets?” Sejanus spat at you.

“Sej, I didn’t mean-” you muttered, leaning back away from the boy. You could never be scared of him, but it didn’t stop you from feeling the need to protect yourself.

“Sejanus, enough,” Coriolanus said, standing up and pulling the dark haired boy back, away from you. Sejanus lost his balance briefly, but Coriolanus poked him in the chest as soon as he was stable. “You think they'll give those kids a scrap if we don't give them a reason to do it? How do you think your tribute will have a chance if he can't eat?” Sejanus was still looking over at you with a dark look in his eyes, disappointment gone, replaced by sheer anger. “Hey,” Coriolanus said again, turning Sejanus’s jaw to look at him instead of you. “Maybe instead of yelling at her, you should be thanking her.”

It was odd to see Coriolanus defending you to Sejanus, the roles normally reversed. If you would have been told two days ago that one of your biggest enemies would be supporting you over your best friend, you would have laughed in their faces, but you did suppose that a lot had been changing these past couple of days. It made your head spin.

Coriolanus sat down back in his chair across from you, giving you a sympathetic look. He looked back up at your best friend, gesturing for him to take a seat. You flinched slightly when Sejanus pulled the chair out. He was clearly still angry, but at least it wasn’t being aimed directly at you anymore. All three of you picked up your silverware, beginning to pick at your food.

“He was my classmate. Back in 2.”

“It's not your fault it's him,” you said.

“See, I know. I'm so blameless, I'm choking on it,” Sejanus spat out before taking a deep breath and turning to Coriolanus. “My father bought him for me, you know, at the Reaping, Just so he could show me that I could never go back to 2.” Sejanus set his fork down. “But being Capitol is gonna kill me.”

“So do something about it,” Coriolanus said, shaking his napkin out onto his lap, beginning to set food into it. As soon as you realized what he was doing, you followed suit, placing the extra sandwiches and blocks of cheese into your own cloth.

“Quite the rebels,” Sejanus half-smiled, watching you both steal school food for your tributes.

“Oh, yeah,” Coriolanus said, picking up Sejanus’s napkin and throwing it at his chest, urging him to do the same with his food for his tribute. “I'm bad news,” Coriolanus said sarcastically.

You wondered why you had never conversed like this before, the three of you. You supposed that Coriolanus was too busy trying to blend in with the other students, to avoid being different. In a bad way at least. Maybe in another life, it could be like this, the three of you, joking around, laughing with one another. You smiled to yourself as your mind created a fantasy of this. But before you could get too happy about it, you were reminded of the person that Coriolanus Snow truly was. He was cold to you and Sejanus. All he wanted was attention from those around it and here you were giving it to him. But you couldn’t let him have it anymore.

However, you could live in the fantasy of it for just a little while longer, meeting Coriolanus’s blue eyes and smiling.

You left the Academy earlier than the boys did, making enough time for you to run home to see your mother. She was still sleeping, his roll from this morning still untouched, but you figured you’d set out a fresh apple you had taken from the cafeteria for her. When you left her again, you hoped that you would still have enough time to maybe talk to Lucy Gray before Coriolanus showed up. You had some questions for her about this morning and you figured that it’d be better to ask them without the cameras around. And without Coriolanus.

She was sitting against a rock, Jessup sleeping on her shoulder when you walked up to the gate. There was a small crowd gathered at the zoo, staying back from the bars and simply admiring the tributes rather than interacting. You hoped that whatever proposal you could come up with tonight would allow them to quit being gawked at by the citizens of the Capitol and instead interacted with like normal human beings.

You brushed through the small crowd, gaining attention with your red uniform, but they paid little mind to you. “Lucy Gray,” you said through the bars, trying to get her attention.

She had her eyes closed, much like Jessup did. But when she heard your voice, she opened them, searching around groggily before finding you. Lucy Gray shook Jessup’s shoulder, waking him up and letting her know where she was going. Lysistrata was Jessup’s mentor and you had no idea if she would be coming to visit him. So you figured you could share a little bit of your food with him. They both walked over to you, Lucy Gray grasping the bars while Jessup kept his distance. Not all of the tributes trusted you or any Capitol citizen for that matter as much as Lucy Gray did.

“You’re back,” she said with a smile. “Did you bring any food?”

You nodded your head, taking out the small cloth to hand her a sandwich and a few things of cheese. “I gotta feed my own tribute. Coriolanus will be here with some more later.”

She held her hands out as you gave the food to her. “Thank you,” she said, giving you a warm smile. “Jessup.” She gestured for him to get closer as she held out the cheese to him.

“I'm not hungry,” he replied, keeping his eyes on you.

“You think I can't hear your stomach growling, Jessup Diggs?” she scolded. He hesitantly took the food from her hands. She proceeded to split the sandwich, giving him the other half while she was at it. She turned back to you, her eyes flitting all over your face as if she was trying to commit your face to memory.

“What?” you asked. “Do I have something?” You moved your hands over your cheeks and mouth, perhaps leaving a crumb behind from lunch.

“No! No, I just-” She stopped herself. “Can I ask why you’re here instead of my mentor?”

“Oh,” you exclaimed. “I just wanted to ask you about this morning…” Would she even remember the encounter as you did? After all, maybe it was just the sunlight glinting off of her glowing face to make her appear pale. “When you looked at me, you looked as if I was a ghost.”

“You kinda are, in a way.” Realizing what she said, she tried to steer the conversation. “I mean that you just remind me of someone I knew a time ago.”

You knew there was more to it, but decided not to push. There were more pressing concerns taking place right now. “Coriolanus is going to want you to sing again,” you admitted to her.

“Why? Whatta you mean?” she asked.

“In case you didn’t know, you put on quite a show for the Capitol,” you joked. “The Gamemakers are putting new things in place to help you out before and during the Games and singing just might help.”

“It might. But I don't sing when I'm told. I sing when I have something to say.”

Your conversation was interrupted by Arachne screaming into the zoo, calling for her tribute.

“Oh, Brandy,” she teased. “You want something to eat? Come and get it.”

You rolled your eyes at the action, turning back to face Lucy Gray but her gaze was behind you.

“Feeding my tribute, Stillwater?” Coriolanus asked, walking up behind you. “You really are making this easy for me.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” you said sarcastically. Facing Lucy Gray again, you thanked her for her conversation before bidding them both goodbye to find Mizzen.

You passed Arachne who was kneeling on the ground with a bottle, teasing her tribute by hanging the bottle just out of reach. You couldn’t believe her, using hunger as a weapon. You knew it was personally from during the war. With barely a scrap to quench the hunger in your stomach, you often turned to sleeping to pass your time without food. You knew that you’d probably be in the same circumstances right now if it weren’t for Sejanus’s family.

“Can you take it? Come on, try harder than that,” Arachne tormented.

Sejanus was by then at the cage too. His arm was stuck in the cage, reaching a sandwich out for nearly anyone to come and grab. “Marcus. Hey. It's me. Marcus, look. Here, I got some food for you. Here.” He pleaded with his tribute, but Marcus didn’t spare him more than a glance. “Come on. Marcus.”

You stood next to Sejanus, placing a hand on his shoulder. You knew that he was probably still mad at you, but you had to try something. He looked over at your hand on his shoulder, pulling his arm in the cage back to his body. Without a word to him, you took the sandwich from his hand, walking a few feet away from him.

“Marcus,” you said through the bars. The tribute spun his head in your direction, watching you watch him. “It’s food. We don’t want you to go hungry.”

You placed your arm through the cage like Sejanus had been, waiting for the boy to get up. Marcus looked back over at Sejanus, who was watching the interaction, and glared before getting up and walking toward you. He looked at your food-filled hand for an extra moment before roughly grabbing its contents.

“You keep him,” he pointed to Sejanus, “away from me.” The boy bit into the food while making his way back over to the rock he had been sitting on before.

You had no idea if it was simply the fact that Sejanus now lived in the Capitol or if something else had happened between the boys when Sejnaus still lived in the districts, but whatever it was ran deep. Making your way back to Sejanus, he whispered a quiet thank you. You gave him a small smile before calling out to Mizzen.

Despite the fact that you hadn’t met him yet, you hoped that it would be easy to build a relationship with him as it had with Lucy Gray. If you couldn’t get him to trust you, then there was no point in you trying. A small boy perked up, a flat cap upon his head. “Mizzen?” you asked.

He looked over at a red headed girl who you recognized as Festus’s tribute. She gave him a small nod before he looked back over at you. He and the girl were tucked in the back of the zoo, as far away from their audience as possible, so it took a moment for him to make his way over to you. When he finally got to a good distance, we stopped, keeping a few feet back. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Y/N. I’m your mentor. You might’ve met Coriolanus the other day,” you gestured over to him. “He’s also a mentor.”

“Yeah. I gathered that,” he retorted. “What are you s’pposed to do as my…mentor?”

You didn’t know exactly what you could do to help him yet. You still had to figure out how you could possibly provide him with what he needs, but Highbottom did say that your job was to make the tributes interesting to the Capitol before the Games.

“Introduce you to the people of the Capitol, I guess.”

“You guess?” he laughed, spitting on the ground in front of you. You took a step back. “Seems like you aren’t quite sure. I can’t let you ‘help,’” he said, using air quotes, “if you don’t know what you’re doing. Besides, you seem much more invested in the singer.”

“She’s intriguing. Like you need to be. Interact with the people for a start,” you suggested. “Don’t hide in the back with the girl-”

“Coral,” he interrupted.

“Coral,” you corrected. “Come talk to the people. I’m sure they have questions for you. I know I do,” you said, holding out your last bit of food in the cloth to him. He picked up only the food, careful to avoid touching your hand through the cloth.

“Come on,” Arachne said, lightly tapping the same bottle she had been teasing Brandy with against the bars.

“Give me something. I've been sitting here for 15 minutes!” Brandy complained.

“Thank you,” Mizzen said, drawing your eyes back to him. “Some of you are kind enough.”

He began to walk backwards away from you and back to Cora, bidding you goodbye. You were sure he would share with Coral like Lucy Gray had. With no sign of Festus, you were okay with that. It was wrong to let them starve. You knew that personally. Directing your attention over to Coriolanus and Lucy Gray, you watched as they both laughed with one another, crouched down in the dirt and eating with one another.

Screams pulled you out of your stares as you watched Brandy grab the bottle from Arachne’s hands and smash it against the bars, making the glass shatter. With the tributes free hand, she grabbed Arachne’s collar pulling her close and stabbing the bottle into Arachne’s throat.

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sadisticsongbird · 15 days

Text

chapter five is out!

playing god's game ~ coriolanus snow

summary: The Dark Days are over. Your dad is gone, your mother is crazy, and the country has lost its ever-loving mind. It’s your last year at the Academy and you have to maintain your family’s secrets to risk losing credibility to your name. With the Plinth Prize on the line, it is up to you to hide the dark secrets of your name and secure yourself against a growing corrupt Capitol. When a certain boy proves to be a hurdle to overcome, you begin to learn the difference between friend and foe.

warnings: SLOW BURN, SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK AND FILM, language, fluff, angst, eventual smut (warnings will be used for individual chapters), physical violence, manipulation, coriolanus (because he's his own warning), toxic relationships, eventual themes of voyerism and exhibition, weapons, dark themes

word count: ???

prologue

iii

vii

show's not over yet

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