#really really happy with this one :)

[ayatheav]

Fate divided, sorrowful twins

[phantomamour]

𝐢 𝐰𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐲 𝐢'𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐝𝐨

coriolanus snow x fem!reader

cw// some self-deprecating thoughts and a little hint of spice (is festus a warning too?)

The Capital’s annual masquerade gala was the event of the season, taking place every Halloween and filled to the brim with guests. The Hunger Games had long concluded since the summer and Dr. Gaul would begin to tease new ideas she would introduce to the following year’s event with the help of one Coriolanus Snow. The same Coriolanus Snow you spent countless hours with throughout the week at the University. A few of your classmates joked you two had become attached to the hip since the first group project you were assigned with him. You spent numerous nights in his room watching him go over the ideas he wanted to bring to Gaul, the Victors’ Villages he spent so much time on, while you peered over your government textbook. Your father had told you that to be a good wife to a future senator, knowledge about Panem’s government would make you more valuable. What he didn’t know is you weren’t interested in being a senator’s wife. You had your eyes on the future president you spent so much time with. 

President Ravinstill had filled the large ballroom with hundreds of tables and a small space to dance, though the dancers he hired as entertainment kept most of the guests away from the floor. Anyone with any power within the capital had been invited, and you had scored an invitation every year courtesy of your father’s generous donations to The Citadel, which were the same donations that would fund Coriolanus’ ideas for the following games. Sometimes, you wondered if your friendship with Coriolanus was something he kept solely in hopes of more funding to further his career as the apprentice Gamemaker. But Coriolanus wasn’t the boy standing next to you making far from subtle attempts to get you to engage in meaningless conversation. No, Coriolanus didn’t care about your father’s wealth. It was Festus who had his eyes set on the gold that ran deep in your family tree.

“I heard that Coryo is helping Gaul cook up some new mutt with your father’s donation. How much was it to fund this time?” he commented, earning a roll of your eyes in response as you sipped on the weak cider in your hand, wishing it had been much more potent to have to stand next to him any longer. Festus knew more than enough about how much your father donated, but you knew as well that he got such a thrill at hearing the number out loud. You wouldn’t entertain him with that as your eyes caught Coriolanus across the room. He was a dead giveaway in his signature red suit and matching mask, a single white rose pinned to his lapel. You were sure it had been one of his Grandma’am’s own as you tried to keep your gaze on him subtle enough not to draw his attention. 

The two of you found the gala to be incredibly boring most years. Even when the President had pulled out all of the stops, you often followed Coriolanus around until he had done the networking necessary to garner further support for what you both hoped would be his future presidency before the two of you would settle at some table in the corner for him to listen to you talk about whatever gossip you had overheard by being invisible at his side. You knew he didn’t honestly care about most of it, the small whispers you had heard of some senators’ wives talking about their husband’s notorious affairs, but he insisted you tell him regardless. This year, however, you two discussed a slight twist. 

~

“No one will notice if I’m not there.” You had told him as you tried on another dress that only made you dread the event even more, frustrated by your father’s insistence on wearing your family’s distinct dark blue as each dress you tried looked wrong. Coriolanus sat in a chair behind you, having a clear view of where you stood in front of a mirror, sipping on the tea the shop owner had offered him.

“I’ll notice.” 

“You’ll have more time to talk to senators without me there anyway.”

“I want you there with me,” he said as he stood to come to your side, hand resting on your hip, “I’d be deathly bored without you.” You huffed in response before an idea came to mind: a way to get him to let you skip the event every following year and prove him wrong. 

“If you didn’t know what I was wearing, you wouldn’t be able to find me in the ballroom.”

"Is that a challenge, dove?"

"A fact. Unless you’d like to try to prove me wrong, Snow." He chuckled in response at first, thumb mindlessly rubbing against your side as he contemplated your words. The idea of you not being at the gala made him consider faking a grave illness to miss it as well. He didn’t know how to admit that out loud, however.

“And when I find you in the ballroom, what do I win?”

“Always so confident. What do you want, Coryo?”

~

As you watched him, drowning out Festus’ gross attempts at conversation, his eyes never fell on you. You’d like to believe it was your choice in a dress that threw him off, a choice that upset your father to no end. You had replaced your family’s signature blue with a dark red. You wouldn’t admit to your father that you had given a handkerchief of Coriolanus’ to the seamstress when you’d found a silhouette you liked, matching your dress to him purposefully. An unspoken claim that clearly went over Festus’ head as he droned on about how his mother had helped him pick out his mask for the night.

You studied Coriolanus and observed how every time he hadn’t been speaking to a political figure, a pawn in helping him get ahead, his eyes scanned the room. A part of your heart ached at the thought of actually winning the bet. Perhaps you had become invisible to even Coriolanus. Maybe it was even worse than you thought– Festus’ hand slipped down your back to rest right above your bottom, pulling you right out of your thoughts as your head snapped over to him. 

“What are you doing?” You wanted to slap him for his blatant disrespect where anyone could see you as he brought his lips down to your ear. 

“The red suits you,” he was an idiot, “We should dance so everyone can see you on my arm-” 

“I believe dancing is something she’s saved just for me tonight,” Coriolanus announced from behind you, catching your attention as Festus’ eyes flicked back up to look at him. It took a great deal of effort not to let the smile tugging on the corners of your lips show as Festus slumped away from you, holding his drink up before excusing himself.

“He’s got some guts to come onto you so strong when you’re wearing my color.” You turned to face him and finally let the smile break across your face. He swore he may have needed to look away as you beamed brighter than any light in the room at him.

“You found me… How’d you know it was me?” 

“I knew it was you the second you walked in. Mask or not. I could have had my eyes closed and still known it was you, dove,” he took the air right from your lungs as he looked down at you, “Though not coming up to you the second I saw you wearing red instead of that goddamn blue may have been the hardest thing I’ve done all week.” Your cheeks flushed as you realized what that meant. He had known where you were the whole time. Every time his eyes passed over you was purposeful. 

“Why didn’t you come up to me?” 

“Because maybe I wanted you to win at first.”

“To prove that I really am invisible in this room?” His heart dropped. He felt like a fool for not understanding that side of the bet until you had voiced it out loud. That was the last thing he had wanted.

“You’ve never been invisible to me.” He said it with such fierceness that you swore your knees could buckle under the weight of the meaning. Instead, you shrugged him off, hooking your arm through his.

“Who else do you need to talk to tonight? I’ll join you.” He weighed his options before responding. As much as he’d love to walk you around the room with him, painfully aware that you finally matched him in color, a part of him wanted to keep you just to himself for the night. There would be plenty of future galas where you could dress in that beautiful red, and he could show everyone that you were his. But tonight, he wanted to make you feel seen after he’d failed to do that before.  

“We should leave.”

“What? Coryo, what about- I haven’t seen you talk to Ravinstill’s advisor yet, and you need-” You were cut off as he gripped your chin gently, tilting your head so your eyes stopped moving around the room and looked up at him instead. He greeted you with a soft smile as he spoke.

“I don’t want to talk to him tonight. I want to leave with you.” He reached over to his lapel, unpinning the small white rose before he tucked it behind your ear. Your lips quirked up into a small smirk as you asked him where you two would go. It wasn’t even ten minutes later that you were halfway to your parent’s townhouse, your heels hanging from Coriolanus’ fingers, joined by both your masks, and your feet wrapped securely in his socks. He had refused to let you walk barefoot, and while he despised the feeling of wearing shoes with bare feet, he had no problem bearing through it for you. He offered to call for a car, but you insisted that you’d prefer to walk if he would tolerate it. Much to his delight and equally frustration, you took to your usual rambling about what you had heard while standing by Festus. 

“He was just deranged. Obsessed with my father’s, and I quote, generous donations to the glory of Panem. I’m sure he’d marry my father if he could. All he sees in me is that inheritance one day.” Coriolanus didn’t laugh at that. Now that you had told him what the bet meant to you, he couldn’t help but reflect on every time you went to an event with him. He tried to remember a time when the senators asked you something about yourself, not about your father, but frustratingly came up blank in his memory. Had you thought that your connection to your father was all you were worth? Had the blind men and women in that room instilled that belief into your heart? He started to rub subtly at the center of his chest, trying to soothe the pain there at the thought.

He hadn’t known who your father was the first time you two met. He would find out shortly after in the hall by Festus’ incessant blabbering about how jealous he was of Coriolanus being partnered with you. “A sure foot in the door to that fortune” is what Festus had called it, and it made Coriolanus feel gross for once. He hadn’t had that moral dilemma before you. All he knew after that first meeting was that he wanted you more than nearly anything in his life. It was a terrifying feeling so soon after his time in District 12, a feeling he did his best to suppress, leading to a close friendship instead. However, his early mornings and late nights were consistently filled with the thought of you. Before he knew it, he walked you up the several steps to your front door. 

“So… what do you want for winning the bet?” you asked. You two hadn’t decided on a prize that day in the dress shop. A simple “the winner will choose” had sufficed at the time, but now Coriolanus had a choice to make. His hand came up to tuck your hair behind your ear and smiled at the rose still tucked neatly behind the opposite, making you shiver at how close he was, your back nearly pressed against the front door. He could feel his heartbeat pounding against his ribs and his lungs burning at the lack of oxygen he was letting in.

“What would you say if I told you I wanted to kiss you?” his voice was barely above a whisper, silky and low as if any louder would have peacekeepers tearing him away from you for the want laced into each of his words. He wanted to smirk at how you didn’t even widen your eyes at him like it had been precisely what you wanted him to say; it was all you wanted.

“Then I would say you should kiss me, Snow.” He couldn’t hide how he swallowed roughly at that, at the seduction in your tone. Now that he was presented with the actual chance to do so, he found himself, for the first time in years, thinking it was a lot more daunting than he had imagined. Ever since his time as a peacekeeper, he had marched through everything in life with his head held high and without hesitation. It had gotten him a seat at several senator dinners that he otherwise would be barred from attending, but the thought of actually kissing you, of finally staking his claim all the while you wore a red dress just for him, made his heart race. He leaned forward just a bit, stopping halfway to your lips as his eyes searched your own for permission. As much as he wanted to claim his prize, he hated the idea that you would only kiss him because of some bet. The fire in your eyes only confirmed his greatest hope, however. The bet was the last thing you were thinking about. 

The second his lips finally touched yours, all the air was knocked out of his lungs. He had been wanting to kiss you since he saw you. Now that he had, it was everything and nothing like he had imagined. Your hands went to the back of his head, messing with the perfect combed hair to reveal the curls you knew hid beneath his detailed grooming. He melted into you with your touch, one hand pressing you flush to his chest as it rested on the small of your back while the other lay on the door behind your head. When you two finally pulled away, risking suffocation on each other’s lips if you didn’t, he swore he had never seen anything better than your swollen lips, knowing they had just kissed his.

“You were never invisible to me, darling. Not from the moment you walked into our class that day we were assigned partners,” he whispered. You smiled as you nudged your nose against his. 

“Took you long enough to kiss me. There’s only so long a girl can wait before she goes crazy, Snow.” He chuckled in response before sweeping his head back down to kiss you harder, like now that he had started to scratch the itch he had been plagued with for years, he couldn’t stop. You took one final step back to feel the door firm behind you, and your head rested against his splayed-out hand, ensuring your comfort in a way that you swore couldn’t be more inviting. The two of you moved in sync as his tongue swiped across your bottom lip, begging for entrance, which earned him a small moan from you. 

“Oh god- do that again,” he murmured lowly against your lips.

“Make me, Coryo.” Breathing felt pointless when you stole the air from his chest so easily. He felt you smile against him with his eyes closed. He feared that if he opened them, you’d vanish from his hold, and it would all be a dream. He kissed you like it would kill him to stop, and yet, he’d be perfectly happy to die like this. The corners of his mouth quirked up when another breathless moan slipped past your lips, letting him consume it on his tongue. 

You two were startled away from each other when you heard someone clearing their throat down on the sidewalk. Peering down the steps, you saw your next-door neighbor, Mrs. Whitestone, who glared up at the two of you. She arched a brow at the sight of you both disheveled before mumbling something about “hormonal kids” and walking further down the sidewalk. You waited a moment, watching her move out of hearing range before a laugh ripped its way out of your throat. Coriolanus wasn’t far behind you either as a breathless chuckle fell past his lips. It was while you smoothed your dress back out that you spoke up.

“You know I’m in your corner, right? I may not want to be arm candy for Festus, but if it helps you become President one day, I’ll do it for you any day.”

“I don’t want you in my corner. I want you by my side.” You knew he was a sweet talker when he needed to get his way, but you could hear the sincerity behind his words, and you knew there was nothing he could have said that would have been truer. 

“Then I’m by your side. You will be President one day.” You were sure of it, without a shadow of a doubt. The man standing before you would rule over Panem until the day he died, and you’d be more than happy to help him do so.

“And you’ll be the most beautiful First Lady in all of Panem’s history.” 

[izuizzy]

Sunset~

[a-problematic-writer]

[Image Description: A digital drawing of Aiden from Minecraft: Story Mode. It is a bust portrait. He has heterochromia, a beauty mark, piercings, scars, and freckles. He is wearing a leather jacket over a blue t-shirt. The image is signed Ky and has the date 09/25/23 on it. End ID]

‘Cause it’s tough to be a dreamer when they don’t come true~

[fly-chicken]

A Pragmatic and surprisingly comforting perspective about the Trump 2nd Presidency from the ACLU

***Apologies if this is how you found out the 2024 election results***

Blacked out part is my name.

I’m not going to let this make me give up. It’s disheartening, and today I will wallow, probably tomorrow too

AND

I will continue to do my part in my community to spread the activism and promote change for the world I want to live in. I want to change the world AND help with the dishes.

And I won’t let an orange pit stain be what stops me from trying to be better.

A link to donate to the ACLU if able and inclined. I know I am

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[magentasnail]

my new favorite minecraft mob - gaslighting

[mangozic]

my dead goth son and his friendly neighborhood personified concept of insanity

[bloomeng]

core 4 magical girl set finally reunited

[kesopan]

warmth in the cold

[demaparbat-hp]

He truly did.

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Physically? I am sitting in my bedroom. Mentally? Spiritually? I AM DEAD ON THE FLOOR!!!!! THESE TWO HAVE KILLED ME!!!!

(Another drawing! This was originally attempt #1 at drawing stan, and then fiddleford just showed up. Kinda feels like them five minutes after the above acting like nothing happened though, so it works sdjkgkjfshj)

[cocopudu]

what curious little pikmin creatures, fluttershy has found in her garden 🌱🌿🌸

[forgettable-au]

But that's dessert!

I FINALLY FINISHED THIS THING LET'S GOOO

I hope u all like it

[raffi-cat]

red crowned crane grian

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

you mean nothing to me