#angemal.post

[angemal]

“that lip’s working for you, soldier” is snowjanus gold but we NEED to talk about this:

would intimacy work? it wouldn’t hurt to try.

like??? intimacy???? please that is SCREAMING for a coryo-tries-to-seduce-sejanus fic come ONNN

[angemal]

you can tear freckled!sejanus from my cold dead hands

[angemal]

SUITS IN THIS YEAR OF 2K24 so grateful sjakdhkak 👏

[angemal]

already thought mike ross was the brattiest puppyboy to ever exist and then I find out that on top of everything he has an oral fixation too???

[angemal]

hand slipped & wrote the predator/prey coded snowjanus / possessive!coryo i needed whoops

devotion, now & again

This is what Coriolanus needs, what he’s missing in his songbird. Sejanus’s adoration is a balm, soothing the need for recognition that has clawed at him since leaving the Capitol, easing the gnawing injustice of being treated as ordinary. Yes, it seems natural that Sejanus Plinth ought to be his.

In which Coriolanus’s possessive nature expands to enwrap his trusting, foolish friend. || 2.8k, T

(read below / on ao3)

In the cosmos of Coriolanus Snow, Sejanus has always been an afterthought.

It’s nothing against him, really. It’s only that there’s always been better people to turn his attention to, more promising buds to water and brighter flames to sit beside. And yet here they are, a rich boy and a poor one, a low-born district boy and a Snow, sleeping side by side in the barracks. And somehow, improbably, he started to think of Sejanus as his.

Of course he is. Here, in the backwoods of Twelve, there’s no one else who understands so keenly, who knows who Coriolanus is and the high legacy from whence he came. Unbearable as Sejanus had been, ungrateful though he may be, here, he is precious. And even though it takes some time to come around to the thought, Coriolanus reasons to himself that—well, he should belong to Coriolanus, shouldn't he? Sejanus owes him everything, owes him his reckless little life and being saved from the obscurity of an insignificant death in the arena.

Coriolanus knows too, with a lack of the teenage nerves that he’d felt with Lucy Gray, that his advances wouldn’t be unwelcome here. Whether it’s because of the way he’s aged infinitely since the days pre-Hunger Games or because Sejanus is so easy to read—too defenseless to hide the way his eyes track quickly over Coriolanus’s body in the showers or the flush of his cheek at a moment of casual contact—well, he’s not sure. But his boy’s artlessness makes Coriolanus smug as their conversations edge flirtation, makes him confident as he slings an arm around Sejanus’s neck and lets breath puff hot against his ear.

Yes, it seems natural that Sejanus Plinth ought to be his, so natural that he lets it slip during one lazy afternoon by the lake.

Lucy Gray had taken his admission in stride, cocking her head in that odd, observing way.  You think he’d take me on too? she asked casually, and Coriolanus was struck with the image of them, Lucy Gray’s small, rough fingers running along the lines of Sejanus’s body, entwining with his large uncalloused hands.  Oddly, it had inspired no jealousy, none of the stinging bitterness at hearing about the wretched Billy Taupe.  No, if these two were together, it would be all the better; if they were together, they would both be Coriolanus’s.

I don’t think anyone could resist you, he’d said, and Lucy Gray had pinned him with that keen look for a moment longer and said Well, darling, then so as you please, so long as you bring home the stories to me.  And then, with a sly quirk of a smile, and maybe give me a taste when he’s ready for it. 

He had told her in a moment of strange recklessness, an admission planted carefully into a conversation so as to be easily glossed over.  Hadn’t expected anything of it, really, but when she gave her—what, permission?—he couldn’t help but go for it.  Coriolanus doesn’t think too hard about what he would’ve done if Lucy Gray had shot him down.  

He means to go about it with some finesse, some care.  Instead, one Saturday of revelry at the Hob has Coriolanus catch a glimpse of a Peacekeeper from another platoon—some dull, flax-haired boy nicknamed Heft—dragging Sejanus down a dark hallway.

Following them brings him to a back alley, where Heft has Sejanus up against the grimy brick wall.  Coriolanus hadn’t been sure if Sejanus had been dragged off for a tryst or violence, but it appears now to be a mixture of both: the bigger Peacekeeper has Sejanus by the collar of his tee, apparently trying to lick the back of his throat.  Sejanus seems to be trying to remove Heft with minimal violence, legs flailing and hands pushing at Heft’s broad shoulders. 

Coriolanus takes a second to drink in the glassiness of Sejanus’s wide eyes, the desperate protesting whines elicited by the struggle.  Then he’s angry, furious, and he’s bursting into the alley.  The Peacekeeper obviously hadn’t expected much resistance besides gentle Sejanus’s struggles, because he’s able to wrench Heft off of Sejanus without as much difficulty as he thinks it ought to take, given that even with the training, Coriolanus is far from the largest soldier around.  Still, fury lends him power again, and Heft is flung back, staggering as he whirls around to glare at Coriolanus.

“Gent,” he growls.  “If you’d just go back into the Hob—”

“No can do,” he says placidly, eyes fixed on Sejanus as his boy tries to straighten himself out.  “This one’s with me, I’m afraid.  And besides, you got a demerit for that shoddy work in the square last week, didn’t you?  A weekend scuffle isn’t going to look good.”

It’s heavy-handed, much more so than he ever would’ve dared in the Capitol.  But here, such blatant shows are often better-received and more respected to boot—subtlety isn’t an art in the backwaters, it appears.  

Heft glares.  “He wanted it.”

“Didn’t,” Sejanus hisses, composure apparently regained, and Coriolanus shoots him a warning look.  If he just let Coriolanus handle things—

“Did two weekends ago,” Heft sneers, knocking his shoulder heavily into Sejanus as he shoves his way past them and back into the Hob.  Coriolanus catches Sejanus as he stumbles, hands coming to Sejanus’s waist to brace him.  But he’s stuck on the insinuation—that, and the ghost-white of Sejanus’s face.

The door shuts with a slam, and they’re left in the quiet alley.  

“Getting me out of another scrape?  Can’t break the habit, can you?” Sejanus says, rueful and abashed as he unsubtly removes himself from Coriolanus’s hold.  

“I suppose not,” he says congenially, eyeing the subtle curve of Sejanus’s waist and wishing he could hold him again.  For a life fed well on Ma Plinth’s cooking—and even more dangerously, her desserts—Sejanus is trim-waisted and strong, his body firm in a way so unlike a girl’s.  “I didn’t know you knew Heft so well.”

Sejanus’s face flushes a violent red.  “I mean—we—“

Coriolanus lets him stammer for a few seconds before offering kindly, “There’s no shame in searching for company.  And you aren’t even paying for it, unlike more than a few of our squad in there.”  He nods towards the Hob.  Sejanus takes the out gratefully, eyes cast downwards and toeing at the ground bashfully.  His nervous boy, rabbitlike and so, so easy to play.  

“I suppose so, yeah.”  Then, as if needing to explain further: “Told Heft I wasn’t looking for that tonight.  But he took that as a challenge, said another taste—“ there Sejanus cuts himself off, flushing an even deeper shade of red.  It’s an endearing look, making him seem even smaller and more awkward, a stumbling fawn.  Coriolanus despises that he’s not the cause.

“Not in the mood for Heft tonight, or not for company?”

“Well, maybe a bit of both.”  Sejanus eyes the Hob with a mixture of apprehension and fatigue.  “I wouldn’t mind being a little drunker.  But I think it might be best to just head back for the night.  Thanks for getting me out of that scrape, Coryo.”

He ducks his head, making to leave, but the strange feeling that had nestled in Coriolanus’s chest since seeing him pressed against the wall, that odd fire, reignites into a sense of resolve.  “Happens that I put some white liquor aside,” he says casually, grateful that he’d thought to siphon some from the group bottle into a small flask earlier.  “Thought it’d be a good idea, given the way Smiley’s been coughing all week.  We could head back together and share—“ and he pauses for a deliberate second.  “If you don’t mind my company, that is.”

“No, no,” Sejanus blurts.  “I always want you around, Coryo.  Or, I mean—well.  Your company is always appreciated.  I appreciate it.” 

He adores this bit of Sejanus, that earnestness channeled into wide-eyed and generous gratitude.  It feeds the strange resolve within him, flickering and swelling until they’re cross-legged and facing each other on the barrack floor and Sejanus is drinking from the flask of white liquor, face growing increasingly rosy with the alcohol.  Coriolanus doesn’t try to match him—he’s never had the strongest tolerance, after all—and soon Sejanus is loose and lazy-limbed, not quite plastered but not far from it, either. 

His sweet boy. 

Without thinking, Coriolanus reaches forward, resting his hand on Sejanus’s knee.  It’s blatant, unrefined, obvious, but Sejanus doesn’t catch on immediately, still bubbling with laughter until he glances up and catches the firm resolve on Coriolanus’s face.  Then, he’s still.

“Sejanus,” he starts, unsure of what to say. 

“Coryo, don’t,” Sejanus interrupts, almost desperate.  He shifts, dislodging Coriolanus’s hand as he tucks his legs up into his chest.

“Don’t?”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” but the words aren’t harsh, only desperate.  “Is this because you know I’m bent now?  Because of Heft?”

Coriolanus had suspected Sejanus was odd in that other way for—well, quite some time, and that hunch had only been confirmed by aforementioned evidence: staring, blushing, and so on.  He figures saying as much won’t win him any points, though. “That’s not it.”

“What is it, then?”  Sejanus scrambled to his feet, Coriolanus not too long after him.  He looks nearly about to bolt, or faint, so Coriolanus grabs him by the shoulder.  Slowly, he guides Sejanus back against the barrack wall into an odd parody of the alleyway—Sejanus pinned against the wall, wide-eyed and yet this time unresisting, appropriately pliant to Coriolanus’s direction. 

“It’s not anything,” he says soothingly.  “I mean—Heft doesn’t have to do with anything. No one else does.  No one but us.”

“Oh, really?  And about Lucy Gray?”

Lucy Gray’s easy acceptance, her all-too-observing glances and her proposal all seem too complicated to explain to Sejanus.  What’s the fastest way to get to him?  Already, Coriolanus feels impatient, too close to assured victory to wait for a neat kill.  “Doesn’t everyone get a little close with their bunkmates?” he tries, but knows instantly from Sejanus’s stiffening body that it’s the wrong take.  “No, I’m kidding, Sejanus,” he backtracks, sliding soothing hands up and down Sejanus’s waist.  For most men, angling for casual would be less intimidating, more easy to accept.  But of course casual wouldn’t be the way to poor, romantic Sejanus Plinth’s tender heart.  “I told Lucy Gray, of course I did.  I’m not hiding anything from her.”

“You talked to her?” Sejanus prods, body still tight with tension beneath Coriolanus’s caresses as he pets him like a spooked rabbit.  “What did you say?”

“That I love her.  But—“  He adds just enough of a pause, enough hesitation to make it seem like a vulnerability.  In a way, he supposes it is, and yet it’s been so long that Sejanus has been anything like a threat that revealing weakness seems insignificant.  What harm could hedo?  “But listen, Sejanus.  I can’t get you out of my head.”

“So you have what, an understanding?” Sejanus is asking, still squirming, but with less force.  “That you—“

“That I want you,” he says, because this is the point of it, the point that he needs to press home.  “She knows, and she understands, she does.  Sejanus,” and he kisses Sejanus’s temple, a trite, chaste little gesture, the kind his boy would like.  “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Coryo, this isn’t right—“

He leans down a little, maneuvering Sejanus to allow access to his throat.  A kiss to his pulse point, and one to his jumping Adam’s apple, and then Coriolanus runs his lips along Sejanus’s throat, feeling him tremble.  It’s odd, the incongruity between Lucy Gray and Sejanus: her body small and yet packed alive with energy, always dancing and weaving and moving against him, wild; and now he, larger of frame and yet meeker, soft with a pampered life, an easy and wide-eyed pet.  He loves Lucy Gray, loves their dance.  But there’s an appeal to this, too.

“That’s how I feel.  What about you?” he asks, the question a low-breathed whisper against Sejanus’s ear.  He waits for Sejanus’s acquiescence, for his murmured pledges of devotion—hasn’t he helped Sejanus time and again, after all?  Isn’t this what he deserves?

“Coryo, I don’t—is this what—“ Sejanus stammers, but his head has tilted to allow Coriolanus greater access to his throat.  

It’s not quite the praises he wants, but it’s headway all the same.  “Hmm?”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

Not a no.  Coriolanus thinks of the way the dogs of the district tussle, the way the losers flop on their backs, necks bared subserviently.  Fitting, and a thrill rushes through his whole body.  Here, a Plinth, the rich little district boy, shaking beneath him.  And Sejanus has always needed a little coaxing, a little coddling towards the right answer.  Easily ignited, and yet so trusting, so easy to guide with the right words, and so Coriolanus sweetens his voice, pitches it wounded and vulnerable, and presses his forehead against Sejanus’s, their breath commingling.  

“You don’t want me?”

“God,” Sejanus exhales, eyes fluttering close.  “Like I could ever resist you.  You and your charms.”

The wording of it echoes what he’d told Lucy, and it’s oddly satisfying.  She’s irresistible to all, his girl, and yet Coriolanus isn’t far behind.  No, he’s the only one that could be worthy of her.  The only one that could claim to have both, and claim both he shall.

“Then it’s easy, isn’t it?”

“Nothing about this is easy,” Sejanus says with a near-desperate laugh.  

“Lucy Gray knows—knows that I have feelings for you.  If you feel the same way, then why can’t we be happy?”  It’s odd, speaking so frankly about his emotions, but he knows instinctively that such platitudes will unlock Sejanus.  Just as he’d expected, Sejanus softens further, hands coming up to rest tentatively on Coriolanus’s chest.  Closer, closer...   

“I suppose…”

“I hated Heft,” he admits, keeping his gaze locked with Sejanus’s doe eyes.  “I saw the way he pawed at you, and I hated it.”

“You want to be the one pawing at me instead?” Sejanus teases, and a smile cracks both their mouths, finally lightening the thick atmosphere.  He’s Sejanus’s best friend, he reminds himself, and he laughs a little, pitching it low and tender in the way he knows never fails to make Sejanus flush.

Coriolanus drags his hand down Sejanus’s chest, exaggeratedly lascivious.  “Maybe.  Do you like it better?”  Forget that soldier boy.  Think about me.  Only me. 

“Yeah,” Sejanus admits, brown eyes enormous behind a fringe of thick dark lashes.  “Yeah, I do.”

Unbidden, his breath catches in his chest, and he lets his hand settle on Sejanus’s waist.  “I’m glad,” he says.  “I don’t want anyone else to touch you.”

Sejanus’s eyes flutter shut, body leaning into Coriolanus’s touch, and he takes the opportunity to maneuver them the short distance to Sejanus’s bunk.  Something has changed, that switch flipped, and Sejanus has gone from that agitated state of hyper-neuroticism to soft apologetics, which Coriolanus drinks up and swallows down.  He’s malleable as Coriolanus pulls him forward, sitting first and then settling Sejanus in his lap. When, finally, he leans forward and meets Sejanus’s mouth, the other boy is remarkable, as manipulable as putty beneath his touch.  

“Oh,” Sejanus breathes when they separate, eyes glazed with a mixture of alcohol and arousal.  “Oh, Coryo,” and then he’s come alive, surging forward and toppling Coriolanus onto his back with his enthusiasm.  Coriolanus welcomes the weight of Sejanus above him, the comfortable well-fed softness of Sejanus’s body beneath his hands and strong thighs bracketing Coriolanus’s waist.  He kisses Coriolanus in lingering presses of the mouth, gentle and worshipful, like a devotee.  His hands are warm as they cup Coriolanus’s cheek, still largely uncalloused despite the weeks of work in Twelve.  His loyal, devoted boy.  

Somehow, he’d always imagined that engaging with a man would be a rougher thing, something hurried and crude.  But Sejanus nuzzles at his neck gently, eyes wide and desperate for approval as he murmurs, Is this okay, Coryo? and You’re incredible, I never thought you’d— and Please, Coryo, please, unresisting as Coriolanus rolls them over, single-minded.  And this is what Coriolanus needs, what he’s missing in his songbird.  Lucy Gray is brilliantly alive and yet never quite containable, always wild, her ribbons dancing just beyond his reach.  Sejanus’s adoration is a balm, soothing the need for recognition that has clawed at him since leaving the Capitol, easing the gnawing injustice of being treated as ordinary.  Eager to please, Sejanus is pliant, giving, receptive under Coriolanus’s roving hands.

This has always been Sejanus’s place, biddable and soft beneath him, dutiful to his will.  “Please,” Sejanus begs, and Coriolanus feels alive, feels as powerful and triumphant as he ever had in the Capitol, here with Sejanus reverent before him.

Wonderful, wonderful boy.  Coriolanus will keep him forever.

(//if you made it to the end—thank you for reading! all my love to you, and have a wonderful day <3)

[angemal]

bringing back kola’s thoughts on santa mcadoo for my own personal insanity