#the semi illegal night her and dean shared | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ilguna · 4 months

Note

Can I please get number 2 and 8 from aisle 3 with sejanus, it could be her finding out about his plans to leave panem together and her trying to get him out of the jabberjay situation with snow to keep him safe? Thank you 💛

(ps. I know you love angst but pls don’t have him die I don’t think I can take it 😭)

☼ birds and stones (Sejanus Plinth) ☼

warnings; swearing, death mention, gun mention, rebel plans, bird death.

wc; 5.4k

notes; 2. "How much of this did you hear?" AND 8. "Were you ever going to tell me the truth?"

The Center.

A place that you never thought that you’d semi-willingly step foot inside of in your entire life. In fairness, you don’t think the few hundred people wandering around the building had planned to turn to becoming a Peacekeeper, either. At least they have somewhat of a choice, though.

You weren't given one, courtesy of your actions while you were mentoring a single tribute for the Tenth Hunger Games. You’d like to say it’s not your fault you ended up here, because it truly would be so easy to pawn it off on Coriolanus, or even your own boyfriend, Sejanus. The truth is that you deserve every minute of the next twenty years as much as they do.

Although, your crimes against the Academy aren’t as severe. With your mother being part of the Committee, you were able to hear their charges and they were about what you had expected. Sejanus was pretty simple, the only real questionable thing he’d done was entering the arena without permission, thereby putting himself in danger.

As for Coriolanus—he was a desperate man. It didn’t take a genius to know that there was something more going on between him and Lucy Gray. Which did shock you, considering the opinions he’d aired about district people to you in the past. He never really struck you as the type of person to switch sides at the drop of a hat, but you’ve done some pretty interesting things yourself, these past couple weeks.

Anyway, Coriolanus had illegally smuggled Academy food into the arena. They picked up a napkin after the arena had been bombed, and found his DNA all over it. Which in of itself wouldn’t have been enough to expel him. Then, they found out that he was behind the compact that Lucy Gray had, which held rat poison inside of it.

Your mother explained to you that she knew the Snow’s when they were alive. She knew that the compact couldn’t have belonged to the Twelve tribute, because Coriolanus’s mother had been seen with it. She never went anywhere without it. And your mother wasn’t the only one who noticed this, Dean Highbottom already had it down on his list.

The final nail on the coffin was when they’d found Coriolanus’s handkerchief in a snake tank—the mutt tank that they’d used to take out the remaining tributes inside of the arena. In the corner, the initials ‘CXS’ was stitched with the same white thread at the border. Coriolanus might have been able to deny it, if it wasn’t so glaringly obvious that it belonged to him.

This proves that he tampered with the neon snakes. You didn’t understand right away, but your mother explained that Dr. Gaul had engineered the snakes to become comfortable with familiar scents and violent with smells they didn’t have in their system. The theory your mother shared was that Lucy Gray had touched it at some point in time, and Coriolanus never washed it.

And when he heard that the snakes would be going inside of the arena, he paid a visit to Dr. Gaul’s laboratory to drop off the handkerchief in the tank. It was a smart move, no one would have been able to trace it back to him. If the initials weren’t in the corner. Even one of the lab assistants was convinced it’d belonged to them until they inspected it further.

Just like that, he’d been expelled.

As well as you and Sejanus. Unfortunately, you haven’t heard information on either of them beyond that. The last time you talked to your boyfriend was about two nights ago, when he kissed you goodbye at your doorstep after you’d watched Lucy Gray win the Games. He promised to see you the following day, but he never came.

Since then, you received the news of your own expulsion, which has been an incredibly slow process as your mother and father have fought against it. They were pissed at the idea of you losing your honor status and your diploma. It’s a disgrace that they consider you a dropout, not even making it to your graduation.

This means that higher schooling is completely out of the question. They’ve trapped you into the next twenty years, whether you like it or not. If you were anyone else, you’d say you’ve shed some tears, but after being friends with Coriolanus and Sejanus, your skin has grown thick and your emotions rare.

“Form?” The woman asks, holding out her hand.

You pass over the paper the Recruitment Office handed to you after you enlisted yesterday afternoon. They told you that they’d need it when you got to the Center today, as there was information they had to fill out before you could officially get sent off to one of the districts.

She takes the paper from your fingers, eyes searching for your name at the top, printed in your neat handwriting. Her face twitches briefly, eyebrows raising. “(Y/n) (L/n)?” When she locks eyes with you, the bewilderment is prominent.

You give her a small smile. “That’s me.”

You were expecting this, it’s not everyday you get the daughters of one of the most infamous families in the Capitol. You wouldn’t necessarily say you’re important by any means, but if someone were to mention your last name, they would be able to recognize it. You come from a family that’s been successful for generations without sharing their secrets.

She hums, “They’ll start with your physical.” She places the paper on the table. “If you were a boy, they’d cut your hair, but you should be fine.”

“Thank you.” You murmur, walking around the table to head behind the curtains.

“Thank you.” She echoes.

The physical is pretty simple, you pass without any problems being brought up. After they fully vaccinate you against the sicknesses going around in the districts, you’re then led through a row of chairs, occupied by men getting their hair shaved into a buzz cut. You’re ordered to change into fatigues, your previous clothes being promptly discarded.

They hand you a duffel bag with a change of clothing, a hygiene kit, a water bottle, and a packet of meat sandwiches for the trip on the train. Your final stop in the Center is at the table, where you take care to read through the stack of papers they hand you, knowing better than to blindly sign.

When you’re done completely, you hand in the papers, watching as the man staples it all together. “Before I stamp your slip, do you have a district you’d prefer to go to?”

You open your mouth to tell him ‘no preference’, but a voice behind you cuts you off entirely. “District Twelve.”

Your face twists at the very thought of going to such a dirty district. There will undoubtedly be a layer of coal dust on everything you touch. It’ll be impossible to escape.

As you turn to look at who spoke over you, you try to drop the disgusted look. The moment your eyes land on him, a flood of relief hits your body like a truck. You throw out your hands. “Sejanus!”

Dressed in the same colored fatigues, with his brown curls shaved away, stands your boyfriend. His signature smile spreads across his face while he opens his arms for you to hug him.

You squeeze him tightly, letting out a laugh. “I thought you’d already gone.”

“No, I would never have gone without saying goodbye to you, first.” He says, you pull back to look into his eyes. He takes this as an opportunity to kiss you, holding you in place for several long seconds until he’s satisfied.

You quickly remember the recruitment officer sitting at the table. You keep one hand wrapped around Sejanus, turning to look at the man. “District Twelve.”

He writes it in on your slip, stamps it, and then slides it over. You hold the paper, watching as Sejanus turns in his papers and requests District Twelve, too. He holds his hand out for you, which you take gratefully, squeezing his palm. Together, you take a bus to the train station, where you wait for the next hour.

Sejanus has so much to tell you in this short span of time, most of which you already know. You know about the expulsion of the three of you, and how Lucy Gray was sent back to District Twelve without being paraded. He then goes on to surprise you by saying his father went before the board to promise them a new gymnasium for the Academy if they let him graduate and sign up for Peacekeepers. However, Sejanus refused to take the deal until both Coriolanus and you were allowed to graduate, too. And since Professor Sickle really wanted a new gym…

“I graduated?” You ask, eyebrows twitching in.

Sejanus opens his box of belongings, pulling out a small leather folder with the school’s emblem and your name engraved on the front. You take it from him carefully, flipping it open to see the diploma inside, crediting you with High Honors, like you’d wanted.

“Sejanus.” You pout.

“Don’t act like it’s a great deal.” Sejanus laughs, pushing your shoulder away. “It’s the least I could do for getting you in trouble.”

“It still means a lot to me.” You tell him. “And you know that.”

“That’s why I did it.”

–

Lately, Sejanus hasn’t been acting like himself.

It started happening a couple weeks back, right around the time he and Coriolanus were asked by the base commander to attend the hanging of Arlo Chance. Well, it wasn’t much of an option, they were instructed to go because Commander wanted more bodies there for show, and he was looking for recruits.

While they were given the opportunity to go, you were told to stay on base and continue with the schedule that you were given for the day. At the time, you weren’t upset by this in any way. In fact, you were thankful that you wouldn’t have to put on the full Peacekeeper uniform to stand out in the heat while they hung rebels. It wasn’t an afternoon that you’d been picturing all day.

Now that you’re looking back on it, maybe it would have been better if you’d offered. At least then you would’ve been with Sejanus. You saw the looks on both of their faces when they came back later that evening. Whatever had happened obviously upset Sejanus enough for him to barely kiss your cheek before disappearing to his room to write to Ma.

When you saw him for supper that night, he was overwhelmingly quiet. Despite the amount of times you tried to start up a conversation with him, he wouldn’t respond. He barely offered you more than a smile, but he did hold onto one of your hands with both of his, needing the comfort.

It wasn’t until you, Coriolanus and Sejanus were mopping the mess hall did he finally speak.

“What’s bothering you? And don’t say nothing.” Coriolanus said, eyes set on your boyfriend. His silence must’ve been poking at him, too.

Sejanus stuck his mop into the bucket of dirty water. “I don’t know. I keep wondering what would’ve happened today if the crowd had gotten physical. Would we have had to shoot them?”

“Oh, probably not.” Coriolanus told him almost immediately. You paused where you were several feet away, hands beginning to tighten around the wooden pole. “Probably just fired a few rounds in the air.”

“If I’m helping to kill people in the districts, how is it any better than helping to kill them in the Hunger Games?” Sejanus asked.

The silence that took over the room only lasted a few seconds, but a hundred thoughts passed through your head in that short span of time. The first was concern for your boyfriend, because there’s nothing more than he hates than unnecessary violence. And the second was concern for you and Coriolanus, because this exact train of thought is what had gotten you here, in District Twelve, in the first place.

Coriolanus hesitated. “What did you think it was going to be? I mean, what did you think you’d signed up for?”

“I thought I could be a medic.” Sejanus murmured, looking up from the floor to you.

You locked eyes with him, forced a smile, and went back to mopping. You’ll admit that when you signed up for Peacekeepers, you had a handful of unrealistic expectations, yourself. It’s taken you twice as long to adjust to this lifestyle than it has for them. Sejanus fit in with the district almost immediately because he used to live in District Two, and it’s like Coriolanus was meant for a military life.

On the other hand, you’d never pictured yourself leaving the Capitol, never really had to lift your finger for a single thing. Regardless, you knew that it would be more gloomy skies than sunshine days here. There’s going to be a lot of grimy memories that will follow you for the rest of your life, even after you make it back to the Capitol someday.

“A medic.” Coriolanus repeated. “Like a doctor?”

“No, that would require university training.” Sejanus continued. “Something more basic. Something where I could help anyone who’d been injured, Capitol or district, when violence breaks out. At least I wouldn’t do any harm. I just don’t know if I could ever kill anyone, Coryo.”

That’s all it took for you and Coriolanus to share a worried look. Sejanus was beginning to fall right back into his Capitol habits. This time, his actions would have worse consequences than just being banished. They could get him killed.

“What about in war?” You asked, causing them to look over. “We’re soldiers, you know.”

“I know. A war would be different, I guess. But I would have to be fighting for something I believed in. I would have to believe it would make the world a better place. I’d still rather be a medic, but there isn’t much demand for them at the moment, it turns out. Without a war. They’ve got a long waiting list of people who’d like to be trained to work at the clinic. But even for that, you need a recommendation, and the sergeant doesn’t want to give me one.”

“Why not? Sounds like a perfect fit.”

“Because I’m too good with a gun.” Sejanus paused, lips pulling down at the corners. “It’s true. I’m a crack shot. My father taught me from when I was tiny, and every week I had mandatory target practice. He considers it part of the family business.”

“Why didn’t you hide it?”

“I thought I was. In reality, I shoot much better than I do in training. I tried not to stand out, but the rest of the squad is terrible.” Sejanus’s eyes widened, looking between you and Coriolanus. “Not you two.”

“Yes, me.” Coriolanus laughed. “Look, I think you’re making too much of this. It’s not like we have a hanging every day. And if it ever did come to it, just shoot to miss.”

Sejanus let out a heavy sigh. “And what if that means (Y/n), or you, or Beanpole, or Smiley, end up dead? Because I didn’t protect you?”

“Oh, Sejanus.” You shook your head.

“You have to stop overthinking everything! Imagining every worst-case scenario. That isn’t going to happen. We’re all going to die right here, of old age or excessive mopping, whatever takes us first. In the meantime, quit hitting the target! Or invent a problem with your eyes! Or smash your hand in the door!”

“Stop being so self-indulgent, in other words.”

“Well, so dramatic anyway.” You mused, dragging your mop back to the bucket.

“That’s how you ended up in the arena, remember?” Coriolanus asked.

Sejanus blinked as if Coriolanus had reached over and slapped him. “That’s how I almost got us both killed. You’re right. Thanks. I’m going to think over what you said.”

It seems like he’s taken Coriolanus’s words to heart after that night, genuinely considering them and the consequences his actions could have. You know that the last thing Sejanus wants is to put the three of you back into danger, getting you into trouble, to find yourselves in worse work than Peacekeepers.

Sejanus has good intentions, you know he does. They’ve shown through several times, despite the mistakes he continues to make. In the past, before you’d been asked to mentor for the Tenth Hunger Games, they weren’t as frequent. And if they were, you never noticed them because they weren’t life-altering.

The truth is that you can never fully blame Sejanus for what he’s done, mostly because you feel as if the Hunger Games brought out the worst in a lot of people. The moment it was suggested, it started a domino effect that none of you had foreseen. And it ended with half of your classmates dead, and you being banished from the Capitol.

Still, this doesn’t mean that you excuse Sejanus’s flaws entirely. He would never let you.

“(L/n).” A voice snaps. You straighten where you stand, turning sharply to face the voice. You’re met with the face of your Commander, his eyebrows raised. “Go help with the birds, I want them labeled and on the hovercraft by the end of the hour.”

“Yes, sir.” You nod, waiting for him to take his eyes off of you before you walk away.

A part of you feels guilty, though. Sejanus’s train of thoughts progressively got worse in the Capitol when he confided in you. When he told you that he wanted to leave the bread crumbs on Marcus’s body, you said that he should find a way how. Granted, you were picturing him doing it after the Games had been finished and the bodies were extracted.

Really, you expected him to pull some strings with his father to get it to happen, too. Sometimes you forget that he doesn’t like to use his wealth and name the same way that you do. He doesn’t like taking the advantage. What he doesn’t realize is that if he does it in moderation—especially for something as simple as bread crumbs—no one will think he’s trying to get a step up.

If you hadn’t encouraged Sejanus to find a way to Marcus, then he wouldn’t have gone into the arena. Ma would not have gone to the Snow’s looking for her son. Coriolanus would not have gotten the call from Dr. Gaul regarding your boyfriend being in danger. There wouldn’t have been a reason to send Coriolanus in there to save him. And Coryo wouldn’t have had to kill one of the tributes.

You believe you’re a good portion of the reason why you’re here, in District Twelve, now.

Of course, there were other factors that contributed to it, but that was the start of it.

As you go to walk around the corner of the building to where half of your bunkmates should be, Sejanus’s voice cuts through the silence. “Listen, we’ve only got a few minutes. I know you won’t approve of what I’m going to do, but I need you to at least understand it. After what you said the other day, about us being like brothers, well, I feel I owe you an explanation. Please, just hear me out.”

Your boots freeze in the mud, eyebrows draw in. The quiet chirping of a nearby jabberjay fills the silence, while Coriolanus thinks of a response. Then, it falls quiet too. As if it wants to hear what your boyfriend has to say.

“It’s like this,” Sejanus starts. “Some of the rebels are leaving District twelve for good. Heading north to start a life away from Panem. They said if I help them with Lil, (Y/n) and I can go, too.”

You blink, face twisting deeper at the new knowledge. Sejanus is talking to rebels. He isn’t learning from his mistakes. Why hasn’t he talked to you about this? What does he think Coriolanus is going to do? If either of them get into trouble, it’ll be you who pulls them out this time. With Coriolanus wrapped up in Lucy Gray again and Sejanus talking district rebels…

As if reading your thoughts, Sejanus begins to speak quickly. “I know, I know, but they need me. The thing is, they’re determined to free Lil and take her with them. If they don’t, the Capitol will hang her with the next lot of rebels they bring in. The plan is simple, really. The prison guards work in four-hour shifts. I’m going to drug a couple of my ma’s treats and give them to the outside guards. The medicine they gave me in the Capitol, it knocks you out like that—” Sejanus snaps his fingers.

“I’ll take one of their guns. The inside guards are unarmed, so I can force them into the interrogation room at gunpoint. It’s soundproof, so no one can hear them yell. Then I’ll get Lil. Her brother can get us through the fence. We’ll head north immediately. We should have hours before they discover the guards. SInce we’re not going through the gate, they’ll assume we’re hiding on base, so they’ll lock it down and search here first. By the time they figure it out, we’ll be long gone. No one hurt. And no one the wiser.”

You’re gonna be sick.

You reach out to steady yourself on the wall, taking in deep breaths through your nose to calm the rising nausea. Sejanus has lost his goddamn mind if he thinks that he’s going to get away with all of this. He’s going to get himself hurt. He’s going to get himself caught. Or, he’s going to get himself killed.

“I couldn’t go without telling you.” Sejanus says to Coryo. You raise your head, face screwing in, because apparently telling his girlfriend doesn’t matter. But the person he considers a brother is more important, even though he’s not a part of this plan? “You’re as good to me as any brother could be. I’ll never forget what you did for me in the arena. I’ll try to figure out some way to let Ma know what happened to me. And my father, I suppose. Let him know the Plinth name lives on, if only in obscurity.”

It’s quiet for a couple of seconds, and then the jabberjay they must have nearby, begins to sing the song it had been before you walked up to the corner. Your eyebrows twitch together, suspicious.

“Here comes Bug.” Coriolanus says.

“Here comes Bug.” The bird repeats in Coryo’s voice.

Now it’s repeating what’s been said?

“Hush, you silly thing.” Coriolanus murmurs.

“We need another water bottle. One broke.” Bug says.

“One broke.” The bird echoes in Bug’s voice, before switching to imitate a nearby crow.

It dawns on you suddenly, as the blood seems to run from your face to your toes. You remember the crash course they gave everyone on jabberjays and mockingjays just a few weeks back. How mockingjays only replicated notes, while the jabberjays could repeat back whole sentences if instructed to.

Usually, they’re quite talkative. The jabberjay should’ve been repeating little parts of that conversation the entire time. The only time they fall silent is when they’re listening…

Your feet move before you tell them to, eyes searching for the jabberjay that holds Sejanus’s rebel secrets that will get him killed if they’re heard by the wrong person. Your presence immediately draws three pairs of eyes, but you’re locked on the cage that Bug is carrying toward the hovercraft.

“(Y/n), what are you doing over here?” Coriolanus asks.

Your eyes slide over to him, and they must not exactly be kind looking, because the happy look on his face vanishes completely. You take in a breath, forcing a smile despite the many things you’d like to accuse him of.

Not now, you think. “Commander told me to come here to make sure that the work gets done by the end of the hour.”

As you glance over at Bug, you find that the cage is marked with J1.

“Oh, well we don’t really need help.” Coriolanus shakes his head, looking between Sejanus and Bug. “We’re almost finished.”

“Let me organize the hovercraft, while the three of you focus on getting the birds covered.” You tell them, leaving no room for discussion. You have to get your hands on that bird, and you need to get it out of this area.

“Sure.” Sejanus nods, face twisting slightly. “Are you alright?”

He catches your arm, holding you in place for a moment. You give him a smile, reaching up to touch his face, even though you want to be everything but tender right now. He’s been lying to you about what he’s been up to. He made the wrong assumption of thinking that you’d be fine with going along with what he wanted. And out of all the people he chose to tell, he picked Coriolanus.

“I’m good.” You nod. “I just don’t want to get in trouble.”

Sejanus lets you go, smoothing the wrinkles out of your sleeve. You follow after Bug, allowing them to resume their conversation. You hesitate, waiting at the bottom of the ramp, wanting to hear what Coriolanus has to say to your boyfriend, if he’ll try to talk him out of it. But if he actually cared about Sejanus, he never would have recorded the first part, the most criminating part.

Bug peeks his head out of the hovercraft. “Are you coming inside?”

“Yes.” You start up the ramp, sparing a single glance back at the two boys.

It’s dark inside of the hovercraft, half of the lights overhead are covered by the cages and tarps to hide the birds. Bug quickly explains what he’s been doing with the birds and how they had been instructed to organize them. You feign interest, you’re not planning on staying for long.

In fact, as soon as Bug announces that he’s going to grab the next bird and disappears, you sweep J1 off of the shelf, heading down the ramp and straight into the street. A singular remote clutched in your free hand. You walk for a couple minutes, unconcerned about being missing. When the hovercraft is entirely out of sight, you step behind a tree, placing the bird cage on the ground, and pulling off the cover.

You stare down at the bird, shaking your head. You do the easiest task first, which is erasing the conversation. You press play, then put it on neutral so that you can press record, putting the bird back on neutral when you’re done. Now, it has nothing but the sound of birds chirping in the trees in its memory.

This should be good enough, but that means you could’ve just done it inside of the hovercraft, it would’ve been easier. A pit in your stomach tells you that you can’t just pick up the cage and walk back to the ship. You know that you’ve gotten rid of the conversation correctly—what if you didn’t? What if it’s still able to play it back? If it were up to you, you’d get rid of the bird, but they’re going to notice one is missing.

You guess you could come up with an excuse, take the punishment and move on.

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek, trying to come up with ways to get rid of the creature. You’re only drawing up one solution, though. You’re not entirely sure how you feel about killing the thing with your bare hands, but do you have much of a choice? This is the only way to ensure that he stays safe…

And after all the time you’ve been together, and what he did to make sure you graduated, the least you could do is get rid of it.

Begrudgingly, you kill the bird, dig a shallow grave, and bury it. You cover the cage back up with the tarp, and head back to the hovercraft, where Bug is nowhere to be seen. You set the cage by the ramp, and when you peer inside of the ship, you can see that he’s brought two more cages since you walked away.

It isn’t long before Bug comes back, holding two more cages. “There you are. Where’d you go?”

“The bird died.” You tap the cage with the tip of your shoe. “I went out and buried it.”

His face twists, eyeing the cage. “We just put that one in there.”

You half-shrug. “I was checking on the ones in there and this one had stopped moving.”

There’s a brief moment of silence that passes. “I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to report it and hand them off to the scientists to be looked at.”

“Oh, well I didn’t know that.”

Bug still looks skeptical, but he doesn’t push it. He hands the two cages off to you, and then leaves to grab the next two. In the span of the next thirty minutes, the hovercraft is loaded and the Commander comes with a small portion of the scientists to check to make sure that they’ll be safely transported.

As expected, your dead bird doesn’t go unnoticed. However, you aren’t given as harsh of a punishment as you’re expecting. You’re simply taken off bird duty because you don’t know the rules as well as Bug, Sejanus and Coriolanus. And you’re met with a disappointed remark from the Commander, something along the lines of, “This is why we didn’t put you there to begin with.”

You’re free for the rest of the day, as long as you make it back to base before dark. You watch as Sejanus and Coriolanus walk side by side, talking animatedly. When Coriolanus reaches out to touch your boyfriend, you squeeze between them, wrapping your arm around the elbow of Sejanus.

“You know, Coryo, as much as we love to be with you all the time, I’d like some time with my boyfriend.” You raise your eyebrows.

Coriolanus doesn’t seem bothered, nodding. “You haven’t been able to. I’ll go back to base.”

“We’ll see you there.” You smile, Sejanus offers him a wave.

You come to a slow stop in the dirt, watching as Coriolanus walks down the path, further into the trees. Once you’re alone, you turn to look at Sejanus, lips pressing together.

“What is it?” He asks.

“Is there anything you might want to tell me?” You ask.

A crease appears between his eyebrows, as he reaches to touch the side of your face. You grab his wrist, pulling your head away. “No, (Y/n).”

“You’re lying to me.” You tell him. “I heard what you said to Coriolanus about the rebels.”

Sejanus’s face drops, he swallows. “How much of this did you hear?”

“All of it.” You tilt your head. “Actually, I heard the first part, until Bug came to get that bird, then I had to show myself. Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”

“Yes, I was, I just wanted to figure it out first.”

“It sounded pretty figured out to me. You were going to do that all on your own? You could’ve gotten into trouble, especially with Coriolanus.”

“With Coryo?” Sejanus repeats. “He’s our friend, (Y/n). There’s nothing to worry about.”

“He was recording you on that jabberjay.” You emphasize. “I bet he was planning on sending it to Dr. Gaul. You know they listen back to what they have to say, right? Just in case they’ve heard anything incriminating? You’re lucky I caught it.”

“You killed the bird?” Sejanus asks, eyes wide. “Coriolanus was recording me?”

“I had to kill it, because erasing the conversation never would’ve been enough.” You shake your head.

“He’s my brother.” He breathes.

“He’s a fucking snake.” You grab onto his sleeve, shaking him to try and pull him to reality. “We need to get out of here. You need to get yourself out of that plan with Lil without pissing off the rebels. I’m gonna call my mom tonight, she’ll come up with an excuse to get us home.”

Sejanus cups your face. “I am so, so sorry, (Y/n). I’ve done it again. I’ve gotten us into trouble.”

“I’m going to get us out of it.” You grab his wrists, squeezing.

this was part of my 3k celebration!! will i ever be done celebrating? hopefully before the end of 2024!!

56 notes · View notes