The Scent of Roses || Coriolanus Snow

Chapter X

You woke earlier than usual, the sun not having risen yet. It felt warmer in your apartment than usual, giving you some hope that they had fixed the heating system after months of waiting.

You felt your eyes begin to drift off again, but it was becoming a bad habit of yours to sleep in far too late. Though the sun wasn't up yet, now you could break the cycle of staying in bed and getting nothing productive done.

Though it was freezing outside, you walked a couple of miles to a coffee shop to get a beverage and a small treat to reward yourself for getting out of bed before noon. A coffee would help you stay awake, ideally, and a treat was what you deserved.

The cafe was relatively busy, with most people grabbing something before they headed to work. You wondered if it might be a good idea to clean the apartment today or wash your sheets, as that hadn't been done in a while. You had no big plans for the day other than trying to pull your life back together bit by bit, so why not make the place you live in look less rotted?

The line did not last very long, and the wait was under 10 minutes. You appreciated how efficient the cafe workers were. They always made the walk worth it, and the coffee was delicious. You got a small fruit and cheese danish that looked too good to wait to eat until you got home. However, you would hold yourself back to prove you could do it.

As you walked through the square toward your apartment, you saw a banner hung near the President's home. It announced the date of when Garnett would visit the Capital during his Victory Tour. You shuddered at the sight of it, realizing that you would have to face him again soon, and he would resent you by then. Suddenly, you had lost your appetite and the will to do anything but crawl back into your bed.

The stairs of your apartment felt steeper as you practically crawled up, shuffling in your pocket for your keys as you approached your door to see Coriolanus Snow standing in front of it.

"Good morning," he smiled at you, pointing at your coffee as he showed off his own from the same cafe. "I wondered where you had gone this early."

"What are you doing at my apartment." You asked sternly, the nauseous feeling growing more potent in the pit of your stomach.

"Nice to see you too," he responded with a profound amount of sass. "I'll be sure to remember you're not a morning person."

You rolled your eyes at him. "Why are you here, Coriolanus?"

"Well, I know you said you didn't feel up to dinner, but I still wanted to see you outside of a work context." He began pacing down the hall, staring at the different decorations around the apartments on your floor. "I have a hard time taking no for an answer."

"I'm not sure that's something you should admit," you responded, taking his movement away from your door as the chance to slip into your apartment. "Or to be proud of."

He nodded in agreement, strolling back up to your door as you finally unlocked it. "Any plans for today?" He asked, his body practically pressing against your own. You looked up at him, his smile beaming down upon you. "Let me take you out on the town."

You made a somewhat awkward facial expression. "I've got a lot of housekeeping to do today," you said, opening your door, hoping to shut it in his face without opposition. "My apartment is a mess, and I should clean it."

"That's fine," he said, pushing your door open and walking inside. "I'll help you."

Christ. No. The last thing you needed was to be face to face with the sole reason you were thrown into a depressive state in the first place. You could handle cleaning your home or your own; you didn't need his help or judgment.

He took a moment to survey your apartment. He looked through your kitchen cabinets and your fridge, then moved to your bookshelf and your decorations. He scanned your bathroom and your medicine cabinet, admiring your extensive line of skin products, and then he finally made it to your bed.

His hands wrapped around a book on your nightstand, flipping through the pages carefully enough so he didn't knock your bookmark out from between the pages. "I've read this before," he commented as he set the book back down on your nightstand, his view now on the decorations on your shelf by your bed. "It's not very good. I wouldn't waste your time."

You set your coffee and fruit pastry down on your kitchen counter. "I thought you came in to help, not ridicule me," you responded shortly.

Coriolanus diverted his attention from the shelf and back to you. He was holding a case of flowers pressed in resin, furrowing his brow in what looked like playfulness. "I am helping you," he remarked, walking towards you with the encased flowers. "I'm sparing you from a horrible ending."

He was now standing near you or practically over you. He smelled so strongly of perfume, the scent of roses wafting through your nostrils. It wasn't an unpleasant smell, but it was wildly overwhelming.

"A horrible ending?" You questioned playfully, taking the resined flowers out of his hand and tucking them to your chest. "You've already ruined the joy of the book for me, so you might as well spoil the ending."

You stepped from underneath him as you returned the flowers to your shelf, placing them back in the exact position not to upset your apartment's vibe.

"Well, it starts as a lovely romance, as you probably know by how far in you are. But her lover grows jealous of her past relations and finds something he shouldn't. She poisons him for it." Coriolanus was behind you, his body pressing into your back. "As I told you, horrible ending."

The warmth of him against your back was enough to make you melt. Your knees felt weak, and the upper half of your body was so heavy. Your will was what kept you elevated and on your feet. Melting into his arms by his touch would have been far too pathetic.

You turned around to face him, and a calm and rather handsome face met you on the other side. "I supposed we should start with your sheets," he glanced toward your bed. "Then we should get you something to fill that fridge."

You huffed in annoyance, causing him to laugh and demand what cruel comment he had made to upset you. The way he chased after you filled you with such pure girlhood excitement. Hearing his laugh mixed with yours filled your empty apartment, causing the atmosphere to become so much warmer. It felt more like a home now with another presence inside it, almost as if your apartment was giving her approval on this man.

He did have a point on you getting to know each other outside of the games, for he wasn't as evil here. How he danced around you, throwing any pillow he could find in your direction as he ducked playfully when you hurled one back, was enough to make your heart throb. He was a joy outside the games, but you supposed that could've been said about anyone. Maybe even Doctor Gaul was a joy to be around when she wasn't creating mutant abominations.

Eventually, he ran out of pillow to throw at you, and in a childlike daze, you ran across the room and tackled him onto your sheets, losing each other in the thick, soft fabric. You both fell into each other and the comfort of the mattress, laughing away as if nothing else in the world mattered.

His face finally found yours, tucking your hair behind your ear so he could see your eyes better. He stared into you for a moment, his eyes tracking down from your own to your lips but correcting himself every time he did.

"I'll get you to go to dinner with me before the week ends," he promised, stroking his thumb across your cheek.

You pulled yourself up from the bed and off of his body, heading to the bathroom to fix your now mop of hair that had been tossed around in the scuffle.

"Don't bet on it," you jeered, feeling his eyes fall onto you again. "For now, you can just take me to the store."