Coriolanus isn't as bothered by his insomnia as he used to be. Nowadays any time he's struggling to sleep, he just turns around and gazes at his Lucy Gray. She sleeps in his arms now, she doesn't have nightmares anymore since she started allowing him to hold her every night. His light eyes see very well in the dark, he observes all the little details he was robbed of looking at for so long. How the shadows play off the dip above her Cupid's bow, the slight smile lines forming on the sides of her lips, the little freckle she has under her right brow. Her dark curls fall all around her face and he can't help but smile down at her.
Before his Lucy Gray, his life was a moonless night. Bright points of reason with their own nuances, varying brightness and colors, some bigger in their proximity than others. Then she flashed across it, a meteor alight and suddenly everything was so much brighter, there was brilliancy and passion. Their whole relationship he felt electric in his feelings for her, completely guided by them.
Then they split, the meteor had fallen over the horizon and on paper, little had changed. He was still the intelligent young man with potential for a great future, just down one brother and headed back to essentially the same place he'd left only with better prospects. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the former darkness for years, to see without the added light she'd provided but they never did. He'd always been prone to obsession. Something would catch his attention and he'd need it, need to solve a problem, need to win in a rivalry, need to obtain the goal. He kept waiting for that to happen upon his return. Those points of reason never went away but his ability to perceive them had. Suddenly those things that had guided him before her didn't hold the same authority they once had. There was no reason, no point to achieving anything anymore.
Now as he holds her, as her pulse sends slight vibrations into his own body, and it feels as though she's keeping him alive. Like his heartbeat relies entirely on hers. Their departure didn't feel like he'd always read heartbreaks among sweethearts described as. How at first it's the worst kind of agony but that in time you get better, you get distracted and start to move on and find love again. He didn't feel capable of being distracted, not from the hollowness in his chest. He had no interest in anyone ever obtaining his love but her so all he wanted was not to feel anything anymore and so he didn't. He'd spent his whole adult life trying to feel less, trying to be the man his father would've expected him to be. His determination was so great that eventually he'd put a loaded gun to his head in order to feel anything at all only to wound up in the same place he wanted so desperately not to acknowledge. It only left him with one choice, one conclusion. He needed her back in his life at any cost.
He remembers how that period felt to him. He'd had a different girl in his bed a few times a week, always making sure they didn't resemble his Lucy Gray. If they had dark hair, then her skin had to be either much lighter or much darker than hers, or her hair had to be straight. If they had her skin tone then she had to be taller and with light eyes, or blonde, or ginger. Anything to try and keep his mind from trailing back to her during the act, it never worked.
Eventually he gave in and accepted he wasn't attracted to the girls who didn't resemble her and started looking for girls who did, which only ended with him feeling hurt and desperate for something none of them could give him. None of them filled his cup and he felt himself getting more and more vacant, growing more listless and even slowly losing his ambition. That drive he'd always had because...what was the point? What would he have been driven towards? He didn't need anymore material comfort because the Plinths took care of all of that, for he and his family. He was secure, he didn't need anything money could buy anymore. He'd been so touch starved for so long that by the time he was able to get his Lucy Gray back by his side, he felt like he just might wither away if he didn't get to feel her in his hands again. He had to take a small taste of her, something to take the edge off the piercing barrenness he felt inside himself.
It wasn't as high as he'd expected the price to be for her. As always, his hard work, one-mindedness and determination had gotten him what he wanted and even other things he hadn't thought to hope for. His girl back in his arms and full of his seed, giving him the family he'd always needed and a son he was so violently proud of he could sing. He'd done so much more, so much worse for things worth much less. Unseemly things, monstrous things. He's alright with that, relieved even. The things he'd done before prepared him, steeled him for when he'd have to go after her again. The enforcement in the Districts, the punishments, the relentless social climbing, the double-crossing, he lost no sleep over any of it. It's all necessary. He's perfectly fine with being seen as evil.
Perhaps it was all the better that he was. It would certainly keep them safer, and keep her by his side. He was most comfortable being selfish, in several ways. The only thing that could supersede his wishes now, was her's. He'd burn all of the country to the ground and make her a diamond out of its ashes. A pure soul like Sejanus, a hero could only ever offer their loves second place. First place would always belong to 'the right thing.' A made-up concept created by people too scared to do what they want. He was selfish for taking Lucy Gray from her home in the woods, and her tiny family along with it. He was selfish for getting her pregnant, then and now, although much more premeditatedly in the latter. Selfish for wanting more, despite the risk it put her in. He only regrets the risk and the fright he gave them when he brought them to their proper place, their real home.
