REIN and SNOW ∞ louis & tom au

Chapter 3

Coriolanus could not keep his stomach from growling as the delicious smell from the Academy's buffet wafted over him. Hunger had defined his life since the war when the rebels tried to starve them into submission. There was a desperate need for sustenance. A desperation that turned upstanding Capitol citizens into monsters. People who died of starvation on the streets became part of a gruesome food chain.

Years ago, Coriolanus and Tigris witnessed their neighbor carving the leg of a dead woman in the cold snow. He sawed back and forth with a terrifying panel saw until the limb came free, leaving the young cousins shocked and horrified. They never spoke of it, but the memory of that man's savagery and the horror of ending up on someone's dinner table burned into his mind.

He remembers standing at the back door of a nightclub on a late October afternoon, holding Grandma Snow's gloved hand. They had come to see Hendrix, a middle-aged man who owned the shuttered club with his partner Cyrus. Now they made do by trafficking goods from the black market.

Grandma Snow had come for some canned milk, but Hendrix said he was sold out. What had just arrived were crates of dried lima beans stacked high on the mirrored stage behind him.

Moments later, Coriolanus was pulling one crate home in a wagon, and the other twenty-nine arrived later in the night. Hendrix and Cyrus hauled the crates up the stairs and piled them in the middle of the lavishly furnished living room. On the top of the pile, they placed a single can of milk, and bid them all good night. Coriolanus and Tigris helped Grandma Snow hide the canned food in closets, wardrobes, and even the old clock.

"Who's going to eat all these?" Tigris asked.

"We'll eat some. Perhaps the rest we can trade," said Grandma Snow.

"I don't like lima beans." Coriolanus pouted.

"We'll have Grandpa find a good recipe," said Grandma Snow.

But Grandpa Snow had been called to serve in the war, then died of the flu. The Grandma'am did not know how to cook at the time, so it fell on Tigris to sustain them throughout the war.

For years, they lived on lima beans, cabbage, and bread. Coriolanus grew to hate the stuff, hence why the thought of cabbage soup every morning made him gag. But it kept them alive without cannibalizing dead bodies on the streets...

Coriolanus licked his lips as he reached for a plate. He reminded himself to take a modest spoonful of each nutritious dish and only one hot roll, so he doesn't seem greedy. Wouldn't want to give people the impression that I was starving at home. Next was dessert, and he practically drooled over the neat rows of apple pie slices. I can't even recall the last time I had pie!

Reaching for a small piece, someone thrusts an enormous one under his nose.

"Here, take this one," said Dean Highbottom. He fixed the boy with a penetrating look. "A growing boy like yourself can handle it."

Coriolanus accepted the plate of pie with a boyish grin. "Thank you, sir. I can always find room for pie."

"Yes, pleasures are never hard to accommodate," said Highbottom. "No one would know better than I."

"I suppose not, sir."

Wait, that sounded wrong. He meant to say so to agree with the part about pleasures, but it came off as a snide remark about the dean's character.

Highbottom's eyes narrowed. "You suppose not? Hmm. So, what are your plans after the Games, Young Snow?"

Young Snow? This is the first time anyone has ever referred to him as that. Was it a term of endearment to honor my father?