Work Text:
How could a single well-meaning and humorous phrase have ruined Sejanus's day so completely?
Lyssie hadn't spoken with malice. It was an innocent comment. Nothing more than that, an innocent comment that shouldn't have messed with his head. After all, she had called him days earlier to check if he was okay after he had missed an entire week of college classes, now approaching the second week of his absence. And Sejanus had described his miserable days when he could barely leave the bathroom next to his bedroom; if he got up to try to return to his bed, he would end up having to vomit again. He couldn't keep missing so many classes. That was the only reason he had tried to risk attending class on that Thursday morning, and it was that reason that resulted in Sejanus kneeling in front of a toilet in the university bathroom, vomiting up all his breakfast.
Lyssie waited outside, leaning against the wall, a look of concern as she watched Sejanus straighten his disheveled clothes.
"Are you still vomiting?" she asked with a worried tone.
"It seems so," he muttered, shrugging, still feeling a bit dizzy and hoping he wouldn't have to run back to the toilet. "Damn... I don't know what I ate last week to end up like this. I can't keep anything down. If this continues, I'll have to see a doctor."
And then came the bombshell:
"Vomiting like this, it almost seems like you're pregnant."
And that was enough for Sejanus to be unable to concentrate on any class for the rest of the day. On the contrary, he couldn't think about anything else.
It almost seems like you're pregnant.
It almost seems like you're pregnant.
It almost seems like you're pregnant.
Lysistrata's voice hammered in his head, over and over and over again, and it seemed much louder and more persistent than the toxicology professor's voice. Sejanus's notebook ended up blank by the end of the class. On the way home, he said goodbye to Lyssie with a wave. He said he couldn't go out for lunch with her because he was still feeling sick. He decided to walk back home, and by coincidence or not, maybe as a cruel joke of fate, he passed by a pharmacy he had never noticed before near the building where he lived with his parents.
Sejanus bit his lip. He stood in front of the pharmacy.
What were the chances?
Well. They weren't zero, that's the truth.
He blushed just remembering the encounters he had been having with Coriolanus. It wasn't something he told anyone. Quite the opposite, Coryo made him promise not to tell anyone. Anyone. And his Ma had already questioned him about it, if he was involved with the Snow boy, but Sejanus had denied it vehemently. It was better that way, to be honest. It avoided complications. It avoided awkward conversations with his parents, and avoided questions he didn't want to answer.
The first time was on his birthday. And then it became a habit.
(A habit he cherished. He wouldn't lie and say he didn't want more, that he didn't want to hold Coryo's hand in public and kiss him outside his room, but it was still something. And Sejanus didn't want to be ungrateful, more than they already said he was.)
But... it wasn't possible. It wasn't.
They were being responsible, and Sejanus had enough uncomfortable conversations with his parents when he was younger to know what to do and what not to do. He had agreed with Coriolanus that Sejanus wouldn't use contraceptive pills. It's an unnecessary hormone bomb in your body, was Coriolanus's argument, and Sejanus admitted it was convincing. Besides, the last thing he wanted was for his Ma to find pills in his drawer while cleaning his room. Again: it was good to avoid complications. So they decided to use only condoms. And they had protected sex every time. He tried to recall a moment when they had unprotected sex, but there wasn't a single one. Coryo was very disciplined about always carrying a condom to their meetings.
Sejanus then thought he was being ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
His mind wandered back to the afternoons he spent with Coriolanus inside him. Back to the sex education classes they were required to take at the Academy, which made his cheeks turn red. Back to when he had to read articles for college about pregnancy and contraceptive failures, about omegas who took a long time to realize they were pregnant because they were sure they were using the methods correctly. His stomach churned again, and he had to bring a hand to his mouth to avoid vomiting.
It almost seems like you're pregnant.
That was torture. It was impulsive that he entered the pharmacy, and it was also impulsive that he bought a pregnancy test, unable to look into the eyes of the teenager a few years younger than him working at the register.
"Sweetie?" he heard his Ma's voice coming from the kitchen when Sejanus opened the apartment door and walked in quickly. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, Ma!" he said on his hurried way to his room.
"Are you sure? Did something happen at college? Are you feeling better from the nausea?"
"I... I'm fine!" he closed his bedroom door abruptly, rushing to throw his things on the bed and take the damn pregnancy test out of his backpack. "I'm still not feeling very well, but..."
"Do you want me to make a snack? Some tea, something to make you feel better?"
"No! No, no, no, you don't need to, really! I... I just want to nap for a while, okay?"
Maybe that would be enough to keep his Ma out of his room, at least for now. Sejanus felt guilt gnawing at his insides, how lying to his Ma was now almost a habit, but he knew her, and he knew he inherited his anxiety from her, and the last thing he needed now was someone to reinforce all his fears and terrors. Not to mention the questions that would follow. Who did this to you, Sejanus? And he still wasn't ready to see her look of disappointment when she found out he had lied about all those times Coriolanus and he were in his room "studying" for common subjects.
So he ended up sitting on the bathroom floor, arms crossed, patiently waiting for his timer to go off after one minute. One minute, sixty seconds, sixty thousand milliseconds, and yet it seemed like hours as he glanced at the baby blue cardboard box of the pregnancy test.
He was being an idiot. A complete idiot. When he tells Coriolanus this story the next time they met, he would laugh in his face until he was out of breath. How do you come to a conclusion like that? Did you sleep through sex ed classes or something? The laughter could come for so many reasons. Thinking Sejanus was stupid enough to think he was pregnant while having protected sex (especially because he had always been very anxious and prone to wild conclusions; he would never forget when he was a child and cried to his Ma thinking he was pregnant because he had kissed someone on the mouth). It could also come from the idea that Sejanus was foolish enough to think Coriolanus would even consider putting a baby inside him. Sejanus, the boy from the Districts that he was using as a pastime because even the great Coriolanus Snow had needs. He laughed to himself. If he had said all this out loud before entering the pharmacy and buying the pregnancy test, he would have avoided this. It was all so silly when put that way.
Yeah. He and Coriolanus would definitely have a good laugh. And, who knows, some time from now, he might also laugh about it with his Ma when he had the courage to talk about it.
The timer went off, indicating that one minute had passed and the test was ready. Sejanus got up from the floor without much haste. He was doing this just for peace of mind, wasn't he? He already knew the result. He already knew that a pregnancy scare was something almost everyone must have gone through at least once in their life and it wasn't that serious. He already knew that as soon as he saw the single line, he would laugh to himself for the rest of the day at his sheer stupidity.
Sejanus picked up the test. He frowned.
Two lines.
He grabbed the cardboard box just to make sure he was seeing it right, or that he hadn't made a mistake, or that maybe in the Capitol the tests weren't standardized. But no. The box said in all words, words Sejanus read and reread:
Two lines:
Positive.
He bent over to vomit into the toilet again.
Twenty.
Not one, not two, not five. Not eight, not nine. Twenty.
That was the total number of pregnancy tests he had bought at the pharmacy after rushing out of his room. The teenager at the pharmacy looked at him with a furrowed brow. Are you sure you need all of these...? Sejanus nodded vigorously, impatient, the money already in his hand, and returned to his apartment with a bag containing twenty boxes of pregnancy tests from different brands, different types, different packaging ranging from baby blue to pink and a peculiar bright orange. One of the boxes came with three tests inside.
“Baby?” his Ma had knocked on the door again, and her tone sounded even more worried when he returned to his room without even entering the kitchen. “Are you sure you don't need my help?”
“Ma, I already said everything is fine” Sejanus insisted, nervous, taking the first of the twenty tests out of the shopping bag.
“Then why did you leave so quickly after coming back...?”
“I stopped by the pharmacy to buy some nausea medicine. That's all, Ma.”
A short period of silence followed.
“Are you sure, baby? Are you sure you don't need me to do anything...? Maybe some tea? Or... or maybe...”
“Ma. Please, I'm fine.”
Sejanus felt guilty for keeping the information to himself, but the last thing he needed was his Ma's desperate presence. Not now. Not when his brain was running a mile a minute and he needed to be sure it was just a mistake, a single, simple mistake, because mistakes happen with these things. The accuracy percentage is on the packaging for a reason. He opened them one by one, took out test after test from each box, waited each minute as if it were an hour, and his hands grew more and more shaky as one result after another appeared.
Two lines.
A positive sign.
The word, written out, to leave no doubt: positive.
He had bought one that was more expensive, more technological, with a screen that, besides confirming the positive, informed how many weeks. Five.
One of them, just one, had shown negative, rewarding him with the momentary relief of seeing only one line, only to then do the next one as an extra certification and there it was again:
Two lines.
In the end, when there were twenty empty pregnancy test boxes in the sink of his room's bathroom, Sejanus was sitting on the toilet, his face buried in his hands, fingers tangled in his curls as he tried to control his breathing as his Ma had taught him when he was much younger. His brain kept bombarding his head with thought after thought, trying to figure out what he would do, how he would tell, who he would tell.
Coriolanus.
How would he tell Coriolanus?
He couldn't tell Coriolanus.
No. He couldn't tell Coryo, because Coryo already had too many responsibilities, too many things to worry about, he didn't need Sejanus making his situation worse. So he would have to deal with it alone.
How did this happen in the first place?
They had been so careful. Sejanus knew, because he was too anxious, and because every time he would worriedly ask if Coriolanus put the condom on correctly. He saw every time Coriolanus opened the packaging in front of him. Was it some manufacturing defect...? Maybe they were very unlucky? Sejanus, at least, was one of the unluckiest people he knew. So maybe they were the unfortunate couple that ended up having the bad luck of picking the only defective package?
His parents.
What would he tell his parents?
What would he tell his Ma? How could he look her in the face after she had asked again, and again, and again if he was seeing someone? After he had promised he would tell her if he started a relationship so they could take the proper precautions? How could he look into his Ma's hurt eyes after, to make matters worse, the one who had put that baby in him was the same man who had denied it so many times when she questioned him?
And his father?
By the mountains, his father would be furious. His father would want to kill Sejanus. The Plinths were not in the best reputation in the Capitol, and now that things seemed to be getting easier, Sejanus had to come with a bastard child and ruin everything as he always tended to do. Because that's what Sejanus always did, right? When things were going well, he found a way to ruin everything. Things were going well with Coriolanus, and he made sure to ruin everything with his usual bad luck. Things were going well at college, and he managed to ruin it all over again.
Sejanus tried to take a deep breath once more to avoid having a panic attack. He hadn't had one in a long time. He would solve this. Sejanus would solve this, he would find a way to deal with this, he had to find a way to deal with this. He would find a way to not have to talk about it with his parents, and a way to not involve Coriolanus in that dreadful situation. He took all the boxes and packaging of the pregnancy tests and put them one by one in the pharmacy's plastic bag. He was going to ask one of the Avoxes to throw the bag in the trash (Floriana, perhaps; he imagined that, of all of them, she would be the most discreet and ask the least questions). But before that, he placed the bag on top of his bedroom desk and lay down on the bed.
His head was throbbing with pain, and his stomach was turning again. Sejanus needed to sleep, at least for half an hour (or maybe two), to get his thoughts back in order. He snuggled among his blankets and pillows and closed his eyes.
He was certain of only one thing as he was falling asleep:
He was going to go through with it.
And maybe that was the only thing that didn't leave him with doubts.
He doesn't know why he was so naive to think his plan to keep it a secret would succeed and that no one would notice. He should have known something was off when he went to the kitchen at night to get some sweets and noticed his Ma staring at him in a strange way.
"Sejanus," she started very calmly, "did something happen earlier? Is there something you would like to tell me?"
Sejanus would be lying if he said he didn't feel a chill run down his spine at that moment, and he'd be lying if he said he managed to look into his Ma's big, dark eyes. But he had already made a decision and wasn't going to back down.
"No, Ma," he said, restraining his voice while grabbing the cookies from the jar. "I felt a bit sick and had to run back to the pharmacy to get some more medicine. But that's all. I didn't think it was worth bothering you."
He didn't look to the side to see that she had frowned. His Ma walked over to him and held his face in her hands. Now he had little choice but to look into her eyes, eyes so much like his own, large and brown and always full of love and affection, but now there was something else there. Maybe concern? No. It was something different in that furrowed brow, something Sejanus couldn't quite identify or define.
"You know you can tell me anything, don't you, Sejanus?"
He swallowed hard. Looked away.
"I know, Ma. But nothing happened. Don't worry."
She held his face for a moment longer before letting go and returning to work in the kitchen, not bothering to look back. And once again, perhaps for the hundredth time in recent months, Sejanus felt guilty for lying to his Ma like that.
Sejanus managed to keep his plan a secret for three days.
Until, while he was in his room, frowning and sketching in his notebook, someone knocked on the door. He got up to open it, and there was Floriana in front of him, staring at him with wide eyes, her hands trembling as she held out a small piece of paper to him. Sejanus took the paper in his hands, quickly reading what was written.
Mr. Plinth wants to speak with you in the office.
"Do you know why?" Sejanus asked; he didn't like having these conversations with his father because, regardless of the reason, they were never for good things.
Floriana didn't look him in the eyes but shook her head. Sejanus thought he might be crazy because he was almost sure her lips had moved to form a word: sorry.
(In retrospect, yeah, it wasn't just an impression.)
His Pa's office was in the same hallway that connected the living room to his bedroom, and Sejanus wouldn't need to pass by the kitchen to see his Ma, who always looked at him with that same concerned look when he went to have conversations with his father. Even so, when he opened his bedroom door, he saw that she was there, in the hallway. His Ma was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking at him in that same strange way.
"Ma," Sejanus asked, hand already on the silver door handle, "do you know why my father wants to talk to me?"
She observed him for another minute. Another chill ran down Sejanus's spine.
"Do you have something to tell me, Sejanus?"
Sejanus didn't feel comfortable at all with the way she seemed to be trying to see through his soul. If he hadn't made sure to dispose of the pregnancy test boxes so carefully, he might have suspected that she...
"No, Ma."
Her shoulders dropped, and she was the first to look away this time.
"Then I don't know why your father wants to talk to you."
Sejanus opened the door. And his father was waiting for him, sitting in the desk chair with a serious look, watching him with that same cold, hard gaze as always. His father's arms were crossed, elbows resting on the table, waiting only for Sejanus to sit in the chair facing the desk. He swallowed hard but closed the door and walked to sit across from his father. His foot tapped the floor. He brought a finger to his mouth, nervous, biting the corners of his nails as he waited for his father to say something, but he said nothing, and for perhaps the first time in his life, Sejanus wanted Strabo Plinth to open his mouth and say anything, no matter how painful.
His father got up from the chair, walking to the door. Sejanus heard the lock turn. And felt another chill run down his spine.
Whatever it was... he had messed up this time.
"Twenty."
It was the first thing his father said. Sejanus turned to face him, his father leaning against one of the shelves filled with fancy books on engineering and weapon production, which ultimately served no purpose because his father trusted his own instinct and rustic learning more than any theoretical crap offered by arrogant twenty-year-olds who had never smelled gunpowder. His father's dark green eyes seemed to pierce his soul with a calmness that Sejanus knew well preceded the storm.
"What?" he asked, a little incredulous.
"Twenty, Sejanus. There were twenty pregnancy test boxes that your Ma said Floriana found in the trash."
Direct, blunt. That was always Strabo Plinth's communication style.
His heart stopped beating for a minute. All the blood must have drained from his face, and his skin must have paled. It was certainly almost a comical scene, but his father never had much of a sense of humor, judging by his still serious expression.
"Look," his father sighed, massaging his temples and closing his eyes as if his head was about to explode, "I may not be an omega, and maybe I never attended the fancy college classes you go to to know in detail how these things happen. But I know, Sejanus, that no one in their right mind would buy twenty pregnancy tests if they didn't want to confirm something."
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Sejanus tried to open his mouth, but no sound came out. His eyes remained wide open. He felt like a deer caught in headlights.
"You have nothing to say?"
And, really, Sejanus said nothing. His mouth did open again, but no sound came out, not even a cry, not even an apology, not even a cliché but honest justification that he didn't know how it had happened because he took all possible precautions. His father sighed. Walked back to the desk. Slammed his hand hard on the wooden surface, hard enough to make the papers and pens on top shake, and hard enough for Sejanus to startle and shrink in the chair.
"You have nothing to say to me, Sejanus Plinth?!" this time he shouted, and Sejanus felt small, felt like a child again when his father, still Pa at the time, lost his patience and resorted to raising his voice.
His racing heart seemed to be at a terrifying speed. His hands trembled, and he shrank to try to appear smaller in the chair. Breathing became a bit more difficult. Sejanus's lower lip trembled, but still, he made an effort to open his mouth and murmur in a tone that was, at least, audible:
"I'm not going to have an abortion."
For a moment, it seemed like his father's eyes softened. Sejanus would dare to say that it was with compassion that his father looked at him. But only for a moment. Soon he sighed, massaging his temples again, muttering something quietly to himself, cursing rapidly and erratically before sitting back in the chair. He leaned back in the seat, looking into Sejanus's terrified and wide eyes.
"What were you planning to do?" his voice was surprisingly calm.
Sejanus was silent for a moment. Shrugged.
"I... wasn't planning to tell anyone. Anyone, really."
"Not even your Ma?"
He felt guilty as he nodded.
"Do you know how worried she was, Sejanus? Do you have any idea how she felt after you lied without hesitation?"
And there it was again: the shame, the guilt. Sejanus kept his head down, unable to look at his father. He was biting the corners of his nails so hard that he began to taste the metallic flavor of his own blood.
"And what were you planning to do after telling no one, hm?" There was condescension in his father's voice, as if Sejanus were nothing but a dumb, stupid child, and for a moment, he thought that maybe he really was nothing but that: a dumb, stupid child. "What were you going to say when your belly started to swell? I can't think of any outrageous lie you could come up with."
"I... I don't know. I didn't want... I hadn't thought about it yet."
"And the baby's father? What were you planning to do about that, Sejanus? What were you planning to do with a bastard child?"
He didn't answer. He didn't have the courage. He couldn't do this to Coriolanus, he couldn't, and he couldn't do this to himself after all the times he lied as if it were nothing while Coriolanus spent afternoons at his house, not when...
"Who is the father of this baby, Sejanus?"
That was too much. He needed to get out of there before the tears threatening to fall from his eyes decided to stream down his cheeks all at once. He got up from the chair, fists clenched, and walked to the door of his father's office, placing his hand on the doorknob. He had just forgotten the detail that the door was locked and the key was no longer there. His father twirled the key in his hand with a stern look.
"This door will stay locked," he said word by word with a certain slowness, "and the two of us will stay in this office for as long as it takes until you decide to tell me who you made this mess with."
It seemed like an imaginary dam had burst and the tears had no reason not to fall anymore. Sejanus bit his lip to avoid sobbing as he continued trying to turn the doorknob, despite knowing it was useless.
"Let's see," his father had gotten up from the chair, walking to lean against one of the shelves, not far from where Sejanus was in his desperation. "You prefer boys, don't you? So let me think about the alphas and betas in your class... Pup Harrington? Pliny's boy. He seems like your type."
Sejanus shook his head, not responding out loud. He kept trying to shake the door, and now he was trembling so much, crying so much that he felt he couldn't breathe anymore. It was humiliating to cry in front of his father, but still, he couldn't hold back the sobs and cries in his throat, at least not anymore.
"That boy who's kind of dumb... what was his name? Festus Creed?"
His cries grew louder as his father's tone became louder too, each time Sejanus shook his head at one of the names on the seemingly endless list his father continued to provide. His father was losing patience, and when he lost patience, he resorted to anger. And his father's anger was terrifying. It made Sejanus feel like a child again. And it only made him cry louder, shaking the doorknob in despair.
"Ma!" he cried, knowing she must be outside, though he also knew she wasn't happy with Sejanus and might even think the punishment was fair. "Ma!"
"For the mountains' sake, Sejanus!" his father lost patience completely and was now yelling, his voice loud enough to make the walls shake; Sejanus slid down the door to the floor, curling up and hugging himself in an instinctual attempt to protect himself, his body trembling with fear and the force of his crying. "Damn it! There aren't that many options your age in the Capitol! Was it someone older?! Someone you shouldn't have slept with?!"
Sejanus shook his head, scared, terrified, the only sounds coming from his throat being strangled cries. His father paced back and forth, trying to think amidst his fury. It was almost possible to see the gears working inside his head. He must have been running through names one after the other in his mind, trying to think of who it could have been, someone he hadn't mentioned, someone who...
"Snow! The Snow boy! Was it Coriolanus Snow?!"
It was hard to know what had given him away. Maybe it was the way his crying grew louder. Or maybe it was the way his eyes widened. Who knows, it might have been that moment when his eyes met his father's green eyes. And his father let out a disbelieving laugh, as if he couldn't believe it.
"No fucking way, Sejanus. No fucking way! How could you be so stupid?!"
Sejanus couldn't give any answer. He just kept crying in his corner on the floor. He wanted to go back to his room, wanted to snuggle under the covers, wanted... wanted to get out of there. And he wanted Coriolanus to hold him in his arms. His father paused for a moment, placing a hand on his forehead, muttering curse after curse before going back to his desk and picking up the phone, starting to dial something. His father's silence was more disturbing than his furious shouts.
"Who...," he sobbed once more, his voice so choked that he didn't know if it was possible to understand what he was saying, "who are you..."
"Good afternoon," the person on the other end of the line, whoever his father had called, finally answered. "Is Coriolanus Snow there?"
Somehow, Sejanus couldn't help but think that it was better than his father going to Coryo's house and shooting him three times in the head. This relief wasn't enough to stop him from crying.
He had ruined Coriolanus's life.
Coriolanus had always been the kind of person who had gotten good, very good, it should be noted, at hiding his emotions, or at least disguising them for what was necessary at the moment. Even so, not even the strongest of men would have been able to prevent the slight smile that appeared on his face when Tigris knocked on his door and spoke in a small, worried tone, her forehead creased:
“Coryo. I... received a call from Strabo Plinth. He wants you to go to the Plinths' apartment. And he didn't seem very happy.”
It had worked. His plan had worked. How could he disguise his happiness?
Coriolanus put on his best clothes. He rehearsed in the mirror before leaving, perfecting his best expression of sorrow, the way his face would best look regretful and scared by Strabo Plinth's shouts and fury. He didn't pay attention to the looks Tigris was giving him, partly worried, partly confused, partly... something else, something he couldn't quite identify, but that came close to a certain fear. She asked Coriolanus to be careful. And he smiled at her before leaving the apartment.
He arrived at the Plinths' apartment shortly after. He was greeted by an avox who looked him up and down before gesturing for Coriolanus to follow. The moment he set foot inside that apartment, he began to act, his shoulders dropping, his gaze exuding contagious guilt. He passed through the living room, where Mrs. Plinth was sitting, cradling Sejanus in her arms, his eyes swollen from crying so much, and still crying even now. Sejanus' eyes met his for a brief moment, but long enough for Coriolanus to understand what his lips moved to say:
Sorry.
What was he apologizing for?
Sejanus had just given Coriolanus the life he had always deserved.