here's to drinks in the dark
I shouldn't be doing this. The thought crosses Effie's mind slowly, starting somewhere deep inside her brain and then rising to the surface. She ignores it, because she's a little drunk, and she can still see the boy tribute from District 4 standing over her boy tribute, Briar. When the cannon signaled for the Games to begin, Briar stood frozen while the others raced around him. Effie screamed at him to get up, to run, but Briar couldn't hear her, and sat shaking on the spot. Maybe he didn't even see the boy coming for him. Maybe he didn't feel the hatchet as it sliced into his neck.
She shivers as Haymitch kisses a path down her neck, and she closes her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids splatters red, like the spray of blood from Briar's throat, and she has to open her eyes. She gasps like someone has cut her own throat, scrambling for her drink, and downing it desperately.
Effie usually never drinks, because losing control of oneself is not ladylike. Her mother would be disappointed in her. So she has, at most, a single glass of wine at dinner, until the Games. They are always her exception.
The burn in her throat doesn't stop the images in her head. Her girl tribute, Acacia, had sensibly fled the bloodbath. For two days, Effie watched as she struggled to find food and water. All it got her was a muttation: a snake with three heads. Acacia killed one with the sharpened stick she had made, managing to cut it so the head hung limp from the others. From the sinews still connecting it, two more grew in its place. The camera lingered on her body as the snake constricted around it and opened its multiple mouths around her.
Haymitch moves away from her, fixing another drink for the both of them. Effie can still hear the crunch of bone, echoing in her ears when he drops a couple of ice cubes into the glass.
Effie usually doesn't drink, but once her tributes are dead and her job is over with, she has a drink. She has several drinks. She drinks until she can't remember their faces. Once she tried to drink until she forgot their names, but those always stay with her, written on little slips of paper in her mind.
Once upon a time, she thought that the Games were so glamorous. It was such an honor to be an escort. She was so excited her first Games, even if she was just the escort for District 12. She almost can't believe that was only a mere five years ago.
The first time her tributes died, right in the bloodbath, the very first day of the games, she sat there staring at the screen. Then she started to cry in the most unseemly matter, big blubbering sobs that she couldn't stop.
Haymitch didn't do anything at first, assuming it would end. Instead, she cried for so long that she ended up hiccupping, quick little gasps that hitched in her throat and made her entire body shake. "Really?" he said, shaking his head. "Really, Effie?"
But she didn't stop, until he forced a highball glass into her hands and ordered her to drink. The liquid burned when it went down, but at least the burning took her mind off the Games.
So she allows herself this one night, when both of her tributes are gone and all her hopes are dashed. She accepts whatever Haymitch hands her, and drinks it down so easily she can hear her mother's horrified gasps.
Haymitch hands her glass back to her, and she accepts it with grateful fingers. "You know," he drawls, "if you keep this up, you're going to turn into me."
"That's why I'm putting in another transfer out of this damn District," she scowls, the curse falling from her lips as if she said it every day. She doesn't, of course, except for these moments. Another part of her mother's soul dies.
"Yeah, I'm sure they'll listen, just like they always do." He chuckles at her, looks at her over the rim of his glass with a wry smile.
She glares at him, sipping at her drink. The taste is becoming unbearable. She never was one for alcohol, and even now, she can only take so much of it. So she sets the glass down on the floating glass table.
"You are beginning to talk too much," she says, grabbing him by his shirtfront and pulling him on top of her.
She shouldn't be doing this, but she still can't get Briar's face out of her head. Her mother would be revolted by her, but her mother doesn't know what it's like to be an escort, either. So instead of doing the intelligent thing and pulling away, Effie relaxes into the plush fabric of the couch and tries to focus only on the buzz of alcohol in her brain and the warmth of Haymitch's mouth on hers.