AN: I was really tired one night but I had to stay up and wait for my aunt to come home so I started writing. I came back to this today and it was actually pretty okay so here it goes. It's a drabble that goes nowhere at all. Have fun?
Freedom (or How Fucked Up They All Were)
It's quiet in the penthouse. The sort of quiet that it's usually blanketed with when the two District 12 tributes die. The sort of quiet that other Victors avoid in fear of the District 12 Victors finally shattering under the pressure of their lives. The sort of quiet that Haymitch drinks away in the dead of the night so that he doesn't feel as helpless as he is.
As soon as thirteen-year-old Rose falls out of a tree and snaps her own damn neck, everyone falls into the usual routine. Effie is up and out the door, probably on her way to be screwed by one of her petite little Capitol pets and then party until she forgets the way those big, blue eyes stared up at her with hope and admiration. Katniss curls up in a corner with two syringes full of morphling, because she knows she can't think about how much Oliver looked like Peeta if she's too high to remember her own name. Peeta vanishes. Peeta always vanishes - he's learned to distance himself from the screwed up shambles that is his team. He liked to destroy himself in private.
And Haymitch? Well, he stretches on the couch with his feet on the coffee table and glass between his fingers, hard bourbon being his little southern comfort. He'd learned to stop finding his solace on top of some sleazy skank or at the needle point of a syringe. He'd learned to stop vanishing to take whatever weapon to his body alone. Who needed all that noise when he could destroy his liver and his conscience at the same time - killing both him and his guilt? Not to mention he got a nice cozy fuzzy feeling without having to burst a vein.
It feels good to feel empty.
By the time Katniss is too delirious to speak actual words and Effie comes stumbling in - too high or drunk to walk herself to her room - Haymitch has a nice buzz. And when Peeta slips in with bandaged wrists and stony expression on his face - guarding himself from his addict wife and his two surrogate asshole parents - his tongue feels like lead under the heavy alcohol.
Bailey's blonde pigtails are swirling behind his eyelids and he pops the seal on the whiskey - he hadn't even noticed he'd run out of bourbon. He feels the warmth of Effie's body beside him - "It's cold in bed." "Yeah, princess, it is." - and the feeling of Katniss' head resting on his thigh. They're asleep for now - safe, for now. In the morning they'll complain about hangovers and he'll make a snarky comment and they'll go back to faking it.
Round and round they'll go like this. It'll happen next time a tribute dies - he's fourteen and he has eight siblings and he's the funniest thing they've ever met - and then again on during the Victory Tour when they host the Victor. It's how things work. It's how things will always work. They'll never break the cycle. They'll never truly be free.
It's quiet in the penthouse. The kind of quiet that forces Haymitch to really think about how fucked up this all was. About how fucked up they all were.