Author's Note: My second Hayffie fic. Each chapter will be based around a verse or two from "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum, because I heard this song on the radio a day or two ago and it made me think of Haymitch. I don't know how often I'm going to be able to add to this because I'm a student and another semester is coming up soon, plus I work, but I'll do my best not to let it just sit around for months without an update. Don't you hate it when fanfic writers do that?

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games trilogy or the characters contained therein, and most of this (pretty much all, actually, especially when it comes to Effie) is definitely not canon. I also don't own the lyrics to "Runaway Train."

Call you up in the middle of the night

Like a firefly without a light.

You were there like a blowtorch burning;

I was a key that could use a little turning.

So tired that I couldn't even sleep.

So many secrets I couldn't keep.

Promised myself I wouldn't weep.

One more promise I couldn't keep.

72nd Annual Hunger Games

Haymitch Abernathy, she thinks to herself, removing the final pin from her aqua wig and then pulling the hairpiece from her head. Normally she takes care in setting her wig back on its mannequin and rearranging it so that it will be ready for wear the following day. Tonight she simply tosses it across the room, unconsciously aiming for the bed and clenching her teeth in anger when she misses and her "hair" flops to the floor, looking like an exceptionally colorful dead poodle. Tonight she is angry and it's entirely his fault.

"What an asshole," Effie says, taking satisfaction in using language that she would never employ outside the privacy of her own quarters, though sometimes she fantasizes about it. Sometimes she pictures herself waltzing gracefully up to President Snow and telling him exactly what she thinks of him in a plethora of colorful expressions that would make even Haymitch blush. The vision satisfies her, and she hopes it can get her through her annual duty of bouncing around the penthouse suite of the Training Center, smiling and offering bonbons to children who will be dead probably within the next week.

She knows, however, that she never would spew any such vileness at the leader of Panem, never could. Her maternal grandfather had been a Capitol official, albeit a low-ranking one. He had sometimes played golf with President Snow, and her family had always been in the President's good graces. They came from Good Stock, and had a Reputation to uphold. Effie had been reminded of all of this practically since she had emerged from the womb, and she had distrusted the President almost as long. He had scared her when she was a child, and, surprisingly, as she had grown up and left the silly boogeymen of childhood behind, that feeling had not gone away. Even through a television screen, the man could send a chill right up her spine.

Still, he had gotten her job for her, or rather, her family's association with him had, and part of the job description was to be pleasant to Snow and flatter him on the few occasions when their paths crossed directly. To do otherwise would have her perceived as more indecent and uncouth than Haymitch Abernathy.

Haymitch. Effie's eyes narrow as she looks at herself in the mirror. With all of her makeup still clinging to her face and her golden hair flying wildly around her head, she almost looks threatening, in the way that a doll's painted face looks menacing when a shadow obscures its meticulous features.

In the three years that they had worked together, she had never tried to be anything but nice to Haymitch. He had repulsed her from the moment she had first seen him stagger drunkenly aboard the Capitol train en route to the Reaping in District 12. In their time as colleagues, if that indeed was the proper label for their relation to one another, he had done nothing but to be difficult, rude, and occasionally even vindictive toward her. Even when they managed to work together as a unit—in the final few days before the start of the Games, when they both shared the single common goal of getting their Tributes as ready for the arena as they'd ever be—relations between Effie and Haymitch were strained at best.

Still, Effie kept on trying, because that was her nature. She had been taught by her mother always to be pleasant to everyone, no matter how much a person deserved a firm slap across the face. The string of emotionally abusive or emotionally unavailable men that she had dated since she'd come of age had only confirmed for Effie that it was her duty, when dealing with anyone, and especially with a man, to be constantly, and even insufferably, nice and to keep the conversation going, even when the person whom she was trying to reach turned out to be a brick wall.

She had hit that brick wall again tonight, after the dinner traditionally shared by the Mentors and Escorts prior to being dispatched to the Districts for the Reapings. One of the other Escorts with whom they were dining had announced casually that in a few years, they'd be coming up on another Quarter Quell. Effie had glanced at Haymitch, knowing that his Games had been a Quarter Quell but not daring to mention it. Unfortunately, the Escort of District 1 had even less tact than she did, and had brought it up, and dinner had been nothing but questions flying back and forth at Haymitch while he refused to give anything other than curt, one-word answers.

After dinner, they had ridden the elevator back to the Penthouse together, and she had said something about how rude it had been for District 1's Escort to start the questioning when anyone could have seen that Haymitch wasn't in the mood to speak on the subject. He had flown completely off the handle, yelling about how stupid her concern with manners was, how stupid her clothes, hair, and voice were, how much he hated the Capitol and, by extension, her. He had stalked off to his bedroom when they got off the elevator, picking up a glass fruit bowl and shattering it against a far wall as he went, and Effie had walked slowly to her own room while battling tears.

"Asshole," she says again, more loudly this time, hoping that her voice will travel through the stagnant air of the Penthouse and that he'll hear her. Though maybe, just maybe, it isn't his fault. She grabs a makeup-removing wet wipe and thinks as she swipes it across her face, watching the ghastly white disappear to reveal creamy pale cheeks tinged with a hint of natural rose. Everyone knows that Haymitch hates to talk about his Games, and that it's a taboo subject with him. District 1's Escort was obviously trying to bait him, and it worked. She had simply been caught in the crossfire, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Still, Effie thinks as she moves to her bed, turns off her lamp and climbs between the sheets of the bed in which, most of the time, she feels too damn guilty to sleep, he could show a little better manners.

She hears breaking glass in her dreams, until she opens her eyes and finds that she is not in a delusion but in her bedroom, and that the noise of breaking glass is, in fact, the ringing of the phone on her bedside table. She rolls over and grabs it, answering groggily, almost without thinking. The voice on the other end of the line is slurred and speaking a little too loudly.

"Princess," it practically yells in her ear, "Effie!" Even through the haze of sleep, all she feels is annoyance.

"What do you want, Haymitch?" she asks.

"Come outside," he demands, "To the garden where I found you that one time. Bring your smokes."

Effie rolls her eyes. "You're drunk, Haymitch," she says.

"I'm always drunk, sweetheart. Come out to the garden." There's a click on the other end of the line. He's hung up and now she hears him emerging from his bedroom, moving across the living room and boarding the elevator. He's certain she'll follow and she curses him for being right. She tears herself away from the bed, pulls on a bathrobe long enough to cover her decently, and removes an elegant leather pouch from a drawer of her bedside table.

When she emerges into the garden, she is lighting a cigarette. If Effie Trinket could be said to have a vice, that vice would be smoking. She knows it's an unattractive habit, but it's one that she picked up in her school days, when she was still a little girl but thought she was a woman, and had thought herself so cool and defiant and rebellious. These days, it calms her down. It's a comfort that she especially needs each year when the Games come around.

She hates that Haymitch knows about this habit. He snuck up on her one evening during the previous year's games and caught her in the act. Because Effie had had a lit cigarette dangling from her lower lip when he found her, she hadn't exactly been in a position to deny what she had been doing. He still mimics the face she made when she was discovered and playfully threatens to tell people about her little habit. They both know that there's no one he could tell who would really care; smoking is not uncommon in the Capitol. Still, for some reason, Effie does not want people to know, and she despises the fact that Haymitch has blackmail material on her.

He sees the flare of fire as she lights the cigarette and then he stares appreciatively as she comes through the shrubbery toward him. She's wearing a satin-y robe and some delicate little slippers and not much else, certainly not one of those lace-and-wire traps in which Capitol women imprison their surgically-enhanced breasts. Effie's are obviously free beneath her robe and, from the way they move under the fabric and the fact that her nipples are peaked even though the night air is warm and balmy, they seem to Haymitch to be real. Not that he's any kind of connoisseur. He's a good deal less randy than he allows everyone to believe. His sexual encounters with women are pretty infrequent, and usually they're devoid of any touching beyond what is essential for the act, since he abhors physical contact as a general rule, though at the moment he can't help but think he might make an exception for Effie.

Sexy, he thinks as she moves toward him, Not only sexy but beautiful. And I hurt her…

Contrary to popular belief, Haymitch Abernathy does possess a conscience, and right now, it's nagging him and he can't shut it up no matter how much he drinks, because he knows that the way he acted earlier was inappropriate. He shouldn't have yelled at Effie. Yes, he had been angry. The discussion of his Games at dinner had brought a storm of painful memories and, since breaking down and sobbing like a child in public wasn't exactly his deal, the only other appropriate response had been rage.

It was unfair that Effie had been the one to receive the force of his anger. She was not the one that Haymitch hated. He disliked her clothes and her wigs and makeup, was annoyed by her airs and how uptight she was about manners, but he recognized also that she couldn't help most of that any more than he could help being a coal miner's kid from the Seam. It was simply how she had been brought up, the fabric of her Capitol mask.

Effie herself, especially as she stood before him now, barefaced, with her hair flying about her in the wind and a cigarette between her fingers, was actually a decent person, and he had to admit he had kind of grown to like her. She just sometimes made it hard for him to separate her from the Capitol, the real target of his hatred, and, consequently, whenever that hatred turned to anger, she was the logical scapegoat.

"Are you aware of what time of night it is?" Effie asks, taking a drag. The blaze of her blue eyes above the cigarette reminds Haymitch that he has not been forgiven for his earlier conduct.

"Sorry," Haymitch says, surprising her with the meekness of his voice, "That is, I…I wanted…umm…wanted to say I'm sorry. For earlier."

Effie finishes the cigarette and tosses the butt. "You really are drunk," she says. Indeed, his words are slurred and she can smell the whiskey fumes though she's several feet away from him.

"No," he says, "I mean, yeah. Yes. Obviously. Doesn't mean I'm any less sorry."

"Yes, okay, Haymitch; apology accepted. Now, if you'll excuse me, you quite rudely interrupted my sleep and—"

"Don't go!" Haymitch says. Effie closes her mouth, then opens it again, almost disbelieving what she's heard. It seems as though there's just the slightest hint of pleading in his request. Effie immediately drops the ice princess act and advances a few steps toward him.

"Are you all right, Haymitch?" she asks. Haymitch simply drops down onto a stone bench and pats the space beside him, which Effie reluctantly claims, sitting on the edge of the bench because she still isn't sure she wants to be close to him and, besides, he does reek of liquor.

"I just don't feel like being alone right now," he says.

"That's a change. Usually the only words you ever manage to say to me are 'Leave me alone,' or some other crude variation," Effie replies.

"I'm serious, Effie." Now his voice is definitely pleading, and she takes note of his use of her real name. She's not Princess to him anymore, at least not now, though she's sure that'll change once he sobers up and remembers how much he dislikes her. She nods.

"We can stay out here, then," she says, "As long as you want. Would you like a cigarette?"

He accepts one, and after he lights it and takes a drag, he turns to her and asks, "So, want to know why I went berserk after my Games got mentioned at dinner?"

This takes Effie aback, and she isn't sure what to say. She had been only six years old when she watched the live broadcast of the second Quarter Quell, but even then Haymitch Abernathy had been her favorite Tribute. She can't deny her curiosity to hear his version of the events, but at the same time, she really isn't sure that she wants to know.

What she wants, however, soon proves to be irrelevant, as Haymitch begins rambling around the cigarette, starting with how he had almost wet himself in fear when his name was picked from the Reaping bowl and continuing right on through until he's recounting the death of the only girl he ever loved, his gray-eyed girl from the Seam, whom he was supposed to marry and who could have made his life so different, so much better than it was now, if only she had been allowed to live. Tears begin to fall from his eyes as he recounts it all, and he makes no move to check them or wipe them away. Effie pulls a crumpled handkerchief from a pocket of her robe and gingerly leans forward to dab at his wet cheeks, thoroughly surprised when he allows her to.

"Why have you told me all of this, Haymitch?" she asks when he finishes, "Why me, of all people?"

He shrugs. "Don't know," he replies, "I guess it's because you're the closest thing I have to a—" All of a sudden, his skin grows unnaturally pale, and he moves away from her. He had been about to say "friend," but the vomit had risen in his throat, choking his words as it spilled onto the pavement.

Effie stands quickly, backing away from him. Even his vomit smells strongly of alcohol, and, because he's so thoroughly pissed, his aim is off and it goes everywhere, staining his cheeks and his shirt.

"There it is," Effie thinks as he retches, "One nice moment in which Haymitch Abernathy seems human, and then his drinking ruins everything once again." Still, when he finishes, she comes forward to collect him, taking his hand in hers and fighting her revulsion to lead him inside. He allows her to pull him to the elevators and then through their shared living room to his bathroom, where she strips him of his stained shirt and proceeds to clean his face. She gets him to rinse his mouth out with water before leading him into his room and putting him to bed.

"Effie?" he says, his voice slurred with drink or fatigue or both.

"Yes?"

"It feels good."

"What does? Emptying your stomach all over the flagstone?"

"No…having someone to talk to. Not having to keep it all locked up like some big, dark secret."

"All right, Haymitch. Go to sleep now," Effie says, switching off his lamp and leaving him.

She is confused as she slides into her own bed. Certainly she has been shaken by Haymitch's tale. Hearing a first-hand account of what it's like to participate in the Games has unnerved her and she's not sure what to do with the horror she feels, but, even more than that, she's uncertain, now, about where she and Haymitch stand. She definitely understands him better, but will that change anything between them?

Effie pulls the covers up to her chin, realizing that the answer to that is probably a resounding "no." Tomorrow, she is sure, hung-over Haymitch will go back to treating her as he always has, and probably won't even remember how he poured his heart and soul out to her the previous night. But, hopefully, the fact that she now has a context in which to put Haymitch's gruffness and disdain for all things Capitol will help her to keep their working relationship as pleasant as it can possibly be.

Effie hopes, too, that knowing Haymitch's story might help her to better connect with the Tributes that she will be sent to District 12 tomorrow to Reap, and to figure out if anything can be done, on her end, to keep those children from dying in the Arena.