Effie Trinket doesn't remember when she and Haymitch first began sleeping together.
Well, that's an outright lie; of course she remembers. It was the year of the city arena, the year both tributes from District 12 died within the first ten minutes of the Games.
It was only Effie's third year as escort for District 12, and it was the year she lost hope entirely. Each year, the children seemed younger and less capable, and it made Effie sadder and sadder. Effie used to love the Hunger Games, the rising rush of music, the theatricality of it all.
Until that poor boy (only thirteen!) got his head literally ripped off by that big brute from District 2. After that, every year Effie noticed her voice becoming more brittle, her smile shinier as if polished onto a thin veneer that would soon crack.
The year of the city arena, ten minutes after the gong, Effie felt herself crack for the first time. Haymitch sighed beside her, rubbed his eyes and took another swig from his flask. It had been seventeen years since he'd won his Games, and Effie saw in that moment that Haymitch had cracked a long time ago. Now, he was crumbling.
She reached her hand over, not quite sure what she was doing, and gave his a squeeze. He gave her a look of barely concealed disgust. She shot him one right back, then whipped his flask out of his pocket and drained the rest in one gulp, which stung quite a lot, but which Effie considered to be worth it.
Especially since then Haymitch's look turned surprised, and there was something akin to grudging admiration in his eyes. "I can't watch this any longer," he said. "You wanna get out of here?"
Everyone saw them leaving the room where sponsors and escorts traditionally gathered to watch the opening hours of the Games. Effie heard the whispering, but by then everything was already starting to get hazy.
It became something of a game of its own, after that. Who would give in first, who would reach their hand under the table or move across the room first. Effie usually lost, but only because she thought it was ridiculous to waste time hating every word the other said when they could be reveling in each other's touches instead.
Because there was no doubt about it: Effie did not like Haymitch, not one bit, or respect him either, and she knew he felt the same way about her. There was nothing to like in a man who drank his days and his nights away both, who bullied the poor children all the way till he sent them off to their deaths. It was hard for him, she knew that, but it was hard for her too, and you didn't see Effie Trinket being anything but kind, trying to spread a bit of happiness around in any way she could scrape it together.
But there was something about Haymitch, in the way he looked at her and the way he turned his head. The way he clasped his arms together and pressed his lips tight and didn't budge one way or the other on anything at all. It was that, and it was the memory of his fingers rubbing his eyes, the way she had looked at him years ago and seen the careful construction holding together a crumbling man that made Effie reach out her hand and stride down marble hallways and not be one bit sorry for it.
His hands are gentle on her, and Effie can't find it in her to mind when his stubble scratches half her makeup off and he laughs and tosses his shirt at her and tells her to use it to wipe the rest off too, she looks ridiculous.
His mouth is softer than it looks.
The year of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, it takes Effie a while to realize that the rules have changed. At first, Haymitch is the same as ever, too drunk on the way to the Capitol to do anything more than insult her or leer at her. But as the week of training continues, his back seems to straighten, his eyes get brighter, and the stench of alcohol slowly begins to waft away.
Effie notices other differences too: These tributes are not the frightened deer and mice children she's come to expect. These children are strong and their jaws are set. They stand toe-to-toe with Haymitch instead of scurrying before him.
And horribly, horribly, Effie wishes they didn't. Wishes they weren't. She's gotten used to being the only one to stand up to Haymitch Abernathy, even if the way she has of standing is mostly by lying down. She is used to being the only one to see the way Haymitch destroys himself every day and a little more each year. She is used to thinking that she may not be able to do anything to really help him, but at least she does this much. At least she sees.
Awfully, Effie is jealous that a girl with a braid and a dirty face can do more than she can, can make Haymitch's shoulders straighten and his grin creak up until Effie is terribly afraid that he won't need her at all anymore, and if he doesn't need her, he certainly won't want her.
She is startled by these thoughts, by the stunning shock of realization that maybe she cares more for this disgusting man than she's ever let herself admit. Effie Trinket would never stoop so low as to feel affection, to feel anything more, for such a man as that. But she knows she already has, and she looks at the man Haymitch is becoming—perhaps the man he was all along underneath the drink and the sadness—and she thinks it is perhaps not so low after all.
In the face of this, her jealousy begins to fade. It is difficult to hold grudges against the boy and the girl who wear such brave faces in the face of death, who make Haymitch nod and smile and who she fancies even look at her as though they are coming to understand. Effie wants to crush them to her and never let them go.
On the night of the interviews, Haymitch tells Katniss, "Nice dress," then turns to Effie and says, "Not yours." Still, after that he slaps her behind under all the tulle, and she hopes the children can't see her blushing through her rouge because for once he reached out first.
And at dinner, she says, "Haymitch, you should join us." Effie knows she's a little drunk. She always gets that way the night before, when it all finally comes rolling up and it's all too much. Especially this year. Especially these two. And she thinks that for the first time, she might need Haymitch even more than he needs her.
Perhaps he understands this, because Haymitch shakes his head, but then cocks it in a way that tells Effie she'll be finding him in her bedroom later.
She is not disappointed. As he moves within her, Effie closes her eyes and sees the man he could be if not for the Hunger Games, a man solidly filled in with no erosion of his insides. She sees the woman she could be with him, and this is the year that Effie Trinket begins to hate the Hunger Games and the Capitol and the world she's painted onto her face with an unutterable passion she didn't know she had.
Afterwards, Haymitch rolls off her, lies on his back in her bed and turns his eyes to her face. He moves a thumb whisper-soft across her cheek and says, in his usual rumbling twang but with an undercurrent Effie has never heard in it before: "Don't you worry. I think we've got a winner this year."
And Effie realizes then that love isn't anything like the stories say, isn't flowers and romance and finally knowing for sure. It is just this, just a voice in the dark hoping just like you are.