Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, they are Suzanne's properties.
When the doors of the elevator opened she sneaked out and entered in the Penthouse. She walked towards her bedroom and when she opened it, dropping her purse on the floor before skimming the wall for the light switch – she didn't get to it because a broad hand pinned her wrist to the wall, the other one slamming the door shut.
She swallowed a shriek when she was caged against wood with a very hard, very warm body, and immediately recognized who it was. Haymitch.
It did not happen as often now, but ever since they landed a very tenuous agreement over this arrangement that they have, he was always the one who tried to start a fight so they could have sex as an excuse. But it was three years that they had sex even in her apartment at very late and very strange hours. Haymitch's a victor and he, of all his goodness and honesty, cannot lie and tell her she's wrong. But even if he did try, his face would give it away (Something told her it may have something to do with her, but she's pushed that thought away because – rule number one: no fucking feelings. This was what he had said to her the first time it had happened.)
He pressed her against the wall, his hips trapping hers and the hardness of his length pressing to where she ached the most making her shiver with barely restrained want. It's amazing, she noted, how she had just come from the most hellish and boring party ever and was so tired but here he was, out of the blue, knowing just how to turn her on without words. (Something told her it may have something to do with him, but as stated, rule number one.)
He leaned closer, shushed her whimper, and latched his lips on her neck, kissing and biting at her skin. And his urgency made her hot all over, she didn't even register the loss of feeling in her left hand, her eyes closing in surrender, and the way her other hand threaded through his dirty hair, grasping as hard as he bited. He moaned into her skin, and she shivered, heat shooting down her groin. The grunt that came right after is more of pain than lust – and she found it odd.
She didn't say anything because that year had been really awful. She had reaped two children who were thirteen and their death had been horrible.
He kissed up her neck until he reached her ear, breath hot and ragged. "Are you tired, princess?" he nipped at her earlobe, and it was all she could not to shut him up with another kiss. "We can always continue some other time," he teased, his voice low and rough and hot.
"No," she replied and her eyes fly open, met his in the dark. She knew it was too dark to see, but she made out the mischievous glint in his eyes, knew that even if she had not spoken, he'd figure out how much she wanted (needed) this by the way her body responded to his ministrations.
He kept her gaze, but then his hand was slowly snaking down her skirt, lifting it with practiced precision, and her eyes rolled back into her skull. His fingers were skimming just shy of dipping down into her underwear, so she bucked her hips to let him know that he was being a goddamned tease.
His chuckle was dark against her skin, reverberated into her chest, making her heart jumped at the cadence – and a bit of fondness, because his laugh was so rare that she longed to hear it more often than she'd like to admit.
"So eager, are we?" he laughed again, and okay, she's had enough – she pushed at his chest, her strength catching him off guard and making him stumble back a bit. His grip around her wrist disappeared, so she took that opportunity to turn on the lights – only to stand aghast when she found out the reason why he had stopped her in the first place.
He was standing a feet away from her, lips parted and eyes dark and wide, but those were not what caught her attention. There was a dangerously long cut on his cheek, and a short but profusely bleeding one above his left eyebrow. He had a bruised cheekbone and a cut lower lip – and...
"Oh my," she gasped, voiced her sentiment. "Haymitch, what happened to you?"
His mouth twitched in irritation, but his gaze raised right into hers. "Nothing– it happened. There are only scratches," he replied, hard tone in his voice telling her something was up that he was not telling her. (But that's against rule number two which was: small talk, no personal one.)
She walked towards him, and he dropped his stare back to the floor. Her hand took his and leaded him to the couch without a word, because as much as her curiosity wanted to know what happened, her instincts wee telling her that a laceration that long is going to be infected one way or another and she was just really not into having sex with injured guys and all that. (It was not concern. If it was concern, then it was breaking all the rules of the arrangement and they could not have that.)
He followed her silently as well, and she was grateful, because if there was a more irritating Haymitch other than being his teasing self, well, it was his stubborn self. However, the lack of fight also worried her because he was not easy to coax into anything other than sex. But when he plopped down on the sofa with a faraway look on his face, her heart plummeted down to her stomach.
She busied herself with retrieving the first aid kit in her bathroom.
When she returned, he had shucked his jacket off and she was surprised to see that his "white" shirt was bloody as well. She immediately sat herself next to him, placing the kit between their thighs. He snapped out of his daze and trained a different look on her – making her gut clench in queasiness.
"Either you tell me what happened or let the silence eat you," she murmured as she prepped the needle and thread and doused them and her hands with alcohol.
He huffed and faced ahead, either to make her stitching him up easier or to avoid her eyes. But he spoke nonetheless. Two words, and her heart seized in her chest. "Joyce's dead."
Even though She was aware of it, because she had seen his death, she didn't know what to say. She knew that Haymitch had already knew that boy. He had been the brother of the tribute who had been in the same year of the games as Haymitch.
She let him finish his speaking. "I was at the bar with Chaff when I heard two Capitols making fun of our tributes and one of them had said that the boy had been a coward. I punched him in the face. And they fought back."
Before she could argued he cut her. "Nobody saw it, Finnick promised something to the bartender and then I left the bar alone." He was a little drunk too. She could say it by the tone of his voice.
She swallowed the hard lump in her throat and continued her stitching. His mouth twitched in pain a couple of times but he never spoke until she finished, until she had turning his head to look at the cut above his eyebrow this time. It got her closer to his face, and his eyes dropped to her lips almost immediately.
She ignored the shudder that had ran down her spine and instead focused on the task at hand. "When I came over, I never intended for you to stitch me up," he said, as if telling a secret.
"Then why didn't you get yourself treated at the hospital?" she asked, busy with the bandage she was trying to find under the gauzes. Her other hand was rummaging inside the kit, the other one was holding onto his cheek, just in case he decided to be stubborn again and turn away.
"I told you, I ran – I needed to… I needed to see... to come back here," he admitted, then her hand froze as she raised her eyes to meet his. She did not expect the softness in his gaze, and it hit her like a fucking truck in the gut. This look, she had already seen it before, it wasn't the first time, she just… she just never dwelled on it before because – rule number – oh...
She was afraid of what it clearly said. He always had a way with his words, trying to say something but meaning something else, always careful with the bug. They could hear something that could put them in danger. So she knew what he had meant with that phrase- I needed to see you. Or at least she hoped so.
She felt like her heart was about to burst.
"Haymitch," she breathed, unsure what to say.
"I'm tired," he started. "I don't want to do this anymore, Eff. But I still… I still want to. I still need it. And that's the biggest fucking problem here," he took a deep painful breath and his face crumbled. His hand came up to grasp the one she had on his face and held it there. "I am so fucking addicted – and I need us to stop because if we don't… if we don't, then I can't stop – I can't make myself stop. And I'm – I'm sorry."
She pressed her lips together, held his gaze for another beat, and then continued to rummage into her kit. (She had to extricate her hand from his grip, and his hand dropped down to grip his thigh. Her heart clenched.) She should have stopped him from talking, he was still drunk. Now he had to make sure that he was going to be okay. She found the damned band aid and plastered it onto the cuts on his skin. She checked for more injuries, finds that his knuckles are bruised and bloodied but not broken so she just applies the antiseptic before putting everything back to where they were.
Then – then she looked up at him with fire in her eyes. He's still waiting for her answer, that helpless look in his eyes making her reach out to him and dragged him down to kiss him hard. Her lips bruised against his, teeth clacking, before they found their rhythm – the one that has always been theirs from the beginning. His hands came up to her cheeks, his touch gentle despite the urgency of their mouths.
And then she's swinging her legs up and straddling him, and his arms were going around her waist to press her against him fully. He pulled away and immediately latched onto her neck as soon as she's got her hands in his hair once again. This time, she grasped hard enough to pull him away from her skin – just holding him there in her embrace, her lips kissing his forehead with an affection she didn't give him ... until now.
He started to talk again but she cut him. "Stop, you are drunk and I won't take advances of that. And...You don't have to," she whispered against his skin, her fingers soothing and running through his curls. "Stop, I mean. You don't have to stop. I'll be… I'll be okay with that."
She felt the hitch in his breath against her skin, and then his arms were tightening around her like a vice. She didn't mind, couldn't find it in herself to do so.
They stood like that for far longer, just in soaking in each other's embrace. He kept kissing her, feather light and soft, and she kept combing his hair with her fingers. She knew that she was making mistakes. This drunk Haymitch was on bear mood and she just shouldn't do what she was doing. She knew that her would be the heart that will be break one day.
They didn't have sex that night – a first. That night's crossing a lot of firsts, apparently. He stayed over at her bedroom, held her against him until the morning. While she wrapped him in her arms until dawn. And then they slept. She won't tell him the truth the morning after,why creating more problems by saying him that the previous night they had slept together without doing it? She will find an excuse, she was very good at lying, especially at herself.
That night changed everything, and she was terrified. But she was also okay and happy with it.
Hi I'm back with my (not so great) Hayffie os. This is an AU where the two of them are friends with benefits, even if we know that that is head canon ahah.
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P.s This fic is dedicated to Indra (thgfandomsz on Tumblr) because she had helped me when I had felt alone and she made me smile.