A/N; This is something that's been sitting in my head for a while, so I thought I should just get it out there.

Haymitch

Cupboard. Liquor. Glass. Drink. Repeat until insane.

I'd welcome insanity. It's what keeps Odair's girl going. Fade out and never have to see the world the way it really is. It would be blissful ignorance.

But no. My brain is all too functional.

So instead of fading out, I tune out.

Refill. Drink. Refill. Drink.

When my vision starts to multiply and blur around the edges, I know I'm on the right track. It hasn't gone far enough yet, though, because when the lights go out and I close my eyes, I can still hear her screaming.

"Haymitch! Haymitch, help me!"

I'm coming, Maysilee, I think to myself. But I don't go. I never go, because that's what I do. I watch people die. I feel the blood on my hands, as real and as horrifying as it was in the arena.

Death follows me everywhere. I wear it like a shroud. Death and blood and blood and death. Torture. Maim. Kill. That's how it used to be. Then I won the games. Now, it's even worse. Look. Listen. Live.

Live on while you watch kids die right in front of you, Haymitch. There's nothing you can do to stop it. Sleep with a knife under your pillow, because that'll protect you from the Capitol's influence.

Yeah, right.

Maysilee. My parents. My brother. My sisters. My girl. Is it even possible to have that much blood on my hands? I've had blood on my hands since I was sixteen, and no matter how much I scrub, it just doesn't come off. Each passing year just adds another layer.

Drink. Refill. Drink.

They laugh at me in the streets of Twelve. They roll their eyes and call me a drunk, a waste of space, a novelty act. But they don't know, they can't know, and nobody ever does know.

Because nobody else comes back alive.

I fail them all.

I lie awake at night, breathing in the putrid stench of white liquor fumes. The smell that oozes from my every pore. The smell of failure, and death, and the sweet escape that will never, ever come. I lie there, unmoving, and I wait for the nightmares to start.

I let my eyes close, just once when I'm tired.

And I'm in the arena.

Only, this time, I don't fail. I run to Maysilee, and save her just in time. I get her out of there. I kill that girl with my bare hands, not a force field of the Capitol's devising.

Then, I die, and Maysilee wins. She goes back to District Twelve with riches and a family intact. My family weep for me, and move on. My brother goes to work in the mines. My sisters grow up. My girl gets married to some kind, faceless stranger.

And for me, there's nothing but beautiful oblivion.

When I wake up, it hurts all over again. Because I'm not pushing daisies, I'm here, and I'm alone.

Because they're dead. They're all dead. Why did I survive? I'm not stronger.

Then I decide that this must be my punishment. For killing so many. I must live with the guilt, the agony and the torment. I am forced to wander the earth forever in a cloud of liquor fumes, haunted by the ghosts of my past as they blame me, over and over, for not being good enough to save them.

I'm stalked by the death I caused, but to let me die is too great a mercy.

So I bear my punishment the only way I know how.

Cupboard. Liquor. Glass. Drink. Refill.

Repeat until insane.