Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Boo.
Chapter 1
The vase hit the wall behind Haymitch, who ducked just in the nick of time and crashed into a thousand pieces.
When he looked up, he was staring straight at the silver blade of a butter knife which Effie was waving around, pointed threateningly in his direction. The panic was evident in his dark grey eyes.
"No, you put that down, Effie. That's serious; you can hurt someone with that!"
"You promised!" she screeched, her eyes wild. He could see the tears swimming in her eyes; he reached out for her, to get the knife away from her.
"Eff, please. Please, sweetheart. Give me that knife, come on, hand it over," he pleaded gently, trying to placate her growing anger. "We'll talk about this, whatever it is you're mad about, like adults, okay?"
"You don't even know why I'm angry!" she exclaimed. "We'll talk about it like adults, when you learn to behave like one, you filthy sloth!" And with that, she threw the knife at him.
He raised his arm instinctively to protect his face and the knife grazed his forearm before falling to the floor, clanking loudly. He hissed in pain and twisted his arm to get a better look. There was an angry red welt across his forearm; the cut wasn't deep enough to draw blood.
"Okay, that's it! You're insane" he screamed and advanced towards her. His bloodshot eyes were livid with fury. He grabbed her upper arms and dragged her out to the living room. He threw her roughly on the sofa and sat on top of her, trapping her, his legs on either side of her petite body.
She was screaming for all she was worth at him, calling him such colourful names that it would make a sailor blush, so unlike the prim and proper Effie Trinket that everyone knew. Her hands were curled in a fist as it beat angrily against Haymitch's chest. Her legs were flailing uselessly on the sofa, trying to free herself.
His hand slapped hers away and when she didn't stop, he grabbed both her wrists and pinned it to her chest in a tight grip.
"Stop hitting me, you mad woman. What's gotten into you?" he demanded as he shook her roughly, angrily.
He saw her going limp, the fight having clearly left her. "You're drinking again," she whispered softly.
His eyes locked onto hers and he saw the hurt reflecting in them. A lone tear trickled down her cheeks and he hung his head in shame.
Slowly, he got off her. Sitting at the end of the sofa, furthest from Effie who was slowly sitting up, he looked on the floor with his elbow on his knees.
"Where'd you find them? My bottles," he asked, defeated.
"It's not important, is it? What's important is that I've found them and, I want to know why," Effie retorted, gazing out into the distance. The sun was slowly setting; the sky tinted orange, creating a warm soft glow in Haymitch's house at Victors Village.
He felt none of the warmth. His insides felt cold, as an unpleasant feeling began to creep and clench at his heart. What to answer her?
He could feel her growing restless as the silent stretched. Any second now, he mentally counted down to the moment where she will lose her fiery temper.
"I'm talking to you, Haymitch! You don't even have the manners to look at me while I'm talking to you."
"Shut up, Eff. Shut up with your fucking manners." He could feel her staring at him, her eyes boring holes into his head. "Thought the Capitol would have tortured the manners out of you. Should have left you there a little longer," he sneered.
Just as those words left his mouth, he wished he could take it back.
His cheek was ringing in pain as Effie placed a well-deserved slap on his cheeks. "I don't even know why I bothered." She was on her feet standing in front of him.
When he finally looked up, he saw her back retreating, hurriedly going up the stairs, presumably to their room. He let her, he couldn't face her. Not then, not yet.
He knew he had stepped out of line. They had never mentioned her imprisonment or her torture. He has never asked her what was done to her and she never told him. The war was over, what was the point of asking about her imprisonment. He just wanted… he wanted to live in peace. But he could guessed what she went through because sometimes, long after she had gone to sleep, his fingers will softly trail the scars criss-crossing on her bare back.
He had never been in a serious relationship before but with Effie, he was willing to try. Thinking back, they spent more time arguing compared to other people whom he knew were in a relationship. Well, not many then, there's only Katniss and Peeta, then there were his parents, he mused.
Effie Trinket was an enigma to him. The makeup, the Capitol clothing was a façade. Beneath it was a woman he was certain he loved and every time he was convinced that he finally knew all there was to know about her, she'd do something that would catch him off guard. Like throwing that knife; who would have thought she'd aim for his head, and a perfect shot too, if his fast Victor reflexes hadn't kick in.
Every time they argued, and every time she got mad, he would walk up to her and he'd talk fast. He's good at it, talking himself out of trouble. She'd forgive him and they'd make up. But this time; that jibe he made about her time in prison and being at the tender mercies of President Snow and his Peacekeepers, he wasn't sure if she would find it within herself to forgive him and his overly glib tongue.
She did things that made him mad, too. Like her obsession with schedules and manners. The woman clearly never lived in the moment. He hated her schedule even if it got them, the entire District 12 team where they needed to be and on time. He hated her telling him where to be, when to do things and she even tried to replace his entire wardrobe once, that one year during the 70th Hunger Games. It drove him mad. Granted, he looked presentable and as Effie put it, "dashing", but it wasn't him. It made him feel like one of those ridiculous Capitol men that he so despised.
He'd refuse to talk to her, give her the silent treatment and yet, she'd crawl into his bed at night, wrapped his arm around him, with his back to her. She'd kiss his bare shoulder, up to his ear lobe, whisper those damn words "I'm sorry, Haymitch," and he'd forgive her. He'd remain still and pretend he was asleep, but when they woke up the next morning, he would pretend that nothing happened. New day, forget yesterday.
He chuckled to himself thinking about how dysfunctional their relationship was. Two broken people, alone in this world, driven together by death and pain. He often wondered if he would have fallen in love with Effie if it had not been for the Games. If she was just another Capitol girl he met at the bar during the Games, would he still have thought her pretty? No, no, he shook his head, Effie is more than just a pretty face, she is so much more.
Effie was his… he didn't quite know. Lover? Partner? Girlfriend seems too juvenile. They simply were two beings who completed each other, so different and yet, so like-minded. There were no labels, no foolish terms simple enough to define their relationship, because that was just it: Their relationship was far from simple.
He sighed and made his way up the stairs, to look for Effie and try to pull himself out of the hole he dug himself. When he opened his bedroom door, he stopped in his tracks.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
She snapped her suit case close and dragged it with her. "Leaving," she snapped.
"Leaving where?"
"I don't know, Haymitch. Anywhere you're not," she glared at him as she said it. She made to walk past him and he stood in front of her, blocking her way.
"You can't leave. You have nowhere to go. You only have me," he said it, almost triumphantly.
"No, that's where you're wrong. I have Peeta, I have Katniss. And I also have Plutarch Heavensbee who owes me a favour and, I think now is a good time as any to collect said debt," she shot back.
He could feel the anger rising in him and his hand curled into a fist, while his other gripped her wrist, trying to make her drop the suitcase. "You're hurting me," she said angrily.
"Oh, yeah? You leaving doesn't hurt me?"
"Let me go, Haymitch! You brought it upon yourself. The drinking and the lying," she sniffed, "how long do you think you could go on before I found out? We made a promise, remember?" her eyes softened as her hand fluttered up and gently cupped his cheeks.
"You promised you'd stop, that we'll help each other. Every time you failed, and went back to your liquor, you promise me the same thing again and again. I feel like a mistress to your bottle, Haymitch."
He knew she was right. He promised her so many times that he'd stop but he couldn't. It was not because he won't but managing without his alcohol would be too difficult. For so many years, when things inevitably went wrong and shit hit the fan, when he tried to forget, he'd have his bottle to rely on, his crutch.
He was a boy from the Seam, he was a Victor, and, then he was a Mentor, a drunken mentor but a mentor nonetheless. Take his bottles away from him, who was he? He never knew, he was never given the chance to find out, to grow up properly.
Whenever he relapsed and woke up drunk, it wasn't the hang over that was painful, it was seeing the hurt in Effie's eyes. He promised himself, he promised her that he'd quit. He was sincere, too. But, it was easier said than done. Downing the next bottle of liquor was easier than subjecting his body to the craving and torture it had to endure, it was physically less painful.
He grew angry; he ripped the hand stroking his cheeks away. "Maybe I drink for a reason, Effie! The nightmares never leave me, has it occurred to you that –"
"I have nightmares, too! Don't pretend like you're the only one with the tortured soul!"
He let go of her arms and fell silent, breathing heavily. Right, again, he cringed inwardly. From the corner of his eyes, he saw her desperately wiping away the tears.
"Go, then. Leave. Maybe, we are just too… We weren't-," he cleared his throat, "Just go."
"Haymitch…"
"Go! That's what you want, isn't it? Get out," he ordered her.
She looked at him one last time before she moved out of the room. Haymitch heard her suitcase thumping on the staircase on her way down and the door closing softly, as she walks out on him.
He sank to his knees as the realization finally hit him. Effie's gone; the house is quiet except for the sound of Haymitch's strangled cries.
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