I woke up and he was screaming
I'd left him dreaming
I roll over and shake him tightly
And whisper "if they want you
Oh they're gonna have to fight me"
A/N: This one got away from me, I have no excuse for the purple prose. Title and lyrics from Night Terrors by Laura Marling.
The walls of the makeshift shacks were too thin to miss the sound. There was no chance that the rest of the settlement couldn't hear the guttural shrieks, but they were going on ignored. Everyone in that area had heard too much already, and they were too exhausted with their own trials to give much thought to anyone else's.
Effie simply could not stand it. She knew who the shack belonged too, and she felt that it was her duty to inform him that he was causing a disturbance. She paced in front of the building for several minutes, heels clicking on the concrete with every sharp step before she shook her head firmly and pushed past the cardboard door.
Haymitch's eyes showed her that he was still asleep, but he was shaking on the sofa, his hands clasped around his stomach. The room filled with a low keening sound that was punctured every so often with a cry that was too sharp, too ragged to be a conscious one. Effie's hands stilled in mid-air. She had assumed that he was in one of his tempers, that his tap had run dry again and he was taking it out on his surroundings, but she had not prepared a curt, clipped comment for this.
Effie was at a loss. If she left him be, he would do no harm other than puerile sound pollution, but if she woke him he might panic, might mistake calming hands for restraints and do damage to them both. Looking around the room, she decided to dip her hands in to a jug of questionable content, before lightly scattering the liquid across Haymitch's face with deft flicks of her fingers. He flinched at first, and then hollered, bolting up from his laid out position. His head whipped wildly, looking questionably at the thin roof above him, before peering in to the half-light of the shack. Effie cleared her throat lightly, and Haymitch spun towards her, glaring at her with harsh accusation before rolling his eyes back in to his skull and turning away from her.
"Now to what do I owe the pleasure?" He drawled, kicking his feet up on the coffee table, the wood creaking pleadingly under the weight.
Effie didn't know whether to answer him honestly. She didn't come with the intention of embarrassing him, but she couldn't cope with the noise. Sleep was a luxury now, something that had to be snatched whenever it was available and something that was a treacherous gift, the threat of night terrors like a snake coiled under a rose bush.
"You were being too loud." She answered dully. He snorted.
"Did I interrupt your beauty sleep, princess?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact. And not just mine, but the entire quarter's."
"And you thought you'd be the spokesperson and come and set me straight, is that it?" His hand reached for a glass, and Effie was paying too much attention to miss that it was trembling. She bit the bullet.
"You were screaming, Haymitch."
"Yeah, well it happens sometimes. Can't do nothing about that." He put down the empty glass with more force than was required, and turned to the wall. His body stiffened when he felt the sofa dip beside him. Effie toyed with the end of her sleeve, worrying at a thread that had come loose.
"You were touching your stomach." She muttered.
She wasn't sure why she had made the decision to sit down, nor why she felt that this needed a discussion. She had dreams too, of steel rooms and steel chairs, of needles and straps and water baths. The pulsing buzz of razors stalked her, and the stretch of leather and rope were sharp and stung her in places she could not soothe. She could never understand what Haymitch had faced, but she could empathise, if he would only let her.
"Is that what you dream of when you scream like that?"
He didn't answer her for a beat, before he sighed. "We're not that close, sweetheart. Questions like those, they're questions you don't get to ask."
She took it as dismissal, as an instruction to get out of his sight and leave him to the bottle, and so she stood. There was a sharp intake of breath to her left that sounded like the beginning of a question, and she turned to him expectantly. His teeth clicked shut and it seemed that whatever was behind them was a question that he felt he couldn't ask. Effie waited until eye contact was made, and titled her head in a gesture that told him that she was waiting for him to speak. He looked as if he resented her for it, and thanked her in the same vein.
"Fancy a drink?" He asked, far too casually. "Figure I won't be sleeping any time soon, and it's not like you've got anywhere better to be."
Effie didn't have the capacity to be offended, firstly because it was true, and then because she took the request for what it was. He would never say it, not to anyone, but Effie knew him well enough to know that he did not want to be alone.
"No, I don't mind."
"You sure you wouldn't rather make yourself more comfortable?" He gestured to his head and then to hers. "The wig and all."
Effie wasn't sure how comfortable she would be without it in present company. When she took it off she laid herself bare to the world. The wigs, the dresses, the gaudy make up; at first they had been for show, and it was still a truth that she loved the extravagance of it all, but in light of recent events she carried them as if they were her armour.
She hadn't Katniss' bravery, Peeta's charm or Haymitch's sharp tongue, but she wasn't without. She wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the games, but she had her own arena and she had fought every day. The glamour of the Capitol was gilded to begin with, and now that it had all but gone she clung to her appearance. It was all she had left. Haymitch could sense her hesitance, and didn't push it.
Finally, Effie sighed and resigned. She left his shack to change, and returned twenty minutes later with a bare face, a modest brown slip with lime green trim, and her own mousey hair hanging below her chin. It grew in slow and thin since it had been shaved from her head, and the sight of it repulsed her in a way that was more that purely aesthetical.
Haymitch took one look at her and snorted. Effie's lips pursed defiantly.
"Oh come on, come on then. Out with it. Let's get the smart comments out of the way, shall we?" She said, her voice a touch too shrill and uneven. "Oh, why do I bother. You're no spring chicken yourself, mister!"
"Well, what do you know." He hiccupped. "You're beautiful under all that Capitol crap."
Effie gasped inaudibly, before covering it with a click of her tongue. "You are very drunk."
"No, I should be very drunk. I'd say I'm more mildly drunk."
Effie sat again, laughing sharply. "At this point, I am amazed that you are able to tell the difference."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
The threat of an argument pulsed around them, but neither had the sense to back down. It had always been that way, and that was the one thing that had not changed.
"Oh, be honest Haymitch. Are you ever sober enough to get drunk? As far as I'm concerned, you should come with your very own health warning."
"Quit acting like you don't like a tipple yourself, you forget that I go to those parties too." Effie flushed furiously, embarrassment and anger wound tightly in her throat. "You can act all high and mighty if you want, darling, but that don't change the fact that you're as damaged as I am."
She slapped at his knee with no real malice behind it, frowning as she tried to form a comment that surpassed his in wit.
And then Haymitch was kissing her, cutting off any comment she did have at the pass. He did not show her any grace on gentleness - he kissed her long on her downturned mouth and he kissed her hard. Effie's first thoughts were to how dry his lips were and how infuriatingly delightful the feel of his rough jaw was on her smooth skin.
She pushed firmly on his chest, just once, and he pulled away from her. There was no apology in his grey eyes and Effie did not think that she would have accepted one had there been.
A silence stretched out between them, thin and brittle but not entirely uncomfortable. Both were aware of the fact that Effie's hands still rested on Haymitch's chest. Her fingers twitched, as if in an attempt to dislodge themselves from the fabric, but they did not succeed.
Haymitch kissed her again, and this time she was ready.
He kissed her like she was alcohol, with every ounce of desperate want and certain need that he would show to the mouth of a bottle of Jack. She kissed him like he was wounded, holding herself back with thoughts of whether this was appropriate, whether this was allowed. They progressed much like they would in dialogue, Haymitch a constant aggressive vitality with Effie ebbing in and out to counter him at every step.
She moved her hands from his chest to his back, gripping his worn shirt tightly between her fingers. Their lips spoke without the aid of sound, and their thoughts bandied free and naked between them; they were both terrified. They had both suffered, and had suffered alone. They believe their scars made them ugly and their dreams made them pitiful now.
Their voices were different. Haymitch's spoke of sorrow and dull anger that had pulsed inside of his chest for years. Effie's was full of fresh, blind terror that clutched at her, along with a resigned need that was the only thing that kept her moving like a wound up doll. Their voices were different, but they said the same thing. I need you. I need this.
Haymitch's hands moved to Effie's face, to her thighs, to her waist before finally settling around her back in a gesture that mirrored hers, a gesture that offered security, but could not promise it. They pulled away from each other, but just barely, their foreheads resting against one another and their lips dusting the others with every breath. What little breath they had mingled between them, turning so hot and sour that Effie's head began to swim.
They had spent years annoyed at the other's presence, Effie thinking of Haymitch as a drunken nuisance and Haymitch thinking of her as a persistent pup yapping at everyone's heels for attention, yet at this moment neither one of them could seem to muster the strength to let the other go. They moved on auto-pilot, their joints stiff and resistant as they stripped each other of clothing, and Effie thought faintly of how different this was compared to the last time someone else had undressed her.
Haymitch kissed at her neck, with one hand covering her breast entirely, and the other braced against the cushion so as to avoid putting too much weight on her. Haymitch knew that she was not made of porcelain like everyone assumed she was, and that she had more sand than credited for, but there were parts of her that were still too fragile to him. It occurred to him, without much real surprise, that he never wished to see this woman harmed. He had witnessed much more than he cared to during the rebellion, and he fought then to keep her safe, and he saw now on her skin just how close he had come to failing.
His hand moved from her breast to trace a pale raised scar that curved over her shoulder. He did not ask who, or where, because he did not know what he would have done with the knowledge. Other, smaller scars marred her skin like co-ordinates on a map, each one beautiful and frightening. She did not shy from his touch, but she did watch him with her jaw set and with her eyes steeled. He did not ask about a single one.
She moved a hand to place her fingers on his own scar that spanned his stomach. The touch was unwelcome, as was the sick feeling that twisted in Haymitch's gut at the memories the touch stirred, but he did not tell her to move her hand. She did not ask about his scars, either. She didn't have to. His suffering had been public domain.
She was being much too gentle with him than he deserved, and nerves gripped Haymitch as he leant down to kiss her again, the hair in his eyes making him look much younger than his 40-some years.
It's too rough and his fingers are bruising and her nails are leaving grooves in his back and are breaking skin. Haymitch is caged between her thighs and she is trapped beneath his body and there is no escape; neither of them wants one. Effie cannot breathe as Haymitch bears down on her and it is as terrifying as it is wonderful. Here, under this wretch of a man, Effie feels safe. His hands are harsh and their coarseness is unpleasant but they mask the ghost of the hands that touched her in the Capitol, the hands that poked and prodded and tore at her until she gave out.
Sounds ballooned between them until there is no room left for shame. For a brief second, Haymitch looks at Effie's face. He sees the flush high on her skin and the indents of her teeth on her bottom lips, and he thinks that he loves her. The moment passes, and she cries out and he thinks that he has hurt her but she pulls him to her chest and crosses her ankles on the back of his thighs. It's is too much, and too little, and they are too close but not close enough, and as she shudders against him Haymitch tries to remember what it felt like to be content.
She cups his face as he pulls away from her, and the touch is a question and an answer in one, and Haymitch feels like crying. He does not, and she does not, and neither of them utter a sound, but Effie finds Haymitch's hands and threads their fingers together and pulls them to her chest.
Haymitch opens his mouth, spite weighing on his tongue languid and bitter, but he thinks better of it. He has seen pity before, been slapped by its humiliation, and this was not it. He didn't know what this was, but it was warm, and it was soft, and it wasn't a threat to him, not yet. He settled against Effie's chest with a sigh and with the knowledge that by dawn there would be too much to discuss, and so he was thankful for the silence, and thankful for her breath fanning out against his hair.
Their sleep was still uneasy, but there were no screams. The only sound was the steady beating of another human heart that offered a reprieve, if only there was the courage there to take it.