Disclaimer: Any recognizable characters, locations, etc. are property of Suzanne Collins. All else is mine.
This oneshot is from Haymitch's POV. It's rated T for a lot of swearing. Written for Starvation's Monthly oneshot competition, with the prompt "Home". Enjoy, and remember to review! After that, go check out the Winter 2010 Hunger Games fic awards. Nominating is almost over... so go fast!
Haymitch POV
Home.
I step off of the train and look around me. The sight is familiar- the gray sky, the fading green grass. The woods to the north, the Justice building and rest of the district to the south, the coal mines behind me. Something that isn't pretty for once.
"Come on," says a peacekeeper gruffly behind me. I almost turn around and draw the knife I've been carrying around in my pocket. He's particularly annoying. But I think twice, and decide not to. Instead I glare straight forward, not really looking at anything in particular.
"Come on," says the peacekeeper again. This time there is anger in his voice.
I don't care. I contemplate just standing there to annoy him. But I don't. I take a step forward. My hand is clutching the knife handle in my pocket, so tightly that I'm sure my knuckles are white. I so much want to turn and frighten this mean peacekeeper, with his new, stiff grey uniform.
As I walk down the path towards the Justice building, I wonder why my family isn't waiting for me. I mean, sure, we did stay in the Capitol a few days longer than expected, but… Maybe nobody told them. I wish it hadn't been that way, but I think that unfortunately it was.
It's really too bad. I wish that I had been here earlier, at the time I was expected. After three weeks of being out of the games, I was ready to go home. The interviews, the photoshoots, the recaps. I all just wanted it to go away. I didn't want these people, the ones who killed my Maysilee.
In a way I wanted to forget about her. Push her out. Make it a little better. I'd just have my old girlfriend back, Ruth. We'd get married, move in together. Be happy.
As I walk, the feeling I get is unexpected. I thought I would feel warm, loved, and comfortable. Maybe even unafraid back home in District 12.
But no. Instead I feel cold, lonely, and most certainly not unafraid. In fact, I'm terrified. I know that somewhere in the back of my mind I'm wondering if it would be different if Mama, Ruth, and my younger brother Hayden had been there at the train station waiting for me.
And too add on to that, I really don't want to face the other families. Which is hard, because I'm a victor. Of the Hunger Games. I'm supposed to be strong, for god's sake. I mean, playing the game with twenty-three other tributes with families and friends would be bad enough. But I have to deal with forty-seven of them. Forty damn seven of them. And three of them are from, live in District 12.
My thoughts drift to the other tributes.
Thinking of Maysilee doesn't help. A tear wells up in my eye, and I blink rapidly to try to push it away.
But I can't. Maysilee, with her beautiful blond hair. Maysilee,with her beautiful blue eyes. Maysilee, with her beautiful white, almost porecelin skin. Maysilee, the angel sent to me from heaven. Maysilee. Maysilee, Maysilee, Maysilee.
I don't like being watched by this peacekeeper.
"Go away, will you dammit?" I yell at him. He gives me a reproachful look. "Just get the hell away from me."
"Sorry," he says, a smirk on his face. He continues. "I can't."
"Fuck you," I mumble under my breath.
I turn off of the main road into a little used path. The people who walk by me don't seem to recognize me. I guess I probably grew a bit, since I was away from Twelve for a month and a half. And my skin got a total makeover. And I did get a last haircut, right before I got home. And the fact that I've been slathered in makeup 24/7 since I got to the Capitol. Or at least back to this place that I should call home even though it doesn't completely feel like it.
Maysilee. Thinking of her brings more tears to my eyes, and one escapes. It leaves a salty path down my cheek. I angrily swipe it away, raking my nails across my skin in the process. I miss my scars, the ones the prep team took away from me.
"Where the hell are you going, young man?" The peacekeeper snarls behind me.
"I'm going home," I tell him angrily.
"Well, you're home sure isn't that way."
"I've lived in District 12 my whole life. Don't you think I'd know where my home is?"
"Well, news-flash. You live in the Victor's Village now."
"I don't care," I grumble. "I'm going to my family." I had forgotten about that, though. A small detail in my very large life that I had overlooked. Anybody would have been excited to go live in the Victor's Village. But I wasn't. For once I had just wanted to go back home to my house in the Seam.
I hunched over more so that nobody could see me as I walked home.
When I got there, the house was different, some how. It was still that dilapidated old shack that we had been shoved into. But it was dark inside. The smell of my mother's cooking was absent. And the door was boarded up.
Confused, I walked up and banged on the door.
I knew that the peacekeeper had to leave now. I hear him turn on his heel and the crunch of gravel as he walked away.
I continued banging. No answer.
Finally, the grumpy old lady from next door stepped outside. The usual frown was still on her face.
"Haven't you heard? The family went on a little excursion down the river a couple days ago. Their son, Haymitch, ya know? It was to celebrate his winning. Poor guy, he'll n'er see 'em again. Boat overturned, they all drowned. Oh, and 'is girlfriend was with 'em."
I must really be unrecognizable.
And then it hits me. They're dead. They're gone. I'll never see them again. Everyone I loved, everyone I cared about. They've all been taken away from me.
That's when the piece of paper flutters to the ground. I pick it up. And inked in blood red are the words:
The forcefield was off limits.
There isn't a signature, but I don't need one. It's that dirty-rotten-no-good-son-of-a-bitch.
I rip that piece of paper into tiny shards, and let it drop to the ground. Then I grind it into the dry dirt with my heel.
I rattle the silver coins in my pocket with my left hand, the one not clutching the knife. Then I stride off to the town square with purpose.
When I arrive, I walk straight to the counter that the Ripper is standing behind. I slam a few coins on the wooden board that serves as a table, and slide onto a stool.
"Bottle of whiskey, please."