Disclaimer I own nothing etc. etc.
So here's my Catching Fire AU about Haymitch going back to the arena instead of Peeta because I needed it and couldn't find one. :) Please keep in mind English is not my mothertongue so there might be a few mistakes here and there. Thanks a lot for Akachankami who beta read this and did wonderful banner you can see on my tumblr ellanainthetardis.
I hope you like this!
Somewhere a Clock is Ticking
Part 1 : The Quarter Quell Announcement
Effie's quietly humming, assessing the state of her favorite pink wig, she's supposed to watch the television but it fails to grasp her attention tonight. She has already seen every one of Katniss' dresses and the interview between Caesar Flickerman and Cinna doesn't really interest her. She's barely listening to their chit-chat, too busy wondering if she can afford another wig this month. She has seen one in a shop, down the main road, that caught her eye. It's golden, just like Katniss' pin and she thinks it would go nicely with most of her dresses but it's a little expensive and being an escort for District Twelve doesn't really pay that well. Oh, she had a raise after the last Games, of course, because she belongs to the victors team, but… life isn't actually cheap when you want beautiful things.
She loves her flat, despite the fact that it's a little tinier than she would like. She made up for the size with the furnishing, only the best and the last fashion for her home. The walls are painted white because it gives the illusion that there is much more space than there actually is, she has a lovely shade of pink velvet sofa that is precisely the same color as the carpet in her bedroom – she does love pink – she has a big television and, of course, she recently had the last model of window set up. With that one, she only has to push a button to look out on a meadow or a forest or anywhere really… It was a little too expensive and she definitely shouldn't have because, now, she has to go for a whole month without buying any clothes or she will have to call her father and ask for money – which she hates to do. That means the golden wig is out of the question, she concludes, just as the first shot of Katniss appears on screen.
The girl looks absolutely gorgeous in every dress she has tried, but Effie's absolute favorite is the ivory satin one. It's not the most sophisticated but sophisticated isn't really Katniss' style. The girl is too wild and too unpolished, she looks ill at ease in the more elaborate dresses.
She discards the old wig and takes off her shoes when Caesar asks them to stay tuned for the next big event of the evening. She rubs the sole of her right foot, unable to quell the uneasiness that swirls in her stomach. She used to be excited when the time for the Games grew nearer but it's getting harder and harder every year to feel anything other than repulsion. She picks out the names of children who go to their death and she's not so sure it's such an honor anymore. She takes care of them, she helps them and then… She forces the faces of all the dead tributes out of her mind. She remembers them all, the children, but it doesn't help to dwell on that, so she pretends she doesn't.
Panem anthem has just ended when she gives up on rubbing the pain away – damn shoes! But they are so pretty, they practically begged her to buy them even if they were really uncomfortable – she takes the glass of pink liquor she has poured herself earlier on and sips from it slowly. She doesn't usually drink alone – or at all – but tonight she's tired and she wishes she could have spent a little while longer in District Twelve instead of going there and back again in a single day. It had been exhausting to keep everyone on schedule the day before.
On the television, President Snow rambles on and on about the origins of the Games and Effie wishes he would just hurry up because she would like to find something funnier to watch. He looks tired, she thinks, just as he begins to recall the previous Quarter Quell. She remembers that one well. It was Haymitch's year. She was only a girl at the time but she can remember rooting for him in a feast of defiance against her older sister who had only eyes for the tributes from District One and Two. Her sister had said he looked like a shabby underdog but Effie had never thought so. He had been sixteen when he had gone into the arena and he had been very appealing to her ten years old self. Shabby, yes. Scruffy, even. But he had something pure, something the others didn't have. She had actually been excited when she was told she would be working with him, the first time she had been appointed to Twelve as an escort. She had been quickly disillusioned, however.
Haymitch Abernathy is insufferable.
And yet, she wouldn't have it any other way.
"And now we honor our third Quarter Quell," says President Snow and she watches with attention, now, wondering what they will have to face this year. It will be better with Katniss and Peeta as mentors, together they will be able to keep Haymitch in check. This year, she will make sure he doesn't drink before the reaping because she's damned if she's going to do a repeat of last year. She's musing about possibly arriving earlier than usual, the day before perhaps, when President Snow finally opens the envelop marked with a 75. "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."
She doesn't understand at once what it means. She's still plotting several ways to prevent Haymitch of indulging in alcohol before the reaping when the words finally hit her. Existing pool of victors.
The glass shatters when it slips from her numb fingers.
"No!" she shrieks and the word seems to take up all the space in her flat. Suddenly there's not enough air to breathe and she can see fluttering black points dancing in front of her eyes.
Caesar Flickerman is talking again now and she blindly feels around for the remote. She turns off the television but she isn't sure the abrupt silence isn't worse. It's too sharp and deafening and her breath is stuck in her throat.
Existing pool of victors.
How could they do that? How could they show Katniss in all those beautiful dresses and then…
She feels sick all of a sudden.
Katniss is going back to the games, it's a fact, but she won't go there alone and there won't be any berries this time. Only one of them has a chance of getting out of the games alive and Effie starts to cry right there. It's unfair. It's so, so unfair. Peeta and Katniss shouldn't have to go through that again, they already…
That's when the insidious thought comes into her head. What if it isn't Peeta who goes with her? Existing pool of victors. She tries to stop weeping, tries to get up and put herself back together but all she manages to do is slip off the couch and sob a little more.
It's not only sadness she feels. She's not only afraid for her friends. It's despair. Pure and plain despair.
If it isn't Peeta… If she pulls out Haymitch's name on reaping day…
She puts her fist in her mouth and bites in a hopeless attempt at keeping the panic at bay. She loves the children, it's awful enough to imagine them hurt or worse, but Haymitch? She can't lose Haymitch! She just can't. She won't be able to handle the games without him. They bicker and they mock each other and they do their best to annoy each other to death, but they're friends. They've been friends for years, now. She can't lose him. Just the thought of seeing him running for his life for the amusement of faceless crowds make her so angry. She doesn't want him in the fray.
If Katniss and Peeta have to fight for their lives, she wants him to be next to her and to hold her hand just like he did last year, when Katniss presented Peeta with a handful of poisoned berries. She knows he didn't even realize he was reaching for her at that moment but it had meant the world to her. He had held her hand tightly in his, muttering how the girl was completely mad, and she doesn't know if he was more afraid or excited. For her, that moment had been exhilarating, and not only because of what was happening of the screen.
She loved the way her hand felt in his. She loves the way he always makes sure she's okay, even if he pretends he doesn't care. She loves the way his eyes trail on her when she wears red, he loves her in red, she knows because he told her once, when he was too drunk to remember it. She loves how he doesn't think she's stupid, even when he implies the opposite. She loves how, during Victory Tour, he got angry every time a Peacekeeper has gotten a little too rough with her.
And her heart aches for him, most of the time, even when she's fuming against him for a reason or another, because he's a little bit broken and he doesn't deserve it.
He can't go back to the arena. She knows, with a definite kind of certainty, that it will kill him even if he manages to win.
And she can't bear the idea. She can't bear the idea of him in that place with all those people trying to kill him, with Katniss trying to kill him. Katniss would. Effie knows she would. She's a pragmatic kind of girl and she has Peeta to go back to. Who does Haymitch have?
Her, he has her.
She crawls more than she walks to the window frame that take up an entire wall of the small living-room and tries to breathe. In and out, she tells herself, in and out. But it doesn't work. She can't stop crying, piercing sobs that leave her hunched over and unable to think properly. She's terrified and she feels lonely and she aches for a hand in hers, for arms around her, for the smell of whiskey and after-shave. Carefully, she brings her legs against her chest and hugs herself. If she closes her eyes, she can pretend it's him, even if he had never held her that way. She's good at pretending.
Slowly, the tears stop, leaving her exhausted and no less scared. She will be the one to draw out the name… If she pull out his…
The remote must have fallen from the couch with her because it's just in her reach, barely but it is. She grabs it and fumbles with the various buttons for a while but, in the end, she wins and instead of one of the Capitol busy streets, she finds herself facing a meadow, just like the one in District Twelve. She wonders where they are right now, what they are doing… Are they together? Are they already thinking in terms of enemies? Will Katniss and Peeta turn against Haymitch? She doesn't think they will. They're children, only children…
And yet it must be them. It must be Peeta. She prays it will be Peeta. She won't be able to bear it if it's Haymitch. She won't.
She doesn't know how long she stays like that, sitting in front of a meadow that's not really there. She doesn't know much except that Haymitch can't go back. It will kill him and it will kill her and she can be as down-to-earth as Katniss if she has to be.
She will buy the golden wig, she thinks, just as the phone rings.
She must have spent hours lost in her own thoughts because when she does get up, she's stiff and her legs hurt. Her voice is not as steady as she would have liked when she answers the phone, but it's the best she can do and Peeta doesn't seem to mind. He asks her for recordings of past Games and she agrees to send them to him as soon as she can find them. Tomorrow, she promises. She feels guilty when she asks how they all are doing, because she can hear it in Peeta's voice ; she can hear the same dread that laces hers and, yet, here she is, wishing he would go back instead of Haymitch when he knows Katniss doesn't have a choice. She says she's sorry before hanging up. She's not sure he heard her. She's not sure she wants to be heard.
She has made her decision. Haymitch can't go back. She will buy the golden wig.
"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."
Haymitch turns off the television and stumbles to the kitchen. He doesn't trouble himself with glasses, he just takes the bottle out of the cabinet and collapses on a chair. He shouldn't be as surprised as he is. He really should have seen that one coming. He swallows a mouthful of the awful white stuff Ripper has the nerve to call liquor and tries not to wallow too much in his misery. Could be worse. They could have shot a bullet at his head without any warnings. Yeah… If he had been given the choice, he would have taken the bullet.
He closes his eyes and he's so empty inside. It's odd because he feels like he should be angry or scared or something but he isn't. He's empty; empty of fear, of wrath, of despair… He's just a shell. A shell of a tribute.
He slides his hunting knife out of the waistband of his pants and looks at it for the first time in forever. He never parts from it but he doesn't look at it if he can't help it. It's a constant reminder of who he is, what he is : a murderer. The blade glints softly under the kitchen lights, like a dreadful foretelling of what's to come.
He feels his presence before the boy calls out to him. His knife is already in his fist, ready to fight, old habits die hard. But Peeta is not there to fight and he relaxes a little in his chair, he even lets the boy push the bottle on the other side of the table. He's not particularly surprised to see him, just like he's sure Katniss has crawled in a hole somewhere and will only resurface when she finally realizes she isn't the only one affected.
"So, what's it going to be?" he asks, before Peeta can launch himself into one of his convincing speech. It's too bad Katniss has become a symbol because Peeta would have made the rebels' task a lot more easier. The boy could turn a crowd like nobody. And Haymitch knows why he's there, of course. Why does Peeta do anything? "You want me to go in there and make sure she comes out?"
He doesn't know if he wants to laugh or to cry. He has only one thing in his head and it's this awful belief : back to the arena. Back to hell. It has been bad enough last time, he had to go with three people he knew, and he had known two of them very well, but this time? This time it's not only three people. It's all the other victors and they're all friends of a sort. Some even have children. How sick is that? How sick is it to make those children orphans ? No more than to send them to their death, he guesses, but still.
"I want to go back."
It's not a request but an order and Haymitch does laugh then.
"I want to go with her." Peeta says, in a matter of fact sort of voice. "I can protect her better that way and you will do your best to make sure she wins this."
He's so sure of himself, so self-righteous… It makes Haymitch a little sick to only think about this. He wonders how long it will take Katniss to do the math, to come begging at his door to take Peeta's place in the arena… She can delude herself all she wants into thinking the whole love story is for the show, he doesn't believe it. She's young and confused and he hopes to god she figures it out before it's too late because here they were, at the edge of too late.
"You owe me, Haymitch."
"I do, now, don't I?" he mocks him, because he doesn't owe the boy anything. He doesn't owe anyone anything, that's how it works when you're a victor. You're free, you're safe. In theory. The reality, of course, is a little more gloomier than either Katniss or Peeta realize.
"You chose her in the last Game." Peeta insists. "You helped her. It's my turn, you help me, now. And I want her to win, so, really, we want the same thing."
He would like that drink now but he knows that the boy won't let him touch the bottle until he has agreed to his ridiculous scheme and he doesn't want to fight. He wants to drown in alcohol and forget.
He should be relieved, he thinks. He should accept Peeta's offer and be glad for the opportunity of being able to breathe a little while longer. But does it really make a difference? Inside or outside the arena, those Games will be unbearable : he will have to watch his friends be slaughtered one after the other by their other friends or go back in, protect Katniss and hope someone finishes him quickly.
"If I really do owe you, shouldn't I try to save you this time?" he asks. "You could stay out of it. Be safe. Have a life."
"There's no life without Katniss."
He really means it, Haymitch realizes, it's written in his eyes, plain for everyone to see. He can't help but smile bitterly. He remembers love. He remembers her dark blue eyes and her long black hair. He remembers the life they planned to built. He remembers the agony when they killed her along with the rest of his family. He remembers he had swore to himself he would never ever again feel something as powerful as that. He had lied to himself of course. You could try but you could never stop yourself from caring for people. He cares for Katniss and he cares for Peeta and he also cares for… But he doesn't want to think about her. Not here, not now, not in this kitchen filled with grief and anguish.
"Then, shouldn't you try to stay alive in case she makes it ?" he scoffs. "Do you have a death wish?"
"Do you?" Peeta replies, with a little too much perceptiveness.
"Not really, no." he lies. Because that's just the thing, isn't it? Going back into the arena is the nightmare of every victor but, deep down, it's also everything they crave. It changes you, the arena. You're a kid when you go in, and you're a monster when you come out; there's only two choices after that, either you reign in the beast and you become something wrecked and incomplete or you don't and you embrace the violence and the blood thirst. This is the difference between a winner and a survivor. The winner wants to go back to kill some more, the survivor doesn't want to go back because he's afraid this time he won't be able to do it. It's the ultimate redemption. "But I don't exactly have a life to lose, you see?" There's nothing in his future except alcohol poisoning and maybe, if he's lucky, a few possibilities to make Effie Trinket go mad. He does love it when she's too angry for words and hovers over him, speechless. Usually she gives as good as she gets, but in those too rare instances, she's all flushed and fiery and she looks so fierce he wants nothing more than to… Those are treacherous thoughts he doesn't like to dwell on. "It seems to me, your best bet would be to send me back with her and hope she makes it."
"It would be, if I trusted you." he shots back.
Haymitch is hurt but doesn't let it show, he snorts a little and finally reaches for the bottle. There's a tremor in his hand, they both pretend they don't notice it.
"And here I thought we were all good friends." He tries not to sound too bitter because the boy is right of course. He's finally learning.
"There are no friends in the Games, only allies, and those have a time stamp on them." He's not used to hear Peeta speak in that sarcastic tone and he's not sure he likes it. It doesn't suit the boy. "Katniss is a winner. Once she's in the arena she will fight to the death to come back to her family, that's why she has a chance. I knew that last year and you knew it too."
Haymitch doesn't try to explain the difference between winners and survivors, Peeta wouldn't understand. He's something else entirely. Katniss dragged him back but without her…
"You're like her." The boy says, then, and he's not sure if it's a compliment or an accusation. "You won't be able to stop when you're back in there. You will try to win and you will end up against her at some point. I won't."
It was a sound point and once the idea is lodged in his brain he can't wipe it away. He imagine his hands around Katniss' throat and the pleas he doesn't want to hear. Her nails scratch his arms, his wrists, she opens her mouth, but he squeezes and he squeezes and her eyes go glassy and, just like that, she stops breathing. It's so vivid his hands begin to shake, the bottle rattles against the table and he brings it to his lips and swallows another mouthful to still his nerves.
"Tell you what, boy." He hopes Peeta understands he doesn't want to talk anymore. He just wants to drink and drink and forget until Katniss finally comes out of her hiding place and begins the conversation all over again. "Let's see how the reaping goes."
"I want your word. I want your word you won't volunteer for me."
What a strange world they live in… Ask him for his word to not try and take his place in the arena… What is his word worth anyway? He just wants this conversation to be over.
"Yes." he sighs. "Yes."
It doesn't mean he won't though… He's not sure. Katniss will ask him, he knows that. He has always put Katniss first, Peeta's right. She's his favorite. It all depends on which name Effie draws out first… Oh, god, Effie. Effie will be the one to officially send them back.
"Thank you." Peeta breathes out and, all of a sudden, he looks small and frightened once again. "I should try to call Effie, see if she can send us the recordings of the other Games… We should be prepared."
The boy stands up and starts to walk away but he stops at the entrance to the kitchen and Haymitch wishes he was gone already. He wants to drink in peace. He wants to forget and it's harder and harder to get drunk, these days.
"You're going to be alright, aren't you?" Peeta seems unsure. "I can leave you alone, you won't do… You won't do anything rash?"
What does he think he will do? Off himself? He could. It would be the best way to tell the Capitol to go screw itself, but he won't. Of course, he won't.
"Tell Effie…" he starts, but he can't finish. He doesn't know what he wants Peeta to say to her. He wants to hear her voice, maybe, to hear her say to stop being ridiculous. He could phone her himself, but he won't. They only fight and pretend to dislike each other, they don't do phone calls. They don't do comfort. Not in that way. She's not that kind of friend. "Nothing. Make sure she's alright."
He knows her. She couldn't have taken the news better than he did. She loves them all in her Capitol way. The idea of the kids going back together in the arena will wound her. He wishes he could have prevented that.
"I will." the boys swears and he's out.
By the time Katniss finally shows her face, Haymitch is drunk as a skunk and he's trying very hard not to be jealous that they're so desperate to sacrifice themselves for the other. Nobody cares if he lives or dies. Nobody would ever volunteer to take his place because they love him. Nobody would do anything so rash for him.
