duplicity
He was struck dumb when he saw her. Because, my God, was she smiling? Her hair was cropped short and she had gained her healthy weight back, filled in the hollows in her cheeks and the circles under her eyes. He was seized with a strong desire to cut across the room and squeeze her, feel her, peel away the layers of makeup to see how she was underneath it all. Peeta was a good boy, a good man—but even he couldn't cure the Girl on Fire. She had been a savage, wild animal the last time he saw her, carried away kicking and screaming by two guards. Now, less than two months later, here she was—tall, graceful, her swanlike neck exposed in the plunging back of her fiery dress.
Peeta was right next to her, a hand on her waist. Their wedding rings glinted in the overhead light, and they looked so natural together—shining and clean and pure. A soap-bubble aura of love, but just as fragile.
Threading his way through the crowd he watched her intensely, trying to determine what magic cure-all they had used. Katniss—the girl who triggered the rebellion, had spat in the face of President Snow and lived to tell the tale—was wining and dining the president's cabinet, wearing an outrageous red dress which showed off too much of her skin.
Too much. Far too much. Katniss used to wield her sexuality like a rock, flailing it around and hoping it hit someone between the eyes. This girl standing in the red dress used her beautiful figure and face like a delicate scalpel, turning and flirting and smiling at just the right moments.
He knew his girl. That wasn't her.
"Hey, sweetheart," he said, tapping her on one bare, slender, unscarred shoulder. "Let's talk."
The red face of the cabinet member she was talking to scowled at him. "We weren't finished."
"Yeah, well, now you are," Haymitch growled, and grabbed her by the arm. She had lost some muscle tone, she was fleshier now—a healthy flesh, but still.
"That was rude," Katniss protested, pulling her arm away. "I wasn't done talking to him, Haymitch."
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and scrutinized her. "What happened?"
She tucked a sheaf of short hair behind her ear and looked up at him innocently. "What do you mean, what happened?"
"Don't give me that bullshit. Last time I saw you, you couldn't remember your own name. What happened?"
A little blush skimmed her cheeks and she looked away, twisting her wedding ring. "I fell in love. It changes people."
He nodded, draining his glass. "Peeta's good for you."
The beautiful curve of her lower lip tightened as her lips pressed together. "No. I mean, yes, he is. He's…so good. So good for me. But he's not who…I fell in love with."
Ah. Gale then. That boy with the thick dark hair and the strong features, who had stood by while Katniss was Reaped. The one who had been ultimately responsible for the deaths of those women and children. When she had last mentioned Gale, it was with the dead, empty eyes of a widow who had seen her loved one die—she had given up on Gale, the last time he saw. He knew it.
She very close to him now, almost touching.
"The war…it made me realize that…there are people I don't want to forget. Or leave behind." Katniss cleared her throat and looked up at him from beneath a sheaf of brown bangs. "I wish…I wish things had been different, Haymitch."
Did she know? She had to know, the way she was looking at him. He had been so damn careful, or he thought he had been.
He could count every eyelash, see every fleck of gold in her brown eyes. Up close, she was startlingly beautiful, doe-eyed and innocent. She rested a hand on his chest, slipping between shirt and vest. "I wish I said something sooner," she whispered, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him softly on the mouth.
They stayed there for one brief moment, lips barely touching each other, and then Haymitch kissed her back hungrily. His fingers tangled in the short, straight hair and he pulled her sharply against him, biting her bottom lip and making her gasp. She gave back as good as she got, gripping his shoulders and running her hands up the back of his neck, framing his face. It was blinding and heaven, because she had her breasts pressed against his chest and her lips were so soft and god, how long had he dreamed of doing this?
He pulled away, framing her face tightly with both hands.
"Close," he said flatly, "but no cigar."
Her brows knotted in confusion. "What…?"
Deliberately, he picked at her scalp with his thumbnail, and felt her flinch under his touch. She tried to pull away but he surged forward, trapping her against the wall with a knee between her legs. "Stop it! Haymitch!" she yelped, trying to hit out at him, but he had a good grip on her hairline now and pulled—
Before him was a much different girl. Thinner cheekbones. Blue eyes. Smaller mouth. Terror—pure, unadulterated terror.
The silicone mask dangled from his fingers and he dropped it, dusting his hands off briskly. "You're getting better," Haymitch said acidly, "at the disguises and the personality and the voice. But you miss it on the details."
Behind him, there was a slow clap.
"Good job," Plutarch said, popping a grape into his mouth. "What gave it away?"
Haymitch wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "The kiss."
Plutarch leaned against the doorframe and smiled kindly at the actress, who was trembling and looking as though someone would shoot her at any moment. "You can go, Caelina," he said, and she darted from the room. Plutarch's pale blue eyes roved over Haymitch's face.
"You have to let her go," he said quietly.
"She's not dead," Haymitch snarled. "I know it. Peeta knows it too, even if he won't admit it."
The former Gamemaker shakes his head slowly. "Everyone's happy this way," he said. "The Capitol's happy. The Districts are happy. And Peeta's happy too, even if he suspects something. It's better this way, Haymitch."
Haymitch eyed him. How easy it would be to cross the room and shove his knife into the throat of the lying bastard—how quick, too. "How long do you think you can keep it up? A month? Two?"
Plutarch shrugged. "Forever."
He snorted.
The Gamemaker shook a finger. "The people don't want to think their Mockingjay is dead. They'll accept what we give them."
"She's not dead."
Before leaving, Plutarch paused. "You know, we told her to kiss you. Because we knew that if you couldn't tell the difference, nobody could."
The sun was beginning to creep over the trees, casting a bloody shade on the black dead branches. There was a bottle in his hand and he hadn't bothered changing out of his fancy dress clothes, choosing instead to loosen his tie and unbutton his vest. He had spent the night thinking of the kiss, and remembered that one knife-slice of a moment where he thought he could forget. Just roll over and accept that this wasn't a real Katniss, because a little bit was better than nothing.
That was what Peeta had done.
He wanted all of her. All of the anger and fierceness and spitfire, the wildcat personality tempered with uncertainty. Settling for a mirror image would be like settling for stale air compared to a fresh spring breeze; but that was all Peeta had left. And he didn't blame him. But Haymitch was more selfish than Peeta, anyway.
Haymitch took another swig of the bottle and let his eyes drift downwards. The snow hadn't yet melted, choosing instead to lump together in dirty frozen mounds of ice and sand. His throat burned from the alcohol but he hardly noticed, because his bleary eyes were focusing on something. Maybe his eyes were deceiving him, but the snowbank seemed to be moving.
Within seconds he was up and out of his chair, because that wasn't a snowbank.
She was half-frozen. Half-starved. There were welts on her arms and legs from manacles, and she was incredibly filthy; her eyes were bloodshot and she shook violently, her long matted hair falling into her face. He ran a bath and stripped off the rags which passed for clothes, easing her into the tub. She arched her back and screamed at the lukewarm water, and he had to fight to keep her in the warm water.
"Please," she sobbed, "please make it stop! Stop it! I'll do it, I'll do whatever you want, just please make it stop!"
How long he knelt in the bathroom, running warm water over her skin and scrubbing dirt from her hair, he didn't know. The water was cold and he was drenched, his knees aching, by the time she had finally relaxed and fallen asleep. At ease, she looked more like the Mockingjay.
Swaddled in towels and blankets, he brought her back to bed. Everything ached, but something deep within him, something tight and thick, had finally eased.
He could breathe again.
"We know she's with you."
Haymitch folded his arms. "She's dead, remember?"
"You never believed that."
"And you never believed me."
Plutarch leaned back, rubbing his eyes. "We just want to know if she's safe," he said tiredly. "That's all."
Bam!
The table flipped over and Haymitch hauled Plutarch up by his shirtcollar. "Safe?" he roared. "You kept her fucking tied to a table and pumped full of morphling, that's safe?"
"She was able to make it fifty miles to find you," the Gamemaker retorted.
"And she looked like hell," Haymitch growled. "She's safe. She's mine. The Capitol can keep their lookalike but the real one stays with me."
He dropped him back into his seat, and Plutarch straightened his collar. "One condition: you don't tell Peeta."
"Fuck you."
"He's happy."
"He's living a lie."
"He knows it."
Haymitch exhaled sharply.
Plutarch raised his eyebrows.
"Let Peeta be happy, Haymitch. Let yourself be happy."
He came back to their shared house late that night, and found her in his bed. She was wearing one of his shirts and was curled up next to his pillow; slowly, he eased down next to her, and she rolled over.
"Hi," she whispered, and cuddled next to him right away, tucking her head under his chin. He pressed a kiss against the crown of her head.
The guilt and the happiness weighed equally on his chest in perfect balance.
Not bad, not bad. Could have been longer but I didn't want to go much further. I may do more in this motif, the Fake!Katniss idea I mean. This is either a high-T or a low-M, couldn't decide which one to use. -fyrelark