A/N: This is set during The Hunger Games after the round of Tribute interviews. There are spoilers- especially about Haymitch, and definitely a few from Catching Fire and Mockingjay- so you've been fairly warned. I don't want any complaints about them! Anyway, I love Haymitch and he's kind of my alter-ego (generally when I drink too much) so I just really wanted to write a one-shot from his point of view. There will probably be more!
Grimacing, I have to turn away from Katniss Everdeen's face on the screen, the beautiful red dress that sparkles as she twirls. Maybe I was too harsh with her, giving the boy all the credit for making her seem desirable after the interviews. But he had done most of the work, after all.
It wouldn't have occurred to her to pretend to be in love with him. That was just it: he wasn't pretending. We are going to tell ourselves that, because believing that Peeta Mellark is pretending is far easier than admitting that there can't be two tributes who come out of the arena.
I shift positions on the couch so the blood can come back to one of my legs, squint at the screen thoughtfully once the cameras cut to Peeta. This is the first time in years that I'm sober enough to remember my tributes' interviews before seeing them played back to me. Usually by now I'm toasted, absolutely on a bender and willfully anesthetizing myself to the fact that no tribute from District 12 ever wins and I will have to make sure the bodies get home properly. If there are bodies left, that is.
My tributes are usually culled during the bloodbath and if they escape that, they're slaughtered within the first few days. We don't come from a culture that trains kids up for the Games. Especially in the Seam, we're too busy trying not to keel over from malnutrition to bother learning how to fight. Not that I'll tell her, but like Katniss, my skills in the arena stemmed from needing to hunt to survive.
I don't have that problem anymore, but alcohol poisoning could become an issue.
This year, things might be different. I'm hardly daring to let myself think it. But more than a few victors can say that winning the Hunger Games is- in many ways- only the start of their problems. Finnick Odair. Annie Cresta. Johanna Mason. Me. I think that's why, with these two, who do have the potential to win, I'm treading a tight line between divulging personal information and any knowledge that might help them survive.
They haven't seen my tapes, and I've banned Effie from drudging them up. Luckily our district isn't big on publicizing what happened to me after the Games. At least, I know it's not taught in schools or anything.
No, now I'm just the town drunk who buys liquor at the Hob.
One of the reasons why I'm so short with Katniss, I reflect, other than the fact that we both have stubborn streaks bigger than wigs on Capitol women, is because I know what can happen to her if she wins. I don't like the thought of it, I don't know what to do about it, and more to the point, there's nothing I can do.
I'm thankful in some ways that 12 isn't overly excited about perpetuating the history of the Games. If we were, she would know all about Finnick Odair, for example. Another good-looking, charming victor sold to the highest Capitol bidder for a night or a few weeks or a season. It's not like everyone's told that he's essentially a slave, but anyone with half a brain can figure it out if they give it enough thought. He's here as a mentor, but I wonder how much time he's allowed to devote to training his kids when he's not swapping pillow talk.
I suppose it could have gone that way with me for what I did in the arena to win; I was attractive and cocky enough. Charming, even, in my own arrogant way, and I wasn't that much younger than he is. But that's not what happened to me.
When I see the girl on fire, all I can think is someone will pay a hefty price for Katniss Everdeen if she wins. Of course, she wouldn't be Katniss, the sunburned, dirty little girl from the Seam then. She'd just be the Girl on Fire, some exotic creature groomed by stylists- hopefully, she'd still have Cinna in this scenario, but I doubt it- to be just untouchable and perfect enough to be completely alluring.
I don't have to worry about this becoming Peeta's fate. First of all, if it came down to the two of them he wouldn't win, because he wouldn't kill her, and second of all, I don't think it will come down to the two of them. Peeta might have potential but I know, ultimately, if Twelve has a winner it will be Katniss.
I reach for the bottle of wine I ordered from the night steward, surprised it's not lighter. I've been sitting here for an hour watching the interviews.
Well, I don't know if what happened to me is any "worse" or "better" than what's happened to Finnick. When you're talking about the Capitol, these words have extremely comparative meanings. Finnick's not a hapless alcoholic, but I'm not an enslaved courtesan. It might have turned out better for the Capitol, because I haven't aged very well, either, and they probably would have lost a lot of money on me in the long run.
No. They would have killed me if I really didn't have the popularity. They have ways of killing you off without raising any publicity, and for a victor, they'd be as subtle as possible. They make it look like an accident: a sudden illness, or an injury.
They killed my mother, butchered my younger brother, and eventually they did off my girl, too.
But before they did that, her situation was very like Finnick's.
She was Seam like me. Like Katniss. She was one of the few young Seam women who didn't have the wan, drawn look, and to help keep me in line they took her. Used her more like catnip, a reward I was promised if I parroted the Capitol. It wasn't about the money: I could have bought her freedom ten times over with my winnings if they had let me. For a good couple of years they used her like that. She was paraded around me, on the arms of various guests of honor, at the next Games festivities. Those were my first Hunger Games as a mentor.
After that, they were sure to let everyone who watched television- who is literally everyone in Panem- know she was in this politician's bed or on that orator's household staff. Oh, how lucky this slip of a girl from barbaric District 12 was to be taken up in the Capitol this way, the announcers always said. They also mentioned she and I were distant cousins, that my fame and victory had earned my family such honor. Naturally, the fact that my family had been murdered was not public knowledge.
The Capitol is like that, and the districts are so isolated from one another that it's easy to fake family relationships when they want to manipulate someone. No one, apart from the district in question, would know it if the Capitol was suddenly adding to- or pruning- your family tree.
There was footage of her every week, looking fantastically sexy, the dream girl all the men coveted. Except for the men in 12, who'd known her before she'd been transfigured into a vision.
Then once he had made his point, Snow had her killed. I only say it because I know it. Nominally, there was the case of pneumonia. It could have happened to anyone. There was a particularly virulent strain in the Capitol that winter. Unfortunately, in spite of all the doctors and technology the Capitol has to offer, not all the victims could be saved.
That they were sure to let me know personally. There was no trickle-down of information off the television; no, I got a phone call.
This is why I don't let my tributes see my tapes. Particularly the one where it definitely looks like I am using the arena to actively taunt the Gamemakers, by earning my final kill with their force field that is supposed to keep all the tributes inside. That wasn't an act of rebellion: it was an act of survival. Only after the fact did I begin to understand how it made me look: even more arrogant than I already was, and much more clever and subversive than I actually am.
But I don't need Katniss or Peeta getting ideas, and besides, I'm not up for emotional bonding at the moment. If they saw the tape, they'd ask questions. What happened to me afterward? Have they changed the way the boundaries on the arena work? I hate being here, but maintain the appearance that I hate everything so that no one raises an eyebrow at me hating being here.
The damn interview tape ends on a close-up of Katniss, who is caught in the middle of a twirl. She is all glitter and sparks and movement. "Sweetheart," I growl at her frozen image, "you're going to have to learn to work with me, here."