Chapter 13 : No Good Answer
They had yet to say more than two words to each other.
Haymitch was sitting on his kitchen floor, holding the phone to his ear, listening to her breathing. As far as phone calls went, this one was damning. Not that it mattered anymore, he figured. Not that anything mattered anymore.
He didn't suggest they hung up and he didn't try to lure her into a conversation.
It was almost peaceful, truth be told, sitting there with her breath in his ear. It was like being wrapped in a bubble. Out of time. He could pretend the rest of the world had frozen and it was just them. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine they were in bed, her warm body pressed tight against his, her mouth against his neck, her breath rolling on his skin…
He was aching for her skin.
Maybe even more than he was aching for liquor.
Her breath itched and he heard her lick her lips. He brushed his fingers against them in the privacy of his own mind, retraced the shape of her mouth…
"There was chatter." she whispered at last, shattering his peaceful illusion. He crashed back into reality with a sigh. "I did not want to believe any of it. It seemed… Outrageous. Victors are supposed to be the untouchable ones. This goes against every unspoken rule we have. Valeria tried to warn me, I did not believe her. She was worried about Brutus. You know."
He did. It was a small world and rumors were always rampant. There had been just as many speculations about Brutus and Two's escort as there had been about the two of them. Except Brutus was married so it made the whole thing even more scandalous. And they didn't spend their time arguing in public so it also made it a little less improbable.
"Nobody's untouchable." he countered tiredly. He played with the handle of his knife, not quite sure when he had taken it out of his belt. He weighed it in his palm, wondered if he would still know how to use it, if he was still capable of wielding it knowing the price it required.
"I suppose not…" Her voice trailed off. She sounded tired too. Defeated, perhaps. She would be back to her cheerful self soon enough, he figured, for the kids' sake if nothing else. "How are you doing?"
He stretched his legs in front of him, his knees popped and cracked, and he chuckled. Not because he was amused. Oh, no. But because he was an old man whose knees popped and cracked and, chances were, half the people in the Quell would be younger, swifter.
Maybe not as clever though.
"Yes, it is rather an idiotic question, my apologies." she sighed before he could give an actual answer. "Some people are angry, you know. The Capitol loves victors. This… This is not right."
"Effie." he chided her.
"I know, I know, but… When I think about the children…" Her voice broke and she took a deep breath. "It is not right. They deserve more. So much more."
"Might still get it." he shrugged.
It was her turn to chuckle without any humor. "Yes, you will forgive me if I do not find that possibility to be a comfort."
He rubbed his face. "Sweetheart…"
"No." she snapped.
The back door opened before he could say anything else. Katniss looked like a drowned rat. He didn't know where she had been hiding but she looked frozen to the bone. Her hand was closed into a fist, there was crusted blood on her knuckles and her wrist. She also looked grim and determined, not unlike the boy earlier.
He almost laughed.
He was always right.
"Finally did the math, did you, sweetheart?" he mocked.
"What?" Effie frowned.
"Not you." he said. "Gotta go." He hauled himself up and hung up, turning to look at the girl. "Worked out you won't be going in alone? And now you're here to ask me… what?" She remained silent and he shook his head at her, his tone becoming nastier, mocking as he imitated her. "'Take his place, Haymitch, because all things being equal, I'd rather Peeta had a crack at the rest of his life than you?' He was in here in five minutes, you know. While you were out there, thinking only about yourself, he was here."
She looked down, her confidence gone faced with his harsh words. "I came for a drink."
"Out of luck there." he taunted. "Sit down. Let me take a look at that hand."
He waited until she had taken a chair to inspect her palm. She had cut herself on something but it didn't look very deep. He grabbed a clean dishcloth from the cupboard and passed it under the tap.
"Maybe it should be you." she said flatly. "You hate life, anyway."
"Very true." he snorted. She winced and recoiled when he cleaned the gash but he kept her hand firm in his. "And since last time I tried to keep you alive… Seems like I'm obligated to save the boy this time."
"That's another good point." she commented.
"Peeta's argument is that since I chose you, I now owe him. Anything he wants. And what he wants is the chance to go in again to protect you." he told her. She closed her eyes for a second, something resembling shame flashing on her face. Good. She needed to understand. He wouldn't make this easy for her. "You could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve that boy."
"Yeah, yeah." she snapped. "No question, he's the superior one in this trio. So, what are you going to do?"
It hurt that she could ask that so casually, even though a part of him understood. He would have done the same thing if he had been in her shoes.
"Like there's a choice?" he scowled, tossing the bloody dishcloth in the sink.
"You just said…" she frowned.
"What I did for you with Thread. You think I wouldn't have done it for him?" he spat.
She searched his face for a second and then shook her head no. "It's different. It's asking…"
"Too much." he confirmed. "It's asking too fucking much. But that's how it is, yeah? Peeta stays out there and tries to save your ass."
"And you?" she asked, apparently suddenly concerned with his well-being.
"We'll see." he lied.
It seemed to reassure her enough.
"You're sure he won't volunteer?" she insisted.
"We worked it out." he shrugged. "I think he got it."
She stared at the wound on her hand. "It'll be bad for you in the arena, right? Knowing all the others."
He didn't answer that.
There was no good answer.
Those Games would be unbearable wherever he was.
His silence must have been answer enough though because she nodded once and then left.
He didn't know what to do with himself. It was late, almost half the night gone already, but he felt the restless energy buzzing under his skin. He was thirsty for liquor and it was all he could do not to run to the Seam to beg Ripper for some moonshine she probably didn't even have anymore.
He ended up sneaking out of his house anyway, feeling ridiculous to be wary of Peacekeeper patrols when they usually toured the Village much earlier. He wasn't one to underestimate his opponents though, that was the first rule, the mistake that got you killed, and he wouldn't have put it past Thread to lay in ambush somewhere.
The Village was calm, the only lights coming from Katniss' house and Peeta's cellar. He figured the boy was painting. He sneaked into the house Peeta had described and searched the bathroom until he found his books and his metal box. He left the incriminating volumes but grabbed the box and made his way back home.
The tattered ribbon had faded along the years and it wasn't really pink anymore. It had been a piece of home when he had gone into that arena, the token tied around his wrist like a promise… Now… Now, it held little meaning to him. Like its color, his memory had faded.
He brushed his fingers against the pictures of a naked laughing Effie and then tossed them in the fireplace. He didn't want anyone else to see it. And someone would need to go through his things after he…
He closed his eyes and went back to sit on the couch, sorting through the box. The engagement ring seemed smaller than in his memories, the diamond had lost its shine. The iris shaped ring still looked good, pretty even. He pocketed that for later consideration along with the picture of his family. Everything else… Everything else he tossed into the hearth.
He watched his most precious belongings being consumed by fire until he dozed off.
°O°O°O°
He woke up with a start to find Peeta and a sulking Katniss standing there.
"Effie's sending me recordings of all the living victors." the boy declared as if continuing a conversation that had been interrupted. As if Haymitch had any clue what he was talking about. He didn't even have any opportunity to sit up. "We're going to watch their Games and learn everything we can about how they fight. We're going to put on weight and get strong. We're going to start acting like Careers."
Haymitch's grey eyes darted to Katniss, who lifted both hands in helplessness. "Don't look at me. He dragged me out of bed for this."
"One of you is going to be a victor again whether you two like it or not." Peeta snapped, glaring at both of them in turn. "You want me to stay behind and mentor? Then we do it my way. I'm not going to let you go out there unprepared. I won't have your death on my conscience. Meet me out there in half an hour."
The boy stormed out and the front door banged shut behind him, making both he and Katniss wince.
"I don't like self-righteous people." the girl declared.
"What's to like?" he scowled.
Peeta wasn't exactly kidding about training though.
Haymitch grumbled about it but he didn't mind half as much as he claimed. It was something to do. It kept his mind occupied and his body exhausted enough that he could manage to grab a couple of hours of undisturbed sleep at night. He avoided going to bed as much as he could though, if only to escape the night terrors.
The boy was strict about their schedules, so much so that, one evening, Haymitch asked him if he was their escort's secret love child. It earned him more laps around the Village the next day.
In the morning they exercised to strengthen their bodies. They ran around the Village for hours – he couldn't go much more than ten minutes, at first, but with each new day his stamina improved and he soon left Peeta and his prosthetic leg behind, although he was nowhere near fast enough to catch up with Katniss – they lifted heavy things and they stretched out their muscles. After more than two decades of constant abuse, his body wasn't exactly thrilled to be forced into shape but the fact that he was sober helped. He couldn't imagine having done that drunk or in withdrawals – because, no doubt, the boy would have insisted on cutting him dry. He retained his natural brute strength despite everything. It had always been one of his greatest assets.
In the afternoon they worked on combat skills. He more or less took over the hand to hand fighting lessons because that was his thing. He never missed the looks the kids exchanged behind his back when he taught them a move, as if they weren't sure to be impressed, surprised or afraid. They kept forgetting he had won one of those things once.
Katniss taught them practical stuff – like climbing trees. Haymitch scoffed at first because he had done plenty of that in his youth but it turned out he wasn't young anymore and it wasn't as easy as he remembered it. There were quite a few impressive falls that left him and Peeta with bruises all over.
He wasn't sure who insisted on throwing knives but it was the most frustrating thing. On bad days, the days when he woke up dying for a glass of liquor and when the tremors were so bad his hands wouldn't hold steady, he could barely grip the handle, never mind toss it.
"You'd think a guy who sleeps with a knife every night would actually hit the side of a house." Katniss mocked him one afternoon.
It stung so much he spent his free time tossing knives at targets until he learned how to compensate for the tremors. On good days, he hit the bull's eye without blinking. On bad ones, he hit the edge of the target. Better than nothing.
Throwing knives had never been his thing anyway so he insisted on teaching them how to wield a blade and, above all, how to protect themselves from it. He wasn't an expert. He relied a lot on his brute strength and had none of the subtle skills the Careers always showed but it had worked well enough for him in the past.
Aster designed a specific diet for them, Prim treated their sore muscles, Gale showed up on Sundays to teach them about snares… Haymitch shot Katniss a warning glance the first time, a glance she ignored, but, later on, she briefly squeezed his shoulder. He figured that meant she remembered the conversation about putting her people first.
Training for the Games wasn't really allowed but there was only so much Thread could do to stop them, short of locking them in a cell. And even then. The Head Peacekeeper warned them to keep whatever they were doing to the Village not to agitate the District.
Haymitch flipped him off behind his back but, unfortunately, Peeta knocked his hand away before Thread or one of his minions could see.
What they were doing was nothing compared to what was going on in other Districts, he was certain. He knew his friends. They would show up ready to fight.
According to the newspapers Undersee's daughter regularly sneaked out of her father's study, the kids were given favorites. That, alone, would encourage other victors to step up.
The worst, by far, were the evenings. He tried to escape it a few times but the kids tracked him down and mercilessly dragged him to Peeta's house where he was forced to watch whatever Games the boy had picked. The kids were thorough in their watching. They took notes, they analyzed the victor's fighting style… Haymitch remembered to chime in from time to time, to add important pieces of information about their weaknesses when all he really wanted to do was share anecdotes that, somehow, seemed crucial now.
Fifty-third Hunger Games. Brutus Gunn looked like a gorilla and saw the Games like an actual sport but he was a very kind and gentle man outside of it. The Games were the Games and everything was fair to him when it was about that, but outside of it… He had never hidden his respect for Haymitch who had always been a bit uncomfortable with how impressed Brutus was with him for having survived against twice the usual number of Careers.
Sixty-fifth Hunger Games. Finnick Odair. An actual peacock with a wolfish smile. Haymitch had given him his first glass of whiskey and watched while the boy almost choked on it. The boy had been trailing after him and Chaff for as long as Haymitch could remember. He had always been fond of the cheeky kid. He had always…
Fifty-Second Hunger Games. Katniss judged Eight's victor to be lucky. All Haymitch could think about was how Alina Grave always used to smell of almond, the taste of her kisses or how she always giggled when he poked her in the side. How awkwardly he had behaved with her, like only a teenager could be. She had been his first time. She was still a very good friend.
Each and every one of them.
He had stories for each and every one of them.
And he would need to make sure twenty-two of them didn't kill his kid.
Sooo what did you think? Next week we move on (*cough* to the smut *cough*) to the Reaping! What do you think our chances are? Did you like this chapter? Let me know!