MISERABLE COMPANY, PART I

How could someone recover from a death they were responsible for?

* * * THE ANSWER * * *

They can't.

But misery loves company.

Haymitch Abernathy acquired a fermented coping method years after his first tributes, but at the beginning of his mentorship, he sought out the people like him: victors. They would become his only confidants.

More of an aloof hornet than a social butterfly, Haymitch followed Stephan around their penthouse in the Training Center the morning after Agatha's elimination. He did not want to be alone with thoughts of his tributes yet only his mentor could comfort him; everyone else were strangers.

Instead of calling for room service, Stephan proposed eating breakfast out in the city. Tributes ate in the refectory during their training while their mentors and the visiting victors could utilize their privileges to Capitol restaurants. Haymitch was too morose to bother refusing Stephan's offer but he pettily claimed rights to the elevator buttons, which only amused his old mentor.

"Do you all eat together?" asked Haymitch, feigning disinterest. He shrugged on his coal miner jacket, a contraband his stylist had not filtered out of his luggage. His shoulders had filled out since his first life but the sleeves were still baggy.

"No," replied Stephan. "Just friends of mine, whoever's not mentoring."

"Are they all old?"

Stephan chuckled at that. "Some of them are close to your age." He clarified when Haymitch grimaced. "If I can tolerate you, I can make friends with younger people."

"But what do you talk about? I doubt they can relate to your back problems or how you get winded after you walk up the stairs," said Haymitch. "The only thing you'd have in common is the Games." He realized on his own. "Oh."

The older victor nodded. "That bonds even the most different people in the worst, closest way possible."

Their conversation fell before the cab ride to Nero's Cafe. Any more discussion near their magenta-skinned cabdriver would have been unsafe, even though he was more focused on the screen installed in his dashboard than the cobbled road, let alone his passengers. The annual show was down to its top eight tributes, progressing to an epic finale that everyone except those who had already won eagerly awaited.

The boy from District Four was no longer competing. He wept remorse as I held him.

A hostess asked for Haymitch's autograph as he and Stephan entered the restaurant. He misspelled his last name to see if she would notice, and she didn't. She was ogling at his chest and arms so blatantly that Haymitch Abrenathy assumed his old jacket was torn open. She led them to their table and brushed shoulders with him as she left.

Somewhat agitated, he sat himself next to Stephan, who faced a rather diverse group of conversing, joking, spluttering victors. Haymitch recognized most of them, as did I. Their home districts ranged from Two, a district that revered the Hunger Games, to Eleven, the exact opposite. Origins didn't matter when it came to food and camaraderie, apparently.

Throw them into an arena again and that could - and would - all change.

All eyes were on the newcomer, either directly or slipping glances through Stephan. They were as discreet as the hostess.

The only stare Haymitch returned was that of an elderly victor, Magdalena Barros, from the far end of the table. She and the boy who killed Agatha's soul before her body shared similar district features. Their eyes were the same shade of green, and while Mags' were not vicious and crazed, but wise and gentle, they very well could have been in a different, less civil setting. Then again, hadn't Haymitch seen himself fight in the footage recaps?

Nevertheless, he refused to reciprocate the woman's nod of acknowledgement, and eventually she looked away.

Of course, he'd grudgingly forgive her as he failed more and more tributes, learning or perhaps wishing it was not always the mentor's fault. Besides, both were quite the rebels.

Haymitch ordered enough food and robotically ate once it arrived so that Stephan would not worry. He played off the nudge of the waitress' hip as she served the steaming platters by reaching over for his napkin.

The woman from the night before, Seeder Jones of District Eleven, leaned forward and spoke to the quiet, slouching boy. Her words danced around, across the table, and finally bowed on his platter, knee-deep in fluffy yellow eggs. Despite the lack of applause, there was an encore.

"Haymitch?" she asked again. "I said, have you been feeling better?"

He heard her the first time but knew his answer would come out weak in front of the people he needed to impress.

Stephan answered for him. "He just needed some sleep, is all. Under a lot of new pressure, just like we were once."

Seeder cast the boy a sympathetic look before returning to her bowl of hot grain, berries and cream added.

Next to her, a tall, bald, dark-skinned victor in his early twenties said, "You get used to it, as bad as it sounds. Soon you'll be able to pick out the ones to train and the ones not worth wasting your time."

Haymitch's eyes flickered to the man's left arm, noting it was a knobby stub. He spat, "I'm not giving up on anyone, Chaff."

Chaff Anders of Eleven snickered. "You remember me, then?"

"Your arm, but yes."

"I like this kid, Stephan!"

"Tell me that, not him."

Chaff stood up, and Haymitch tensed for a fight but Chaff looped around the table, dragging his chair, and threw his whole arm around Haymitch after plopping down next to him. Haymitch's shoulders scrunched in, his abdomen burned icily. His fingers found that not-rhythm on the placemat, close but not close enough to a butter knife. "I'm sitting by you now," decided Chaff, and that was when Haymitch smelled his breath. He looked at the other man's juice glass and saw a liquor bottle trying to hide behind it.

Haymitch focused on the pulp fibers floating around in his glass of orange juice. The juice glass was full but the waitress stopped by wielding a pitcher and filled it to the brim.

District Three's Beetee Ma tried to summon her over to replenish his cup as well but she sashayed away. "Oh, um, okay," he stuttered, sliding his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Someone snorted.

Zane Derks from Eight chuckled at Haymitch. He was about nineteen and had won the year before Haymitch, an excellent specimen Haymitch could befriend. "You know, when they say we have public access, they mean public access." His district accent prevented Haymitch from knowing whether that was supposed to be sensual. The cackles around the table verified it was. "You might be able to see her before you leave, if you want. At least she'd be your choice, better than your sponsors." He considered something, grinned sheepishly. "Or any of us."

"What are you talking about?"

"Zane," Stephan Hendricks warned.

As Zane held up his hands in mock surrender, and as the other victors quieted or laughed somewhat nervously, Haymitch pressed. "Wait, what do you mean? What does he mean, Stephan? I met my sponsors at all those banquets last year."

Chaff shook his head. "That's not what he meant, kid."

"Oh, Stephan," breathed Seeder. "You didn't tell him?"

"Tell me what?" Haymitch implored.

"Why should I have? It's not relevant to him, not in his situation," reasoned Stephan, crunching into buttered toast.

Seeder countered, "He should at least know! What if he said something that got him in trouble?"

"Said what?"

"More trouble than he has already suffered? We're all going to be in trouble if we don't end this discussion," Stephan angrily whispered back.

The others seated at the table wore somber masks, not agreeing or disagreeing.

Molten honey eyes glared at all of them and then faced Haymitch. "Those of us deemed attractive enough are sold to sponsors and other clients. Family is used as blackmail."

Besides Stephan's second-long scowl, they continued to eat and drink and talk, ignoring the secret that sat in the center of the table. No one picked it up, not even Haymitch.

He then noticed how handsome Zane was, with his chestnut hair and hazel eyes, his cleft chin, his grin as wide as his jaw. He noticed the others as well, older in age but healthy and famous enough to be desired and bought.

Chaff must have said something remotely funny and mitigating because he roared above the whole table.

"Shut up, will you?" yelled a playful, scratchy voice that had gotten up from its seat and crept behind Haymitch. A pair of hands shuttered his eyes and the same voice murmured into his ear, "You're not going to tell anyone, are you, handsome?"

He lurched away from the voice, into the lips of another victor. Yelping at the intimate contact he could not bring himself to return, he shoved the owner of voice behind him hard and tumbled to the floor.

The restaurant muted.

Stephan admonished his friends while rising to assist the sputtering boy. They were laughing too loud to notice, though. Only those from the night before, Beetee and Seeder, looked worried.

The voice from behind belonged to Lyme Natterson of Two. Her mouth smirked and her lofty, muscular frame loomed above Haymitch but her hand reached down in something of a plead for forgiveness. It was her sad, broken eyes that prompted Haymitch to not hate the victors and to never forget that breakfast.

I was not present during the disastrous first impression at Nero's Cafe. I had collected the souls of slaughtered children on the cafe's television the victors pretended they were not watching.

AN: Next part will reveal who kissed him.