A/N: Hi! Welcome back! :) Enjoy. This was prompted by SiziGuez, who I thank deeply. Here is your story and I hope you enjoy it. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games, its plot, characters or world because I am not Suzanne Collins. :(
Comic-Con
"Mom, please let me go to the comic-con," Elle whines.
"Elle, for the last time, no," Effie sighs. "I've told you time and again, you are not going to the city by yourself."
"I won't be by myself, Mom, I'll be with Cornel," Elle groans. "Come on, Mom, it's only two trains to the city."
"I don't want you anywhere near the city without your father or me. I especially don't want you there with Cornel Oceanberry. That boy has a worse reputation than I did at his age, and that is saying something," Effie says firmly. "The answer is no, Elle. No more on the subject now."
"But Mom, Willow's going!" Elle protests.
"If Willow Mellark put her hand in a fire, would you do it too?" Effie asks coldly.
"She'd probably make me," Elle mutters. "Mom, comic-cons are fun!"
"Elle Lotus Abernathy, the answer is no!" Effie shouts. "If I hear one more word spoken about this, you will be grounded until you're twenty two!"
"Effie, why are you shouting at my Peanut now?" Haymitch asks sleepily.
"Your little Peanut will not take no for an answer," Effie huffs. "She wants to go to the city, alone apart from Willow, Cornel Oceanberry, and Willow's boyfriend Rust Littlelock."
"Nope," Haymitch replies calmly. "Sorry, Peanut, Mama's right. You're not doing that. That city's dangerous. And I don't like the way those boys look at you."
"Willow gets to go," Elle huffs.
"I don't give a damn what Willow gets to do," Haymitch says. "Your mama said no, so the answer's no. We'll take you to the city ourselves if you're good."
"Dad, it's comic-con," Elle huffs.
"I don't care who gets conned, you're not going," Haymitch says. "You know that Mama and I only ever say no to you when it's dangerous."
"What would you know about dangerous?" Elle scoffs. "You think letting me go to see Willow across the street without one of you watching me is dangerous."
"We still let you do that," Effie points out. "Look, Elle, I don't like the way you're behaving toward us right now. We've explained why the answer is no. Now, be a good girl and go do your homework. I don't want any more talk of this comic-con."
Elle growls "I hate you, did you know that?" and stomps off upstairs.
Effie bows her head and lets out a long sigh, then murmurs "Grant me serenity, for if I get strength, I may just end my own daughter."
Haymitch wraps his arms around Effie's waist. "Sweetheart, it's okay. She'll learn that we only want the best for her when she's grown up and has a baby or two of her own," he murmurs.
"I can't cope with her lately. She's become a miniature Willow," Effie whispers. "I took her to the store just yesterday, and when I chose a different sort of cereal, she shouted at me right there in the store and told me to put the box back and get the regular sort."
"What did you do?" he asks, nuzzling her neck.
"I told her that she picks the cereal when she pays for it," she whispers. "She threw a shoe at my head and commanded me to get the regular stuff."
"Did you?" he asks, squeezing her gently.
"Not a chance," Effie whispers. "I spanked her, there and then, with the shoe she threw at me. Where has my baby gone, Haymitch? I wish she was still my sweet, innocent little baby instead of this escaped hell-demon."
Upstairs, Elle is on her laptop, talking to Willow. "...I swear, Wills, it's like they just want me to be a baby forever," Elle hisses. "They act like I know nothing!"
"That's parents for you," Willow sighs. "I don't know how you're going to persuade them."
"Neither do I," Elle laments. "I suppose I'll have to find a way to pay Rust back for those tickets, then. I can't believe them. This is so unfair."
"I know it is," Willow mutters. "Your parents are so uncool. Tell you what, after we've done our homework, we'll meet in the usual spot, okay?"
"Sure," Elle sighs. "I'm going to end up in jail if I have to spend the whole evening with these two. Why couldn't I have had a younger sibling for them to focus on like you have Rye?"
"If you had a baby brother, you'd just want to throttle him too," Willow says sagely. "I hate having Rye. He may only be nine, but he's a nuisance."
"Yeah, but everyone pays attention to him instead of you because he's such an athlete, and you get to do whatever you like," Elle points out.
Willow shrugs. "Maybe you could say that you're staying over at Garnet's place. Garnet could tell her mom that you're staying with them, you sneak out in the night, and Garnet will tell her mom that you came to meet me in the park. I'm going to tell Mom that I'm staying the weekend with Rust, so we can claim to be there. Rust's mom will lie for us and say that we're there if yours call," she suggests.
"Willow, you're a genius," Elle squeaks happily. "We'll talk to Garnet tomorrow, yeah?"
"Okay," Willow chuckles.
.
That weekend, Elle disappears to go and see Garnet Appleby, who her parents have approved of her seeing. The two girls concoct the plan, and Elle disappears to meet Willow, and her boyfriend Rust, and Cornel in the train station, their tickets in hand. The four of them hop onto the train, grateful to finally be heading out of the city. Meanwhile, Haymitch has gone into his daughter's room to borrow her laptop, wanting to order her a present for her birthday. He opens it up and types in her password, tapping his fingers on the table in his impatience for it to open up. When it does, he's met with her recent group chat logs, all written to Willow, Garnet, Rust, and Cornel. He reads a few messages, then shouts "Effie!"
Effie goes running, scared silly by the sound of him shouting. "Haymitch! Has she got a body under her bed?!" she demands, terrified.
"That damn brat has run off to the city with her no-good friends!" Haymitch roars. "I was borrowing her laptop to get her a present for finally accepting no as an answer, and look!"
Effie reads the messages wth growing horror. "That silly girl," she whispers. "I may actually kill her. How dare she!"
The two of them ponder what to do, and eventually Haymitch says "We wait until she gets home, then we collar her with everything she's got."
Effie nods sadly, then whispers "Where did we go wrong, Haymitch? I thought we raised our child better than this. She's never had very much to rebel against."
"It's Willow's fault, she led our girl astray," Haymitch mutters, hugging Effie close. "We did our best, and that girl led our Elle into the bad side of things."
.
Two days later, Elle arrives home, and Effie sweetly asks "Did you have a nice time?"
"It was great, thanks," Elle says happily. "So annoyed that I missed the comic-con, but we watched re-runs of our favourite old shows instead."
"Oh, that's lovely," Effie hums. "Now, my girl, go and unpack, your papa and I have something special for you."
Elle runs upstairs and Haymitch walks into the living room, kissing Effie's head. "Are we going to bust her?" he asks softly.
"Oh yes," Effie chuckles. "I bought tickets for the three of us to the next comic-con. She's going to be horrified."
"You're evil," he laughs, then kisses her gently. "I love that."
"Thank you," she giggles, then kisses him back just as their daughter comes back in. "Hey, honey."
"Hey. So, what's this thing?" Elle asks.
"Well, baby, we talked it over this weekend, and we decided that, since your comic-cons are so very important to you, and we didn't think to take you to this one ourselves," Effie says, then looks at Haymitch.
"We bought tickets to take you to the next one," he tells her, smirking a bit.
"What?!" Elle explodes.
"Well, you seemed so distraught over not getting to go this time, I thought we should go together to make it up to you. What do you say?" Effie asks hopefully.
"If I'd known you were going to do that, I never would have gone with Willow!" Elle bellows.
"Well, it's a good thing you've got a long while to start making amends for what you did, little stuff," Haymitch says casually.
"Because from now until then, you're grounded," Effie says. "If your behaviour does not improve, your grounding will be extended until next year."
"What?!" Elle demands. "You act like you knew!"
"We did," Haymitch chuckles. "I was going to get you something for accepting no as an answer and being mature, so I borrowed your laptop. Rookie mistake, leaving your chats open."
"And now, my girl, you're going to have to kiss goodbye to all of your privileges. You'll notice when you get upstairs that your television's gone, as is your laptop, and your cell phone. You also lost your stereo, your music player, and your headphones. We also took all of your non-educational books so that you have enough time to study. Have fun, baby girl," Effie says, then kisses her daughter's head. "You're not allowed to see your friends outside of school until your punishment is over, either."
Haymitch smirks at his daughter. "Get working on behaving well, Peanut," he tells her, ruffling her hair before leaving her to fume at them in silence.
Well, there we go. I hope that was satisfactory. As always, if you have any thoughts, ideas, theories, prompts, or constructive criticism to give, let me know your thoughts in a review down there, in a PM, or in a DM on Twitter. Much love and happiness to you all. Until next time. Cat. xxx
