Prompt: Could you do a fic where maybe at some point during the games era Haymitch realises the reason effies so possessive and prone to jealousy is probably because so many of the relationships she's had in the past have ended with her being cheated on

The Most Romantic Things

"Are you still sulking?"

Effie did her best to smoother her pout but wriggled down so she could grab the sheets and tug them over her. Her sweaty skin and the cool air in her apartment were making her shiver. If she had known they would end up there that night, she would have made sure the heater system was turned on. How could she have known, though? They hardly ever went to her place.

That night, after that party, she had simply been tired of fighting, battling a headache that sex hadn't exactly improved, and her apartment had been closer than the Training Center. When she had told him she was going to walk there instead of taking the car back to the Center, he had groaned and thought it was simply another way to fight with him. When she had started walking away and he had realized she was deadly serious about going home that night, he had dismissed the car and followed her, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket, a little unsteady on his feet from all the drinking, and very annoyed to be forced to do some exercise.

She had told him he could go back to the penthouse and that it hadn't been an invitation to follow her.

He had kissed her in the shadows of the lobby and sneaked a hand in the cleavage of her dress in the elevator.

She hadn't really been in the mood but she had played along and, there they were now, lying naked and sweaty in the crumpled sheets of her bed. She was craving a cigarette and, for once, she was also a little impatient for him to do the inevitable bolting out of bed and running out the door.

He didn't seem ready to move though. If anything, he had made himself comfortable, sprawled in the middle of her bed like a content cat.

He never did what she wanted him to do.

She discreetly bit the inside of her cheek, a little afraid she was going to cry for no good reason.

"I was never sulking. Ladies do not sulk." she huffed.

To be certain that he wouldn't notice how shiny her eyes were, she turned around, her back to him, and settled on her side, curling up so close to the edge of the mattress she would risk a fall if she actually fell asleep like that.

Haymitch was silent for a moment, then he heaved a long suffering sigh and she felt him move, the mattress dipping. She thought he was leaving and a part of her was glad for it because she wanted to curl up, smoke and feel miserable in peace.

He wasn't leaving though.

He was simply sneaking under the sheets and blankets like he rarely ever did – they had slept together in the same bed before because they were having a lot of sex and accidents happened but it was never purposeful; almost never at least. He rolled to his side, spooning her, and arranged the sheets and blankets so they were both covered and warm. Then he tossed his arm around her waist, found her hand and loosely entwined their fingers.

He must have been a little ill-at-ease and feeling a lot out of his depths because he started playing with her fingers, tugging on her hand only to link their fingers tighter again.

"I don't get why you're so upset." he muttered, a little defensive.

The position suddenly felt too intimate. Or maybe too couple-y. Too domestic.

She gently freed her fingers and turned around in his embrace, running her fingers through his chest hair to distract herself. She liked the way it felt under her palm. He had ruined her for groomed men.

She let her hand trail down until it met the not-so-hard plane of his stomach. She poke at the slight bulge – the beginning of the beer belly she had been warning him about for years.

"You should keep chopping wood." she teased.

He shifted in obvious annoyance, relocating her hand higher on his chest.

"You ain't upset cause I'm getting fat, sweetheart." he scoffed.

"You are not getting fat." she countered because it was true. She suspected that when he was in Twelve, he barely remembered to eat and he probably didn't eat anything healthy either. He always gained some pounds during his stay in the city and, if he had been living there, maybe he would have grown fat. For now… "You are getting soft."

He used to be firmer all around. His stomach, his chest, his ass, even his arms and his legs… Age and an excess of liquor were taking their toll on his body. A part of her was perpetually surprised how attracted she still was to him after all this time. It had been close to a decade since they had started sleeping together now. Nine years at the very least. Twelve years since she had come to work as his escort. He wasn't the handsome Quell victor he used to be anymore. She wanted him anyway.

She waited for the inevitable retort, the easy shot he would take at her equally aging body…

She wasn't exactly the woman he had started sleeping with all those years earlier either. She did her best to keep herself in shape. She jogged, she did the exercising and the dieting… She managed to keep her figure perfect but, lately, she had also been using corsets and girdles more and more to be able to compete with all the younger girls flooding the scene.

She knew her time as an escort would come to an end soon. Two more years, three if she was lucky and if they were really desperate to keep Haymitch under control…

She knew she could fool the world with make-up, designer dresses and wigs but that Haymitch, who had intimate knowledge of her body, had to see how old she was getting.

So she waited for the easy shot but it never came.

Perhaps he had learned some things about her because instead of making a comment about her own body, he simply rubbed his thumb on the small of her back.

"Are you still upset about the pretty girl?" he asked, sounding weary and angry all at once.

"So you thought her pretty, then." she remarked before she could help herself.

When they had fought about his behavior at the party, he had denied finding the other woman attractive – after he had denied owing her any sort of explanation.

"She was pretty." he conceded with a shrug, his hand drifting down to grope her ass. "You're gorgeous."

She had to resist the urge to grab his wrist and take his hand off her. Her ass wasn't as firm as she wanted it either anymore and surely he could tell the difference.

Perhaps, she mused, perhaps it was time to start considering plastic surgery.

He would hate it and it was the only reason she had delayed that long. That and the primal fear of any kind of surgery that she had never been able to shake after spending her whole childhood watching her mother pass under scalpel after scalpel. But for beauty she could conquer her fears. No… What was truly stopping her was his repeated vows that he liked her just like she was and hated the feeling of touching plastic.

If he wanted to fuck a doll, he had told her many times, he would go out and buy himself one. He liked his women… real.

Something that was too rare in the city.

"I am." she said, mustering all the arrogance she could even though it was difficult to feel confident when her face was bare and her wig was off.

She hooked her leg over his, interlocking them at the knee.

"Look…" he grumbled. "She said she was your friend and her husband was right there… And we got money out of the deal so…"

"We got a pledge for next year that they will never follow through because sponsors never do." she corrected with far more bitterness than she usually allowed to slip through.

Twelve was already out of the Games, like it always was, and while she insisted on courting sponsors anyway, in preparation for the following year, she knew it to be a futile exercise only destined to appease her conscience.

"Hey." His voice was softer, less annoyed and more understanding. He brushed his hand against her cheek, pushed her hair back over her shoulder. "Don't quit on me now, Trinket."

Sometimes, she wondered how much longer she could keep doing this job and not end up like him or some of the older or former escorts and Gamemakers. Addiction to various substances was a common side effect of working for the Games.

"Do not be ridiculous." she chided but it lacked its usual cheer. "I never quit." His gaze was far too knowing and she swallowed hard, averting her eyes. "It is not the point anyway. I am not upset with you."

Once again, she rolled over and turned her back to him.

Once again, instead of leaving like she half-wanted him too, he wrapped himself around her.

"Could have fooled me." he grumbled. "And half the people at that party too."

She had made a scene, hadn't she?

Not about Marylise and Haymitch flirting with her while Darlin watched with amusement like the idiotic man he was. Of course not. She had nagged at him over how much he had been drinking and then it had imploded into a louder fight about how controlling and annoying she was while she criticized him for his excessive abuse of liquor…

It was a fight they had had a thousand times in public and in private.

It was a fight they always had when they didn't want to fight about what was really upsetting them.

In that case, yes, he was right, she had been upset to find him outrageously flirting with Marylise, pulling out the charm like he could when he truly tried. But even afterward, when they had stopped shouting and they had been walking to her apartment, when he had stopped pretending he didn't know why she was suddenly so quiet and had told her he had simply been playing the game and that she should stop being a bitch about it because she had certainly been flirting and laughing with a lot of people that night, she hadn't been willing to admit it. Because she knew he was telling the truth and it was petty to be jealous and possessive of something that they agreed couldn't mean anything and also because he had long been past the usual amusement he felt when she got worked up over another woman making a move on him.

"Look…" he muttered against her shoulder, planting a kiss on her skin. "Can't say the jealous act doesn't turn me on usually but this is… You're being weird, Effie. You know I wasn't gonna do anything with her. Hell, you know I didn't even want to."

She took several deep breaths, making sure her voice would remain even.

"I went out with Marylise." she finally explained. "It was serious. Serious enough."

He tensed for a second, either because he hadn't been expecting that or because Marylise was a woman and his upbringing made him a little reluctant to talk about that sort of things.

"So you weren't jealous 'cause of me." he snorted, loosening his hold on her. "You were jealous 'cause of her?"

She pursed her lips, grabbing his arm before he could take it off from around her. "Do not be preposterous. She cheated on me for months."

He absorbed the information and relaxed again, pressing another kiss on her shoulder. "With that guy?"

He sounded incredulous and it was flattering, she supposed, that he would hold her above anyone else.

"No. That came later." she sighed. "While I was seeing Darlin. He cheated on me with her."

It was an intricate and uncomfortable situation that she usually liked to stay very far away from.

He let out a low whistle and then a snort. "How Capitol."

She hated how he could make that word sound like an insult. And yet…

"Quite." she granted.

He brushed his fingers up and down her arm. "You could have said that instead of screaming at me like a banshee."

She half-shrugged, more proof if he needed it that she was actually upset because it was not proper, not even in bed. "It just… It reminded me how fickle romantic attachments could be and I am very aware that… We have been sleeping together a long time and I am getting old and…"

"The fuck we're talking about now?" he cut her off, guarded like he always was when she ventured on the treacherous ground of them.

She knew the rules.

They were only sex friends, they meant nothing, no feelings were involved, it was all very casual…

Deep down she knew it was a way for him to protect himself, to convince himself that if he didn't love her, he would not get hurt. It was also a way to protect her and because of that she was mostly on board of the denial train, because if she meant nothing the Capitol had no reason to use her as a pawn against him.

But sometimes she also wondered if maybe he wasn't being honest and she wasn't fooling herself hoping he actually cared about her.

There was no doubt about her own feelings.

"I am not as attractive as I used to be." she mumbled. A decade would do that to you. "I hate the thought of you turning to another woman and keeping me on the side because you feel sorry for me."

She couldn't believe she had confessed that much.

She closed her eyes, aware of the long – too long – silence at her back.

"Alright." he scoffed and then said it again, louder. "Alright." He moved away and she thought that it was it, she had pushed too far for that night and he would go – and now, of course, she didn't want him to anymore – but she was manhandled until she was lying on her back instead. He was hovering over her, propped on his elbow, his face deadly serious if a little wary. "First, you're fucking gorgeous so I don't know what you're talking about. You're beautiful. You know you're fucking beautiful. So if you're fishing for compliments…"

Her eyes and her throat burned with the threat of tears and she hastily blinked the whole thing away.

"I am close to thirty-four…" she whispered.

"Which is ages away from being old." he scolded her, rolling his eyes at her. "Stop being so fucking shallow. In Twelve, people would kill to get to thirty-four. Come on…" He scoffed and it wasn't fond. "I hate when you're like that. Stupid. Doesn't suit you."

She averted her eyes, a bit embarrassed because when he put it like that…

He tilted her chin up, not letting her get away with it.

"Next." he continued. "Wouldn't keep fucking you cause I feel sorry for you. I ain't feeling sorry for you. You're a spoiled brat with far too many complexes of spoiled brats who are out of touch with the real world. I feel sorry for people who slave at work and still don't manage to keep their family fed. I feel sorry for the kids who keep dying. I feel sorry for myself. One person I don't feel sorry for? You."

She clenched her jaw but accepted the blow because, again, he wasn't wrong in the grand scheme of things.

"Now… The thing about seeing other women…" He hesitated, made a face. "We said this thing was casual. No strings attached."

"We also said we would warn each other if went with other people." she whispered. "Because of the condoms."

Or the lack of, rather.

But it had been an excuse.

A simple way to say they didn't want to sleep with anyone else.

Nobody had ever said the word exclusive but…

"And I didn't tell you I wanted to go with anyone else, yeah?" he snapped. "So if you think I sneak around behind your back…"

"Haymitch." she winced.

"No." he scowled. "You let me talk. Not that I owe you any explanation, get that in your thick hairspray attacked brain. But… You think I'm the kind of guy who cheat on someone he… You think that of me?"

He sounded so hurt by the mere idea that she could take him for a cheater that she felt ashamed.

And yet underneath the shame she also felt angry.

"In my experience, everyone ends up a cheater once they get bored." she retorted.

His grey eyes searched hers. "Are you bored?"

She immediately shook her head. "Of course not."

"Then why do you want me to be bored?" he scoffed.

"Because I am getting old." she hissed again. And perhaps because he still claimed to hate her when he was angry.

"You're getting old, I'm getting fat." he deadpanned, shrugging it off. "I still want to fuck you into the mattress."

Despite herself, she felt her lips twitch. "You say the most romantic things."

"I ain't trying to be romantic." he grumbled, his irritation decreasing a little. "Just trying to make you stop saying stupid shit. I ain't a cheater. I'm many ugly things but I ain't that. If I go with another woman, you'll know cause I'll tell you like we agreed."

"That is not quite the point." she sighed, rubbing her face. "Telling me afterwards."

"Yeah, well…" he snorted. "Ain't like I plan of fucking anyone else in the first place. You're the one making up stupid stories in your head. I'm happy with what's in my bed."

"My bed." she corrected with a pout.

"Your bed." he granted. "My woman."

A shiver of pleasure ran down her spine at that claim and she couldn't help herself, she tugged him down until his weight crushed her.

"My man." she whispered against his lips.

He snorted into the kiss. "Now you're getting cheesy."

Perhaps she was. But being cheesy didn't hurt from time to time.