Prompt: Haymitch sees Effie in her underwear. Victory tour? Thank-you if you do it!:)
Asking
Haymitch rushed through the train corridors, barely aware of Portia's presence behind him shadowing him, Effie was shaking so badly in his arms he was afraid she was going to have a stroke or something like that. He didn't know how things could have gone that bad so quickly. The dining-room of District Eight Mayor's house had been stuffy and hot, Portia and Effie under all their make-up and heavy dresses had been suffocating so they had stepped outside for a bit of fresh air under the vigilant eyes of Peacekeepers. Haymitch and Cinna had gone with them because, unlike Peeta and Katniss, they could actually take five minutes of fresh air. There had been small talk and even light laughter and then all of a sudden someone from the District had lunged themselves at them, screaming murder for the Capitol. The man had been alone and clearly not very bright, or maybe too desperate to care for his own life, because the nearest Peacekeeper had shot him in the head but he had been close enough that blood had splattered on Effie who had promptly released a piercing shriek before practically fainting on the spot. Haymitch had caught her, bridal style, and had demanded to be escorted back to the train while Cinna went back inside to take care of the kids. Effie was so distraught Portia had come with him to try and soothe her.
It felt like ages before he finally reached Effie's bedroom. Portia opened the door for him and he automatically went for the bed but the stylist stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Don't. She will have a fit if you put blood on the sheets." Portia looked really pale underneath her make-up, she was shivering too, but Haymitch could only handle one distressed woman at a time.
"Okay." he said, knowing if he ignored Portia it would only mean they would have to change the sheets at some point. "Effie, can you stand?" He let go of her legs warily but she didn't release her hold on his neck so he wrapped his arms around her waist, just in case. She was muttering something he didn't quite understand. "What?"
She let go of him, then, and in the second before she went in total hysterics, he saw the wild terror in her eyes. It was very different to see people die on a screen and to see someone be killed right in front of you. "Take this off me!" she yelled. She pulled at her stained dress, she struggled with the strings but she only managed to tighten them and when Haymitch tried to help she pushed him away. "I want it off! I want it off!" She ripped her wig right from her head, pins flew everywhere in the room, and then she collapsed on the floor, sobbing. Her blond hair veiled her face. "I want it off."
Haymitch immediately crouched next to her, noticing the red dress wasn't the only thing sporting darker smudges, there was blood on her arms and her cleavage. "It's okay, sweetheart, I've got you. It's over. I will take it off. I've got you."
"I can do it." Portia offered, stepping forward. Her voice was a little unsteady but he didn't think she was about to have the same kind of meltdown Effie had. "You should probably go back to the mayor's. Katniss and Peeta…"
"Cinna will bring them back." he said. "She needs me more than they do right now."
He struggled with the strings holding the dress together, they were so tight he didn't know how she could even breathe, no matter how he tried, the knot wasn't giving. Effie leaned against him. "Take it off." she begged.
Portia was still hovering near the door. "Are you sure? Because she's not herself right now and… I'm not sure she would find that very proper for you to…"
"I don't really care what she finds proper or not, I'm not leaving her alone." he cut her off, appreciating her concern but there was no need for that really. He liked Portia and Cinna but, while he considered them friends, he had known Effie for far longer than them and he wasn't about to leave her with people they had met a year ago when he was there to take care of her himself. She was his escort, she had taken care of him enough times, he could do the same. All the more so when some lunatic had lost it and had tried to jump at her throat. He was all for revolution but not for stupid actions like that one. It could have been anyone out there, from Katniss to an innocent passer-by. That kind of action was gratuitous and everything they were trying to avoid. "Go to Cinna. Make sure the kids don't suspect anything."
She nodded and closed the door behind her, she looked relieved when she left and, to be honest, Haymitch was too because it meant he could focus on the sobbing Effie slouched on the floor. She seemed calmer now, though, even if she was still shaking. The girdle part of her dress however was still resisting his fingers and her sluggish attempts at pulling it down wasn't helping much. "You and your bloody fashion." he cursed, before taking out his pocket knife. Under normal circumstances, she would have killed him for even coming closer to her precious clothes with a blade but, right then, she stood still while he sliced through the numerous lacing holding the dress together. It finally loosened and she couldn't step out of it quickly enough, it seemed. She kicked it to the other side of the room and then did the same with her high heels, nearly falling down on him in the process.
He tried really hard not to look at the black knickers and strapless bra or at the amount of tantalizing creamy white skin usually hidden from view because if there ever was a time to not have inappropriate thoughts about her, it was now. She was still shivering and partially covered in blood splatters. "Shower." he suggested. She looked at him like they didn't speak the same language, so he guided her to the small bathroom en-suited to her cabin and turned on the shower, checking the water wasn't too hot. Her sobbing had turned into a sort of soft whimpering that was breaking his heart. "Come on."
She was too shocked to do it by herself, he realized. She was scratching at the blood on her arms so he caught her hand, toed off his shoes and got rid of his jacket. There was no other option, he supposed, as he steered her under the flow of water. It wasn't long before his clothes were completely soaked but the situation was complicated enough without him stripping down too. He carefully washed the blood from her skin first, making absolutely sure there was none left, and then, he took care of her smudged make-up. There were so many layers of powder it actually took longer than he would have thought. He couldn't remember having ever seen her without her heavy make-up, without the wig, yes, it had happened once or twice, but never without powder and fake eyelashes and all that crap she caked her face with. She looked almost naked without it, younger, frailer…
"I'm sorry." she said, once he had removed the last traces of powder off her neck. Water poured over them, streaming down their cheeks, the bathroom was beginning to get full of steam, it was getting harder to breathe. Haymitch's eyes followed a drop of water, it rolled from her forehead to the top of her bra and he concluded the shower had been one of his worst idea. Torture. Pure torture. "I shouldn't… I don't know what came over me." She was shivering despite the fact that the water was warm enough to make their skin reddish, so he knew she was still in shock.
"Someone got killed right in front of you." he shrugged. "You lost it. That's alright."
She closed her eyes. "It wasn't just that, it's… The blood." She winced and scratched at her arm again, he grabbed her hand before her sharp fake nails could puncture the skin. "Are you sure you got all of it off?"
"I'm sure." he promised.
"Good." she breathed out before wrapping her arms around his waist. "Good. Thank you."
"You're fine." He hugged her back, pressing a kiss against the side of her head. "You're just fine." He allowed himself to breathe properly since that man had came screaming at them. He had aimed straight for Effie, the obvious Capitol target, and Haymitch had been too far away to shield her with his body like Cinna had done for Portia. If the Peacekeeper hadn't fired… He never thought a day would come when he would be glad for Peacekeepers, but, god forgive him, he was. "Let's never do that again." He felt her nod against his shoulder. "Do you feel better?"
She clutched at his drenched shirt. "Just hold me a little while longer."
That was something he could do easily. He wasn't sure exactly how long they stayed under the running water but it took a very long time before Haymitch's heartbeat calmed down to a more regular rhythm. He would have been glad to stay there forever if anyone had asked him, his hands gliding on the skin of her shoulders, her back, her lower back… He wanted to touch all of her, to make sure she was alright and whole.
He wondered if friends usually did that for each others : platonically embracing in the shower, one fully clothed and the other practically naked. He wondered what it told about them that it didn't feel weird. He wondered what it told about him that he actually thought, for a second, when that man had lunged at her, that there was no point in rebelling without her. She was his friend, she was his family, just like Katniss and Peeta had become part of that close circle of people he cared about. He had never wanted to be back in the position where he could lose someone so close to him and, yet, there he was, holding a woman who, he was becoming more and more sure by the day, he couldn't phantom his life without anymore.
The water turned cold at some point and Haymitch cut it off with a sigh. Time to go back to reality. He helped her out of the shower because he really didn't need her to slip and crack his head open and wrapped her in one of those fluffy white towels that never stayed white for long in his own bathroom. "You're soaked." she said, blinking slowly. She was still a little out of it but she looked better, she wasn't as pale as she had been earlier.
"Did I ever tell you how observant you are?" he joked but there wasn't anything funny in the way she seemed to shrink into her towel. "Get dry or you will catch your death. I'm going to make sure the kids are alright and I'm coming back to check on you."
Her eyes widened. "The children! I should…" She took a step towards the door, dropping her towel next to the sink but he stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.
"I will take care of the kids." He nudged her back. "You take care of yourself." He stopped on the doorstep, turning back one last time to commit to memory the sight of her in her underwear because, really, he didn't know when he would be able to see her like that again. Now wasn't the right time to begin something between them, not with everything that was happening out there. The further she was from him, the safer she was.
The first stop he made was his room. Cinna was sitting on his bed, waiting for him, his face was closed and obviously displeased. "You took your time." he sighed. "What happened to you?" he frowned at the state he was in.
"Shower." Haymitch mumbled, ignoring Cinna's questioning look. "The kids?"
"Katniss and Peeta have gone to bed. I told them Effie wasn't feeling that well and you had taken her back to the train. I'm not sure they believed it."
"That was too fucking close." Haymitch growled, going directly to the bathroom to get rid of his damp clothes. "That's exactly what I was afraid of. We're losing control."
"How's Effie?" Cinna asked, from the bedroom.
"I don't know. Shaken but she's tough. She will snap out of it." He toweled himself quickly and pulled on the shirt and pants he wore to bed when he wasn't too drunk to change clothes. "How's Portia?"
"Not that great. I'm going back to her, now, if you don't need me anymore."
Haymitch told him to go and exited his room himself, after a few minutes. He stopped at Peeta's door and heard absolutely nothing inside, however, he could hear hushed whispers in Katniss' cabin. Effie would have his balls as soon as she realized they were sleeping together. He was actually surprised she hadn't gone ballistic about it already. He made another stop at the bar cart and came back to Effie's room. According to his estimation, he had only be gone for twenty to twenty-five minutes, not that long for anything to go wrong he hoped.
He didn't bother knocking. She was sitting in her bed, under the covers, hugging her knees. "Would you get rid of it, please?" she asked, as soon as he closed the door behind him. "The dress. I don't want to see it again and I don't want to touch it. Get rid of it for me, please."
It was still in the corner, a useless heap of red taffeta. He put the two mug he had brought with him on her nightstand before picking up the dress. What to do with it he wondered? And then, it came to him. He walked to her window and opened it with some difficulty, it probably wasn't made to be used. The train was running fast and wind rushed into the room, he quickly bundled up the dress and forced it through the small gap. It was torn from his hand and gone from sight in a matter of seconds. "There's a tree in this forest that will be very fashionable."
She smiled but didn't answer so he leaned against the wall to watch her silently, assessing her state of mind. She looked better, he decided, less prone to have a panic attack in the following minutes. She took one of the mugs and made a face as soon as she sipped from it. "What is that?"
"Your herbal tea." He rolled his eyes. Trust her to never be happy when he tried to be thoughtful. "I made sure they gave me the right one."
"Did you spice it up?" she winced.
"Ah, yeah, no… The spiced one is mine."
"Not anymore, it isn't." she sipped it slowly. "You will have to fight me for it."
"Do you think I won't?" He smirked. Couldn't help it really, she was too fun to tease. "Fight you when you're in bed… God knows how that would end up… Where's your sense of propriety?"
"I think I lost it in the shower along with my dignity and my make-up." she joked but her heart wasn't in it, he could tell. "Thank you for… taking care of me."
"My pleasure, sweetheart." He shrugged. "Besides, the view wasn't bad."
She rolled her eyes, put the mug back on the nightstand and burrowed under her covers, lying on her side so she could see him. He should take that as a signal it was time to go, there was a bottle of whiskey with his name on it waiting for him in his room anyway. He lingered where he was for several minutes, just looking at her, just making sure she was alright.
"Would you stay?" Her hair was still damp from earlier, it was leaving a water stain on her pillow. "If I asked you, would you stay?"
Haymitch was aware he should have gone. He really, really should have gone. He knew why this wasn't a good idea. There were thousands of reasons and the most important one was that it wasn't safe for either of them. "Are you asking?"
She pulled back the covers on the other side of the bed. There was something in her eyes… Something demanding and unrelenting and he wanted to tell her to stop, to not cross that line because they needed that line. She knew they needed it as well as he did. She didn't know everything but she knew some of the things, and what he had not tell her she had probably guessed. She was clever that way. They needed the line.
But that was the funny thing about lines in the sand. They were easy to blur. Sometimes, all it took was three little words.
"I am asking."