So I was re-reading Mockingjay's ending and there was that part : "Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives". So I know it means Haymitch waits for the train because it brings liquor but then I thought : well, Haymitch never needed the train before to find liquor in Twelve and thus this headcanon of mine was born. (It's not a prompt but I'm lazy and I don't want to publish a new story for that so... headcanon time! yeah!)

Delivery Day

Katniss hiked back up the slope to her house, her day catch flung over her shoulder and her bow in her hand. She paused next to Haymitch's place, surprised and almost shocked to hear him humming good-naturedly while feeding the geese in the back garden. She leaned against the fence, propping her elbow on the wood and watching him go from one end of the pen to another, changing water, hay, and answering each honk with a chosen epithet of his own. He was quite oblivious to her.

"Someone is in a good mood." she observed, at last.

He didn't look startled per se, but his hand shot for the waistband of his pants and the knife he was keeping there. He relaxed once he saw her standing there but any trace of contentment disappeared from his face. God forbid anyone thought Haymitch to be happy sometimes.

"It's liquor day." Haymitch grunted, with a shrug.

"Is it what we're calling it, these days?" she teased, hauling herself up so she could sit on the fence, careful to keep her legs out of the pen. She didn't like his geese much. They were honking all day long and were rather aggressive pets. She had threatened more than once to hunt them down and feed them to Buttercup.

"I don't know what you mean, girl." he denied, glaring at her. "Get off my fence, you will wreck it and your boy will have to built it up again."

Peeta had only helped Haymitch, really, but Katniss chose to humor him. "Is it only a liquor day or is it a Effie day?"

"It's a mind your own business day." he sneered.

She didn't even try to wipe her smirk off her face. "So it is a Effie day."

Effie came in and out of Twelve an awful lot, to Katniss' opinion. In the beginning, she had used all kind of silly excuses like how she had just wanted to check on her victors, and then how she had felt the need for a few weeks of vacations in the country, or how she had been in Four for a job with Plutarch and she had thought why not push all the way to Twelve? But Katniss' personal favorite was the day she and Peeta had just barged in Haymitch's house uninvited like they more or less always did because they hadn't seen him in a few days and wanted to make sure he was alright and not passed out drunk somewhere, and they had stumbled upon Effie in his kitchen, a toast half-way to her mouth, wearing nothing but one of his shirts. Katniss had almost not recognized her without her wig and make-up – Capitol fashion had died down a bit after the rebellion, but not by much and Effie was still very much the fashionable girl – what was going on had been so obvious that Peeta had started to stutter an apology when Effie had come up with the most ridiculous excuse ever : her luggage had been lost and she had been drenched by the rain so Haymitch had kindly lent her a shirt. It probably would have been a little more believable if it had actually rained in the last two weeks or if Haymitch hadn't chosen that moment to stagger in the kitchen stark naked – a sight Katniss was still valiantly trying to forget to that day.

"What's it to you if it is?" Haymitch grumbled, getting out of the pen, careful not to let any goose step out with him.

"Wasn't she here last month, already?" She hopped from the fence and followed him to his kitchen – mostly clean kitchen, she couldn't help but notice, definitely an Effie day, then. Usually the former escort came by every two or three months or so but lately her visits had been longer and more frequent.

"What are you? A Peacekeeper?" Haymitch snorted putting coffee on. "Why do you care so much?"

She ignored the gibe and sat on a chair without being invited to, propping the bow against the table and letting her game fall to the floor. "And didn't you go to the Capitol two weeks ago?" She made a face, she didn't get how Haymitch could go back there. She wouldn't even if they paid her – not that they would welcome her anyway after Coin.

He misinterpreted her disgusted face. "Do I comment upon the fact that Peeta sleeps at your house more often than not? I don't think so." He pulled out two mugs from the cupboard, inspected them dubiously under the kitchen light and then decided they were clean enough because he put them on the counter, making sure to bang them loud enough to make his displeasure known. "I stay out of your sex life, you stay out of mine."

She did wince this time. "Please, don't talk about that." It made her nauseous to only think about it. Peeta had once mentioned to her that it was as disturbing to think about Haymitch and Effie doing that as if they were their own parents and he wasn't wrong. "Should you even have a sex life? You're old, it could kill you."

If glares could kill, Katniss would have dropped dead at that precise second. Still, Haymitch set a cup of coffee in front of her, took a sip of his own, and cringed at the taste. He liked his coffee with a quarter of liquor, she knew, but he was all out of that.

"Why doesn't she stay here?" she asked, out of curiosity. But she guessed the answer even before Haymitch could make fun of her for even thinking she would. Effie Trinket in District Twelve? She barely knew what to do with herself when she was there for a week or two – beside annoying Haymitch to death, that was. She would go crazy if she had to stay on a more permanent basis. "Never mind."

Haymitch was sporting such a smirk Katniss knew he was picturing exactly the same thing she was : Effie getting frustrated with the way things were done around there and trying to open a school for proper behavior and good manners. Effie could probably adjust herself to their way of life eventually but she wouldn't be really happy, not as she could be in the Capitol. She loved parties and silly things like fashion that had no place in Twelve. Now, Haymitch, on the other hand… Katniss took a sip of her coffee, the bitterness disgusted her but she didn't bother asking for sugar.

"In the hovercraft, when we were coming back to Twelve…" she hesitated but now that the idea was in her mind, she couldn't get it out. "I asked you why you were coming back with me and you said… You said they couldn't find a place for you in the Capitol." He didn't answer and she carefully stared at the mug in her hands. "You were ordered to come back here to take care of me, weren't you?"

"It's been years." he said with a shrug. "What's the point of talking about that now?"

"Would you have stayed in the Capitol?" The mug was red and its rim was indented in some places. "You would have, wouldn't you? Stayed with Effie, I mean." How much did they make him sacrifice for the Mockingjay? She thought back to the very first weeks after they came back, it was all a blur and her memories were rather unreliable, but she remembered how quickly Haymitch had fallen back into alcohol when he had been battling against his addiction every day in Thirteen and right after, when they were in the Capitol. She remembered he had shut himself up in his house and lived like a recluse until Peeta and her coaxed him out slowly, although, it wasn't until Effie's first unexpected visit that Haymitch had started to really get out more. "You could go now, couldn't you?" she mused. Her eyes weren't burning because of unshed tears, she vowed, she wasn't scared or sad or anything like that. It was true that Haymitch was as much a part of her family as Peeta or Greasy Sae, but she could get by without him if it meant he would be happier somewhere else. "We don't really need you anymore. And the Capitol is better stocked in liquor, you would never run out, there."

"Are you trying to show me the door, sweetheart?" Haymitch joked, but his voice was kind of strained. "I am where I am meant to be. Twelve is as much my home as it yours."

"Not everybody feels that way." she pointed out. Her mother wouldn't ever put a toe back in Twelve, she knew, and others were feeling exactly the same way.

"We're not like everybody else, Katniss." he sighed. She heard what he didn't say, they were victors, rebels, survivors.

A concert of honking and clanging and cursed words that Katniss would never have thought her capable of and the back door opened on Effie who was struggling with her suitcase. "I swear, Haymitch, your damn geese…" She fell silent abruptly when she took sight of Katniss and her scowl was replaced with a genuine expression of happiness. "Oh, hello, Katniss." She looked from Katniss to Haymitch, probably taking in the tense mood in the kitchen. "What is going on?"

"Nothing." Katniss reassured her quickly. "Haymitch was just trying to poison me with his coffee."

Effie shook her head in irritation. "Did you remember to change the filter like I showed you?"

Haymitch rolled his eyes, getting rid of his mug by dropping it in the sink. "Well, hello to you too, Princess. I'm fine, thank you for asking."

Katniss suppressed a smile as Effie puckered her lips. "I am not fine, since you don't bother asking either. Would it kill you to help me with this?" She rattled her case that was more or less stuck in the door. "You could have picked me up at the train station. It's only polite, really, Haymitch!"

"Or you could bring a smaller suitcase." he suggested, not at all fazed by her accusation. He folded his arms. "Why do you need all that for? There's a full closet of your clothes upstairs already!"

"Last month clothes." Effie sighed, exchanging a pained look with Katniss. Katniss didn't know what was so awful about that but she did her best to appear sympathizing. "They're out of fashion."

"I should just throw them away, then." Haymitch threatened and immediately found himself subjected to what Katniss and Peeta had dubbed 'Effie's death glare'.

"Don't you dare!" she warned.

Since they were raising their voices more and more and they didn't even seem to realize she was still there, Katniss quietly gathered her belongings and slipped through the back door, stepping over Effie's case. Just in time, too. She was barely out when Haymitch finally gave in and pinned Effie against the counter to kiss her properly.

Katniss couldn't quite say she understood how they could work as a couple but she guessed everyone had their way of coping with what they'd been through. Peeta baked, she hunted and Haymitch drank until the liquor ran out and then he raised geese until the next train arrived. It was a better day when the train brought Effie rather than liquor.