Prompt : if your still taking prompts could you maybe write a partner piece to this, a few years post mj where they're lying in bed and he brings up this converstation? that would be soooo great!

For reference this is a follow-up to chapter 38

Worse Things

Effie adjusted her reading glasses and glanced at one of the numerous papers scattered around her on the bed. She could barely see anything in the pale electric light – one thing she really missed about the Capitol was the better technology, even after the rebellion, Twelve remained a bit behind on that front. She scribbled some notes on her notepad, tore the page off and put it on the pile of papers that she still had to review before actually getting some sleep.

"You know, there's a table in the kitchen, a desk in the study you just had to clean and furnish last month and a coffee table in the living-room. Why do you always have to clutter up the bed?" Haymitch grumbled, stepping out of the bathroom. He picked up the steaming mug he had put down earlier and nudged some papers off his side of the bed.

"Don't do that!" she yelped. "You will disrupt my system." She carefully moved some papers around so he could actually get in the bed – he did have a point, though, she could have worked somewhere else but that was a habit of her that even living with Haymitch Abernathy hadn't managed to kill. "Really, Haymitch, you know…"

"Yeah, I know." he cut her off. "You really need to send those to Plutarch tomorrow, just like you really needed to send the reports last week and I don't remember what the one before that."

Effie winced, feeling a bit guilty. When Plutarch had started talking about expanding his divertissement business to other Districts, to create local outposts, she had jumped on board and requested Twelve. The Capitol post-rebellion wasn't keen on ex-escorts and she had been glad to leave the memories behind. She had done everything by the book of course, she had arranged for a house to rent because she couldn't very well sprung on her victors uninvited – and she had also thought Haymitch wouldn't have appreciated her imposing her presence in his house. So, now, almost five months later, she was renting a house she wasn't living in – and it was getting quite ridiculous because she couldn't remember having put a foot in it for the last two weeks at the very least – and getting everything to work District wise was so much effort she was going crazy.

"I am not being a very good girlfriend, am I?" she asked softly. She picked at a loose thread on the comforter absent-mindedly. She was working too much, everybody was agreeing on that, be it behind her back or to her face, Haymitch had been the only one who hadn't said anything until now. She knew she worked too much, she was aware of that. She had always been a bit of a workaholic, bordering on obsessive when schedules and timings were concerned, but it was worse since her imprisonment. Working gave her a purpose, something else to think about than her fears and insecurities. Working helped her concentrate and stop thinking about things she'd rather not be thinking about.

Haymitch lifted his eyebrow in mocked consideration. "Depends. Am I getting sex if I say yes?" He took a sip of his tea – that he thought she didn't know was spiced up – and winked, letting her know he wasn't actually serious.

"You're not getting sex when you bring alcohol in the bedroom." she retorted, glancing back down at her papers. "Is this tea laced with whiskey or whiskey laced with tea, I wonder?"

"This is my third drink of the day, give me a break, sweetheart." he sighed "I'm trying."

"I know." she softened. "You're doing well."

He mumbled something she didn't quite catch but she didn't press the matter because it was a touchy subject. Haymitch would never stop drinking, she had accepted that. If she needed to work, he needed to drink. To each their weapon to fight their own demons. He was trying to get a hand on his alcoholism, though, to control his consumption. It was far from ideal but it worked for now and the events surrounding the rebellion were still too fresh in Effie's mind for her to try and tackle's someone's scars. She could barely live with her own.

She got back to work and he remained silent for a while, sipping his tea – or his whiskey, whatever was in that mug – and watching her work. He did that a lot, watching her while she was bent on a paper or another, she was used to it. As she pondered on a particular intricate point, she distractedly took off her hair grip that she could feel slipping away slowly. She gathered her hair, intending to tie them up again, when Haymitch stole the grip from her had. His fingers brushed through her strawberry curls and he finally put down the mug on the nightstand.

"Is that what you called yourself around?" he mused slowly. "My girlfriend?"

She frowned, forgetting the reports to look at him over her shoulder. He didn't sound displeased or angry or anything but it still sounded a bit guarded to her ears and, with Haymitch, guarded wasn't good. The fact that it had been almost half an hour since she had uttered the term also tended to show it was a question he had been considering since then. Haymitch never did anything by accident.

"How else am I supposed to refer to us?" She took off her glasses and put them on top of her notepad, before completly turning around to face him. His hand trailed through her hair one last time and fell down on the bed.

"Are you somehow obliged to refer to us at all?" His sarcasms weren't welcome but he didn't quite seem to grasp that fact.

"People tend to wonder why I spend most of my time with you, you know?" she said. "Plus, questions about my status do pop up sometimes in polite conversation. Am I single? Am I seeing someone? Dating someone? Engaged to someone?" And, yes, she could admit most of her coworkers – who were in majority coming from the Capitol – were nosy but those were questions she had asked a thousand times herself. That was just small talk. "I didn't think you would care. If you don't want people to know we're in a relationship, I…"

"I don't care." He sounded cautious to her but his face was blank, whatever was bothering him he didn't want her to know. "And before you start screaming your head off, I don't mind people knowing. We're not… It's not as dangerous as it was, I guess."

Oh. So that was what it was about. His eternal insecurities about losing people he cared about.

"If anything, being in a relationship with me could be dangerous for you." she told him. "You're a hero to the rebels, I am still the escort who managed to escape trial."

He waved that argument away. "Girlfriend, though?" He made a face. "We're not bloody teenagers, Effie."

She couldn't help her amused smile. It was all good for him to say that when he spent most of his time acting like a child. "I will use the word 'partner' next time, would that be acceptable to you?" He grumbled a yes and she kissed his cheek. "Why, you just handled a problem like an adult, Haymitch. I'm impressed."

"I'm letting you walk all over me." He rolled his eyes. "You're a witch."

"I don't think you ever let anybody walk all over you your whole life, stop being dramatic." she chided him. "You're just getting old."

"You're not getting any younger either, princess." he snorted.

She whacked away the hand that had started playing with her hair again. "Well, why don't you go and find yourself a younger model?" she snapped, irritated by that comment. She knew she wasn't as pretty or fit as she used to be despite her best efforts. And that was without taking the ugly scars she was sporting since the rebellion into account.

His smirk was so bloody annoying even after all this time… You would think she'd have gotten used to it but… No. It always equally made want to either murder him or kiss him senseless.

"A younger model wouldn't know all the tricks you do, sweetheart." he teased. "That thing you do with your tongue…"

That was it, that smirk had to go. She took hold of her pillow and tried to smother him with it. They fought for it for a few seconds but he snatched it away in the end and she ended up pinned to the mattress by his body, just like he had always intended to, she figured. Almost all her papers were now scattered around the bed but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Trying to murder a victor in his bed." He shook his head in disapprobation. "You should know better, sweetheart." He captured her lips as a spoil of war and she was happy to let him have that small victory. She wrapped her legs around his waist which made him moan in her mouth and when she was sure he was sufficiently distracted, she twisted them around so he was under her and she was straddling his hips.

"And you should know better than underestimate me, Haymitch." she triumphed. "As old as I am, you're still five years older." The smirk came back full force and his hands trailed on her waist, she leaned in to kiss him. "I really have to finish working, though, sorry." she mumbled against his lips before he could get any ideas.

He let out a sigh. "You know who sleeps in the same bed and never have sex? Old couples." His tone was playful enough that she knew he wasn't really upset.

"Is that a bad thing?" she joked, getting off the bed to gather her wayward papers. It was a mess and it would took forever to sort everything out.

His eyes followed her as she methodically picked up every page before settling back crossed-legged on the bed. "You said there were worse things once." he shrugged.

She frowned. "When did I say that?" She couldn't, for the life of her, remember ever having that kind of conversation with Haymitch. Before the rebellion it had mostly been just sex and a lot of mutual pinning and things left unsaid. After the rebellion… Well, she had spent a whole year in the Capitol trying and mostly failing to get her life back together, they had exchanged a few phone calls, he had visited her twice while taking care of something for Plutarch – or pretending to take care of something for Plutarch, she wasn't sure – and she had come to Twelve once to see how Katniss and Peeta had been doing. During those short trips they had shared a bed, had sex and made out like the teenagers he refused to be compared to, but they had never once tried to define their relationship. They had never once talked about the future. Not even after she came to live in Twelve.

"Victory Tour." he snorted. "I can't say I'm surprised you don't remember, sweetheart, you were all about your schedule that night."

The memory was fuzzy. She could remember Cinna and Portia finding them in a compromising position on the train and Cinna negotiating for hours of free time that had left her rearranging the timetable of the whole Tour… Haymitch had fallen asleep long before she had finished.

"I never thought we would be able to, you know." she confessed, playing with the edge of her notepad but not really paying attention to what she had previously written.

"I know." he confirmed softly.

She met his eyes in surprise. She had thought about that a lot before the rebellion. She had fallen in love with Haymitch against her better judgment. She wouldn't have stayed an escort forever, after all, and she had known he would never move to the Capitol so their affair was doomed to be a heartbreak. For her at least, she hadn't been convinced he loved her that much at the time.

"I don't say that often so enjoy it." he droned, handing her the glasses that were squeezed between his thigh and a stack of papers before they got crushed. "You were right. There are worse things than being domestic or getting old with you."

Haymitch was a difficult man and as closed as one could get in the matters of the heart so, coming from him, this was equal to a love declaration. She could feel a lump starting to form in her throat and tears building behind her eyes but she also knew he would hate that, so she averted her eyes and pretended it wasn't such a big deal to her.

"Careful, Haymitch." she teased, sure he could still hear the emotion in her voice. "You're getting sentimental in your old age."