prompt : If your still taking prompts could you write a moment between Effie and chaff where they talk about haymitch

Not so Friendly Advice

Effie was still humming slowly that month's last hit when she stepped out of the elevator on the silent twelfth floor of the Training Center. It had been a particularly good party, she mused, she was definitely tipsy. She giggled softly, letting her hand trail on the wall as she headed back to her room when a resounding crash made her freeze.

Adrenaline raced through her veins and slowly erased any trace of alcohol for the time being. You heard the most horrible stories of burglary those days. But there in the Training Center, though? The most secure place in the country after the President's Mansion? Haymitch's door was wide open which meant he wasn't in his room or was too drunk to care about his privacy – that rarely happened, if he was in his bedroom, the door was closed. She was very tempted to creep back to the elevator and go get some Peacekeepers just to be on the safe side of things.

They would laugh if there wasn't any danger, though. They would laugh, it would become a joke and her face would be on every screen the next morning with a mocking caption. She had only been an escort for two years and her record, until then, hadn't been exactly stellar. No victors to speak of and Haymitch Abernathy's improper behavior to curb down as much as she could.

The man wasn't as bad as she had feared he would be truly. They had a rocky start the previous year but she thought they had come to an understanding of sort if not began a tentative friendship. Haymitch was broken, it hadn't taken her a lot of time to understand that. He was a very, very sad man and the stories he was mumbling while he was drunk made her hair rise on the back of her neck. The nightmares, the wretched whispers about his family… She hadn't wanted to know more, she hadn't wanted to pry, but… People talked. Piecing everything together hadn't been hard.

What she had found out made her sick.

A lot of things made her sick those days, to be honest. Watching the Hunger Games with some friends in a bar or another, making bets, giggling about your favorite tributes… It was very different once you were actually a part of the Games. When you became an escort, you knew the tributes' name, you knew the food they liked and disliked, you knew what made them laugh or cry, you knew their favorite color, you knew a lot of little insignificant things that wouldn't matter much except that when they died – because, as Haymitch had pointed out the previous year, District Twelve's tributes always died – you realized it wasn't a stranger on a screen who just got killed, but a child you had come to know and even liked. Some of the other escorts had advised her not to get attached but she hadn't listened. She had gotten attached the previous year – which had resulted in an impromptu fit of hysterics she wasn't very proud of and Haymitch telling her to shut up before someone heard her and asked questions.

She had gotten attached this year too despite the heartbreak that had been bound to happen. Their tributes didn't even make it past the Cornucopia. Haymitch had told them to avoid the bloodbath at all cost, they hadn't listened. They hadn't been very bright that year – even though it wasn't very kind of her to say so – but it had still hurt when they had gotten killed. When she had asked Twelve's mentor if she would ever get used to it, he had only laughed and offered her his bottle. She had declined but she had been tempted. She hadn't cried this year but she felt guilty and, in a way, that was worse. It was her hand that had picked those particular children. It was her hand that had sent them to their death. She didn't dare confess that guilt to anyone. She doubted it would be well received.

Another crash from the living-room, smaller this time, and she took a steadying breath. There were Avoxes somewhere in the penthouse, maybe it was one of them. Accidents happened. She still grabbed the nearest vase as a make-shift weapon before she went to investigate.

No lights were on in the living-room but the bay windows insured a certain visibility. She spied the arm first and then the rest of the body angled toward the liquor cart, she felt stupid for not thinking of that possibility before.

"Haymitch!" She put the vase on the ground and rushed to his side, kneeling on the ground next to his irresponsive body. She rolled him on his back, relieved not to see any blood, and tapped his cheeks but he remained unconscious.

"Told him he didn't need more booze." came a voice behind her.

Effie startled so badly she could have sworn she had jumped two inches in the air. "Lights on!" she shrieked, clapping her hands once. Light automatically flooded the room, blinding her slightly.

"Did you have to do that?" The voice who, she saw, belonged to Eleven's victor whined.

She wasn't particularly glad to find the man there. She hadn't met all the victors yet but those Haymitch or others escorts had introduced her to had been nice enough – to her face at least. Chaff was another story entirely. It had become clear to her the previous year that Haymitch and Chaff were very good friends, each time he had disappeared somewhere, she had found him with Chaff. Now, Chaff was as funny and sweet as he was on television but something wasn't settling right with Effie. When Chaff paid her a compliment, it came out a bit taunting, he had made several jokes implying she wasn't very bright and if he wasn't openly hostile, she was a hundred percent sure he didn't like her at all.

She didn't know what she had done to him. Eleven's escort wasn't the nicest person in the world – she had gone to school with Viola and she hated the woman with passion, their rivalry had gotten out of proportion years ago – but she prided herself on being kinder and a lot more understanding than Viola ever was. It probably hadn't helped that the first time Chaff had met her, she had been chiding Haymitch on his drinking.

"Why didn't you help him?" she replied, ignoring his question entirely. She put her hand on Haymitch's chest, relieved to feel it rise and fall under her palm. "He needs medical help. Call the medical floor."

"He needs a good night sleep." Chaff objected, making his whiskey twirl in his glass. He scratched his forehead with his lump and Effie avoided her eyes, uncomfortable with his disability. He could have had an artificial prosthesis put on, they did wonders now. She had asked Haymitch why he hadn't and all the man had to say was that it was a statement. She had been too afraid to understand what he meant to question him further on the matter. Making statements wasn't a very good thing in the Capitol.

"Haymitch?" she shook him a little, hoping for a reaction. When she got none, she decided it was time for last resort options and slapped him. Hard.

Chaff's laughter was a bit of the hysterical side and she wondered if he was drunk too. "Bet you had been waiting for the opportunity, hadn't you, love?"

She hated the nickname. She tolerated Haymitch's 'sweetheart', she resented the 'princess' but liked it better than when he called her 'Trinket' – 'Trinket' meant business and business usually meant they would start to argue; 'Effie' was left for instance when he was being deadly serious. But Chaff always called her 'love' like he did every other female who wasn't Seeder or one of his friend and it was patronizing and loathing all at once. 'Love', in his mouth, wasn't an endearing term.

She slapped Haymitch again, ignoring the victor sitting on a chair in her penthouse. His eyes flew open this time and she breathed out a sigh of relief. "You stupid man." she hissed. "Never heard of alcohol poisoning?"

Haymitch blinked slowly, his eyes were glassy and unfocused. He turned on his side and curled up on himself, unconsciously pressing his forehead against her knees. "Not good." he mumbled miserably. With her luck, he was going to be sick all over her new dress.

"That's what happens when you drink too much." she snapped. "I will call for a doctor."

"He doesn't need a doc'." Chaff rolled his eyes.

"That is not your decision to make." she glared at him. It was on the tip of her tongue to clear off but her flawless manners were preventing her to.

"Always been mine before, love." Chaff argued with a shrug. "Not yours to take either, is it? Haymitch, do you want a medic to poke and probe at you?"

Haymitch seemed to curl up even tighter and, despite the fact that she was angry at him for being so stupid as to drink himself into a stupor, she brushed his hair out of his eyes. He pressed his forehead against her knees harder. "No medic." he pleaded. His hand blindly felt around until he accidentally hit himself on the face, she caught it in hers and he squeezed. "No medic, sweet…" He was too drunk to even say that properly, the words were slurred and incomplete.

"He's not capable of rational decisions right now." she retorted. "I am sober and…"

"He said no medic." Chaff cut her off, his voice harsher than usual.

Effie snapped her mouth shut. How drunk was Chaff? She didn't like the way he was looking at her like she was his personal enemy. With Haymitch in the state he was in, it occurred to her that she had absolutely no protection against Eleven's victor.

She turned her attention back to her victor. Haymitch was her responsibility, not Chaff's. "Let's get you to your bed, at least." She released his hand and tried to get him up without much success. Haymitch was a dead weight and neither her heels nor her dress were made for that kind of activity. "Aren't you going to help?" she asked Chaff, at some point.

Chaff only took a sip of his whiskey with an amused smirk on his lips. "I don't think so."

"He's so lucky to have a friend like you." she sneered, getting rid of her high heels. The temptation to throw them at his head was huge but she refrained.

"Yeah, I remind him every day." Chaff snorted. "He has you now, though, doesn't he? Doesn't exactly need me anymore."

Without her eight inches heels, she managed to get Haymitch upright. She staggered under his weight and it became clear she would never be able to get him to his room, he was so far gone he didn't even seem able to put one foot in front of the other.

"You sound like a jealous wife." she replied without thinking, too focused on not tripping over her own feet. The couch wasn't far but she felt like they would never reach it. She was supporting almost Haymitch's whole weight and while nobody could ever call him fat, he was heavy.

"He's a brother to me." Chaff said unexpectedly, once she had succeed in dropping Haymitch on the couch. "And he had never ever taken an interest in a Capitol woman – or in any woman either, came to think of that, dangerous business for a victor – but these days, your name is always on his lips. What's so special about you, Trinket?"

She busied herself with making sure Haymitch was comfortable. Was he talking about her that much? Some people had laughed at her in the recent past because all she seemed to do was complaining about Haymitch or talk about Haymitch or think about Haymitch… "Nothing." she answered at last. "There is absolutely nothing special about me."

And wasn't that the truth? She was plain under her make-up and wig, everyone had told her so all her life. She wasn't the brightest person either, she had been made aware of that too. Her career as a model had been short and marked with more ups and downs than anyone else's. She had succeeded in becoming an escort hoping it would be her big break only to end up with District Twelve and no opportunity for promotion. She was, as her mother so generally put it, a failure.

Worse, she was now a failure who picked up children and sent them to die in an arena.

All she had were huge ambitions and an iron will.

"No need to be jealous, Chaff." she teased, forcing a smile on her lips. That was one thing she was good at: smiling. "I am not about to steal your friend from you."

"I'm not jealous, love, just concerned." He took another sip of whiskey. He wasn't drunk at all, she realized. That made her uncomfortable. She was unused to Chaff's serious side, he was usually cracking joke after joke.

"Concerned?" she repeated, kneeling next to the couch to undo the two next buttons of Haymitch's shirt so he could breathe more easily. The first one was always unbuttoned, that was his way.

"What are you playing at?" he asked.

She frowned. "I don't understand."

Haymitch's head rolled to the side, closer to the hand she had left on the couch. She automatically ran her fingers through his hair. It needed a good shampoo and maybe a haircut but it didn't repulse her as it should have.

Chaff's jaw was tensed and he wasn't glaring at her exactly but… "Love, are you stupid or just acting like you're stupid? 'Cause according to Haymitch, you're sharper than the other escorts."

She was surprised and oddly touched he would have said as much but she still shook her head. She knew a lot of her colleagues acted clueless on purpose. She wasn't the only one who was good at smiling. "That's unfair."

"Life's unfair." Chaff raised his lump in the air and let it fall to mark his point.

"True enough." she whispered. She turned her eyes to Haymitch. His breathing was heavy, his eyes half-open, he didn't seem to be totally there. "Are you sure we shouldn't call for…"

"Are you falling in love with him?" The question was blunt and it made her startle.

"My apologies, what did you just say?" Because there was no way she had heard him right. Who ask that sort of questions?

"Are you falling in love with Haymitch?" he asked again, just as straightforwardly as the first time.

She blinked stupidly for a few seconds, her fake eyelashes fluttering in and out of her sight like two blue spiders. "And I thought Haymitch was the rudest man I'd ever meet." she chuckled at last, not bothering with politeness anymore. "I think you overstayed your welcome, Chaff. Kindly get the fuck out of my penthouse."

She was so angry she could probably hit him if he came close enough. She didn't know where the anger came from but, boy, was it there… It was burning in her chest and clouding her mind, tinged with a threatening irrational fear.

"The kitten has claws, who would have thought?" Chaff laughed but it wasn't his usual laugh, that one was bitter. "I could remind you it's not your penthouse but that's beside the point, isn't it?"

"I want you out." she snapped, bolting to her feet.

"Effie?" Haymitch's unintelligible grunt was loud enough she swallowed back all the thing she wanted to scream at Chaff's head. Twelve's victor didn't look more aware of his surroundings than he had been previously. It was her sudden movement that must have alarmed him, she thought.

"Go back to sleep, Haymitch." she urged him, more softly. She certainly didn't want him awake if his friend was going to spurt that kind of stupid lies around. "Out. Now." she said again.

Chaff didn't move. His eyes traveled from her to Haymitch and came back to rest on her. "He likes you, Trinket. That's dangerous."

"Dangerous for whom? I am not about to murder him while he sleeps!" she huffed, folding her arms over her chest.

"It's not him being murdered I'm worrying about." Chaff downed the rest of his glass. His hand was shaking, she noticed. "What happens when they find out and use you to get to him? Haymitch knows the tricks : nothing to lose means you're safe. Suddenly you waltz in with your sharp tongue and your stuck-up attitude and he's smitten out of his mind. He can deny it all he wants, I know him and I thought he would have been smarter than that." He shrugged. "And you're from the Capitol, that's even worse."

Her heart was racing. She didn't understand all of what he was saying but she could read between the lines. She got what he was implying. But that was… That was stupid. Haymitch tolerated her, liked her maybe but he didn't like her that way. That would be…

"I told him you were a fake." Chaff went on, apparently oblivious to her internal turmoil. "Some sort of ploy to get him back in line – he's a goner for difficult women, it's not that hard to guess – but you're legit. What were the odds? I'm still unsure if they assigned you to his district on purpose or not but this thing you two got going? It's a train wreck."

"We got nothing going." she denied. "We're friends."

"Victors and escorts aren't friends." he shook his head.

"I don't think that's written in the rules book in golden letters, Chaff." she sighed. "It's not because your escort is a witch that…"

"Yeah, difference is…" Chaff said with a snort. "… I've never gawked at Viola like an idiot when we're in the same room, love."

"Stop calling me love." she requested.

"I don't like you much." he stated.

"Well, I don't like you either if you must know." she scowled. "You're rude, mean and have no manners whatsoever. To be perfectly honest with you if you weren't Haymitch's friend, I would have kicked your ass out of this penthouse half an hour ago."

Her mother would be appalled at her language.

"Kick a victor ass?" he laughed, standing up. His laughter died abruptly. "Why, love? You think you can take me because I only have one hand left? Want to bet on that?"

Not stepping back took strength of will. "Don't you dare threaten me."

"I'm not threatening you." he growled. "I'm warning you. Whatever you think you're doing with Haymitch, stop right there. You will end up dead."

"And wouldn't that just make your day!" she chuckled bitterly.

Chaff's face softened a little. "I don't wish you dead, girl. I don't care if you live or die, you're nothing to me." he shrugged. "But he cares for you and that means one day he's going to do something stupid and they will kill you as a punishment. When that moment arrives, I will be the one cleaning up your messes."

What had happened to Chaff to make him so forbidding?, she wondered. There he was, talking of her potential murder over something that hadn't happened yet and would probably never happen anyway and he wasn't even batting an eyelid.

He was trying to protect his friend, she could understand that, but she didn't like the way he'd chosen to do it. He had been insulting and threatening her nonstop.

"Get out of here. I won't ask again." A warning for a warning, it was fair, she thought. "I will call the guards."

"And what will your guards do to me, Princess?" he sneered, taking a step closer. "Escorts are more easily replaced than victors, you know. I could throw you through the window and they would only slap my wrist and tell me to be more careful next time. That's how much you're worth, Trinket."

This time, she stepped back. "Get out."

"I thought you weren't going to ask again?" He was having fun, she could tell, but that was going too far.

"What do you want from me?" She stepped back quickly when he came closer, glad she had taken off her heels earlier. Easier to run or kick bare-feet.

Chaff was almost in her face now and she didn't like it one bit. "I want you to do us three a favor and stay away from…"

"What are you all shouting for?" Haymitch grumbled, sitting up, a hand on his face, the other propping him upward. Effie and Chaff both froze. Relief flew through her but Chaff was clearly displeased. Haymitch's eyes went from him to her and assessed the situation quickly enough despite the fact that he was still drunk. "Get away from her." he growled. He tried to stand up but he fell back down.

"It's alright." she said, stepping around Chaff to go sit on the couch. "We were just talking. Chaff was leaving." Haymitch reeked of liquor and sweat but it was better than Chaff's cologne. She could recognize Viola's hand in the choice. "Weren't you?"

Haymitch didn't look particularly convinced.

"I was." Chaff nodded with a wink for her. "Well, that was fun. Let's not do it again."

"Agreed." She grated through her teeth.

She didn't walk him back to the elevator. It was on total violation of proper manners but she deemed it safer. She just went to stand on the threshold when she heard the doors slid shut to check he was really gone. When she came back to the couch, Haymitch was still sitting, his face in his hands.

"Do you think you can walk to your room now?" she asked slowly. "I will help you."

She wanted to go to bed and forget the entire evening but she couldn't very well let Haymitch rot on the couch, could she?

"No." It was definitive. He tugged on her dress and she sat back down because at that point… Why not? "'Feel sick." He lay back down, curling up on his side before placing his head in her lap like it was a normal occurrence. It wasn't. And after the conversation she just had with Chaff it made her… not uncomfortable but uneasy.

"You shouldn't drink that much." she sighed. "It's dangerous. You could…"

"Lecture me tomorrow." he mumbled, patting her knee. "Your voice is grating. Hush and sleep now."

His words were slurred and she wasn't sure he was making any sense. "I am not under any circumstances sleeping on this couch with you." Her fingers, that apparently had a will of their own, combed through his hair, dexterously dealing with tangled strands. "You're in dire need of a haircut. I should schedule it for you."

"What did Chaff want?" he asked, out of the blue, his voice already sleepy.

"Nothing." she lied without even thinking about it. Haymitch didn't need to know, she decided. Chaff wasn't the only one who wanted to protect him. She doubted he would take kindly to his best friend threatening her and he had too few of those to afford losing one over his escort.

"You were 'fraid." he insisted, squeezing her knee.

She removed his hand and placed it back on the couch. He turned his head a little so he could see her, squinting because of the light. His eyes were still glassy and almost blank, she doubted he would even remember this the next day. She forced a reassuring smile on her lips but it only made him frown and roll on his back. He was perceptive, even drunk. He brushed the tip of his fingers against her mouth, making the smile falter away.

"Don't do that with me." he asked. "I see you."

And wasn't that precisely what she was afraid of? He saw her. Even through the make-up, he saw her.

"It was nothing." she still lied.

He seemed to think about something, probably for longer than necessary. "He's a good friend."

"Yes." She could grant him that, at least. Chaff was an excellent friend. "He is."

He grabbed her arm between his hands, trailing down until her own hand was clasped in his. He played with the rings she was wearing absent-mindedly, making them turn around her fingers. It was stupid, a thing a child could do. He was never that tactile when he was sober – well, sober-ish. "You're too." he said softly.

There was a lump in her throat. Haymitch had so few friends… He was a hard man to get close to. "You should sleep now." she advised. "You will feel better in the morning."

"No, I won't." he snorted before starting to chuckle like it was the joke of the century. When he stopped and turned white, she got out of the way quickly, not caring that his head hit the couch with a thud. She grabbed the vase she had wanted to use as a weapon earlier and handed to him just in time.

"That was a two-hundred years old vase." she sighed as he threw up. "Let's get you back to your room, Haymitch, you will be more comfortable there."

He let her drag him to his room sheepishly and she cursed Chaff every step of the way because he should have helped her take care of him when she had asked. That was only proper. Haymitch was so heavy, she was small and they barely had time to reach his bathroom before he was sick again. It was absolutely disgusting. She wasn't sure she had even seen a grown man be sick like that. Her boyfriends would never be caught in such a repulsive position. She was starting to feel nauseated herself and stepped closer to the door, he looked up at her with such a dejected expression on his face she had no choice but sigh.

She spent the next hour dabbing at his face with a wet towel, holding his shoulders until the spasms stopped. He slumped against her with exhaustion. Her dress was beyond repair at that point but she didn't even care. "You need a shower and a change of clothes." she said.

He shook his head. "Bed."

He was pitiful and she didn't feel like arguing. The night had been long for them both. "I've never seen you drink that much." she commented, as she helped him back into the bedroom. "You usually… stop before it gets that bad." Haymitch always drank a lot, he sometimes passed out on the couch or in his bed but… he had never drunk so much he would pass out standing up. Chaff who usually matched him glass for glass had been very sober in retrospect. She had a nagging suspicion she knew what that had all been about. "Did Chaff… Did he say…"

"He worries too much." he cut her off, escaping her grip to fall on the bed. He was less drunk now. "Don't mind him."

He turned on his side, his back to her and she knew she was right. She wasn't the only one who had been lectured by Chaff that night. "But he is right, isn't he?"

"I need sleep." Haymitch grunted. "Go away."

She thought about arguing, then she gave up before she even started. Even if Chaff was right… Even if she was a trap or a ploy to get some control back over Haymitch… What good would it do to discuss it? It was her life on the line. She didn't know how much she cared about that anymore and she wasn't sure how much she cared about Haymitch. He was smitten with her, Chaff had said. Was she smitten with him? Well she had never hold a man while he was throwing up before, that was for sure. Was that being smitten? She didn't know.

She needed time to think.

"Call me if you need anything." she offered, even though she knew he would never do that.

She thought she heard a 'thank you' but she blamed her imagination.