Hayffie prompt: Based on a comic I saw somewhere on Deviantart. After watching another year's tributes die, Haymitch helps gets a drunk and disheveled Effie get cleaned up and into bed, and stays the night to make sure she's okay.
Human Comfort
Haymitch stopped his pacing long enough to take a sip of the forgotten glass of whiskey on the coffee table. He put it down quickly and resumed walking back and forth in front of the bay windows, eyes riveted on the clock on the wall. It was far far too late for Effie to still be out or, rather, it was too early for her to be out in the city. She never partied that late when the Games were in session and he was past the point of worrying, he was beginning to get really anxious now.
She had taken the death of their tributes rather hard this year. The girl had been young, too young to ever stand a chance, and he had warned Effie to be especially cautious about not getting attached but she never listened to him. The tribute reminded her of her niece, she had said. As for the boy… He was a nice teenager, polite and docile. Haymitch hadn't even given him a second glance, sure the boy was dead even before he took a step in the arena, but Effie of course had been instantly taken by his sweet disposition. Neither of their tributes had survived the blood bath. One year, they would listen to his advice and ran the other way as far as they could but that year wasn't the one and they both had been slaughtered trying to grab weapons.
Effie had started to cry at once and Haymitch had lost his temper… Things had been said that should have remained unsaid or, at least, kept for another time. When she had left, he hadn't even tried to hold her back. He regretted it though. They had their share of fights over the years where one of them had stormed out but she had never spent half a night out after that before. He was starting to wonder if she had gone back to her own apartment and if he shouldn't try to get there just to make sure she was alright. The Capitol streets weren't the safest place in the world for a woman who was alone and wearing heels that wouldn't let her run if she had to… On the other hand… What would he tell her once he got there? That he was worried? That was out of the question entirely.
He could alert the Training Center security, he supposed. Tell them they had a fight more than six hours ago and she left and never came back… Peacekeepers would more than likely laugh at his face but at least…
The chime of the elevator put an end to his reflection and he hurried to the hall, intending to give her a piece of his mind about keeping proper hours or, at the very least, letting him know she was still alive.
The elevator doors slid open and he stood there, stunned. He was expecting Effie but not Chaff and certainly not Chaff supporting a barely conscious Effie. Eleven's victor was keeping her arm firmly around his neck with his good hand, the lump was gripping her waist as much as possible to keep her upright.
"'Found her in my fourth bar of the night." Chaff told him, half-dragging her out of the elevator. "She's wasted out of her mind."
"Not true." Effie whined but the fact that she didn't try once to escape Chaff's arms told Haymitch all he needed to know about that. He relieved his friend from her weight, clutching her against his own chest to keep her standing. She slumped against him without protest.
"Very true, love." Chaff scoffed, studying her as she tucked her head under Haymitch's chin. She was small, that wasn't right.
"Where are her shoes?" he asked with a frown.
"Your guess's as good as mine." his friend shrugged. "She was already drunk when I got there. That will hit the headlines tomorrow, everybody saw her, she wasn't exactly being discreet."
Haymitch let out an irritated sigh. That meant more interviews, more explanations and probably more mocking comments about Twelve. "Okay. Thank you for bringing her back." He was surprised Chaff had bothered, all the more so if he had been planning to spend the night at a bar…
"I would have left her there but she started shouting abuse at people watching the Games." Chaff winced. "I had to shut her up before she got arrested for treason."
Haymitch rubbed his face with the hand that wasn't holding Effie – not that she really needed holding, she had wrapped her own arms around him and was clutching him for dear life – it really was perfect. All that he needed.
"He kissed me." Effie piped petulantly.
Chaff immediately raised hand and lump in the air defensively. "Seemed like a good plan to shut her up at the time. She wouldn't stop babbling. I wasn't exactly sober either."
"I didn't like it." Effie insisted.
"You will have to deal with that too tomorrow. People saw." Chaff cringed. "Sorry, man."
Haymitch honestly couldn't bring himself to care. "It's fine."
"It's not." Effie objected, wriggling in his arms so she could look at him. "He kissed me."
"Well, you should have shut up when he told you to, sweetheart." Haymitch snapped. He wasn't exactly thrilled at the thought of his friend kissing his escort either to be honest. She pouted but didn't argue further, she leaned back against him and seemed content to stay there. "What did she say? People heard?" Was he going to have to deal with an army of Peacekeepers breaking the door as well as a very drunk Effie?
"Stuff about the Games being monstrosities." Chaff replied, more serious than usual. "She was lucky I was there. I think she's in the clear but…" he shrugged. "Better not try that another time. Control her or she's as good as dead."
Haymitch tightened his hold on her instinctively and nodded. Chaff didn't linger much after that and Haymitch steered her toward her bedroom.
"You're reckless when you're drunk and you're a pain in the ass." he grumbled, before dropping her on the bed. "Do you want to get killed? Do you want to die? 'Cause there are less painful way to do that, sweetheart. You know what they do to traitors? You fancy getting your tongue ripped out and become a slave?"
"I'm already a slave. I smile and laugh on command. I do other things on command too. Do you want to know?" she mumbled, sprawled on her back like a star-fish. Haymitch didn't like her lack of decorum, he didn't like that she didn't freak out at the mere idea of the picture of her and Chaff kissing being plastered on every screen tomorrow morning, he didn't like that she didn't, even once, tell him he couldn't talk to her the way he was.
"You're giving up." he spat in disgust. They all did at some point, the escorts, either they got even more shallow and lived only for the fame and glory or they became withdrawn and were quickly replaced with younger models who asked less questions and were still enamored with the idea of the Hunger Games. He thought Effie would be stronger.
"No…" she sighed, her head rolling on the side lazily so she could look at him. "I can't. I would lose you."
Effie while drunk was prone to stupid confessions he didn't want to hear.
"Come on." he grunted, extending a hand to her. "I will be pissed at you tomorrow." No use getting all worked up when she wasn't totally there to get the edge of his anger. She took his hand and let him haul her up to her feet before guiding her to the bathroom. Her balance was uncertain and he had to make sure she wouldn't fall when he told her to sit on the edge of the bathtub, legs in. "Where are your shoes?" he asked, turning the taps so the water would run over her feet.
She leaned back against his chest. "I'm not sure."
Haymitch rolled his eyes. He did his best to wash her feet, just to check she wasn't hurt underneath the dirt. As far as he could see, she wasn't. That had been his prime concern so when she looked expectantly at him once he was done, he felt a bit lost. Her make-up was smudged and the white powder had taken a doughy aspect in some places. He rummaged around her cupboards until he found a washing cloth and started wiping her face clean of that atrocity. It only made it worse.
"You need the lotion." she told him quietly, after his third curse. "I can do it."
"Which lotion?" There were so many bottles and stuff around her sink he didn't know how she could get anything done in there. She leaned in, clenching his wrist to steady herself and grabbed one of the smallest bottles. He didn't lose anytime in pouring some of it on another washing cloth. She would probably rage about the mess he was making in her bathroom tomorrow but he couldn't bring himself to care. The lotion worked a hundred times better than water. It took everything away, fake eyelashes included. Her face, bare of make-up, hardly looked like the escort's. Her skin was reddish from his rubbing at it but she was gorgeous.
She blindly felt around for a something on the sink, knocking off a number of bottles. He whacked her hand away. "What do you want?"
"I need the cream or it will get itchy." she whispered, eyes low-cast. She was starting to come down from her alcohol induced buzz, he could tell. He grabbed a pot of cream at random and put some on her face. She recoiled and probably would have overbalanced in the tub if he hadn't hold her back. "I can do it."
"No, you can't." he retorted firmly. He made a quick job of the cream and then grabbed her arm to help her back in the bedroom. Night clothes, he decided, after a single look at her. Her dress was too impractical to sleep in. He should be more annoyed at having to take care of her than he was but she had done it enough times for him after all… He found her nightgown neatly folded on the chair of the dressing table. It was silky, small and absolutely sexier than he was prepared to deal with. They had trouble getting that dress off. He didn't know why it needed so much lacing, buttons and fastenings but Effie's drunken brain and him being unfamiliar with that kind of clothes meant it took twice as long as it should have.
"We have to take the wig off." she told him once she was in her nightgown – underwear still on as he wouldn't fail to point out the next time she accused him of not being a gentleman.
"Of course we have to take the wig off." he grumbled, eyeing the purple thing on her head as if it was a living thing. "Just remember it's you who wanted to do that when you freak out tomorrow."
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed and he sat behind her, tugging tentatively at the mass of synthetic hair. It didn't give. He would be damned before being defeated by a bloody wig though, so he tried again. It didn't take him long to understand there were pins keeping it in place. He breathed in relief when he managed to get that thing off. The nylon net and the rest of the pins weren't difficult to deal with and, soon, he found himself faced with a mane of dark blond curls.
"Funny." he snorted, combing his fingers through the tangled strands. "Never pegged you for a blonde." He cleared his throat. "Well, time for bed now, sweetheart."
She shook her head, glancing back over her shoulder. "I can't. I need to brush my hair."
"You will do that tomorrow." He rolled his eyes. You could always count on Effie Trinket to be difficult.
"No I have to do it every night. A hundred brushes each night." she argued, trying to get to her dresser table. She took a few steps and staggered so much he quickly forced her to sit back on the bed, figuring it would be easier to humor her than to deal with her if she fell and cracked her head open. He handed her the hairbrush but she just turned her back to him. "Can you do it? Please. I don't feel well."
He would bet she wasn't feeling well. He had never seen her so wasted.
"Now, you're kidding me." he grunted but she shot him such a pleading look, he found himself sitting back behind her. He didn't have a clue about how to do something like that so he just placed the brush at the top of her head and pulled down. If her pained whimper was to be believed that wasn't the proper way to do that. "Okay… You're sure you don't want to do it yourself?"
"You have to brush down from the bottom and then work your way up." she instructed. "You need to keep count. It's important."
He didn't even try to hide his irritated sigh. He was a little more cautious not to hurt her. Work his way up, she said, so that was what he did. He grabbed a handful of her hair and brushed until it untangled before repeating the operation with the next strand. "I'm already regretting asking but why a hundred times specifically?"
"Mother said it would make it glossier." she hummed.
"It's glossy enough." he shrugged, unable to resist the temptation to just pet her hair. Under the dim lights, it looked like thick honey.
"It's plain." She sounded so dejected he couldn't help but frown.
"Not to me." It was easier to pull the hairbrush through the locks now that it was mostly untangled. He liked watching the curls bounce back into place. "In Twelve, men would throw themselves at your feet." He meant it. She was more beautiful than most women from the Seam or the town. She was the kind of woman you couldn't help but look at… She was attractive even with her clownish make-up and her stupid clothes so it was natural that she was even more eye-catching without them. He wasn't surprised.
"Because you don't know any better." she told him with a careless shrug of her shoulders. Another sign she was drunker that she appeared to be because Effie never shrugged if she could help it. "Otherwise, you would know I'm plain."
"Says who?" he snorted. If she was plain by Capitol standards then they were all blind.
"Mother." He almost didn't catch her whisper but then she started laughing out of the blue. He didn't know what was so funny but she was in stitches. He liked her laugh, he didn't hear it often enough. It wasn't the fake polite kind she dished out at every party they were forced to attend but a genuine one, carefree and just a bit too loud.
"Care to share?" he smirked.
"You would hate Mother." she giggled.
"Yeah, I probably would." he chuckled, picturing an older even more stuck-up Effie. He wasn't keen on meeting Effie's mother either, she looked like an awful woman. What kind of person told her own daughter she was plain? Never mind when it was such a blatant lie? Maybe he should meet her mother after all… He was certain he could come up with a few carefully chosen words to tell her exactly what he thought about her parenting skills.
"You would love Lyssandra, though." Effie continued, completely oblivious. "Everybody loves Lyssa."
"And Lyssa is…" he trailed off, brushing her hair half-heartedly. He hoped she would have forgotten that part of the night the next morning. He didn't think he could survive the humiliation of rumors about him braiding her hair while gossiping, so to speak.
"My sister." She hunched a bit. "She's the beautiful one."
He would definitely like a chance to tell her mother how much she sucked.
"That makes you the smart one, then." he stated, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. He didn't know why he did that. They were friends, kind of, but that was as far as that went. And yet, he didn't like to see her that vulnerable. He wanted to comfort her but comforting people had never been his thing.
"That makes me the disappointment." she chuckled bitterly. "It's alright, I've made my peace with that."
Haymitch wasn't sure that was truly the case but he felt the need to change the topic, and since they were on the subject of her family… "But you like your niece. Is she Lyssa's daughter or do you have another sister?"
"No, she's Lyssa's." Effie beamed, suddenly a lot happier. "Clarissa is so beautiful, you should see her! And kind too." Her cheerfulness didn't last long. "Our tribute really reminded me of her."
And back to square one, Haymitch thought bitterly. "I told you not to get attached."
She didn't try to argue with him on that point. She blindly grabbed his wrist, forcing the hairbrush away from her head, and glanced back at him. "Does it make a hundred now?"
To be honest, Haymitch hadn't bothered to count.
"Yeah." he lied, throwing the hairbrush on the bedside table. "Time for bed, now." She crawled under the covers without any complaint but she looked at him expectantly. "What?"
"Would you stay?" she asked uncertainly.
He huffed in annoyance. He had waited for her, he had made sure she wasn't hurt, he had helped her get changed and he had been more than patient as far as he was concerned. And yet she looked so lost and sad in the white sheets he couldn't bring himself to refuse. He toed off his shoes and laid down next to her. She didn't lose any second before snuggling against his side with a contented sigh.
"Just until you fall asleep, sweetheart." he warned her. He didn't fall asleep with anyone if he could help it, he didn't fancy explaining his nightmares or, worse, waking up next to someone he had hurt in his sleep.
"Thank you." she mumbled.
A few minutes later, her breathing was deeper, slower and she was very obviously sleeping but he didn't get out of her bed just yet. Maybe she wasn't the only one who needed the human comfort.