Prompt : I really like your stories with Oria and I was wondering if you could do one where she is tell Haymicth all about plans to merry peeta? thanks!
The Pretty One
Haymitch toured downstairs before heading to bed, checking that all the windows were closed. It smelled like rain and Effie could make fun of him all she wanted, he had lived in Twelve long enough to know when it was going to pour cats and dogs. Satisfied that he wouldn't have to get up in the middle of the night because a storm was raging inside his house, he finally climbed up the stairs, already daydreaming about his warm bed and the warm body waiting for him between the sheets.
He didn't bother switching the corridor lights on when he reached the first floor, he was used to wandering around the house in the dark. The darkness was what made it so easy to glimpse the moving ray of light behind the first door on his left.
Haymitch frowned. He figured that if it had been a burglar lurking in Oria's room, his daughter would have already started screaming at the top of her lungs and probably attacked the man in a valiant attempt at protecting her stuffed animals. She was overly protective of them. She had once refused to speak to Haymitch for four hours because he had stepped on a stuffed rabbit paw. Not to mention the fact that the geese would have honked, so that ruled the burglar theory out, which meant the light more than probably belonged to Orianna's flashlight.
With a sight, he pushed her door open and folded his arms over his chest with a stern expression that usually did little to his daughter. As it was, she glanced up, flashlight firmly kept in place between her teeth so her hands would be free to held a paper in place while she applied a generous dose of pink with her pencil, but didn't otherwise looked guilty at being found out drawing when she should have been fast asleep.
"What are you doing out of bed?" he asked, switching the lights on.
She blinked at the sudden flux of brightness and spat out the flashlight. "I'm drawing, Daddy."
"I can see that." He suppressed the smile that was threatening to tug at his mouth. "But it's time for bed, baby girl."
"But I have to finish." she argued, exchanging her pink pencil for a green one.
He rolled his eyes but walked to the bed and threw back the covers. "Bed, Oria. Don't make me go and get Mommy."
She thought that over and then dragged her feet to the bed and climbed in. He had just tucked her in when she battled her long eyelashes in the exact same way her mother did when she wanted something. "I need to go pee pee."
"Of course you do." he grumbled and let her up. She wasn't particularly discreet as she ran to the bathroom, it was like a small elephant stomping through the house.
"Haymitch?" Effie called from their bedroom.
"Got it!" he replied, leaning against the corridor wall while Oria finished her business. She certainly took her time washing her hands, making sure the water was warm enough but not too hot and that she had used enough soap… Haymitch knew when someone was trying to play for time. "Your hands are clean. Time for bed."
"I want water." Oria pouted. She was already hopping towards the stairs like a bunny when he caught her under the armpits. If he let her go down to the kitchen, he would never get her upstairs again. It would be 'let's say goodnight to the geese' and 'have you seen the light outside' or whatever ridiculous excuse she would come up with – and she was never short on those.
"You have a glass of water on your bedside table." he reminded her, carrying her back to her bedroom. She made herself heavy on purpose, her pout only deepening.
"It tastes funny." she grumbled.
"It's water. It doesn't taste funny." he objected. He tucked her back in bed, made sure Mr Grrr was in bed too because she wouldn't sleep if her stuffed bear wasn't there, kissed her forehead and told her to go to sleep. No such luck, however.
"Monsters check." she requested.
He made a show of opening the wardrobe doors, of looking under the bed and even behind the curtains, all the while knowing he was ridiculous and Effie must have done the same thing less than two hours ago. "All clear." he declared very seriously. "No monsters."
"Do you like my picture, Daddy?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's nice." he mumbled, sitting on the bed next to her. He would wait until he was sure she was asleep or he wouldn't be able to sleep himself, he would keep worrying she was roaming the house on her own and getting into mischief.
"You haven't looked!" she protested, clutching her bear against her chest in disapproval.
He would have loved to glare at her and tell her to stop being such a brat but he was powerless faced with those bright blue eyes of hers so he got up and went to check the picture she had been so busy drawing in the middle of the night. The picture looked like the other thousands plastered all around the fridge, the bookshelves and the fireplace mantle : blots of green, pink and blue that might or might not have been trees, the sky and a bird. Effie was in awe of her drawing skills, Haymitch was a bit more realistic about the lack of those. "It's beautiful. I will put it up on the fridge tomorrow."
"No, it's not for you!" she frowned, snatching the picture from his hands when he came back to sit on the bed. "You can't steal it."
"Okay, okay…" he grumbled, watching as she carefully laid it down next to her glass of water. "Who's it for, then? Mommy?" That was a first. She was usually happy to gift him with everything she produced.
"It's for Uncle Peeta." She stifled a yawn. "Do you think he will like it?"
"Sure." he shrugged. If the boy didn't like it he would pretend for the little girl's sake anyway. "What did he do to get a picture?"
Oria was quiet for a few minutes and he actually dared hope she was asleep but then she toyed with Mr Grrr's ear, turning it this way and that. Haymitch and Effie had a bet about how long it would take before that bear fell to pieces.
"Auntie said Uncle Peeta should have married someone who draws well." she says at last.
Katniss had probably been joking. "When did she said that?"
"When we were drawing on the little cakes with the pink and green stuff." Oria explained. The kids had babysat her that afternoon and Peeta had probably thought baking would be a good activity. "Auntie wasn't good, her cakes were all crooked and they weren't nice like Uncle Peeta's. He said mine were the beautifulest ever."
Effie would probably have corrected her grammar but it was too late an hour to care in his book. "And?"
"And I draw and I'm good so if I draw very well Uncle Peeta will marry me instead of Auntie." She sounded a bit annoyed, as if he should have understood her genius plan hours ago.
Haymitch's brain froze. "Why in Panem would you want to marry Peeta?"
"Cause he's pretty and he gives me cakes." She rolled her eyes as if it was obvious.
He opened and closed his mouth several times. There were so many problems with that statement he didn't even know where to start.
"You can't marry someone because they're pretty." he said at last.
"You married Mommy." Oria frowned.
"I didn't marry Mommy because she is pretty." Haymitch rubbed a hand against his forehead, sensing he would have a headache before long.
"You think Mommy isn't pretty?" the girl gasped in horror.
"Of course, I think Mommy is pretty." he grumbled. "Don't go and tell her I said she isn't pretty." That was all he needed, for Effie to hear that. He would be sleeping on the couch for days on end.
"Mommy's cake aren't good." Oria pointed out.
"Can't say they are." Haymitch snickered. Effie's cooking skills hadn't really improved and he doubted they ever would.
"Then, if you didn't marry her because she's pretty and she can cook why did you marry Mommy?" It was an innocent enough question but he'd rather Effie answered that one. He had never thought of what they would tell their daughter once she started asking questions about how they met or got married or… anything about the past really.
"You marry people because…" He looked around for inspiration and found the good of fairytales Effie read her every night – not only Effie, to be honest, he was so familiar with the stories he probably knew them by heart by now. "Because you're in love with them. But you marry when you're old. Very, very old. Like around… forty. Forty is good. Until forty you can't look at boys, you hear me?"
"Boys are yucky." she agreed, wrinkling her pretty nose. "They always put yucky things in their mouth. Gilly ate a slug yesterday."
"Disgusting." Haymitch nodded. "See? No boys, no getting married."
"Uncle Peeta doesn't eat slugs." she yawned again. "And I love him, he gives me cakes. I will marry him."
"No, you won't." he frowned. "No getting married, I said. And what about Katniss?"
"Auntie can live with us." she offered very generously with a careless wave of her hand. "But I marry Uncle Peeta."
"And what about me?" He was aware he was whining but really, as Effie always said, he was sometimes acting more like a five years old than their five years old. "You want to leave me to live with Uncle Peeta?"
She opened a sleepy eye and let go of her bear to pat his hand slowly. "No, no… Silly Daddy." she giggled. "You will live with me."
He felt a bit better at that piece of news but, still, he had suddenly mixed feelings about Peeta. Stupid maybe, but…
"What about Mommy?" he insisted. "We can't leave her alone here. She will be sad."
"Mommy comes with us." Oria muttered, bringing Mr Grrr close to her once again. "Mr Grrr too." She breathed out slowly and he knew she was out. He smiled despite himself and the fact that he had half a mind to go knock on Peeta's door and tell him not to give cakes to his daughter ever again, and kissed her forehead before leaving the room. He let the door slightly ajar in case she got afraid during the night, then he got changed in the main bathroom instead of the one in his bedroom so he wouldn't wake Effie.
He shouldn't have bothered, she snuggled against him as soon as he sneaked into bed.
"What took so long?" she mumbled sleepily, hooking a leg around his. He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in the smell of her flower shampoo.
"Your daughter has the wedding jitters." he snorted in her hair. "She's going to marry Peeta, apparently, but don't worry, we can all live together like a big family. Even Mr Grrr."
"If even Mr Grrr can come too, then all is well." He could hear the smile in her voice. She dropped a kiss to his shoulder. "You didn't go to the children's house to kill Peeta yet. I'm impressed."
"Too tired." he grumbled but that only made her laugh softly.
"You already planned ten ways to kill him without getting caught, didn't you?" she teased.
"I wouldn't kill the boy." He rolled his eyes. "Hurt him a little bit maybe… Make him ridiculous… I heard she finds boy eating slugs yucky… Maybe Peeta likes slugs…" Maybe the boy wouldn't notice if he slipped some in his plate while Katniss wasn't looking…
"You won't feed slugs to Peeta." Effie warned him, nuzzling her face against his neck. "She will fall in love with someone else quickly enough. It's normal at her age."
"I don't like it." he growled but he still settled in for sleep, knowing there was nothing he could do about it right at that very second.
"Of course, you don't." Effie sounded too amused, really, it was vexing. "God help us when she's actually old enough to date."
"She won't date until she's forty." he replied. "We have an agreement."
She patted his chest. "If you say so."
"I'm saying so, sweetheart." he huffed. "What if she has inherited your taste in men? Some of your boyfriends were nutcases."
"And I married the biggest of them all." she joked. "It didn't work too bad for me in the end, did it?"
"If you're the same as your daughter, you married me because I'm pretty." He tightened his hold on her and pressed a goodnight kiss to her lips.
"I'm caught." she laughed before deepening the kiss a bit. "I married you because you're pretty."
"I knew it was your master plan all along, Princess." he whispered against her lips. He kissed her again, just because he could.
"Sleep, now." she said after a few more kisses. "Some of us actually have to go to work in the morning."
"And some others will be waken up at dawn by an over enthusiastic kid." he reminded her. "How come you get to talk to adults all day and I have to stay in five-years-old land?"
"It's good for you to be with people your own age, Haymitch." she joked.
"Well, aren't you full of wits today…" He nibbled on her neck playfully.
"One of us has to and we already established you're the pretty one." She kissed him more forcefully and then burrowed against his side, her head resting on his shoulder. "Let me get my beauty sleep."
He snorted at that, thinking up and discarding at least ten replies before settling on holding her closer. He fell asleep with a smirk on his lips, like he did almost every night since Effie had come back into his life.