Prompt: Hi! In your last hayffie prompt (which was absolutely brilliant by the way), there was a sentence about how Johanna would usually be there and she'd tease Effie. Please, if you wish, could you also make a oneshot of one of those times? Thank you!

Just a quick note to say that I actually wrote this one before the one where Jo and Effie end in custody and in my head, this prompt here goes before the other one. When I wrote it I imagined it was one of their very first "we have to spend time together 'cause we have mutual friends" evening, so that might explain some of Jo's meanest comments.

Of Forever

When the Games were in session, it wasn't unusual occurrence for Effie to come back to the penthouse after some party to the sound of Haymitch, Chaff and Finnick laughing and teasing each other in the living-room. Tonight was no exception and even though her feet hurt like hell, a small smile blossomed on her lips at the knowledge that she only had to step into the next room to be greeted with a glass of her favorite wine and a nice compliment from Finnick. Chaff and Haymitch would mock her, of course, but she was used to it.

What she wasn't used to, however, was hearing a distinctly feminine voice amidst the male ones.

Effie froze in the middle of the hall before quickly disposing of her coat and her purse. She discarded them on a small table and hurried to the living-room, wary of what would await her in the other room. Those three particular victors – or, rather, those two particular victors, Finnick was clever enough not to get dragged into anything too scandalous – had a knack for inventing awful situations for her to deal with. The more illegal it was, the happier they were. Now, she very well knew Finnick's stance on those kind of things but she wouldn't have put it past Chaff to have brought with him a stripper or a woman of even worse trade.

She barged in the living-room like a fury, ready to dispatch some order and scream abuse at whatever they had done only to find herself the object of attention. Finnick's half-finished sentence died on his lips.

"You're alright there, love?" Chaff asked when no one ventured a question.

Effie soothed her white dress to compose herself and quickly assessed the situation. Haymitch's eyes were glassy and he was looking at her with that languid apathy that meant he was on the verge of getting very drunk, Chaff was sporting his 'I-m-so-drunk-I-m-stupid' smile and Finnick was obviously barely tipsy but still very amused by her apparent confusion.

As for the woman, she was neither a stripper nor a prostitute although it didn't redeem her much in Effie's book. As a matter of fact, it only made it worse, she would have excused her general behavior if that had been the case. In truth, even her District origins couldn't explain her ill-breeding.

"Quite." Effie huffed, peeling her long white gloves from her fingers. "You were making such a racket I was afraid you were causing mischief."

"And of course you couldn't help but run in to spoil our fun, right?" Johanna Mason snorted.

Effie threw her a look of contempt. District Seven latest victor was sitting on the couch next to Finnick – in her seat, Effie couldn't help but think – clad in something that was probably supposed to be a blue dress but that could only be compared to a sort of tube with a large visible zipper on the front. Easier to get out of it, Effie figured nastily, although given the way the young woman was sitting it wasn't that nasty really. Who sat with her legs spread out in front of them when they were wearing a dress so short Effie was sure she could have guessed the color of her underwear?

"Do you want some wine?" Finnick cut in before Effie could reply.

"Don't stand up, I will get it." she retorted frostily.

It wasn't a secret that she wasn't fond of Mason and it wasn't a secret either that Finnick was quite taken with her for some reason. He had dragged the woman in his circle of friends which meant Effie was in her presence more often than she would have liked. Chaff found her amusing and Haymitch liked her well enough but they had never invited her to one of their late night drink before. The culprit of that particular idea wasn't hard to guess and she would make sure to let Finnick know she wasn't appreciating it.

She dropped her gloves on the back of a chair and walked to the liquor cart, swaying her hips with each step she took. She suppressed a satisfied grin when she felt the men's eyes following her, the dress left her back bare and she could feel their stares burning through her skin. At least, they still had some common sense in them and could recognize classy from trashy. She took her time in pouring her wine, knowing that if she turned around she would see Haymitch pressing the rim of his glass against his chin thoughtfully, his gaze riveted to the small of her back or lower depending on how much in the gutter his mind already was.

"The princess in action." Mason laughed. She had an awful laugh, it was raw, cruel and bitter. "You just love the attention, don't you?"

Effie spun around and glared at her before glancing at Haymitch who had been strangely silent up to that point. He was smirking, obviously waiting to see how it would unfold.

"Jo, don't." Finnick sighed. "Effie's nice, give her a chance."

"I've seen nicer snakes in my District." Johanna retorted.

"Don't be so sour, dear, it's a very unladylike trait." Effie snapped. "Some women just command attention when they walk into a room and some others… don't." She lifted her chin and took a sit on the couch next to Chaff, crossing her legs pointedly, ignoring the snickers. She wouldn't normally have sat anywhere near Chaff but she didn't have a choice if she didn't want to drag a chair from the dining room into the living-room.

"Yeah, people tend to stare at women who look like they stole their wigs and make-up from a clown." Johanna flashed her a disdainful smile.

"Is it really necessary?" Finnick mumbled, taking a sip of his drink.

"Let the girls talk." Chaff laughed. "They're comparing sizes."

"You did not just say that." Effie chided him, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Rude."

"What got your knickers in a twist, sweetheart?" Haymitch taunted. "Are you set on being a pain tonight or was your party not fabulous enough for you ?"

He sounded annoyed probably because of her behavior. She was usually more relaxed when it was just Chaff and Finnick and didn't bother putting on the same show she did outside of the penthouse; she didn't feel safe enough with Mason to drop the act however, so she would remain the perfect little Capitol escort for tonight. Haymitch would have to deal with it.

"Nothing is ever fabulous enough." Johanna attacked right away. "Did you fall in a jar of glitter?"

It took several seconds for Effie to realize she was talking about her dress – her beautiful, expensive and unique new dress that she had chosen precisely because she knew how it would affect Haymitch. It had been designed by a new stylist and it was toned down for Capitol fashion : the back was bared, the sleeveless top was held on the shoulders by two round golden brooches, it clung to her front like second skin and then floated down from her waist to her knees. It would be far too simple for her tastes if the golden embroidery wasn't so delicate and exquisite, it gave the dress all its character. Besides, it flattered her figure.

"Where did you find yours?" Effie retorted without blinking. "A thrift shop?"

"That's really the worst you could come up with?" Chaff nudged her with his elbow. She scooted a few inches away.

"Don't like my dress, Trinket?" When Johanna smiled, she always showed her teeth like an animal about to pounce on a prey.

"Frankly, no." Effie took a sip of her wine. "You look like a tramp. Although, I suppose it's fitting…"

"Effie." Finnick snapped, brows furrowed in a frown.

"Play nice, sweetheart." Haymitch admonished.

"Oh, like you could lecture me on the subject." Johanna laughed. "There are rather a lot of rumors about you, sponsors and a certain hotel, you know…"

Effie glanced at Haymitch whose face had grown stern but otherwise didn't betray any feeling about that piece of information. She did what she had to do, she had no choice on the matter. None of them did. However, that was a topic that was tacitly banned from their evening gatherings. She was the one who brought it up, though, so she couldn't very well blame Mason.

All she could do was wrap herself in the last tiny bits of dignity she got left.

"And yet you will never see me wearing something so tacky." She looked disdainfully at the victor's blue dress.

"Enough. Both of you." Finnick declared. "If we wanted that kind of show, we would be downstairs with every other shark in this damned place."

"I don't know…" Chaff mused. "I like a catfight."

Mason didn't seem particularly inclined to relent though and neither was Effie. They both ignored the men.

"My escort chose it for me." Mason said, making a face. "But you're right. It is tacky. And hideous like most things here. How rude of me to impose the sight of bad fashion on you…" She stood up slowly and Effie experienced a few seconds of relief mixed with joy at the thought that she had won and the victor would disappear back to her floor to, at least, get changed. No such luck however.

The moment Johanna grabbed the big front zipper of her dress, Effie knew she had lost.

A "Jo." was Finnick's only warning and it was steadily ignored. Mason's eyes never left Effie's as she pulled the zipper down and shook the dress off her body. She was wearing nothing underneath except for a pair of black panties and the three men were now openly staring at the new amount of exposed tanned skin.

"Look who got the attention, now…" Mason smirked.

Effie bolted on her feet in indignation, hands balled into fists. She couldn't even think of the scandal if words ever got out that Johanna Mason had stripped down in the middle of her penthouse.

"You should totally strip down too if you want to beat her, love." Chaff suggested mockingly.

Effie turned on Haymitch who was still openly staring at Mason's bare chest with an appreciative smirk that instantly put her on edge. She hated when Haymitch looked at other women with that twinkle in his eyes and those women were usually dressed.

"Aren't you going to do something?" she hissed. After all, it was his friends and his party. He should be the one to call Mason on her behavior and ask her to leave, not Effie.

"What do you want me to do, Princess?" he replied, his words slurring together.

"There is a naked woman in our living-room." Her words were clipped in a way that made her Capitol accent stand out. He winced.

"Yeah, I got a few ideas about where that leads…" he joked. He was still staring at Mason and, granted, so were Finnick and Chaff but…

"I will leave you to your orgy." she scowled angrily, snatching her gloves from the back of the chair and her glass of wine too.

"Come on, Effie, don't be like that…" Finnick tried but she pretended she hadn't heard and stormed to her room, making sure her heels were clicking really hard against the floor.

She barged in her room and decided a bath would smoother some of her irritation away. She let the dress pool at her feet not without a good amount of annoyance because when she had put it on earlier, she had pictured Haymitch taking it off.

She grabbed her glass of wine and a magazine and settled herself into the huge tub. The water was so warm it was almost scalding but she got used to it after a few minutes. By the time she heard her bedroom door open and close in the next room, her glass was long empty and the water was lukewarm and the bubble bath foam had mostly disappeared. She estimated around forty-five minutes had passed since the incident. She was calmer but still irritated.

She wasn't surprised when the bathroom door was pushed open and Haymitch stumbled inside. She barely glanced at him.

"What do you want?" Her tone wasn't welcoming and she hoped he would take the hint although given his disheveled appearance and his unfocused eyes, it was unlikely.

"What do I usually want when I come here?" he grunted, already unbuttoning his shirt. Perhaps, he intended to join her in the tub. Tough luck there.

"You are drunk." she declared, turning the page of the magazine with so much violence the sound of tearing paper echoed throughout the room.

"I'm always drunk." His fingers stilled on the last buttons, probably knowing what she was going to say even through the heavy haze of alcohol.

"Too drunk for sex." She had very few policies where he was concerned but that was one rule she always stuck to. She never slept with him when he was so drunk he obviously didn't know what he was doing and given the way he slumped on the floor next to the tub, that was very much the case at the moment. "Besides I'm not in the mood."

"Because of Johanna?" He clung to the tub like a drowning man to stare at her over the edge.

"You smell like a distillery." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Perhaps she should have let him climb in the bath, a shower was obviously overdue.

He didn't seem to mind the comment. He switched position, the edge of the tub lodged under his armpit and his arm dangling into the water. It wasn't long before his hand found her thigh and from there…

"Don't." She whacked his hand away. "I am not your plaything. If that woman got you aroused, you can take it up to her so to speak or deal with it yourself."

He frowned but relocated his hand on her stomach. "Your dress aroused me. Wasn't it the point?"

"Not when you're so drunk you don't even get why I'm angry, no." she huffed, pretending disinterest. She stared at the magazine in front of her without seeing any of the pictures.

"You're angry 'cause she beat you." Haymitch rolled his eyes.

"She didn't beat me." She gritted her teeth and turned the page.

"She got naked, you walked away." he shrugged. "She got the last word. You hate when you don't get the last word."

He was so drunk he was barely making any sense. The hand that wasn't on her stomach was gripping the edge of the tub and he had propped his chin on it. It would be one of those nights where liquor would make him submissive and almost apathetic, she could tell.

She closed her magazine and placed it on the floor next to the tub, not far from her empty glass.

"I'm angry because you invited her over when you know I can't stand her." she snapped. "She's always rude to me. She loathes me, she hates me and she isn't tasteful enough to hide it like everybody else does. You're dismissive when you're with her, I'm always worried she will convince you to hate me too."

She glanced at him to find him frowning. When he noticed, he winced in apology.

"Not sure I got everything." he confessed, his hand patting her stomach in a placating manner. She waved his excuses away, she would never have said that out loud in the first place if she had thought there had been any chance he would understand or at least remember it the next day.

"Is she going to come back?" she asked plainly.

"Tonight?" His eyebrows shot up. "'Don't think so, sweetheart."

"In the future." She sighed, tired of that conversation that led nowhere.

"Probably, yeah." He closed his eyes. "Finnick likes her."

"I'm sure Annie will be thrilled." she deadpanned. She didn't know Annie Cresta very well, she had only met her twice and briefly but Finnick had talked her ear off about his sweet girl and Effie simply knew she would love the young woman if she had the chance to meet her properly.

"It's not like that." he mumbled sleepily.

She should have climbed out of that tub and insist for him to get back to his room before he started dozing off because then she would have to help him. She really should but the bath was relaxing – or at least it had been until he came in.

"He certainly didn't have a problem with ogling her." she commented. "Neither did you, for that matter."

His grey eyes studied her for a few seconds. She could almost see him fighting his alcohol soaked brain to think.

"You're jealous." he observed. She didn't answer that, staring at the pale blue tiled wall instead. His thumb stroked the sensitive skin under her ribcage. "Shouldn't be."

"Liar." she hissed. "She's younger. Firmer. Don't pretend you didn't like what you saw."

"I'm a simple guy." he snorted. "Naked woman. Of course, I look."

"There is looking and there is enjoying the view." she growled, folding her arms over her chest. She was tempted to put some more bubble bath in the water so it would foam again and hide her body. She felt exposed and too conscious she didn't have the body of a twenty-something anymore.

"I love your body." he said tentatively. He was still drunk, still confused as to where the problem was but he was trying and that shouldn't have appeased her as it did. He loved her body, she wished he didn't love just that but it was another can of worms entirely.

She looked down and stared hard at the amount of skin she could see in the water. He might love her body but she didn't. All she saw was flaws. She wasn't young anymore and it was starting to show.

"You were enthralled by her chest." she whispered, looking down at her own cleavage. It was a decent size although nowhere near big and it complemented her figure but Mason simply was more generously endowed in that area. "I could get bigger breasts."

And a facelift while she was at it.

She had always been weary of plastic surgery and of definitive body changes. She had seen too many people get whiskers or something equally ridiculous only to get stuck with them when the fashion changed the following month. And she had seen her mother of course who now looked more like a plastic doll than a real human being. Everything that could have been surgically altered had been altered and perhaps she looked Effie's age but she also looked anything but natural.

"Why?" Haymitch frowned.

"I don't know." She tried to keep the tears of frustration out of her voice. How did one stay young without surgery? Exercises and diets only took you that far… "Men love big breasts, don't they?"

"I like yours." His hands trailed up and cupped her breast. "See? Perfect fit." He didn't leave his hand there or didn't try to start anything which either meant he had changed his mind about wanting sex or that he had realized there was a bigger problem than Mason and her indelicacies. "Don't cry. Johanna is too young for me. I'm not interested. I looked but I'm not interested. I swear, Princess."

He seemed at a loss for what to do and too drunk to act as uncaring as he usually did.

"Don't call me Princess." It was habit more than anything else that made her call him up on that. She didn't mind much his stupid nicknames anymore. "So you're not interested in her because she's young. Does that mean you're interested in me because I am old?"

He blinked and rubbed his wet hand against his face. His sleeve was soaked and dripped water everywhere on her spotless bathroom floor but she didn't comment on it. She was waiting for an answer.

"I'm not that old." she argued when he remained silent for too long. "And I could get the body of a goddess if I wanted to. That's what plastic surgery is for after all. I could have everything made over."

She didn't look at him. He wasn't even totally aware of what he was saying anyway, what help would his opinion be? If he had been less drunk, he would probably have laughed at her face a while ago.

"You're beautiful." It was almost disbelieving. "You know you're beautiful, sweetheart."

"But I'm not perfect!" she snapped. "Beauty fades, age shows, you can't be natural forever, Haymitch!"

"'Course you can." he chuckled. "It's called getting old."

"People don't look at you anymore or worse they look at you with pity in their eyes, that's what happen when you get old. Or they start looking at younger models like Mason. They replace you." How long before they replaced her with another escort? No escort had ever stayed after their fortieth birthday and they usually quitted well before that to get married to rich sponsors with weddings that remained on the front pages for weeks. Effie was pushing thirty-five. At some point, probably soon, they would ask her to resign and then what? She stood up and nudged him out of the way to get out of the tub. "You should get back to your room now. I want to go to bed."

She wrapped a towel around her body and went to the sink to take a good look at her clean face. Haymitch was the only one she allowed to see her without any wig or make-up and it was only because he hated her fashionable-self. Men in the Capitol usually liked their women pampered, and hiding their natural face. Women liked their men equally styled.

"You're not easily replaceable, you know." he mumbled, coming to stand right behind her. His arms sneaked around her middle and she cursed herself for the way she immediately melted against his chest. She had never in her life felt as safe as she did with him. Haymitch felt real, strong, like nothing ever did. "I don't care if you're older than when we started sleeping together." He pressed a clumsy kiss to her jaw, she thought he had been aiming for her neck. "I don't care if you put on weight."

"I didn't put on weight." she huffed defensively.

"Didn't say you did, just that I don't care." He rolled his eyes. "I don't care if you grow old. It won't stop me from wanting you."

She met his eyes in the mirror and averted hers quickly. "You can't know that."

"You're Capitol and I still want you." he snorted. "Trust me, sweetheart, nothing will stop me if that didn't."

"What you're saying is absolutely awful in the nicest way." She couldn't help but laugh a little. He looked pleased with himself, she turned around in his arms and leaned her head against his chest. Without her heels, she was small enough to tuck her head under his chin. "You say nothing will stop you but we're not a couple and this isn't forever."

"Forever doesn't exist." he grumbled in her hair.

"My point precisely." she argued, closing her eyes. Perhaps she should simply drag him back to her bed and curl up against him instead of making sure he got back to his room in one piece. He would probably yell at her in the morning – he didn't like sleeping with someone else, he was always worried about hurting them in his sleep because of the nightmares – but it would probably be worth it. He wasn't often that tender or considerate.

"If it did, I would like forever with you." His words were so slurred she wasn't sure she understood him right. She did, though, she knew she did. And it was dangerous, too dangerous a thought to be entertained elsewhere than in their minds.

But for once… Just for once…

"I wouldn't mind growing old so terribly if I could do it with you." she confessed in a whisper.

He didn't reply but he held her tighter. It would have to do for now, she thought, they had to create their forever when they could.