It's not a prompt but after Haymitch's (sexy) new still, I needed to give an outlet to my feels. Also Allonsysilvertongue expressed an interest in reading that particular story so… here it is.

Thirteen love bites

Haymitch's miraculous good mood vanished as soon as he caught sight of his throat in the small standard bathroom mirror.

"You're kidding me!" he swore, running his fingers on the abused skin. He winced from the slight tinge of pain. It was tender to the touch and why wouldn't it be? His neck was a nice patchwork of reddish, bluish teeth marks, his collarbone was in the same state. He stepped back into the little bedroom with a sneer on his face. "Did you mistake me for a fucking chew toy, last night?"

Effie stretched like a cat on the bed, not at all disturbed by her state of undress. She never minded being naked around him and he couldn't say he minded it either. Effie Trinket laying naked in tangled sheets, her tousled blond hair spread on a pillow, was always a sight for sore eyes. However, if she thought it would take his mind away of his current concern, she was mistaken.

"I didn't hear you complaining." she pointed out.

"You were distracting me." he accused and now that he thought about it, she had been very eager to distract him from her teeth on his throat. "Did you do that on purpose?"

"On purpose?" she blinked innocently and he wasn't convinced for one second. She rolled her eyes when she saw he wasn't taking the bait. "To be fair, you are rather easily distracted."

True, he supposed but it wasn't the point.

"What did you do that for?" he grumbled, going back to the bathroom to watch his reflection in the mirror again. One or two love bites, he could have explained or disguised but that? Coin was going to kill him and Plutarch would have a field day. That could potentially mean trouble.

"I don't see where the problem is…" she offered, leaning against the door frame – still naked, it made it difficult for him to stay mad at her and she probably knew it, she was cunning this way. "You can barely see anything."

"You need glasses, sweetheart." he snapped. He patted the skin in the futile hope that it would make the bruises go away but it did nothing except hurt.

She strolled closer, wrapping her arms around his middle from behind and rose on tip toes to prop her chin on his shoulder. She caught his eyes in the mirror, there was a challenging spark in there.

"Is it so bad they all know you're mine?" she asked.

There were a lot of things to discuss in that question.

"Am I?" he snorted. Her eyebrows twitched as if she was suppressing a frown and her arms loosened their grip. He clasped her hands before she could take them away, keeping her where she was. Perhaps he was – hers. "So that's a statement." he deduced, waving at his throat with his free hand. "Trust you to make something glaring and impossible to miss."

She could have done a thousand other things if she had wanted to make it known : public display of affection wasn't his thing and he would probably have been irritated but it would have been over much more quickly than those love bites. He was annoyed that she had taken the choice away from him. They had been hiding for as long as he could remember but they were hiding for good reasons – even if those reasons had changed in time; at first it had all been about being ashamed, now it was more because he wanted to protect her.

"Perhaps this way they will stop looking at you." she pouted, tightening her grip on him. Tired of standing on tip-toes, she pressed her cheek against his shoulder blade – it had always amused him how tiny she was without her heels.

"You're not making any sense." he told her very seriously. "How is it like to live in your head? Must be exhausting…"

"You wouldn't like it, it's sober compared to yours." she replied.

"I'm pretty sober right now." he scoffed, turning around in her arms to see her. He grabbed her chin and nudged her head up. "Care to tell me why you mangled my neck?"

The pout was still there coupled with an obvious irritation. "Don't play dumb, Haymitch. You bask in the attention, I saw you."

He had absolutely no idea of what she was talking about. "I get it's difficult for you, sweetheart, but, see, to explain something you have to actually explain the thing."

He was expecting her to let go of him and storm out in what she would have felt to be a righteous anger but she surprised him by remaining exactly where she was, pressing herself closer with a possessive glint in her eyes.

"I am talking about the women following you like flies and drooling all over you." she hissed.

It took a few seconds for him to process that.

"Women." he repeated just to be clear. "Like flies. Drooling." He frowned and carefully cradled her skull in his hands, looking for a bump. "Did you hit your head?"

She grabbed one of his wrist and tugged it away. The pout morphed into an outright sulk. "Do me the favor of not acting clueless, will you? I understand we never made any promises to each other but I highly dislike it when you flirt with all those women in front of me. It's disrespectful towards me."

"Like you don't flirt with every pretty young soldier wandering in Command." he retorted with painfully hidden annoyance. Sometimes, it was all he could do not to bark at them to get lost and stay there.

"Well, since you were so eager to be chatted up by strangers, I didn't think you would mind." she huffed.

"Were you trying to make me jealous?" he frowned. She was not making any sense at all. First the love bites, now the jealousy thing… He was too sober for that. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Language." she scolded him, clucking her tongue in disapprobation. She finally let go of him to walk back into the bedroom and gather her clothes. He watched her getting dressed quickly and efficiently, knowing she would have to go back to her room, take a shower and change before going to the dinner hall for breakfast.

"You should leave clothes here." he said without thinking twice about it. "It would save time."

She threw him a dark look. "If you are trying to placate me with mild commitment offers, it isn't working. All I am asking for is for you to stop encouraging those women."

What bloody women was she even talking about? Twelve's refugees tended to gravitate around him those days, true, but that meant the men as well as the women. As for Thirteen… Well, apart for their President, Thirteen's people were welcoming enough…

His confusion must have been plain because she scowled.

"Oh, please!" she exclaimed. "Don't tell me you didn't notice."

"As always with you I have no idea what you're talking about." he shrugged.

She stopped buttoning her shirt to stare at him. "You are a key member of the rebellion, you are sober, some would say clever, actually maintaining a high hygiene habit for once, and you keep on pulling off your sleeves and showing off your forearms. Not to mention the slightly disheveled look."

"And?" He was getting more and more confused by the second.

"And women find all that sexy, Haymitch." she hissed. "They flirt with you and you flirt back."

"No, I don't." he defended himself quickly. He was very used to women flirting with him in the Capitol, he knew what that looked like. It was true that there might have been more women than usual talking to him those days but they weren't flirting.

Effie narrowed her eyes and advanced on him, jugging her finger in his chest. "I will admit I am not familiar with seducing techniques en vogue in the Districts but I know flirting when I see it. Touching your arm and inviting you to their table? That's flirting. Asking for an explanation about a trivial thing and pretending to be captivated by your boring answer? That's flirting. Laughing at one of your lame jokes and invading your personal space? That's flirting." She took her finger away and turned her back on him with a huff. "And all in front of me. That's vexing." She glanced at his neck with a pleased expression. "So you will excuse me if I don't apologize for the marks."

She was crazy. Completely, utterly crazy.

"Okay, do you want to explain that to Coin or do you want to visit me when she's so fed up with me she throws me in a cell?" he snorted. "You think they allow conjugal visits in this place?"

"Don't be ridiculous." She went back to buttoning her shirt as if nothing had happened. "Why would Coin care?"

"I don't know. Why does she care about everyone wearing the same outfit?" he deadpanned. She wouldn't have cared about one or two bruises, but he had counted enough bites to warrant an explanation. "Why does she care about anything?"

That made her pause again. "Ah. I admit I didn't think about that. Do you think she will be upset?"

"No." he scoffed. "I bet she will be fucking thrilled that we hooked up and you decided to chew on my neck because you were jealous of some women I didn't even notice in the first place."

"There is no need for sarcasm." Effie sighed, watching the abused skin with a pensive stare. He couldn't help but think she was finding it a shame to hide her masterpiece. Crazy. Utterly crazy. She picked up her scarf but instead of wrapping it around her hair, she swiftly placed it around his neck and knot it without flourish. "Problem solved." she told him, buttoning his collar so no patch of skin would be on display. "You can't see them anymore."

And he was going to walk around with her scarf around his neck… That wouldn't be suspicious at all.

"Very discreet." he sneered. "Is that another way to mark your territory? Putting your clothes on me?"

"Why, dear…" she grinned. "It's either the love bites or the scarf. Either way, don't forget to remind them who they belong to."

He shouldn't have let her kiss him.

He really shouldn't have.

She was crazy.