Prompt : I probably asked u this prompt already but i can't remember so.. I imagine Effie and haymitch having a discussion like the song The cigarette duet by princess chelsea! One of my headcanons is Effie smoking when stressed so

Bad Habits

Once in a blue moon, Effie managed to smoke the perfect cigarette.

She quitted smoking years earlier but there were always the odd exceptions and she reasoned that the Victory Tour From Hell – as Haymitch had so aptly dubbed it far from the children's earshot – was a perfect excuse. The train had stopped for maintenance in the middle of the night and, saved for the mechanics exchanging shouts and the clanging of tools, it was otherwise silent. She was sitting in the open door – even though she wasn't supposed to – her legs outside the carriage, fumbling with the lighter that was refusing to work, not even caring about the fact she was sitting on the floor and that her dressing gown would probably be ruined or that anyone passing by would have seen her without wig and make-up, not really breaking the rules but not completely respecting them either.

She wasn't altogether surprised when a warm body sat down next to her, pressing her uncomfortably against the metal frame of the door. She didn't complain though, she didn't mind the warmth, the night was cold.

"Those things will kill you, you know." Haymitch declared, taking a swing from his bottle of liquor.

"I think there is a matter of pot and kettle here." she replied, shaking the lighter in hope it would make it comply with her wishes. No such luck.

He put his hand in his pocket and tossed a little box of matches on her lap. "I'm serious, sweetheart."

"Thank you." She discarded the lighter in the otherwise pristine landscape, ignoring his wince at her littering of the wilderness. She didn't see why he was surprised, the Capitol had a way of corrupting anything remotely resembling nature. "I am serious too, though, you know. Your liver will give out long before my lungs."

She wedged a cigarette between her lips and cracked a match, breathing in the familiar smell of nicotine. She slowly blew out the smoke, watching it dilute and fade in the cold night.

She did that several times, wishing their problems were as simple as smoking was. If only it could all get carried away by the wind…

She didn't offer Haymitch a cigarette, she never did.

He didn't offer her his bottle, he never did.

"I thought we would be able to skip that, this year." he said, after a while.

She gave a tiny undignified shrug. "I suppose we should have known better."

It was a sort of tradition of theirs, born so many years ago she had almost forgotten how it came to be. When both of their tributes were dead, after they had seen the two new coffins back to a train to Twelve, they sat somewhere – anywhere really, once it had been on the penthouse roof, another right in the middle of the Square – and he drank while she smoked. It wasn't about stress-relief, they had other ways to blow out steam, it was about grief. It was about sharing a moment, a few minutes, for the tributes they had failed to save yet again.

She had never been happier to bury her untouched cigarettes pack at the bottom of her suitcase than at the end of the 74th Hunger Games.

"They're not dead yet." he pointed out. "You can't give up on them now. I need your head in the game."

"My head is always in the game." she sighed, flicking the ashes away from him. The truth was she was wondering how much of a favor they had done those children by helping them to win. They had sentenced them to each other and while Peeta knew how to handle cameras, Katniss was beyond her help. The girl didn't want to listen or learn, she didn't understand how important it was to control her public image. Effie was painfully acquainted with the process.

"Doesn't look like it." he snorted. She heard the annoyance in his voice before it was covered by the soft splashing of liquid when the bottle was brought to his lips.

"Don't doubt me." she snapped. "I have been doing this job for…"

"You smile less. You're not cheerful enough, not oblivious enough. You're worried, it shows. Peeta noticed." His tone was accusatory, as if she was letting him down. Perhaps she was. "I've seen that before. You're slipping. You know what happens to escorts who slip, sweetheart?"

She did.

They all did.

Haymitch might be the example for victors but the escorts had a few Haymitches of their own.

"I am not blind." she whispered, suddenly afraid that their discussion wasn't as private as they would have liked. "The districts…"

"We can't do anything about the districts." he cut her off. "We can only help the kids make their love-story believable and hope it's enough to get Snow off their back."

She remained silent for a few seconds, wondering how exactly he planned to do that, then she tossed the butt of her cigarette on the ground and crushed it with a rock, snuffing out the red glow – she didn't want to damage her slippers. She fished another from the pack but he plucked it from her lips and threw it outside the train. She tried to protect the pack but he was quicker and it soon followed the same path.

"Why did you do that?" she hissed. "I am aware you couldn't adopt a proper behavior if you tried but really…"

"No more smoking." he declared. "Nobody's dying if I can help it, Princess."

"And if you can't?" she challenged.

It was his turn to fall silent. He turned his gaze away from her and on the landscape. The mountains shadows were looming in the distance, like a threat. He took regular mouthfuls but after a few minutes, he placed the bottle behind him with a betrayed expression.

"Liquor is doing nothing for me tonight." he confessed.

"I can't say smoking helped either." she admitted.

He was staring at her and she stared back, studying his features in the darkness. She knew them by heart. If she closed her eyes and conjured up his image, his face was always clear, a perfect likeness. As was the rest of his body. She knew the precise length, shape and location of each of his scars, she knew the taste of his skin, she knew the smell of cheap soap, sweat and liquor that always clung to him, she knew how lust clouded his grey eyes and how terror made them brighter, she knew the strength of his hands, she knew how good it felt to have those hands on her… She knew a lot of things. Too many to enumerate them.

He knew all those things about her too.

The tension shifted, changed in nature and Effie let it.

She didn't react when he placed a hand on her thigh or when the hand found its way under the gown. Her intake of breath when it grazed her skin was barely loud enough to be heard and it was swallowed by his mouth anyway. The hand became possessive when the kiss turned from pliant to something harsher, the metallic edge of the doorway dug into her back when he hauled her up on her feet. She groaned in pain but that didn't stop him, he pressed harder against her. She could taste the whiskey on his tongue and no doubt he could taste nicotine on hers. He hated it : the smell, the taste… It disgusted him. Not enough to stop kissing her though.

She wondered what that meant about them.

The dressing gown gave when he tugged on the belt, his mouth descended on her throat and she marveled at how warm she felt despite the cold night.

"Not here." she murmured, capturing his lips again and torturing them until he moaned in a mix of frustration and pleasure. "Bedroom, Haymitch." she insisted when she drew back to breathe.

She could still hear the regular noise of the mechanics in the distance and there was always the risk someone would stumble upon them. Cinna or Portia would probably be discreet and tactful about it but they couldn't risk the children finding out. She was nothing but their annoying escort to them, she didn't have any depth – and it was easier that way, safer. They wouldn't understand and it would add unnecessarily drama to their already stressful Victory Tour. They didn't need that.

"Bedroom." he agreed easily enough, stealing a last kiss before turning away abruptly, leaving her to follow.

She did at a more measured pace, her heart hammering in her chest.

He was better than a smoke.