Hi! Can you please write a story where Effie is like amazingggg at the violin and she plays all the time when she thinks no one's in the penthouse- like depressing music when a tribute dies but Haymitch and the team hear her? Thanks!
I know Allonsysilvertongue wrote the same prompt a while ago so I tried to do something very different with it. I hope you will like it. Don't hesitate to check hers.
Announcement time! Tomorrow, there will be no prompt. Why? will you ask and I will answer you that it's because Friday will now be Invictus day. But what is Invictus? will you ask then. Well, Invictus is my brand new chaptered story. I don't want to spoil much but let's just say it's an AU taking place in canon HG universe and in which Haymitch's life went very differently after he won. Yes, it also has hayffie. When do I not write hayffie? ;)
Pluck The Cords
The rebellion wasn't a miracle cure to their wounds.
Sometimes, Haymitch mused, laying awake at night, staring at his ceiling, he thought it had only deepened them. The bed was cold, the room was freezing… The fire must have died downstairs but he was too lazy to go fix it. Even the appeal of a new wine bottle wasn't enough to entice him out of bed.
On some level, he realized he was waiting.
How odd their lives had turned out… He was probably the sanest of their little group, used to living with his demons and numerous ghosts, used to coping with the pain and the nightmares… Peeta was right behind him, getting better and better at controlling the episodes, at differentiating real memories from lies… Katniss… Katniss hunted for hours, leaving Haymitch to wonder if one day she would simply neglect to come back… And Effie…
Effie had escorted Peeta back and had taken possession of Haymitch's guest room for a night, or so she had said – he should have questioned the reasons she wanted to stay at his house instead of the boy's. Effie never left again. Six months and she had simply become part of the routine.
He had expected her to be bossy at first, to force them all in a semblance of working order. He had waited and waited for her to try to control his drinking or to prompt Katniss to be more sociable. He had waited for Effie-the-escort to take charge of their little lives and he could even remember thinking maybe it was the solution to all their problems.
She never did.
Captivity had changed her.
Effie wasn't an escort anymore.
Most days, he wasn't sure Effie was still Effie.
In a six months frame, he could count on one hand the number of times she had wandered out of the house. She lived there like a recluse, careful not to step too much on his toes for fear he would kick her out – or so he had gathered. She didn't sleep much at night, sometimes she cleaned the house, sometimes he found her sprawled on the couch in the morning with dark bags under her eyes and tears trails on her cheeks, other times, her screaming woke him up from his own nightmares. She barely ate anything. He was used to feed himself only when he was hungry regardless of the hour but he tried to force himself to take regular meals for her sake, she was more prompt to sit and eat if he had taken the trouble to cook or buy takeout – some remnants of her proper education, he figured.
She was like a ghost haunting his life.
It killed him to see her like that. Effie was made for life and joy, she was made to look bright and bubbly, she was like a miniature sun, radiating warmth and happiness. She was never meant to look so gloom and grim. She was dying inside and it killed him. He didn't know how to help her.
The howling, as much as he had been expecting it, made him jump upright, the handle of the knife tightly clenched in his fist. He dropped the blade and pushed the sheets aside, walking the short distance to her room.
She was sitting in her bed, her eyes were wide and frantic, the pink sheets – he had bought them on a whim, a few weeks ago thinking it would cheer her up – pooled on her lap, her hands were spread on either side of her, supporting her weight, her head was bowed, her face hidden by the blond curls she didn't even bother to cover anymore.
He was slow in approaching the bed, giving her time to come back from the powerful nightmare. She always screamed as if she was being murdered when she woke up like that, it made him wonder what they had done to her in those cells. Then again, he mused as he spied the crisscrossing scars on her shoulder, under the strap of her nightgown, he had a pretty good idea.
She was shivering by the time he sat down next to her. He placed a tentative hand on her thigh and, when she didn't jerk away, coiled it behind her neck and pulled her into his chest. She clung to his tee-shirt, burying her face in his neck, he could feel each of her shaky breaths on his skin. It was irregular but he knew from experience she was trying to collect herself and get it back under control. He waited, tracing soothing circles on her nape, rubbing the tense shoulders until he finally felt her relax under his touch.
"Sorry." she whispered.
He didn't know what she was sorry for: waking him up or being broken beyond repairs.
"It's okay." he answered. Because, either way, it was.
She pulled away slowly, wiping the tears from her eyes. The shivering didn't stop.
"It's cold." she said, her teeth chattering.
"The fire died, I think." he shrugged.
The old Effie would have parried with something about how living in Twelve was like living in a cave and talked his ear off about central heating. This Effie simply climbed off the bed to grab her dressing gown – or, rather, his dressing gown; she had stolen it after she had realized her silk gowns would never keep the chills at bay.
"You get a kick out of stealing my clothes." he snorted, spying one of his flannel shirt neatly hanging from the back of a chair. "You should think about buying winter clothes. Real ones, I mean."
The dresses she had come to Twelve with would never make it through winter. They were all too short and light, absolutely not made for that kind of weather.
"I will order some." she offered distractedly, securing the belt of the gown around her waist.
"There is a shop in town, you know." he offered carefully. "I could take you."
"Maybe." she whispered, dropping her eyes. And he knew it meant no.
She was unnerved by his staring, he could tell, she fussed over the beauty products laid out on the dresser – products she barely touched anymore – and then placed her hand briefly on the violin case that had found a permanent home on the chair.
"What's that, then?" he asked.
When she had first showed up at his door, the violin case had thrown him aback because he had never known her to play a music instrument and because there was something definitive in carrying that kind of thing around. When he had spotted the case, he had known she was moving in.
"A violin." she replied. He could almost hear the obviously, Haymitch, did the alcohol finally got to your brain?. Effie had always been annoying but he missed her. He wondered how it was possible to miss someone who was right in front of you.
"That's yours?" he insisted. "You never said where it comes from."
He made himself at home against the headboard, sliding his legs under the covers because it was cold. She looked annoyed and desperate for him to leave her to her solitary confinement but he was done with letting her stew in her misery. Six months was enough of that.
"It belonged to my grandfather." she finally explained, laying her hand on the case again with a wistful expression. "I was afraid they would have stolen it but it was still in my apartment. Perhaps they didn't know how much it costs."
Her apartment, he knew, had been ransacked once by Peacekeepers and more than once by looters during the taking of the Capitol. He had been there with Plutarch a day or two before she was officially pardoned and freed from rebels custody, it hadn't been a pretty sight. They had both decided there was no way she could stay there : the windows had been blown over by the bombings, the place was trashed from floor to ceiling and the door was hanging on one hinge. Fulvia had someone sent over to gather what was left of her possessions and Effie had been shipped to Plutarch's house.
"Let me see." he demanded, outstretching his hands for the case. She froze with a doe-caught-in-headlights expression. He rolled his eyes. "Come on, I'm not about to drop it or anything."
She carried the case with a sort of reverence he had only seen her display to really treasured wigs or dresses. She was very careful when she laid the case on his lap.
"Please, take care." she requested, sitting next to him.
He opened the case without further ado. He knew nothing about music or instruments, it was a violin and that's all he could have said about it. However, it was also gleaming in the semi-darkness, there was no spot of dust and when he plucked a cord, it sounded right to his ear. The violin was obviously well taken care of. It surprised him because she wasn't attentive to much nowadays, she didn't quite care what kind of clothes she wore – if he told her to put some of his sweatpants because the temperature was too low, she did it without a fight – she let her hair loose on her shoulders more often than not, sometimes she didn't even bother with a hairbrush, as for make-up… She only put some when the children were due to visit.
"Do you play?" he frowned. "You never said you could play…"
He was, at least, fairly certain she had never played since she had moved in. He would have heard, the walls weren't soundproofed.
"I used to play a lot." she confessed, avoiding his eyes. "It helped when we lost tributes. It channels the pain, you know?"
He really didn't.
"I never heard you." he said.
"I didn't play at the penthouse." she shrugged. "I didn't want them to hear. It belonged to me only. My dirty little secret, if you will." She laid a cautious hand on the violin, caressing the wood with obvious love. "My grandfather taught me."
He noticed the past tense and nudged the case toward her. "Play for me."
She blinked twice, surprised and then shook her head. "It's the middle of the night."
"We're both awake anyway." he retorted. "Humor me, Princess."
For a second, he truly thought she would but, then, she shook her head again.
"My fingers…" Her voice trailed off as her eyes became distant, she was getting lost in the memories. He grabbed her hand and squeezed gently to coax her back into the moment. She smiled but it was sad. "Two were broken. They're stiff. I don't think I can play anymore."
"Try." he insisted.
It would help her. He knew it would. It was instinctive, really, but he just knew that the violin was the key to get the old Effie back. He desperately missed the old Effie.
She took a deep breath and picked up the violin, she fumbled for a few seconds but then it was safely nested under her chin. She raised the bow, let it hover over the cords for a second and then closed her eyes and placed the violin back in the case with a shake of her head. "I can't."
"Effie…" he sighed.
"I can't." she snapped, closing the case and placing it back on the chair. Then she was gone. He waited but she didn't come back. After a few minutes, he heard the low rumble of the TV downstairs. He went back to his own bed, to his own nightmares.
If anything, she got even more withdrawn over the next few days. She was also very much avoiding him, a feat in a house like theirs.
She didn't sleep at night. He knew because there was no shouts, only the dull echo of the TV and sometimes, when things were really bad, he guessed, the sharp smell of cleaning products. The house was never neat enough for her, it filled her days with something to do at least. Haymitch didn't care as long as she didn't go near his liquor.
Nobody could run too long without sleeping though.
Five days later, he was drinking on the couch, watching her wriggling in her sleep on the armchair, her head bent at an unnatural angle that would leave a crick in her neck. She curled up in her sleep, making herself smaller than he thought was possible.
She woke up suddenly with a gasp that ended in a sob.
He didn't try to reach for her, knowing she would want her own space for a few seconds. She spotted him on the couch and stumbled to him before he could take the first step. She wasn't totally awake yet or perhaps she was too exhausted to care, because she very much curled up on his lap like a cat before dropping asleep again. There was an old blanket on the back of the couch for particularly cold days, he wrapped it around her and let his head fall back with a sigh.
It couldn't go on like that.
Peeta's repeated suggestions that she got in touch with a therapist came to mind but Haymitch wasn't convinced. It wasn't helping Katniss and the decision had to come from Effie anyway, it would do no good to force it upon her.
She was staying in his house because she trusted him, she felt safe here. He didn't want to break that trust or her illusion of safety.
She remained dead to the world for almost seven hours, it was night by the time she opened her eyes. She had shifted in her sleep so that now only her head was cushioned on Haymitch's thigh. He was combing her hair slowly, finding it soothing. She stretched her limbs like a cat but didn't actually move from her position.
"Play for me." he requested.
"I can't." she answered.
"Why?" He played with a stand of hair, pulling on the curl only to watch it bounce back in place.
It took her a few minutes to reply. Perhaps because she was fishing for an excuse, perhaps because she didn't know how to put words on her feelings.
"Everything is different, feels different." she confessed. "It's like I'm sleepwalking all the time. What if that feels different too?"
"What if it doesn't?" he shrugged.
"It's a risky bet to make." she declared.
"Play for me." he begged. "If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. What do you have to lose?"
She rolled on her back so she could see him. Her lips were wobbling, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Everything."
"Yeah, from what I'm seeing, you haven't got much anyway." he snorted. "And you will still have me and the kids, you know that." He brushed his fingers against her cheek. "Play for me, sweetheart."
When she rolled off the couch and disappeared upstairs, he was sure she was running away again so it was a good surprise to see her come back with the violin in one hand and the bow in the other.
"It will be awful." she warned him. Her mouth was set in a firm line that promised no-nonsense. "I haven't played in so long and my fingers… It will be awful."
He held his breath when she readied the violin. He only breathed again when the bow touched the cords.
It wasn't awful.
It wasn't as good as some music he had heard either.
Still, it was strangely beautiful.
She was tentative at first but she grew more and more confident as the minutes passed. He didn't know what she was playing, there was no sheet of music she was playing from memory only, but it was full of sorrow and longing. An unpleasant lump appeared in his throat but he swallowed it back.
She was a sight to behold.
The soft glow of the electric lamp gave her a sort of halo-like quality, her eyes remained tightly shut but tears were rolling down her cheeks, her lips were pressed hard together… She was the embodiment of despair.
And she was beautiful.
Haymitch had never been one for grand realizations but at that moment, sitting there listening to the soft lament of her violin, it occurred to him that he loved her. It wasn't just desire – he had lusted after her for years but had never let himself go down that road – it was… love. Not friendly love either.
How inconvenient.
The bow screeched on the cords right at that second, preventing him from exploring that thought further. She was sobbing as she carefully laid the violin down on the armchair before rushing to him. She didn't hesitate when she nestled herself in his arms and he embraced her back without thinking twice about it. He wondered at what point it had become natural for him to offer comfort.
"Did it feel different?" he asked, dropping a kiss in her hair.
The sobs turned into a broken laugh of sort.
"No…" she shook her head, laughing and crying in turn. "No, it felt exactly the same."
She smiled at him, bright and genuine and he saw the ghost of who she still was under the pain and the despair.
And he knew, at that second, that they would get through this.