prompt : Can you please do another with Cinna, Portia, Katniss and Peeta? Maybe one about Cortia trying to prove that Hayffie exists and Everlark being like "no that's stupid stop" and they go spy on Hayffie and wind up catching them kissing or something.

The One Where Portia Is Done

"Do you think it's a form of foreplay?" Portia sighed, flopping on the couch next to Cinna. She handed him the drink she had just fixed for him and sipped her own with relief.

"Foreplay?" Katniss asked.

The girl looked so clueless Portia was almost tempted to have a little fun at her expense but she thought better of it. It wasn't truly Katniss' fault if she had been too busy hunting to feed her family to find an interest in the pleasures of life.

"Please, excuse Portia, she has a gift for inappropriate comments." Cinna grinned, throwing her an apologizing glance. "They're still a bit young for that kind of discussion, no?"

She studied Peeta who, judging from his bright red ears and lowered gaze, had completely understood what she meant. Katniss was sitting right next to him on the couch, frowning.

Portia sighed again and tossed a glance over her shoulder in the direction of the door. The train wouldn't reach the next District on that endless Tour before another full day and she was certain someone would be dead well before then.

"Well, with those two, they will learn everything they need." she scoffed at last.

She loved Effie, she truly did. She had found a dear friend in the woman since the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, it was rare for them not to talk every day either in person or on the phone but put the escort in the same room as Haymitch and… The sexual tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife. The incessant arguments were starting to grate on everyone nerves. Right now, they were in another cart, the separating doors were closed and, still, they could hear their yelling.

"If only that was the case…" Cinna muttered, taking a sip. "There would be less shouting if they did."

"Not if it's foreplay." Portia argued.

"What are you talking about?" Katniss insisted, her grey eyes shining with open curiosity.

"I wish we knew." she offered.

Effie was very, very closed-mouth on the subject which told Portia all she wanted to know, really. They had talked about a lot of things, sometimes with painful embarrassing details and the escort had never held back. Except when Haymitch popped up in the conversation…

"What are they even fighting about today?" Peeta asked with the same sort of tiredness Portia felt.

Nobody in that room could answer him. Every day, it was a new topic, a new excuse to shout at each other and invent new insults.

"Alright, enough." the boy declared, placing down his glass of orange juice and standing up. For a second, he remained there, as if unsure of how to proceed.

Portia knew how to proceed : either they would lock Haymitch and Effie in a room and tell them to get it off their system or they would push them off the train and left them to find their own way up to Seven. She stood up and gestured at him to go first.

"Are you sure?" Cinna worried.

"Where are you going? What's going on?" Katniss echoed.

Neither Portia nor Peeta answered the questions. They both walked with a resolute step in the direction of the next cart.

The screaming, it seemed, came from the bar. Not really surprising.

The argument was reaching a peak, Portia decided, Effie was stuttering her insults – obviously at a loss now that she had used each and every name calling in her vocabulary that wasn't vulgar – and Haymitch's voice was becoming less angry and more cutting with sarcasm.

Portia and Peeta remained standing behind the transparent door for a second, watching the shouting match going on in the next room. Effie was between Haymitch and the bar, bodily preventing him from reaching for the bottles, and Haymitch was shouting in her face.

"How do we do this?" Peeta asked.

"Well…" Portia hesitated.

In the end, they didn't have to do anything.

With a last "How aren't you tired of being such a bitch?" answered by a "You are so blind, Haymitch", the fight reached a stand-still.

Then they started moving again and for a moment Portia was confused. Haymitch grabbed Effie so suddenly, she was sure he was trying to kill her friend, but the escort gave as good as she got. Peeta, who had instinctively reached for the door handle, let his hand drop.

"I don't think they need us after all." the boy grinned and turned away, a cute blush coloring his face.

Portia's eyes lingered on the couple but when Haymitch lifted Effie up so she could sit on the bar and the escort wrapped her legs around his waist in such a practiced move they didn't even stop kissing, she followed Peeta, knowing he was right.

It seemed fighting was a kind of foreplay for some people.