Prompt : i don't know if you're still taking prompts or not but if you are can you do a hayffie where maybe person A is pretending to be asleep and person B kisses them thinking they're really sleeping and gets teased about it the next day or something? i really love your writing.
The Eye Of The Storm
Effie Trinket was a hurricane.
The months she had spent in prison had done nothing to quell that tendency of hers to be in movement at all time of day, Haymitch mused, if anything, it had only enhanced it. She never paused, she never took a breath. When she wasn't cleaning his house from cellar to attic, she was cleaning the girl's or the boy's or urging them to do something with their time, not to be idle. Being idle was the best way to be consumed by their memories or so she claimed.
It was no wonder she didn't understand at all Haymitch's constant lounging around.
It had become an habit for him to avoid her fussing at all cost. Most days, he wondered why he still tolerated her presence in his life. She was helping with the kids, of course, they liked having her around, but that didn't concern Haymitch. She had dropped her bags in his guest room the first day of her visit – although he wasn't sure they could still call that a visit anymore, he was pretty sure a three months stay was simply called moving in – and he had been too drunk to ask questions or stop her. Not that he would have, he supposed, they were sort of friends – if friendship was defined by an occasional one night stand years earlier and a constant string of bickering – and she needed help, that was plain to see. The nightmares, the flashbacks, the panic attacks… He was painfully familiar with every of her symptoms. She didn't know how to live alone with them. Her family was gone, her friends had vanished after the rebellion, she was all alone. She needed the kids and she needed him. He knew that.
It didn't make it any easier to bear the energy she never seemed to run out of.
Haymitch had developed tricks to avoid being dragged into helping in whatever new project she had that day – so far, she had redecorated his guestroom, his study and his dining room which was fine with him because he never used those rooms, she had sifted through all his clothes and thrown out those that were too old and frayed, she had arranged his books by alphabetic order, she had completely scrubbed the cellar clean and her latest idea was to sort through the pile of boxes gathering dust in the attic. To avoid the chores she would inevitably assign him – and her nagging until they were completed – he either stuck close to the geese pen, because she was afraid of the birds and never came near if she could help it, or pretended to be passed out drunk. He used the booze excuse more often than not, to the point the kids were starting to make a fuss about his drinking habits getting worse.
So that late afternoon, when he heard the door closing on her tell-tale clicking of heels, he lost no time in flopping on his back on the couch, eyes shut tight, an arm wrapped across his stomach, the other dangling to the floor, and did his best to even out his breathing. He hoped the lack of bottle wouldn't give him away – the liquor was all locked in a cupboard in the kitchen because, apparently, he could be a drunk but that didn't mean he didn't have keep a certain level of order in the house.
"Haymitch!" she sing-sang in that particular tone that meant she wanted something from him. With his luck, she had probably decided the house needed to be repainted.
He listened to the sound of her high heels, like a prey would play dead, waiting for the predator to walk past.
"Haymitch?" she called, the clicking coming closer. "Oh." That was followed by a deep tired sigh. "What am I going to do with you?" she whispered with irritated fondness. Next thing he knew, she was gently folding his dangling arm on his stomach and he felt the light weight of a blanket being placed on him – probably the old one that was usually draped on the back of the couch. She was so caring, guilt for faking sleep started nagging at his guts. It morphed to surprise when he felt lips brushing his own.
It wasn't really a kiss – they had shared real kisses once upon a time and that was nothing like a real kiss – it was barely a ghost of a touch. It shook him to his very core.
He opened his eyes in time to see her enticing backside retreating to the hall.
He remained on the couch, pondering that new development, listening to the noise of things being dragged upstairs. He watched her like a hawk through dinner but she was the same as ever, all bright and bubbly, claiming all the attention for herself. She worked her magic, coaxing a rare smile out of Katniss and an unguarded laugh from Peeta.
For a second there, Haymitch wondered what would have happened if she had never joined them in Twelve. The kids never used to come for dinner every night before her arrival, they had all checked on each other but something had been missing. Now he was starting to think they were all broken pieces and Effie was the glue that kept them all together. She exasperated him and Katniss to the point they often escaped together to commiserate on how annoying she was, Peeta and Katniss laughed with open affection at some of her naïve Capitol antics behind her back, and he and Peeta had secret talks about her post traumatic stress and how best to help her through it. She made them all closer.
"You are looking at me very oddly tonight, Haymitch." she remarked while the kids were in the kitchen, fetching dessert – or making out, that was anyone's guess.
He shrugged the comment off and didn't address it again until they were sitting on his porch later that night. That was their thing, probably the only moment in the day when Effie finally settled down more than five minutes. They sat on the old wooden bench on the porch and they watched the night sky, drinking tea or hot cocoa depending on her mood that night. Haymitch almost always spiked his mug and she pretended not to notice. Sometimes she chatted the whole time about nonsensical things, sometimes she was silent.
"You kissed me." he said, interrupting the endless flow of words spilling from her mouth.
Her speech stopped mid-sentence, her lips remained open in a soundless oh. She recovered quickly but not quickly enough for her innocence to look genuine. "What ever do you mean?"
"Earlier. When I was on the couch. You kissed me." he clarified.
Her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrowed together in a suspicious expression. "And how would you know that, I wonder?"
She had been suspecting for a while he wasn't as drunk as he pretended to be on a daily basis, he figured. She would know, he guessed, and that made him smirk.
"Lipstick." he lied.
"Oh." She brushed her fingertips against her mouth in an instinctive gesture that Haymitch found riveting. She was wearing a lot less make-up than before the rebellion, fashion had changed, but her lips were always carefully painted in whatever color struck her fancy that day. They were currently a pretty shade of red.
"Not going to deny, sweetheart?" he teased, almost disappointed. He had expected her to.
"It was just a peck." she huffed. "A friendly gesture."
Her fingers tightened around her mug and she took a careful sip, her eyes looking up at the night sky and the bright stars above.
Haymitch slumped deeper on the bench, slouched exactly like she always berated him for. "Friends don't kiss on the mouth."
"Don't they?" she hummed.
"Nope." he said, making the p pop.
"And what is your brilliant conclusion then?" she asked, still looking at the sky as if it held all the answers in the universe. Maybe it did.
"That you should have said something." he shrugged.
"Perhaps I was waiting for you to take a hint." she sighed. "However, I should have remembered the only hints you ever understood in that department were the ones administered with a hammer. You have no subtlety, Haymitch, that's your problem."
"Yeah, I should have known that you taking over my house screamed take me to bed, Haymitch." he snorted.
She glanced at him, a smile tugging at her lips. "Now you are getting ahead of yourself."
"Am I?" he smirked.
"You should drink your tea while it is still warm." she advised, nodding to the forgotten mug in his hand.
He was still smirking but he humored her, sipping the hot liquid and gazing at the stars. They were the same as the day before and they would be the same the next day. Watching them had always made Haymitch feel grounded, but watching them with Effie… It made him feel strangely more at peace.
She rested her head on his shoulder. Her hand lightly brushed against his thigh, he covered it with his own and she turned her palm up so their fingers could entwine.
Effie Trinket was a hurricane.
And Haymitch was lucky enough to be allowed to glimpse the eye of the storm.