Prompt idea: Effie giving Haymitch a very personal gift (I'm sure you can think of more than I can) and he's really flattered. Of course he doesn't want to show it but he can't hide it either. I imagine this post Mockingjay in D12. But you can change it of course if you decide to write it. Thank you in advance. :)

So I always had the hc that Haymitch's flask was a present from Effie and I decided to use this prompt to expand on that idea. Sorry, this isn't post MJ and I'm not sure it's as fluffy as the prompt was meant to be but I chose to make in Games time.

Also my English doesn't seem to work today, so sorry for any mistake.

Meaning

Haymitch allowed himself exactly ten seconds and two long breaths before stepping away from his escort. He made sure her legs were steady enough to hold her weight before tugging his pants up – despite Trinket's claims, he could be a gentleman on some points – glancing at her bed in bitter amusement. Someday, he mused, they would make it past the closest wall and to a comfortable mattress.

Avoiding his eyes, she straightened the clothes he hadn't quite succeeded in taking off her in his hurry while he buckled his belt. He didn't know why it still felt so awkward afterwards, it wasn't their first rodeo to say the least. They had had sex enough times to develop a pattern consisting on never talking about it and leaving the other as soon as possible. It worked well enough. It would work better without the awkward minutes right after.

He was about to slip past her and out of her room when her hand fell on his arm, soft and tentative. It was gone almost as soon as it made contact but Haymitch stopped all the same, watching her with a curious expression.

"I have something for you." she said, still not able to meet his eyes. "I forgot to give it to you earlier."

"Keep your bloody schedules." he grumbled. "I will only lose them and you will make sure I'm on time anyway."

"Oh, it's not… It's not a schedule." she protested, stepping around him to rummage around in a drawer of her dresser. She sounded uncharacteristically nervous and it unnerved him. Trinket was always confident bordering on arrogant, anything that could make her act that flustered wasn't good. "Here it is." She must have found what she was looking for because she handed him something wrapped in a dark red cloth expectantly. He eyed it suspiciously, not sure it wasn't a trap. She sighed with annoyance. "It won't bite, Haymitch. Take it."

She forced the object into his hand, taking the choice away from him. The red cloth was there as protection, that much was clear, so he unwrap the mysterious object only to find a flask. It was heavy but empty, obviously made of pure silver judging by the weight. It was engraved with circles and arabesques that were discreet enough to be elegant instead of flashy like most Capitol accessories were. There was a big T stamped in a flourished font on one side.

"It belonged to my grandfather." she said before he could ask for an explanation. "My mother found it a few weeks ago, she was going to sell it but I thought… A flask would be better than you dragging a bottle everywhere you go. It is certainly classier."

"I will buy one." he agreed. It seemed easier than arguing and having a portable source of liquor on himself at all time held its own appeal. He tried to hand the flask back but she wouldn't take it.

"You don't need to. Was I unclear?" she frowned. "This is a gift."

"No." he refused straight out, still holding out the flask to her.

"What do you mean no?" She folded her arms over her chest, lips pursed in a petulant pout that usually drove him crazy enough that he would feel the urge to pin her against the next available flat surface. She was a spoiled brat who hadn't heard the word no enough before Haymitch had come around. She was used to getting her way, she wasn't used to being challenged, that was what was making this secret affair so good, they clashed in all the right ways. Yet it wasn't about pushing her buttons this time.

"I mean I don't take gifts from Capitols, all the more so when they've got their initial on them." he spat. "You won't buy me and you won't brand me. You don't fucking own me."

That was how it started for some victors : a few gifts here and there, innocent at first, and then, before they knew it, their souls were sold.

Her annoyance turned into a hurt expression. "The T doesn't stand for Trinket but for Timotheo. It was his first name. I am not trying to brand you, I just thought a flask was a good idea."

He searched her eyes but found nothing that made him wary, she looked truthful enough. She was naïve enough to mean it even.

"You thought giving me a silver flask that belonged to your grandpa was a good idea." he scorned.

"Clearly, you are dying to enlighten me as to why I was wrong." she huffed. "So go ahead. Enlighten me."

The flask was still between them but she made no move to take it and his arm was getting tired so he let it fall back against his side. "This is worth money."

"And your point is?" She gave a graceful one-shoulder shrug. "Everything is worth money."

"It's expensive." he growled, sure she was misunderstanding him on purpose. "And I won't have you lording your money over me only to act like I owe you something."

She stared at him for a few seconds and then shook her head. "You realize, of course, that you are a victor and, as such, aren't short on money yourself? I am wealthy, Haymitch, but you aren't poor by any means."

She was right, of course, but he tended to forget. He spent very little of his monthly allowance, his money went on food and alcohol and, at the end of the month, only one third of what he got was gone. In the Capitol, people were happy enough to treat the victors for free. Money would never be a problem for him, that was true, but he still felt like the little boy from the Seam, the one who had gone to bed with an empty stomach more often than not.

"Not the point." he grumbled.

"I am waiting for you to make your point." she retorted with irritation. "Assuming you have one, that is."

He was certain he had had one at the very beginning of that conversation but he seemed to have misplaced it.

"Look, sweetheart, it was your grandpa's." he replied as if it was a key argument.

She lifted her eyebrows, clearly not impressed. "Yes, I just told you that."

"It's a family heirloom." he insisted.

"It was going to be sold." She rolled her eyes and turned to the mirror on her dressing table, obviously bored with the discussion. "Honestly, Haymitch, you are blowing this out of proportions entirely. I saw it, it made me think of you and I thought it would be an acceptable alternative to you appearing on national TV with a bottle in your hand which impacts negatively on my reputation. See? It is a gift but it is also selfish. Friends give each other gifts all the time – at least they do in civilized parts of the country – so I really do not understand what your problem is."

She was lost to her own reflection, fixing her wig as if it was the most important thing in the world.

"It has meaning." he said slowly. And it was the crux of the matter, really. If it had been a random flask she had picked up in a random shop, he would probably have grumbled a bit, argued for the sake of it and then pocketed it. However, it was her grandfather's. "I don't want meaning."

"It only means you are my only alcoholic friend." she scoffed. "It is just a gift. Now, I don't have time to argue with you I have an appointment in fifteen minutes. How do I look?"

She looked like someone who had just been pinned to a wall and thoroughly screwed but, somehow, he didn't think it was the answer she wanted to hear.

"Ugly as usual." he declared.

She pursed her lips and spared him a short glare in the mirror before cacking up her face with more powder. The matter, on her end, seemed to be truly resolved.

He could have tossed the flask on the bed and be done with the whole thing but her quick glances in his direction and her rigid back told him she wasn't as distracted as she wanted him to believe. He pocketed the flask but didn't miss the quiet sigh of relief on her part.

"I don't want meaning." he repeated just to be certain they were on the same page.

The first thing he did when he finally walked out of her room was buy another flask, and he used it at the earliest opportunity to make sure she would see it. Her grandfather's flask was safely buried in his traveling bag, under a heap of clothes, and, weeks later, when he finally went back to Twelve, it was locked in a drawer in the study.

Naturally, she noticed the flask he was using wasn't the one she had given him but she never commented on it.

The first remark only came years afterwards. They were lying in bed, legs tangled together, sweaty and exhausted, knowing they only had minutes before they needed to go back down and entertain the crowd in the off chance of getting sponsors, and he reached on the bedside table for a mouthful of whiskey.

"What happened to my grandfather's flask?" she asked in a soft whisper. Talking after sex, just like actually lying together for a few minutes, was a novelty and they were still hesitant. Something was shifting between them lately, sex wasn't just sex anymore – or, at least, it wasn't enough – and Haymitch was scared by what he thought it meant. He was also too tired to fight it. He wanted something good. And she was good.

"'Don't know, 'don't care." he lied.

A few years earlier she would have bolted from the bed and she would have screamed bloody murder. Ten years as an escort had done her for though. She hadn't lost all the fire yet but she was quickly waning from a blaze to dying embers. With each new year he saw her eyes becoming that little bit duller, her skin that little bit thicker, her smile that little bit more strained. Her escort act was still on point, naturally. She fooled everyone but she didn't fool him.

She drew out a tired sigh. "I just thought you would like it, you know. There were no strings attached."

There were always strings attached.

It wasn't until Katniss and Peeta won that, for the first time in eight years, he took the flask out of the drawer he had locked it in.

He didn't know why he felt the need to discard his other flask or why it suddenly seemed so important to carry that one everywhere he went. Sometimes he sat in his dark living-room at night and watched the flames in the fireplace, wondering how long it would take before everything went to hell. The thing with fire was that it was always catching and he sensed Katniss would set the whole country ablaze. The thought was as thrilling as it was chilling. He didn't trust the girl not to burn them all to crisp. Sometimes the feeling of foreboding was more than he could bear; in those moments, he retraced the T on the flask with his thumb without pause or thought for what it truly meant. T didn't mean Timotheo or whatever ridiculous name her grandfather had carried, T meant Trinket. In the end, it seemed she had branded him anyway.

The flask was the first thing she noticed on the cold morning Victory Tour started. He was standing on the platform, waiting for the cameras to wrap up on the lovebirds act the kids were pulling – not convincing enough but that could wait, he figured – so he could finally climb on the train. Sipping a few mouthfuls now and then was instinctive, almost unconscious on his part really, so he didn't understand at once why Effie stopped shouting directions to swoop down on him, leaving the kids to Portia's and Cinna's care.

"I thought you didn't want meaning." she said, low enough that her voice wouldn't carry to potential eavesdroppers.

That discussion had happened so many years earlier it made him wonder just how good her memory truly was – or just how important it had been to her. He had always wondered what the flask really meant to her. In thirteen years of working together she had never gifted him with anything else. They had been sleeping together for two years when she had presented him with the flask, and seven years after that, it was still the only present she had given him. Why that particular object and why at that particular moment?

Her blue eyes were guarded and he knew he wouldn't get his answers that day – if ever. His gaze briefly shot to the kids before appraising her again. She looked like she always did : annoyed, defiant, fiery…

"'Changed my mind." he shrugged. He didn't try to suppress his smirk and he was only too happy to see her so obviously affected by it. He wasn't enough of a moron to take it for granted. It had been nine years of an occasional affair, she had seen him at his lowest enough times, and she was a beautiful woman – she could have anyone she chose, why she continued on bothering with him was beyond him. He took her for granted at times but not in that sense, not on that topic. No, he wasn't enough of a moron for that.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why now?"

Again, he glanced at the kids. How long before Snow decided they weren't worth the pain? Haymitch would get in the way, of course, they were his kids after all. And, as much as he would try to prevent it, Effie would somehow get involved because they were all her victors and she was as loyal as it got.

"Life is short. It's now or never, sweetheart." he snorted. And he would rather now than never. That was a regret he wasn't sure he wanted to risk. "You want the flask back?"

She was silent for a few seconds. Her hand briefly covered his fingers where they gripped the engraved silver.

It wasn't about the flask. He hoped she knew that.

"Don't be silly." she chided him, her voice suspiciously hoarse. "It belongs to you now. It has belonged to you for years truly."

"I'm not good at taking care of precious things." he warned her.

"I am aware." A teasing grin graced her lips. "Am I precious then?"

"I thought we were talking about the flask." he replied innocently.

"Were we?" she challenged.

There was no time to answer that question, Katniss wandered closer, a sulk on her face, and Effie hoarded them all to the train with reminders for all of them to act properly in public.

He wondered if he was the only one who noticed the delighted smile she sported for the rest of the day.

He wondered if anyone noticed his new habit of tracing the T on his flask with his thumb.

He wondered how dumb it was to look for that sort of meaning in the middle of a war in-coming.

He wondered how dumber it would have been not to take the chance.