Prompt: in which Effie pretends to fall asleep first after they have sex solely bc Haymitch plays with her hair / kisses her forehead and behaves like the actual teddy bear we know he can be.

Guilty Pleasure

Effie Trinket had a guilty pleasure.

Well…

She had a few guilty pleasures, starting with indulging in chocolate cake more often than she ought. Another one was sex with her victor – she wasn't supposed to have sex with her victor, she had tried to resist having sex with her victor, she had tried to stop having sex with her victor but the truth was he infuriated her to the point of insanity and when the screams and shouts morphed into angry kisses and furious fumbling, she was usually too far gone to care.

The plain truth was, she loved having sex with Haymitch.

She had never realized how boring her sex life had been before him. Capitol men – the men her social position required her to date anyway – were always sweet, careful, and pliant. They were predictable. Although he never crossed the line, Haymitch was rough, rarely careful and never pliant. Before him, she had never known she would rather be bitten than kissed, grabbed than caressed and used than cherished.

She had been an escort for ten years and that was enough to understand the Capitol was nothing but smoke screens, everything was fake, everyone was fake. When those Capitol men made love to her and told her she was a goddess in human form, she didn't believe them. When Haymitch tore her wig from her head and said she was gorgeous, she did.

He didn't lie, and sex with him felt truer than anything she had shared with anyone else.

They used to be very good at keeping it simple in the beginning : they would argue, have a round of angry sex, storm away from each other and repeat the process every time they had an itch to scratch.

A few years down the line, things weren't as simple.

She was pretending really hard she hadn't noticed they had become exclusive without even mentioning it – as, no doubt, so was he. There were signs that this thing between them was slowly developing into more : they didn't always fight before they ended up kissing, he didn't leave her bed as soon as they were done anymore, her own feelings weren't as clear as they used to be… And she had found another guilty pleasure wrapped into her guilty pleasure.

Haymitch was never overly demonstrative. On the contrary, he always made a point to keep his distance, to be detached.

Except when he thought she was sleeping.

She hadn't meant to fall asleep the first time, it had just happened. She had been exhausted and he had exhausted her in more ways than once and she had either fallen asleep or passed out – she was still unclear on that point – only to wake up to him spooning her. She had thought he had fallen asleep too at first but the way he had been stroking her hair had been too purposeful for that.

Every time he thought she was sleeping, he would cuddle, drop the occasional soft kiss on her head, and hold her so tight it made her want to melt against his chest. She knew instinctively that the moment he would realize she was aware of what he was doing, he would stop and they would go back to the status quo where he would leave her right after they were done.

So she enjoyed her guilty pleasure and pretended to sleep.

Guilty pleasures were meant to be savored.