Prompt : this is from a text post so its not my original prompt but could you please do a hayffie fic based on the post: "what about a 'hey i'm sorry to bother you but i'm trying to convince my friends i'm a sex god so can you please write a fake number on this napkin for me real quick' au"
Ok I tricked this one a bit because I had that idea for a while so…
A Lesson In Lying
There was a lot of giggling around the table, a lot of elbow nudging and self-congratulating too. The fake IDs had worked and all the girls were now sipping their very forbidden, very strong liquor. Effie wasn't sure she liked the taste of the vodka on the rocks she had ordered but she had refused to be left behind while all her friends sampled real alcohol. That was the point of the evening, after all, the challenge: convincing as many people as possible that they were grown-ups. And what better way to pretend to be a grown-up than ordering strong liquor?
The smile on her lips was slightly forced but she brought her glass to her lips again. Talia nudged her right at that moment, almost making her spill her drink all over her.
"Look! Look! It's him! It's the Quell's victor!" her friend said with unabashed excitement and a religious hush fell on the table. Theirs wasn't the only table in the establishment to suddenly go quiet.
Haymitch Abernathy had just taken a seat at the bar.
As far as victors went, he was elusive. He frequented bars but never the same one twice, he rarely went to high class parties and he never once appeared in the gossip column of the newspaper for a love affair gone wrong – unlike most other victors. At twenty, four years after he had won the Quell, not much was known about him and he would have been considered boring if he hadn't been so mysterious. It was rumored he was a little too partial to a drink and he often made an apparition on TV because he had been caught in a brawl with his friend Chaff but aside for that, he usually stayed out of the cameras way.
"He's so handsome!" Solia squealed, high enough that everyone in the bar probably heard it.
The victor's back straightened but he didn't turn his head to look. He simply gestured at the barman.
"We need to get him in the game." Talia said, using her plotting voice. "Maybe he would even date one of us… Can you imagine? Dating a victor! Everyone at school would be green with envy!"
"He's twenty." Effie felt compelled to point out. Her mother had strict rules and although it had never been explicitly said, she figured that dating a twenty year old man at only sixteen wouldn't go well with her parents, even if he was a victor. She couldn't imagine her friends' parents reacting better.
"And then what?" Beatrix asked, flicking her synthetic purple hair over her shoulder with an impatient shake of her head. "He doesn't need to know how old we are. It's just a game. We have to convince everyone we're older tonight. One of use should chat him up and get his number."
"Effie." Solia suggested at once. "She's the best at chatting guys up."
"Yes, you need to go, Effie." Talia insisted.
Effie would have loved to pretend she hadn't seen that coming from afar.
"I have a boyfriend." she argued.
"Oh, please! Vito is less handsome than Haymitch Abernathy and didn't you have a big crush on him during the Quell or something?" Beatrix scoffed. "Come on, Effie. I dare you to do it."
Effie pursed her lips in displeasure. Dares were a big thing. Failed dares had unmade more than one person at their high school.
With an exasperated sigh and more confidence than she truly felt, she stood up. "If it amuses you… You are so childish, Beatrix."
She walked to the bar slowly but with that particular sway of her hips that always made boys' heads turn. She was aware that a few men were ogling her and that boosted her confidence. She glimpsed her reflection in the mirror right before reaching her prey and she decided she looked good : her short pink dress was exquisite, her apple green wig fell into a short bob that was cute with an impish look to it, and her make-up was perfect.
The section of the bar Haymitch had chosen to sit in was deserted which suited her just fine. She had no problem chatting up, flirting or even charming grown men into doing her biding. It might have been a dangerous game but she and their friends had been playing it for some time. The key was to stay in control and be careful not to let them hope for more than they were willing to give.
"Hi." she said, once she was next to him.
"Not interested." he spat without even a glance for her.
Up close, he looked older than his twenty years of age. He was handsome though. His dirty blond hair was too long and obviously unwashed but it only added to the scruffy look she supposed he was aiming for – she refused to think victors weren't as scrupulous about their appearance as other celebrities. His mouth was thin and his chin was covered with stubble. Effie liked her boys clean-shaved but the stubble sent her stomach twisting in unexpected ways. And, of course, there were the eyes…
She would have denied it under torture because she was almost a woman now, certainly not a stupid teenager like the other girls at school anymore, but there was a poster of him neatly folded at the bottom of one of the drawers of her desk. And her twelve year old self might or might not have spent entire evenings staring at those eyes and dreaming the boy on the poster would fall in love with her.
"That's rude." she retorted before she could think about it. Wrong approach, she mused. Some guys liked being chatted up and some preferred being ignored so they could make fools of themselves trying to seduce a woman playing hard to get. Haymitch was obviously falling into the second category. "And I simply wanted to warn you there is a group of women in the corner who are eyeing you. I thought you might want to make a timely escape."
She sat on the stool next to his and ordered another vodka on the rocks, schooling her features in annoyed boredom when the bartender asked for her ID again.
"You mean the schoolgirls you were sitting with when I came in?" he replied.
Her hand paused halfway to the glass the bartender had just placed in front of her. It had only lasted a second but she knew he had picked up on it. She was certain he hadn't looked at their table when he had arrived, he hadn't looked anywhere. He was more observant than she had given him credit for, then.
"Already watching me, were you?" she grinned, sitting sideway on the stool so she could face him.
He was watching her now, with a smirk on his lips that was more mocking than charming.
She crossed her legs slowly, waiting for the tell-tale spark of want to show in his eyes but his gaze remained firmly fixed on her face.
"Aren't you a bit young to play this game, sweetheart?" he asked, not unkindly. "I'm a nice guy who won't take advantage. The next one might not be."
"I'm of age." she countered.
The smirk only grew. "Yeah, how old?"
"Twenty." she said, the lie slipping easily from her lips. She was good at lying. She lied all the time and nobody ever picked up on it. That was how she got everything she wanted : by being pretty and pretending to be whatever the person in front of her wanted her to be.
"Try again." he snorted.
"I look young for my age." she argued with a careless shrug. "I will be grateful for it in the future, I'm sure."
He turned to face her and she knew she had succeeded in capturing his undivided attention which, she confusedly felt, was a rare thing. His leg bumped into her foot but he moved it before the contact could linger. He was careful not to touch her, she realized.
"What's your name?" he enquired, taking a sip of the amber liquid in his glass.
She imitated him, cursing the vodka when it brought tears to her eyes and preventing herself from coughing by sheer force of will.
"Euphemia." she offered, judging her nickname too childish to be used with a man like him. He liked women, ergo he would like Euphemia better than Effie. Euphemia sounded much more mature.
He made a face. "Terrible name."
"Anyone ever told you your manners are appalling, Haymitch?" she hissed, annoyed.
"I live to displease, sweetheart." he chuckled, toasting her with his glass. "Now, I'm going to do you a huge favor. I'm going to tell you just why you're such a bad liar and then you're going to go back to your gaggle of giggling friends and leave me drink my whiskey in peace, yeah?"
She pursed her lips and tilted her head. "I am not lying."
"Okay, I will humor you." His face grew sterner and he lost the smirk altogether. Next thing she knew, his hand was on her thigh – not too high but high enough that she was uncomfortable. "Let's get out of here, sweetheart. There's a back alley right next to this bar."
The implication of what he was suggesting made her grow cold. She wasn't sure she was quite ready for that and certainly not in a back alley where the whole thing would be rushed and unpleasant and…
"See?" he chided her, taking his hand away. "That's your lesson. Don't play with fire if you can't handle the matches. I mean it, sweetheart, you might think it's funny now but you won't when a guy drag you out and force you to do things you don't want to do."
"Perhaps I am simply not that easy." she snapped but her shaky voice betrayed her. "Perhaps I want romance first."
"And perhaps I'm President Snow in disguise." he sneered. "Look, do what you want, just do it away from me."
She took another sip of the vodka, hoping the alcohol would steady her nerves.
"You never said what I did wrong." she pointed out. "You said you were going to tell me where I went wrong with the lying…"
He had turned back to the bar and asked the bartender for a refill. He tossed her an irritated glance.
"You're a pain in the ass, aren't you?" he scoffed and then waited until the bartender had gone to take an order from another customer before speaking again. "Fine. First mistake was admitting to lying just now, maybe I was just fishing for information before. Second mistake, right before you lie, you hesitate. You're good. It lasts only a fraction of second but it's enough if you know what to look for. Third mistake, a small lie is better than a big one. You're what? Seventeen? Just say you're eighteen, not twenty."
Those were all valid points and she promised herself she would take them into consideration. At the way he was now staring at his glass, she knew she was dismissed. Yet she had come with a mission and she refused to leave empty-handed.
"May I have your number?" she asked with her sweetest smile, grabbing a napkin from further down the bar and pushing it in front of him along with a pen she stole directly from behind the bar.
He rolled his eyes. "I don't sleep with teenagers. I'm not that despicable yet. Come back in a few years."
She didn't ask if that meant he would have slept with her if she had been older or if he would be despicable enough in a few years that he would sleep with sixteen years old.
"Let me be clearer." she insisted without parting from her smile. "My friends out there expect me to come back with your number so may I please have a fake number?"
The glass of whiskey froze halfway to his lips. "And how is it my problem?"
"Because in a few years I might or might not be willing to sleep with you and I will remember this kindness." she grinned. "Or perhaps simply because you are bored and I distracted you for a while."
"You're a clever little thing, aren't you?" he chuckled, grabbing the pen and jotting down random number on the napkin. "Don't bother me again, sweetheart, I'm not usually that polite."
"I dread to see what you would be like when you are rude then." she teased, snatching her prize away from him. Their hands brushed and she felt a chill run down her spine. She wondered if he felt it too.
She sauntered away with a victorious smile and tossed the napkin on her friends' table, laughing at their impressed faces and readily accepting the statements that she was awesome and irresistible for the truth.
And if she sometimes felt grey eyes tracking her moves from the other end of the room, she pretended she didn't notice.
One day, she mused, she would be an escort.
The idea came out of nowhere, chasing half formed ideas of going into architecture or modeling, but was strangely appealing.
One day, she would be an escort, and she would make him fall in love with her.
And they would be unstoppable.