Prompt : If you still take prompts, I would love to see something where Effie fucks up at some point during the games and they take it out somehow on her family

In The Dead Of Night

It had been the longest day of Effie's life.

Eleven years as an escort had made her tired. She had been careless lately, too quick to jab at the Capitol's supposed glory. The previous night had been one too many reckless act. Her tributes had died at the Cornucopia and she had gone out, attempting to party away the hollowness the deaths always left behind. She had gotten drunk and, as always when she was drunk, her control had slipped, she had said the wrong thing to the wrong man.

The call that morning had come as a harsh reminder of where she lived and what amount of dissension was allowed.

Her niece had been run over by a car. She wasn't dead and she would recover but it was a near miss. If she hadn't figured it out by herself, the bunch of white roses being delivered to the hospital room from seemingly no one would have been a dead giveaway. She loved her niece, everybody knew it.

The guilt, the worry… Everything was making her sick. She had spent the whole day at the hospital until the staff had kicked her out. It was late now. Night had fallen while she was getting into the car and the penthouse, when she stepped out of the elevator, felt cold and uninviting.

Knowing she would never be able to sleep, even with the help of pills, she made her way to the living-room, intending to fix herself a drink. The room was dark and she didn't bother with switching on the lights, knowing from habit where everything was.

"You're back."

She was too worn-out to jump. She turned around to find her victor slumped on the armchair.

"Didn't know where you were." he slurred. "Thought maybe you'd quitted."

She wondered how he would deal with another escort, one who wouldn't be as understanding as she was. He was always insistent he wanted her gone but…

"You're drunk." she sighed, rubbing her face, not even caring about how smudged her make-up would look like.

"As as skunk." he laughed. "Where were you?"

She started crying.

It was embarrassing, really. She had hold on the tears all day, being cheerful and optimistic for her sister's sake, she managed to remain collected and detached and to completely ignored through sheer self-delusion that this was all her fault and now…

At first it was only a few tears slipping through but then the sobbing started and it was absolutely stupid.

"Why are you doing that?" he asked, confused and horrified. "Don't do that!"

She turned her back on him and walked to the bay windows, trying to get her volatile emotions under control. She needed control.

She couldn't stop sobbing.

She heard him get up and stumble around the room, knocking furniture over and making a mess that it would fall on her to see clean. She was so tired of having to deal with him and the death and everything that went with her job…

"Don't cry, don't cry…" he begged, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and propping his head on her shoulder. "What happened? Did you break a nail?"

The question was completely serious, as if he really believed she would cry for breaking a nail. She didn't know if that was the liquor talking or something he truly thought she would do. She didn't stop crying and he grew distressed. He was always very affectionate when he was wasted – there was a scale to his drunkenness and she knew exactly how far gone he was from his behavior alone, when he was past being mean and was in a teddy bear mode, it was time to get him somewhere where he could sleep it off because it meant he was going to crash soon – and he peppered her neck and shoulder with wet kisses. It was disgusting but well-meant and it only made her sob harder.

"I feel so alone…" she confessed, her voice completely broken.

"You're not alone I'm right here." he countered in a tone of voice that implied she was an idiot for not noticing.

She turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck, too desperate for comfort to care where it came from. He held her tight, cradling the back of her head in one big hand and patting her back with the other.

"Shhh…" he repeated again and again. "Don't cry."

He was out of his depth and drunk and yet, the embrace felt comforting, safe.

She thought it was a good thing he was so drunk.

She may have kissed him otherwise.