Prompt : Ellana, in one of your prompts (I can't remember the number because I read your prompts on shuffle like other people listen to music on shuffle) you wrote that Effie's biggest achievement was to win the award for the sexiest woman of the year three times in a row if I remember it correctly. Could you write another prompt where Haymitch finds out about it by finding a trophy or whatever and makes fun of it? And when she's hurt, he comforts here? I hope you'll do it. Thank you!

Sexiest Woman Of The Year

"You're sure you don't want to just stay at Plutarch's?" Haymitch called out from the living-room.

Her apartment was completely upside down. The windows had been blown out in the bombings and were now covered with white sheets that stopped the dust coming in from outside but did nothing to keep the chill of winter at bay. The rest of the place had been ransacked once or twice, expensive items were gone, her jewelry had disappeared, some trinkets were missing… Someone had obviously squatted there for some time too.

It had taken hours to right the overturned furniture and to pick up the shards of glass scattered everywhere. The amount of work left to make the place fit for human habitation again…

"We can't impose forever!" she called back. "Well, maybe you can but I don't have any claim to his friendship and I don't want to be a burden."

They had moved from the Presidential Mansion to Plutarch's newly acquired house after Coin's death. Katniss was back at the Training Center, under lock and keys, and he had toyed with the idea of going back there with her but living in the penthouse again… Neither he nor Effie were very keen on that. And they couldn't visit the girl anyway, they wouldn't let them, they wouldn't let anyone in. The trial would take weeks. They needed a long-term solution. Plutarch had offered to host them as long as needed, Haymitch didn't see why Effie had to make a fuss about going back to her own place.

"You're sharing my room." He rolled his eyes. "Me alone or the both of us… It doesn't make much of a difference."

With a sigh, he straightened up a wooden shelf, wincing at the sight of the heap of broken baubles underneath. He hoped she was having more luck in the bedroom that he was in the living-room because living in that place again was a long shot in his opinion.

"It does make a difference, Haymitch. It's called having some manners!" she huffed. "Besides, I would like some privacy. Four is a crowd."

"Yeah, manners, my ass." he scoffed. "You just can't stand Fulvia."

Her head popped through the bedroom doorframe long enough for her to glare at him. "Language."

He grabbed the closest trash bag, smirking. "I don't hear you denying it, sweetheart."

"She is a perfectly well-mannered person." Effie retorted from the other room. "I appreciate it given her background."

"You're prejudiced 'cause she's lower class." he mocked, long used to her ridiculous idea of social hierarchy. All Capitol citizens weren't rich.

"Don't be preposterous, darling, I am involved with you and you are District. It doesn't get much more lower class than that." she taunted right back. She came back out and leaned against the bedroom doorframe, arms folded. "Do you want the truth?"

"Why?" He lifted his eyebrows. "We're lying to each other now? I better tell you that dress is pretty then." He sneered at her green and orange dress and swiftly avoided the wayward cushion she picked up from the floor near the couch and tossed his way. "So violent, Princess…"

"What can I say? You draw out my most barbarian urges." she grinned.

It was a relief they could still live that sort of moments. After the war, when he had found her all broken in that hospital room… He had been afraid, very afraid. But she had climbed back from the pit. She still had nightmares and she had bad days but she was holding on, making every effort and helping where she could with Katniss' trial and Peeta's therapy. They were still a team and they were still playing the game.

"So?" he prompted, picking up the broken baubles and tossing them in the trash bag without really looking. They were broken trophies. He vaguely recalled a shelf full of ribbons, tiaras, cups, cockades from the few times he had been around her apartment before the rebellion. He put aside what he thought could be salvaged, not surprised when he realized everything came from beauty pageants and various awards all more ridiculous than the next. Junior High Queen, one of the cockades read.

"She's a very driven woman who shared the rebel cause for so long I don't think she has any love for escorts. We have nothing in common at all and, while she has been nothing but polite, I feel ill-at-ease with her." she confessed. "She is a very accomplished woman though. I doubt she will remain Plutarch's assistant for long. He will make her his associate. She will be a powerful woman soon. And it will be deserved."

He detected a tinge of yearning in her voice. She used to be a woman to reckon with too. Now… Now it was another story. There was no room for escorts in that new Panem and her future remained unclear.

"Yeah, but I bet she never won Sexiest Woman of the Year." he teased, waving the broken engraved glass square before adding it to the trash.

"I will have you know that I won that award three years in a row." she declared, rather smugly.

Surely enough, he found too similar squares in the heap of broken trophies. "How many decades ago?"

He was ready to dodge more flying cushions but she was short of those.

"Abominable man!" she accused, pursing her lips in an attempt at looking annoyed when he knew full well she was fighting off a smile.

"Come on… That's an achievement to be proud off." he snorted. "Sexiest woman of the year… How do they even measure that?"

"Are you saying I am not, in fact, the sexiest woman of the year?" she asked, lifting an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Well, I've seen Johanna Mason naked this year so…" he smirked.

"Quit while you're ahead." she warned. "I might decide not to share my destroyed apartment with you and you will be stuck by yourself at Plutarch's. Don't think I don't know you are not happier than I am there."

He waved that away but didn't deny it. "They're so… snobbish."

He felt like he was living in a museum. Plutarch's house was the epitome of everything Capitol : expensive paintings, statues, exotic plants, absolutely uncomfortable modern furniture, white carpets, walls, and couches he was always sure he would stain… He couldn't have a drink without a coaster, he couldn't open a book without Fulvia tossing a pointed look at the way he was cracking the spine, he talked too loud for the place if the glances Plutarch and Fulvia shared were any indications…

They were gracious about it and never said anything but in their house Haymitch felt District. He wasn't ashamed of that, he had never been ashamed of that, but he had never been friends with many Capitols aside for Effie – and she didn't count because annoying her was a hobby of his – and he didn't like feeling inadequate.

Plutarch was even more pretentious than Effie, and Fulvia, for someone who hadn't grown up in the privileged class, had caught pretty fast to the wealthy people's way of life.

"I'm sick and tired of all the white." Effie confessed before clicking her tongue. "We are being so ungrateful ! We should be ashamed of ourselves."

"You think they don't talk about us when our back is turned?" he pointed out, still picking up heaps of broken metal and plastic. "Fuck, sweetheart, how many fucking awards did you win?"

"A lot." she replied haughtily, snatching a dirty pink ribbon from his hand before he could put it in the trash. "This one was my first. I was five. Lyssa won her first at six months but Mother wouldn't register me before because she was sure I would lose." She pursed her lips with bitter amusement. "Always so confident in my abilities. Lyssa went to all the beauty pageants but she only registered me to the ones where the competition wasn't too hard."

"Don't say it like it's bad." he snorted. "Don't see how it's good for kids to be told they're not pretty enough to win a stupid pageant. Capitols." He spat the last word with open disgust. "It's not even a fun thing, I bet."

She leaned against him, her fingers caressing the pink ribbon with obvious fondness. He wrapped his arms around her without thinking twice about it.

"I don't know." she admitted. "It was fun for a time. Then it became too serious. Losing wasn't an option, I hated to see the disappointment in my mother's eyes when I lost."

"That's fucked up." he decided. "I don't need a contest to know you're the most gorgeous woman I know."

She looked up at him with a soft smile, a teasing spark in her eyes. "And yet you refuse to believe I've been the sexiest woman in Panem for the last three years."

He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. "I need proof."

"Certainly not here." she refused, batting away the hand that was reaching for her breast. "I don't fancy getting pneumonia."

"I'll find someone to fix those windows." he promised.

"Good." she grinned. "The sooner the windows are fixed, the sooner we can move in."

There should have been something scary about that "we" but he wasn't afraid. Their stay in the Capitol was only temporary anyway. He didn't want to stay. He didn't want to go back to Twelve either but he didn't want to stay. He hoped they could agree on a place somewhere else, somewhere new where they could start afresh. They would take the kids with them. Four, maybe. He liked the idea of Four. Annie and the kid would be close by and they would be able to keep an eye on her. And Jo was talking about moving there too. Four could be good.

"You're bossy." he complained, stealing a kiss.

He wouldn't want her any other way though.