So after that new picture with parental hayffie I had a thought about that zipped sweater Haymitch is wearing because I see Effie as someone who would play distractedly with that kind of thing while talking and I shared that hc on tumblr and someone prompted this. So here it is =)

The Zipper Metaphor

Effie's eyes kept darting to the clock nervously.

"What is taking so long?" she sighed.

Haymitch shrugged before rubbing his face. He looked tired, she mused. She didn't look much better even though she had finally put her hands on make-up again, she supposed. Months in Thirteen exhausting themselves for this rebellion, worrying over Katniss and Peeta, the deaths of their friends, Annie's pregnancy, Coin's murder and the subsequent trials… She sometimes felt as if she hadn't properly breathed in months.

They were waiting for the soldiers to take Katniss out of isolation and bring her to them. She was still furious about not being allowed to visit the girl earlier. She had spent weeks locked in that room by herself, detoxing from morphling and screaming herself to sleep almost every night. Haymitch had tried everything he could to be allowed in but they had been denied at every turn.

"How are you faring?" she asked to distract herself from her frayed nerves. Would Katniss be alright? Would she be as distraught as Haymitch when he had first stepped out of his withdrawal cell or as angry as Johanna after her stay in prison? Would she still be the same Katniss she knew or the ghost of who she had been?

"How do you think?" he snapped but it came out as an exhausted sigh.

Going back to Twelve wasn't settling well with Haymitch. Aster Everdeen had taken off in the dead of night a week before the trial, leaving Haymitch with a letter to pass on to Katniss and another one for him in which she explained it was too much for her to handle and she needed to leave. Effie had been so furious she had thrown a vase at the wall – not her proudest moment – unable to understand how the woman could abandon her daughter when she needed her most. Representation was everything during a trial and her mother's testimony had been lacking and had made people talk. Haymitch had fought for her custody. They would have placed her under a hospital tutelage and locked her in a room like a madwoman. He had fought for her custody and he had bent the knee when they had agreed to it if he took her back to Twelve and made sure she never left that District again.

Haymitch, she knew, never wanted to go back to Twelve ever again. He blamed himself for not foreseeing what would happen and he couldn't even glance at the images of the ruined District, never mind flying back there. She suspected he would be drunk ten minutes after his arrival.

"It will be alright." she lied with confidence and a bright smile. "The Village is intact. It will be like you never left."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he scoffed.

She pursed her lips and fussed over his jacket, smoothing inexistent wrinkles and running her fingers over the fur at the collar.

"It will be alright." she repeated, grabbing the zipper of his sweater he hadn't pulled up completely and tugging it down distractedly to reveal a grey undershirt. "I will bring Peeta when he is ready and they will be reunited." She tugged the zipper up before tugging it down again, too nervous to even realize what she was doing. "Everything will be fine. Everything will be just fine." She kept on playing with the zipper until he covered her hand with his. It was so much bigger than hers, so much stronger…

"You're done?" he snorted. "Maybe it's time you decide if you want me naked or not, sweetheart."

Her eyes shot up at that. His grey eyes were twinkling in amusement but there was something serious underneath, a longing. This thing between them had flared from the very first moment she had outstretched a hand and he had ignored it to mock her choice of wig. Finnick and Chaff used to love teasing them about the sexual tension but they had always denied it to their friends and to themselves for reasons that were different but no less uncompromising. And yet years of working together, months of sleepless nights in Thirteen they had spent reviewing their Mockingjay's speeches or simply talking to avoid going to bed had made the whole thing huge in her mind. Whatever this was, it would be terrible in either good or bad. The two of them clashed too much for it not to be.

"Really?" she huffed. "You want to talk about that now?"

Yet she didn't let go of the zipper and he didn't take his hand away from hers.

"Never said anything about talking, did I?" he smirked. The smirk slowly morphed into a small frown though. "Will you be alright here by yourself?"

"This is my home, Haymitch." she denied softly.

"Not anymore." he growled. "You're a traitor to them."

"And still the enemy to District people." she sighed.

"Which is exactly why you shouldn't be out there by yourself." he argued, squeezing her hand.

She automatically flashed him a smile to reassure him. He lifted his other hand and brushed his fingertips against her lips.

"Don't do that." he rebuked her. "Not with me."

She dropped the act. It was like someone had flicked off a switch, her escort mask slipped away and she let him see the apprehension and the fear. The Capitol was a lonely place even before the war. There was no worse loneliness than the feeling of being alone in the middle of a crowd. Effie hadn't been alone in a while, not since he had brought her to Thirteen, and she feared that return to the norm. She would miss her team, she would miss Haymitch.

"You have to leave to take care of Katniss." she replied. "And I have to stay to take care of Peeta." That was the plain truth and there was no working around that. "I will be fine. Plutarch will make sure I am and President Paylor doesn't dislike me. I will be careful and I will escort Peeta to Twelve as soon as he is ready."

"And then?" he prompted.

"Then we will see, shall we?" she grinned.

She tugged the zipper down one last time.

She didn't bother pulling it back up.

She hoped he got the message.