Prompt : Hello Queen (i love you) Just a hayffie prompt, I've read a few where Katniss and/or Peeta walk in or over hear Haymitch and Effie going at it, could you write a crack fic where the opposite happens?! I can't tell who out of the four would freak out the most! :D

Not my best, sorry.

Discovering the Kids

It wasn't a good day.

He watched her from the threshold of the guest room, occasionally taking a sip of liquor. Tousled hair barely peeked from under the blankets. She was curled on her side on the bed, her back turned to him, and she was staring at the wall. It was two in the afternoon already and he knew that if he let her she would stay in bed all day.

"Sweetheart…"

She curled up in a tighter ball as if she already knew what he was going to ask of her.

"Come on, Effie, let's not do this the hard way." he requested. "We're going out."

"No." she replied, her voice muffled and a little broken. "Please, I don't want to."

"Just to see the kids, yeah?" he insisted. "Just for a little while."

"I'm tired, Haymitch." she retorted.

"I know." he sighed. "But you can't be tired your whole life or you will end up like me. Come on."

He placed the bottle down, grabbed the blankets and tugged them away from her body. She wasn't wearing much in term of pajamas, one of those frilly nightgown that would never be enough against Twelve's winter, and she hissed at the sudden cold air on her skin.

She glared at him. "I hate you."

"Right back at you, Princess." he smirked. "Now, get up."

She let out a deep long sigh to let him know just how much of a chore it was and swung her legs out of bed.

"I will fix you something to eat while you get dressed." he said, ignoring her muttering that she wasn't hungry. She was underweight still and couldn't afford to miss two meals a day.

It took her such a long time to get ready that he was certain she was dragging her feet in hope he would get drunk and forget he even wanted to go out in the first place. Tough luck there. When she was in such a state, he didn't dare drink more than a few glasses a day.

He was relieved to find her irritated by his determination when she finally made an appearance in the kitchen. When she was irritated, she was doing better. It was when she didn't care one way or another that he was really worried.

He took one look at the blue dress, the fancy hairdo and the light make-up and smiled at her, glad to see her back to normal. He was never quite sure what to do with the Effie wearing sweatpants and shapeless loose shirts.

That didn't mean she got away with not eating anything like she wanted to.

"You are mothering me." she accused him over her plate of eggs. "You are being a mother hen."

"Well, one of us has to, sweetheart." he scoffed. "Now be a good girl and finish your orange juice."

He only bought orange juice for her so she might as well drink it.

By the time they set out for the kids' house, they were back to their usual bickering, arguing over the yard and the fact he had said he would mow the out of control grass but had in fact completely forgotten about it. He didn't know if he liked or not the fact that she was behaving as if his house was her house too even though she was still officially only visiting.

Effie always used the front door when she visited the kids but Haymitch always went through the kitchen and since they were still arguing he led her there without thinking twice about it. He didn't pause to think either when he pushed the door open much to his former escort's dismay.

"Can't you knock? Have you no manners at all?" she lamented.

The kitchen was empty, they naturally headed to the living-room.

"Oh, my!" Effie gasped, before shoving Haymitch aside. "Don't look! Don't!"

It didn't save him from glimpsing what was going on in the living-room. It involved their kids and not a lot of clothing. Someone shouted – it might have been him – someone talked really fast but all he could hear was Effie's steady string of : "We're so sorry, we didn't mean to interrupt, we will go, please carry on".

She pulled and pushed until he was out of the house. They remained standing on the path, staring at each other for the longest time.

And then she started laughing. It happened so rarely anymore it stopped his half-cooked plan to find bleach to rub his eyes with.

It even comforted him a little even if, really, that was much more than he ever wanted to see.