Prompt : I read the ask and your answer about them talking about her torture. Is it possible to prompt it, so that you'd write a little bit more about it? I would love to read it and I'm in for some heart breaking moments.
Question time : Do I post tomorrow or not? Because if I post and no one is free to read… I don't know tell me if you want a prompt or not! I could maybe post earlier than usual. I need opinions, people! =)
As for Invictus, I am still undecided if I will post on Friday or on Sunday, it will mostly depends of where I will be on Friday so… If you don't see an update on Friday, it will more likely happen on Sunday ;)
Crash & Burn
Haymitch is helping Katniss cutting vegetables for that night's dinner when Peeta barges in, Effie Trinket in tow. He's dragging her by one hand and her luggage by the other. The suitcases are all pink, there are two of them piled up one on top of the other and a matching pink vanity case dangling from her free hand.
He takes one look at her blond hair pinned up on her head, at the frayed sleeves of her coat and the worn out shoes and concludes this means trouble.
Effie immediately starts apologizing for coming up unannounced but she's interrupted by Peeta explaining he has met her by chance on the road and by Katniss standing up to hug her. If their escort is surprised by the sudden bout of affection, she doesn't show it. As always with Effie Trinket, she takes in stride, stops talking nonsense, hugs the girl back and closes her eyes.
Haymitch is slower in getting up and warier in approaching her. They didn't part as friendly as he would have liked. She was angry about everything from being arrested by the Capitol to him leaving her behind again to escort Katniss to Twelve and some bad words were flung around. It has been a year without news and he isn't exactly sure what they are anymore – past lovers is a given but are they still friends?
"Haymitch." she nods, once she released Katniss. He doesn't get a hug but he gets a kiss on the cheek and if her lips linger too long at the corner of his mouth… Nobody but him seems to notice.
The kids are excited about seeing her and she gives a good show during the whole evening. She's cheerful, bubby, loud... Exactly how she used to be. She's refreshing, he supposes, and what would have annoyed Katniss and Peeta before now make them laugh, and they both repeat again and again how happy they are to have her here. It has been some times since his kitchen has been so full of joy.
They ask how long she's staying and she evades the question. She avoids all questions, Haymitch notices, deflecting every inquiry about her personal life by asking some questions of her own. Catching up with them is easy though: Peeta has opened a new bakery, Katniss hunts and sells her meat to the butcher or the few eating establishments in town... And Haymitch...
"You look sober." she remarks at some point, while Peeta is busy tinkering with Haymitch's old coffee maker. She lowers her voice, almost tentative. She has been careful in not addressing him directly all through dinner and he has been happy to step back and observe.
He wonders why she's so hesitant with him. If it's because of the same apprehension he feels about how they parted things or because she knows he can see right through her cheerful persona. She's pulling a convincing act, he would grant her that, and the kids are clearly not suspecting anything is wrong but Haymitch sees the strain in her easy smiles, the new lines on her face and the bags under her eyes the make-up don't quite cover.
"I'm low on liquor right now. Nobody makes moonshine around here anymore." he shrugs, sparing a thought for Ripper. "I have to wait for shipments. I have to ration myself."
Those days he could only drink enough to function, stop the tremors, keep a clear head, chase the demons away... His carefully rationed stock only leaves him free to get wasted out of his mind only twice a month if he doesn't want to run out of liquor altogether. He saves it for the very bad days.
"Which is not actually a bad thing." Peeta cuts in, always so adamant about him giving up his addiction. Katniss doesn't offer a comment, more understanding than the boy is about his liquor. They never talk about her past addiction to morphling but he doesn't need to ask to know she probably still craves it and will until the end of her days.
"I see." Effie says politely and doesn't ask anything more on that subject.
Most people would have asked how he is doing with that new situation. He wonders if she's refraining out of the same instinct that stops him from asking how she's really doing. If she knows he would lie just like she is lying right now, at least in front of the kids.
"Haymitch raises geese now." Katniss informs her.
Effie's eyebrows shot up but a soft smile soon graces her lips, a genuine one. He can tell the kids are surprised, that they expected her to bitch and rant about unsanitary choices of pets and how filthy poultry must be.
He didn't think she would remember. Effie is probably the last person left alive who truly knows him. The kids know him well, of course, but they only know what Haymitch has shared of his past and that isn't much. You couldn't work with someone for thirteen years, sleep with them for ten of those years, without sharing some things. He has confessed more to Effie, in a drunken state as well as, occasionally, in a sober one than he has ever told anyone else except maybe for Chaff or Mags.
And so she knows what the geese really mean. She knows opening a selling geese business was his brother's dream job. She knows that building a pen in his backyard and keeping birds in there mean he finally put his family to rest. He would never forget, he would forever blame himself, but he finally found his peace with their death.
"I am happy for you." she offers and he glimpses tears in her eyes before she blinks them away.
"You know, they remind me of you." he snorts, toying with a piece of bread. "They're loud, annoying, fussy... Good at surviving..."
The kids hold their breath, waiting for her retort that would either start a fight or a bantering match but she simply flashes him a brief smile, strained and wrong, and starts asking Katniss about her life again.
Peeta pours them all coffee and tries to redirect the conversation on her. She laughs it out and launches herself in an elaborate tale about a new apartment and a new job in the fashion industry, the fabulous parties she attends every night and the famous people she knows.
"Same old, same old." she concludes in a sing-song voice.
Katniss and Peeta share a fond look over her head and that's how Haymitch knows they buy it all : line, hook and sinker. He doesn't. He doesn't think she's lying about everything but he does know she's lying about some of it.
She has always been a good actress, she has fooled him more than once, she knows how to hide her feelings, she knows how to play the game, she knows how to convince herself of her own lies. Some call it self-denial, he calls it self-preservation.
After the war, she pretended everything was back to normal, she pretended she could just sweep under the rugs the months spent in prison. She ran away from her demons, from the pain and the memories. She pretended she was still the same Effie Trinket, unchanged but for a vacant look in her eyes.
You didn't go through something like that and come out unchanged.
Haymitch knows this because he saw enough victors try. He tried.
So when she talks about due vacation time and how amazing her life in the Capitol is but she has suddenly felt the need for some fresh air and was wondering how they were doing, he doesn't buy it. She's still running, even now, even sitting in his kitchen, lying straight to their faces, but no one can run forever and he doesn't need to probe more to know she's out of breath.
When Peeta starts doing the dishes and Katniss excuses herself to the bathroom, he takes his chance and approaches her. She's staring at her hands on the table, nodding at whatever the boy is chatting about. Peeta doesn't notice when Haymitch takes the chair next to her. He is careful to speak low enough that the boy will only hear a murmur at best and not the actual words.
"You need a safe place to crash."
It's not even a question at that point. And when he says crash he doesn't mean a place to stay, finding a place for her to live in Twelve wouldn't be that difficult, one of the kids will offer soon enough, he means a place to crash and burn.
She would only be able to built herself up again after she has collapsed.
"Yes." she answers simply.
He nods once. "I'll take your stuff upstairs."
She would never be able to let herself fall apart at the kids'. She would never be able to drop the act. It's different with them. They're intimate in a different way most lovers are. They have seen each other at their worst, there is not much lower to go.
"Thank you." she whispers.
He squeezes her shoulder on his way to her suitcases that are still piled up next to the door. If Peeta is curious or surprised by his offer to host her, he doesn't say anything.
The next day, she doesn't get out of bed.
Haymitch leaves her alone and shields her from the kids' fussing with a half-cooked explanation about her being tired from the train trip and needing rest. That excuse holds for two days, on the third one, Peeta starts asking questions. Surprisingly, it's Katniss who tells the boy to give it time, there is a sad knowing look in her eyes.
Haymitch makes sure Effie eats and drinks. She has no appetite so he brings her soup and tea. Sometimes he sits on the empty side of the bed and sips his daily ration of liquor while she stares at the wall.
On the fourth day, she rolls around and pillows her head on his stomach. He keeps on drinking and pets her hair. Neither of them says anything.
On the fifth, she finally admits that her awesome life in the Capitol isn't so awesome. War hit the city hard. Lodgings are too expensive, the Districts completely control Panem and aren't exactly fond of Capitols which means jobs are difficult to find. People hate her with a passion either for being a traitor or a monster, she has grown used to threats and insults in the streets. The parties she attends are all work related and she doesn't enjoy them anymore aside for the free alcohol and the occasional recreational drug. She is quick to tell him she stopped that before it became a problem but it had come close. She works as a secretary for a modeling agency, a job Plutarch found for her because a friend owed him a favor, for minimum wages that only allow her to afford a studio on the outskirts of the city. She grew tired of her boss patting her ass every time her back was turned and talking to her as if she was dumb. She quitted. And that was when everything had caught up with her and she had panicked.
She packed her bags and climbed on a train and she found herself in Twelve without realizing where she was going. She needed somewhere safe, somewhere she would be with people she actually loves instead of strangers who insult her or a boss who thinks she's an object for him to fondle at will.
"It was the smart choice." Haymitch tells her. "You're safe here. Just let it go, sweetheart."
Letting go is scary and it takes two more days of staring at the wall before she starts crying. It starts with sniff and then a sob and then before he can fully understands, he holds her while she weeps. After two hours she falls asleep in his arms, tears still rolling down her cheeks.
The next day, she gets up, she gets dressed and she goes visit the kids like nothing is amiss and she hasn't spent a whole week in bed.
It doesn't mean everything gets magically better.
If anything it gets worse but he expected it.
Now that she stopped running from them, the memories come back with a vengeance. Flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks... It takes them two weeks to figure out most of her triggers and either work around them or avoid them altogether. She can't stand to stay in a room if windows and doors are all shut for instance but she can't settle at night if she isn't certain the front and back doors are locked. She doesn't like being alone. One night she crawls in his bed and she stays. She falls asleep clutching him. He doesn't mind – well, he does a little but he never says, he simply locks his knife in the drawer and clings to her right back.
Step by step, day by day, she learns how to deal with the whole PTSD problem.
Around a month and half after her arrival, she kisses him. It's nothing but a peck as she's about to leave for the bakery where she sometimes helps Peeta. It's a distracted move and she doesn't seem to realize what she's done because she goes on ranting about not being able to find her pink shoes before hurrying out of the house, leaving him dumbfounded in front of his breakfast.
She does it again from time to time. She doesn't seem to do it on purpose. It becomes a reflex, something she does automatically when she leaves the house. One day she even does it in front of Katniss and doesn't understand why the girl is staring at her with eyes wide like saucers.
Needless to say he is subjected to a relentless interrogation as soon as she has fled the house.
He has no answers to offer the girl. He's as confused as she is.
One afternoon, she's sitting on the couch, her legs neatly tucked under a woolen blanket, flipping through the pages of a glossy magazine and he decides he's tired of waiting for her to realize she's been kissing him every two days. She looks up with a smile when he comes in and opens her mouth either to greet him or ask something but words never pass her lips. He coils a hand around her nape, careful about not being too rough, and tugs her closer. It's not a peck, this time. It's a real kiss.
She's beaming when he draws back.
They start kissing a lot more.
They start making out like hormonal teenagers too.
She usually tenses before it goes too far and he backs away without her needing to ask. He doesn't want to push her.
Around three months after her arrival, one of their make-out session grows heated. She's grinding against him and he's fumbling under her shirt, and she moans against his mouth which doesn't help him get himself in check. He unclasps her bra before he can think twice about it and starts pulling her shirt over her head and that's when she freezes. He notices immediately, even lost to his lust, and he freezes too.
"Effie?" he asks.
Her face abruptly closes off.
"I'm sorry." she whispers, tearing herself away from him, leaving him on the couch. It's cold without the warmth of her body.
"No, I'm sorry, sweetheart." he frowns, reaching out for her. "Should have made sure you were okay...
She steps back and lifts her hands in a defensive gesture. "I need some air. I will... I'm not angry at you, Haymitch, I swear, I just... I need some space."
He lets her go. What else can he do? He understands needing room to breathe, he is still trying to do that sometimes.
She misses dinner.
He doesn't touch his plate, too worried to be hungry.
It's very late by the time the back door quietly opens. She doesn't look very surprised to find him still up. She locks the door behind her and she drops a kiss on his temple as she passes him by, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. He grabs her hand and lets her tug him upstairs.
They get ready for bed and climb under the blankets without exchanging a word.
It's only once they're settle for the night, once her head is resting on his shoulder and his arms are locked around her that she starts talking. She spills it all. Words tumble out of her mouth, sometimes out of order.
He listens.
He pets her hair and drops a kiss on the top of her head from time to time, wishing he could do something about the increasing wet stain on his shirt under her cheek, wishing he could do something to erase the pain she has been through, wishing he could have a drink – or a bottle – and not have to listen to this anymore because it is killing him. But this isn't about him, it's about her and so he stays there and listens.
Most of it, he has puzzled out already from the state she was in after her rescue and from what the little her doctors were willing to disclose to someone who isn't her next of kin. Some of it, he wishes he has never heard about.
He props his head on hers if only to be sure she won't be able to see his face.
There is an ugly scowl on his face, not even cold fury but pure hatred, beautiful in its simplicity. He wants to kill them all and it is of very little relief that most of them are dead already. He wants them alive so he can strangle them, so he can hurt them.
There is a long silence when she's finished.
"I'll keep you safe." he promises.
Maybe it's stupid, it's probably stupid, but it is the only thing he can say short of words he hasn't said in decades and for which he is nowhere ready.
"I know." she hums.
She doesn't last long. She falls into an exhausted sleep and it is only when he is sure she won't wake up that he slips out of bed and heads down to the kitchen. He downs half a bottle before stopping himself from sheer force of will.
She will probably wake up soon from a nightmare and she will need a comfort he won't be able to give if he is wasted out of his mind. So he puts the bottle back in the cupboard and creeps back up on unsteady feet.
There is nothing unsteady in the way he wraps his arms around her and holds her close.
He will protect her better from now on.
He will protect her with his last breath.