Prompt : May I prompt? Can you write something where Hayffie are living together in 12 after everything and they are both having a nightmare at the same time? And when they both wake up, they realize how broken they are and then they start laughing somehow and end up cuddling. Something that goes from tears to laughter please? Merci!

This isn't very cheerful but well… Have a happy new year anyway!

As a sidenote, please note since I won't be at home tomorrow Invictus will be updated on Sunday again along with Human Tokens.

Of Night Terrors, Routines and Being Broken

The whines and shouts were coming from every directions.

Haymitch was running but he couldn't escape, couldn't outrun the ghosts hot on his trail. He needed to find something, someone maybe, but he couldn't remember what or who or where… He ran and ran and ran, desperately looking for the knife he always kept on him, desperately looking for…

There was a loud shriek…

And Haymitch jerked awake, slashing with a knife that wasn't there. As usual, it took several seconds for his heart to stop beating so hard that it almost felt as if it would break out of his chest, and several more for him to realize he was in his bedroom in Twelve where he should, in theory, have been safe although the whines and shouts were still coming. He looked down not overly surprised to find Effie thrashing in her sleep next to him.

The first thing he did was kicking the covers down and taking off the tee-shirt drenched in sweat he was wearing. The next was cautiously reaching out, ready to par any blow she would try to land.

"Sweetheart…" he called softly. It wasn't enough. She woke up abruptly, sitting up and hitting him before she even opened her eyes. He kept his arm in front of his face – because she could claw his eyes out with those nails of hers – and tried again, more firmly. "Effie."

She froze, her fist in mid-air, and blinked, her eyes finally focusing on him.

"Haymitch." she breathed out in a shaky voice. It almost came out as a question.

"Yeah." he reassured her. "Just a nightmare."

A nightmare that had triggered his. She blinked some more and glanced around at the covers now resting at the foot of the bed, his bare chest and his clammy skin. She wasn't in a better state.

"Did you have one too?" she asked, mechanically slipping her soaked nightgown over her head before grabbing the glass of water she always kept on her nightstand and gulping it down.

"Yeah." he replied flatly, flopping back down on the bed. It was too cold for being so undressed and he shivered. "Fire must have died down. I will go poke it. You're okay?"

"I am fine." she sighed. "Nothing I am not used to. Put on a clean shirt before you catch your death. I will change the sheets."

He dropped a kiss to her head and then headed downstairs, grabbing another tee-shirt on his way. It was a well tuned routine by now. Hardly a night passed without at least one of them having a nightmare. He built another fire, poked it until it roared and then made a detour by the kitchen to get her another glass of water – she didn't like drinking from the bathroom faucet, she claimed the water had a taste which was, in his opinion, absolutely ridiculous because it was the same water as in the kitchen.

She was just finishing making the bed when he came back in the bedroom and accepted the glass of water gratefully.

"We make quite a pair." she mocked as they climbed back into bed. She snuggled against him as soon as he had settled against the pillows, seeking his warmth and comfort all at once.

"Broken pair." he snorted. They were almost blasé about the nightmares now. They always left them shaking but the fact that they still had night terrors in itself was something they had accepted as a part of their life, something they had come to expect.

"Well… I like being broken with you." she declared. "I wouldn't be broken with anyone else."

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.

"Me neither, Princess. Me neither…"