Prompt : Salut ! Je veux te donner une idée, s'il te plaît. That's as far as we're going to get in rench. Anyway. Hi. Could you please write a oneshot that's like 5 times Haymitch pretended he wasn't tender and one time he didn't. Or something like that ? Thank you !
I'm very sorry I didn't have time to proofread yesterday and today I feel very tired so if mistakes slip through I'm sorry, feel free to tell me I'll correct them but honestly my eyes are burning right now so… Can't promise to see everything.
Secret Tenderness
1.
Effie hissed in pain when she sat up on the edge of the mattress. Haymitch paused in his mad dash to get out of the room, pants still undone and his tee-shirt dangling from his neck.
"You're okay?" he frowned, studying her.
His grey eyes roamed on her naked skin and she quickly grabbed her silk dressing gown to hide from him. She didn't think they had ever truly talked after having sex before – aside for the usual snide comment that is – and she wasn't keen on setting a precedent. Besides, she was still angry at him.
"Perfectly fine." she snapped, standing up only to freeze and bite down on her bottom lip. She breathed out slowly and pressed her hands against the small of her back, trying to locate the source of the pain.
"You're hurt." he stated, finishing to put on his shirt before reaching out for her. "Let me see."
"I am fine." she insisted.
"Don't be stupid." he spat, grabbing her arm. "Where does it hurt?"
"I am not in the mood to play doctor." she retorted. She tried to shrug of his grip but the movement made the pain in her back worse and she let out a small whimper, not daring to move again. "Alright, perhaps I am not so fine."
Worry slowly replaced anger on his face. "Was it me? Was it something I did? Did I hurt you?" He turned her around more gently than she had ever thought him capable to be and slipped the robe off her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet so he could inspect her back. "There's no bruise or anything…"
"I must have pulled something." she suggested.
"You need something hot." he declared. "I'll run you a bath."
She blinked at that unprecedented offer because… When had Haymitch Abernathy ever been helpful? Even since they had started having sex – although fucking, as he preferred to call it, might have been a better term for that – he had never acted like a gentleman.
She hovered uncertainly near the bathroom door while he filled the bathtub with hot water, a little uncomfortable with the situation. She didn't know how to act. It wasn't like they were friends. And she was the only one naked. It felt awkward to her but he was so focused on running the bath, he didn't seem to notice.
She watched him fumbling with the products lining the side of the bathtub until he found what he was looking for: bath salts. He turned off the tap and helped her in the bathtub. She was too stunned to even protest. Hot water was an immediate relief but she kept pressing with her hands all the same, trying to find the painful spot and rub it better.
The ruffling of clothes alarmed her.
"What are you…" she asked but never had an opportunity to finish.
The bathtub was big enough for two but the water threatened to spill over when he lowered himself behind her. Then his hands were on her back and she forgot to rebuke him. Whatever he was doing, it worked and she leaned forward with a grateful sigh, letting him massage the pain away.
"Better?" he grunted eventually.
She hummed, in truth relaxed enough to fall asleep right there. The pain was gone. The hot water or the massage or both having done their jobs. His hands tentatively started rubbing her shoulders, working at the knot between her shoulder blades and, to her utter horror, she let out a moan.
"Guess I don't need to ask if you like that." he chuckled.
"When did you ever ask what I like or not?" she muttered.
He pressed his thumb harder against the knot and she moaned again. She didn't need to look to know he was smirking. She also didn't need to feel behind her to know he was hard again. She pretended not to notice, savoring the unexpected attention.
After a while, he guided her backward to lean against his chest and moved to rubbing the inside of her palm with his thumb. She was sleepy and her head rolled on his shoulder, her forehead coming to rest against his neck.
It was oddly intimate.
More intimate than having sex and seeing each other naked had ever felt like.
Her green wig was a little wet at the back and she hitched to take it off. She was so relaxed she didn't even care it meant he would see her real hair.
"Where did you learn to do this?" she whispered.
He clearly knew what he was doing.
"My mother taught me." he said, sharp enough that she heard the warning not to pursue that line of interrogation.
"Thank you." she offered instead.
"No thanks needed." he grumbled. "You got hurt 'cause of me, I helped. We're even."
She didn't think helping a pain in her back warranted a complete massage and the care with which he was touching her – or even what could only be considered as cuddling – but she held her tongue.
2.
The drive back to the Training Center felt endless.
She was tired, a little tipsy and frustrated with how the evening had gone. They still had no sponsors to boost and their tributes would never last in an arena, they weren't victors materials.
With a sigh, she gave up the pretence and rested her head on Haymitch's shoulder. He didn't say anything, he kept on watching through the window, but his hand ended up on her thigh, his thumb drawing silly patterns over the fabric of her dress.
He wasn't trying to start anything, he was just… touching and the contact was comforting.
She thought he only realized what he had been doing when they reached the penthouse. He took his hand away hastily and he didn't glance at her once.
She didn't say anything.
He didn't either.
3.
"There are days when I hate my job." she groaned, sitting down on the couch and immediately taking off her heels. She rubbed the sole of her right foot where the cramp was the most painful. She had been on her feet all day, trying to charm people into giving her money.
"I hate your job every day." Haymitch snorted from the liquor cart. "And don't say that too loud."
"I am only joking." she retorted in her faked bubbly voice. "It is a dream job and I am proud of..."
"Yeah, yeah…" he dismissed. "Save me the propaganda."
He studied her over the rim of his glass and then, without her having to ask, he poured her a drink and fished her packet of cigarettes from her purse on his way to the couch. She took both with gratefulness and relief.
She flashed him a smile. "Thank you."
He rolled his eyes. "Don't say it like it's anything special. I'm just trying to get into your pants."
"And you might very well succeed." she grinned, tapping her cigarettes packet to make one fall on her lap.
"Not if you smoke this in here." he grumbled. "I don't like it when you taste like smoke."
She pressed a kiss on his lips with a sly grin. "Darling, if you make me choose between you and cigarettes when I am this stressed, you won't like the outcome."
She loved that he knew exactly how exhausted she was and just what she wanted in those instances though.
"Could make you unwind better than that." he sulked, briefly coiling his hand around her nape.
She didn't doubt it.
4.
She hadn't meant for it to happen but something had shifted at some point and now she thought Haymitch was the one person in this world who could read her better than anyone else. She could put an act all she wanted, he always saw through it.
She supposed it was why he was still holding her now, an hour after she had barged in his room, furious after her mother, and had more or less jumped on him without truly asking if he was in the mood or not. It wasn't the first time they had spent some time cuddling after sex but it had never lasted so long before.
She was upset and she knew he knew.
She also knew he wouldn't ask because it would cross this invisible line in the sand they used as boundary.
They had an arrangement, not a relationship.
That arrangement didn't include him comforting her and yet he was still holding her tightly to his chest, his fingers running through her hair slowly, sometimes trailing down her neck only to brush back up and to her blond curls.
The way he was holding her was so gentle she almost wanted to cry.
She wanted to ask if this was real or just another smoke screen, if he was just being nice to comfort her or if maybe…
"Why do you like playing with my hair so much?" she whispered instead.
His hand briefly stilled and she chided herself. He never liked it when she called him out on his tender side.
"Just wondering why you're so bent on looking ugly, sweetheart." he snorted. "Much prettier without those wigs."
She let the insult roll on her skin.
She preferred his to her mother's demeaning comments – if she looked deep enough, she could always see a hidden compliment underneath his remarks.
5.
"You're okay." he repeated for the fifth time that day.
She thought it might have been some sort of record but, then again, she couldn't quite muster the energy to care.
She wanted out of this hospital room but it had been made clear to her the hospital was just as much a prison as the detaining center had been. The bed was an upgrade from her damp cell. She still felt trapped though. The rebel guards at the door, the doctors and nurses who waltzed in and out as they pleased without knocking, the soldiers who came in just to ask a few questions, Miss Trinket… It was just another sort of prison.
So she kept silent.
Silence, she had discovered quickly, was the best option. Except if they wanted to hear her scream, of course.
Physically, she was all patched up together. She was still on a drip because she was dehydrated and starved and she didn't seem to be able to stomach much solid food at a time, but her wounds had been stitched, the bruises had been treated and her festered scars had been cleansed.
Mentally, it was another story. She didn't believe Haymitch when she said she was safe – how could she when there were guards at her door and nurses were exchanging whispers about Games officials being arrested – she didn't believe anyone when they said it was over. She just sat or lied in her bed, remained silent and stared at the blue sky through the window. The window was her only comfort. She had never thought she would see the sky again.
"Effie…" he sighed. "Talk to me."
He was sitting behind her on the bed, awkwardly running the hairbrush through her hair. It was badly tangled and it was still dirty. It barely reached below her chin now. One of the nurses had cut everything off one night and Haymitch had raged when he had seen it in the morning. Effie hadn't been asked what she wanted but it wasn't like she cared either way. He thought if they could salvage her hair somehow it would mean she would come back from this. She didn't know if she wanted to come back from this.
"What should I say?" she murmured. Her throat was raw, it hurt when she talked.
She felt him shake his head.
"I don't know…" he confessed. "Shout at me. Curse me. I don't know."
All of that would require anger and she had none to give.
She remained silent and he kept brushing her hair with gentle tugs that hurt more than if he had actually ran the hairbrush directly through the knots. He was trying though, making an effort. From time to time, she felt his lips pressing against her nape. She liked that better than his pointless attempts at helping with her hair.
It was oddly soothing though. It reminded her of a time long gone when her mother would do this for her or when she and Lyssa would sit on one of their beds at night and gossip while practicing some hairdo… Her heart clenched at the thought of her family but she didn't even have room enough in her for grief.
The door opened without warning.
Haymitch startled, she didn't.
She was numb.
Plutarch looked slightly shocked to find Haymitch Abernathy tenderly brushing her hair and Haymitch immediately snarled at him, defensive. "Can't you fucking knock?"
"No need to be embarrassed Haymitch." the Gamemaker answered with a small smile.
"I'm not embarrassed." he grumbled "Why would I be embarrassed? She needed help with her hair. Nothing to be embarrassed about."
Plutarch humored him and moved on to another topic of conversation – which had actually brought him to her room – and Effie tuned them out.
Sometimes, she wished he wouldn't be so quick to pretend it didn't count.
6.
Effie savored the calm of Haymitch's kitchen. After the long train ride full of children who couldn't sit still and people who talked too loud, the peaceful silence felt like heaven.
He placed a steaming mug of tea on the table in front of her and leaned in to press a kiss on her neck.
She watched him, a soft smile on her lips.
"What?" he grumbled, his voice gruff, taking a seat next to her. His hand remained on the back of her chair and there was a sparkle of happiness in his grey eyes.
"Nothing." she hummed. "I am just waiting for you to find an excuse for this adorable display of tender gestures."
He had run her a bath, he had carried her suitcases upstairs, he had changed the bed sheets and aired the house…
He rolled his eyes. "I'm just glad to have you back." It was probably too mushy for his tastes because he made a face. "It's boring without you. No one to argue with."
And yet his thumb still run up and down her nape, he was still smirking at her like she was the best thing he had seen in a long while and, she noticed, he made no excuses for that.
"Well, I am glad to be back." she declared.
Twelve might not have been her idea of the perfect place to live but the Capitol simply was not a good place to be right now.
And when he was looking at her with so much fondness…
The choice wasn't a difficult one to make.