Prompt: You just reblogged a hayffie gif set that said, "you look like a movie, you sound like a song. My god this reminds me of when we were young. I was so scared to face my fears. Cause nobody told me that you'd be here." Could you write something where hayffie are in bed after MJ and Haymitch reminisces about the time they spent together when they were (relatively) young and how even though a lot of people have died and bad things have happened, they're still together? Could it be sad and happy too ?

Old And New Memories

Haymitch woke up slowly, letting out a groan when he stretched and something audibly popped in his lower back. Something was always popping or cracking those days. Beetee claimed that was everyone's lot when they hit fifty.

He felt around the bed, surprised when his hand met her warm body. Effie was usually up at the crack of dawn and he emerged closer to ten. He opened his eyes to find her upper body propped against her pillow, one leg bent and out of the covers, her eyes staring at the battered silver lighter she was distractedly rubbing with her thumb.

He pressed a kiss on her shoulder and another on her neck. She smiled and reached out without looking to wrap her hand around his neck. "Good morning."

"Morning, sweetheart." His voice was rough and not completely awake but he was getting there.

He pressed a third kiss on her cheek and, when she turned her head, a fourth one on her lips. It was just a long peck but it turned into another and another until he tried to deepen it and she drew back with a small apologetic smile. She didn't offer an explanation and he didn't ask for one. They had been living together for nine years… Attraction never became a problem for them and they still had an active sex life but it wasn't what it used to be, they had grown old somewhere down the line, they weren't always in the mood.

He got out of bed to use the bathroom, thinking it would give the morning a start, but when he came back in the bedroom, she was still lying there, playing with her lighter. With a small frown, he drew the curtains open, letting the sunlight spill in and then he crawled back on the bed. He sat against the headboard and she immediately curled up against his side, her head on his shoulder, her arm on his stomach, the lighter in the middle of his chest.

"What's wrong, Princess?" he asked, tugging the hair tie off and undoing her braid. Playing with her hair was something he would never get bored of. He liked coiling curls around his fingers and watch them bounce back into place. "What's gotten you so sad?"

It took a her a while to answer but he waited patiently for her to talk, petting her hair.

"Finnick would be thirty-three today." she said eventually, her voice fragile and tentative.

He froze, his whole body tensing. He never kept tracks of calendars and dates. He hardly knew which day of the week it was. He didn't keep count, he didn't see the point. His years used to be dictated by the Games and now he simply enjoyed the freedom that went with peace.

"It's his birthday." she clarified when he remained silent. "It shouldn't make me sad anymore but…"

Her sentence trailed off and he cleared his throat, his voice rough for different reasons now. "Yeah."

"I miss him a lot." she confessed. "It doesn't hurt as bad as it used to but… I do miss him a lot. Finn will turn nine this year. He's grown so big…" She propped her chin on his shoulder to look at him, her smile was soft and fond. "I can't wait for Annie and him to visit. It will be nice to see them again, won't it?"

"Yeah." he granted with a smile of his own. "The kid certainly makes things interesting."

"He is a little mischief maker." she chuckled. "But he gets away with everything because he is entirely too adorable to scold. It is his grin…"

"Just like Finnick's." Haymitch mused, his smile fading.

"Yes." Effie hummed sadly. "Just like Finnick's. Why… He could get out of any situation with that grin of his. The number of times I let him convince me to help the lot of you out of trouble…" She laughed a little, shaking her head at him. "Do you remember the time the three of you ruined that poor photographer's work at this exhibit? I was mortified. But there Finnick was… Grinning and telling me to take a deep breath…"

The photographer in question had booked Finnick for a night and if Chaff and Haymitch had accidentally ran and stumbled into a few of his work at the exhibition, well… What else could people have expected from drunk people?

"You lectured me for three hours." he reminded her. "Me and Chaff both."

It had been a while since he had last thought about Chaff. It made his heart ache.

Time had slightly dulled the pain though.

"But he escaped the lecture." she pointed out.

"He was your favorite and he knew it." he snorted. "He was in love with you, that boy. Couldn't shut up about you before he met Annie. Effie this and Effie that… Used to drive me crazy."

"That would be because you were jealous and refused to admit it." she grinned, resting her cheek back on his shoulder.

"Maybe." he granted, at long last done denying his feelings for her. They had been together for so long at this point… Nine years of living together and ten of a complicated affair… Nineteen years together was a long time to continue on denying what he felt.

"I sent him a mythology book for his last birthday." she said. "I thought he would like it because there were all these stories about sea legends and marine monsters… I chose it in a rush. I didn't really take the time to pick something he would treasure. He liked poetry better. I should have remembered that."

"I'm sure he liked it just fine." he countered, coiling his hand around her nape and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"But it wasn't memorable." she whispered, capping and uncapping her lighter distractedly. "He always gave me personal gifts. Things I could keep. The lighter… I think about him every time I have a cigarette."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." he joked.

Because she had promised she was done sneaking around to have a smoke the day he had promised to drastically cut down on his drinking. They couldn't risk her lungs and they couldn't risk his – probably already dead – liver. He still drank though, most days he managed to keep to two or three glasses a day but there were bad days. She had bad days too.

He took the lighter from her hand to have a closer look. She had kept it around for years, the thing was always in her purse, ever since Finnick had gifted her with it for her birthday. It was heavy, made of silver and engraved with her initials. It was also battered and scratched. It had been through a war and it was only pure luck that she still had it. Her purse and everything in it had been looted by Peacekeepers when she had been arrested. He had spotted one of the Peacekeeper prisoners using the lighter and he had stolen it back, knowing she loved that thing. Pure luck.

The E and the T were a bit faded.

"You know why he got you a lighter?" he asked eventually.

"I never wondered." she frowned. "Why? Is there a story?"

He snorted, tossing the lighter in the air and catching it before handing it back to her. "The couple of times you smoke in front of us, you always asked me for matches."

"Well, you always had some in your pocket." she retorted, propping herself on her elbow to look at him. "I always wondered about that, by the way. You don't smoke, you hate smoking… Why did you always have matches?"

"'Cause you always asked me for one." he smirked. "And 'cause you always made a show of the whole thing… That was hot." She used to put the cigarette between her lips and lean in, waiting for him to light it for her, staring at him all the while with that spark in her eyes… He hated the smell of cigarettes but he couldn't deny there was something to watching her smoke. She turned everything into a sensual display, it was impossible not to watch her when she did something like that. It was riveting. "Anyway, the boy was head over heels for you at that point. He tried keeping some matches on him but you always asked me…"

"Of course I asked you." she huffed. "I was very set on seducing you, wasn't I?"

"Oh, I was seduced…" he chuckled. "So was Finnick. He thought if he got you a lighter, it would distract you from me."

"I had no idea." she laughed.

"He was put out when it didn't work." he recalled. "Chaff laughed every time he saw him for two days straight."

"That was not very nice." she commented.

"Yeah, well…" he shrugged. "Not many distractions to find at that time, right?" His voice hardened a little and he shook his head. "He was a good kid."

"He truly was." she whispered, sitting up to carefully place the lighter on the bedside table. "And Chaff was a good friend. Despite everything and even though you all infuriated me for years… I find it surprising how many good memories of that period I have." She hesitated, not quite looking at him. "The Games… Everything surrounding the Games was awful. But… We had some good moments, did we not?"

"We did." he offered.

He could remember entire nights spent with Chaff, Finnick, Johanna and Effie drinking and laughing in the penthouse, trying to forget the gloomy world they were living in… He could remember nights they had spent laughing and bantering between two rounds of lovemaking as if there would be no tomorrow… He could remember a lot of stupid stunts he and Chaff had pulled just to irk their escorts… There had been bouts of light in the over present darkness. That was probably what had kept them all going.

It made him sad to think about all that but it made him smile too.

"The tenth anniversary of the rebellion will be next year." she hummed, looking down at him. "Can you believe how long it has been? Sometimes… I feel like it was yesterday."

"I know." he agreed. Those were the bad days. The days were everything still felt fresh, when he woke up certain everything had been a dream and he would have to go to a new Reaping, when the ghosts of the dead haunted him. They were less frequent nowadays but they still happened. But then they were the good days when it felt like it had been so long that they didn't even think about it once, when they enjoyed the peace, the routine of their everyday life, and the gossips of the District. "We're old, Princess. We're so old."

He said it with amazement because there had been a point where he had been sure they wouldn't survive the war.

"We are, aren't we?" she pouted. "Why, the children treat us like we are ancient. Well… I suppose you are but I am only forty-five." The pout deepened and she flopped back down on the bed, looking all tragic. "Oh my… Forty-five. I am ancient!"

"You're beautiful." he corrected, rolling on his side to pass his arm over her waist.

"Oh, hush." she chided him. "I have wrinkles, my breasts are sagging, I have to dye my hair to hide the white strands, my stomach isn't flat anymore and nothing is as firm as it should be." He chuckled and she whacked his arm. "Don't laugh at me. I used to be stunning. Don't you remember?"

He remembered very well. He remembered the twenty-three year old escort dressed like a clown who had refused to be intimidated by his abysmal attitude. He remembered how gorgeous she had been then but he didn't care that she had aged. He didn't care about the wrinkles or the small flaws she kept trying to counteract with creams and what-not.

"Still beautiful." he shrugged, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. His fingers wandered down her side, ghosting over her thigh, teasing. "Still hot." He didn't try to start anything though, happy to let his face soften into something fonder – or, as Katniss would have probably claimed: cheesy. "I like growing old with you."

"I like growing old with you too." she grinned.

"Yeah?" he smirked.

"Yes." she purred, leaning in to kiss him. When she drew back, she sighed. "We should probably get up. It is awfully late."

"Or we could stay right here." he suggested. "How long do you think before one of the kids starts looking for us?"

She glanced at the clock, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "I would say we have three hours. Peeta will wonder why I didn't go to the bakery this morning and he will tell Katniss at lunch which in turn will make her realize you have been nowhere to be seen this morning. They will think we have murdered each other and run back here to check on us."

"Three hours, sounds about right." he nodded. "I can think about a lot of things we could do in three hours."

"Can you?" she teased. "Why, Haymitch… I have some ideas too."

She burst out laughing when he pounced on her.

Nostalgia was all well and good but he loved making new memories with her.