Prompt I would love to read something where post mj Effie gets paparazzi'd for the first time without her makeup and wigs? :)
Her Last Resort
Her fingertips ran on the glossy page of the magazine she had snatched from the waiting room of the fashion agency where she worked as a secretary. She couldn't afford luxuries like magazines anymore, she could barely afford the two rooms apartment she was renting in a less than fashionable district of the Capitol.
It was only a gossip rag, of course, and it dated back from a couple of weeks already but when the twenty year old model with bubblegum pink hair had tossed it on her desk when she had passed by with a mocking comment about former stars falling from grace, Effie had felt so ashamed it might as well had dated from that very day.
Fashion had taken to a District flair lately. Wigs and heavy make-up weren't en vogue anymore – which was just as well because Effie couldn't afford it – but it didn't mean Capitols were willing to look plain. Hair was dyed in flashy colors and make-up was toned down to something more natural.
The details had changed but the rule was the same: your appearance still dictated where you stood on the social ladder.
And currently Effie was at the very bottom.
Her apartment, her bank accounts and almost everything she had owned had been seized by the rebel government after the war, as compensation for her war crimes – a cheap price to pay to keep her head on her shoulders, she had been told by a sympathetic Plutarch. The situation in the Capitol being what it was, it had meant she had been forced to resort to living in shelters for a couple of weeks.
Finding a job had been difficult. Everything was expensive in the city nowadays, the war had left them with too much damages and not enough money. She had been forced to beg for jobs that were so beneath her it had made her stomach churn to stoop so low – there was lower to go still though and no proof that she wouldn't go there if she needed to. It hadn't helped that she was so easily recognizable, everyone knew who she was and people hated her wherever she went – Capitols or District people, all agreed there was no place left for an escort in this new world.
She was a subject of curiosity as well as one of mockery. The former hit girl, the star who everyone had worshiped and now loved to laugh at.
She didn't have enough money to afford hair dye and she didn't quite care anyway so her hair remained strawberry blond, often pinned up in practical buns rather than in stylish hairdos. Sometimes, she forgot to wear make-up altogether, it slipped her mind. As for the clothes… Everything nice she had owned had been taken and everything in her wardrobe was now cheap. She picked soft pastels instead of vibrant colors those days.
She hardly ever looked at herself in the mirror anyway.
She couldn't bear to.
She didn't know who the woman in the mirror was.
It was someone who had been trapped in hell and had survived but it wasn't Effie Trinket and she didn't know how to live with that.
There were two pages dedicated to her in that magazine, stolen pictures of her in the streets, at the grocery store and at her work place. She figured as soon as her boss would have seen them, she would get fired because it was bad publicity.
She didn't read the headlines or the articles that went with it, she didn't need to. The pictures were enough.
She was too thin, the pale blue dress hung on her frame, her hair was limp… There were lines on her bare face, she looked every minute of her thirty-six years, and above all she looked either exhausted or sad if not both.
She tossed the magazine aside and picked up her cigarettes packet. She lit one and took a long drag, hoping it would help but not surprised when it didn't. A voice echoed in the back of her head, telling her she was smocking too much and not eating enough.
It was Haymitch's voice.
And it wasn't wrong.
She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the frayed couch. She missed him so much sometimes. It was always at random times, always out of the blue. One minute she would be fine and the next she would crave his smell like a madwoman.
Haymitch would have told her she was beautiful.
Even if he had to lie.
And she would have pretended to believe him.
His hands would have never hesitated before running on her body, they wouldn't have stopped on the budging scars, they would have been rough and possessive and warm. They would have brought pleasure.
She craved that pleasure.
She brought the cigarette to her lips again with trembling fingers. It didn't take much to imagine his scowl at the sight of her smoking, he always hated it when she did that. She could picture it perfectly. She could picture how he would have plucked the cigarette from her hand and tossed it on the floor, crushed it under his heel, and then told her to stop being a self-absorbing idiot. He would have reproached her to be a spoiled little girl and he would have gotten angrier with every new word of his rant.
In another world, a world where she could still care about anything happening around her or to her, she would have gotten angry too.
He would have kissed her silent.
Or maybe she would have tried to slap him and she would have ended up pinned to a wall with his strong hand around her throat. The hand would soon have traveled to her nape because he knew she was scared of being chocked.
Either way, they would have ended up kissing and, soon enough, he would have been between her legs and he would have made her scream in bliss.
She could go, she thought.
To Twelve.
The idea was scary but nothing was truly holding her back in the Capitol. She had tried to rebuild her life here and it was a spectacular failure. What was there here to regret? Her two room apartment and a pitiful job she would probably lose in a day or two? She was certain she could find both back in Twelve, perhaps even more easily than in the city
She could go.
She tried to imagine Haymitch's face if she showed up on his doorstep the next morning with her suitcases, her debts and her PTSD, and found she couldn't decide how he would react. He wouldn't turn her away surely. Out of guilt if anything else. He would probably step aside, lead her to the guestroom and act as if it was completely normal for her to turn up unannounced.
She wondered if there were paparazzi in Twelve who would delight in taking her picture when she looked so ugly.
She wondered if anyone would mock her for not caring about how she looked and then decided probably not, because District people weren't shallow – but it was a moot point anyway because if she showed up in Twelve looking like she currently did the children would worry. She would need to doll up a little, to put up an act.
Haymitch wouldn't care.
Perhaps.
He had only ever wanted one thing out of her before and she wasn't sure she was in any state to give that right now. The idea of having sex with him was appealing, comforting in its familiarity, but she wasn't who she used to be. Her body felt different, she was different and she wasn't sure he would desire her anymore, not with the same passion he used to anyway.
She was very sure she wasn't ready to be rejected.
Twelve could wait still, she decided, Twelve was the last resort.
She could try again for a little while.
She could.