Prompt idea: it's just not practical for the Capital tho draw all their prositutes from such a small group as Victors. Hayffie au where Effie never becomes an escort to 12, but she's still a player in the Hunger Games as the influential mistress of one of the game makers. Maybe she and Haymitch grow close trying to push the 2 Victors rule through in the 74th games? And they have to sneak around since he's not a client?

The Courtesan

"Cat got your tongue?" Chaff scoffed.

Haymitch startled and brought the glass of whiskey to his lips, not having listened to a single word of what his friend had been saying.

"Who's the girl with Torello?" he asked instead. "New girlfriend? Thought he got married last year… She's not the wife, yeah?"

She was too young for the Head Gamemaker, that much was painfully obvious, but she also seemed to be an all time favorite with his friends. He had noticed her as soon as the two of them had walked in. The whole room seemed to be divided into three groups: those who couldn't stop staring at her and whispering excitedly behind their hands, those who took pain to pretend she wasn't there, and those who openly seemed to seek her favor.

She was pretty despite the Capitol attire. The pink wig was cut in a short sexy bob trimmed with silver rhinestones shaped like stars, the dress was all lace and while not indecent it didn't leave much to the imagination, the make-up didn't quite hide the natural harmony of her features…

Chaff frowned and leaned back to glance over his shoulder. "He's got balls bringing her here."

"Why?" Haymitch shrugged. "Worst girls to be seen with."

Like the two purple wigs who had been winking at them from the other end of the bar for the past half an hour for instance…

"She's a whore." his friend snorted. "Expensive one, yeah. But still a whore. Good fuck though."

Haymitch stopped staring at the woman to look back at his glass, his half cooked plan of making a pass at the girl vanishing into thin air – too bad because it would have had the added bonus of pulling one on the Head Gamemaker. He wasn't in a habit of paying for sex – he could never do that given what was happening with the victors – but Chaff didn't have the same reservations, he knew. "So you…"

"No." Eleven's victor shook his head. "When I say expensive, I mean expensive. Even for a victor. Heard about her though. She's got quite the reputation. She finds herself a rich influential customer and she lets him support her for a while. She gets power and money, they get a pretend love story and good sex."

"Not quite a whore then." he commented. Almost all so called ladies in the Capitol did the same thing, simply they insisted on getting rings on their fingers and a white dress wedding with cake.

"Matters of opinion." Chaff granted. "If it quacks like a duck…"

The woman was charming. She laughed a lot and smiled a lot and she looked… bright. But there were cracks in the veneer and that was what fascinated Haymitch. It was in the micro-seconds before a smile or in the moments before she batted her eyelashes to flirt back, it was the moments when the mask wasn't completely in place yet. It passed in a flash but Haymitch saw it. And it fascinated him.

She wasn't at the next party or the one after that.

Rumor was, Torello had found another toy.

Haymitch wasn't looking for her, not really. But from the first moment she had walked in that party and captured his attention, it seemed like their paths were fated to cross. She appeared at parties sometimes but never stayed long, just enough to be noticed. He learned her name was Effie Trinket. He learned she lived uptown in a penthouse apartment. He learned a lot of things without meaning to, like the fact her favorite place to have a drink after a long day was The Gang – a ridiculous name for a bar.

He walked in that bar absolutely by accident one night. He was walking back to the Training Center and he saw the sign and he thought… Why not? He sat on a stool and ordered a whiskey to the bartender and it was only once he had the glass in his hand that he noticed her.

She was always so front and center that it was odd to see her sitting at the very end of the gleaming cheery wood counter. The dress was pale blue and clung to her curves, the moss green wig was knotted in a weird looking bun on top of her head, offering her nape to the conspicuous gazes, and she was absentmindedly stirring a pink cocktail with the small umbrella they always put in them.

He didn't hesitate for long before grabbing his glass and moving to the empty stool next to her.

"I'm curious." he said.

She looked up at him, recognition briefly flashed in her eyes, and she studied him, clearly debating how to approach this. He had seen her do it before. She seemed to switch personalities at will. Depending on who she was talking to she was either the absolute pretty dumb archetype, the giggly idiot, the sexy minx, the witty debutante… She had so many masks in her arsenal he was starting to wonder what she was truly like deep down.

In the end, she simply lifted her eyebrows, a hint of a smile on her lips. "About?"

"You." he replied honestly with a shrug.

Her lips twitched and she turned toward him a little but her features remained schooled into a polite expression. "That is an interesting pick up line. Does it usually work?"

"I'm not trying to pick you up, sweetheart." he snorted. They both knew that was a lie. He would have picked her up given the chance. He would have picked her up, pinned her to a wall and had her way with her.

"You have been watching me, Mister Abernathy." she countered. "An awful lot." She flashed him a mysterious grin. "Do not think I didn't notice you at those parties. I tend to feel it when people stare at me for as long as you do."

"Maybe I like the view." he smirked.

"Of that I have no doubt." she chuckled. "A lot of people do." She tilted her head to the side, sitting sideways to face him. She slowly crossed her long legs, making the dress ride that little bit higher on her upper thighs. He would have thought it unintentional if not for the fact that nothing she ever did seemed to be unintentional. "I only take one client at a time and I am not otherwise engaged at the moment if that is what you are looking for."

"Faithful in business?" he mocked.

"I am not a vulgar prostitute." she snapped and then resumed smiling. "If you have specific sexual preferences, I would prefer them to be stated beforehand as a matter of courtesy. I find it makes everything easier in the long run. I will, of course, sign any no disclosure agreement you will deem fitting."

He brought his glass to his lips, eyeing her. "I don't pay for sex, Princess."

"I don't have sex for free." she retorted.

"You'll change your mind." he promised.

"I doubt it." she laughed. "But you are welcomed to try."

He was stubborn.

She was too.

They forged a sort of friendship along the years, when he wasn't trying to convince her to sleep with him and she wasn't busy picking his drunk ass up from whatever place he had passed out. She had new customers and he had more and more dead kids. They complained about both.

Until Katniss and Peeta came along.

She was Seneca Crane's mistress at that point.

He used and abused that connection.

When the news of Crane's suicide reached him in Twelve through Cinna's call, he started to worry but there was no asking about her without alarming people he would rather remain ignorant of their friendship. He had troubles finding her during Victory Tour because she had moved out of her apartment.

She wasn't a favorite of the vultures anymore.

She had escaped being linked to Seneca's failure but she hadn't escaped his fall. She had savings but money in the Capitol trickled by quickly. She wasn't limiting herself to one customer at a time anymore and it was certainly less glamorous than what she used to do. She looked ashamed when she opened her door to him.

He offered money and she refused to accept it without offering something in return, something he refused to take. In the end, he forced her to keep it as a safety measure, telling her she could always pay him back later on.

Then came the Quell's announcement.

And the actual Quell.

He had one request for Plutarch Heavensbee and if the man was taken aback by it, he had the good grace not to show it. Haymitch didn't think Coin would be overjoyed with the prospect of a famous courtesan joining Thirteen but, then again, he didn't give a rat ass about what Coin liked or didn't like.

He kissed her for the first time in Thirteen's hovercraft hangar, when he spotted her standing there, lost in the midst of the other refugees, a blot of colors in a sea of grey. He had just lost two of his kids to the Capitol and his home was in flames. He didn't stop to think when he saw her. She didn't either.

It was weeks later that she dragged him into her room and pushed him on the bed, after withdrawals and the Mockingjay finally taking flight…

"Told you I would change your mind." he taunted as he pulled her on him and rolled them over.

"My mind was made up a long time ago." she retorted.

And that, for once, shut him up.