Prompt: OMG you have to write about Effie surprising Haymitch with eatable lingerie. Please please please. I loved today's prompt.
Sugar Rush
Haymitch was used to the Capitol's crazy trends but this one took the cake – literally.
"What the fuck are you wearing?" he scoffed, forgetting to even grumble about her wake up call. Effie Trinket hiking all the way to his house on Reaping Day wasn't unheard of, not to say it was more or less the rule. She didn't trust him not to show up in his pajamas – and he did have something of a track record on that front. Tossing drops of water on his face really wasn't the worst she had done to wake him up either so he simply grabbed the towel she had readied and stared at her some more because…
She looked like a giant cake.
A giant pink cake complete with white frosting, colorful sprinkles and the occasional sugar rose. And she smelt like a cake too. The sweet flagrance of pastry was almost overwhelming in the dumpster he lived in.
She must have thought so too because she wrinkled her nose and headed straight for the window. It resisted but she pushed until it finally gave and fresh air blissfully came in.
"Go shower." she ordered, regarding the mess that was his bedroom with obvious disgust.
"You're not the boss of me, Trinket." he growled, gathering the sheet around his hips because he had been too drunk to care about pants last night. Not that it really mattered because she had seen every part of him up close at this point but she was annoying him. He spotted the pressed suit hanging on the door and he groaned. Trust her to force him into uncomfortable clothes.
"Please, go take a shower, Haymitch, so I can trim the heap of hay on your head into something resembling a haircut." she amended sweetly with a bright fake smile. Her blue eyes were twinkling in amusement though and it was the only reason he didn't fight her further. What was the point when he would end up forced to go to that Reaping and ready to her expectations, no less?
He trudged out of bed, stopping just long enough to press a kiss on her lips that had her wrinkling her nose again at his morning breath.
"Smartass." he accused.
"And I am certain your toothbrush would love to get reacquainted with your mouth!" she called after him.
He waved his hand at her without bothering to turn back. "I know something that wants to get reacquainted with your mouth."
There was a huff in answer and he chuckled to himself as he turned the water on in the shower, brushing his teeth while he waited for it to get warm. By the time he was done in the bathroom and came back to the bedroom with only a towel around his hips, she had clearly gone to work. Trust Effie to put order to his chaos, he mused, as he took in the overflowing clothes hamper and the floorboards that had previously been covered with dirty laundry. She had also undressed the bed but hadn't gone as far as to make it again – possibly because he didn't have any more clean sheets.
"You need a housekeeper." she declared when she heard him come into the kitchen.
There too marks of her passage were visible. Dirty dishes had been gathered and left to soak and she had sprayed some sort of perfume in the air that was pungent but not enough to really cover the smell of rot, the window and the back door were both open too.
Fresh coffee was waiting for him on the table and he made a beeline for it, dropping on a chair and resolutely not eyeing the comb, hairbrush and scissors she had readied. He hated that part but he would rather have her cutting his hair that submitting to a prep team.
"What's with the cake outfit?" he asked, leaning to snatch a bottle of liquor from the counter. She clucked her tongue in disapproval when he generously spiked his coffee but he ignored her. If he was going to survive the day, he needed it.
She tugged on his hair with the comb as she told him all about the latest rage in the city being a cooking show and how everything was about food right now… He groaned and rolled his eyes, too aware of the amount of wasted food the Capitol went through every day. To make it a fashion accessory though… That was new.
"So it's edible?" he asked curiously, reaching for one of the delicately chiseled sugar roses on her waist.
She batted his hand away with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed in warning. No messing with the outfit before the show. He got it loud and clear. The fact that she had scissors right next to his ear wasn't lost on him either and he wisely kept his hands to himself. Her features immediately cheered up and she beamed, a slow secret smile stretching her lips.
"Why, Haymitch… Everything I am wearing right now is edible." she purred. "The dress is just… the appetizer."
If that dress was meant to be sexy, she needed to think again.
But what she was saying was enticing though…
What did she have underneath? "You know I've got a sweet tooth."
A sweet tooth that hadn't seen a candy in almost a whole year. And he was hungry. Very, very hungry. There was only so much relief he could find with his own hand.
"A shame this house in so unsanitary." she deadpanned. "Head my words: hire someone." She ran her fingers in his hair, contemplating. She must have been satisfied with her work because she started packing her tools. "Put on the suit I laid out for you. And, please, let's not start arguing about ties so soon. We both know you will wear it in the end so do not be difficult."
"I'm curious…" He stood up slowly, very much in her personal space. What perfume had she spread herself with? Cotton candy? It was too strong, so strong it made him a bit nauseous. "You want me to hire a young bird to be around me all day?"
"I never specified she should be young." Effie replied, lifting a challenging eyebrow. "An old woman would do just as well if not better and she could probably use the wages. Or a man, even."
"But so less easy on the eyes…" he taunted, smirking hard. "Might not be such a bad idea… Wouldn't mind a pretty girl to look at."
Anger flashed in her eyes. "I think you are confusing the role of a housekeeper with a whore's. If you are so desperate, go to a brothel. And do not try to tell me there aren't any in Twelve. I am fairly certain you know all the secret addresses of houses of ill-repute."
They were a few but he had never been there and he would never start. It felt too much like exploiting human misery and it was too reminiscent of what the Capitol had had him do on occasions.
She was pursing her lips tight and openly glaring at him and the sight was far too enticing. He leaned in and kissed her, insisting until her unyielding mouth gave under his and she responded in kind. His hands found her waist and he nudged her against the table, distracting her with his lips so she wouldn't get what he was up to until she was too caught up in it to care. Her fingers were tangled in his hair, tugging hard to guide his head the way she wanted it… At some point, her nails ran down the side of his neck, scratching more than stroking and he groaned against her mouth, jutting his hips forward by reflex…
He was hard already and was it that surprising? It had been months since the last time. Months. Winter had dragged on and on and it was completely sick that he was becoming impatient for spring and Reaping day just so he could get laid. It made him sick to the stomach to think that way, to let his brain be dictated by his dick. And yet… There he was, desperate to get his way because…
"Oh! No, no, no!" she protested when he tried to lift her up on the table. She had cleaned it, she couldn't object to it, yeah? Granted, he knew his house was… Well, he knew it was disgusting and really not the best place for this kind of stuff. For one thing, he tended to break bottles, glasses and plates and to carelessly brush the pieces aside and getting naked in this mess could potentially end up with shards in awkward places – and that was without even talking about the fact he hadn't bothered cleaning in years. But she had cleaned the table to lay out her haircutting tools and… "This dress is delicate, Haymitch. And it is really meant to be worn once, I cannot take it off."
He took that in stride, his fingers tightening on her waist. "Fine, then keep it on."
He could work around that. He had worked around that before. It wasn't like they always bothered getting undressed when they had an itch to scratch.
"It is too fragile." she insisted, coiling her hands around his wrists and pushing them away. "I am sorry but it will look awful if the sugar roses break."
He blinked at her. "You're serious?"
She pressed herself against him and that was cruel because there was no way she couldn't feel his erection poking her in the stomach. She pecked his lips, looking apologetic. "After the Reaping."
He shook his head at her, irritated and too hot and bothered to care that he was acting like a pressuring jerk. "I'll see you at the Square."
"Haymitch…" she sighed.
He didn't bother answering her, storming out to his bedroom where he immediately took matters in his own hands.
He was late and very much not caring when he made his way to the Justice Building later on – missing a tie that had mysteriously ended up in the trash he had finally decided to take out. Effie and the Mayor were already on stage and, useless to say, she didn't look very happy with the way he looked. She clucked her tongue as soon as he had climbed the stairs and started smoothing wrinkles off his suit and trying to fix his hair. He grumbled and struggled against her hands but she was determined and stubborn. And annoyed by the lack of tie.
The Reaping put an end to their bickering. He wasn't in any mood to banter or fuck by the time it was done. The kids she reaped were too young, too scrawny and too visibly terrified. Effie did her best but the boy started crying and Haymitch wrote him off right there and then because to the Careers he would be an easy target and for the sponsors he would only be pitiful. The girl wasn't faring much better.
He left her the task of escorting the children by herself. Tired and angry by the whole ordeal, he preferred to head to the train instead of waiting for the goodbyes to be over. He knew there was little chance on finding peace on board, that he would enjoy a few glasses at most before she came to fetch him so he could be introduced to their tributes. If he was lucky and he hid well, he would be buzzed by the time that happened.
He wasn't, in fact, buzzed because his idea to hide in the dining room car had been a bad one. She passed through it on the way to the bar car and she dragged him back to their new tributes with a lot of theatrics he could have done without. The next minutes were awkward on many levels. The kids were afraid of them both, that was plain to see, and if they were afraid of them…
He exchanged a look with Effie at some point, not surprised to find her smile strained.
By the time dinner rolled around and after they were done sitting through an endless silent meal with only Effie's pointless chatter as a soundtrack, Haymitch had decided the best Twelve could hope for this year was a quick death.
He disappeared right after they were done, leaving it to Effie to guide the kids back to the living-room car so they could watch the Reaping recaps. He didn't need to see what the other tributes looked like. One look at his had been enough to know there was no saving them.
It was late and he was deep in his bottle by the time his bedroom door opened. He was drunk but not wasted and he watched as Effie studied him and tried to determine how much exactly he had swallowed.
"Still too sober for this shit." he told her eventually because she was just standing there, watching him.
She took that as her cue and closed the door behind her, hastily picking up the jacket, shirt and pants he had discarded earlier to place them on a chair. "Can't you last at least an hour before making a mess of a room?"
"Yeah, 'cause that's our biggest problem right now." he scoffed, taking another swing of his bottle. It was getting difficult to get wasted nowadays. His tolerance threshold was high and… Effie snatched the bottle from his hand and he scowled. "Don't you fucking dare nag when…" He fell silent when she brought it to her lips, making a face as the taste of tequila touched her tongue. She took two slow mouthfuls and placed it on the bedside table before straddling his thighs. He sighed. "Not in the mood anymore."
Not now that he had put faces on the tributes he was going to lose this year.
She plucked a sugar rose from her dress in silence and broke a petal that she ate silently, her eyes cast down. "They won't last five minutes."
That she was willing to admit that much aloud surprised him because she was usually the one who kept up the pretense up to the last seconds. She convinced the children they could win, she tried to convince him that if he just mentored them right they might have a chance, she convinced herself that this year was the year they would make it…
He never gave the kids false hopes. Never. He kept it realistic. But her cheerful optimism compensated that nicely because it gave them hope. They needed the balance between the two of them. That was how they mentored. That was how they worked.
"Gloomy isn't a good look on you." he said.
It earned him a sad smile but she still kept on munching on her sugar rose.
"I am getting so tired of this…" she confessed in a whisper.
And he got it, really. She had been working with him for ten years by now. Nine years of failure. And he doubted they were going to win the Seventy-second Hunger Games so… It made it ten lost Games, really.
"You're gonna quit?" he asked straight out. It always got to that point. Escorts tended to come and go, only a few remained for the long ride, either because they wanted to be promoted to a better District or because they had developed a twisted sense of duty. Effie was in the last category. However, they always came to a point when it was too much and they were desperate to get out and forget. He didn't blame them. If he had been allowed, he would have given up a long time ago.
"No." she sighed. "I will stay as long as they will let me but you should know I am not sure how long that will be. I am well past thirty now and while Seneca is happy to have me on the staff, I am sure someone will petition to have me replaced with a younger woman soon enough." She waved her hand and ate another sugary petal. "I will stay with you as long as I can, though."
The fact that they would soon replace her was a reality he tried not to think about. Escorts rarely remained on board beyond thirty and it was unheard of to have one past thirty-five. The drones came with an expiratory date, it seemed. He wasn't sure he would now how to do this without her with him. She had made herself essential. She was his ally, his partner… He had stopped minding being the only mentor in Twelve because… Well, she filled that role nicely. They were a team.
Those weren't joyful thoughts and it didn't help his mood any.
He stole the sugar rose and plopped it in his mouth, chewing on it loudly, making her wrinkle her nose in disgust. "Manners!"
"Gloomy really isn't a good look on you." he insisted, his mouth still full of sugar.
She huffed but placed her hand on his stomach, her thumbnail not quite poking him in his bellybutton. "Perhaps you should put a better look on my face, then."
"Can't, sweetheart." he denied, plucking another sugar rose from her waist. "I'm having dessert."
"And who is stopping you?" she challenged, reaching on her side for the hidden row of tiny little buttons. He lifted his eyebrows and enjoyed the show. She had been right before, the dress really wasn't meant to be worn twice. His bed was covered with coppers of sugar, broken roses and sprinkles by the time she had slipped it over her head and tossed it to the floor. She inspected the mess with a pout and eventually shrugged. "You can sleep in my room tonight."
He had more urgent preoccupations than where he was going to sleep.
He licked the sugar off his thumb, eyeing the weird piece of lingerie she had on. The bra was barely more than small candies on a string with two pink thin pieces of… Was it fabric or something else? He could hardly say because it seemed to have melt on her skin in some places. Whatever it was, it covered her breasts. The panties were very much the same. The outlines were all candies and the covering parts were that weird material.
It couldn't have been very comfortable.
Her pout deepened when she glanced down at herself. "It melted. It wasn't supposed to melt."
"That's edible?" he asked, propping himself on his elbows, very much interested.
"I told you." she grinned. "Everything I am wearing is edible."
His mouth immediately closed on her breast and she gasped. The weird pink thing immediately melted on his tongue. It was strawberry flavored. He ate it all and then moved on to the other breast. She was short of breath by the time he was done with that.
"I'm gonna have a sugar rush." he snorted, rolling them over so she would be flat on her back and he could focus on the strawberry flavored panties. He realized quickly that it covered everything but the interesting part. She mumbled something about sugar not having any place being down there but she was a bit too busy wriggling under his tongue to be coherent.
She was a sight once all was left was the candies outlines but she whined when he started capturing them between his teeth one after the other.
"You do not have to eat them all!" she complained.
That made him chuckle and he kept his hand busy between her legs while he did just that, making sure to never apply enough pressure to get her off. She was so frustrated by the time he was done with her bra that he thought she was ready to murder him.
It was fun though.
"You know I hate wasting food." he smirked as he moved on to the candies neatly lined at her waist.
"I hate you." she claimed, letting her head heavily flop down on her pillow. "I am never wearing this sort of things again. Oh."
She bundled the sheets in her fists and arched her back when his tongue found a sweet spot.
"Sure about that?" he challenged.
He was a bit mad with lust himself in the end and he spread her legs apart without much care to bury himself inside her, almost breathing out in relief at the familiar warmth of her. No wonder his hand was a poor substitute.
They did move to her bedroom after they were done, mainly because his bed was full of sugary crumbs and pieces of candy. He grumbled about being forced to share her bed but let her snuggle close to him all the same, trailing his fingers up and down her side.
He was bone-deep exhausted now, the good kind of exhaustion, but it wasn't enough for his mind to stop running in circles.
Clearly, she was on the same line of thoughts because she let out a long sigh against his neck.
"One day, we will win." she promised.
He wasn't sure he believed her.
But it was a nice enough idea.