Prompt: Oh you know now I need to prompt a hayffie fic for that post you just did about person a not being able to sleep until person b comes and it's all fluffy. Love your work btw.

Nocturnal musings

Effie had long given up on the idea of sleeping and was now staring at the crack on the ceiling. Well… She couldn't really see the crack on the ceiling because those compartments were dark once the lights were turned off – it would have been less dark if she hadn't kept the curtains giving on the corridor closed but she was still puzzled as to who would have thought it a good idea to have a window giving out on a public area for people to look through and gawk at you as if you were a zoo animal. The only real light was coming from the dull red numbers on the wall.

The numbers informed her that it was two thirty-six in the morning.

She had been staring at them since eleven twenty-two. Well… That wasn't quite true. She had tossed and turned at first in a misguided attempt at getting a little warmer. She absolutely hated being forced to sleep in long-sleeve shirts and pants – she never slept in constricting long sleeves and pants, never ever – and she couldn't get comfortable so she had tried a few positions only to end up on her back, staring at the crack on the ceiling when she wasn't watching the number pass by.

If she had been at home – or even at the penthouse, really – she would have either caved and found a sleeping pill or she would have gotten up and tried to do something productive. Or she might have gone for a soothing cigarette. But she wasn't allowed cigarettes in that place. She wasn't allowed anything, least of all wandering the corridors at night after curfew. She didn't have the special authorizations Haymitch had.

Truly, she understood Katniss' frustration with him. It was very unfair that he seemed to have all the privileges when Effie was being relegated at the bottom of the food chain. She resented that. She was not a bottom of the food chain person. She was a predator. Well… A social predator at the very least.

And now she wanted a cigarette.

She should never have thought about that.

With a sigh, she turned on her side and felt only irritation when the leg of her pant inched up. She wriggled until she managed to pull it down with her other foot. She hated the cold. She hated it even more than the clothes. But now that her mind was on it, even the cold wasn't enough to distract her from the attractive fantasy of a cigarette.

When was the last time she had one? Right before the Quell's launch, she thought. There had been no time afterwards. Her packet had been lost in the kidnapping – Plutarch Heavensbee might call it however he pleased, the rebels had grabbed her disguised as Peacekeepers and that counted as kidnapping in her book. There must have been a black market somewhere in this District – wasn't there everywhere? – but nobody trusted her and finding it would take some digging and more free time than she had.

Because that was the irony, wasn't it? She wasn't allowed to do anything after curfew if not specifically ordered otherwise but during working hours, she had to follow the timetable printed on her wrist to the minute.

Who even came up with the idea of printing timetables on one's wrist? It was convenient perhaps but certainly not aesthetically pleasing. If she had wanted a tattoo she would have gone and get a nice one, a pretty one.

For a few minutes, she amused herself picturing Haymitch's face if she had done just that, if he had one day undressed her to find a spiral or… Oh, the face he would have made if he had ever found his name tattooed somewhere on her! He would have freaked out, certainly. And then he would have probably fucked her really hard because he might claim otherwise but there was nothing that turned him on more than her somehow professing that she belonged to him.

He was a stupid contradictory man like that.

It might have been one of the reasons she had never grown bored of him.

And now it wasn't just a cigarette she craved and the possibility of sex was just as unreachable at the moment as a smoke was.

Two forty-two.

She rolled on her other side, hit her pillow twice – honestly, they called that a pillow but it was so soft it hardly filled its purpose – and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come and take her.

It was too silent.

Who could even sleep in such a place? She missed the background buzz of the city behind the soundproof glass. It was enough to prevent the noise from being a bother but never enough to cut it out completely. The city was always there, within reach, comforting. Who needed that much silence?

She didn't like silence. Her parents' house had always been too silent with indifference and latent loathing. She liked music. But music was probably either forbidden or strictly regulated in Thirteen. After all… They were all about soldiers, not artists.

The dark and the silence weren't a good combination.

They threatened to swallow her whole.

She kept on her inner rambling about why Thirteen was the worst place in Panem because she could feel her mind slowly sliding down the familiar path it sometimes took at night when she couldn't sleep. And she didn't want to think about dead children right then. She didn't want to think about all those faces haunting her dreams because…

The metallic squeaking of the door startled her and she laid completely still, not sure if she ought to scream or run for it. The door was slid open and closed slowly, almost as if whoever it was was trying to be quiet about it. Then there was a muffled thud and a muttered curse and Effie relaxed when she recognized the voice.

Whatever he had bumped into, it couldn't have been a serious injury because it wasn't long before he appeared in the sleeping area. She could feel his presence in the small room, imposing and reassuring all at once. She listened as the silence was finally filled with the soft clicking of a belt being unbuckled and the ruffling of fabric, followed by the annoyed mutter about bunk beds.

She hummed a tired agreement even as she crawled back toward the wall to leave him some room to climb up. It wasn't exactly a smooth proceeding.

Eventually though, he managed to get under the blankets, lying on his back and taking up almost all the space on the narrow bed. It didn't bother her, she snuggled as close as she could, practically purring at how warm he was, resting her head on his heart and draping a leg over his stomach.

It was one thing she loved about Thirteen, perhaps the only good thing about the District: if Haymitch went to bed at all, it was to hers, no matter what happened between them. It had taken some getting used to on her part, this new habit of his to just assume he was welcome in her room at any time and for any reason but, truly, it thrilled her. He had spent years keeping her at arm's length, denying her any expression of feelings and now… Now he was treating her as something more than just the friend he slept with – and she loved that.

"Can't sleep?" he asked, his voice rough and exhausted. He was always exhausted lately and it wasn't just about the war. She understood, she felt the same way. It was also about Peeta and the others. It was about the withdrawals they had forced him through.

"I hate this place." she mumbled as she had a thousand times before.

It came out sulky and childish and he snorted, his fingers attacking her loose braid. It wasn't long before he was distractedly playing with her hair, massaging her scalp from time to time, and she relaxed like a very content cat. The thumping on his heart under her ear was making the silence less overwhelming, the room felt calm rather than dead now.

She felt safe.

Perhaps it simply came down to that in the end.

She drifted off long before his hand stilled, buried deep in her hair, and his first snore definitively disrupted the silence but she wasn't awake to hear it anymore.