Prompt: post-mj Haymitch feels a little insecure about his body and Effie assure him that she thinks he's very attractive
Breakfast Time In The Penthouse
Effie pursed her lips, instinctively crossing her arms in front of her chest in a show of irritation. She wasn't quite surprised, it had happened before after all, but she couldn't say walking in the penthouse's living room to find Haymitch lying stark naked on the couch was her favorite thing.
At least, not when she wasn't the one responsible for his naked state.
Her eyes darted from the heap of clothes that had been haphazardly tossed on the floor to the half empty bottle on the coffee table – the fact that the bottle still held any alcohol at all meant he had already been wasted when he had come back. She studied him next, noted the absence of telling marks on his body, the lack of used condoms around and she breathed a small sigh of relief that she did her best to hide because she knew he wasn't asleep.
It wouldn't have been cheating if he had been with another woman. They had never agreed it would be. But lately… She chased that thought away, filled it under impossibilities that shouldn't be entertained. It was getting dangerously exclusive, this thing between them. And when it wasn't… Well, neither of them brought other lovers back to the penthouse. That too hadn't been voiced explicitly but it was a common courtesy given that they shared the place. Still, it bothered her. The idea that he could have been with someone else bothered her.
He had an arm thrown over his eyes to hide from the daylight creeping through the bay window. His breathing was deep and regular but there was no snoring – soft or otherwise – and if he had truly been asleep, there would have been. He snored when he slept on his back, that was amongst the intimate things she knew about him.
"Gonna say something or just stand there and stare all day?" he muttered eventually.
She was hit all over again by how different they were.
There she was, at seven in the morning, dressed and ready for the day, eager for some coffee and a task to fulfill. Meanwhile, he was sprawled on the couch, butt naked and without a care in the world, probably planning on wasting the day away.
Sometimes she wondered how she could be so hung up on him at all.
Because she was hung up. It had come to the point when she compared everyone to him and everyone was found lacking. Not snarky enough. Too hypocritical. Too shallow. Too… Or rather, not enough.
"Anyone could walk in, Haymitch." she said after a few seconds, because it was her line and they often tended to fall back onto their roles like they were in a play. The bossy cheerful escort and the grumpy slob mentor. "We had this discussion before."
"The kids are dead." he snorted. "Who's gonna walk in except you? Avoxes? I'm guessing they saw worse."
The kids are dead…
The pang of pain was almost strong enough to make her waver but her face remained blank. Ten years. It had been ten years of dead children. It never hurt any less but she had learned to keep it to herself.
She wondered if that was why he had gotten so drunk that he couldn't have made the trip back to his room. He often got wasted, she was used to that, but wasted enough that he would rather collapse naked in the living-room? That was a special brand of bad.
She hadn't heard him come in. If she had, she was ready to bet he would have been in one of those weird moods when all he wanted to do was hold her and letting her hold him. He told her things when he was like that sometimes, things he would never have mentioned otherwise and he probably didn't remember having shared in the mornings. Anecdotes about his brother, how his mother used to frown at him when she had caught him trying to sneak out of the house to meet his girlfriend, stories of his first few years as a mentor he wasn't proud of, how pointless he felt his life was…
She was grateful that he wasn't a violent drunk. It happened, of course, but mostly alcohol in large quantity made him morose and longing for human comfort. Small mercies, she supposed. His temper usually only flared when he was sober or buzzed. And it was a bad temper. But it was something else she liked about him, which she would never have confessed under torture, he told things straight. He got angry when he was angry. He never pretended to be someone he wasn't. He pushed the act to its extreme sometimes, particularly with the drunken antics and the urge to make himself the butt of the joke, but he never took advantage of his friends.
"Where were you?" she asked.
He groaned. "What? You're my keeper now?"
She was, in fact, his keeper. It might not have been in the job description but being Twelve's escort wasn't just about taking care of the tributes. That had been a long established fact. Haymitch never behaved and needed close supervision. Well… She was good at keeping him on the narrow dangerous line between careless and subversive; it was the reason why she hadn't been promoted and probably would never be even if they were all happy to pretend it might still happen.
"It is rather a stupid question, I suppose." she hummed, pursing her lips further. "You were with Chaff. That man is a terrible influence."
"Careful." he growled, never keen on being lectured on his best friend.
"I call it as I see it." she snapped. "He took you to one of those shady bars he likes so much, didn't he? You know it is not good for Twelve's reputation for you to be seen there. And, truly, if you are going to get this drunk, can't you do it here? Those parts of town aren't safe."
"Is that concern, sweetheart? How touching." he mocked, lifting his arm to look at her only to wince when the light hit his eyes and place his arm back on his face. "This place needs curtains." he muttered unhappily. His features were strained now. His jaw was clenched. "Be a good girl and find me some pills for my head…"
"Perhaps you should go to your room where you will find pills and darkness and where nobody would have to stare at your penis." she retorted.
"I move, I puke." he warned with a shrug. She rolled her eyes and let out a long deep sigh that was meant to let him know just how irritating he was before turning on her heels to fetch the usual hangover treatment. The clicking of her stilettos echoed in the otherwise silent room and he groaned. "Do you have to keep those on?"
She took great pleasure in stomping her heels harder.
She came back after a couple of minutes with a tall glass of water, a tablet of pills, a cold cloth for his eyes and a bucket just in case. And because she was that nice, she also fetched a tray from the dining-room where breakfast had been served, waiting for them to partake in. She dismissed the Avox girl when she stepped up as if to carry the food, not keen on anyone eyeing Haymitch's private parts.
Of course, Haymitch protested at the smell of food but when she forced a piece of blueberry muffin in his mouth, he started chewing and stopped complaining. She perched on the edge of the couch, next to his hip, letting him wriggle closer to the back to accommodate her and grumble about how annoying she was. For the most part, she didn't speak. She sipped her coffee and nibbled on her toast, sometimes pressed pieces of muffin against his lips until he opened up and ate them, but generally let him lie there with that cloth on his eyes, being miserable.
She could feel his warmth, particularly where his hip was digging in the small of her back. He was always warm and she enjoyed that. She was like a lizard. She loved being hot.
She enjoyed the smell a lot less. He smelt like booze, faint tobacco, sweat and the ripe odor of unwashed skin.
"Dare I ask what shenanigans you got up to last night?" she asked when she was halfway down her glass of orange juice.
She wasn't as calm about his night out as she made it sound. If there had been a scandalous stunt involved, it would fall on her to handle the backlash. And he and his friends were more likely than not to get involved in stupid scandalous stunts. The fact that she hadn't been called to the Peacekeeper station to fetch them probably was a good sign though.
"Just a club." he mumbled. "Chaff wanted to get laid."
"When doesn't he want to get laid?" she scoffed under her breath.
She knew Haymitch had been a bit of a player before they had settled into… whatever this non-officially-exclusive thing was they had going on, but he had calmed down, either because he was growing in age or because he found what he needed with her. Chaff, on the other hand, was still very eager to have sex with every willing woman he met.
'Everyone copes like they can' Haymitch had told her once.
She wasn't fond of Chaff's way of coping, mainly because he didn't seem to grasp that she didn't like it when he tried to grope her. And he tried every two days. And it was worse when he was drunk, which he was quite often.
"Didn't go so well." he admitted, blinding feeling around for the glass of water he had left on the floor. He swallowed what was left of it, probably wondering if he should share the tale or not. On some days – most days lately – they were friendly, on others they acted as if they still loathed and hated each other. She wasn't in the mood for a confrontational day so she finished her orange juice and grabbed the rest of his muffin, forcing it in his hand when he placed the empty glass of water down.
"He has a reputation." she hummed. Everyone knew he slept around. Everyone knew, also, that it would a good night but that it would go no further. Having had sex with a victor was a wonder for one's reputation but Chaff… Well, there was no using Chaff to up one's reputation when everyone else knew he had used you full point. Besides, by now, he must have screwed his way through half the city.
"Wasn't that." Haymitch made a face, taking a bite of the muffin. Crumbs fell everywhere and she didn't resist the urge to brush them off his chest. His mouth quirked up in amusement but he didn't mention it. He adjusted the cloth on his eyes with his free hand. It wasn't that damp anymore and she suspected it was even a little useless but she didn't call him out on it. "The girls he picked…"
"Of course there was one for you too." she growled, reaching on the breakfast tray for the chocolate muffin she had told herself she wouldn't eat because it would mean ten more minutes on the running mill later on.
The things one did to keep their figure…
She gave a sad regretful look to the pastry and then cut small pieces of it and let the chocolate melt on her tongue with rapt pleasure. She must have made some sound of appreciation because Haymitch snatched the cloth off his face and watched her with slightly bloodshot grey eyes.
His gaze was riveted to her mouth and since she didn't think he was particularly fond of her moss green lipstick, she deduced she must have some chocolate crumbs there. She licked her lips for a good second, making sure there was no traces left.
"You're trying to kill me?" he snorted quite seriously. "'Cause you make those sounds and you do this… Ain't really in shape for that, Princess. Except if you want my head to blow."
She gave him an innocent look that a quick peek to his groin quickly betrayed.
She smiled when she realized he was actually interested. It was always good to know.
"Continue." she requested, keeping her appreciation for the chocolate pastry to herself. She didn't particularly want to listen to how he had seduced a random woman in a club but she would have liked to know how far things had gone with her. Morbid curiosity. Or maybe she simply liked to hurt herself.
"They were too young." he said after a few seconds, making a face even as he said it. "Twenty or something."
Which to his thirty-six years of age was quite a difference. Never mind chaff who was already past forty.
She had always liked older men but distinguished ones, those who didn't act desperate to score a younger woman. Those ones… Well those ones, women tended to make fun of.
"I am surprised you went for it at all." she remarked, trying hard to keep any trace of jealousy or possessiveness from her voice. "They must have been very attractive."
The amused smirk told her she was being absolutely transparent.
"They were young." he replied as if it explained everything and, she supposed, for most men it did. It was such a Capitol thing to say that it threw her though. Haymitch wasn't like that. He wasn't… "Chaff was all over them." He said it casually, barely put a stress on his friend's name, but it was enough for her to relax. Chaff would have been all over them, it was like him. Haymitch… Haymitch wouldn't have. "Told him to call it quit after five minutes. They were fussy. Kept asking us to buy them fancy cocktails with ridiculous names… Kept expecting to serve them hand and foot…" He rolled his eyes. "That's more Finnick's play than mine. Got annoyed real fast. But Chaff kept telling me he needed a wing man and…" He waved what was left of the muffin dismissively. "They weren't really bright those girls. Heard them talking, giggling together… Making fun of us."
His voice trailed off and Effie winced, only too aware of the kind of talk she and her friends had when they were flirting with men they had no intention of sleeping with only to get free drinks.
"Chaff must have been crushed." she teased.
"Not much can crush Chaff." he snorted around the last of his muffin.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, truly, Haymitch." she scowled, brushing crumbs off his chest again. Her hand lingered a little, a touch possessive. "So not at all a successful night."
Haymitch slumped further down the couch, bending a leg. She propped her forearm on it, placing her chin on it to watch him. Not quite a proper stance but he was naked and they were alone. Nobody would know.
"Well, we got wasted. That was fun." he muttered. "Didn't have to awkwardly brush anyone off at the end of the night either, I count that as a win."
"Do you often brush off women you spend a whole night seducing?" she grinned. He shot her a dark look and she got the message clear enough. She dropped it. They didn't talk about this. They didn't talk about what they did – or didn't do – with other people. Still, she couldn't help it. At the thought of him and Chaff trying to charm the pants off two twenty years old, she laughed. "That young? Really?"
"Not my choice. Chaff picked them up." he grumbled, jerking his knee once in retribution. She didn't let herself be shrugged off though. "Nasty chicks. Said some stuff…" He scoffed. "Doesn't matter."
But it clearly did matter because he was sulking, avoiding her eyes.
"What did they say?" she frowned.
"Chaff got the worst of it." he mumbled. "Made fun of his missing hand. That sort of classy stuff."
"Did they make fun of your drinking?" She pursed her lips, already trying to devise ways in which she could find those girls and make their life a living hell.
"Some." he scowled. "Mostly…" He fell silent. "It's stupid stuff. Doesn't matter."
He was protesting too much but she didn't insist. She ran her nails up and down his thigh very purposefully instead.
"How is your head?" she hummed.
The leg she was propped on stretched and she was pulled on his chest when she fell. It was answer enough.
She only rethought that brilliant idea when he kissed her because his morning breath was almost enough to make her tipsy but his only reaction when she complained was to chuckle. She had forgotten all about it by the time he had rolled them over.
"Naked on the couch, Trinket…" he teased afterwards, once she lied slumped and limp on her stomach on his chest, her hips trapped between his legs. "How improper… Anyone could come in…"
"Oh, shut up." she scoffed, drifting off a little. Her fingers were running distractedly on his side, accidentally matching the patterns he was drawing on her shoulder blades.
His chuckles were a rumble under her cheek.
He had a point though. They really shouldn't have stayed there, it really wasn't done. On the other hand, they had no tributes left to care for and they weren't expected anywhere until that night's party.
It wasn't long before he was toying with her hair. She wasn't sure where her wig had disappeared to. Perhaps behind the armchair.
"You think I'm fat?"
She had to do a double take at that question because, truth be told, it was something she might have asked but had never expected him to.
"Fat?" she repeated.
"Yeah, fat." he scowled.
Her hand roamed up and down his side. His skin wasn't smooth like hers was. There were small flaws, the occasional small bump of a faint scar… She let her fingers move to his chest, circle his dark nipple once only to let them drift to his stomach…
"Absolutely not." she huffed. He had no real abs to speak of and his stomach wasn't firm but she would never have called him fat. A few years back, when he had really let go of himself… Well, one remark about beer bellies had been enough to get him back on regularly chopping wood and chopping wood was a good way to keep in shape. He didn't really feed as he should to begin with. She suspected that when he wasn't in the Capitol and didn't have her to drag him to the dining table, he didn't always eat three meals a day either because he forgot or couldn't be bothered. "Is that what those women were saying?"
"Amongst other things." he snorted. "Used to be easy to pick up girls, you know. Guess I got used to being called handsome."
"You are handsome." she protested, propping herself up on his chest to look at him. "I do not sleep with unattractive men." He lifted a knowing eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. "You are handsome, Haymitch." There was nothing she didn't like about his body. Even his weird shaped toes. He was strong and manly in ways no Capitol man could hope to be. Being with him thrilled her. "What do twenty year old girls know about men?"
"You thought you knew quite a lot if I remember right." he taunted.
"And you called me stupid three times a day." she pointed out.
"Still do." he smirked, his mood visibly lifting.
"So attractive and yet so rude." she deadpanned.
"That's what turns you on." he accused. "You like the bad boy vibes."
She rested her cheek back on his chest, humoring him. "Of course."
He coiled her hair around his hand, giving a gentle tug. "Knew it."
Perhaps finding Haymitch naked on the couch first thing in the morning wasn't such a bad thing after all.