prompt: omg so I was looking through you hayffie aesthetic page and there was that picture of a girl straddling the guy and I'd love a story of that being the only way Effie could get Haymitch to shave !
A Chore And A Reward
"I ain't shaving." he declared stubbornly, tugging the blankets up on his body. The window was now wide open and it was chilly in the room. As if a draft would make him get up faster.
Haymitch had no interest in getting up right then and certainly not to go to some interviews where Caesar would force him to go through the same rehashed exchange of banalities. Twelve's dead tributes wouldn't keep the conversation up, their deaths had been mercifully quick but, by Capitol standards, that also meant boring. So they would talk about Haymitch's latest public improper blunder and, if that wasn't enough, Caesar would nitpick until he and Effie went into some sort of bantering session that would make them look ridiculous. They were a joke and while most of the time it suited him to be the drunk victor, he wasn't in the mood that day.
Effie pursed her purple painted lips, her hands on her hips in a displeased attitude that didn't move in one bit.
"Yes. You are." she declared.
He rolled his eyes. "Sweetheart, you can glare at me all you want, I ain't moving from this bed. Surely not to shave." She huffed, grabbed the bottom of the blankets and gave a good tug, leaving him lying there in nothing but yesterday's boxers. He had been too drunk and too lazy to take them off the previous night. He lifted both eyebrows, a hint of a smirk on his lips. "If that's what you wanted, you should have said so…"
"Do you truly believe you are an attractive sight right now?" she challenged.
"Don't know, Princess. You're attracted?" he retorted.
"I would be more attracted if you were clean-shaven." she offered sweetly. "Why, I might even be tempted to let you get a peek at that lovely new bra I just bought."
He watched the blue fake nail retrace the square neckline of the dress.
"See… The moment you get down to bribing me with sex I know you're desperate." he snorted. "You're gonna have to work for it."
Her seductive pout turned back into her severe pursed mouth. She stormed to the bathroom and Haymitch tossed his arm over his eyes. She could stomp her foot and screech all she wanted, he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of giving in. The absence of screaming surprised him a little but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He let himself drift off, only startling a little when he felt the mattress dip. He didn't lift his arm, unwilling to let her win. Even when she straddled his hips.
"What now?" he mocked. It would take a little more than that to… "What the fuck are you doing?"
He opened his eyes and grabbed her wrist when he felt the thing she smeared on his chin. Shaving cream. She had the nerves of smearing shaving cream on him. If she thought that would force him to actually shave…
"Working for it." she declared innocently. They struggled for a minute or two. She managed to land another knob of cream on his cheek and he had half a mind of rolling her under him and give her a taste of her own medicine. "Do not be difficult!" she snapped. "I will do it! All you have to do is lie there and let me do all the work. It won't be such a hardship! You are rather used to it by now, I believe?"
He wasn't sure if that was a gibe about his refusal to do his job as a mentor or at his sexual abilities and he wasn't sure he wanted to know either way.
"You think I'm letting you bring a razor to my throat?" he scoffed. "Think again!"
She stopped trying to fight him to pout. Genuinely pout. "Do you trust me so little that you think I would hurt you?"
She asked that question in that tone that he was beginning to associate with the dangers of her going on a sex strike. It annoyed him. That wasn't how it was supposed to work. No strings attached relationships shouldn't be that difficult.
"No the point." he grumbled.
"I think it is very much the point." she denied, averting her eyes. "Very well, then. But you are shaving either way. I won't have you looking like a hooligan on TV."
She started standing up but he grabbed her waist and kept her there. A glance at the bedside table told him she had thought of everything. There was a towel, a bowl of water and, of course, his old razor blade. She kept offering to get him one of those electrical ones but he didn't want to learn how to use that stuff when a blade did the work well enough.
"You ever used one of those?" he asked distrustfully.
"How hard can it be?" she sighed in that insufferable haughty manner of hers.
He hesitated. "You're sure you can do it?"
"Sit up." she ordered.
He grumbled but propped his back against the pillows, letting her smear more cream on his face. That part wasn't that bad but he was tense, eyeing the blade with wariness. When she finally picked it up, he recoiled.
"Trust me." she requested.
He did trust her despite everything. She was his best ally in the Games and, he could admit it by now, she was also a good friend. A friend he really liked taking to bed.
"It ain't all about trust." he muttered.
His fingers coiled around her wrist when she approached the blade to his skin and his breath hitched. She frowned a little and for a second he thought she would relent. She seemed to think she had something to prove though. He closed his eyes when the blade switched carefully against his jaw.
He didn't relax, not even when she was almost done.
"You know I wouldn't let anyone else do that, yeah?" he mumbled when she tapped the blade against the rim of the bowl for the last time.
She beamed at that, as if it was the best compliment he could give her. And maybe it was. He wasn't sure. He snatched the towel and dabbed at his jaw, feeling naked without his stubble. She tugged the towel away and replaced it with her lips. Her hands were roaming on his chest so he forgot to complain when her teeth nipped at his jugular.
She had him trained well, he realized. He had ended up going exactly what she wanted.
But now he was about to get the reward so he wasn't sure it was such a bad thing.