Prompt: haymitch wants cuddles but he doesnt want to ask for them cuz it makes him feel not manly so he tries to slyly ask for them but effie just asks him straight up if thats what he wants

Mixing book and movie canon for this one

A Bubble Of Their Own Making

Effie played the propo again, standing in the middle of the room, her eyes riveted to the big screens. She barely glanced back when she heard the door to the small room over the studio open and close. When she saw it was only Haymitch, she returned her attention to the screen. Cressida had done a quick job of editing the footage and the clip actually looked…

It gave her chills.

"If we burn, you burn with us!" Katniss challenged on the screen, looking defiant and every bit the symbol they needed her to be.

"This is very good." she observed. Arms sneaked around her waist and his chin was propped on her shoulder. She waited for the hands to start wandering or for the urgent kisses on her neck but he didn't try anything untoward. He just held her tight, his jaw clenched, radiating tension. She frowned a little. "How is Katniss?"

She had been admitted to the hospital as soon as the hovercraft had touched down in Thirteen. Her injuries weren't serious, a couple of bruised ribs from what Effie had understood, but it was already enough that she didn't like it one bit. Recording propos in a studio would never have worked with Katniss, their Mockingjay wasn't much of an actress, but sending her in the field… Effie hated the thought.

And those images…

The propo was good but when she had seen the unedited footage, she had seen the devastation, the danger… Coin wasn't supposed to know Katniss had ignored Boggs' orders and flown straight into danger with Gale Hawthorne for only back-up but Effie saw her actions for what they were. And she could only imagine how Haymitch had felt sitting in that hovercraft, screaming orders into the void once the girl had tossed her earpiece on the ground. He had been seething at the mouth when he had come back, swearing high and low that next time he would have the earpiece glued to her head – if he didn't strangle her first.

For a good ten minutes, he had been without news, blind and deaf to where Katniss was, their girl lost to the madness of a war zone.

She could understand why he was so angry.

"She's fine." he grumbled. His grey eyes followed the images on screen and then he shifted, pressing his forehead against her shoulder. "So… I didn't have the best day."

"You don't say." she half-mocked, half-sighed.

"Katniss' mother screamed at me." he informed her. "The girl didn't tell her we were going to Eight."

"Perhaps she should pay more attention to where her daughter is, then." she sighed. "That wasn't your fault."

The resentment and residual anger about all the lies he had fed her with a straight face was clearly perceptible in her voice. She wasn't very happy about Thirteen's failure to save Peeta either. She didn't blame him for that, not really, but he had been a part of it and…

Well, she was still angry about having been kidnapped, no matter how good his intentions were in having her brought to that District against her will.

He flinched and his embrace loosened a little. She didn't try to move away though.

He looked terrible, truth be told, and she couldn't stay mad when he looked like that. His skin had a worrying yellowish tinge to it, his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was dirty and hung limp around his face and he had lost far too much weight in the short weeks they had spent in that District. The tremors in his hands weren't the most concerning. The headaches, the fact he could never get warm enough, how brutally they had severed him off… That was what she was really worried about.

"I don't have to be in Command until tomorrow morning…" he said, a little hesitant.

"Good. You need rest." she commented, leaning back until he got the message and tightened his embrace again.

"Yeah…" he admitted – which was worrying in itself. "It's late. You're done?"

It was late and the schedule on her wrist had long since declared her hours of work were over but she was nothing if not a perfectionist and she had felt the need to make sure that propo would be perfect when they would show it to Coin.

"As a matter of fact, I am." she hummed. "Why?"

Any other time, she would have no problem guessing why. But he had still to try to touch her and she couldn't feel any proof of his interest for fooling around against her backside.

"They put me with Plutarch." he mumbled, his breath warm against her neck. "You still don't have a roommate, yeah? I was thinking…"

"You were thinking you could use me as a cuddle toy all night?" she finished for him when he let his sentence linger.

He was embarrassed. She knew him too well not to notice the tension and the ill-at-ease shuffling. He would never have behaved like that if it were sex he was after. Sex, he had no trouble taking from her. Tenderness, now…

"I don't cuddle." he scoffed, dropping his arms from around her waist.

She didn't let him run away though. She turned around and locked her own arms around his neck, rising on tiptoes to brush her lips against his. They hadn't kissed since the Quell. Since before the arena exploded and her world had been turned upside down.

The fight they had had right after they had reached Thirteen had easily been one of their worst. As careless as he could sometimes be about their arrangement, she didn't think he had been so sure he would be granted as much as a kiss again this time.

His hands gripped her waist, tugging her closer rather than pushing her away.

"Don't you?" she challenged in a whisper.

The kiss he planted on her mouth was brutal, a denial wrapped into a possessive statement, but the heat that usually followed didn't come. The withdrawals had left him so fragile, she didn't think his body had the strength for anything too adventurous for now. The kiss slowed into something gentle and they eventually drew apart, their foreheads pressed together, eyes closed.

"If you are not a cuddler, I must be the exception to the rule." she teased.

He snorted but when he spoke, his voice was more serious than she had expected. "You're the exception to a lot of my rules, sweetheart."

And just like that, with a rare show of feelings on his part, she felt the resentment and anger melt away.

She sighed and pressed a last short peck on his lips before stepping back. "Let's go to bed, Haymitch."

"My favorite sentence." he joked. He rubbed his face but it only made him look more tired.

Truly, it was for the best he had sought her out because when he looked like that all she wanted was to wrap herself around him and protect him from the outside world.

Suddenly, she was longing for the peace and comfort they would find in a bubble of their own making.