Prompt: I loved yesterday's oneshot! Could you do one where Effie and haymitch are maybe in bed or something and they properly discuss Effie being pan/bi? Maybe Effie brings it up because she thinks it makes haymitch uncomfortable :)
Who You Like
Haymitch's body felt like lead.
He was panting a little, red in the face, trying to understand how there could be stars on the ceiling of his room. It took him a few minutes to recover and to gradually become aware of the rain hammering hard on the glass of the window. Lightning bolts were regularly striking the sky, followed by impressive thunder, the only light in the dark city at the moment.
The storm had hit the Capitol, too powerful for the controlled weather to get a hold on it. Everyone had been ordered home for safety measures a little before electricity had given in. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse that kids were still murdering themselves in an arena thousands of miles away for the pleasure of people who couldn't even see it. The storm had saved him from a boring party though and for that he was grateful.
He hated those parties even more after Twelve's tributes had died.
All those shallow people, wasted food, stupid as…
Effie startled with the next roar of thunder, not used to that kind of untamed weather probably. He wondered what it was like to grow up in a snowball where nature had been whipped into obeying one's wishes. Nature was deadly in Twelve. Blizzards, extreme temperatures… It killed its share of vulnerable people every year.
He watched in the semi-darkness as she bent her legs and placed her feet firmly on the mattress, facing the window and flashing the rest of the world. It was probably a good thing the Center was one of the tallest buildings in the city and that the penthouse was at the very top. She had ended up lying perpendicular to him, her head cushioned on his thigh. Her blond hair was half draped over his leg and he had to admit it looked good there.
"Can't stay here all night." he muttered.
They would fall asleep and he didn't like sleeping with someone in his bed. Although he supposed they could have stayed there all night. It wasn't like they had anything better to do with the storm raging over their heads anyway. Without electricity he couldn't even go down a floor to have a drink with Chaff.
"I am too sore to move." she complained.
He couldn't quite dispute her that. They had been in the middle of a very volatile – and public – argument when the announcement that everyone should head home had hit and the sex, as a result, had been… He wanted to say kinky but athletic was probably the best word. He hadn't known a human body could bend that much. They had tested the limits of her flexibility.
He gave a noncommittal grunt, a bit exhausted himself, and let her grab his hand to play with his fingers. She was barely brushing her fingertips against his skin but it was distracting. And relaxing. And before he knew how, he was drifting off, only staying awake because she was flinching with every new loud boom of thunder.
Like a child, he mused.
He didn't understand what she was so afraid of. They were in a solid building that wasn't likely to be hit by lighting – and even if it were, he was pretty sure there were measures in place to make sure nothing dire happened. Try sleeping through a thunderstorm in a shack that had a leaking roof, he thought.
Apparently the soreness must have disappeared after a while because she let go of his hand and left the bed. She came hurrying back with the next flash of lighting and settled in the exact same position she had been. He really wanted to protest – or to at least make her admit she was scared of being alone – but he was tired and too content to keep his eyes closed.
At least until the familiar tang of nicotine hit his nose.
"Do you truly mind?" she asked.
Such a stupid question.
"You know I hate the smell." he grumbled.
She usually kept her smoking outside, to bring it right into his bed… Well, actually it might have been just like when he brought his liquor into hers. Speaking of liquor… He glanced at the nightstand, squinting his eyes to try and figure out if the bottle of wine he had snatched off the table the previous night wasn't totally empty. He was out of luck though.
"I am not talking about that." she countered, pretending not to understand the rebuke. She must have grabbed an ashtray too because he saw her flick ashes on her other side, too close to his calf for comfort. Sheets were flammable and there were no guarantees he hadn't spilled liquor on them at some point. "I mean… You did not look so happy with Cheryl chatting me up."
"Don't care what you do." he replied immediately.
Even if the woman who had seemed so intent about getting into his escort's pants had been… Well, she had been attractive. There was no beating around the bush about that. Another time, another place, he might even have gone after her himself. She had been attractive and there Effie had been, looking all attracted.
It had been sickening to watch, all that flirting. Chaff had kept snickering like an idiot the whole time, keeping up a one-sided conversation about something straightly driven out of a porn-related fantasy… All Haymitch had seen was that the woman was touching his escort's arm, smiling in an unmistakable come-hither way and that Effie hadn't been completely unreceptive to her offer.
He had cut in before the flirting could develop into more serious propositions. Then they had argued about his rudeness and then a computerized voice had blissfully ordered everyone to go their merry way.
"Of course, you do not." she sighed, sounding patronizing. "Nevertheless, you are never very happy when anyone chats me up – which is fair since I do not quite enjoy watching people flirt with you either."
"Effie." he warned. They were getting very close to discussing something he didn't want to discuss. He wasn't sure what she did the rest of the year but it had been a while since there had been boyfriends in her life. And it had been a while since he had looked elsewhere for something she was always so ready to give him. So perhaps they had become exclusive without discussing it but that was the crux of the matter: not discussing it. He didn't want anything serious. Couldn't afford it. Certainly not with a Capitol of all people. Certainly not with her whom he still claimed he hated on good days.
"It is just…" she insisted, apparently unwilling to see reason. She took a drag of her cigarette and blew out the smoke impatiently. "Somehow, you always seem a bit more put out when it someone like Cheryl and… Does my sexual preferences bother you?"
He blinked, not having seen that question coming. He stole the cigarette from her fingers because he didn't have liquor to stall his answer and he needed something to keep his hands busy. She moved the ashtray closer to him without comment. He made a face at the first draft, not understanding the pleasure she found in poisoning herself with those. At least liquor knocked him off.
"That you like women too, you mean?" he asked eventually, when he couldn't put it off anymore.
They had had one very awkward conversation not long after she had become his escort and well before they had started sleeping together. He had known that people in the Capitol were very free with what they did and with whom but he had thought they were a minority and that they usually kept it discreet. He hadn't been prepared for his brand new pretty escort flirting with a pretty female model in a middle of a crowded room and that had thrown him.
She had laughed at his ignorance at the time and it was only after that – an embarrassing amount of twelve years after he had first been introduced to Capitol society – that he had learned it wasn't just about sex and it was more common than he had realized.
"Not just women actually." she declared, a bit tentative.
That made him frown. "Men and women. What else is there?"
She wasn't into teenagers, that much he knew for sure from watching her fend off Finnick's playful wooing for years. She liked her men older than her. He wasn't sure about how she liked her women. He wasn't sure he wanted to think about it at all.
She snatched the cigarette back from him. "Never mind. That might be too much for you."
"You're not into animals, right?" he worried, suddenly hit by the ridiculous thought of her getting turned on by dogs or…
"Ew!" she exclaimed, slapping his stomach. "You are disgusting! Where do you even get those ideas? Truly…"
"Don't give me the defensive bullshit." he retorted. "I've been around the city enough to know it's not the worst you people get up to."
She couldn't very well dispute that point. She brought the cigarette back to her lips and blew out a cloud of smoke. The storm was finally calming down outside.
"I like everything." she clarified quietly. "I am attracted to people not gender."
He still wasn't quite sure what that meant but it didn't seem that different from her liking both men and women.
"Okay." he shrugged. "So?"
"Well, does it bother you?" she asked again with some impatience.
"Ain't my place to be bothered." he grumbled. "You do what you want, I do what I want. No strings attached."
"Alright." she hissed. "But, hypothetically, if there were strings attached, would it bother you?"
He pondered that for a moment. "Hypothetically… Don't see what it has to do with me. You like what you like."
She handed the cigarette over and he took it without thinking twice about it, taking the final drag before crushing it in the astray and moving that to the nightstand. As soon as he had done that, she grabbed his hand and started playing with his fingers once more.
"Why do you always get so angry when a woman approach me then?" she whispered. Before he could deny it, she continued in a rush. "Because when it is a man you become all possessive and you always have to make a show of strength. It is very caveman-like and it is actually very arousing even if it is so, so rude of you. But women… When a woman flirts with me you always get angry."
"Hypothetically." he insisted because he certainly wasn't about to admit being jealous of anyone over her.
"Of course." she hummed smoothly.
"Guess…" he hesitated. "I know what you'd like in a man. I can compete. Now, what you'd go with a woman for… Don't have the right plumbing for that, yeah? It ain't anger, just…"
Fear of losing.
He didn't say the words but she must have gotten the sentiment because she breathed in a sharp breath and squeezed his hand. "Oh."
"Whatever." he muttered. "All hypothetical anyway."
"I am very attracted to you." she stated firmly. "I am more attracted to you than I have ever been to anyone else. Even when I do not want to want you, I do. It is… Very inconvenient. But it has its bright sides."
She placed his hand down on her breast and he didn't pass on the opportunity to fondle her. He drew slow circles around her nipple, teasing rather than purposeful.
"What do you like in women then?" he found himself asking, curious despite himself.
"I do not really know." she hummed. "They are beautiful. I enjoy beauty." She arched a little under his hand, letting her head roll so her cheek was pressed against his hipbone. "I enjoy strength too. It does not matter to me what shape they come in."
"Okay." he accepted, letting go of her breast to brush her blond hair away from her face. Parts of him were starting to wake up again and he wasn't sure she was up to anything yet. That last bout had been on the wild side. "As long as you're attracted to me more. Hypothetically."
She laughed and curled up on her side, pressing a short kiss over his hip. "As hypothetical as it is, there never was any doubt of that." Her fingers rand distractedly up and down his side. "What about you?"
"What about me?" he snorted. "It's the worst kept secret in this Center how attractive I find you."
He didn't think there was anyone left on the Games staff who didn't know or suspected they were sleeping together. They denied and denied and denied again but at the end of the day, he didn't think a lot of people were fooled. It didn't matter. Keeping the secret was paramount to his peace of mind. As long as it was just as a sex thing… It was safer for everyone involved.
"That would be because I am the most attractive woman you have ever met." she purred. Her fingers chose that moment to leave his side for his stomach, distracting him so much he forgot to protest. "But I meant… Have you never been tempted by another man?"
He immediately made a face. "Hell, no."
"You do not need to sound so defensive." she scowled. "There is nothing wrong with it."
"Never said there was." he countered. "Just… Where I come from…" In Twelve, that sort of things were sort of taboo. Sex in itself was traditionally reserved for after marriage – there were zero means of protection out there and it was stressed from early on that waiting was preferable to ending up with children you would have to feed – which made for very traditionalist views. It wasn't that homosexuals were ostracized but the norm was woman and man and if there were a few people who defy that, it wasn't something that was acknowledged or flaunted. They kept to themselves. And, yeah, maybe Haymitch had realized that it was one area where the Capitol was actually more civilized than they were but the everyday lives were so different too… "Sorry, we're not as liberal as the Capitol is, sweetheart." he sneered.
"Oh, we are not that liberal…" she objected quietly. "For instance… Same-sex marriages are allowed but most people still choose to marry someone from the opposite gender even if they are to keep a lover on the side. It is considered more proper, particularly in the upper circles. Then again, a lot of marriages in the city are of conveniences. It is all about influence and power."
He found himself combing her hair. He loved her hair. He loved touching it, playing with it…
Her hand was resting flat on his stomach, no longer teasing. He didn't know if that was because he had hurt her feelings with his quick denial or because she just wanted to sleep.
"Never been into anything else than breasts." he shrugged. "Only thing I could think about when I hit thirteen. Girls and breasts and how to get one to let me touch them."
She chuckled, her blue eyes visibly sparkling in mischief even in the semi-darkness. "Were you very successful?"
"Not quite." he smirked. "Not until I was fifteen, at least. Then they were all over me but by that point I was head over heels for…"
He abruptly stopped talking. It seemed wrong to speak Mabel's name there. Naked in a bed with another woman – an escort, no less. He closed off and turned his head away from her. He hadn't gone far with his girl. She had made him run after her for months. She had played hard to get and it had made the sweet inevitable surrender all the more so satisfying for the long weeks of suffering. He could still remember the rush when she had let him kiss her for the first time. She hadn't been the first girl he had kissed but at that moment he had sworn she would be the last.
Look how that had turned out.
Effie teeth closed on a fragile patch of skin right under his hipbone. His hips jerked up in surprise at the small pain. He glared at her but she was licking the abused flesh now. She sucked it into her mouth next and it would leave a mark but he couldn't begin to care. Not when she was sucking things so close to where he really wanted to be licked and sucked.
He wanted to ask what she was up to but it wasn't what came out of his mouth.
"Chaff thinks watching two girls together is the ultimate fantasy." he said.
It gave her pause. She propped her chin on his thigh, studying him as best as she could in the dark.
"I could arrange that for you, if you want." she suggested. "I have friends who do not mind threesomes and who are discreet. It wouldn't get out of this room. You could watch. You could even play with us."
"No." he refused immediately, without needing to think about it.
He didn't share. That was another thing he was sure of. Sharing wasn't for him. He liked having someone's whole attention and he liked giving his attention back. All the more so when it was Effie. As for watching someone be with her when she should have been only his? Hypothetically. No. No, he really wasn't into that.
"I also have male friends who would like nothing else…" she grinned.
She was so obviously teasing now that he growled.
Man or woman, it didn't make any difference to him. He wouldn't watch her get it on with anyone else. It wouldn't end well for the other participant. He could be very possessive.
"Shut up." he ordered.
"You are the one who brought threesomes up." she pointed out. "I have nothing against it. I have had my share."
He so didn't want to hear about all her sex exploits. She was younger than him and it felt as if she had done everything twice over.
"Seriously." he mumbled. "Shut up."
She rolled her eyes. "I love sex. I do not make any apology for it." She winked at him. "Besides, I excel at it."
And with that for only warning she lifted her head and she licked him from base to tip. She was a tease and she knew how to work him up. In a matter of minutes, she had him hard and throbbing. She was still curled up on her side and he threw caution to the wind and grabbed her knee.
She let him pop out of her mouth with a small squeal when he manhandled her.
"What are you doing?" she gasped.
He waited until he had her where he wanted her, on her stomach on his chest, with her legs on either side of his head, before he replied. "Making it a race."
Turnabout was fair play after all and she moaned when he licked her.
Her lips closed on him again and he forgot all thoughts about who she liked or didn't like. It didn't matter. Not as long as he was the only one she took to her bed.