3.

Haymitch was slumped on a plastic chair at the very back of the auditorium, regretting most of his life choices. It was a hobby he had become very good at. Presently, though, he was brooding about how stupid he must have been that morning to beg Trinket for a ride to school. Or maybe he had just been desperate. The headache and the hangover still hadn't eased yet so he really hadn't been in any place to ride his bike and since he had already missed work the previous day – not that Plutarch had minded given his fainting spell the day before that – he had dragged himself into the shower and then across the street.

Trinket, as it had turned out, had not only looked relieved to see him but had given him a running commentary all the way to the high school about the great bonding moments she and Katniss had shared the two previous days to the point he had almost regretted sending his Slayer over to her two days in a row. When he had asked her if she could kindly shut up, she had started briefing him about the talent show. Eventually, he had figured out her high-pitched chatter was her idea of a punishment for leaving her alone to deal with everything.

The whole day had been hell. It had dragged by and he had given up on the idea of actually teaching to show each of his class ready-made documentaries. The kids didn't mind a nap in front of a boring video and neither did he.

It had done him little good though.

He popped another pill in his mouth, hoping that one would be the one to kill his headache, and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the awful sound of the kid currently playing guitar on stage. Trinket's shouts over the noises he hesitated to call music weren't helping.

The students, at least, had learned to leave him alone after he had yelled at Glimmer loud enough that she had burst into tears. Maybe he shouldn't have but the cheerleader's constant whining that it wasn't fair that Trinket had given the best performing spot – apparently, performing last was the best thing in the whole world – to Livia who was simply doing a ballet demonstration had irritated him to death. Another popular girl with a ego huge enough to fill a room and who could complain like no other. The argument had swollen until he had lost his already frail temper. Did he look like he cared who performed when? He just wanted the dreadful thing to be over.

Glimmer had wailed on Marvel's welcoming shoulder, Livia had sauntered away triumphant and he had been ordered to sit and be quiet by a very irritated Art teacher. He didn't see what she was upset about. He had said her word was final. She should have been happy to have his support at all. It wasn't his fault she was running herself frayed by getting too involved in a stupid talent show nobody expected to be great anyway.

But, with her, everything had to be great. Grand. Fabulous. Anything less than perfect wouldn't do.

He rubbed his face and tried to doze off but the lingering presence at his side was setting off all his alarms and since the student wouldn't be ignored, he opened his eyes and glared. Only to freeze when he recognized Maysilee's niece.

Now that he was over his shock, he could see the differences. There were many but none was glaring. If you weren't looking for them, she could have passed for Maysilee's exact copy.

He forced himself to relax, mostly because the kid was squirming on the spot.

"I wanted to apologize." She rushed the words out in a shy voice. "I didn't know… I didn't mean to upset you the other day."

"Hardly your fault, sweetheart." he pointed out.

Madge's lips stretched into a relieved smile. She glanced at the empty chair next to him but, when he didn't invite her to sit down, she kept on nervously swaying on the spot. "I… My mom never talks about her." Her mom, from what he had heard through the grapevine, had never really recovered from the loss of her twin. He remembered her mother like a bright girl, a lively – and lovely – one. She had stayed lovely and she had remained bright but she had buried her liveliness in the ground along with her sister. Madge took a deep breath. "I was hoping you would."

The request took him aback even if it wasn't such a surprising one. He was a direct source of information on her aunt and she wanted to know more… Katniss had told him about the diary she had found, she must have had a lot of questions…

But talking about Maysilee? Explaining everything?

"I don't know." he said honestly. He wasn't sure he would be able to do it, never mind to someone who looked so much like her. "I'll think about it."

He was saved from having to say anything more by the piercing scream that did nothing to help his headache. Still, his body moved before his mind even registered it, and he ran in the direction of the distressed shout. Katniss beat him, of course, and Hawthorne and Peeta were hot on her heels. Trinket arrived a few seconds after him with a crowd of curious students and grabbed his arm to steady herself. Apparently, she could fight in heels but running in a high school hallway required help. That, or maybe he wasn't the only one who had temptation problems but he didn't have time to ponder the thought because Livia was standing in the middle of the corridor, hiding her face behind her hands and screaming her head off.

"What is wrong, dear?" Trinket worried, reaching out for the girl's arm. "Are you hurt?"

It took a while and a lot of negotiating before Livia accepted to lower her hands. Haymitch tried to shoo the other kids back into the auditorium, half certain all the fuss was over a spot or something – he hated the drama the popular kids always got up to – but the students were too curious and resisted his attempts. And, then, of course, Trinket got her to show her face and everyone gasped and screeched, a few laughed, a few immediately took pictures…

Haymitch turned to see what the problem was and could only stare, wide-eyed, at the huge warts that covered her cheeks, forehead and nose.

"Everyone back in the auditorium." Trinket's voice was hard and authoritative. "Put these phones away. If I hear about or see one picture circulating I will make sure you have detentions until the summer holidays, are we clear? Haymitch."

The order was obvious and while he scowled in her direction to let her know he didn't like being bossed around, he did shoo the students back in the room with a little more strength. He didn't even try to tell Katniss, Peeta and Hawthorne to go back though.

"She needs a doctor." Trinket declared once they were all alone in the hallway. Livia had gone back to hiding behind her hands and sobbing her heart out. "Gale, please, run and fetch the nurse. Katniss, Peeta, inform Principal Heavensbee if you would."

The kids ran in different directions to obey her orders and Haymitch took advantage of that to try and take a closer look. "Doesn't sound really natural…" Warts on a Hellmouth, though? It could be anything from the signs of impending apocalypse to a beauty spell gone wrong. "Say, girl? You did something? Put something on your face?"

The teenager was too upset to answer and Trinket made soothing noises, waving him off. "We won't get any answer until she is calmer. Please, can you go back inside and supervise? Show must go on."

A few warts didn't qualify as an emergency for him so he did go back inside, preferring to oversee the rehearsals than take care of a sobbing girl. Trinket had been running such a tight ship that he mostly only had to sit and watch while the kids followed the rehearsal schedule she had designed. Peeta, Katniss and Hawthorne only slipped back in the room after a long twenty minutes.

"Heavensbee is furious." Katniss explained to him.

"Her parents are both on the town council." Peeta winced. "I know because Mom's too. They're pretty influent."

Hawthorne made a face that clearly expressed what he thought of wealthy people and their problems. Haymitch might have approved if he hadn't been so instinctively opposed to that boy's opinion.

It was a while longer before Trinket managed to escape Plutarch and his questions. She immediately put an end to rehearsals and waved everyone out, looking both exhausted and irritated. For the third time, he regretted having ridden to school with her. She spent the whole drive home venting about how Plutarch had made it look like her fault as if she had the power to prevent warts from appearing on someone's face – to be fair, she probably did but the principal couldn't know that.

He had never been so happy to escape her presence than when she stopped the car in her driveway.

He closed his front door and told himself he was glad for the silence in his own house. He tried to tidy up a little the result of the previous day's binge and then simply gave up. It took all his will not to drown himself at the bottom of a bottle, as it was.

He was glad when Katniss showed up for her daily training even if she kicked his ass flat on the gym mats every time. She was really becoming good and he could already see the shape of the great Slayer she could be. Assuming she survived the Careers and whatever they were planning to do… He let her go home a little before dinner with instructions to check in with him after patrol so he knew she wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere.

He took the books outside and read on the back porch for some fresh air, hoping to find more information on the elusive Careers. He had given up on the Watchers journals and had started hitting less reliable records. He had just finally found a brief mention of Enobaria when he heard the footsteps entering his backyard. It was overgrown with weeds and mined with holes because of the family of moles that seemed to find his garden the ideal home.

The night was a little cloudy but not enough that he didn't smirk at the sight of Effie Trinket trying to pick her way through his unkempt yard with her heels and short skirt. She was ridiculous. And yet, he mused, letting his gaze trail over the apple mint green skirt and white and black blouse, she made ridiculous look good.

"Lost your way, sweetheart?" he called out when she was a reasonable distance away. He could just see her pinched face as she inspected the ground in front of her before each step.

"I knocked on your front door, you did not answer." she retorted. He lifted the book in his hand as an explanation and let it fall back down while she sighed. "Yes, I surmise as much. I would understand your strange liking to reading outside better if it was warmer and if your back yard did not look like a wasteland."

"I'm thinking it's missing a rusty car. You know. To really get that wasteland vibe." he mocked. "Might put it on the front yard, though. Let you admire it every time you look through the window."

She shot him a glare. "Don't you dare."

His smirk deepened. "Don't dare me unless you're ready to deal with the consequences, Trinket."

She tilted her head to the side, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, clearly deliberating taking him up on that. In the end, she started picking the safest path to his porch again. He was pretty sure she would insist on crossing through the house to get back to the street and he was already wondering if he would grant her passage or just force her to walk out the same way again. It depended on how much she annoyed him, he supposed.

"Are you planning to join Katniss on patrol?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I'm still trying to find out more about the Careers. No luck on your end?"

"I have been asking around my contacts at the Council but so far nobody can tell me anything of substance." She sighed. "I am hoping that, perhaps, once she is recovered enough, Mags might have more information."

He didn't let himself linger on Mags. Mags was recovering as fast and as well as expected. She would be forever diminished and wouldn't thank him for abandoning his Slayer and jumping on a plane, even if she was still too weak to get on the phone with him. Well, she might thank him… But only after she had kicked his ass.

Fuck, but he missed Mags.

He had outgrown her guidance long ago – or, at least, he liked to think he had – but he still had made it his duty to check in with her every few weeks. She was the closest thing he had to a mother and he loved that old lady fiercely.

"Well, I found out Enobaria never shifts back to her human face." he offered. "She likes her fangs too much, apparently. That's the only thing we've got so far. Won't help us." He tossed the book to the side and rubbed his face. "You're sure they will show up? It's been close to two months since Katniss dusted Cashmere."

"I am not sure of anything." she protested, finally reaching the porch. She stood right in front of him. He might have minded looking up at her if it hadn't been such a nice view. "But it does sound likely. If anything, they will want Cashmere avenged." She hesitated before letting out another sigh. "I should not tell you because it is not certain but my contacts tell me Gloss was spotted in Northern Ireland a couple of weeks ago. He was after a book."

"Hell portals for dummies?" he guessed.

"A book that describes an ancient ritual." she added. "It is all I know so far, nobody can give me more details. But if we believe Cashmere, their objective is clear. Perhaps they separated… If Cashmere was scooting here and Gloss was looking for that book… It is possible Enobaria and Brutus are searching for other things to help them complete the ritual."

That sounded probable enough. And it was really bad for their case.

He would contact Chaff, he decided, see if his best friend could track them down. It would, at least, give them an idea of where the Careers were and possibly a timeframe to prepare for their arrival.

"You ever thought about what your life'd be like if you weren't stuck fighting evil?" he snorted. He had tried to sound flippant but he simply ended up sounding tired.

He was tired.

And not just because he had spent twenty-four hours swallowing all the liquor in his house. It just sounded so… futile. They had stopped Snow at greater prices than he could name. It should have been the end of the story. Heroes riding in the sunset and bad guys dead in the ground. Instead the heroes were dead and the bad guys lived on.

Maysilee's niece wearing his first Slayer's face hadn't helped that feeling.

"I would have become a model." she answered immediately, too quickly for her not to have pondered the thought before. Perhaps as many times as he had. "I would have been extremely famous. I would have worn glamorous dresses, go on red carpets every day and have scandalous affairs with men half my age. It would all have been…"

"Fabulous." he teased, tugging on the hem of her skirt.

He hadn't really meant anything by it. He just liked annoying her. He suspected if they had been children, he would have spent his time pulling her pigtails.

Her dreamt life was a silly one. On par with her personality, though. And she was definitely beautiful enough to be a model, she was smart enough to manage it too.

"Exactly." she grinned, batting his hand away with a mischievous smile. "What about you?"

He studied her face for a moment and then leaned back on his hands, tilting his head up toward the cloudy sky. He could barely guess at the stars that night. "Sad thing is… There's never really been a choice for me."

Not unlike a Slayer, he hadn't really had a say. He had been born into this life, had grown up carrying knives and stakes, had learned to fight watching his mother train even before he had learned to walk… Mags might have supported him if he had chosen an entirely different path but it had never even occurred to him that there was a life outside of demon slaying. Normal wasn't for him. It just had never been in the cards.

"Mine was made for me." Trinket commented slowly.

She averted her eyes when he glanced at her, uncomfortable to have given so much away maybe. He draped himself in his sarcasms but he had the feeling she used her cheerfulness as a wall to keep the rest of the world at a distance. He had lost his mother young and then his brother and his girlfriend but he had had them before they died and Mags had never let him down. He had lost his family but they had never given him up. He wondered how that must feel to be given up like that, to be told that you are now a potential Slayer and that you not only had to leave your old life behind but that, if you were Chosen, you would probably not survive more than a few years, to be offered in tribute on a sacred altar. Being handed over like you didn't matter… It couldn't be fun.

Maysilee had sort of given up on her family too. To protect them. She had kept her twin at arm length and he knew that had pained her more than anything else because they had been inseparable before she had been Called.

"You've got copies of the Watcher's journals?" he asked and when she nodded with a small frown, he clarified. "Even Maysilee's?"

Understanding flashed on her face. "You want to give a copy to the Undersee girl? The end is… A little gruesome."

He hadn't been in a good place when he had written an account of Maysilee's final battle. He hadn't spared details and he hadn't been shy of expressing how utterly shitty the whole situation had been. If the Council had allocated more resources, if there had been more help, if they had chosen a more experienced Watcher to begin with, if he had done better, been quicker, if…

"She wants to know." he shrugged. "I can't tell her."

She watched him for a moment, he felt the weight of her gaze on him but he kept his face tilted to the sky. "Would you mind if I redacted some of the details out?"

He shook his head. "Go crazy."

"You should not feel guilty over her death." she offered in a soft uncertain voice. "I have read your journals more times than I can count. There is nothing you could have done differently."

That was a matter of opinions. He had been responsible for Maysilee. However he didn't feel like explaining that to her.

The wind picked up and he caught a whiff of her perfume. It was musky with a touch of something fruity, probably expensive… Extremely intoxicating.

It left him parched for something that wasn't alcohol.

He brushed his fingertips against the side of her leg slowly, leaving her plenty of time to run away if that was what she wanted. They had agreed it wouldn't happen again. They had agreed that… He had insisted that it would never happen again.

"Anything I can do for you, Haymitch?" she asked, the humor clear in her voice.

"Don't suppose you could make me forget my whole shitty life for a while?" he half-joked, letting his hand slide behind her thigh.

"Memories spells are tricky." she hummed, dropping her head to the side, a smile on her lips.

He tugged on her leg and she stepped closer until she was towering over him, one foot on either side of his. "There are different kinds of magic."

She giggled. It should have been ridiculous for a grown woman to giggle but with her it simply sounded endearing. "You are relapsing."

"Seems so." he shrugged, his fingers tracing a burning path up the back of her thigh. He lingered at the hem of her skirt but when she didn't protest he continued on his way up, delighted to realize whatever she had on under that skirt, it wasn't panties. "Hard disease to get out of my system."

"Any particular symptom?" she taunted.

"Yeah." he snorted. "Sight of you makes my pants real tight. Worse when you try to boss me around."

She grinned. "Oh, Haymitch, I do not try to boss you around…"

He had time to determine her underwear was most likely a thong before she sat down on his lap, straddling him. It wasn't his favorite position, he didn't like not being in control, but it felt so good to have her pressed on him like that that he kept his tongue. All the more so when she deliberately added pressure where he needed it, his eyelids fluttered close but he fought it even as his head dropped back a little. He wanted to watch her, the mischievous grin on her lips, the spark in her blue eyes, the shadows the dark night tossed on her face…

It was stupid to play that game outside where any passing vampire could attack…

And yet, it added to the thrill…

Maybe because he knew no normal vampire was a match against the two of them.

"I may have relapsed myself." she confessed, biting down on her bottom lip.

"Symptoms?" he asked, his hands slowly running up her legs and to her sides. It had been so rushed the last time, eager and rough with need. He wanted to take his time, that night. He wanted to take her to the edge and back just to torture her a little. He wanted to watch her come apart on his tongue. He wanted a lot of things. Temptation. Once you got a taste…

"Your voice makes me embarrassingly wet." she whispered, covering the hands he had placed on his sides. She guided one of them between her legs.

The kiss they shared next was more teeth and tongue than anything else.

Temptation.

He didn't even try to resist it.

Is there magic afoot or is it just Haymitch being bewitched? Let me know your thoughts!