A prep team has been waiting for him at the Justice Building. Haymitch supposes Effie is sufficiently prepped. She has pink hair this year, or has bought a pink wig. For about the hundredth time he wonders what color her real hair is, what she looks like under those ridiculous dresses she wears.
Haymitch drinks a little wine while they wait on clean clothes from the Mayor's house. Mayor Undersee. Maysilee's brother-in-law, not that she ever got to meet him. Never got to be a sister-in-law. Or an aunt. He saw that girl, Maysilee's niece, from time to time. She looked just like her aunt. Sometimes, he saw her throat open, bright red blood spurting out, heard her gurgles and choking and felt her bloody hand in his. Then he would blink, and it was like Maysilee's ghost was watching him so, so strangely, until she would walk away, and the hallucination, delusion, whatever-it-was, would fade, and he would be 40, not 16, standing in the market square, not surrounded by ghosts, but alone. All alone.
They hurriedly dress him when the clothes arrive.
"The cameras are on, it's time!" hisses one of the prep team. He tries to button his shirt and has his hands swatted away, so he drinks another deep drink from the wine bottle. Then they're practically shoving him up the steps and outside, onto the stage.
Hey! He's not alone! There's Effie! She's so pink and cute, like a little cake. He loves cake!
"Effie!" he yells, and stumbles across the stage toward her. Her pale eyebrows raise themselves in alarm, and she tries to step away from him, but he catches her and holds her. He takes a good whiff to smell her hair, and moves his nose down to her soft, warm shoulder. "Effie," he whispers into the crook between neck and shoulder.
She pushes him away and he goes back to his seat. He's so tired all of a sudden.
He opens his eyes and he's in a car with Effie.
"Who'd we get?" he asks. "Tell me we got a merchant kid this year."
"We did," says Effie. Her wig is askew, her arms and legs crossed tight as a vault door. "We also had a volunteer."
"What?"
She looks at him and smiles, relaxing just a fraction. "Yes. After you humiliated me in front of half of Panem," she unrelaxed for a second, tensing even tighter than before, and Haymitch tries to remember what he did. The reaping is already so fuzzy, he knows he'll have no recollection of it by tonight. Effie continues, "A 12-year-old girl was called and her sister, a Katniss Everdeen, volunteered."
"And how old is Katniss Everdeen? Thirteen?"
"Sixteen."
They arrive at the train. Haymitch hops on board and heads straight to the drinks cart.
He's poured himself a full glass of whiskey when he notices the merchant kid. Blonde. A little stocky. Not a bad-looking kid. He can maybe pull a sponsor or two, make it to the final eight and break his heart by being brutally murdered by one of the Career Tributes.
"Congratulations, tribute," he says, raising his glass to him. The boy looks at him, surprised. "I'm taking a nap." He leaves the room for his sleeping car, bouncing a little off the walls of the narrow hallway. Are they moving already?
A scream. "Haymitch!" He's running across the flat, open turf, into the jungle. All of a sudden, it's night, and he's in the Seam.
"Haymitch!"
"Terra!" he shouts, the word tearing his throat in its escape velocity.
He runs down the street, smelling what he can't see: death. But when he turns the corner, he sees. One house is gone, only burning because every bit of debris is covered in coal dust. The two next to it have caught the blaze, and people are pouring out of the burning buildings, even though there's no visible means of escape. Fifty, a hundred people come out. There goes his mother, Mayor Undersee, Effie, Johanna Mason, even his grandmother, who died when he was seven, and he remembers more as a smell and a feeling, than actual fact. As she runs past, he catches her scent: coal dust and age. But no Maysilee. No Terra.
Someone grabs him. He has a knife in his hand. He slashes wildly. "No!"
He's on the train. They're definitely moving. It's late.
His stomach growls. The stupid thing hasn't eaten since about this time last night. He tucks the knife into its sheath at his hip, lowers his shirt to conceal it, and leaves the room.
He sees Effie and the future dead ones at the table, which is covered in food. His stomach starts growling again.
"I miss dinner?"
Why are they all staring? His stomach growls. Uh-oh. It's not a hungry growl.
He pukes on the floor. He tries to walk forward, apologize, explain himself. Then he slips and falls in his own vomit. He hears Effie's voice, hears her stomp off.
The kids help him stand up and somehow shuffle him down the train.
They maneuver him into the bathroom, and gently set him in the tub. He might have fallen asleep, but when he wakes up, the girl dead one is gone. He falls asleep again. When he comes to, he feels that someone is gently removing his clothes.
"Terra?"
He falls asleep.
Peeta has pulled off all of Haymitch's clothes, unsure what to do with the foul bundle. He leaves it on the floor in a corner. He has the shower water running at a comfortable temperature, and Haymitch Abernathy's head positioned carefully out of the spray. He lets the water do a lot of the work before doing any scrubbing.
Haymitch Abernathy. Victor from 12. He would love to ask him some questions, get some tips. Have a mentor. Instead, he's washing vomit off the one man who knows what he's about to go through, what it's like to grow up and become a tribute from 12. For a second, anger at this man, someone who could be a help, overwhelms him. Maybe he should reposition his head under the spray and let him drown. Let him slip out of this miserable life.
But then he looks, really looks at him.
He's got that look, bags under his eyes that never disappear, strangely placed bruises from recent falls, and other mysterious injuries, it's that look of someone trying to find a way to leave early. He might have survived the arena, but his body says what he can't. There was no victory for Haymitch.
Pity wells up now, instead of anger. There's still vomit caught in his hair, in the darker, thicker hair on his chest, and who knows where else. He starts scrubbing, and while he scrubs, he thinks about winners and losers, the Games, and how a life can be considered good, even if it's short.
He gets all the vomit off and turns off the water. He wakes up his mentor enough to get him out of the tub. He's still half-carrying him, but there's not far to go in this compartment. He gets Haymitch to the bed and practically falls on top of him when Haymitch gets his feet caught in the blanket on the floor and trips.
"Maybe tomorrow you can make an effort to stay upright," he says, trying to push himself to standing, now that he's successfully got him on the mattress. Haymitch is making it difficult. He has wrapped his arms around Peeta's shoulders and drawn him down, so he's got his head on Haymitch's chest.
"When'd you get here, sweetheart?"
He's really struggling now, Haymitch is a lot stronger than he looks.
"I've been here the whole time, and I'd like to leave." Haymitch just rolls over, pulling Peeta with him into the covers. Now he's lying across Haymitch. He struggles a little longer and Haymitch finally releases him and his grip on consciousness. Peeta leaves, wondering who Haymitch thought he was. "When'd you get here, sweetheart?"
Haymitch wakes up from a good dream, for a change. He wants to sink back into it. All he can remember is sea-green silk sheets and strong, grasping hands.
He sits up, registers his raging hard-on with little interest, and it slowly subsides. He gets dressed, takes some painkillers left on his dresser, and washes it down with some whiskey left from last night.
He opens his compartment door right into someone on the other side.
"Haymitch! Oh, look what you've done!"
He has to clear the door and close it before he can see what he's done, which is apparently knock Effie's wig off. A dead, pink animal-looking thing is on the floor. He doesn't try to analyze his disappointment that Effie apparently wears a cap of some kind under her wigs, and over her real hair, which means he still doesn't know what color her hair is.
"Sorry, sweetheart," he says, picking up her wig and handing it to her.
She looks him in the eye as she snatches her wig back. It's hard to tell under all that makeup she wears, but he's pretty sure she's attempting to scowl. "Why thank you, sweetheart," she says between clenched teeth, and pushes past him to get to her room and re-pin her hair. He takes a second to watch her go. She's not his favorite person in the world, but he sure likes to watch her leave a room.
When he makes it to the dining car, he sees the boy dead one tucking in to a huge breakfast.
"What happened to Effie?" asks the boy, his words muffled by the entire roll slathered in butter he had stuffed in his mouth.
"I accidentally knocked that thing off her head."
The dead one laughs. "Careful, that might be her brain."
Haymitch laughs. It's been a long time since that happened. He spots his favorite - cranberry juice - and pours in a healthy dollop of vodka.
The girl dead one comes in. Haymitch largely ignores the exchange they're having over the food, while he looks them over and drinks his drink.
The boy he doesn't know. Probably seen him around, but he's not the younger brother of any recent dead ones, or a nephew of an older dead one.
The girl he recognizes, but can't immediately place from where. She's pretty, in a severe way, like a teacher with an unexpectedly great laugh. Definitely Seam, but Haymitch was in the Victor's Village before she was even born. Then it hits him. The Hob. So, she's got guts. Not too many reaped kids trade in the Hob.
Over the next few minutes, the two of them prove they have some moxie. They actually seem mad at him. All the other dead ones just ignored him, and tried to eat as much as possible before spending most of the night puking at the same time he did, until they got used to the rich food.
He gets up, looks them over, gives his verdict. At least they look (relatively) well fed. They look to be in good shape, too.
He gives them some advice, wondering if they'll actually listen, and then they pull into the station.