A/N: All right, my lovelies, this chapter is chock full of information and people not handling their unresolved trauma with much grace. (I'm not saying it's Haymitch, but it's definitely Haymitch.) Now that we are fully into the events of Catching Fire, things are going to start changing. Time jumps won't be as significant, and we'll be seeing Haymitch react to things in real time, to develop his character and give him a chance to show his reasoning for certain events. Thanks again for reading!
When he comes to in the morning, he hears a lot of movement. The vermin around the house get bold when he sleeps, but this sounds like two-legged vermin. He grips his knife to assure himself it's in his hand. If the Peacekeepers are here to arrest him, he'll make sure they kill him.
He sits up and blinks. His dining area is very fuzzy. He doesn't see any Peacekeeper uniforms. A dark braid. Then a resounding crash, terrible in his aching head, so awful he closes his eyes to block out the sound.
"There, it's done." That's Peeta speaking. Haymitch doesn't give a shit what's done, he just wants them both to leave.
"What's done?" asks Katniss. Was her voice always so loud?
Peeta responds, "I've poured all the liquor down the drain."
Oh, he better have heard him wrong.
"You what?"
Katniss and Peeta talk, but Haymitch isn't listening. He'll go to Ripper straight away. Then he hears how Peeta took care of that.
The boy has no right, no right. Does he think he's helping? How can Haymitch do anything if he's in withdrawal? He thinks of those awful nights when Ripper had nothing, the shakes, the hallucinations.
Terror seizes him and he must make it stop. He grabs the knife, swings at Peeta and somehow misses.
Katniss promises to buy him liquor and he actually feels affection for her until Peeta makes him miserable again by threatening to turn them into the Peacekeepers. He means it.
Peeta starts making some speech and Haymitch wishes he would stop. His head hurts and his belly is already griping. When Peeta leaves, he slams the door, and Haymitch wants to try and stab him all over again.
It becomes apparent that Peeta is going to train them. Haymitch gets two bottles out of his emergency stash, but doesn't risk pulling the whole crate out, lest Peeta plans another sweep. He understands where the boy is coming from, and only drinks when the shakes start.
He has a miserable headache for a week anyway, and can't eat anything.
Maybe it's this that causes Peeta to take it easy on them the first few days. They eat a lot of hot bread and goat cheese and watch the Games of living victors Effie sends.
He watches Beetee take out six tributes with an electric trap. They replay that one a lot, it's a favorite in the Capitol. They watch Enobaria rip out her competitors' throats. He remembers her laugh, a great laugh, but he's rarely heard it except when one of her tributes makes a kill. It would be great to have her on their side, just to be sure he won't have to watch her rip out Katniss or Peeta's throat on live television.
He can't watch Finnick's Games again, or Annie's. Mags's Games come as a bit of a surprise. She won the 11 th Hunger Games. There are no pods, no mutts, but there are a wealth of weapons at the Cornucopia, and no food. Mags survives the rest with her skill with the trident when she must, and the food she catches from the ocean. Most of the tributes starve or dehydrate. It's hardly the most exciting Games, but it does bring home to Haymitch how old she is. He thinks of how she's been staying in the Viewing Room even after her tributes die, and finally understands why. After 60 years, she was mentoring the mentors. Helping them cope with the deaths of their charges with her presence, the only thing she can give them now that her words have been taken from her.
During his weekly phone call with Effie, she cries the whole time. He wants to tell her about the rebellion, and realizes he needs to talk to Plutarch about saving her, too. She's too close to 12. But he has little comfort to give her over a bugged phone, and she is eventually overcome by sobbing and hangs up.
Peeta starts them exercising. He tries to learn to fight again, but his body is too torn up. They even spend a day in the woods with that self-righteous friend of Katniss's. Haymitch has the most fun he's had in days calling him Bale, Dale, and Kale, until Peeta punches him hard in the ribs.
It's almost a relief when Reaping Day rolls around. The sun is baking. He is running low on his stash. His hands are shaking and his eyes are so dry his eyelids feel like sandpaper.
Effie looks very pretty with her gold wig.
When she saw him in the Justice Building, she had pushed him into a broom closet.
"Don't say anything," she breathed, then stood on tip-toe and kissed him deeply. He was afraid of Peacekeepers seeing her lipstick on his face, but Effie had licked her thumb and wiped it off before repairing her makeup. They had gone on stage like nothing had happened.
She is having trouble drawing Katniss' name. Haymitch hasn't been this sober for a reaping in 20 years or more. He feels every eye of District 12 on him. Are they pitying him? The first mentor ever to bring home two tributes, and the first to watch his victors die in the arena. Maybe they're angry. Thought he had brought this on somehow. He spots Madge, one among hundreds, and has to close his eyes to block out the picture of Maysilee drowning in her own blood.
Effie finally grasps Katniss' slip and reads it aloud. She gives him a terrified look, certain he will volunteer for Peeta if his name is called first. For a second, in spite of the rebellion, he wants Peeta's name called. He wants it to be over. The waiting for death, the pain of losing everyone he has ever cared about, again, and again.
"And the male tribute from District 12 is," she breathes a sigh of relief and Haymitch feels his stomach plummet, "Haymitch Abernathy."
"I volunteer," says Peeta.
Haymitch looks at Katniss and sees his sadness reflected in her eyes. He looks away before she can see he's hiding something. Seconds later, the Peacekeepers are frog marching each of them to the train. Effie doesn't protest, she just looks scared. Katniss is yelling that she gets to say goodbye.
On the train during dinner, Effie talks about jewelry, and Haymitch dwells with a terrible sadness on who he would see on the screen tonight, till Peeta says, "How about it, Haymitch?"
He looks up at Peeta.
"Yeah, whatever," he says, looking away. How many hours left, how many minutes?
"Maybe we could get you a wig, too," says Katniss.
Haymitch isn't sure how they get from jewelry to wigs, and isn't sure why Katniss and Peeta are teasing him tonight. No one says his name again through dessert, and then it's time to see who else got reaped.
They move to the sitting area and Effie turns on the screen before settling next to him. He digs his nails into his palms, hides his hands in his trouser pockets.
Cashmere, Gloss, Enobaria, Brutus, his heart is pounding so fast. Wiress and Beetee. The whole rebellion depends on enough of their people getting into the arena to protect these two. Most of the people he loves are going to die, and die soon. He needs to accept that right now.
He's glad he's so tense he can't move. What sound would escape him if he could move a single muscle?
Mags, who volunteers for Annie.
And Finnick Odair, from District 4.
Coil and Anode, Brin and Kayrree. They had disappeared down a different bottle, the Capitol never let them mentor. Too "grotesque" for Capitol citizenry to look at. Johanna and Blight, Cecilia, Woof, Dyco, Flax, Bevelry, Skivver, Seeder. No, not Seeder. Not Seeder. And Chaff. Chaff at least will be okay. He's been trying to die a long time.
And their own reaping.
He gets up and leaves.
So now he knows.
He gets to his compartment and sits on his bed. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and painfully uncurls his fingers. He stares at the blood on his hands.
After an indeterminable amount of time, he gets up and walks to the bathroom, runs the cold water tap in the sink. Washes his hands and gently pats them dry.
He decides to have a quick meeting with Katniss and Peeta to talk about what they should expect, and is unsurprised to see they're watching a Game. He is surprised to see it's his own. He reacts too quickly for immediate understanding and probes his own feelings while watches himself get reaped 25 years ago.
He decides he's not angry. Just shocked.
Because he was the victor, the Games that ended up sold as tapes people could watch at home have him as the focus. He watches Maysilee die. Then he watches his trick with the forcefield, wondering if he would do it differently, knowing what comes next to that dying teenaged boy.
He's behind Peeta and Katniss and they have been too wrapped up in his Games to sense him.
Peeta says, "That forcefield at the bottom of the cliff, it was like the one on the roof of the Training Center. The one that throws you back if you try to jump off and commit suicide. Haymitch found a way to turn it into a weapon."
Katniss is leaning forward, elbows on knees and says, excited by figuring it all out with every word, "Not just against the other tributes, but against the Capitol, too. You know they didn't expect that to happen. It wasn't meant to be part of the arena. They never planned on anyone using it as a weapon. It made them look stupid that he figured it out. I bet they had a good time trying to spin that one. Bet that's why I don't remember seeing it on television. It's almost as bad as us and the berries!"
Then, unbelievably, she laughs. She'll see how fucking funny it is when the Capitol kills her mother, Prim, and Gale. Has she forgotten they're being watched on this train?
He steps fully into the room and says, "Almost, but not quite." Then he turns around, and walks back to his room.