Prompt: OMG your soulmate fic was so fanatastic and now I saw this post ith the tattoo thing on your blog and now I really want to beg you to write something with Hayffie about it. Please consider it at least. It could be magic.

This ask refers to a post going around on tumblr with this idea. It's not mine by any means.

Love Marks

Everyone was born with a mark on their ankle, a mark just as unique as your fingerprint. When you fell in love with someone – truly fell in love – their mark appeared somewhere on your body. More than one marriage had been destroyed by the wrong mark appearing in the wrong place. Some people were covered in marks, some had none except for their own.

There were no rules.

No one knew how it worked exactly.

One day, their mark was there somewhere and you knew for sure you were in love.

Effie Trinket had five marks on her body, not counting hers, which was well in the average amount.

The first one had appeared on her shoulder when she was ten. Darius had been twelve and it had broken her heart when he had rushed to her sister one day to show her Lyssa's mark on his inner wrist.

The second one dated back from her fifteenth year and was right over her hip. She had waited and waited but her own mark had never appeared on her boyfriend's body.

The third one had showed up in the crook of her elbow when she was seventeen. Her career had just exploded, Stelan had been nineteen and a photographer for Capitol Couture. He had been younger than the dirty men who had preyed on her and older enough that the age difference had been appealing. He hadn't been the first one to bear her mark – she had broken quite a few hearts – but he had been the first to bear her mark when she had had his. It hadn't stopped him from cheating on her left and right.

The fourth mark, the one on her calf, belonged to a stylist she had shared a brief but sulfurous affair with.

The fifth one was right under the swell of her breast and belonged to a rich sponsor who would have married her if she had let him.

Haymitch Abernathy's mark looked like a constellation of stars and she had often ran her fingers on it, wondering how it would look like on her pale creamy skin. He only had a single other mark on him. Right over his heart. That one too she had often touched, clawed at and even bit. She never let herself linger too much on the reasons of her destructive urges.

Neither of them expected anything from the other. Their arrangement was sexual only and it suited Effie perfectly.

She wasn't in love with Haymitch, in fact, she hated him, loathed him even. All the more so when he did something as stupid as spilling his glass on her on purpose so she would have to go back up to the penthouse to change. It was an idiotic excuse to follow her and tear her dress off her and she ranted and ranted while he did just that, wondering why she let him do as he pleased with her body when he was so infuriating.

She remembered exactly why when he pinned her to her bedroom door, ripped her panties off, dropped to his knees in front of her and tossed one of her legs over his shoulder. He held her by the ankle, trailing his mouth up her calf, up her inner thigh and she closed her eyes, anticipating the…

"What the fuck…" he spat.

Her leg was yanked up and she squeaked, reaching for his shoulder to keep her balance. Grey eyes studied her most private parts and then glared up at her.

"You had to." he chuckled bitterly. "You fucking had to."

He let go of her leg and hauled himself to his feet without glancing once in her direction.

"What has gotten into you?" she asked, reaching for his wrist to hold him back.

He shrugged her grip off and stormed out, leaving her to shiver in the cold air. It took a mirror and a lot of twisting to find out what had him in such a frenzy. His mark was branded high on her inner thigh, almost completely hidden. It was as improper as it got.

When had it appeared? It had been a year since he had gone down on her, longer since another man had touched her… How was she supposed to have known when it had decided to appear in such a secretive place? She wasn't exactly used to look down there with mirrors.

It took her days to convince him it was a mistake, that she didn't feel anything for him aside for lust and that, obviously, something hadn't worked properly.

He didn't believe her.

She didn't either.

They both pretended otherwise.

When the war started, he still had only one mark on his body even though she had stopped kidding herself into thinking she simply hated him. She knew it was a lie and he did too.

When she was captured, she spent her days daydreaming that the first thing he would show her when they were finally reunited would be her brand on his skin.

Nothing had changed when she was rescued from prison.

She told him it didn't matter.

Again they both pretended they believed her.

She failed to convince herself it wasn't killing her.

°O°O°O°

Having to look at the mark on his chest every morning was torture. Haymitch had learned to avoid mirrors when he could help it.

And yet that morning, he found himself facing the mirror in his bathroom in Twelve, his hands shaking with annoyance as he spread shaving cream on his head. His hair was too long, too tangled and he didn't want to bear the hassle of going to the hairdresser. Effie would probably rage when she would come back to Twelve but, then again, by the time she came back it would probably have grown again.

She came and went as she pleased, sometimes there were only a few weeks between two visits and sometimes months trickled by. She claimed she came for the children but she always stayed with him and they always ended up in bed. Their dynamics had changed slightly now, it was less passionate and more… domestic.

She always left before things settled down too much. Sometimes he wanted to ask her to stay. For good. To move to Twelve and just… stay. But he never dared. She always said it didn't matter but he knew the absence of a mark on his body was holding her back.

He didn't understand why there was no mark. He knew what he felt. He had come to terms with it in Thirteen. It still made him uneasy but he knew. It was not logical.

His eyes fell on the mark on his chest and he wondered if his girl's death had broken him so badly he couldn't love properly anymore – not with the depth required to get someone's mark anyway. He chased the thought from his mind and went on with his project.

He regretted it when his head was shaved halfway. He wasn't a vain man but he could tell it would make him look old. Again, he knew Effie wouldn't like that. And again, he told himself he didn't care. This was a practical move not… anything to please her.

The kids' faces when they saw him were precious.

Katniss' eyes widened and then she burst out laughing, holding her stomach. Peeta gaped.

"What in Panem did you do?" the boy asked.

"Time for a change." he shrugged. Katniss got over it quickly enough but Peeta kept staring. He couldn't take anymore and growled a "What?"

"Nothing." the boy winced, clearing his throat. "I just didn't know you had a mark there that's all. I guess I was wondering…"

He frowned. "What are you on about?"

"The mark…" Peeta hesitated. "You've got one at the back of your head."

"You're kidding me." he scoffed.

"No, he's right." Katniss cut in. "Looks a bit like a flower."

"Find me a mirror." he snapped.

It took some maneuvering to get a look at it but there was no mistaking it. It looked like a flower indeed. It was Effie's mark.

Effie's mark that had been hidden under his thick hair for who knew how long.

If the kids were surprised by his sudden departure for the Capitol, they didn't say anything to him. He didn't really care anyway.

He could have called her, he mused, but… it was something that needed to be showed.

He spent the whole train ride wondering if marks appeared in random places or if it was specific. His was so high on her inner thigh it was almost completely hidden and now hers… Were the marks hidden because they had kept their relationship secret for so long? Because they had denied it to everyone and to themselves?

There was an advantage to this new hairstyle – or lack of – nobody recognized him and he was free to roam the Capitol without anyone stopping him.

It was nearing midnight when he hammered on her door and it was a few minutes before he heard her move inside.

"Who's there?" she asked.

"It's me." he answered, impatiently knocking another time. "Open the fucking door."

"Haymitch?" His name was followed by the sound of the numerous bolts being turned and then the door opened and her worried frown turned into a gasp. "What in Panem did you do to your hair?"

He rolled his eyes. She and Peeta were too much alike.

He pushed past her and shut the door behind him, grabbing her hand and dragging her to her living-room.

"What…" she started only to fall silent when he turned and let her see. He didn't say a word. Her breath caught in her throat. Her fingers brushed against the skin of his skull and it felt weird. He wasn't used to the bald thing yet. "How long…"

"I don't know." he shrugged. "Years probably."

"Haymitch…" she whispered. "Haymitch, this means…"

"Yeah." he cut her off, not ready to hear the words or even to utter them. That was the purpose of the mark, he didn't need to.

"Still?" she insisted. "Because… It might have happened at some point but it doesn't mean it is still…"

"Of course, still." he scoffed. "Why? Mine's out of date?"

"I… No!" she retorted. "Of course not! You know, I…"

He turned around and kissed the words from her mouth.

It was the easiest thing he had ever done.