Prompt: I guess you've seen this post about Effie and the dress she wears at the wedding. The one she has already been sewing in MJ1. Could you write something about it? That she spends many hours of work on the dress and Haymitch being annoyed by it and then he finally sees her in the dress? Merci.

It took me foooorever to write this. Sorry… I hope you like it anyway =)

Fashion Saves The Day

Haymitch was pacing around his assigned bunk beds, annoyed at not being allowed in Special Defense – not that he would have been a great help there. He hated the feeling of being trapped underground just as much as he hated the huge crowd around him, talking, crying and calling for help. The lights kept flickering which added to the surrounding chaos and didn't contribute to make people feel safer.

It had been a whole hour since the last bomb had hit Thirteen but he didn't think it was over yet. It was probably just a short reprieve. A way to lull them into a false sense of safety before crushing them under Snow's boot.

He wondered how Katniss and Finnick were doing. They were in another bunker, unreachable for now.

"Could you stop walking in circles?" Effie sighed. "You are making me dizzy."

He would have paced back and forth if there had been room or if they had been allowed away from their assigned beds but since neither was possible he was turning around their beds – a bed she had stolen from Plutarch despite the clear command to remain where they were supposed to be but, then again, the Gamemaker was in Special Defense and would probably not be back any time soon.

"What are you even doing?" he snapped. He wasn't surprised she had had the foresight of grabbing her belongings before heading down – that was Effie Trinket for you: always prepared – most people had done the same and they had been right to do so. He figured most of the living quarters would be gone by the time this was over. He didn't have much stuff he cared about and he always carried everything with him, safely in his pockets. "So what? If you're gonna die, you're gonna die in style?"

She looked up from the mass of pink taffeta on her knees to glare at him before sliding the needle in the fabric once more with an assurance he somehow hadn't expected from her. He hadn't known she could sew – which on retrospect was stupid, of course she could sew.

He vaguely recognized the dress as the one she had been wearing when she had arrived mainly because the color was the same. The design was all different now. Every time he saw her with it, the whole dress looked different. She was either picking the thread out to use it again or sewing or biting her lip while creasing the fabric just right…

"That would be a commendable sentiment if the dress was finished." she commented. "But as you can see, it is not."

She was calm and collected, more calm and collected than he had expected her to be in these circumstances, focused on her task.

He picked up the shimmering fabric and dropped on the bed next to her, watching her for a moment.

"The light's bad. You're going to hurt your eyes." he grumbled.

The light kept going on and off and she paused every time the bunker became dark only to start again when the neon lights flared up.

"It keeps me calm." she confessed. "Trust me, you do not want me to become hysterical."

He rolled his eyes, his lips twitching in amusement and fondness. "Fashion saves the day."

"Precisely." she chuckled. "Fashion saves the day."