Prompt: I don't know if you've ever written something like this, if not, I'd like to prompt it. Haymitch and Effie are constantly having sex but she tries to stop it because she's getting attached. And he tries to change her mind. I don't know what she'd tell him or not but he definitely doesn't want to stop having sex with her for whatever reasons. Please write it.
Today
Effie's breath caught in her throat when she felt the mattress dipping behind her but she closed her eyes tighter and lied very still. She felt his warmth before he even touched her and she automatically relaxed into it.
She hated this place.
Thirteen was always freezing cold.
And she craved his warmth.
He slipped under the covers, his arm immediately sneaked around her waist, he nuzzled her shirt down her shoulder with his nose to press a kiss against her skin. The beard itched.
"I know you're awake."
His voice was gruff and she sighed, rolling back against his chest. His arms tightened briefly around her before his hand slipped under her shirt. Purposeful. Then again, these sort of meetings in the dead of night were always purposeful.
She figured it had been a long time coming. They had danced on that thin line in the sand for thirteen years. Between desire and disgust, they had never crossed it. Until he had her kidnapped and brought to this hell of a District. Until she had screamed at him for making decisions for her and he had replied he wasn't about to leave her behind to get killed. Until she had pushed him and he had tugged and they had collapsed against the wall, kissing and tearing at each other's clothes, lost in a haze of terror, worry and lust.
It was just sex.
That had been made clear the very first time.
It was just sex.
Except it wasn't.
Not for her.
How could it be?
On a lot of accounts, he was her best friend although friend had never been the right label for their relationship. He was the one she trusted above anyone else.
It wasn't just his body, she craved. She wanted it all. And it scared her. Because she knew he didn't.
"It's the middle of the night." she argued weakly as his shaky fingers popped open the buttons of her shirt.
"Just got out of Command. Coin's a bitch. I swear this woman…" he growled.
He was angry and frustrated, then, and eager to take everything out on her – not that he would hurt her, she knew that was a line he would never ever cross. She was the best replacement he had found to liquor. A derivative. An escape.
She looked away, closing her eyes when his hand roamed on her chest, rough but efficient. Her body was responding but her mind was elsewhere and it wasn't long before he stopped touching her.
"What's wrong?" he frowned.
"I am tired." she whispered.
"Tired but not sleepy." he pointed out, placing his hand flat on her stomach – neutral ground, she figured. "You don't want this?"
It was the good thing with Haymitch. If she said no, he would stop. He wouldn't insist, he wouldn't try to guilt trip her into spreading her legs. He would leave her alone and probably not make her feel like she was being a bad… whatever she was for refusing to have sex with him.
He waited for her answer, his frown deepening faced with her silence. She didn't know how to answer it. It was a loaded question. Did she want this? Yes. Was it wise to want it? No. Every time it was becoming harder to watch him leave her bed when they were done like she meant nothing more than a path to a brief moment of oblivion.
"I don't know." she answered truthfully, forgetting to put up a bright cheerful front for a moment.
He hesitated a second and took his hand away, propping himself on his elbow to study her more closely in the surrounding darkness. The light from the corridor barely filtered through the living area window, she hadn't bothered shutting the curtains. In this compartment she felt like a goldfish or a poor animal trapped on the wrong side of a zoo glass. People could pass and see everything she was doing. She didn't understand the appeal of even putting windows there in the first place.
She sat against the wall, wrapping her shirt close over her chest, her head bowed because of the low ceiling over the bunk bed – something else she hated in this District. There wasn't a lot of space, her shins were pressed against his stomach, her feet tucked under his torso.
"Effie… You're okay?" he asked carefully.
"Of course." she replied, aiming for joyful and sounding awfully flat. She winced at her own tone. "I simply think perhaps we should stop."
"Stop." he repeated just as flatly.
"Yes." she nodded. "Stop."
"Didn't take you long to get tired of me, sweetheart." he spat. "Then again, you Capitols are used to…"
"It is not that." she cut him off firmly, how rude as it was. "You know it is not that."
It would have been easier to lie, easier to say she had indeed grown bored with him but it would hurt their friendship in the long run, it would affect their work and they couldn't afford that, not when Katniss needed them together. It would have been easy too to pretend it was about the girl, about not jeopardizing the only mentoring figures she had. She didn't go there. She was tired of lying. She wasn't sure she could lie as well as she used to without her war paint on her face.
"I don't get it." he scoffed.
She licked her lips and hugged her legs closer to her chest, hating to look so vulnerable. She never dropped her weapons. She never dropped the mask. But Haymitch… Haymitch had a gift for seeing behind it.
"You will have no trouble finding someone else." She tried to keep her voice light and she failed. "All those women eyeing you in the dining hall… Why, Haymitch, you can pick and choose."
He sat up too, cupping her cheek in his hand. She leaned in the caress despite her best intentions, her eyelids fluttering shut.
"You're jealous?" he asked, sounding uncertain, grumpy and a bit pleased all at once. "That's what it's about?" His hand slid to her neck and coiled around her nape, guiding her into a kiss that left her breathless. She wanted to resist, to tell him again that they should stop, but her body was treacherous and when he nudged her, she lied back down without thinking twice about it. His kisses were hard and his hand roamed on her side, slipping under her shirt again. He buried his face in her neck, nipping at the soft skin under her jaw, his hot breath rolling on her skin… "I want you."
She shivered, tangled her fingers in his hair and drew him up for another kiss. She wanted him. There was no doubt in her mind that she wanted him but a part of her was still wary and she was holding back.
The kiss slowed down and died pitifully and he propped himself on his elbows to look down at her, a new frown on his face.
"Okay, what's up." he demanded more than he requested. "You're weird."
"Don't make fun of me." she pleaded.
He snorted. "See, when you start like that I already know I'm going to laugh my ass off."
"Language." she chided him.
"Spill, sweetheart." He rolled his eyes. "There's only so long I can bear the awkward."
She pursed her lips, a little annoyed by how lightly he was taking it. It always infuriated her when he laughed at her. And it would kill her if he made fun of her for this.
"You mean more to me than just sex." she confessed through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, and?" he prompted after a few seconds of silence.
It was her turn to frown. "And nothing. You mean more to me than just sex."
He leaned his weight on his left elbow to rub his face. "I'm lost."
"I… This is just about sex to you." she clarified. "And…"
"You believe that?" he interrupted her, so quietly she knew she had made a mistake somewhere down the line. It was his dangerous voice, the one that usually meant they were about to have a very long and very loud argument. "'Cause if you do you're fucking stupid. You think I brought you here just so I could screw you? You think I saved you just 'cause I fancied a fuck doll?"
The questions didn't seem rhetoric so she cleared her throat, a little embarrassed. "Of course not. But…"
"You're smarter than this." he cut her off again. "Use your brain."
He pushed himself off her and rolled out of bed, grabbing his boots on his way to the door but not bothering to put them on.
"Haymitch." she called out, scrambling to get out of bed without breaking something – she hated those bunk beds.
"What?" he snapped, turning around.
She paused halfway to him and planted her hands on her hips, irritated. "Don't be angry at me. You have no right to be angry at me. I never know where I stand with you. You are extremely off-putting. If anyone should be angry at anyone else, it should be me."
His eyes darted to her still open shirt and she figured her speech would have been more powerful if her nipples hadn't been poking out. She stood her ground, refusing to be embarrassed. There was no use being embarrassed when he was licking his lips and there was a telling bulge in his pants.
"Why do you always have to make everything complicated?" he grumbled. "We're having fun. You're having fun, right? Not a lot of fun to be had right now. We should take it where we can. We'll figure out the rest later."
"Later I will be too far gone." she hissed. "I need to think about myself now."
"When do you not think about yourself?" he mocked.
She refused to take the bait. "I do not enjoy heartbreak."
"Fine." he retorted, dropping his boots and kicking them in the corner. "Want the truth? I don't know if there'll be a bloody later. Later, we could be dead. I don't know when later will be. Tomorrow or in ten years. I don't know. It's war, Effie. There's only today."
"Well, it is too bad because today I am falling in love with you." she replied harshly. Too harshly.
He looked like a deer caught in headlights for a second and she waited for him to run without looking back.
They stared at each other for the longest time.
Eventually, he licked his lips and forced himself to relax.
"Today, I'm trying to pretend it doesn't scare the shit out of me." he said quietly.
The tension slowly left her shoulders.
"I can live with that." she declared and because he still looked slightly peeved, she offered him an out. "Let's go back to bed."
"You're sure?" he asked.
"I am always sure, Haymitch." she lied.
She simply hoped she wouldn't regret it later.