Prompt: Could you write about the first time they kiss after the rebellion in book canon? I imagine it to be a kiss of forgiveness but it's up to you. Thank you!

Something Real

Being in Twelve was odd.

She still wasn't sure what she was doing there or if it was, at all, a good idea. She still wasn't sure she had been right to follow the impulse to jump on a train to the other side of the country. She just knew she couldn't stay in the Capitol anymore. The Capitol would suffocate her before long.

She was curled up on the window seat in the living-room, breathing in the heavy smell of dust that clung to every part of Haymitch's house and particularly to the seats and curtains, and lost her gaze to the street outside.

It was so different from what she was used to.

No ballets of cars, no honking and no people hurrying past either to go shopping or to rush to work. Neighbors wandered out sometimes, greeted each other with a smile or a wave of their hands before continuing on their way, not as much in a hurry as people were in the city. It was calm. Peaceful.

Was it what she had been looking for by coming there? Peace? Quiet?

It made her stomach churn with anxiety. Nothing was happening outside, nothing was happening inside… The house was silent. So very silent. It was a cotton wool kind of silence, a silence that sucked the sounds out of the air, that sucked the very air from your lungs… It was the same kind of silence as in her cell and she found herself gulping a deep breath that reeked of dust.

She was hitching to switch the TV or the radio on, to turn the volume up until she could pretend she wasn't alone anymore but she didn't dare. She had been there for two days, she had barely finished unpacking… She was too aware she was imposing on Haymitch. He hadn't protested when she had showed up on his doorstep unannounced with a small suitcase, he had simply stepped aside and let her in. He had frowned when she had automatically headed to the guestroom, telling her quietly that he could clear some space in his room for her stuff. If she wanted him to. There had been a choice to be made there and she had chosen in a heartbeat, without even thinking about it.

It didn't make anything less awkward.

They had both stared in embarrassed confusion at the wardrobe neatly divided between the few dresses she had brought and his clothes. She felt as if they were spiraling into something they weren't ready for. Her creams, hairbrush and make up products had found their place on the dressing table he had dragged for her from another room. Her toothbrush and toothpaste was on the sink next to his. Her shampoo was abandoned on the side of the bathtub, her soap was in his shower…

The first night had been weird.

They had gone to bed at the same time, exchanging awkward looks and smiles, embarrassed like they had never been in each other's presence before. He hadn't tried anything, she hadn't either. They had lied down and stared at the ceiling. Words had kept swirling in her mind because she knew – and had known at the time – they needed to talk. About what they were doing. About what it meant. About what had happened to her…

She had fallen asleep eventually only to wake up in a silent gasp a few hours later. The room had been dark and his side of the bed empty. She hadn't gone looking, knowing from past experiences he was probably drinking in the living-room or in the kitchen, pumping himself with liquor until he felt ready to face the ghosts haunting his dreams. She had switched on the lamp on the nightstand and had curled up on herself, breathing in his smell on the pillow case and drawing comfort from it.

The second night she hadn't wanted to pretend they were normal people.

He had made a half-hearted suggestion at going to bed at some point but it had gone unanswered. He had kept reading his book, she had kept pretending to study glossy pictures on a fashion magazine. At some point she had ended with her head cushioned on his lap, curled up to fit on the couch, staring at the dresses without seeing them. The tentative fingers he had ran through her hair had lulled her to sleep.

Waking up from a nightmare always felt like being brutally shoved into a pond of icy water. She had been sitting when she came to, her body having reacted quicker than her mind, silently gasping for breath, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Silent, silent, silent, not to disturb the guards…

Haymitch had watched her with knowing eyes, slowly extending a hand to her. She had curled up back against him but hadn't managed to fall back asleep. He had. And it had been his turn to have a nightmare.

As a dog trotted past the house in the street, she wondered if that was what they were sentenced to now. Taking turns sleeping, taking turns watching over each other's dreams…

A door banged somewhere in the house and she startled, her fingers closing around the sleeves of the navy blue woolen jacket she had borrowed from his drawer. His footsteps were heavy and she knew it was him, intimately acquainted as she was with the rhythm and weight of his steps, but it didn't stop her heart from pounding in her chest or intrusive memories from popping up until the room warped into another. Grey stones replaced the light brown paint, a stench of rot replaced the smell of dust, the walls closed in on her…

It faded before he actually came into the room and she blinked her cell away, focusing back on the street instead, on the stretch of pale blue sky and on the pale sun poking out from behind the clouds, on the dry grass growing out of hand in the front yard. Outside. A simple concept she had been deprived of for too long. She would have opened the window, cold be damned, if she hadn't been so sure it was stuck closed by too many years of grime.

She was hitching to do some cleaning but she didn't quite know where she stood yet and her manners forbade her from implying his house was a mess.

"Here you are." he grumbled, standing awkwardly on the threshold, burying his hands in his pockets like he always did when he was ill-at-ease. "Been looking all over the place for you." He couldn't have been looking very hard, she thought, because she had been sitting there all morning. Then again, she had become very good at being invisible. "Was thinking… Sae opened this place in town… It's not fancy or anything… Nothing like you're used to… But… Maybe we could go eat there tonight."

It took her a few seconds and some more blinking to realize he was asking her out.

Haymitch Abernathy was asking her out.

And it didn't fill her with the girlish joy she had always thought she would feel.

"It doesn't have to be like this." she answered slowly.

He grew defensive. She knew his hands were clenched into fists in his pockets. She knew he had probably spent hours agonizing over the decision to do anything so sentimental as asking her on a date and he now felt rejected by her words. She knew.

"Like what?" he spat.

"Tentative." she said, just as calmly as before. "We do not have to… Tip-toe around each other. You do not have to ask me out just because you think it is what I want. You hate this sort of things."

"But you like them." he pointed out.

"When did you ever go out of your way to please me?" she smiled sadly. "That is not our way, Haymitch. We do not date, you do not buy me flowers, we do not hold hands over a dinner table, we do not whisper sweet nothings to each other… That is not how we work."

He seemed to relax a little when he realized she wasn't actually saying no. He took a few steps inside the room, perching himself on the armrest of the couch.

"How do we work now, Princess?" he asked. Her smile warmed at the old nickname he hadn't uttered in entirely too long, but he didn't see it because he was looking down. "Last time we talked… After the war…"

"I was angry after the war, Haymitch." she cut him off. "I was angry and lost and I wanted… I needed space."

She had blown hot and cold at him, seeking him one day to push him away the next. He had taken it all because he had felt guilty and it had infuriated her even more. They hadn't parted on the best terms.

"And now?" he prompted.

"Now…" she hesitated, slowly unfolding herself from the window seat. There was a gap between them. A gap that would probably be more difficult to cross in the long run than the few steps it took her to join him. "Now, I am not quite sure what I need but I do believe it includes you." She stood between his legs, placing her hands on his shoulders and forcing herself not to startle when his palms found their way to the back of her thighs, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles over her pink leggings. She could feel the warmth of them through the light cotton. "But you should know I am not… This won't be easy. I am not quite…"

"When had anything been easy, sweetheart?" he cut her off with a snort. "I'm not scared of that. I'm not exactly a catch myself."

"Truer words have never been spoken." she joked, forcing her voice to sound light despite the lump in her throat. "Tell me… Do you have to actually try to make your house look so messy or is it a natural gift?"

"At fucking last." he chuckled. "I've been waiting for you to talk shit about the place for days. I'm impressed it took you so long, sweetheart. Kept expecting you to shove a broom in my hand."

"Well… Some cleaning wouldn't be amiss if I am to stay here." she replied.

His eyebrows furrowed together a little and his fingers briefly dug in the back of her thighs. "What do you mean if?"

"I didn't exactly give you a choice in the matter." She gave him a small shrug. "I came without warning and…"

"You can stay." he interrupted her. "Not even a question."

She smiled, feeling something finally settling in her stomach. She moved her hands from his shoulders to his hair, gently pushing it back. His grey eyes never left her when she leaned in and brushed her lips against his. It wasn't much of a kiss, it was tentative and unsure like they had never been. She pressed her mouth more firmly against his and he drew her closer, immediately responding to her kiss.

"I want to try." she whispered. "I want to try for something real."

And there was nothing more real than the shape of his mouth and the warmth of his touch.