Hey! If you're still taking prompts,,, can u do one where Effie gets/already has/needs glasses but she doesn't want to wear them or smth so she's squinting around but then haymitch is like wtf wear them and then he thinks she looks hot in them and sexy time ensues?

AND

Hayffie prompt? Effie wears glasses but is really insecure about them bc of her mom or something and Haymitch sees her w/out makeup wearing them...? And reassures her she's always been beautiful or something like that maybe pre mj idk it's up to you THANK YOU

The Pink Glasses

Haymitch startled awake with a strangled cry, heart pounding inside his chest, eyes searching the room for the nightmarish monsters that lurked in his dreams. It had been the pink flamingos mutts that night. And Maysilee, of course. Always Maysilee.

It took him a few minutes to make out the familiar outlines of the furniture. It was a moonless night and not much light was spilling from the windows. With a sigh, he slumped back against his pillow and rubbed his face. He waited for the unease to pass but it didn't, not even after a few gulps of moonshine. Not that surprising really.

At long last he gave up and got out of bed. It was only a little past one in the morning and he sensed it would be one of those nights were only a good dose of liquor would convince him to go back to sleep.

He tried to avoid getting wasted lately though, ever since Effie had showed up at his door. She had nightmares and he had taken to comforting her from them - or he tried to, at least.

He would get a book. Or watch something completely stupid on TV. Maybe that would do the trick. He had half a mind to take a leaf out of Effie's book and spend the night cleaning the house just to have something physical to do.

He tried to avoid the creaking floorboards but paused at the top of the stairs when he chanced a glance at the guest room. He could see the soft glow of the bedside lamp slipping through the half-opened door.

She always kept the lights on at night, she couldn't sleep without them – unless she crawled in his bed, she had no trouble sleeping in the semi-darkness then. He always woke up when she did that. He didn't always let her know but he always woke up. And then, when he fell back asleep, he always slept better. Because there was nothing more peaceful to him than having her within reach. Sometimes, they ended up cuddling and that was even better, the source of warmth at his side, the smell of her perfume… It was usually enough to make him feel safe.

He rubbed his eyes again, really not in the mood to spend half the night trying to run away from the ghosts lurking in the shadows. He wanted to sleep, in truth. He was exhausted.

And he couldn't afford liquor but maybe…

His feet took her to her room before he could talk himself out of it.

He pushed her door completely open with some hesitation, relaxing a little when he found her in bed, a book propped on her bend knees and ridiculously pink glasses perched on her nose. He wouldn't have climbed in her bed uninvited – his was always open to her but the reverse… he wouldn't take that for granted.

She snatched the glasses off her nose and frowned a little at him. "Is something wrong?"

He made a face, shuffled his weight from one bare foot to the next and then stepped in, vaguely gesturing to the bed. "You mind if…"

He let his sentence trail off on purpose.

She studied him. He kept his gaze resolutely away from hers but he knew she could see everything on his face anyway. The tightness at the corner of his mouth, the reddish eyes, the shaking hands… She had known him too long not to know the signs.

"Of course not." she smiled, lifting the blankets in invitation and moving closer to her side of the bed. He climbed in without needing to be told twice, curled up on his side to watch her, leaving enough space between them that she wouldn't feel crowded. "Do you want to talk about it?" He snorted because it was a stupid question and she rolled her eyes. "Well, it was only polite to ask."

"Won't stay long." he promised, wary of forcing his presence on her.

He wasn't certain where they were at.

She lived in his house – as temporarily as she claimed that arrangement was – she sought him for comfort but their friendship was on rocky ground since the war. And the part of their acquaintance that wasn't friendship… Well… That part seemed to have been lost somewhere. Not for him. That was the irony. He had reached Thirteen and suddenly everything had been very, very clear. What he felt for her, how much he needed her… So obviously fate being the bitch it was, he had lost her to the Capitol. And he had gotten her back…

He had thought they might be alright at first. The first few weeks after her rescue… She had clung to him, had dismissed his apologies and explanations because she couldn't deal with them, had refused to stop and think about what had happened because she needed him to go on. They had fallen back in bed, albeit hesitantly on her part, a few times but he had known something was wrong even then. The change had been gradual but he had seen it coming. When he had announced he needed to leave with Katniss…

He had never meant for that to mean they couldn't be together but she had exploded in a rage of accusations. She had claimed he had only used her for sex – from the start – that he always left her behind, that he didn't care… He had refuted everything and had asked her to come with them but she had been hysterical in her mistrust and there had been no convincing her. He hadn't had much time to do so either. With only an hour to spare, he had been forced to leave her to collect Katniss, very much hammering the nail in the coffin of their relationship.

He had honestly been surprised when she had showed up in Twelve, even more stunned when she had quietly – and discreetly – asked him if he could host her for a little while until she found a new place, a job and some stability. He had opened his house, of course, and his arms with it.

At no point had they discussed what had happened on the day of his departure for Twelve. They acted as if they never had a relationship that was more than friendship. It wasn't mentioned, it wasn't hinted at and there was no clue that she wanted him to bring it up so he tried to respect her wishes.

"It is alright." she hummed, looking back at her book. "You can stay the night if you want. I invade your bedroom often enough. Turnabout is fair play."

Turnabout is fair play…

How many times had that sentence been used in a different context?

He chased memories of her delicate hands gripping his wrists out of his mind. Sneaking in her bed because he had a nightmare was bad enough, getting a boner once there because of a stupid phrase would be pathetic.

He didn't acknowledge that offer even if he relaxed a little against the pillow. He couldn't see what she was reading. She wasn't usually a great reader, the only novels he had seen her read were romance stuff he certainly didn't have on his shelves. She hadn't gone out in weeks and he was pretty sure she didn't have books in her suitcase – she hadn't brought much in her suitcase but secondhand clothes that were too thin for Twelve and all the mementos she had managed to save from her apartment both after it was ransacked and after it was seized by the government.

He couldn't see the cover and the few words he caught on the page didn't tell him much. It was vaguely familiar but it didn't ring any bell. It was a paperback though so maybe she had found something she had liked on his bookshelf. He had a good collection of cheap Capitol novels he had picked up over the years. Crime novels and thrillers, mainly. Not quite her thing, though.

His gaze traveled from the page to her face and he smirked when he saw her squinting a little.

"Those glasses might work better on your nose." he teased, tapping the fist in which the glasses were trapped.

She made a face. "They are just for comfort. I don't need them."

"Light isn't good for reading." he pointed out.

She pursed her lips and turned the page a little too abruptly. "I am perfectly fine."

She clearly wasn't but he wasn't sure he wanted to press that particular button.

Fashion was for natural looks thanks to the Districts' influence, she claimed. And he knew perfectly well just how ill-at-ease she was about that. She never wore wigs anymore, kept her make-up light… She didn't have the kind of money needed to afford a couture wardrobe… She was self-conscious about the scars on her body… He had never known her to be insecure before the war, not when she had still be in full battle armor, except when he had asked her to take the make-up and the wig off… It had taken him a long time to convince her to let him see her bare and natural, even longer to convince her he actually liked her better like that. She had eventually grown comfortable with being without artifices around him, simply happy that he liked what he saw, but she had never learned to see herself like he saw her.

So now, walking around with blond hair she judged too plain and not enough make-up to hide the flaws she always found on her face… She never hinted at not being at ease with that but he saw it.

"I've seen them before." he shrugged, taking pain to keep his voice casual. "It's no big deal."

But for her it would be.

He wasn't even sure how she could have hidden the glasses as long as she had. He had only found out during the Tour because he had walked in her room late one night without knocking first to find her crossed-legged on the bed, hair pinned up in a messy bun, glasses on top of her nose and looking completely dead on her feet. They had both been dead on their feet back then. They had spent half their nights on that Tour perfecting speeches and going over schedules to the point they hadn't seen straight – and to the point she hadn't really cared about her looks because they had been too focused on making sure the kids cut it.

"Nothing is ever a big deal for you." she grumbled.

Again, he thought it would be wiser to let the matter drop entirely. But he had never been very good at letting things drop.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he retorted, probably too defensively.

She shot him a glare, opening her mouth only to close it again, take a deep breath and focus on her book again. "Nothing."

"Oh, come on…" he scoffed. "Don't do the passive aggressive bullshit. You've got something to say, fucking say it. Never stopped yourself before."

She pursed her lips in clear annoyance but when she talked, her tone was clipped and calm. "It was before."

His irritation faded. He slowly reached out across the space between them again, lightly stroking her forearm with a finger. She didn't shrug him off and he counted that as a win but she didn't give any clue that it was welcome either so he folded his finger, letting his hand rest there on the bed, not too far from her wrist. "Maybe we should talk about before, Effie."

"About which part specifically?" she chuckled bitterly. "The Games? Prison? Those are not periods of my life I care to revisit."

"Us." he said.

How such a small word could sound so ominous, he didn't know. He was reminded of the terrifying noise of the bombs raining down on them in Thirteen. How a sound could be so terrible…

"Was there ever an us to talk about?" she scowled and then shook her head. "I do not know what you want me to say, Haymitch. We never had anything. We had sex. We had…"

"It was more than that." he spat, propping himself on his elbow just so they were at the same height. He didn't want to have this conversation with her towering over him. "You know it was more than that. Not at first, yeah… But, come on, sweetheart… Maybe I was a stubborn blind idiot but you never were."

She sighed and let her book fall close on her finger, staring at the round light the lamp projected on the ceiling. "I cannot afford for us to fight and for you to kick me out…"

"I would never…" he protested.

"…or for me to feel that I should leave because I am not saying what you want to hear." she finished without even pausing to acknowledge he had opened his mouth. "I have nowhere else to go."

"You're home here." he frowned. "Look, I'm a grown man, I can take a no and not be an ass about it."

She studied him for a few seconds, looking thoughtful. "A no to what question? Are you asking for sex?"

"No." he snapped. "I'm asking for… I'm asking if…" He stopped, cringed at his own inability to word that stuff and eventually flopped down on his back and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, wondering why he had even gotten out of bed at all. He should simply have remained there with his moonshine and… "Guess I'm asking if there's any hope you're ever going to forgive me."

"For what?" she asked.

He chuckled bitterly. "Ain't gonna make this easy for me, are you?"

"Not in the least." she confirmed.

There was a hint of teasing in her voice and he dropped his hands to look at her again. And she was so beautiful… Reddish blond hair falling on to a little below her chin in wild curls, sparkling blue eyes, lips that begged to be kissed…

"Letting you down." he said at last. "I'm sorry for letting you down. I never meant for you to get hurt. Never."

"I know." she hummed, averting her eyes. "I had a few… chats with Plutarch. What happened to me… You were not responsible for it. I understand that and I do not blame you."

"I should have grabbed you and kept you with me." he growled, old regrets railing their ugly heads. "Shouldn't have trusted anyone else to do my job."

"Protecting me wasn't your job, Haymitch. Your job was to protect the children. My job was to protect all of you." she corrected.

"A man protects his family." he countered. That was how he had been raised. That was what he had sworn to himself after his father had walked out on them. "A man protects his…" Words failed him. He wasn't sure which one was the right one. Lover would have been too dismissive. Girlfriend was ridiculous. Wife was too much and as inaccurate as it got. Partner was too vague. In the end he swallowed hard and shook his head. "You're my family and I shouldn't have trusted anyone else to protect you."

"You thought it was safer that way." she pointed out. "And from what Plutarch told me, you did not have much choice anyway. He was the one calling the shots."

He suspected Plutarch had tried to direct her anger on himself to spare him but he didn't want to live in a lie. "I had weight. I could have insisted. I let them convince me that the hovercraft could be shot out of the sky at any point and that you would be safer with the prep team."

"Was it true?" she asked, sounding curious.

"If it had worked out, then yeah." he admitted. "But it didn't and…"

"I do not blame you for that." she cut him off.

"But you blame me for something else." he sighed, rubbing his face. "For leaving with Katniss…"

"Not really." she admitted quietly. "I was angry about you leaving me, yes, but I knew you had to. I just… I did not want to be left alone."

"You could have come." he said. "I told you… I wanted you to come."

"I did." she pointed out.

"Yeah, after a whole year of silence and because you had no more money and no roof over your head." he scoffed and immediately regretted it when she flinched. He grabbed her wrist before she could even think about doing something as stupid as fleeing. "I'm glad you're here. I'm…" He sighed. "I ain't good at this, sweetheart, you know I ain't."

"I wanted you to put me first." she whispered, her eyes riveted to the hand encasing her wrist. "It is stupid, of course, because even then I knew the children had to come first, I would not have wanted it any other way either, but… For once, I wanted to be the most important thing for you. It was utterly selfish, naturally, but as you so often pointed out, I am very selfish. I just wanted someone to put me first."

He closed his eyes, squeezing her wrist by reflex. "Katniss…"

"I know, Haymitch." she sighed. "I know. They are your children and I come after them and it is as it should be but… It is hard to never be enough."

"They're your kids too." he argued. "And you're enough. You've always been more than fucking enough. You're… You're so far out my league, it's a joke."

She rolled her eyes. "And yet you prefer a ghost to me."

His heart missed a beat at the barely veiled reference to Mabel. He hadn't spared a thought for his dead girl in a very long time. Not like she was implying at least.

"Effie…" he frowned.

But she gently freed herself from his grip and he fell silent, watching as she placed the glasses back on her nose. She didn't open the book again though.

"It hurts not to be loved as much as you love someone." she whispered. "I should be used to it, I know, but… I do not think I ever loved anyone as much as I have loved you. I do not think you ever realized how much I…" She laughed and it was all wrong. Sad and bitter. "I would have left the Capitol if you had asked. If it had been possible for me to give up my citizenship and go with you to Twelve, I would have. I knew you would never consent to live in the city with me so I would have left it behind for you. I would have become a nobody for you. I would have… I would have killed for you. I would have done anything to please you. I have loved you that badly. Blindly. Completely. I would have died for you and I almost did in those cells. Out of loyalty. Out of… I refused to hate you. They were harsher on me because I refused to hate you." She sighed. "I hate myself for giving you that much power over me. I was a fool. I am a fool. My mother was right all along and that vexes me perhaps even more than you not loving me enough."

It was a lot to take in and Haymitch clenched his jaw, torn between getting angry and defensive and just being sad over the whole mess.

"You don't know what it is to lose people you love." he stated quietly.

"I lost my family and all my friends to this war." she spat. "I lost my parents, my sister, my nephews… I lost Finnick. I lost…"

She fell silent, took a deep breath and breathed out slowly.

He took advantage of that, staring at the wall straight ahead, regretting having even started that conversation in the first place. "You weren't sixteen and they're not dead because of you. Ain't saying it's not hard, sweetheart, just… It's different. Loving someone… For me it was a death sentence. You know that. They would have used you against me and then… Then what?" He shook his head. "You're angry 'cause I made you a fool? Sweetheart, how many times did I make myself a fool for you?"

"I do not see…" she started.

He scoffed, cutting her off. "I've been the butt of the joke ever since we slept together the first time, Effie. Chaff and Finnick… Everyone else… They kept teasing and I kept denying and I was always the butt of the joke 'cause they knew how I felt and it was funny to them 'cause it was just ridiculous. Victor and escort… Not exactly the stuff of fairy tales."

"We were not the first." she pointed out.

"Sure, we weren't. We weren't the only ones." he shrugged. "Ain't the point, is it? Point is… It was easier to make it a joke 'cause it was too dangerous. I couldn't fucking bear a guy simply flirting with you, I almost killed a hundred of them just for putting their paws on you at those parties…" He shook his head. "I spent entire winters obsessing over you, what you were doing, with who… You're worse than booze sometimes… I crave you like… You're like a buzz under my skin. And, yeah, I didn't want it at the time 'cause feeling that much…" He licked his lips. "Losing you… See, I told myself again and again I hated you even when I knew better deep down and it wasn't even enough to stop me from… I lost everyone once and it fucking destroyed me. If I had let them know… If I had let myself know… I couldn't risk that. I couldn't risk losing you. So I'm fucking sorry I don't know how to make pretty speeches, can't even tell you how much I… Got no excuse, really, but I can promise one thing. It wasn't about unrequited feelings. Never wasabout unrequited feelings."

There was a very long silence.

Then fingers brushed his closed fist, stroke his skin until it unclenched and her palm could slid against his.

"We are toxic for each other." she said slowly. "There is too much passion between us. All we do is hurt each other."

"That's a lie." he scowled. "At first maybe but now… I need you. You need me." At least, he hoped so. "We help each other. We're a team. We're still a team, yeah?"

"Always." she promised with a soft smile.

She played with his fingers and he let her, bracing himself for the next part.

"You used past tense." he commented after a couple of minutes. She had said she had loved him and that…

"I have spent a long time trying to convince myself my feelings for you are past tense." she admitted. "But…" She sighed and placed the book on the bedside table to slid further down the bed, taking off her pink glasses to toy with them. She twirled them by one of the branches. "You never treated me like Capitol men did. That was what made it impossible for me to let you go. You saw me, the real me, and you wanted me anyway. Plain and common Effie"

He snorted and rolled on his side to steal the glasses from her hand. "I've never seen you looking plain."

A spark of amusement danced in her eyes. "I love that you think I am not plain without my make-up and my wigs. And I love that you think I am not ugly with those glasses."

"I'm liking the present tense." he smirked, gently pushing the glasses back on her nose. "Though, I don't think, I'm just stating a fact. You're gorgeous. Anyone who looks at you can see that."

She leaned in and his smirk softened. He strained his neck to meet her lips halfway, thirsty for them like he had never been thirsty for anything else. It was a tame kiss, a bit hesitant maybe. And the glasses were squashed between them, which made them both chuckle like idiots.

"Alright, maybe they're better off when we do that…" he commented, drawing back just enough to slip them off and toss them on the bedside table. Just in time for her to bundle his shirt in her fist and tug him in a kiss that was a lot less tame.

Well…

If he had known talking about glasses would solve so many unvoiced problems he would have tried it a long time ago.