Prompt: Haymitch comes back drunk one night. And while Effie is helping him. He hits her. Doesn't remember. She says nothing. And then he remembers later
Help & Pink Band-Aids
The penthouse was dark when she came back and that, in her experience, was never a good thing. It wasn't late enough that Haymitch would have gone to bed yet and even if he hadn't been around, Avoxes would have switched the lights on for their eventual return. A dark penthouse meant Haymitch had fallen asleep before it had grown dark or, more likely, that he was passed out drunk somewhere.
With a long suffering sigh, Effie dropped her purse on the small table in the hallway and made her way to the living-room, wondering if other escorts had such terrible difficulties with their victors. She had been working for Twelve for three years now and it wasn't getting any better. Or easier.
Unsurprisingly, when she switched on the lights there was a low grunt of pain coming from somewhere at the other end of the room. It didn't take her long to find Haymitch. He was huddled in a corner, an empty bottle had rolled away from him and there was a half-empty one clutched against his chest. His eyes were glassy and unseeing, he didn't seem to be able to keep his head properly up and he smelt foul. There were dark stains on his shirt and pants.
She suspected he had been sick at some point but she would leave that for the Avoxes to find and clean out.
She let out another sigh. "What have you done to yourself now, Haymitch?"
His eyes tracked her every move when she carefully gathered the silk of her dress and crouched in front of him. She placed a hand on his knee, not entirely surprised when his leg jerked under her touch.
"It is me. Only me." she said quietly, gently. She had learned the hard way a spooked Haymitch was difficult to deal with. A wasted one now… A wasted one wasn't the worst. He would be a dead weight and it would be difficult to drag him to his bedroom but if he was wasted enough he became cuddly and starved for human touch. He might hate her when he was sober but when he was that drunk he didn't mind her presence so much. "You know who I am, don't you?"
He slurred something that might have passed for her name so she smiled her brightest dazzling smile.
"Exactly." she grinned. "Now, you cannot be comfortable on that cold hard floor… How about we get you to bed?"
He blinked and then shook his head, looking wary.
She pursed her lips. "Come on, Haymitch, do not be difficult. I cannot leave you here."
She could have, actually. Nowhere in her contract was it stipulated she had to take care of him when he got himself wasted. But decency and her education prevented her from simply not caring when someone was in dire need of help.
"Don't want them to get me…" he mumbled and it took her several seconds to figure out what he had said at all because his speech was slurred and his accent thick.
"Who?" she frowned, glancing over her shoulder, aware there wouldn't be anyone standing there. He was drunk and hallucinating and she was ridiculous for playing along.
"Ghosts." His hand darted without much coordination but with enough strength to startle her when it closed on her wrist. "Don't let the ghosts get me, Trinket. Don't…"
"They won't get you." she promised, covering his hand with her free one. "I promise you."
That, she could understand. She had ghosts of her own.
The tributes… She had taken to taking sleeping pills to get entire nights of sleep without nightmares. Guilt was a pesky thing.
"Let's get you up." she decided.
She tried to haul him up but he was uncooperative and he soon grew agitated. He kept mumbling about ghosts and monsters hiding in the dark until he was shouting. He was genuinely scared and that, perhaps, was more terrifying than anything she had ever witnessed because a sober Haymitch Abernathy… a sober Haymitch Abernathy never got scared. In three years she had yet to see him so much as startle. But when he was drunk… Sometimes, when she let herself think about what could have happened to make him end up like this, she felt like crying.
She should have stopped, of course. In insight, she realized it would have been the wisest course of action: stop fighting to get him to his feet and coax him into it instead. But she was tired and she had drunk a few cocktails more than she should have and thus she kept struggling.
And he managed to shrug her off.
The fact that he hadn't actually gotten free sooner suggested he had been trying not to hurt her and she understood that. She understood that as soon as she was sent flying backwards. For a second, she almost gained back her balance before anything bad happened. Then her right heel twisted under her and she was falling again. Right against the edge of a nearby console.
She sat up, stunned, surrounded by a broken vase, water, and flowers…
Her forehead stung and she pressed her hand there. Her fingers came away bloody.
"No…" Haymitch breathed out and, suddenly, he was right there, kneeling in front of her, one hand cradling her cheek and the other probing at the wound on her head. "No, no, no…"
He looked so distraught…
"It is alright…" she found herself saying because she wasn't that hurt.
"Didn't mean to. Didn't mean to." he kept slurring.
"I know." she admitted. She wasn't even angry. It had been a stupid accident and mostly her fault. She knew better than upsetting him when he was in that kind of state. The same way she should never shake him awake when he had a nightmare, she shouldn't try to impose something to his drunk self. "It is alright, Haymitch. I am fine."
She was engulfed in a suffocating hug.
"Sorry." he murmured against her green wig. "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."
She embraced him back. He was trembling now and she was worried he would be sick soon. She knew the signs.
"Let's get you to bed, yes?" she suggested, combing his tangled hair with her fingers a few times. It badly needed to be washed and trimmed but the last time she had remarked on it he had glared at her.
He was sheepish, ashamed and reluctant to let go of her so, all in all, this time, it far easier to convince him to get up.
It was still a long way to his bedroom.
As she had thought, he started heaving before long but they managed to reach his bathroom. She used his first aid kit while he was being sick, cleaning the cut on her forehead. All the blood made her a little shaky but it wasn't deep and it wasn't serious enough that she even considered a trip to the Games Clinic downstairs. She applied a band-aid and resolved herself to a quiet day at the penthouse the next day – and until the scratch had closed enough that she could apply make-up on it.
By the time she was done, Haymitch had stopped retching and was staring at her from the floor, looking so pathetic she could do nothing else but sigh, grab a cloth and wash him up a little.
It wasn't the first time she helped him undress and, if experience proved right, it wouldn't be the last. She kept her eyes averted once he was in his underwear and she wasn't satisfied until he was properly tucked in his bed.
"Stay?" he requested once his head hit the pillow. His eyelids were already drooping but he had a firm hold on her wrist so she sat on the edge of the mattress and placed a hand on his chest.
"Until you fall asleep." she promised, also used to that aspect of things.
He was snoring less than five minutes later.
She snatched his shirt on her way out because she had put blood on it and if he woke up to that he would freak out. And blame himself. And that was the last thing she wanted.
He emerged around lunch time the next day. She was already sitting at the dinner table when he stumbled in, clad in a silky blue dressing gown that didn't hide much because it wasn't properly knotted shut.
"Hello, Haymitch." she greeted brightly, knowing her cheerfulness would annoy him. She did like annoying him.
"Morning." he grumbled, dropping on his usual chair to her left. "Coffee?"
"It is midday, you realize. Not an appropriate time for coffee." she mocked but gestured at the nearby Avox to bring him a pot. She had made sure it was ready, naturally. She knew his habits, after all.
She kept eating her lunch, berating him for his disastrous manners when he stabbed a piece of duck with his fork directly from the main dish and sniffed it before dropping it back in there with a wince. Apparently, his stomach wasn't up for duck yet.
But it clearly didn't mind the pastries the Avoxes brought for dessert if the way he munched on a chocolate éclair was any indication.
It was only once the second cup of coffee was gone that he took his first good look at her, she thought. Despite the fact she had been maintaining a polite one-sided conversation all meal long. His eyes immediately zeroed on the pink band-aid on her forehead and something flashed on his face.
"The fuck happened?" he asked, dropping the pastry to reach out for her face.
She forced herself to stay still when he brushed the tips of his chocolate stained fingers against the band-aid.
"I tripped." she dismissed with a careless twist of her wrist. "I am afraid I did break a vase but we are not mentioning that to any Gamemaker. And if they do ask, we will tell them was you. It appears we beak too many things in the penthouse, if you can believe that. I have been reminded teams should not get their floor redecorated every year. How ridiculous. They should redo the floors every year, don't you think? How about fashion! What are we supposed to…"
"You tripped how?" he frowned, cutting her off.
"I was a little tipsy, my heel twisted." she sighed, faking irritation. "Laugh away."
He seemed unsure for a second and then he shrugged and smirked. "Those shoes will be the death of you. Been telling you for years."
"Ruffian." she huffed and then switched the topic altogether by regaling him with the latest gossip about Three's escort he couldn't care less about – which he explicitly stated five times.
They didn't often spend the day in the penthouse. At least, not together. When Effie stuck indoors, it was usually to work on sponsor files but with their tributes dead… She had no real intention of watching the Games so the TV remained on mute most of the day and she walked around, straightening a painting, checking the flowers arrangements in the dining-room, perfecting her manicure…
Haymitch seemed content to sit on the couch and read one of his books but she was bored out of her mind.
She was standing in front of the mirror in the living-room, inspecting the scratch under the band-aid and wondering if it was safe enough to put make-up on it without risking infection now so she could go to a party when she felt his eyes on her. She hastily put the band-aid back on. She supposed she looked a little ridiculous. She had applied make-up on her face but had left a wide area free around the wound.
"What is it?" she challenged, ready to tell him off for mocking her.
"You didn't really trip, yeah?" he asked, his tone less confrontational than usual. "Not alone anyway…"
There was so much bitterness and self-loathing in his voice that she sighed and turned around, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Haymitch…"
"Did I hit you?" he spat, making a face.
"You did not hit me." she countered, shocked he would even ask. Had he frightened her sometimes when he grew mad? Yes. But never had she actually thought he would raise his hand on her. Never. He had better control on himself than he gave himself credit for. "I tried to force you up and you were trying not to hurt me. I did trip. This was my own fault."
"Shouldn't be helping me. Told you before." he sneered. "Ain't your job and we ain't friends. You owe me nothing."
"Oh, so you would let me pass out in the living-room if I was drunk out of my mind, would you?" she retorted.
"Yeah." He shrugged.
She lifted an eyebrow in challenge and he rolled his eyes.
Three years earlier he might have but now… Now they had come to an understanding of sort. They had learned how to work together. Of course, that usually meant she did all the work but… They had good days sometimes.
Asking her not to help him when he was drunk wasn't something she was comfortable with. It was a moot point by now.
"Just be careful." he demanded with a sigh before going back to reading his book.
"Am I not always?" she hummed.
He didn't look away from his page but the snort said it all.