HaDS-prompt: so after Haymitch's games his family was killed though not his girl. but he still keeps her at arms length 'cause he doesn't want to get her killed, too. cue in Effie becoming his new escort and him slowly falling for him and emotional chaos should be right at the door. - 13Fische
Love & Lust
It would be easier if Mabel had died with his family.
This is the thing Haymitch often thinks but never says out loud because the guilt of that thought echoing in his head is already enough to make him choke.
When he comes back to Twelve after his Games, it is to find his mother and his brother in a grave, a new house that feels far too huge for his lonesome self and a girl with dark hair and grey eyes who tosses herself in his arms and never wants to let go. He clings back because it's all he can do. Mabel is all he has left, the only person on this planet he can still love.
The whole thing still feels off.
Mabel either acts as if nothing has changed or as if he is made of glass, there is no in-between, and he doesn't know how to deal with that. Everything has changed. His skin feels tight on his bones, his stomach hurts sometimes where the axe caught him and he feels like he's in the wrong body. He doesn't feel like his old self. He feels as if he outgrew his flesh. He's suffocating.
And that's without mentioning the nightmares, the kids he killed who sometimes lurk at the edge of his line of sight and Maysilee whose ghost he sees every time he meets her twin sister.
The only time Mabel ventures to mention his Games, he flies in such a rage that she runs away. She always comes back though. He's a broken man on a lot of accounts and, because he is a broken man, she treats him like he is about to shatter in a million pieces.
Something feels off. So very off.
He knows she's waiting for him to ask her to marry him, knows it's always been the plan if he managed to come back, knows her father is on a warpath because of the time it takes him to pop out the question. He has a ring. One he purchased in the city before leaving, one that rests in a drawer in his new study along with the gifts he picked for his mother and his brother. He knows he should ask.
He can't.
He tells himself it's because they're still young. Sixteen is too young to get married, his mother always said. He tells himself it's because of that.
It turns out he's good at lying to himself.
Still, they end up in his bed one afternoon.
It feels inevitable. The kisses growing more and more heated, hands wandering everywhere, curiosity… When he was in the arena, he remembers wondering how many other tributes would die a virgin. He remembers thinking he'd have liked to know what sex felt like.
Now he knows. He's not sure he's impressed. He doesn't last very long and while it feels very good on the moment, it leaves him feeling even more hollow than before. He doesn't think Mabel enjoyed it. He doesn't blame her.
Like everything else, it feels off.
"Are you happy?" she asks, snuggling against his side, a smile on her lips.
He combs his fingers in her hair and he doesn't answer.
Later, when they're in the kitchen and she's making tea and stealing glances and shy smiles at him, all he can think about is that he never pulled out. "We shouldn't do it again. Ain't safe. What if you get pregnant?"
She frowns and he can practically see the happy glow around her dimming. "We have the means to have children now. Once we're married…"
"I don't want kids." he cuts her off. "Ever."
Kids die.
Like his brother. Like the ones he slaughtered. Like the ones who would come next Reaping and he is pretty sure he won't be able to save.
They have a terrible argument about it. They talked about children before – of course they did, they also talked about getting married one day – and they never said they wouldn't have them. Haymitch always was reluctant but he also knew that without means of preventing a pregnancy, children are pretty much a given to any marriage in Twelve.
But now… Now he can buy or order condoms in the city. Now he doesn't have to risk it.
Mabel leaves in tears, slamming the door behind her.
He gets into a terrible rage and thrashes the whole house.
When she comes back the next day, they don't talk about any of it. The sex. The kids. It's left in the locked box of things they don't discuss along with the marriage proposal and the Games. She helps him put everything back in place and they go on like they used to.
Pretending everything is alright.
When it's time for the Tour, he is almost relieved to see his old unbearable escort, to escape the pretence if only for a short while, even if it means being exposed in front of cameras again. He's even happier to see Chaff Mitchell volunteered to play mentor for him during the Tour and will come along for the ride.
He likes Eleven's victor. Chaff understands when he finally confesses about the nightmares and the flashbacks and the shaking he doesn't seem to be able to break out of. Chaff doesn't mock him or look at him with the worried face Mabel always uses when she finds him hiding curled up in a dark corner. Chaff gives him advices and breathing techniques and plants a glass of something strong in his hand.
Once they reach the city, Chaff also tells him the truth of what happens behind closed doors in the Capitol.
It's the whole bottle they drink that night.
Haymitch can tell Eleven's victor hates it, hates having to be the one to spell it out for him, hates having to be the one to point him in the sponsor's direction, hates having to be the one to give him condoms and sex pointers that might have been welcomed in other circumstances. Haymitch understands it's not Chaff's fault, that he is only the messenger. He can't help but hate him a little anyway.
Sleeping with that older woman disgusts him in ways he didn't know he could be disgusted. It feels like a betrayal to Mabel even though she is the very reason he accepts to play along. He remembers the grave his mother and brother are buried in. He doesn't want to see another fresh grave next to theirs.
After that first sponsor, there is another one. And another one. And another one. And then he loses count.
He stays in the Capitol for a month. In that time, the Quell victor gains a reputation for being a lady's man.
Ladies aren't the only ones who end up in his bed but he doesn't want to think about the men. It's worse in a way. With them, he really can't pretend.
The rumors reach Twelve, of course. And when he finally makes his triumphant return, Mabel is nowhere to be seen. Not at the train station. Not at the Banquet. Not at his house.
He should have felt gutted.
All he feels is relief.
Before he leaves for Eleven, Chaff clasps both his shoulders and meets his eyes straight. "Stay alive, kid."
Haymitch doesn't think he would know how not to anyway.
Every part of him wants to die.
He's too much of a survivor to allow it.
He doesn't go out of his way to search for her but he is not surprised when Mabel shows up at his house a few days later.
"My father doesn't want me coming here anymore." she announces. It's a bit ridiculous and they both know it because Mabel has never let anything stop her in her life and certainly not her father's decree. The man is too soft and too kind for her to be afraid of him.
"Okay." He shrugs.
"Okay? Okay?" she hisses. "That's all you've got to say? You're not even gonna try to… What the fuck, Haymitch?"
"What else do you want me to say?" he retorts.
It feels like a very bad play.
He wants to tug her closer, to hug her and confess everything and sob until he finally feels clean inside.
He needs her to leave because as long as she is close to him, they will threaten her to make him do those things. And she will be in danger.
Mabel's chin juts higher, her lips wobbling a little but her eyes dry. "Are we getting married?"
"No." he says honestly.
If a girlfriend is such a liability, he doesn't want to imagine what the Capitol could do to him with a wife. Or a child. No. No, he isn't getting married and, no, he isn't having children.
"So what?" she insists. "We're done?" Her eyes are hard and there is a mean bitter twist at the corner of her mouth. "You went to the city, you've met all those women and now I'm not good enough for you?"
"Yeah." he answers and the word tastes bad, like the blood that filled his mouth and threatened to choke him when Naya almost gutted him.
There is a lot of sobbing, more shouting and a slamming door that feels far too symbolic.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
He wants to shout the words after her. He wants to cradle her close and never let go. He wants to tell her they should leave, take off into the woods and try their luck far away from wrinkled hands that touch him in places he doesn't want to be touched and from Peacekeepers who would hurt her to get to him.
He can't.
He's so numb.
Everything feels numb.
He should have known, of course, that breaking up with her wouldn't be enough.
Chaff flashes him a pitying smile when he tells him at the Parade – his first Parade as a mentor – months later.
It doesn't stop the vultures.
He's told in no uncertain terms by a Gamemaker whose name he can't even place that it would be a shame if anything happened to that lovely girl of his. Mabel is still of Reaping age. And there are plenty of accidents to be had in the Seam anyway.
So he does what he is told like a good puppet.
He does what he is told for twelve years and he almost doesn't notice when the requests for the pleasure of his company start dwindling down, replaced as he is by younger more handsome victors.
After five years, Mabel gets married to a guy Haymitch can't stand – and she used not to be able to stand him either. It feels like revenge and he wants to tell her she shouldn't throw her life away for him but they aren't on speaking terms anymore. Still, it kills him to see her in another man's arms. It kills him to watch and imagine what could have been. Her getting pregnant is maybe the last straw because it still feels like payback. He sees it in the way she meets his gaze across the street, in the defiant tilt of her chin, the bitterness of her sneer, the tightness around her eyes… Everything she does, she flaunts in his face. She hates him.
He drinks it all away. The memories, the prostitution, the terror that still grips him at night, the bitter regrets and the building resentment…
He still loves her.
He clings to that because it often feels like it's the last part of humanity he has left.
He still loves her.
And yet…
It would be easier if Mabel had died with his family.
The thought comes. More and more often. Every time he is lying in a wealthy sponsor's bed.
With every passing year it feels like he sinks a little lower. He drowns in his liquor, in the grey clouds that fill his head.
On the Sixty-Second Hunger Games Reaping, they send him a brand new escort and Effie Trinket blinds him.
It's not just her clothes. All the Capitols wear bright colors and shiny fabrics. It's her. She's cheerful and lively and relentless. She never stops, never stands still. She's always in movement, always talking, always laughing, always trying to cheer him up or get a rise out of him or nagging him into something when she isn't outright trying to make him drop his glass of liquor to actually do some mentoring… She's difficult. She challenges him like he hasn't been challenged in a decade.
She's a hurricane shaped like a butterfly.
"Good for you." Chaff approves, one night, when he catches Haymitch staring at her like he hasn't stared at a woman in a very, very long time.
"Not interested." he lies.
But he is and it leaves him a bit torn.
He loves Mabel and he's faithful to her in his own way. It doesn't matter if she's married or has a kid and another baby on the way or that it's been twelve years. He's faithful to her. The only people he has slept with, he has been forced to. It's twisted and stupid and childish but it is what it is.
He tells himself Trinket's insufferable and she is.
She's too naïve, too candid, too dumb… And yet it doesn't take him long to realize there are more layers than that, that the stupid debutante is a mask she wears like a shield, that she's actually witty and far too smart – smart enough to outplay and manipulate everyone without them ever realizing – and that she's the best actress he's ever seen. He calls her fake because everyone in this fucking city is playing a role and he hates that. Even if he's playing one himself.
It takes him longer to realize she's actually the best thing a victor like him can ever get.
He's the only mentor to work alone, without another fellow victor, and he's always suffered from that. Escorts flicker in and out of the penthouse and of his life, more interested in parties and manicures than in helping him shape tributes into potential winners. So, at some point, he just gave up. But Effie Trinket… Oh, she won't take no for an answer. She dreams of glory and victories and promotions and she won't let his perceived laziness – he calls it self-preservation – get in the way of that.
She slips in the slot of the second mentor effortlessly.
She bugs him until he gives practical survival advices and she takes care of the interviews and of coaching the kids so they will appeal to the audience.
They clash. They clash loud and hard and the fights scare him sometimes because they get so violent he's afraid one day he will lose it and physically hurt her.
She never seems afraid though – she never has the good sense of being afraid of anything, she behaves as if she rules the whole world. Mabel used to flinch when he got into one of these fits of rage, Trinket simply stands her ground, purses her lips and glares him down.
Three years and they learn to work like a team.
Three years and they're still at each other's throat.
Three years and he wants her so badly he gets hard every time they start an argument.
He still loves Mabel – he tells himself that firmly. And he does. He does. Worse, he suspects, she loves him too underneath all the hatred. There are long yearning looks at the Hob. The rumor that insists she and her husband are having fights every day – loud enough to disturb the neighbors. The regrets dancing between them, unvoiced and unaddressed…
He loves Mabel.
But he wants Trinket.
He's not sure what makes him kiss her in the end, why he chooses that particular fight to break the tension between them, why…
The Sixty-Fifth Hunger Games are terrible for a good number of reasons but the worst, to him, is the fact that he knows, well before the boy even wins, what they will do to Finnick Odair. He knows and it sickens him and nobody says anything in the mentor lounge but they're all thinking it.
He's just fourteen but Haymitch's pretty sure that won't be enough for him to escape the vultures. On the contrary. They will fight to have him first.
It sickens him.
The memories are too hard to repress, even liquor can't quite push them down, and they're right there, floating under the surface, when Trinket makes one remark too many about the dashing new victor.
He doesn't mean to spill everything.
He's drunk and hurting and she's too cheerful, still too fucking damn naïve after working in the Games business for four years. He starts by screaming at her what really happens after you win, what will more likely happen to her precious new darling victor and he means to stop there but everything else comes tumbling out of his mouth. The more she accuses him of lying, the more hysterical she gets, the louder he raises his voice to cover her protests. He tells her everything about his own family, about Mabel, about what her wonderful city has done to him and his tone turns cold and cruel and he doesn't realize until he finally stops shouting that she is crying.
He's never seen her cry before.
She's too good at fighting with him, too good at hiding behind her armor of silk and colors, too good at…
He's never seen her cry before and the tears are like a punch in the guts.
He hates her, he loathes her, he… really doesn't like seeing her cry.
He wants her to stop crying and his drunken brain finds nothing better than kissing her to comfort her. She pushes him away, runs to her room, slams the door shut… He can hear her sobbing from a corridor away.
The next day, she acts as if nothing at all happened.
He's okay with that so he plays along.
The day after that, they have another fight. This time, she's the one who kisses him.
They don't even make it to the couch, never mind the bed.
He takes her against the wall, clothes still on. It's wild and brief and rough and she's the first woman he's ever willingly had sex with since his first and only time with Mabel. He tells himself it's a one-time thing, that he needed it out of his system.
He's very good at lying to himself.
But he's not that good.
When Effie Trinket wants something, she gets it. And, as it turns out, she wants him.
Over the next five years, they go from calling sex an accident to seeking the other out. They go from a quick round against the closest flat surface to actual hours spent in bed losing themselves in the other's flesh.
It doesn't mean anything. That's what he tells her all the time. It's just sex. Meaningless sex.
He's in lust with her.
He's in love with Mabel.
The more he tells himself that, the less sleeping with Effie feels like a betrayal to the girl he's been protecting for more than half his life. He can live with that status quo. He can even forget to worry about it when Effie's arms lock around his neck and she whispers filthy suggestions in his ear.
He didn't know he liked sex that much before her. She makes everything new, exciting, untainted by bad memories… She's so bright she chases the darkness away.
And then comes the winter between the Sixty-Ninth and the Seventieth Hunger Games and the mine collapses.
A lot of good people die buried alive. Mabel's husband is amongst them. The whole District is grieving and he isn't sure he should even say something but he sends a basket full of food anyway because… He needs to do something.
He doesn't expect Mabel showing up on his doorstep late at night.
He doesn't expect the kiss.
He doesn't expect being pushed inside.
He doesn't expect her fingers undoing the buttons of his shirt.
His house is a mess but if she notices she doesn't say. They end up tumbling on his bed, in his dirty sheets. He's too rough for her, he can tell, and he tries to pace himself but it feels… wrong. They don't talk. Not a word. Not even once they're lying on their backs, staring at his ceiling, both of them thinking back to the first time they've done just that.
The silence makes it feel like a dirty secret.
His stomach clenches and unclenches. He tells himself it's because he needs to get some alcohol in his system but, deep down, he knows what it is. It feels a lot like guilt.
Mabel gets her clothes back on and leaves without saying anything and he stays on his bed on his own, wondering if he imagined the whole thing.
She comes back three days later and this time he's ready for her. The sheets have been changed and he's got the condoms he always brings back and never uses in easy access. She makes a face when he rolls one on but he ignores it, doesn't address the problem.
He stopped wearing one with Effie ages ago, a little voice reminds him in his head.
But he trusts Effie, another voice replies.
And the fact he may be trusting Effie more than he does Mabel is too disturbing so he pushes that aside.
They still don't talk.
It's not comfortable.
Sometimes, not often, he remains in Effie's bed afterwards and they don't always feel the need to fill the silence with words but it's never that tense. Sometimes she smokes and he drinks. Sometimes he just runs his fingers in her blond hair, petting away her insecurities when it comes to her bare face and her real hair. Sometimes they just hold each other and try not to fall asleep, content to bask in the feeling of familiar skin pressed close to their own.
The silence is always comfortable, easy, intimate.
With Mabel, it feels like a war fought with unsaid things.
The sex isn't even that good.
Well, it is good. Simply not…
He and Effie are really good at having sex. The chemistry is undeniable. They click. It doesn't take him long to get it up with her. One whiff of her perfume, one touch, a whisper in his ear…
It's more complicated with Mabel. It takes more work. The smell of her is wrong, her skin doesn't feel right, her taste is different…
It takes him a few more silent visits at night to realize he's been comparing her to Effie and that's not fair. That's not fair at all.
By the time Reaping Day arrives, they still haven't talked about what they're doing.
On a lot of accounts, it reminds him of what he and Effie used to do in the beginning. A dirty secret.
The thing with secrets, though, is that they fester.
He avoids his escort, avoids her attempts at getting him alone on the train, avoids her eyes, avoids her flirty banter… Her smile progressively dims. When she finally corners him in the penthouse's living-room after the Parade and asks what is going on, he licks his lips and tries to get angry because she has no right to ask for an explanation. They've just been having sex. He's always insisted on the sex being meaningless.
"I've been sleeping with someone else." he spits out, ready to let his temper burst when she will accuse him of cheating on her.
She doesn't look angry or jealous or possessive though. She just looks sad. "Oh."
"It's Mabel." He doesn't know why he feels compelled to clarify.
"Isn't she married?" she asks and there's a touch of something in there he can't really define. It sounds almost hopeful.
He shrugged. "Her husband died."
"Oh." she says again. "Are you back together, then?"
"I don't know." he admits. "Just… We…"
"I understand." she promises with a bright dazzling smile and she stirs the conversation to safer, less treacherous waters.
She never brings it up again. She doesn't try to start anything either.
Inexplicably, her indifference hurts him. It's like she doesn't care at all. And maybe she doesn't. Maybe she did hear him when he said it would be just sex. It still hurts anyway.
He's almost relieved when he finds her crying in the living-room one night. She tries to hide it, cheerfully smiles through the lie she spins for him – something about a terrible headache– but when he reaches for her, she melts against him.
There's relief and exultation in touching her, in making her sigh with pleasure, in watching her come undone on his tongue… Kissing her feels like coming home. He can't help the guilt and the shame when she asks him to wear a condom though. She doesn't make it sound accusatory. She's too good at keeping a lid on her feelings, at pretending. But the fact that a condom is necessary when it hasn't been for years is on him and that fills him with a shameful feeling.
"Is this a last hurrah?" she asks afterwards, in the dead of night, as they lie together tangled on her bed. They've been lying there for a while, in silence, and it has been feeling so right he's a bit lost.
He's in lust with Effie and he's in love with Mabel.
Isn't he?
"What does that mean?" he mumbles, too sleepy to decipher her hidden messages.
"I mean is this break-up sex?" she whispers.
The idea of never having sex with her again… He tightens his hold on her. It's instinctive.
"I don't know."
It's the most honest answer he can offer.
Of course, they have sex again.
They can't help themselves.
Even back when they actually tried to keep their hands off each other they couldn't help themselves.
When he leaves the city that year, it's with an extensive collection of hickeys and scratches on his body that will take days to fade.
When Mabel shows up at his door two days after his return, he almost turns her away – or, at the very least, insists they talk – but she kisses him before he can say anything and so he lets them fall back on the old pattern.
"Still the lady man, I see." she sneers when she catches sight of the bite marks on his chest. There's one carefully hidden away, high on his inner thigh. She doesn't notice it and he's glad for it. That one feels like a secret. But not a dirty one.
He doesn't correct her assumptions either. Let her think he's been sleeping around. He doesn't want to tell her about Effie.
Somehow, he thinks it would taint whatever it was he shares with his escort.
Two months in, he realizes he hasn't missed Mabel.
He's missing Effie though.
He's not sure how to untangle the messy thing that has become his love life. He lets the thing with Mabel happen because… He's spent his whole life trying to protect her and now…
He doesn't realize her son is twelve until the next Reaping.
"If he gets Reaped, you get my boy back, Haymitch." she hisses in the middle of sex. She's riding him and he hates that. Can barely make himself enjoy it.
It's taken him years to get there with Effie, to be comfortable enough to let her have control, and Mabel simply seizes it without asking. And he lets her. Because he was supposed to marry her once upon a time, to make her happy, and all he did is paint a target on her back and put her in danger just by loving her. She's got a right to her anger.
But it's not until she says these words that a nasty suspicion takes root in his mind.
He's been sending food her way. Ever since her husband died, he's been sending food her way. And now the request… No, not a request but an order…
There are different kinds of prostitution, he would know.
It makes him feel sick all over again.
He's drunk out of his mind by the time Effie comes to fetch him for the Reaping and she's furious with him because of that. Yet, afterwards, once they're on the train and their tributes – fortunately not Mabel's son – are settled in their rooms, she lets him curl up next to her on the couch, lets him put his head on her lap, lets him close his eyes and grab her knee and cling to her like a frightened child. He should be ashamed but he's not.
That's how much he trusts her.
That's a little frightening.
"Everything's shitty, sweetheart." he tells her in a raspy voice. "Twisted."
He doesn't even try to resist sleeping with her that year.
She doesn't ask about Mabel but she makes him wear a condom. He doesn't protest and it's an answer in itself to the question she's not uttering.
They've always been good at talking without actually saying anything.
When he goes back to Twelve and Mabel shows up at his door again, he tells her she should go home to her children. She tries to kiss him, to seduce him, and the way she gropes him through his pants feels too aggressive, too much like the attention of sponsors he doesn't want.
He doesn't mean to push her away but he does anyway.
"You're a pig." she accuses him before running away.
He's lost count of the number of times she's run away from his house in tears.
He mostly sticks to himself that year, more than usual even, only leaving the house when he absolutely needs to. He spends an unhealthy amount of time wondering how long it would take someone to find his body if he ever died of alcohol poisoning.
On the morning of the Seventy-Second Reaping, Effie is bright and early. She wakes him up by pouring a jug of water over his head. When he protests, she claims it won't do his sheets a lot of harm because they're dark with grime and ushers him to the bathroom with far too much cheer.
He wants to kill her a little because he's hangovered but he also feels so much more human after showering, brushing his teeth and shaving the beard that grew out of control that his bad mood slips away. The brand new suit that smells so fresh doesn't hurt either.
He finds her in his kitchen, staring at the heap of trash bags piled in the corner with suspicion.
She shudders when she sees him. "I think I saw a rat. Truly, you should stop living this. It is…" She sighs and waves a gloved hand. "I brought coffee."
She brought a thermos and she also opened the window over the sink so fresh air is coming in, chasing the stench of rot away. He doesn't care much for the coffee but he does wrap his arms around her and tug her closer. The kiss starts chaste enough but soon turns hungry.
He knows there's no way she will let him fuck her in there. The house is too dirty and he wouldn't want her lying in his filth anyway. At some point maybe but not anymore. He tries not to get too worked up but he can't help himself and she giggles against his lips. He smirks in the kiss, feeling content for the first time in months.
So, of course, the bubble of happiness bursts in a flash with the sounds of intruding footsteps.
Mabel looks shocked. Really shocked.
Effie stiffens and immediately takes a step away from him, dabbing at the corner of her mouth to make sure her lipstick isn't smudged. She doesn't say a single word.
He doesn't know how to react so he doesn't even try.
"Keep my boy safe." Mabel says eventually, her face twisting into an expression he can't read. Regret? Loathing? Hatred? Bitterness?
He's lost the gift of guessing her every mood when he started being fluent in Effie's.
"She won't say anything." he tells his escort once Mabel is gone. The tension doesn't go away though.
"Not my prime concern, I will admit." Effie huffs. She gathers her things and turns to leave but not without pausing on the threshold. "She is beautiful. I suppose you have a type after all."
He's not sure it's meant as genuine teasing or if there's more to it than that.
He's not sure what to answer either.
But when he tells her they don't need a condom later that night, she smiles so hard he's forced to kiss it away. He's too afraid he's going to say something he will regret otherwise.
It turns out he's been optimistic when he claimed Mabel wouldn't talk. It's clear she did talk.
When he comes back to Twelve after the Games, the District is buzzing with gossip. People are usually happy to ignore him but it changes that winter. It becomes impossible for Haymitch to pretend he doesn't see the dark looks, the muttered traitor or slut or Capitol's bitch, or even the Greasy Sae's disappointed face.
He tells himself he doesn't care.
He hopes Snow won't care either.
He and Effie are all about sex, after all. Mabel is the real target.
He can't lose sight of that.
And he doesn't.
When the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games roll around and he ends up with two victors for his trouble, he doesn't lose sight of it. He keeps on sending food to Mabel once the Hob is closed but she doesn't show up on his doorstep again and for that he is glad. He supposes she can't afford to refuse his help but her pride won't let her approach him again after what she saw in his kitchen.
The Quell, the rebellion, the danger he's putting everyone in – most of them without their knowledge or consent…
Mabel and her children are the first names he gives when Plutarch asks him who they should evacuate as a priority from District Twelve. Then come Prim and Aster Everdeen and then, after that, the Mellarks and the Hawthornes.
It's not that he forgets Effie.
How can he forget Effie?
He arranges for her to be brought to Thirteen but not as a matter of high priority because she's a Capitol citizen, an escort, and she's never ever given any cause for anyone to be suspicious of her loyalties.
He underestimates the tokens.
He underestimates their affair.
He underestimates his own feelings.
It's almost funny that Snow figured it out before him if you like that kind of humor, that while Haymitch's been worrying about Mabel making it out of the District with her children, the President was snatching the one woman who really counted behind his back.
It's not until he's in Thirteen, not until he's told with absolute certainty that Mabel is alive and Effie's status unknown that he realizes his mistake.
He's not in love with Mabel. Not anymore. And thus she isn't the obvious pressure point.
He's not in lust with Effie. Not anymore. It's grown far deeper than that and thus she is the obvious pressure point.
He wears the golden bangle around his wrist like a manacle shackling him to his mistakes.
They're deep underground, in a bunker, and bombs are raining down on their heads when Mabel finally finds him.
He's become very good at avoiding her. Between the withdrawals and Katniss and his worry for Peeta and the others, he has no time for her.
He's sitting on his assigned bed, his shoulders slouched and his head bowed, when she sits down next to him. He doesn't protest. It's so lonely in this place. So lonely. The lack of liquor, the terror, Katniss' resentment, Finnick's apathy… He yearns for Effie's cheerfulness, her gift for hoping even in the direst of situation.
"Your kids?" he asks.
They're with a friend, she says, and then asks after Katniss as if it's the appropriate equivalent. Maybe it is. Maybe the girl is his now. To keep and to take care of. Effie would say she is. Effie, as usual, would be right.
There is a long silence after that. They don't know how to talk to each other anymore. They haven't talked to each other for twenty-five years. The random nights of sex don't count. They barely said a word during them and he isn't sure he really wants to remember them anyway.
"After the mine collapsed, I thought you'd finally ask me to marry you."
It's not the confession he expects and he almost wishes she hadn't said those words because now he cannot unhear them.
"Couldn't." he mutters. "If I'd married you, you'd have been in danger. The Capitol…" He sighs and shakes his head and renounces to explain everything that has happened to him. The arena is only the tip of a very big iceberg. It'd have been easier if you'd been dead. He thinks it again. Feels guilty. Can't even imagine what it would have been like if he had actually married her, had children with her. "Loved you too much for that, Mabel."
She takes a deep breath, lets it out, and then she reaches out for his hand. He lets her because he's starved for human touch. He's spent weeks trapped in a cell with only his nightmares and hallucinations for company and he needs something more. He wishes Katniss would stop hating him for a little while. He misses the girl's companionship.
"But it could be different now." she counters. "We could be a family. After the war… When we win it… We can be together."
"We're not sixteen anymore." He can't believe the words that are coming out of his mouth. He's spent more than a decade telling himself one day maybe but now… Now he doesn't want it. That dream belongs to a young boy who has never taken a life, who has never sent a tribute to the arena knowing the kid would never make it back. Nobody can understand the weight of that. Nobody but the woman who has been with him through it all.
"You're the love of my life." she whispers.
He believes her.
Of course, he believes her.
And it hurts.
He slowly takes his hand away from hers and shrugs. "I'm the love of her life too."
He doesn't make it clear who he is talking about. There's no need. His fingers have found the golden bangle on his left wrist.
Mabel hates Effie with every fiber of her being. Not only because she's Twelve's escort or a Capitol, he figures, it's more personal than that. He waits for the accusations, the sneers and the insults. All she does is snort. "And which one of us is yours? Do you know that, at least?"
"Yeah." The answer is easier than he thought it would be. Easier and obvious and right in every way. "Yeah, I do."
She waits but, when he doesn't add anything, she shakes her head and storms off. He's pretty sure she's crying again. It seems it's the only thing he's good at lately: making women cry.
It's months before they take the Capitol, before a downpour of silver parachutes takes out the City Circle, hundreds of children and Prim with it.
For days he sits next to a plastic tank and watches Katniss float in a weird fluid, he stares at the skin grafts and at the burned tissue that starts to scar, and he waits.
He waits for days before he's told Effie Trinket has been located.
He waits for what feels like forever for her to wake up.
"I don't wanna get married." he says the first time she opens her eyes. She stares at him in confusion and he's not sure if it's because of his words or because she doesn't quite know where she is yet. "I don't wanna have kids either. But I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Princess."
He's not sure she understands what he's saying but she reaches out and squeezes his hand and he decides to take that as a yes.
It's the easiest pledge he's ever made in his life.
It's a long one please let me know what you thought!