Prompt: :Hello! I have a prompt for you! I would love a fic set after the rebellion, where Effie is eating chocolate, (or something of the sort) and Haymitch keeps kissing her because of the chocolate taste. After a bit of that, Effie is like "I can get you some chocolate, Haymitch", and he says "it tastes better this way"

A Life Well Lived

Effie couldn't control the smile that was stretching her lips.

"I know what you are doing." she declared.

"And what's that?" Haymitch challenged with a smile of his own.

They were hiding – although they refused to call it that – in the shade of Annie's house, under the wooden deck that led to the beach, their back to the stairs. It didn't seem like the safest location, all things considered, but it was the one place they were confident nobody would find them and they desperately craved some quiet time.

She refused to admit they had gotten old but between the overeager twenty year-old Finn, five year-old Willow and her baby brother Rye, and the fact the children were only too happy to let them babysit so they could get some alone time… Finding a safe place to get a few minutes of peace had sounded like a good idea. It wasn't her fault Haymitch hadn't thought about bringing a snack of his own.

The tub of chocolate ice cream she had snatched from Annie's freezer was delicious but melting fast and every two mouthfuls, Haymitch would lean in and steal a kiss. It wasn't that she wasn't used to his random demonstrations of affection – particularly when they were alone and far from all the children and grand-children – but this was a little too deliberate not to be calculated.

"If you want some chocolate, we could share the spoon." she chuckled, offering him the only spoon she had brought.

He ignored it and pressed a kiss against her neck, right on the spot she insisted had become flabby. She wasn't getting any younger.

"Keep it." he mumbled, pecking her lips next. And surely enough he deepened the kiss. "Tastes better like this."

"You are a silly man." she accused, muffling a quiet laugh against his shoulder. They heard the thumping of little feet on the deck over their heads and they both held their breath. Surely enough, Willow's high-pitched girly voice shouted for her mother and then she stomped away again. They were safe for now and Effie relaxed, focusing back on the important thing. "I am terribly old, how are you still so attracted to me?"

It puzzled her every day.

Passion had waned a little. They were too old for wild tumbles against the wall or in the shower – although the tub wasn't yet out of the ranges of possibilities – but tenderness and love… They were still there. And he had never given her any reason to doubt his interest for her. Not even if he now had to swallow some pills sometimes when his body didn't want to answer his own desires – pills, she pretended not to know about to spare his dignity.

""You're beautiful." he replied with another peck on her lips.

And there was no traces of deceit in his voice. He wasn't saying it because it was expected or to please her but because he really meant it.

"Are we too old for outdoor sex, do you think?" she teased, placing the tub of chocolate ice cream aside.

"We only live once." he snorted, tugging her closer to him.

She couldn't dispute that. More, she wanted her life to be a life well lived.