Hi, i was wondering if i can prompt: i would love to see a fic where Haymitch and Peeta have a father son moment like Haymitch teaching him how to fix something with tools or shave or something like that and Haymitch being kinda proud of him. Thank you
Yeah I need to be taught what a father/son moment is XD I went with angst. Who's surprised?
We Need To Talk About Peeta
"Okay, so… They said it's probably gonna feel weird for a while but… It's the best on the market. You just have to get used to it." Haymitch offered quietly, awkwardly standing next to the bed with his hands in his pockets.
Peeta briefly looked up at him with a hollow gaze before dropping his eyes back down to the prosthetic leg.
The boy still hadn't come to terms with the hard fact that the leg had been lost and it was early days still for a prosthesis but the Gamemakers wanted him out of the Games Clinic on his own two feet. The Capitol truly did medical wonders though. Effie had conferred with several doctors and she had been assured Peeta would recover and could, in time, look to a normal life. As normal as one could have when missing a leg anyway.
There were so many problems linked to the kids' victory that Haymitch hadn't stopped spinning yet – although that might very well be the lack of alcohol he didn't have time to drink. The berries, the tacit anger of the Gamemakers, Crane suddenly refusing to take Effie's calls, Peeta's leg, the pretend love story that the boy still didn't know was a lie, Cinna's revelations about Thirteen… It had been a few days since the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games had wrapped and he still hadn't slept more than a couple of hours here and there.
He was tired and irritated and he might have been a little in withdrawals if the headaches and the tremors were any indication…
But there was no way he wasn't going to help the boy any way he could. He had briefly considered asking Chaff to give him a talk and had quickly dismissed the idea because it felt too much like… He didn't want to make Peeta feel worse than he already was – than he already would feel once Katniss would explain that she didn't exactly love him. That last part was why he had insisted on the kids being kept apart. When Effie had asked, he had said it would make the reunion more genuine on cameras but… She hadn't been fooled. There was very little in the dangerous situation they were currently in that fooled her even though she was very good at pretending she hadn't noticed anything amiss.
"Wanna try and get up?" he asked when the boy remained silent.
He cringed at how falsely cheerful he sounded. He should have kept Effie with him. Effie wouldn't have blinked an eye at the prosthesis, she would have made the whole thing sound like the best thing ever and would have probably succeeded in annoying the kid enough that he would at least… react. They seriously needed her unerring optimism in the gloomy hospital room.
But he had sent Effie to Katniss because he knew seeing Peeta like this upset her – even if she would never let the boy know – and someone had to sit with the girl anyway. It had seemed easier to do it this way at the time.
He sighed and made the split-decision to stop pretending everything was fine when it so obviously wasn't.
If everything had been fine, Peeta wouldn't have been sitting there in his underwear and there wouldn't be a metal contraption attached to the scarred mangled flesh of his knee.
"It sucks." he said frankly. A muscle twitched in Peeta's clenched jaw but the boy still wasn't saying anything so Haymitch went on. "And it's unfair. And I know you're in pain…"
"I can still feel it." the kid mumbled. "The leg. They say it will go away but…"
The boy's voice trailed off.
"That's called phantom limb syndrome." Haymitch supplied. The doctors had warned him about that. "There are techniques to relieve the pain… You… We can work on that, alright?"
He wasn't sure the 'we' was the right approach because Peeta's hand jerked with suppressed anger. The kid probably wanted to send him to hell, tell him it wasn't his leg that was gone and there was no we in there… He would have if the roles had been reversed.
"For now I need you to get up." he said, not unkindly but very firmly. "You have to practice walking."
The message from the Gamemakers had been very clear and had driven Effie to a thirty minutes rant, they didn't want a martyr to walk up the Crowning stage. Peeta would have to walk as normally as possible and he would have to be positive about the injury.
"I'm going to fall." the kid refused, shaking his head. "This thing is too heavy."
"Which is why you have to practice, sweetheart. Come on." he insisted, outstretching both hands for him to take.
There was no hiding the shakes with his fingers hovering in the air and he thought that it was what decided the kid to actually do something: the reminder that he wasn't the only one physically… impaired. Granted Haymitch wasn't missing any part of himself but he had been injured before and his alcoholism had done him no good.
"Don't call me sweetheart." Peeta grumbled. "I'm not a girl."
"Duly noted." he snorted, wriggling his fingers. "Up you get now."
The boy grabbed his hands and carefully sat up until his bare foot and the prosthesis were firmly on the floor. A few frightened deep breaths later, Peeta hauled himself up, using is grip on Haymitch's fingers. His balance wasn't great and Haymitch let go of one of his hands to steady him by grabbing his shoulder.
"Good job." he praised. "Now let's try to walk…"
"I can't." Peeta denied. The kid would probably have sat down again if Haymitch hadn't had such a tight grip on his shoulder. "I can't, Haymitch!"
"Sure, you can." Twelve's victor promised. "Come on. A few steps. The quicker you can walk on this thing, the quicker you get back to Katniss…"
He felt bad for playing the girl card but it did the trick. A scowl of pain on his face, Peeta did take a step…
His knee buckled and he would have fallen down if Haymitch hadn't kept him upright.
"I can't do this!" the boy snarled like a wounded animal.
"Yeah, you can." Haymitch insisted. He forced the boy's arm around his shoulders and grabbed him around the waist, forced him onward again…
It was a long and painful process and by the time Peeta was ready to pass out of exhaustion, they had barely figured out how to make him keep his balance…
Haymitch watched the nurse take the prosthesis off, explaining all the while what Peeta ought to do and not to do every time he put it on or took it off, and wondered if that was what people felt like when their kid learned to walk for the first time… The fear that they would fall and hurt themselves even worse… The fear that they would never manage it at all…
The boy was too nice.
It was so obvious to Haymitch that he wanted to lash out at everyone because he was in pain and angry and frustrated… But he kept his cool when others – Haymitch included – would have already been screaming bloody murder. It was also very clear he was clinging to the idea of what had happened in the cave, to Katniss and the kisses and what would happen once they would both be back in Twelve…
Haymitch wasn't sure how they were going to burst that particular bubble. It seemed cruel to keep lying but it seemed even crueler to pile on the truth on top of everything else he was already dealing with.
Peeta didn't really appreciate Haymitch awkwardly tucking the sheets in around him but he wasn't sure how else to show he cared right at that moment.
"It's gonna be alright, kid." he promised.
"I just want to go home." Peeta sighed, tossing an arm over his face… The boy's jaw was clenching and he was swallowing way too fast. He was trying not to cry and that… Haymitch hated having to deal with crying children. That was Effie's department, not his and… "Can you go?" the kid asked. "Please. I need to be alone." Haymitch hesitated but Peeta's voice broke a little when he repeated "Please" and he only understood too well wanting his privacy to have a breakdown so he left.
He wasn't sure what time it was when he got back to the penthouse. Late afternoon, maybe early evening… Time had stopped making sense around the fourth day of the Games. Effie's purse was in the hallway so he checked the living-room but it was empty. He grabbed a bottle of something see-through and made his way to her room, intending to check on how it had went with Katniss before hopefully crashing on his bed for a while.
She wasn't in her bedroom either but he followed the soft splashing sounds to her bathroom and he lifted an eyebrow when he found her in the bathtub. She was rinsing her hair from her usual flower scented shampoo, there were a few candles here and there and a big glass of white wine propped on the edge lining the wall.
"If you've got time for this, I guess I've got time to get drunk?" he smirked. It was a poor excuse of a joke and she was so tired she didn't even startle at his unexpected arrival. The make-up hid a lot and without it… There were dark bags under her eyes and her complexion was too pale, she looked like she was about to collapse.
"Reasonably so." she granted, pressing another dose of her fancy products in her hands and rubbing it through her hair. Her breasts were out of the water and he let his eyes roam on her chest, following the drops of water on her skin… He felt himself stir a little but not enough that it convinced him he wanted a fuck right then. He was honestly so exhausted he didn't think he could have gotten it up anyway. "If you are done staring and would start listening…" He startled and she grinned, her eyes dancing with amusement. "As I was saying, there is apparently another victory party planned tonight. We should make an appearance around ten."
"There's a victory party every fucking night." he groaned. Those parties were far less draining when you were on the other side of the line and you had lost.
"The good news is Portia offered to stay at the Clinic tonight so we are free to sleep until six tomorrow morning once we escape that party." she hummed, washing the shampoo off her hair. "We have to be ready to record a piece about the Games at eight and then you are scheduled for an appearance on Talia's talk show at eleven sharp."
He listened to the schedule for the rest of the day, she seemed to rattle it out automatically. More interviews, photoshoots and appearances here and there… Routine when your tributes had just won the Hunger Games.
She didn't even blink when he started undressing. The bathtubs were big enough anyway. Like everything in this city, it was out of proportions. It could have easily fitted three people and it wasn't the first time they shared one. She simply shifted, still talking so he could slip behind her and, once he was settled, she reclined against his chest with a small content sigh.
He took his first few mouthfuls of alcohol in far too long with palpable relief.
"How did it go with Peeta?" she asked, pressing her forehead against the side of his neck.
"Not great." he admitted. He coiled his free hand around her knee, suddenly keenly aware of how much he liked her knees… It wasn't until he had seen Peeta's mangled flesh that he had realized how important and beautiful functional knees could be.
"The doctors assured me they had done everything medically possible to speed up his recovery." she said in that cheerful voice he hated so much. "Once he gets used to the prosthesis, he shouldn't even feel the difference. They do miracles those days, Haymitch."
"Yeah, right." he snorted.
He felt her hesitate for a second but she must really have been tired because she dropped the escort mask.
"Yes." she sighed. "That is in essence what I thought. Although I was careful to hide my skepticism. We are already on treacherous ground…"
It was the closest they had gotten to talk about the berries situation and there was a touch of uncertainty in her voice.
"Smart." he approved.
She rolled her eyes and huffed, lifting her head long enough to take a sip of her wine. "You do not need to sound so surprised."
"Don't I?" he teased, softening that by letting his fingers trail from her knee down her inner thigh. He was too tired but she might not be…
"How is he doing?" she insisted, not so subtly relocating his hand to a safer spot. It ended up on her stomach so he simply wrapped his free arm around her and took a swing of the bottle.
"It's gonna take a while for him to get used to the idea." he said.
"As is only to be expected." she commented. "At least, he is alive. I realize it must be a poor sort of comfort but…"
"No, I think he's happy about that…" he cut her off. That was already something, he figured. More than one young victors woke up with suicidal thoughts, particularly when they were so critically injured. Of course, the boy had Katniss to live for and… "Sweetheart… How are we gonna tell him the girl ain't really in love?"
"We do not know she is not." Effie was quick to counter. "Perhaps she realized…"
"She's thick and too good at using what and who she needs to survive." he interrupted again. "Trust me, if she loves him, she ain't aware."
She muttered something about how alike he and the girl were that he pretended not to understand.
"He will be heartbroken." she lamented.
"Could be worse. He could be dead." he groaned, taking another gulp of liquor. "But… Yeah." He still didn't have a good way of telling Peeta so he put that aside for now. "How was it with Katniss?"
"They will let her come back to the penthouse soon." she reported. "They talked about plastic surgery again… Breasts enhancement specifically…"
"Fuck." he spat because he knew what that implied. "I told them…"
"I know. I made that point very eloquently, I promise you." She waved her hand in the air, sending droplets of water fly. "I told them I shared their views and would try to talk you into it so that should buy us some time. Hopefully, she will be released before it comes to a fight."
"Clever play, sweetheart." he smirked, brushing his thumb against her side.
"Again with the surprise…" she rebuked without much heat. "Cinna is already working on an outfit to downplay her age at the Crowning… I did not have time to consult with you but I thought an innocent persona would be preferable."
"That's the right call." he nodded. "Anything else to discuss?"
"I do not believe so…" She shifted so she was curled up on her side a little lower in the water. He slid down the bathtub too and she hummed in contentment. He could understand. The water was warm, whatever bath salts she had put in there were helping him relax and there were always worse things than her naked body pressed against his.
"Good meeting." he mumbled and told himself he was going to get out of that bath soon, go to his bedroom and get at least an hour of sleep before Effie dragged him to tonight's party. "How many other victors talk shop with their escort in the bathtub?"
"Valeria and Brutus for certain." she whispered. "Others… I do not know…"
"Are you falling asleep on me?" he frowned. That would be bad. Very bad. They didn't sleep together, certainly not in the bathtub and it would be worse if they didn't even have sex first. That sent the wrong message. He took a sip of liquor and then placed the bottle down. Any second now he would stand up. Any second.
"You are comfy…" she hummed.
"You're heavy." he complained. It was a lie but he hoped it might get her to move.
"Liar." she huffed. "We have meetings in the bathtub because we are good at multitasking. Well… I am. See? I got you to wash and sit down for a briefing. Not always easy…"
It took him a few seconds to understand that she had gone back to their previous line of conversation.
"You're a pain in my ass." he grumbled, propping his head against the edge of the bathtub. Just for a moment. Because any second now he was standing up.
"Language." she chided. It was her sleepy voice. He knew her sleepy voice. He didn't give her five minutes before she was dead to the world. "I bet they are all jealous right now…"
"Of our bath meetings?" he asked, confused.
"Of us. We are the best team, aren't we?" she retorted with a smile.
He was standing up. Any second.
"We ain't bad." he snorted.
There was no answer.
He would wake her up in a minutes, he told himself.
As soon as he opened his own eyes.