Prompt: :Hey! I love your one shots and I have a prompt for you! I would love a fic of Haymitch and Effie's first real public kiss. Thanks !
More Than Fine
Was it sad that this wedding was the first wedding Haymitch had attended since he was a child ?
He couldn't help but ponder the question as he sipped the tepid cider that barely had any alcohol in it – more like sparkling apple juice, really – content to watch District Thirteen loosening up a little for once. Most of the people on the dancefloor looked awkward and rusty – and he would probably have looked worse, all things considered, all the parties and events at the Capitol had made him good in ballroom dances but the old traditional District dances now… Everyone seemed to be having fun, though, Finnick and Annie most of all, which was the main thing.
It was late enough into the wedding that Effie had stopped running herself fray to make sure everything was perfect. She was sitting next to him, her foot tapping the beat on the floor, her own glass of cider forgotten in front of her as she smiled and laughed at the sight of the newlyweds dancing and kissing, locked in their own bubble. Unlike Plutarch who had simply wanted a good show, he knew she had put her heart and soul in that wedding to give Four's victors something good, the joyful day they deserved…
She was happy to see them happy, she was relaxed like he hadn't seen her since before she had put a foot in Thirteen and that might have been because she was wearing a pink dress and she had tortured her hair into a puffy hairdo but he didn't think so. She loved Finnick like an annoying little brother and the boy had been through so much recently she had just wanted him to forget and enjoy.
He was happy to see her happy – and wasn't that a revelation in itself. Or was it? They practically lived together now. They shared her compartment, half because he couldn't bear Plutarch's obsessive tendencies toward order and his quiet remarks about how their room was a shared place he should really keep clean and half because the thought of not going to sleep with her was unbearable. Mostly, the second one. The war he was forced to face every day in Command, sobriety, Twelve or what was left of it, the friends who had been missing for a while, the friends who were dead, Peeta, Katniss… It was a lot. And he had found it was all a little easier if Effie was standing next to him.
He casually sneaked a hand under the table to place it on her thigh, both to stop the incessant taping of her foot and to reassure himself that she was really there. She glanced at him but didn't give any outward sign that his fingers were now drumming a rhythm of their own far too high on her leg for it to be innocent. She never gave anything away. They had too much practice in the art of getting away with that kind of touches in crowded rooms.
"Will you ask me to dance?" she hummed, her voice so detached it would have been impossible for anyone who wasn't him to detect the yearning in it.
"Maybe." he consented because he was feeling sentimental that night. "If they play something I remember how to dance."
She let her eyes trail over the dancefloor where people were standing in lines, turning and clapping before switching places… He used to be very good at that, now he barely remembered how to dance something that wasn't a waltz.
"Most people seem to improvise." she pointed out.
"I'm too old to improvise." He snorted, watching the younger kids jump and shake like it was the best game ever.
"If someone had told me you would be begging for a waltz or a tango…" she teased.
"Ain't the one begging for a dance. I'm happy here." he mocked.
That earned him a pout and a glare. A smirk stretched his lips and they stared at each other a little too long. Eventually, she blinked and averted her eyes.
"It was a beautiful wedding." she sighed.
"Yeah. You did a good job." he praised, squeezing her thigh. "Finnick looks happy."
"Annie too. She deserved it, the poor thing." She winced. "Johanna, however, seems to have disappeared."
"Probably raiding the hospital for morphling while everyone else is busy." he dismissed, ignoring her disapproving look. Thirteen wasn't the best place to develop a drug addiction but he was the last one who would blame someone for trying to drown their bad memories in opiates. Glass houses and all that shit.
"You ought to talk to her." she predictably countered.
"I really don't." he retorted for what felt like the hundredth time. It wasn't the first version of that conversation they had shared.
She opened her mouth, probably to argue her point some more – and he could already feel the headache coming – but closed it abruptly, her blue eyes darting to something over his left shoulder. Displeasure flashed on her face before it disappeared under her escort's mask of bubbly detachment. It was a little less effective without all the make-up on her face but she had mastered the look of the dumb debutante decades ago.
He hated it when she did that.
"Oh, look…" she hissed between gritted teeth so nobody could tell she was talking behind her smile. "Your groupies."
He spared a glance over his shoulder, not really surprised to find a particular group of women hovering nearby. Most of them were refugees from Twelve, a couple of them were from outer Districts. They had started approaching him about refugees problems early into their stay in Thirteen in hopes he could get their complains directly at the top of the food chain – which he had been happy to do, eager to repair a little of the wrongs he had done Twelve by not anticipating the bombings.
Effie insisted they were after something else and he had mercilessly made fun of her jealousy for weeks before he had finally realized she wasn't wrong. Some of these women were after more, not because he cut a dashing picture with his weight loss, his bloodshot eyes and his yellowish tainted skin – no matter what his escort said, he didn't feel handsome – but because he was a victor and as influent as it got in this place.
For the good it did him.
He groaned. "Get rid of them."
The command made her lips twitch in amusement and, maybe, made the sudden tension between her shoulders vanish a little. She gracefully brought the glass of cider to her lips, giving the tin cup the same care she would have shown a crystal flute. It was studied, ostensibly posh and Capitol. A challenge to anyone looking. And the women were looking.
"And how do you suppose I do that?" she hummed.
"You've always been creative." he reminded her with a smirk, tracing slow random patterns on her legs.
Pushing someone in a pool, setting their dress on fire, reducing them to tears with a few pointed remarks, trashing them behind their back… Effie had her ways. They were not a victor's ways but she was just as efficient when it came to destroying someone. She bid her time, collected information and used them when the moment was right. And, usually, never got caught. That was why people underestimated so much.
If they had gotten over their ass, the rebellion would have realized she would have made an awesome spy years ago. He was glad they hadn't though. The thought of her facing that kind of danger, taking that kind of risks…
"I have no idea what you might mean." she lied, sounding puzzled.
Not fooled, and because one of the woman had started toward the table, he leaned in a little, whispering directly in her ear. "I mean you've never been shy about staking your claim."
She turned her head and since he had yet to draw back, their noses brushed together. He didn't move back, the invitation clear. There was an obvious way to make it clear to those women he was taken. Thrill and dread were making his stomach churn. He couldn't remember the last woman he had kissed in a public setting – some girl in a bar when he was still going out with Chaff to look for hook-ups maybe. A part of him was screaming that this was madness and it would come back to kick him in the ass, that he needed to protect her and protecting her involved leaving everyone in the dark about what she meant to him. Another part, the rational one, told him they were more or less officially living together, that people had already noticed and that their relationship was the worst-kept secret in the District.
Her eyebrows furrowed together a little when she realized he was waiting for her to make a move.
He was surprised and maybe a little hurt when she was the one to draw back, crossing her legs to dislodge the hand on her thigh.
"Has it ever occurred to you I might be tired of staking my claim, as you say?" she whispered. She had looked so happy until then, he wasn't sure were the bitter sadness had come from. "I have no claim to stake. For those woman, I am at best the woman who warms your bed because it is convenient for you or, at worst, the Capitol whore who uses her vile artifices to secure her own safety. I am nothing. That is how you wanted it and that is how it is. Get rid of them yourself or sleep with one of them. I have no say over that either. We have been playing domestic for far too long if your forgot your own rules. No one is to know and sex means nothing. You have always been very clear."
He frowned, not quite sure where the verbal downpour had come from. "Effie…"
"I can imply your are mine until I am blue in the face." she snapped. "Until you actuallymake it clear that you are, they will keep coming. Now excuse me I feel a migraine coming. Would you mind sleeping in your compartment tonight? I think I would like some peace and quiet."
She stood up and walked away with the same grace and attitude she did everything else, leaving him speechless at the table. She didn't make it look like she was storming away or like they had just had an argument.
He was on his feet before he had really thought it through, ignoring the woman who had just reached the table asking him for a dance to hurry after his escort. She hadn't gone far and he caught up quickly. He coiled his fingers around her forearm and tugged back. She stumbled into him, irritation flashing on her face. "Haymitch…"
He kissed her. He didn't give himself time to think, hesitate or regret. He just kissed her, licking her bottom lip until she opened her mouth for him so there would be no doubt to anyone watching that this wasn't their first rodeo and that he meant it. The kiss turned into another when she tentatively locked her arms around his neck. He tugged her closer when she started playing with the hair at the back of his nape, groaning into the kiss.
He was flushed and out of breath when he finally drew back and so was she. He half-expected the room to have frozen, every pair of eyes staring at them, whispers and harsh comments… It almost shocked him to realize nobody cared.
There were a few other people kissing in the corners and nobody was paying attention to them either.
The world didn't stop, tragedy didn't befell and neither of them dropped dead just because he had kissed Effie Trinket in public.
She dabbed at her wet lips with the tip of her fingers and then cleared her throat. "I did not mean you had to…"
"Yeah, you did." he cut her off. They should at least be honest about it.
She had the good taste of wincing a little. "Perhaps I did. But you did not have to…"
"I wanted to." he countered, awkwardly stroking her cheek. That came more naturally when they were alone but he was so painfully aware of everyone else in the room… "Look, you know I hate this kind of things… Just… You've never been convenient and you know I'd rip a new one to whoever calls you a whore in front of me so… What I'm trying to say…"
His sentence trailed off and he didn't know how to finish it.
Fortunately for him, she had always been good at understanding him even when he didn't understand himself. She brushed a kiss against his lips and he chased after her when she drew back, pecking her lips twice and feeling as stupidly arrogant as a teenager stealing his first kiss. She was beautiful and impossible and strong and he was proud she had chosen him despite everything…
"Well, it seems to have worked at least." she joked, glancing over his shoulder, probably at the group of women. "They have retreated."
It wasn't why he had done it but he was happy for the respite anyway. "Wanna get out of here?"
Her blue eyes were sparkling again. He was so relieved to see the bitterness gone that he found himself smirking.
"What about my dance?" she argued, a grin on her lips. "I was promised a dance."
"I'll dance a tango with you." he teased.
"Let me guess… A horizontal one?" she replied, slipping her hand into his. It fitted against his palm, it always had, but it was the first time he let her do that in public. She led them to the door and down the corridors toward her – their, really – compartment. He had her against the wall, his mouth roaming on her neck before she could even unlock the door. The place was deserted anyway and that wasn't like they hadn't done that a few times in front of her apartment back in the Capitol. There was a thrill to getting away with that sort of things in public.
The kissing had turned dirty by the time she managed to blindly unlock the door and she tugged him inside by the lapels of his uniform jacket. He slid the door shut so he could pin her to it, already working at the fastening of her pink dress. He groaned against her mouth when he realized the corset was back. He hadn't missed it.
"What are you wearing that thing for?" he grumbled. "Ain't like you need it…"
"Haute couture." she retorted.
He wanted to point out that dress had seen too many days to still be considered haute couture but she did that thing with her tongue that always made his mind go deliciously blank.
Later, once they were sweaty and curled up together in tangled sheets they would need to sort out before they fell asleep or risking freezing during the night, he breathed in the smell of her hair, coiled his hand around her nape…
"You're more than just…" he hesitated. "When this whole thing is over, I want… We could…"
He wasn't sure how to word it, how to express what he wanted when he had spent so long denying it to himself. Was it even doable? Once Snow was dead, nobody would come after him anymore but even if the Damocles sword was cut off from over his head… Could they work on an everyday basis? They hadn't been doing too bad in Thirteen but the circumstances were particular and…
"Yes." she simply said. "Yes."
There were more things to consider – like where they would live for starters – but he felt so good at that moment that he decided to bask into it a little.
They could be happy, he decided.
They could. And nothing bad would happen to her just because she was with him. He would make sure of it. It would all be fine.
She nuzzled his neck with her cold neck, slipping her equally cold foot under his thigh to warm it, and he snorted, his heart twisting with an overwhelming wave of fondness.
Yeah, they would be more than fine…