Prompt: After the war, Effie isn't doing as well physically as Haymitch had previously thought. Maybe she has an injury or two that he was never told about?
Pain Relief
1
Effie Trinket, Haymitch mused, could keep on a chatter about nothing going on for hours.
He had known that before she had come to "stay a couple of weeks" and forgot to move out, of course. He had, after all, been acquainted with her for fourteen years by that point and he would have argued that there wasn't anyone of the planet who knew her as well as he did. He could read her body like it was his own.
He knew that she ducked her head before jutting her chin back up when she was embarrassed, that her fingers twitched once when she was furious, that she pursed her lips when she was annoyed and bit down on her bottom lip when she didn't want to let him know she was amused by his joke…
He knew she tended to curl up when she was sick or in pain… He knew she always arched her back in pleasure when he hit that sweet spot… He knew her body tended to run cold and that when her feet became icy it was time to turn up the heating a notch… He knew that teasing fingers tapping their way down his spine meant she wanted him to wake up but that she was weary of disturbing his fleeting rest…
Yeah, all in all, Haymitch would have claimed to know her better than anyone else which was why he wasn't particularly surprised that she had managed to talk nonstop about sunny yellow versus lemon yellow during the whole grocery trip. Talking without saying anything was a superpower of hers. He also knew she tended to babble to cover unease and while he wasn't sure what she had to be nervous about, he was simply happy to let her be.
He dropped the – far more numerous than when he had been living alone – grocery bags on the kitchen table and watch her start to unload them with a mix of fondness and irritation at the unending chatter. It was good to see her behaving like that though, more like her old self than the skittish cat who had showed up at his door months earlier. If she wanted to paint his kitchen yellow, she could go ahead and paint it yellow – sunny or lemony or whatever-y – as long as it kept that smile on her lips. He didn't want to see her cry or scream in fear or curl up in distress ever again. Smiling and chatting was good.
But, he noticed as he grabbed the stuff she took out of the bags and put it away in its proper place – and by proper place, he meant the spot Effie had decided was its proper place – the babble was quickly developing an hysterical tinge to it.
He watched her more closely, weary that she was on the verge of a panic attack or of having a flashback… He couldn't tell if they had tripped on one of her triggers. He didn't think so but he knew better than anyone that those things weren't so easy to avoid and that the smallest thing could bring back bad memories.
"You are not even listening to me. I do not know why I bother."
He had been tuning her out, true enough, but these words registered because they were tossed in a cold hurt voice that contrasted terribly with the light tone she had been using.
"I've been listening, sweetheart." he protested, folding his arms in front of his chest. "You want to paint the kitchen yellow. Ain't saying no. Don't really care about the shade though…"
She huffed, grabbed the last can that was left on the table and started to lift her arm to put it in the cupboard.
It all went down so fast, Haymitch couldn't figure out what had happened.
The can hit the floor and she hissed in pain, staggering back.
He was next to her, one hand at her back and the other cradling her elbow before he could even blink. "What's wrong?"
She was clutching her right arm against her chest. "Nothing."
She sounded bitter and angry but not quite about to collapse in hysterics, which told him whatever was happening wasn't related to her trauma. This was physical.
"Sweetheart…" he chided gently.
"Nothing." she snapped, bending down to pick up the can. He remained close to her, watching her like a hawk, noticing the tense lines next to her eyes and the clenched jaw when she lifted her arm again to put it away. She did it slowly, deliberately, and her fingers shook so badly around the can that she almost dropped it again.
"It's your shoulder, ain't it?" he asked and then frowned. "I thought…"
The shoulder had been one of her most serious injuries when they had found her after the rebellion. It had been pulled out of its socket at some point and, apparently, Johanna had put it back in but damages had already been done. It had remained out of its socket for too long at the time and Jo wasn't a medic, added to the fact that it had been months before Effie had been properly seen to…
He had signed off on the reparative surgery himself because she had been out of it and unable to make decisions for herself. It had been a heavy operation and there had been weeks of physical therapy afterwards. He had tried to help but she had pushed him away every time, ashamed to let him see her in pain and vulnerable. It was Jo who had gone with her and coached her through it in the end – through insults and mean comments, apparently. He had only been allowed in after sessions to offer comfort and reassurance.
He knew it had been hell for her.
But he had thought that was all behind her, that the shoulder had stopped bothering her.
"I am fine." she hissed, slamming the cupboard door shut with her non-dominant hand.
She didn't look fine.
She had wrapped her right arm around her torso once more.
He hesitated because there were things that were difficult to say nowadays. He wouldn't have dwelled in the past, he would have told her straight, not caring about her feelings or the consequences of his words, but now… Now he had to be careful because he didn't want her to get upset or worked up and, more than that, he wanted her happy.
And there were things she didn't want to hear.
"Sweetheart, maybe…" He winced at his own tone. He was walking on eggshells. If Chaff or Finnick could see him now… "Maybe you need to see a…"
"I am not going back to the hospital." she hissed, glaring daggers at him as if his suggestion was deeply offensive.
"But…" he argued, raising his voice a little.
"Drop it, Haymitch." she warned in a frosty growl that told him if he didn't actually drop it, he would be sleeping in the guest room that night.
He sighed and offered to make some tea as a peace offering.
He wasn't dropping it.
He was just going to bide his time.
2.
After the incident in the kitchen, Effie remained guarded and closed off for a week, clearly waiting for Haymitch to confront her again.
She knew him better than anyone too, after all.
She watched him, waiting for him to make his move, and he watched her, waiting for the problem to kick up again.
The tension was weird and unwelcomed because their relationship had somehow smoothen into something comfortable and domestic during the past couple of months and Haymitch liked it better that way. Sure, it was less passion and wild sex – although the sex was still pretty good – but it was also less destructive and madness inducing. He liked falling asleep spooning her and he liked kissing her in the morning. He liked that it was easy even if they still argued about silly things. He liked that she kept making his house more homey, more theirs. He liked that she hung curtains even when he complained about the colors or that she had ordered new furniture to replace the most worn down pieces or that she put on colorful paintings on the walls and framed pictures of the two of them and the children on the mantelpiece…
Painting over seemed like the next logical step and if he was a little annoyed to be dragged into it, he also didn't mind too much spending a whole day locked in a room with her.
So when she told him to carry the table and the chairs out of the kitchen one morning and started spreading huge plastic sheets around to protect the counters and the floor, he didn't discuss it, simply regretting that things were still odd between them.
She didn't protest when he pressed a quick kiss on her neck though. She flashed him a bright smile that told him that she might have been just as fed up with the tension as he was. He took his chance and kissed her properly like he hadn't let himself do it in a whole week. She not only responded to the kiss but tugged him closer.
All in all, it was a good thing he hadn't gotten the table out yet.
By the time they actually got around to painting, her blond hair was tousled and he could guess at the bite marks he had left on her lower back every time her shirt hiked up. The fact that she was wearing some of his old clothes wasn't helping him keep a cool head.
There were few things he liked as best as bending her over a table – and all those other things involved her and sex in one way or another.
"So we're going with sunny, then?" he teased once he had half a wall done.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. She had tackled the opposite wall and she wasn't being quick about it. By the time it had taken him to cover half the length of the kitchen, she had barely progressed at all and, from where he was standing, he could tell that she hadn't put enough pressure on the roller and that it would need to be repainted over.
"Do you ever listen to me?" she shot back but her grin was a little strained. "I told you last night."
The discreet way she was rolling her shoulder didn't escape him and he thought that, maybe, he shouldn't have had her leaning on that table. It must have put some strain on her arm and he should have thought about it and…
He didn't ask if she was alright. He swallowed the words back at the last second, knowing she wouldn't appreciate it.
She wanted to pretend she was alright and he was willing to humor her up to a point.
"Let me guess…" he mocked, pointing at her work with the tip of his own roller. "You've never painted anything before… Cause let me tell you… You're doing a shitty job of it."
She pursed her lips, tilted her head and shot him a dark look. "I am not."
"Oh, yeah, you are." he snorted, climbing down his ladder to point out the obvious traces the roller had left on the wall. You could still guess at the fraying brown underneath. "See? Shitty."
He didn't see the brush coming.
He should have.
And yet he stood there for a whole second, his cheek dripping wet with paint, unable to believe that Effie Trinket – who was now giggling like a child – had actually done that.
"You're gonna regret that." he warned.
She tried to bolt away with a shriek of laughter but he was quicker and he grabbed her around the waist, dragging the roller down her face, her neck and whatever he could reach. He wasn't entirely sure why it didn't stop there or how he found himself flicking paint at her, chuckling like a teenager, or how they ended up rolling on the floor with paint in their hair, in his stubble, and on her breasts.
They lied on the plastic sheets that made weird noises every time they moved, a little dazed and quite tired.
They were getting too old for this, he mused.
"I didn't think painting would be so difficult." she confessed in a whisper against his neck.
His first impulse was to mock her some more and to remark that she was probably too used to having things done for her. Then he realized what she was really saying.
It wasn't about painting being hard work.
It was about her shoulder.
"Tell you what…" He nuzzled the top of her head with his nose. "I'm gonna get Peeta to help. He's better with a paintbrush anyway. Hell, he's probably gonna do a fucking mural or something…"
That was how they ended up with a sunset painted on one of their kitchen wall.
3.
Somehow, he had expected their sex life to sizzle down to nothing because that was what happened when you lived with a woman you had been sort of involved with for ten years, yeah? He had been wrong on that account and maybe he should have known better anyway. Sex had always been at the core of their relationship.
So maybe it wasn't every day and maybe it wasn't up against a wall every time it struck their fancy but it was still at least twice a week and it was still so good it made his toes curl.
They had never really been one for plain missionary – although it had its advantages – so it was not really surprising that they found themselves doing it doggy style that night. Haymitch was too lost in his own lust, chasing his own pleasure, to care much that his right knee was giving a small twitch of pain every time he pounded into her. He was getting old. All the more reason to enjoy that stuff while he still could.
Effie's back was arched, he was holding fast to her waist…
When her front collapsed, he simply thought she had come. The angle was better like that anyway.
It took him two whole minutes to realize she wasn't trembling from the aftermath of pleasure.
"Effie, you're good?" he worried, trying to convince his treacherous penis that they needed to stop.
It took him a few more seconds to tear himself from her and collapse next to her on the bed. Any frustration he could have felt melted away when he realized her breathing was deep and ragged.
"Sweetheart." he called, panic slipping in his voice.
He gently rolled her to her side – her good side – and climbed over her so he could face her. Her jaw clenched, she was clearly fighting back tears and her good hand was cradling her bad shoulder.
"Did you tear something?" He made a face. "I'm sorry. Shouldn't have gone for that position. Could see you were tired and…"
"It is not your fault." She gritted through her teeth. "I am fine."
She didn't look fine.
She was as far from fine as she could get.
"I'll find your painkillers." he stated, getting off the bed and to the bathroom. At least, his erection had deflated a little, he wasn't really in any mood to take care of it anymore.
"I do not want them!" she called out after him, in a pinched tone.
"Too bad." he grumbled back.
It took him nearly ten minutes to find the plastic bottle. It had been buried at the back of the cabinet and she was so neatly organized that he was pretty sure she had done that on purpose.
"They make me drowsy." she complained when he placed two in her palm and handed her a glass full of water. "I am fine. Truly."
"Either you take the pills or I'm dragging you to the hospital." he warned.
She pursed her lips but clearly knew she was defeated because she chose the painkillers.
They did make her drowsy and he knew she hated it because it usually meant nightmares so he slipped in bed with her, carefully covered her with the blankets so she wouldn't get cold and spooned her, wrapping himself around her protectively.
"I know you don't wanna but I think you should go see a doctor." he muttered against her nape. "Shouldn't still be in pain. It ain't normal. Something's gone wrong. Maybe you just pinched something in it… Doesn't mean it's gonna be bad."
Either she didn't hear or she pretended to be asleep.
4.
The violin was a mystery.
Well… It wasn't that much of a mystery. She didn't have many secrets left for him. The violin had belonged to a grandfather she had loved more than anyone else in her family as far as he could tell and she cherished it more than she did her diamond necklaces. When they had put a foot in her apartment for the first time after the war, she had torn through the ransacked rooms and straight to her bedroom, straight to the violin's case. The relief on her face when she had found it under her wardrobe… A bit scratched, with broken cords, but intact for the most part… She hadn't even cared that her dresses and her jewelry had disappeared.
The violin was a mystery because she took it out of its case sometimes, on the cold mornings when she got a faraway look in her eyes. She polished it with loving care and then held her under her chin or a few minutes before settling it back into his case until the next time.
Haymitch watched her do that from their bed one day and, for the first time, he dared ask the question that had driven him mad with curiosity. "Do you know how to play?"
She was sitting in the old frayed armchair next to the window – the one he had refused she tossed away when she had redone their bedroom in shades of blues and cherry wood furniture – the violin on her lap. She was petting it slowly like it was a cat.
She was silent so long he didn't think she would answer. "Yes."
His eyebrows shot up because he hadn't known that. "Play something."
He liked the sound of violins. There was something deeply melancholic about it that had always tugged at his heartstrings.
"I cannot." she said after another long silence. She lifted the violin up anyway and wedged it beneath her chin, closed her eyes and almost immediately placed it back down. "I cannot anymore." He waited because he could feel more was coming and he wasn't particularly surprised when she carefully placed it back in its case. "They broke a finger on my left hand. It would not be accurate." The break in her finger had been set by the time they had found her and he hadn't known it still troubled her. He opened his mouth to say just that but she kept talking so he wisely remained silent. "And I cannot hold the bow anymore. The angle is impossible."
She lifted her arm to demonstrate.
At first he didn't understand. It took him a second to realize that with her arm folded at the elbow, she couldn't even lift it at a right angle. She let it drop.
"You didn't get back the whole range of motion…" he deduced slowly.
The doctor had warned him it was a possibility when they had operated on her but he had said that with physical therapy there was a chance and… And he had assumed…
She was too good at fooling people.
"You can stop insisting we go see a doctor now." she whispered tiredly. "There is nothing to be done. Pain is to be expected sometimes, as I understand it."
He watched her, watched the way she stared at the violin instead of looking at him… "Why didn't you tell me?"
A bitter smile tugged at her lips… "Tell you you were making your life with a cripple?"
"Oh come on…" he scoffed. "I'm a drunk. Peeta's missing a leg. Katniss' deaf in one ear. That's a bullshit excuse, Effie. What didn't you say something? Really?"
She clenched her jaw, turned her head away… Finally, she stood up and crawled back in bed until she was snuggling against his side. He didn't protest. He wrapped his arms around her since it was clearly what she needed but still…
"Do not be angry." she begged. "I knew you would be angry."
"That you kept something that important to yourself?" he scowled, a tad ironical. She should have told him. She should have told him because he could have accidentally injured her further. He could have…
"That I got hurt and you could do nothing about it." she whispered, her fingers curling over his heart.
It brought him short.
Resentment faded away as quickly as it had built in.
"It's not your job to protect me, Princess." he remarked sadly.
"Of course, it is." she hummed, just as sad. "That is what we do. We are a team."
His grey eyes fell to the golden bangle pressed against her pale skin. He was still wearing it, scratched and banged as it was. "We're so much more than that."
She pressed her lips against his torso in something that wasn't quite a kiss.
She mouthed three words, like she used to do back in the days, when he didn't want to hear it or even know it.
He wished he could say them back but they were stuck in his throat so he settled for the only thing he could do, he kissed her deep and showed her instead.
5.
Years down the line, Haymitch couldn't believe just how lucky he was.
Lying down on his bed, an open book on his laps, staring at the woman brushing her hair at her dressing table like she did every night before bed…
He loved his life.
What an odd impossible thing it would have been a decade earlier…
"Shoulder's bothering you?" he asked when he caught her wince in the mirror.
"It's the cold." she grumbled. "It's always worse in winter."
He could have told her that she wouldn't be that cold if she dressed appropriately for the weather but he actually liked her skimpy nightgowns.
"Come here." He beckoned her.
She dropped her silk dressing gown and slid on the bed, automatically offering him her back.
She sighed in relief when he started massaging her shoulders.
It wasn't a miracle remedy but it relieved her a little of the pain.
That was something he had become really good at in the last few years : relieving her of her pain.
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