prompt : Effie gets the chicken pocks for the first time evern and she doesnt really know it , haymitch finds out and haymitch takes care of her

The Chicken And The Pox

Was acne contagious?

Effie pursed her lips and stared harder at her bare face in the mirror of her dressing table, absolutely not liking at all what she was seeing. There were red spots. It had started with a zit on her forehead, then another spot on her cheek, a few on her chest… It looked almost like a rash but it wasn't possible because she wasn't allergic to anything and she had certainly not eaten anything unusual or tried a new beauty product.

Mostly, it looked like reddish spots and it brought to mind how absolutely ravaged by acne her latest male tribute had been and she so didn't want to think about him because he was dead and…

She rubbed her eyes, grabbed the bottle of liquid foundation and applied a generous dose.

A random bout of acne was the last thing she needed. She had been feeling under the weather for a few days – which she imputed in large parts to the fact Twelve had lost the Games in record time again – and she was fairly sure she was coming down with the flu. She had treated the light fever with the adequate medicine and quelled her nausea by sticking to soup but she still felt poorly. Her whole body was aching.

She accentuated the make-up more than usual on her face and was forced to add some foundation to her cleavage to hide a few more zits that had appeared. It was the oddest thing. She had always been quite fortunate with spots, even in her teenage years – although it wasn't left to chance, of course, her mother had insisted on the best skin treatments. She zipped on the blue dress, making sure the high neckline would hide any unflattering flaws and vowing that she would treat herself to a spa day as quickly as possible.

She wriggled in discomfort as soon as the dress was on. The fabric was rougher than she remembered and it took all her will not to scratch herself like a dog infested with fleas.

She checked her reflection in the mirror, inspected the dress, the wig, the shoes and the make-up and then went in search of Haymitch. Without surprise, he wasn't ready and she was forced to threaten to cut off his alcohol supply if he didn't get into his suit.

By the time he was finally ready to go, they were unfashionably late and she wasn't in the mood for his jokes or his wandering hands. Her head was throbbing, she was chilled even though she knew it wasn't that cold, and despite her best attempts at resisting temptation she ended up scratching her chest and her neck.

Haymitch tossed her weird looks the whole elevator ride.

The party was too loud.

She forced a smile on her lips, afraid that it looked more like a wince than anything else, and grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing tray. She didn't intent to drink it, the mere idea of swallowing any kind of alcohol made her stomach churn, but it was a necessary accessory.

Haymitch scampered away and she didn't even try to hold him back, remind him not to drink too much or ask him to go court a few sponsors for the next year.

She couldn't be bothered to care.

It was all she could do to keep up with conversations, as it was.

"Are you alright?" Seneca asked her at some point, discretely dragging her away from their group of friends with a firm hand at the small of her back. She had to resist the urge to rub against it. Her back was itching something fierce. "You look flushed."

"This dress is awful." she whined – with far much more honesty than she would usually have showed. "It is just… awful."

Tears burned her eyes and she clenched her jaw, reminding herself that a lady would certainly not strip down in the middle of a party because her dress was slightly rough on the skin.

Seneca looked quite alarmed. "Are you having some sort of reaction? You're covered in…"

"What?" she squealed before he could go much further, scared that the make-up had somehow smudged and her spots were visible.

"Well, I wouldn't say it is a rash exactly but…" Seneca winced. "I won't lie, darling, it is not quite pretty."

He pointed at her arm and she squealed again in distress when she saw the zits on her skin. Panic washed over her, increasing her dizziness. She clamped her mouth shut, half certain she was going to be sick right there, on top of Seneca's shoes, for everyone to see.

"Haymitch." she said. "Can you get Haymitch for me? Please."

Seneca looked a little annoyed to be reduced to an errand boy but they had been friends long enough that he did as she demanded and promptly returned with her victor – her very aggravated victor. She had taken to hide behind one of the pillars in the meantime and had discovered, with growing horror, that there were more of those reddish spots on her arms and neck.

To his credit, Haymitch's irritation seemed to turn into a startled kind of amusement when he caught sight of her.

"I need you to escort me upstairs." she ordered more than she asked. "I feel positively faint and… and… I do not know what is wrong with me! Clearly, I am having some kind of…"

"Chickenpox." he cut her off.

Panicked as she was, she didn't think it was funny. "Do not call me a chicken! What is wrong with you?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, sweetheart. Chickenpox. That's what you've got."

She met Seneca's gaze but he looked just as clueless as she was.

"Are you drunk?" the Gamemaker asked dubiously. "Why would Effie have some sort of poultry pox?"

She nodded in agreement. "I have never even seen a live chicken. Now is not the time for jokes, Haymitch. I am sick. I…"

Haymitch scowled at her and Seneca in turn. "You're telling me you don't know what chickenpox is?" At their blank looks, he rubbed his face and sighed, muttering something under his breath that was probably not quite nice about Capitols. "It's an illness. Doesn't last very long, can only get it once… Mostly it's a kids thing." He shrugged. "The boy had it. Didn't think I needed to ask you if you were at risk 'cause I thought you'd know to stay away if you were…"

"The boy had a strong case of acne…" she argued.

"The boy had chickenpox." Haymitch insisted. "I had it when I was a kid. It's common enough."

Seneca didn't quite look entirely convinced but took a distinct step away from her. "Is it serious this… chickenpox? Should I ask for a quarantine? Some screenings?"

This time, Haymitch looked downright amused. "It's worse for adults, I heard, but it ain't deadly or anything. She's gonna have a rash for a few days, probably she's gonna want to scratch herself to death, maybe a small fever… I mean… We can go down to the Clinic and have her checked…"

"No." Seneca interrupted in a hurry. "No, no. Get her back to the penthouse, if you please. I will send the doctor up. I do not want a pandemic on my hands."

"It's chickenpox, not cholera." Haymitch drawled out, making it clear he thought the two of them stupid to be so scared. "Besides… She's contagious. You probably already caught it."

What Seneca muttered about District people and their illnesses was not nice.

Effie swiftly got between them before Haymitch could think about doing something foolish like punch him. She didn't have to fake her swoon though. Her legs were quite weak and she leaned against Haymitch harder than she meant to. "I truly do not feel well. Please, can you get me upstairs?"

Haymitch was annoyed, it was obvious, but he softened a little. "Yeah. Yeah, sure." He glanced at Crane. "Doctor ain't a bad idea. Just to be safe."

She could barely keep herself up as Haymitch guided her out of the room and back to the elevators. Once they were safe from prying eyes, he simply lifted her up and she moaned in relief when he accidentally scratched her back.

"You're burning up." he grumbled. "Why do you always have to be high maintenance?"

She didn't have a clever retort for him. She felt terrible. Her whole body hurt and that was without taking into account the urge to claw at her own skin to get rid of that itchy feeling.

The moment they were back in the penthouse, she kicked off her dress right there in the hallway, and attacked her skin with her nails.

"Stop that." he ordered immediately, grabbing her wrists. She struggled a little, intent on relieving the itch, but he didn't let her go. "Stop that. If you scratch, it's gonna scar."

That made her freeze. "Scar?"

"Yeah. Scar." He made a face. "You've got it bad…"

She headed straight to her bedroom, for a mirror and her bed.

She almost gagged when she saw her naked body in the mirror. She was… She was…

"Now, Effie, it's gonna go away…" Haymitch winced, sounding a little desperate. His hands were lifted in a placating gesture. "Don't…"

She started bawling without dignity or restrain or anything she had accustomed him to in all the years they had known each other. She looked so horrid… Her front and her back were covered with those terrible reddish zits, a good portion of her arms and legs too, and her face and…

"Oh, for fuck's sake… I'm too sober for this shit." Haymitch mumbled.

She kept crying even when he repeated it would go away. She kept crying when he helped her into some pajamas. She kept crying all the time the Games Clinic's doctor visited. She kept crying even after the old man had made her swallow some pills.

She fell asleep crying.

She wasn't feeling much better when she woke up but she swallowed the pills Haymitch handed her and gulped down two tall glasses of water, parched, before curling back under her comforter with the sheets tossed over her head.

Haymitch complained all day that she was annoying him – because she kept trying to scratch herself and the doctor had apparently ordered him to keep her from doing that – but he stayed with her all the same. He kept her supplied with tea and chocolate biscuits and, at some point, he even let her snuggle against him. He read out loud from his book to her and regularly took some gulps from his bottle – and trapped her arms against her side and his when she wasn't discreet enough with her scratching.

"It's gonna scar and you won't let me hear the end of it." he spat.

"Let it!" she snarled, wriggling in despair to relieve the itch. "I will go to plastic surgeons to have them erased!"

By day three, the fever was gone, the itching had reduced, but she still looked horrible and she was very conscious of it.

"Go away!" she ordered Haymitch, hiding under her sheets and refusing to look at him.

It seemed to amuse him a great deal because he let out one of those rounds of chuckles that were actually close to a real laugh. "I've been nursing you for three days, sweetheart, I've seen everything."

"I hate you." she growled.

"And there I thought you were gonna thank me…" he mocked, tugging on the sheets. "Should have known better."

She consented to poke her head out from her nest of blankets but she was pouting, well aware that her hair was a nest of tangled curls and that her face was devoid of make-up and full of red spots.

"I am grateful." She sulked. "But how are you ever going to want me again now? Every time you will look at me you will remember those horrors."

She tossed the sheets back over her head.

"Was drunk most of the time." he lied. "Won't remember a thing, princess."

She dropped the sheets off her head again to see him smirking.

"It is not funny." she grumbled.

"It's a little funny." he countered. "You know what's funnier? Half the city's down with it. Doctor said there hasn't been a case in twenty years. How come? It's pretty common in the Districts. And don't start with the whole we're poor and unwashed and all that fucking shit 'cause chickenpox doesn't have anything to do with that."

She hadn't been about to say it but she might have thought it.

"I guess we are rarely ill in the city…" she hummed. "I mean… There is the occasional common cold, of course, but there are vaccine for almost everything else… And more serious illnesses can almost all be cured with an expensive treatment or another…"

His face grew somber. "Must be nice to be rich."

"You are rich." she reminded him softly.

"Not that kind of rich." he snorted. "And I'm not thinking about myself anyway." He shook his head. "Never mind. You're feeling better? Wanna play some poker?"

She never said no to a game of poker.

Mostly, because she won all the time…