Pprompt: My two favourite things are a jealous Haymitch and a Hayffie first ever kiss (with lots of pre angst) all of which you write exceptionally well! May I ask you to write a little oneshot something thay embodies all of the above bc I'm too impatient for GSM Friday updates haha! LOVE your writing. X x

This is obviously an older prompt but I cannot remember what GSM stands for… Greatest Show? What chaptered story did we have with those initials? (amnesiac author who doesn't know her own stories, hello?)

The Games She Plays

Haymitch watched Effie tilt her head and giggle for the former Head Gamemaker turned key member of the rebellion and tried not to glower too obviously.

He didn't get it.

He really, really didn't get it.

Up until the Quell, she had always said Plutarch was absolutely unattractive and she had always sneered at him, being so disdainful at times that it had been almost amusing to see… And now that they were in Thirteen, Effie was all dazzling smiles, quick accidental flashes of her cleavage and giggles…

He didn't get it.

But he hated watching it, watching her throw herself at him like…

"What do you think, Haymitch?" Plutarch asked him and it took him a good minute to stop glaring at his escort to look at the paper the man was handing him. The former Head Gamemaker frowned a little. "Everything's alright?"

"Sure." he grumbled, snatching the paper away. They were in the briefing room and it was thankfully deserted, except for the three of them who were hopelessly trying to figure out what they could shoot with Katniss that wouldn't be too butchered by her lack of acting talents. He skimmed over the speech and made a face. "Too pompous."

He didn't need to ask who had written that. Effie was much better at actually writing speeches that couldhave genuinely been attributed to the kids, as the Tour had proven. He had said times and times again that she should be given the job but Plutarch wanted a show and he only trusted himself to provide it.

"I was afraid you would say that." Plutarch sighed. "Perhaps Finnick will be a better fit for this one. Once he recovers, of course." The man clasped his hands and then rubbed them together, adding some cheer to his voice. "Well… I believe we can call it a night."

"I will drop everything on your desk." Effie offered, gathering the pieces of papers scattered on the table and neatly organizing them into a folder.

"You are an angel." The Capitol smiled at her with that slight enamored light in his eyes Haymitch had seen a thousand times in the gazes of her victims.

He had no doubt whatsoever that she could make any man fall in love with her if she applied her mind to it.

Except him, of course.

"Oh, stop!" she gushed with another round of giggles.

Too much giggling.

Far too much giggling.

Haymitch scowled and slouched deeper in his chair, burying his hands in his pockets. He studied her, from her stupidly customized uniform to the scarf knotted on her head… Plutarch paused on the threshold, clearly waiting for him, then the man seemed to realize he wasn't in any hurry to move and eventually left after calling out another good night. Haymitch couldn't blame him. With the war raging outside Thirteen, they had to grab sleep whenever they could.

"Why are you staring?" she asked after a couple of minutes spent in an uncomfortable silence.

She glanced at him and his eyes studied her bare face, wondering if the absence of garish make-up was responsible for this new pang of… No. No. If he had to be honest, he had felt the pang for a while now, make-up or no make-up. There had always been a tension between them, from the very start. Chaff used to say someone could have cut their sexual tension with a knife and he hadn't been wrong. But between loathing and hatred, they had always shoved that particular temptation aside. Then, had come a very tentative understanding that he didn't like to call friendship, even though it was what it was. Why else would he had gone to such great lengths to have her brought to Thirteen?

"The fuck you're playing at?" he retorted, more aggressively than he had meant to.

She was done putting away the papers and she secured the folder shut before frowning at him. "What do you mean?"

"Heavensbee." he clarified, even though he suspected she knew very well what he was saying. "The fuck you're playing at?"

She fished her ridiculous pink sunglasses from the front pocket of her shirt and placed them on her nose, pushing them up with one finger. He wondered if it was a way of flipping him off while conserving plausible deniability and decided that, yeah, it was.

"I have no clue what you are talking about." she answered far too flatly, walking around the big table and to the door.

He stood up in one smooth move, grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. She hadn't been ready for it. The folder fell to the floor and it was a miracle it didn't burst open. Maybe it was also a little anticlimactic. If there had been papers everywhere, she would have had a reason to be angry at him and he would have been able to save face.

Right then, she simply stared at him with pursed lips, her blue eyes hidden away behind the pink-tinted glass. Just another way to mask her face. Like the make-up.

"May I enquire as to why you are behaving like a caveman?" she huffed, shrugging his grip off her wrist. "More than usual, that is?"

She didn't move away though, even if he was crowding her against the table, towering over her because she was so tiny without her heels… Another woman might have been scared or intimidated but not her, of course. No… Never her…

"Why are you throwing yourself at Heavensbee?"

It came out as a snarl.

He hadn't intended it like that and his own obvious irritation annoyed him.

She clearly picked up on it because her pursed lips stretched into a teasing smile he was far too familiar with. "Jealous?"

"Hardly." he instinctively denied with a scoff.

"Well then…" She lifted her hands and dropped them. "It is no business of yours what I…"

"Cut the crap." he ordered, snatching the glasses off her nose. He searched her blue eyes for a while. They were hard. "Don't get it. What… You're bored so you're playing games? You're stringing him along?"

She was a very beautiful woman. Shallow, too. He was under no misconception that she hadn't done that sort of things for her own amusement before.

"Perhaps I find him attractive. Have you thought of that?" she challenged.

"Too old, too fat and not wealthy enough." he mocked.

She barely blinked. "I happen to like older men."

"Maybe." he granted, taking a step closer to her, forcing her to step back against the table. She stood her ground short of sitting on it. Again, she refused to cower though. She jutted her chin up, stare straight back at him… "But you don't like fat and you don't like poor."

"I would hardly call him poor." she remarked.

He reached for the knot of her scarf and she batted his hand away.

He desisted.

"Capitol got his money now." He shrugged. "Somehow, I don't think Snow's gonna give it back any time soon."

"But we are not in the Capitol and money is not the only attractive trait of a man." she hummed, tilting her head to the side. She had done the very same thing to Plutarch not fifteen minutes earlier but, when it had seemed purposeful then, a clear invitation, it was less so right then. He wasn't even sure she knew she was doing it, offering her throat to him… And he wanted to bite down. Oh, he really wanted to bite down… Like an animal. All that gorgeous creamy skin… It was just too… "Power is another. And, in this awful hell you sentenced me to, I do need all the edge I can get."

Her words somehow got through the very primitive urges that weren't helping his brain to function.

He scoffed and stopped staring at her throat to make a face at her. "You're saying you want to sleep with him cause he's high in the food chain?"

She watched him for several minutes, glanced at the empty doorway as if to make sure they weren't about to be interrupted or overheard, and lowered her voice. "I am saying I would sleep with him because he has the means to guarantee my safety."

All he took from that was that she didn't really want to sleep with Plutarch.

And that, for some reason, was a relief.

"I can guarantee your safety." he objected.

Her face was a blank mask and he couldn't even begin to guess what was happening in that hairspray attacked brain of hers.

Eventually, she reached for his shirt and started smoothing creases away like she had done a thousand times. "Are you saying you would like me to sleep with you in exchange for…"

"No." he spat, coiling his fingers around her wrist, stopping her not-so innocent touches. "I'm saying you don't need to sleep with anyone you don't want to for protection cause I've got your back, sweetheart."

Her lips twitched, her blue eyes were sparkling and, at the way she was looking at him, he just knew somehow, somewhere, he had gotten played.

"Are you certain you are not jealous?" she insisted.

She was the one sandwiched between him and the table and yet he had the unpleasant feeling that he was the one who was trapped.

"Ain't jealous of anyone." he sneered. "Would never be jealous over you."

"Too bad, then." She flashed him a grin and battled her eyelashes. "I will have to take my chances with Plutarch, after all. He would not be my first choice but I do like to kill two birds with one stone. A woman has needs, you know."

She ducked around him and she would have sauntered away – probably even laughed – if he hadn't grabbed her and pulled her back against him.

"And you think Plutarch's gonna help with your needs?" he growled.

"For someone who is not jealous, you seem overly concerned with my needs." she taunted, jutting her chin up again.

They were so close their noses bumped together.

Shit but he was hard.

And she hadn't even touched him yet.

"Fuck you, Trinket." he hissed. "I don't dance to your fucking tune."

Her eyes were sparkling with unabashed amusement. When she raised on tiptoe, he held his breath.

She whispered the next words right against his mouth in something that was and wasn't a kiss…

"Not yet perhaps, darling. But soon." she promised.

And then she was gone.

He didn't mind the giggles that much this time.

But he would make her pay for that. He would make her pay by making her scream until her throat was hoarse.

Soon.