Prompt : I know you probably got enough prompts on your list, but here's another one . if you'd like to: somtime pre-HG: Effie and Haymitch had a dispute and she takes some other guy up to her room in the penthouse or taking care of that herself, being extra loud to irk him. But he knows it's fake 'cause he already knows so well how she sounds when it's real. - 13Fische
Payback In Kind
Haymitch was squeezing the glass of whiskey so hard he was surprised it hadn't yet cracked.
The mentor lounge was almost deserted at that time of night. Only one table was taken, in the very back, One and Two mentors were whispering secrets to each other. It might have to do with the Games and it might not have. Haymitch didn't really care either way. Twelve had been out two minutes after the launch so the Careers' alliance didn't exactly concern him despite the mistrustful looks they kept shooting in his direction.
He wasn't there to spy, he was there to drink.
And with that in mind, he signaled the Avox bartender to pour him another one.
He was glaring so hard the man actually flinched.
He downed the glass in one go, gestured for another and then simply snatched the bottle right out of the bartender's hand. The Avox seemed relived not to have to attend him anymore and kept himself busy checking his stock.
He didn't miss Eleven's victor's entrance. So late at night, it would have been hard to. Chaff must have come straight out of bed because he hadn't bothered getting dressed. He was wearing pajama pants and a loose tank top, his shortened arm on display.
"Nightmare?" Haymitch asked as a greeting when his best friend took the stool next to him.
Chaff grunted in answer, grabbed the bottle and took a swing.
Maybe that was why the bar at the lounge was open twenty-four hours a day, for victors who couldn't stand to sleep the night through and needed some company. It was almost kind of the Capitol to be so thoughtful, he mused not without irony.
"You?" Chaff asked, once he had gulped down a good amount of the liquor.
It must have been a bad nightmare because Chaff only was cheap with words when he was very upset or very furious. Eleven's victor rarely if ever talked about his night terrors but Haymitch knew he had them. All victors had them.
He contemplated lying and then simply stole the bottle back to pour himself another drink. He tried to clip the anger to a minimum, to keep his voice even and detached. He failed. "Trinket's got a guy up there. Couldn't hear myself think over her getting some."
The screams…
They had echoed down the corridor so he had heard them from his bedroom. It had been low noises at first, moans and whimpers and sighs that were all so familiar it had felt like daggers in the stomach… And then she had started to shout… Endearments, encouragements, cries of pleasure…
He had relocated to the living-room because it was either that or storm into her room and wriggle the neck of the poor excuse of a guy she had picked up at that stupid party earlier… Right in front of him. Right there on the dancefloor… She had rubbed herself against that guy, holding his eyes all the while in a challenging expression that he had answered with a scowl of his own…
He should have just cut in right then. Scare the guy off, grab her and fuck her in the car… He should have just…
He wasn't sure how she had known he had moved out of his bedroom – maybe the slamming door had been a big clue – but she had started screaming even louder. He had briefly entertained the thought that the guy was actually killing her and he had almost been glad about it because what she was doing… What she was doing, it was shitty.
And also, she was faking.
He could tell.
Hell, his pride had smarted at first when she had started shouting that much but he had had her begging for him, screaming for him, sobbing for him… He knew what she sounded like when she came or enjoyed herself and that show she was putting on, it wasn't that.
So, she was faking.
But it didn't matter one bit because, real pleasure or not, she was still getting fucked by a ridiculous man in a ridiculous pink wig and he was still fighting murdering urges.
It was either leaving the penthouse or facing very angry Gamemakers in the morning – they tended to frown on murder when Capitols were the victims.
Chaff chuckled but it wasn't really amused. "Didn't get over that story about the blow job, did she?"
Haymitch sneered and handed the bottle back to his friend, taking a sip of his whiskey. He wasn't drunk enough to deal with this shit.
"Nope." he snorted, making the p pop.
The previous night, he had been wasted and horny and that girl had a pink wig and the shape of her face had vaguely reminded him of his escort and when she had offered to suck him off in the bathroom, he hadn't said no. Why would he have? No man in his right man would have passed on the offer. So he had followed the girl and it had been fun for the five minutes he had lasted but he really hadn't counted on the girl running straight to the gossip rags.
He had woken up that morning to Effie tossing various magazines at his head – very hard – all of them with a headline regarding the lack of his sexual prowess. Some had even been funny and he might have laughed the whole thing off if his escort hadn't looked so thunderous.
She didn't enjoyed having to do damage control.
She enjoyed the fact he had let a stranger suck him off in a dirty bathroom even less.
They had fought.
Of course, they had fought. She had woken him up by tossing magazines at him – and she may or may not have tried to whack him with them at some point – she had shouted in her shrillest voice when he had been nursing a nasty headache and she had unwrapped stuff he liked to keep unsaid. It wasn't just that she had been jealous, it was the way she acted, like he had been cheating on her when…
They had sex sometimes.
It didn't mean anything more than that, it didn't mean he owned her an explanation because he had slept with someone else.
He wasn't dense enough not to understand she had been making a point by bringing that guy back to the penthouse when they had made it a rule never to bring their lovers back there. And he got the point. Hell, he got the point loud and clear and he granted it to her because fuck if it didn't bother him to think about her spread under someone else or…
He gripped the glass tight again.
"Imagine if you were sleeping with her…" Chaff teased, sounding a little more like his normal self.
Haymitch took a mouthful of whiskey and kept it in his mouth for a second before swallowing. He was happy his friend was feeling better, he was less happy it was because his current problem was amusing to him.
"Yeah." he deadpanned. "Imagine that."
Chaff rolled his eyes but didn't try to get him to confess something they both knew didn't need confessing. Haymitch would never admit it and Chaff didn't need to hear it to know the truth anyway.
Eleven's victor brought the bottle to his lips. "You could always go back and punch the guy."
He shrugged. "She ain't winning this."
"Buddy…" Chaff snorted, patting his shoulder. "She already did."
Haymitch made a face and redirected the conversation to less treacherous waters. Chaff avoided talking about what had freaked him out so badly he had felt the need to flee his District floor and Haymitch avoided talking about the guy who was making his escort scream.
When the bottle was empty, they tacitly decided to call it a night and slowly made their way back to the elevator.
Alcohol, like always, had calmed Haymitch down a little and instead of being angry, he was now gloomy. Chaff must have noticed because he bumped his shoulder with his.
"Just say you're sorry." Eleven's victor advised.
"Ain't sorry." he stubbornly insisted.
"You were a little sorry when you heard another guy make her come." Chaff pointed out.
He didn't like hearing his friend talk about her like that. That was intimate and intimate things were just for the two of them and…
His head hurt and he was too drunk to properly weight his words. "She wasn't coming. She was faking just to annoy me."
Chaff laughed and shook his head.
"Go get your girl, Haymitch." his friend advised before stepping out at Eleven's floor.
"Not my girl." Haymitch grumbled.
When he walked in the penthouse, the floor was finally silent. He made his way to the living-room for a last glass – or maybe because a part of him knew that was where he would find her.
She was sitting on the couch, wearing a silk dressing gown and not much else that he could see, her pink wig a little askew and a long cigarette wedged between two fingers. The ashtray was propped on the armrest, which looked like a fire hazard to him.
She didn't look up at him when he walked in or when he stepped around her to sit down at the other end of the couch. He didn't ask if the guy was gone, she had probably walked him out the door at soon as the deed had been done.
He only hesitated a second before giving in and lying down on the couch, cushioning his head on her lap. She didn't move or acknowledge him in any way, not even when he stared at her, studying her face. She simply brought her cigarette to her lips regularly, almost mechanically.
There were a hundred gibes fighting to slip past his lips but none he managed to utter.
He didn't ask if she had come for real, he didn't ask if it had been good, he didn't ask if she had enjoyed herself or if he was supposed to care… He didn't taunt her for having put on a show for his benefit…
He didn't say anything, he just stared.
He wasn't sure there was anything to say anyway. There wasn't room for anything to say. That she had slept with someone for revenge and hadn't really enjoyed it didn't make it hurt less, it didn't make it better. That he had let a girl suck him off because he had been bored and drunk and not because he wanted someone else than her probably wasn't of any comfort to her either.
The thing was, though… They weren't supposed to care.
It wasn't supposed to be like that.
And he wasn't sure where they would go from there.
Back to bed eventually, he figured. They always ended up back in bed.
But if it wasn't just sex…
If it wasn't just sex, then he wasn't sure what it could be.