Promtp: could you please write something post mj about Effie having a complex about her breast size after she loses a lot of weight during the war? maybe haymitch is like 'okay ur cute n all but also you screamed when a door slammed yesterday weve got bigger problems than you being hot' until he realised how bad her appearance complex probably actually is after the war
The Padded Bra
Effie hated what she was seeing in the mirror mounted on Haymitch's old wardrobe.
The glass was a little tarnished by the years in some places and there were small cracks here and there – she had never asked but she supposed he had tossed things in a broken rage at one point or another and the wardrobe had made a big enough target. She would have loved to attribute the unsatisfying reflection to these flaws but she knew better. She was the one who was flawed.
Even two whole years after the end of the war, her ribs still jutted out, the skin was tight over her bones. Her stomach wasn't flat, mainly because the rest of her was so the soft tentative curve was glaring. Her breasts… Her breasts looked like they wanted to sag but weren't actually big enough to do so.
The breasts were the most painful to look at.
She had never had much in terms of cleavage but she had still had some. Now she felt like a prepubescent teenager waiting for her breasts to fully develop.
The scars crisscrossed all over her but the old glass had that advantage that it made them hard to pinpoint. Her hair was tied up in a bun, too thin and not as glossy as it used to be, the blond fading to white in some areas; she lost strands by fistfuls and the fear she would end up with patches of baldness was almost enough to drive her back to wigs sometimes, no matter how old-fashioned wigs were now. Not an uncommon side effect of starvation, she was told.
She wasn't pretty to look at.
But she couldn't look away.
It was like a train wreck. They said you could never look away from a train wreck. Well, the train wreck had already happened for her, but she couldn't take her eyes away from the wreckage.
She should have known better than to prance in the bedroom naked. It would have been alright if she hadn't caught a glimpse of herself in the big mirror. She had become quite adept at avoiding reflecting surfaces.
"Not dressed yet?" Haymitch's gruff voice asked as he walked inside their bedroom, clearly distracted. "Thought we were going to Sae's tonight. Ain't it date night?"
Date night.
It was still surreal to hear Haymitch Abernathy utter those words, even now that it had become something of a habit.
Date night was a concession on his part, something he agreed to to prove he was serious about them, that it wasn't like it had been before, that he was committed. It had been his idea even. To do something just the two of them one night or afternoon a week, to call it something he despised, just so she would know he was all in.
Truth be told, she didn't need the dates to know that but she enjoyed the attention and the effort nonetheless.
"Perhaps we could do something else." she suggested before she lost her nerves. "Something inside."
He fished his reading glasses from the clutter on his nightstand – probably what he had been looking for in the first place – and glanced up at her with a small frown. "You're alright, sweetheart?"
His voice had changed. It had softened like it always did when he suspected she was about to have a flashback, a panic attack or a nervous breakdown. She kind of hated that he could tell so easily. She kind of loved it too.
"Perfectly so." she lied, reaching behind her for the underwear she had dropped on the bed. It was a sexy set – or at least it used to be – lacy and red just like he preferred. The panties didn't fit snuggly when she slipped them on, they sagged a little under her butt and no matter how small the size was it still felt a little too large at the waist.
She was hyperaware of him as he moved around the bedroom – three steps to place the glasses on the dresser, six to round the bed, two to place his hands on her waist… She tried not to tense, she tried not to flinch at the knowledge he was now seeing what she was seeing in the mirror…
"Is it about the food thing?" he asked gently, his thumbs running circles on her waist. "Cause you know nobody cares about that, yeah? You know nobody's gonna watch. It's all in your head."
She clenched her jaw because that sort of reminder was never helpful.
The doctors around Twelve liked to toss the words eating disorder around ever since they had realized she had been a model. She resented them. She had never had an eating disorder – she had known enough people with eating disorders to know she had never suffered from that. She had always made an effort to eat healthily and had gone on diets when needed to keep her figure but she had never denied herself food – never since her mother had forced her on a liquid diet for three months when she had been thirteen – and she had never made herself throw up.
The Capitol had starved her.
And now she couldn't seem to convince her body to fill up.
Meals were torture still. She felt full after a few forkfuls, it took her twice as long as everyone to finish a smaller plate because she had to force herself with every bite. Haymitch tried to be supportive but he didn't understand and neither did the children because meals had never been a given for any of them and they had bounced back from being starved all their lives easily enough. Nausea was often a problem too, either from hunger or from her body telling her it had swallowed enough food. She was sick far too often. She had spent two years struggling to get back to an acceptable weight that was still nowhere close to what her average should be for her height.
Sometimes, when she was in her less charitable days, she thought that it was why Haymitch had suggested the date nights, because he had known it would mean outings to Twelve's small and only restaurant and that she would feel compelled to eat the food in a public setting without him having to coax her through it or give her a discreet nudge to remind her to eat at the children's dinner table. And for the most part he was right. It also helped that Sae could cook and that the food was often excellent. But she always ended up feeling self-conscious about the time it took her to eat and paranoia told her people were watching her and making fun of the Capitol living amongst their midst, of the ex-escort who still wasted food.
Was it in her head? Probably.
"We could have a quiet night at home." she insisted. "We should cook the fish anyway, it will spoil if we leave it much longer."
"It can keep another day." Haymitch countered with that same calm that infuriated her because it wasn't natural. He was treading carefully.
She reached around him for the bra and put it on, not protesting when he let go of her waist to do the clasp for her.
She didn't feel the cups.
It wasn't entirely obvious because it fitted well enough but she didn't fill the cups when her breasts used to be pushed up and ready to spill in that one.
Either Haymitch remembered or he had an inkling of what she was thinking because he pressed a kiss on her neck.
"You're gonna be fine." he promised, his hands sliding down her sides and back to her waist. "I'm gonna ask Sae for a corner table, yeah? We'll be left in peace. I'm even gonna ask for candles… Romantic and shit."
So he hadn't picked up on the problem then.
"How do you still want me?" she whispered, the words escaping her lips before she could bite them down. And bit them down she would have. She didn't want to give him ideas. The small miracle of his ongoing interest in her wasn't something she was ready to lose. When he touched her, when he took her, he made her feel desirable, womanly… That wasn't something to take for granted nowadays.
"You've always been high maintenance." he teased, with another kiss higher on her neck. He quickly lost the amusement to be serious again though. "It's gonna get better, Effie. You got another pound back last month, that's good. We're gonna get there…"
When? Because at the pace they were going, she would still feel sick when she sat down for a meal in ten years.
She hadn't been a fan of doctors since her rescue but every one of them she had consulted had said the same thing: the food problem was in her head, hence Twelve's unhelpful diagnostic of an inexistent eating disorder. Was it her fault that every time she put something in her mouth she remembered the disgusting gruel that had been her only meal for months? Was it her fault that the memory was enough to make her choke? Was it her fault that she felt sick every time she remembered just how eager she had been for that repulsive food in that dirty bowl because her stomach had been clutching with painful cramps of hunger? She wasn't even sure what had been in that bowl. She was very certain she didn't want to know. She had heard the guards laugh enough times about it.
Would they get there like Haymitch kept promising? Probably. Since she had come to Twelve, they had managed to determine most of her triggers and avoid them. The flashbacks didn't come as often. The nightmares were still vivid and terrible and left her shaking but Haymitch was there to hold her through it and it wasn't as bad as it had been when she had been alone. The panic attacks were less and less frequent…
She was surviving.
She was surviving.
But her body… Her beautiful gorgeous body…
"I look terrible." she insisted.
"You look hot." he answered without even thinking about it, such an automatic response that it rang false to her ears. It brought tears to her eyes. "Sweetheart…" he sighed. He sounded tired. He looked tired. His night terrors had abated after the war but hers still kept him awake. "What's the problem?"
Her eyes darted away from his face in the mirror and roamed over her reflection again… They paused on the soft thighs, on the small budge of her stomach, on her ribcage and finally stopped on her chest, at the bra she wasn't filling…
She felt so exhausted suddenly. So exhausted.
She sagged against him. It surprised him, she could tell, but he immediately wrapped his arms around her waist to keep her up, his face morphing from mildly irritated to concerned.
"I pad my bra when I go out." she confessed. What was one more secret? One more humiliation?
"What?" he asked, obviously confused.
"I pad my bra." she repeated. "With cotton. Or tissues. I pad my bra like a child so you won't be embarrassed to be seen with a walking corpse and I am too tired to do that tonight."
She rubbed her face, rubbed the tears from her eyes before they could spill, and pushed his arms away from her. She unclasped the bra, let it fall to the floor and strode to the bathroom to snatch her dressing gown from the back of the door. The sensation of cold silk caressing her skin was soothing and it allowed her to take a deep breath.
She walked to the tub, started filling it with hot water, stared at the wide range of bath products lining the side… She needed something that smelt strongly and that was why she picked the lavender salts.
"Effie…" Haymitch said from the threshold, sounding even more tired than she felt. "What the fuck?"
"Language." she chided mechanically. She didn't wait for the tub to be full before stepping inside, losing the dressing gown and lowering herself in the shallow water and the scented foam. She breathed in deep, let the flowery smell anchor her to the present before her mind could spiral to the stench of rot and the dampness of her cell.
Haymitch didn't question her sudden need for a bath, knowing very well that it was what she did when she felt anxious and on the verge of a panic attack. He sat on the edge of the tub, facing her. "Talk to me."
It wasn't a demand, more like a plea, and it left her without defense. She leaned back until the cold faience of the tub touched her back and send a shiver through her whole body.
"I do not know." she admitted. "I just… My body…"
"I love your body." Haymitch objected when she didn't say any more.
She didn't miss the way he casually reached down to check the water's temperature. She supposed she wasn't supposed to notice that he thought she might accidentally or not burn herself. She also supposed that, to be fair, it had happened in the past and he had a right to be concerned.
"But it does not feel like it is mine anymore." she snapped. "It is ugly and battered and… How can you want me? I barely look like a woman anymore."
"I love your body." he insisted, his voice turning harder. "Any shape or form. And I always want you." He scoffed. "Come on, sweetheart… You know all that. So you're underweight… You're gonna get everything back. You just have to be patient."
"And while I am being patient, how long will it take you to find someone else?" she hissed. "Someone who looks better? I have seen you eying the redhead at the market."
He opened his mouth for a protest that he quickly swallowed back down faced with her glare. He winced. "I looked, fine. Wasn't interested."
"Liar." she accused, wrapping an arm around her chest to hide her meager breasts from view. There were tears burning her eyes again. She slid lower in the tub until the water leaped at her chin.
Haymitch sighed and closed the tap. "Effie, you're the only woman I want. So, sometimes I look at another woman… Can't tell me you don't do the same cause I've caught you doing it. Doesn't mean anything."
"It does when they are beautiful and I am ugly." she snapped stubbornly.
"I don't think you're ugly." he retorted.
"Then you are blind." she grumbled. "And I know you are not because coincidentally all the women you look at have big breasts."
He ran a hand in his hair, left it on his nape for a moment. "I like your breasts."
Like and not love, she noticed, feeling a bit petty.
"You like how my breasts used to be." she growled. "Now…"
"Effie." he cut her off. He raised his voice a little which probably meant she had reached the end of his patience. "A door slammed yesterday and you screamed for ten minutes, you still can't eat a whole meal without getting sick and you're having a panic attack over something that's never gonna happen 'cause I'm never gonna leave you again. Certainly not for a random redhead at the market. We've got bigger problems than you being hot here."
She pouted. "So you do not think I am hot anymore."
He closed his eyes and so obviously counted to ten that she felt a tug of amusement despite herself.
"Do you want me to prove to you right now just how hot I think you are?" he grumbled. "Cause I swear I'll get in that bathtub and fuck you right here if that's what it takes to make you shut up about what I like or not. Fuck, how many times since we've starting fucking have I told you I fucking love your breasts? You're obsessed with what you look like."
He looked so outraged that she relaxed.
"That's a lot of swearing even for you." she remarked.
"I'm gonna swear a lot more if you don't stop driving me crazy." he warned.
"If I stopped driving you crazy, you would get bored." she taunted.
He searched her eyes and then shrugged, his shoulders slowly losing their tension. "Maybe." He reached for the other side of the bathtub and leaned in a little, leaving it to her to cross the rest of the distance. She sat up to kiss him, careful not to make him plunge head first in the water. He pressed his forehead against hers when their lips parted. "Do you still want to go out or do you want me to cook the fish?"
She knew he wanted her to choose the first option because she had a bad tendency to lock herself in their house when she was in that frame of mind and it wasn't healthy but the prospect of having to eat in front of people right then…
"Can we have dinner here and then go for a stroll?" she suggested. "That might be romantic."
He made a face at the romantic comment but shrugged his assent. "As long as you don't put whatever in your bra. Can't be comfortable."
"It itches." she admitted.
He rolled his eyes and stole one last peck before standing up.
"For the record…" he tossed awkwardly on his way out of the room. "I'm never ashamed of being seen with you. If anything, I'm proud you're my girl to parade around."
Foolish man, she mused, her heart beating fast at the unexpected declaration.
She ducked under the water and came back out, wiping her face.
Foolish man.