Prompt: could you please write something where pre-war, haymitch breaks effies heart and then post-mj in book!verse, haymitch realises he loves her and she breaks his heart out of anger?
A Taste Of His Own Medicine
Haymitch was being punished.
He wasn't enough of an idiot not to see it.
He wasn't enough of an idiot not to see the pattern or recognize it or realize he should break it before it destroyed them for good.
But they had never been very good at breaking the pattern and so he kept quiet and hurt in silence.
The tables had turned.
And he hated it.
"Stay, sweetheart." he requested, reaching for her when she sat up, the sheets pooling around her lap.
She tossed him a look but still reached for the nightgown she had tossed to the floor when she had sneaked into his room – in the middle of the night, after a nightmare, like was quickly becoming the norm – and slipped it over her head. "That isn't how it works, Haymitch."
He sat up too, heart beating fast. "It could be."
He watched the scars disappear under the fabric, watched her face closing in irritation, watched her pull her hair out of the collar of her nightgown… It fell over her right shoulder in a mess of curls that used to be glossy but now were a bit dry and split. There would be strands all over his pillows, he knew, because she was losing them by fistfuls. Because she wasn't eating properly still. Because…
"This is just sex. Do not make it complicated." she snapped and stood up, heading straight for the door.
"Ain't the one making it complicated." he snarled. He hated this. He hated the fact that his bed now smelled like her and he would spend the rest of the night with his nose buried in the spare pillow because… "Effie."
She stopped next to the threshold, leaned against the doorframe... But she didn't turn around.
She was willing to listen though and that was good enough. She wasn't always.
He had lost count of the number of times they had had that particular conversation – or was it a fight?
"What do you want from me?" she whispered and its sounded exhausted. So exhausted that he felt bad asking for more than she could give.
She had come to Twelve on the brink of collapse, still angry with him for having left her again in the Capitol but out of options and full of problems. He had tried to resist the first time she had sneaked in his bed but she had been determined and he had been desperate to give in to her. He had known immediately that something was off because he had wanted to cherish her and she wanted to ravish him. All those months in Thirteen he had thought… He had thought if he ever got to have her in his bed again, it would be sweet and loving and he would show her… But sex hadn't become sweet and loving and he hadn't showed her anything. It was as rough as it had always been, more even sometimes, plain fucking when he wanted…
"I miss you." he confessed, his voice hoarse.
It wasn't the first time he had said as much.
He had mumbled it in her neck the last time.
That had made her angry.
"If you do not want to fuck anymore, just say so." she hissed. "But this… I cannot deal with this again. It is not the deal."
"There ain't any deal." he scoffed and pushed the sheets aside so he could stand up. Did she hear him stride toward her? She must have. But she didn't move. And when he wrapped his arms around her waist she simply leaned back, let her head roll on his shoulder, let his lips seek her neck…
"It is just sex." she breathed out.
"No, it's not." he countered.
"Yes, it is." she retorted with a spark of anger. "It is meaningless. No strings attached, Haymitch. I mean it. I do not…"
He mouthed the words against her throat like she used to do before all this.
Before the Quell.
Before the war.
Before butchers tore her apart and didn't bother to put her back together properly.
He mouthed the words against her throat and then he mouthed them against her shoulder and then he mouthed them against her cheek and he was growing desperate because he wanted to shout them, those words, but they were stuck in his throat…
She went rigid.
"Do not say that." she snapped despite the fact that he hadn't actually said anything. "You do not mean it."
"I do." he growled. She could have at least granted him that. He knew how he felt. He knew…
"Well, I do not." she scowled, forcing his arms off her. "I do not love you. This means nothing. Nothing."
She stormed out of his bedroom without a glance back and, a few seconds later, he heard the guest room slam shut.
Slowly, Haymitch slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.
How many times had they played that particular scene since she had showed up in Twelve?
Had many times had they played that particular scene before the war, roles reversed?
He felt around until he found the neck of an abandoned bottle and took a generous swing.
He didn't enjoy the taste of his own medicine.