Chapter Eleven: What the heck was that?
Haymitch sat staring blankly at where Stephanie had been standing moments before. Moments before she had kissed him and then waltzed out of the kitchen as if it were the most natural thing in the world!
He licked his lips, briefly tasting the faint sweet imprint of her lips on his. Stephanie had really discovered her sweet tooth since coming to the Capitol, Haymitch thought, after recalling how she had reacted when first discovering ice cream at dinner. Her lips had almost been blue by the time she had decided she had enough.
Why had she kissed him? Haymitch thought. He got to his feet and padded over to the window knocking back the last of his drink. It tasted bitter.
He looked out the window much in the same way that Stephanie had been doing when he caught her. The fluorescent, gaudy lights of the Capitol were beginning to dull and the din was waning.
An unbidden and unwelcome memory flashed before him with painful clarity. A scared and alone 16 year old boy watching the hours go by and the sky lighten on his last day of freedom. Freedom – Ha! That was a joke, Haymitch thought bitterly, returning once more to the kitchen to get another drink. He wanted to drown that memory in as much alcohol as it would take.
The vodka spilled a little as he poured it when his mind drifted. But, why? The question was infuriating. He almost had a good mind to go and drag Stephanie from her bed and demand an explanation.
He remembered as a younger boy…before the Reaping; chasing girls and flirting with them and a kiss in that situation was understandable, in fact it was expected.
But that…he thought back to what they were speaking about. He had been telling her to fight to try and win.
But there was nothing strange about that. He had wanted each and every one of the eighteen tributes who came before her to win, and now he wanted her and Frenkin to win. He knew that they both couldn't survive, and a guilty part of his mind conceded how he was already hoping that they would give Frenkin a quick death at least.
But out of his previous tributes not one of them had actually kissed him!
She wasn't any different from any of the tributes who had come before her, and when she died in the arena he would go and drink himself into a comatose state, having failed another. Stephanie wasn't any different…was she?
He frowned, downing the glass of vodka in one go. Most of the times she aggravated the hell out of him and she was much too stubborn for her own good. She had a tendency to faint and get generally ill at the worst times and her…ahem, greeting to him, was less than warm. And not to mention her latest antics, that had him still downing shots of vodka at 3 in the morning to try and quell the upsurge of memories she had resurfaced!
And yet, the girl sure had spirit…No! She was a tribute and would most likely be dead in a few weeks, to even continue that train of thought was just asking for trouble, he berated himself. Besides a spirit like that didn't last long in the Capitol. Not when she would soon have to witness the horrors first hand.
He brought the glass down on the worktop loudly. "Why did she kiss me?!" he seemed to be demanding an answer of the vodka bottle. But as inanimate objects tend to do – except when the person is in a hallucinating state – it remained silent.
He growled before making his way down the hallway to the bedrooms. Upon reaching her door he flung it open with an expression like thunder.
Stephanie was asleep wrapped in a semi-cocoon of cream silk, one arm hanging over the bed haphazardly.
She was frowning a little in her sleep and once or twice shifted uneasily. Sighing, Haymitch walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, defeated. She mumbled something incoherent, tossing violently and kicking him.
"Great one sweetheart; even in your sleep you're attacking me," he mumbled.
She gave a sudden whimper, her arm raised up in a defensive motion. He hushed her softly. He had a fair idea what she was dreaming about…the Games.
Nightmares. He had them every night, haunted by those he had watched die. He might not have been able to see what lurked behind her eyelids but he sure as hell knew how it felt. For a moment in time he imagined her dead, the hollow sound of the cannon booming announcing her demise. Would it be painful? Would it be quick? Would she cry out? "Will you haunt me when you die?" he asked quietly. He lifted her arm and directed it beneath the covers of her cocoon. She turned her back to him, snuggling down once more into the pillow.
He didn't want her to die. He didn't want to have to watch her die. He didn't want to have to watch Frenkin die.
Frenkin was just a kid, he didn't belong here. Neither did she. Heck; neither did he.
He looked at her and decided he liked her. She kind of grew on him he thought, thinking with a smirk back to their first meeting. Being in the same room as her was never boring at least he added, recalling her actions only a few minutes ago.
He got up with a sigh and went to the door, pausing in the threshold to look at her sleeping soundly.
Then, with a truly Haymitch smirk, he slammed her door with as much force as he could, smiling smugly at the huge bang that echoed down the hallway.
"Sorry kid," he mumbled, when he heard Frenkin's yelp from the other room. But walking down the hallway he stretched his arms above his head, before picking up a bottle of half-finished liquor from the table where he left it. He took a swig with an almost proud expression to Stephanie's scream, "HAYMITCHHH!"