Chapter 8 :
"What do you do when you're lost?" Haymitch asked, combing his fingers through her hair.
"Look at the sun." she answered lazily, knowing she was right. He had droned it into her skull enough times those past few days. She was laying on the couch, her head cushioned on his thigh, the warm caress of the fire was warming her cheeks, it was late enough that they should have started thinking about going to bed but she couldn't be bothered to move. It was too comfortable and not only because she knew only nightmares awaited her in her room.
"Or?" he prompted, coiling one of her strawberry blond strands around his finger.
"Or that Bear constellation you keep going on about." She captured the hand playing with her hair and retraced his calloused palm with the tip of her fingers. "Not that I know what it looks like."
"You're from the Capitol, aren't you supposed to be well-learned?" he mocked her, not for the first time since he had taken upon himself to teach her as much tips as necessary for her to survive long enough to reach Thirteen.
She rolled on her back to see him and lifted an eyebrow. "I am well-learned, thank you very much. I was a top A student I will have you know."
"Not in astrology, you're not." he scoffed. "The Little Bear, the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor… All the same thing, sweetheart. Brightest star in the sky, how can you not know what it looks like?"
She stayed silent for a few seconds. "I never looked at the stars." she confessed, at last. "You can't really see them from the Capitol anyway."
"I hate the Capitol, loathe it even." he said slowly, looking at the fire in the chimney.
"Maybe you should pity it." she replied warily.
"Pity the Capitol?" he scoffed. "Pity those who take children and watch them fight each other to death without batting an eyelash?"
"Yes." She scrambled in a sitting position to face his disbelieving – and a little betrayed – face. "Because they don't know how awful it is. I didn't."
He searched her eyes and when he understood she was serious, he scooped up a bottle from beside the couch. She frowned at him with disapprobation but he didn't glance at her before taking two long swallows. "How can you watch the Games and think it's right? What kind of monster does that?"
He didn't want to look at her, she knew. "The kind who doesn't know any better." He took another swing at that bottle and she figured he was trying to stay calm. She didn't want him to get drunk, he was mean when he was drunk. "I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying…"
"Do you even know what you're saying?" he barked. "Because you should stop making excuses. Truth is you're the monsters, sweetheart."
She got up from the couch and walked to the fireplace, keeping her back to him. She didn't like that much – turning her back to someone, offering them an opportunity to stab her unaware. She had never thought like that before but she had to now. Don't trust anyone, her father had said. But she trusted Haymitch, God help her, she trusted Haymitch.
"Pity is less destructive than loathing or hatred." she said softly. "You will never hurt them by hating them, Haymitch, you will only hurt yourself."
"Hating them is all I have left." he snorted.
"Is it?" She absent-mindedly wrote her name on the dust that covered the fireplace mantle. She would have to do the dusting the next day, Haymitch would never be bothered.
"I used to have a family, you know?" he growled. "A mother, a brother… A girl." There was a challenging note in his voice but she didn't take the bait. She tried to picture her, that girl. She probably had been her total opposite. "Your people killed them all."
She let the accusation slide on her but she couldn't help her wince. "Yes, on that front, I can relate."
She heard his sharp intake of breath. She heard him put the bottle down and walked to her warily. His hands hovered above her shoulders like he was unsure of how she would react. She leaned back against him, letting his strength bear her whole weight. She trusted him. She trusted him more than she should and, really, her father hadn't given her the right advice. He shouldn't have advised her not to trust anyone, he should have advised not to get attached.
Strong arms wrapped around her waist.
"They're going to take you away from me too, one way or another." he mumbled against her hair. "How can I not hate them for that?"
She closed her eyes and let her head roll on his shoulder. That was why she should leave as soon as she could. Now even – take off during the night and be nothing more than a parenthesis for him. Some nights, she laid awake and thought she was going to do it, she was going to get up, grab warm clothes and leave. She never did. She never could. Leaving him behind was just too hard.
And yet, the scale was tilting, she could feel it. She had been at a standstill for too long, it was getting dangerous. She knew it and Haymitch probably knew it too but, still, they pretended to be unaware.
She didn't know what they were waiting for.
Maybe they were waiting for their back to be up against the wall, maybe they were waiting for the moment when it wouldn't be possible for them to do anything else but going their own separate ways. Maybe she was waiting for this unbearable foreboding in her guts to be proven true.
"I don't know." she whispered, eyes closed tight to deny the outside world. "I really don't know."
I know it's a bit short but next one will be longer =)
Also, I know some were concerned because they fell in love pretty fast, that was one of my concerns too when I wrote it but I felt Haymitch was a lot more younger than in the usual time frame for stories and as such he isn't yet as bitter as in canon. He's almost as young as Finnick is in canon, only 24, and maybe life while horrible doesn't seem as desertic and gloomy as it does for him when he's 40.. I don't know, I understand that it can seem very quick, it does to me too, that's why I was unsure about the story in the first place when I re-read it.
We're halfway through the story by the way! Let me know what you think!