He didn't look well. He looked like death was coming early. He had bags under his blue and silver eyes, which no longer sparkled. His hair was oily, most likely from running his fingers through his hair. He still had the purple and blue outfit on from during the interviews but now it was wrinkled and scrunched up. Haymitch's tie was not only unfurled and uneven but the waistcoat was unbuttoned along with the shirt. I could see the hair on his chest and the scars there. His hand was bandaged, and for a split second I felt guilt because I hoped to God that the bandaged hand wasn't fault.
His skin was pasty but I'm sure the paleness of my skin was probably worse, seeing as how all of my blood was now working to keep my heart pounding. I felt light headed at Haymitch's sudden arrival. How long was he there? Not long surely, because Peeta was just here and I hadn't seen him then. The silence that surrounded us was tense and pumped full of anticipation for someone to say something but I couldn't bring myself to say anything, I'd already said enough, hadn't I? I'm positive that there was nothing I could say to make this better without lying and I can't lie to him, not now.
"Your door was open." Haymitch stated, breaking the silence that rooted me to the metal floor beneath my feet. It wouldn't surprise me if Haymitch had just walked forward and pushed me over the edge, I surely wouldn't have blamed him. In fact I kind of wanted him to.
I didn't say anything.
"I went in, and you weren't there." Haymitch took two steps closer to me, and the closer he got the more details I could see. He had stubble lining his broad jaw and his eyes were an unnatural wide for a reason that I couldn't figure out. I stood my ground, not because I have courage but more because I have no room to step back. Again, I said nothing and just waited.
"You left the door propped open, so I figured you were here." Haymitch said, and waited for me to say anything but I couldn't bring myself to open my mouth to say anything about what I knew he was trying to get me to talk about. I just couldn't do it, not until he did first. Haymitch of course realized this because he stepped forward and kept going until he was directly in front of me with only two or three inches of open air separating us. I had to crane my head to meet his eyes. My fists curled and uncurled in waiting horror.
"Did you mean it?" He whispered to me so soft that I could barely hear it. I sucked in a shaky breath that rattled my lungs it was so deep. I opened my mouth to answer with something but nothing would come out. Nothing but air and hope left my body. His face screwed up in an emotion that I couldn't decide if it was anger or desperation. "Katfir, tell me." He ordered and I watched his eyes dilated.
"Yes," I blurted out in one go. "I meant it." I said and I shuffled back as far as I could go, until the back of my knees were pressed against the ledge that had previously been a place of good memories. Haymitch's face went blank, just like during the interview. I winced and glanced at the door. What was the likely hood that I could make it there before Haymitch's grabbed me? Not good. So I went with the only other thing my body could do, I rambled.
"I'm sorry that I said in front of a crowd of people but I'm a coward and I-I wanted you to know before…" I shuttered. "And I knew I would get a good response from the people. I understand that you don't feel the same, I'm younger then you I know and there's no reason for you to like me because I'm horrible. I'll probably die tomorrow anyways, so what's the use in telling me that you don't love me. Let's just act like it never happened and everything will go back to normal and neither of us will experience any kind of discomfort. It's a great way to just put it-" And then something amazing, excellent, speechless-inducing happened.
Haymitch wove his large arms around me and tugged me to him so that every curve of his body met mine like pieces to a puzzle that were made to fit together and never come apart. I shut my mouth but it didn't prepare me for when he ducked his head and pressed his gorgeous lips, which I had fantasized about for years, against my own and kissed me.
My mind was blank, I couldn't think of anything at all during this magnificent and life changing moment, but my lips were not frozen. They managed, in my brains absence, to move against Haymitch's and kiss him back completely and without hesitation. I did hesitate on running my hands up to tangle them in his hair but my reward for my daring was Haymitch taking his hands off of my waist and placing them on my ass to lift me up to fit so well to him that I felt like a puddle that had met another one, just to make a larger more colorful and awe inducing pond.
A puddle of goo is more what I felt like. Just the sensation of Haymitch all around me started a kind of heat inside of me that I'd felt so rarely, and so deeply. I ran on instinct as I drug both of my legs up his and wrapped them neatly around his waist and dug my hand deeper in to Haymitch's hair, while the other dropped to his cheek as something wet and very wanted ran along my lips. I opened my mouth and Haymitch's tongue swopped in to ravage my mouth. The feeling was indescribable except it made the heat that was flooding through my body pool in my female area.
Regretfully Haymitch retracted his mouth, so that both of us could breath. I didn't allow my body to part with Haymitch's instead I leant my forehead against his. What could I possibly take from that? I-It meant that he feels the same way right? Or does it mean he was just taking pity on me?
"Haymitch…" I muttered and Haymitch kissed me again, just soft, quick peeks to my lips but they were enough so that every time his lips even brushed mine the fire in my belly sparked higher. I tugged in short breaths and tried to focus on breathing.
"I wouldn't forget your confession for the world." Haymitch's voice came out husky, deep and heat spike inducing. I groaned a kind of sound that I couldn't possibly have reproduced if not now. My breath hitched and I gasped.
"Y-You mean it Haymitch?" I pulled my head back just enough to look into his eyes. I didn't want him to lie to me. I know that I probably didn't deserve it, seeing as I confessed on television where all people of the Districts, and everyone in the Capital were forced (or in the capital's case wanted) to watch. "You don't mind that I did it on television?" I asked him and almost regretted it. Why did I ask? What if it ruins it?
"You had the courage to tell everyone that you are in love with me and I couldn't even tell you on a train when you asked for me to." Haymitch stated simply before he adopted a silly grin that I swear I've never seen anywhere on his face before. He kissed me again, melting our lips together and God that fire was going to kill me soon if I didn't get it appeased. Again the fight for air separated us.
"I'm glad one of us sees it that way." I noted, and then laughed because this was so magical. To be truthful I didn't even think about this option in what Haymitch choses. It's always been…he didn't love me that I thought it would be. I have to admit it was the most logical of the choices. Haymitch's eyebrow wrinkled and he frowned.
"Sweetheart, I love you." He told me, and my breath caught again. My heart pounded, trying to get out of my chest and into his. I couldn't tell whether I was going to make it through his confession or not. Please let this be his confession. "Any woman, who will take care of a drunk who is stuck in the memories of the past is a wonderful woman. A woman who falls in love with someone who has killed other kids in his youth, is a wonderful woman. A woman who falls in love with somebody whose both is someone that I could love any day, especially when I know you're in love with me too." Haymitch grinned at me. I laughed and squeezed my legs around him. I heard him groan, deep and low. I couldn't figure out why until I realized something was…poking me in a special kind of way in a special place.
I gulped and I'm sure my face flushed with embarrassment. In all serisousness, had I been standing my legs would have buckled already but that's okay, because I wasn't standing, Haymitch was supporting me with his arms around me and my legs were around him. I don't think I could be any happier then this moment right here where Haymitch was in love with me and…turned on by me. I giggled shamelessly. "I love you Haymitch." I breathed before I pushed my lips to him, and pressed as close as possible so that every part of me aligned with the man in my grasp.
The kisses were magnificent and I couldn't bring myself to part because everything seemed so right, and like all my previous worries about him had never happened. For once my problems just floated away and as Haymitch fumbled with the door to the stairs I didn't have second thoughts about loving Haymitch. I marveled, somewhere in my brain that wasn't focused on the feeling of Haymitch's large hand creeping up in to my pajama shirt, that was thin at best, that Haymitch had the needed strength to hold me up for as long as he had.
He stumbled down the stairs, keeping one hand on the provided railing so he didn't fall. The entire time his lips were on my skin, on my lips, on my face, on my neck and even on my collarbone. I tugged the tie away from his shirt and left it to stay on the stairs behind us.
My hands were shaking and I was nervous. At school, there was a mandatory class that told you all about…everything to do with this. I thought at the time it was just so the capital has a way of making sure that we know how to make babies for them to work to death. Now, I don't know what more to think past, thank God they taught me what to do.
"Sweetheart," Haymitch muttered, and he backed me up against the wall right next to the door that leads to the District 12 rooms. "I've got to make sure no one sees us." He muttered, and sadly I unclenched my tight hold on his waist and dropped my feet down to the ground. The feeling of the cold and hard floor on the bottoms of me feet shocked me, because I hadn't expected it, of course I wasn't actually thinking about how the floor would feel on my feet. What I was thinking about was Haymitch, and how to get more of him.
I watched as he slid away from me and to the open door. He pushed it open and waited. I held my breath dying to hear that there was no one there because Haymitch loved me, and well….that is pretty much all my brain is capable of understanding right now. I just want to...show him how much I loved him because for all of my faults Haymitch still loved me for me, and that meant that I could love him without fearing whether he would love me to.
And now, I had to leave him, after tonight I was going into that arena and well…I don't want to die never having made sure that Haymitch knew how much I loved him! I was probably being sappy but in this moment, or any moment that I was thinking about the man who was religiously scanning the place, I couldn't think of anything that wasn't sappy or just inappropriate to say.
Haymitch looked back at me, his eyes shining now and I couldn't even see any of the imperfections that had been there not even minutes ago. He raised his hand out to me in invitation. I grabbed his hand and grinned widely at him, because I was just so in love with the man in front of me that it was as if I was shedding all the worries, the self doubt, and even the apprehension I felt about the arena. All I could focus on was showing this man that I loved him even if I didn't ever make it back out of the Hunger Games. Before I go, and there is a chance, I don't want to die a virgin.
I followed Haymitch as he pulled me across the empty living quarters. I followed him closely as he pulled me into his room, which looked just like all of the other bedrooms I'd seen. I sucked in a breath and kissed him until we fumbled to the bed.
All right, what do you guys think? I was pretty satisfied. I wasn't overly enthused about it but I didn't hate it exactly. I tried to make it obvious through out the story that Haymitch very much loved her to. I was going to have it where she didn't talk to him until the end and then they have a rushed moment before she gets in the hovercraft.
But, seeing as she is going into the Hunger games and Haymitch will get zero time during that, I thought I'd draw it out and then give you a whole love confession and then some….allusion to lemon. ;D