Drabble 2. Haymitch. Angry and tired and old.
Feigned indifference only holds so well against the cruelty perpetrated year after year after year.
He'd been hopeful at first, when the glitter and champagne and silver glory had not yet faded, when he'd just been introduced to the best housing in the district and went an entire year without wanting for anything, and when he'd honestly believed that his district's tributes had a fighting chance.
He'd had one himself after all, thanks in part to his incisive cleverness but mostly due to luck.
Since then, reality hurled itself like rotten egg to his face and he'd learned that split-second miracles don't come too often. The ache settled bone-deep as he watched onscreen the endless progression of tragedies: fresh-faced kids or emaciated kids, earnest kids, even good ones, all of them pushed into the fray, their children's eyes screaming for mercy when there is none to be had, lives shattered as easy as snapping a stem of glass. For entertainment.
His own Hunger Games had ripped to tatters his kindly indulgent - if not downright cocky - disposition, the former hallmark of his genius, and all the Games after that flayed what was left, drove him to the drink, crushed the shreds of his spirit handful by handful, until all he had left was razor-edged insensate shrewdness, cynicism hard as ivory, and the heavy black cloak of survivor's guilt.
Written after reading the first book.