Warning: These one-shots feature heavy subjects, including alcoholism, drug abuse, and torture... so far. Now adding: depression, cheating, heartbreak. I'll add more as the story wears on, just in case.

AN: Credit goes to HannahSongla for the story idea. Please go check out her Hayniss story similar to this - Sweetheart. Credit goes to Suzanne Collins for the verse and the characters. I don't really own anything but the text of these one-shots. And no, that doesn't mean the song lyrics. Enjoy c:

Song: Wrapped in Piano Strings by Radical Face

Wrapped in Piano Strings

I watched you crawl into my bed
With curses spilling from your head
You said "We're just the walking dead"
So I pulled the trigger and we floated off

Morning came, with the sun barely peeking over the horizon and soft hues of pink and blue mixing in the sky. The moon still persisted with the stars, hanging low and visible above the mountains and trees of District 12. Awakening birds chirped for their mother to feed them, creating a melody when mixed with the rustling of leaves. It was a peaceful morning, despite the rocky events of the previous night.

Haymitch wakes up alone, with a bed as cold as ice on one side that smells like honey, strawberries and pine - as he does every morning. She's always gone by morning, back to her sweet bread boy the smile of a god, hair as soft as an angel's ass and eyes the color of the sea. He doesn't bother asking her to stay, he knows the answer will be 'no'. Why would a beauty of her caliber stick around for a man with a bad drinking addiction and a habit of getting those he loved hurt or killed? Hell, if he were a woman, he'd abandon himself too.

Haymitch stares at the ceiling for a few moments, internally debating on whether or not this day is worth living. Whether or not he should get up, start a new day, listening to the laughter drifting from the Everdeen-Mellark residence and eagerly await the time of night when she becomes his, if only for a momentary brush of the lips.

He's just deciding that yes, a day's worth of pain is worth waiting for her when his door slams. He doesn't budge. If she's looking for him, she knows he's still in bed at this time. If she's looking for his liquor, she knows where to find him.

Much to his delight, he hears her feet pound up the stairs, moving up them with such speed that she must be taking them two at a time. He feigns sleep and listens to her feet as they storm all the way down the hall to his bedroom. His door slams open, and if Haymitch weren't so good at taming his reflexes, he would have jumped. Instead, his eyes flutter a bit. Haymitch listens to the rustling of clothes, the small thuds as she discards her shoes and tosses them aside, the sound of her jeans falling against the carpet. The blankets beside him stir, and suddenly he feels heat radiating off her body.

Her arms wrap around his waist, and she curls into his side with her head right beneath the pit of his arm and her legs strewn across his. He listens, waits for the slightest indication that she doesn't want him to ask or talk about it.

When she says or does nothing, he pops an eye open and asks, "What happened, sweetheart?" She stills for the briefest of moments before curling closer to him, and for a moment he thinks that she's trying to melt inside of him, to evaporate and disappear. He wants to hold her closer at the notion of her trying to leave him.

"Peeta had an episode. He told me he was glad Prim died because he loved to see me suffer. I threw a kitchen knife at him and clipped him in the ear. He went rampant and threatened to kill me. I got a little scared," she whimpers, her voice barely above a whisper. Haymitch sighs in exasperation - it wasn't the first time he dealt with their inability to fix things themselve - moving his arm so that her head lies on his shoulder and wrapping it around her back.

"He didn't mean it, sweetheart. You know he didn't - it's just the juice fucking with him again," he soothes. He didn't want to take Peeta's side in this situation - he wanted to stomp over there and kill the boy everytime he had one of these things and it sent Katniss into his arms. But it would only hurt Katniss to hear that he actually meant them, and that's the last thing he wanted to do.

"That doesn't make it hurt any less, Haymitch." She's got him there. He gives her shoulder a light squeeze before returning his arm to drape around her back.

"Okay, so Peeta had a fit. But why did you get naked and climb into my bed, sweetheart?" he asks teasingly. Haymitch really doesn't mind - it's not even the sexual part of him that doesn't care. He'll take Katniss anyway he can have her - physically, emotionally and mentally. If that means her being in nothing but her underwear in his bed, then he'll offer up no complaints.

"... because I feel safe with you," she whispers. "You'll protect me if he tries to hurt me. I know it." Haymitch's heart swells. She trusts him, and that's more than he could ask for after putting her through a war. Not to mention she thinks he could protect her - which isn't entirely untrue. Against anyone else, it would be a piece of cake. He'd been taking care of himself - he had to, with threats of bread boy going off the wall - and he could handle the average joe. But Peeta was built to be a Capitol programmed killing machine, meaning he would stop at nothing during one of his episodes to kill Katniss. And if that means plowing through Haymitch to do it, then so be it.

"Yeah, sweetheart. I would," he lies to her, instead of confessing the brutal realities of that. A question pops in his head, and he can't help it. He has to ask. "How long are you gonna let him keep destroying you like this, darlin'? And how long are you gonna keep destroying him? When does this shit end? When does the circle stop?"

"I didn't come for a lecture, sweetheart." She throws the moniker back in his face, and Haymitch grits his teeth. He hated when he was trying to be a good mentor - and not just a talking fucktoy - and she was being bitter about taking advice. It's like she expected him to always go along with her ideas.

"You didn't come for a cuddle either, honey. You really telling me you stripped in a bed with the man you've been having sex with for the past three months and you didn't expect me to fuck you?" Silence. Haymitch clucks his tongue. "I know you aren't that sentimental."

"And what if I did? Not like you would anyway."

"Well I mean, if Peeta barges in you stripped and cuddling, that's one thing. If Peeta barges in on you being fucked by his mentor, that's another. Don't want to trigger him, now do we?" he asks. It takes a moment for Haymitch to realize that even in cuddling, they're fighting. Old habits die hard, then.

"Shut up, Haymitch. God, just... just hold me like a good lover and stop trying to go all 'daddy' on me. I don't want you to be my father," she whispers, before pressing a kiss to his jaw to show him that she's not really angry with him. Haymitch gets that a lot - people aren't really angry with him, they're just angry with the situation and he's their only release. So he does what he always does when she's sad - he sighs, pulls her closer and buries his face into her hair. There was nothing he could do when she didn't want to listen to him.

"Okay sweetheart, okay," he concedes. There's a pregnant pause, the only sound being their steady breathing and the occasional rustling of covers as Katniss shifts and attempts to get comfortable. Another question forms in his head, curse his curiosity. "So what are you going to do? You know, about lover boy?"

"I don't know yet, but I don't think I can go on like this," Katniss admits.

"That's okay, sweetheart. I didn't think you could either."

I've just watched a marriage crumble, he thinks sadly, once her breathing has slowed into something even and he knows she's fast asleep. Guilt wracks him as another thought pushes it's way to the forefront of his mind. And aided in it's destruction.

Blood ran into the kitchen sink
Your hand and lives are running pink
I sat and watched as your ring
Slipped off and rolled across the kitchen floor