Warning: These one-shots feature heavy subjects, including alcoholism, drug abuse, and torture... so far. Now adding: depression, cheating, heartbreak and underage. 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 or the playlist. Enjoy c:

Song: Too Late by M83

Too Late

I look into your eyes
diving into the ocean
I look into your eyes
falling

"Peeta Mellark," Effie calls, her voice choked and barely containing a sob. The boy with the bread's name echoes through the square in the sound of Effie, drifting through the air and leaving a bitter taste in Katniss' mouth - a taste of sorrow and exasperation. There's a sharp intake of breath somewhere close to the stage- probably Prim, who had grown so close to the boy with the blue eyes and heart of pure gold. Katniss can hear Haymitch's voice somewhere through her haze of tears - volunteering and sacrificing his life so that the boy could live. Somewhere in the Capitol, a set of reporters are gushing over a father figure who wants nothing but young love to prosper. Truth is, Haymitch just wants to be the one in the arena to protect Katniss, because he loves her in a far different way than a father would. Katniss slowly realizes that no one will gasp for him. There is no one in the crowd to weep or worry over him. Katniss realizes that once he's in that arena, there will be no one sitting on the edge of their seats in fear for the man with the scruffy appearance and the tongue sharper than a blade. And when he jumps in front of a soaring knife or protects Katniss from all harm - which he will, because he loves her too much to just let her die like she asked him to - there will be no one wailing and kicking up a fuss over him. There will be no one preparing his funeral suit, there will be no one picking out his favorite flowers - "I actually like daffodils, sweetheart." - or carving the stone and preparing his headstone. There will be no one but her that will miss the man behind the amber colored liquid.

Katniss decides that she'll just have to keep him alive, so that no one will have to miss him.

The sound of bone crunching against skin brings Katniss' world tumbling down. It crumbles, crashes and burns until there is nothing there but a lonely blank space. Her world is destroyed, burned to the ground by the flames that dance from her slowly cooling heart. Ice freezes her fire, runs down her spine and crawls into her soul to nest. The man she had disregarded, the man who she had asked to give up his life for Peeta's, the man who she had tripped over and fell in love with, would be going into the arena with her. Sentencing himself to a gruesome death at the hands of another just so that the girl he loved could live to see another day. Not only the girl he loved, but the child he had painstakingly created.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, your tributes for the 75th Hunger Games: Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the 50th Hunger Games and Katniss Everdeen, Victor of the 74th."

Let the games end.

~.x.~

The Chariot rides are a success. They don't hold hands, despite their cooled ember look. The look that says 'we started something, and now we end it'. The look that screams defiance. That look that tells the world that the District 12 team will not go out without a bang, that the District 12 will fight tooth and nail to remain forever in the minds of the people. That District 12 will be remembered.

Haymitch wraps his arms around her and pulls her into him, allowing her to press her cheek against the ironically cold suit and for him to stare at the crowd menacingly, as if daring them to attempt to come between him and Katniss. Cinna explains it as the perfect symbol to define their reaping - a caring father figure defiantly protecting the girl that he has come to love as a child from the cruel world outside, the world that threatens to rip their newfound family to shreds. Haymitch and Katniss both see it as a man hugging the love of his life until the dirty end, a man keeping his child and love close so that he will not have to lose them, a man protecting the two people he loves because he refuses to let go of them while his hands are still warm and his eyes are still thriving with life.

Either way, the crowd goes wild.

When they come to a stop, Katniss peeks out and peers at President Snow, still wrapped tightly in Haymitch's embrace. He gives a slight incline of his head, telling them not to go forth with whatever they're planning. As soon as the cameras are off of them, Haymitch gives him the middle finger. Katniss has to continue to bury her face into Haymitch's chest because she begins laughing. They return back to the penthouse to watch the reruns. At the part of the show when her shoulders shake from laughter, the reporters announce that the Girl on Fire was so moved by the symbolism of their Chariot ride, that she broke down into tears. Katniss laughs harder at that, and Peeta stares at her like she's gone insane.

~.x.~

The next morning, they arrive at training with a sparked vengeance. Everywhere it's chaos - two Victors make love where they think no one can see, a thick group of them crowd the lunch table and chat as if this wasn't their only training to get in before they die. A man vomits all over the plant memory station before wiping his mouth on his sleeve and taking a deep swig from a bottle of alcohol. Haymitch greets him as Blight. An elderly woman sits with the group of younger Victors, acting as a mother. Snipping their ears when they curse, attempting to reign them all in and once or twice suggesting in terribly garbled language that they actually go train. An older couple sit under cameras with a strange gold colored, L-shaped device that occasionally beeps. Every time it does beep, the couple each presses a couple of buttons on their device and the beeping stops immediately. Haymitch explains that they shut down all cameras and microphones inside the Training Area - only the Gamemakers can see what shenanigans the Victors are getting up to. The Careers are the only ones who actually train, but they don't do it to intimidate anyone. Careers grew up on training - it's a way of life for them, and they find joy in it.

Katniss watches Haymitch's face as he waves to the group sitting around and talking, but when she thinks he's going to stop and slack off like them, he pushes forward.

"What are you doing?" Katniss asks, when he beckons one of the idle trainers to meet him on the mat. Haymitch shrugs, stripping of his shirt to reveal nothing but a muscle shirt underneath. Six months worth of muscles glare back at her, and she has to force her mouth closed. Katniss is silently grateful for Peeta's self-righteousness, because without it, they wouldn't have stood a chance.

"Training. If I'm going to get you out alive, sweetheart, I need to know what the hell I'm doing," he replies, ignoring her stare as he stretches. She wants to insist that he will be the last one standing, that he will be crawling out of the arena alive, but she says no more on the subject. It's best if he does think she's going to be coming out - his bliss ignorance can aide her in a plan. Besides - it's easier to protect someone who knows how to fend for themselves.

Katniss leans on the edge of the mat and watches as he steps into with the trainer who has a good head on him in height and is beefed up to the point where it can't be natural. His muscles practically rip out of his shirt and when he moves, she can see the veins on his arms and calves. She suspects he's on some kind of drug, it's not natural to have that much muscle on one body. Katniss shudders when he pops his knuckles and cracks his neck. The Capitol stops at nothing to be the very best of the best, so much to the point where they're using drugs to become muscular and fit. In her head, Katniss names the trainer 'Beefcake' and makes a mental note to ask Effie about people like him.

While Haymitch is shorter and definitely not as a muscular as Beefcake, it also gives him an advantage. Allows him to be quicker, faster and overall just much more agile. Katniss watches him intently, as he circles the trainer with sharp, narrowed eyes. The only thing betraying that he's concentrated is his eyes - the rest of his stance is lazy and sloppy, and his face is neutral - as if he was asleep. Beefcake lunges for him immediately and Haymitch crouches, extending his leg so that the other man falls flat on his face. Immediately Haymitch is standing again, back into that uncoordinated stance and that cut off expression. Haymitch doesn't take advantage of Beefcake's fall like most would, allowing him to get up and organize himself and his thoughts. Not a fair fight if he didn't expect it, and Haymitch knows everyone in the arena will expect it. The man stands, obviously not expecting this withered, useless, drunk to know what he's doing.

This time Beefcake is more calculating, watching Haymitch carefully, staring him up and down and trying to locate his weakness. That's when Katniss understands the sloppiness of Haymitch's stance - if he doesn't betray anything, if he appears lazy and careless, then the trainer sees his entire body as a weakness and can't pinpoint his exact Achilles heel. If all of him looks weak, no one can decipher what's actually weak. It's a clever tactic, one Katniss would have never thought up.

Beefcake lunges for Haymitch's chest this time and misses by a hair. Haymitch side steps quickly before landing a punch to the man's side and jumping away like a cricket. Beefcake turns on his heel and extends his fist blindly, but Haymitch catches his arm and twists it, attempting to force the large man to the ground. When Beefcake refuses to go down, Haymitch gives a swift kick to the back of his knees before using his other hand to slam his face into the mat. Haymitch takes him over quickly after that - wrenching his arm behind his back and digging his knee into the man's back. Haymitch's other foot steps on Beefcake's other hand, leaving one of Haymitch's hands free to end him and only Beefcake's legs and head viable - which wouldn't do anything in this position anyways because he would have to be in control of his back to stand or wriggle free. And from the way Beefcake's face is red, Katniss can tell that Haymitch has put all his weight on his back, arm and hand.

Katniss sits back, and watches Haymitch with pride. A new thrill courses through her veins like an uncontrolled electricity. All along, she'd been worried about her competition, about who was stronger, who was more liked, who was smarter. Now, she's less worried about them and at ease. Haymitch can fight hand-to-hand, which she's not good at. Meaning if someone comes at them, he can take them down easily. Added with his long range ability of throwing knives and her arrows, and they'll be completely unstoppable. All they need now is a sturdy alliance - people they know will get sponsors and will be well-liked. Otherwise, they may just have a chance for a consecutive District 12 win.

President Snow, eat your words, because we're not going down without a fight.

~.x.~

They have sex on the roof that night. Under the stars, above the city lights, to the sound of honking and shouting and cheering. They go rampant - her throat becomes raw from screaming and his back burns from having her nails dug deeply into his flesh and scraped down his back. Katniss counts her lucky stars for the roof being completely soundproofed. When they're spent and exhausted, and Katniss is sticky and Haymitch is sweating like he's just run a 5 mile run, they lay on a blanket and try not to think about going to training the next day. He faces her and her him and she runs her hands over his scars, pressing a kiss to each one before asking where they came from.

"This one?" she asks, pressing a dainty kiss to his shoulder where a scar runs up his shoulder and towards his neck. Haymitch's eyes flutter closed, and he scrunches up his nose as he tries to recall where that particular one had come from - he had so many, sometimes the memories got muddled.

"I was fifteen. My dad and I got into a scuffle because I was tired of him beating on my mom and brother. He broke a beer bottle and tried to kill me," he says in exasperation, as if he's more upset at the fact that his father used a beer bottle than at the fact he'd tried to kill him. " A year later, after I'd come home and I found my mom and Barlem dead, I broke a beer bottle over his head for treating them wrong all his life. He was killed too, when I tried to give away some of my money to the people of the District." Katniss nods in sadness, her eyes scanning his body to find a new one. She finds one on his neck, circling all around. It's pale and white - almost completely gone.

"This one?" she asks, after kissing it. Haymitch frowns, tapping his finger against his lip before his eyes twinkle with remembrance.

"I got that one on my twenty-seventh birthday. At the time, Snow was selling me like a piece of meat. One dude had a kink for knives, and he made Brutus slit my throat in some weird sex act," he says, his voice slightly chilly. Katniss swears vengeance on the man for hurting Haymitch, no matter what the circumstances. "I know what you're thinking sweetheart - leave it. It's water under the bridge and Brutus had just had a baby at the time. I understood. Choose another."

Katniss' eyes scan his body, until she finds once scar spreading across half it's stomach. Like the one around his neck, it's almost completely faded. She doesn't need to know where it's come from, she's half a sense to know that is from his Games. But she wants to hear it from his mouth, so she kisses it gently and looks at him.

"That's my Games," he says, inhaling shallowly. "District One girl, her name was Emerald McKinny. We were actually friends before the Games - she wasn't as bad as the media portrayed her. Then again, I made a lot of friends I shouldn't have made back then. When it came down to it though, it was me or her. She took a wild slice at my stomach and almost cut my intestines out."

"How did they... put them all back?" she asks, tracing the line with the tip of her nail.

"Eight hours of surgery and ten blood transfusions, that's how," he says, kissing the top of her head. "I'm going to have this little shit on my stomach until I die... so, for the next couple of days."

"You're not going to die," Katniss says, pressing her lips against his. "You're coming home."

"To what, darlin'? You're pissed off mother? An even angrier Peeta? Your depressed baby sister? Your murderous cousin? No thank you. You go home and you raise our little one here," Haymitch pauses to pat her stomach. "and you do whatever you can so that she doesn't get reaped, and you live with that boy."

"Haymitch," she starts, swiping at tears that have begun to brim in her eyes. "I don't love Peeta."

"I know, sweetheart," he replies easily. "but you have to learn how to."

Like a wall of stars
we are ripe to fall

AN: I know it's not the entire thing. But I begun to get lazy and this topic just lost it's finesse for me. I'd rather you have this one snippet of well-written stuff then a whole chapter of just blegh. Sorry. Maybe one day I'll continue it. We'll see, yes?