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.

Disclaimer: 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:

AN: This is just a few of the scenes from the trilogy that I've always to portray Hayniss from. I have more, but those I am going to do as separate one-shots later. Also, how would you guys like another AU? Leave in the reviews something you would like to see and I'll write it... or I'll try to find a song to write it to.

Song: Demons by Imagine Dragons

Demons

I want to hide the truth
I want to shelter you
But with the beast inside
There's nowhere we can hide

At first, he didn't let her in. He concealed his true self from her, providing her only with his frozen over exterior of snark and bitterness. He didn't let the girl with the single dark braid do anything to him. He wouldn't put another innocent life on the line because he couldn't control himself. So he show her wanted he wanted her to see - the man who was always so liquored up that he could barely remember his last name. On a good day, he would smirk at one of her antics and even make her laugh with his dark humor. But every other day, he made her hate him. He would cover his sharp tongue with poison and use it as a blade to cut her where it hurts. He would make her despise him, and it wasn't too hard to do with a temper like hers. He closed himself off. He didn't feel. He wouldn't let the beloved girl on fire get to him and ruin him. But most of all, he wouldn't ruin her in the process.

~.x.~

When she won, he'd almost tripped over himself to go greet her. He didn't want to feel anything, he hadn't to care so much for her, in fear of not only hurting her, but himself as well. But she was a Victor now, he could show her more. He could let bits and pieces come falling away, show her the man he once was and truly let her see him at his most vulnerable points. He could learn to trust her, because he knew that now that she was a Victor, the Capitol could not touch her. She would remained unscathed and untouched by their cold hands of death.

Truth was, he wanted her to see him. He wanted her to be able to trust him, because she had upstaged the Capitol and she would pay dearly for it soon. She had shown the Capitol a burning act of defiance, so bold and rash that it could not be overlooked. She had made them the laughingstock of Panem, made them look like fools in front of those who were supposed to fear them. And they would take away all she'd ever loved or treasured, they would snatch it away from her and leave her to die. And he wanted her to see him, all of him, so that when they did, she would have someone other than the boy with the bread to run to. She would have someone that felt the same pains of losing a father, a mother, and a younger sibling too. She would have someone who understood her.

He knew that a storm was brewing. He knew that soon, she would be left desolate and broken. But he wanted to be able to be one of the handful of people she crawled to when that happened.

~.x.~

A little more than a year later, when she pulls him out of the house by his collar, speaking of running away to District 13, his heart begins racing and he hopes it doesn't show as he scrambles to shoot the idea down. Going to District 13 now, when they're still trying to work out the kinks of the plan, would not only be risky, but stupid. It's the middle of winter, it's still too cold out and it's still a long walk. Not to mention Katniss shows her face around town too much - as soon as a day passes and the Peacekeepers don't see her, roaming around the District, they're going to know something is fishy. They wouldn't make it five miles.

If she had gone when was that random sixteen-year-old girl, when she was still nothing but another starving face in the crowd, she maybe would have stood a chance.

~.x.~

When she blows up the arena, he goes after her first. Plutarch suggests they wait, that they attempt to find Peeta. Plutarch says that they have extra time since they hadn't needed to stop and retrieve her family, and that since she's near Finnick, most of everyone can get out safely if they move quickly and don't start trouble. But he goes after her and takes down anyone who even dares to near her, wasting time on taking out enemy crafts instead of collecting loved ones. And when they take a bad blow due to returning fire, he commands the hovercraft out of there, watching Peeta's body turn into a tiny speck in the dirt. Plutarch gives him a stupid pitying gaze - a gaze that says that he knows he's wrong but he also understands why Haymitch did it. He glares at him before going incognito and putting the craft on cruise control.

"She was priority, wasn't she? I was doing my job," he snips testily.

"I didn't say anything." Plutarch shrugs and goes back to the control board, sending messages to Thirteen to say that they were safe and on their way to the base. Something in the way he remains casual pisses him off, so he shakes his head and goes to drink the last dregs of his booze, in preparation for the detox he'll surely be put

He'd wronged the boy, he knew that. But that didn't mean he was going to apologize for saving her.

He only pretends to be mad when she attacks him. Truth is - he's just guilty.

~.x.~

When Peeta is rescued, he's elated. Happy, because now that she has Peeta back, she'll be ready to move forward and end this entire thing. He let's her hold his hand - and Finnick's, but that's not the point - as she runs along, her feet taking her to the infirmary as fast as possible. Keeping up with him isn't so hard these days, now that Coin's making him undergo military training so that he could be at the same caliber as the other soldiers when they storm the Capitol.

The boy doesn't look good. He looks withered, and beaten down and old - he looks so old. Haymitch hugs him first and he twitches, grabbing the older man by the collar and demanding to see Katniss. He brushes it off as weariness - the boy's just been tortured, of course he would want to see the love of his life first.

When he pries Peeta's fingers away from her throat, it takes all of him to get her out of there and get her to safety. It takes a lot of him not to use some of that military training on the boy right then and there.

~.x.~

She comes to him to cry now, and he guesses she's forgiven him. He shares some of the alcohol Annie and Effie smuggled for him when they went to go pick out dresses and doesn't stop her when she plows through two bottles of his already slim stash. She coughs and wretches and vomits and drinks. He doesn't stop her, he let's her be destructive to herself. Just this one time, he casts away his mentoring title and is there for her like an equally damaged, equally destroyed, equally dead friend.

Sometimes, she didn't need to be told she has to fix things and keep it together. Sometimes she needed to break things and have someone else clean up her mess, and he was perfectly willing to be her 'someone else'.

~.x.~

At the wedding, he dances with her. Effie is out on the floor with Plutarch, Annie with Finnick, and Gale even coheres Johanna to dance - after many shouting matches and one instance where she knees him where it counts. Her sister, Prim and her cousin's brother, Rory sway at the edge of the dance floor, humming along to the music under their breath. Fulvia swoops next to them, taking both Katniss and Haymitch away from their cake, and says that it'll really help their propaganda if Katniss is seen dancing and having a good time. Haymitch goes to decline - for both of their sake's, because do these people ever put a camera down - but she sets her cake with her mother and nods. Peeta is still restricted from touching her however, so Haymitch takes her out on the floor and sways with her and let's her cry as she dances. He places her feet on his and does all the dancing for them.

The propo says she cries with joy at being overwhelmed with the happiness that surrounds her in a dark time. He knows she cries because there is another set of bruised arms she'd rather have around her waist.

Your eyes they shine so bright
I want to save that light
I can't escape this now
Unless you show me how