Warning: These one-shots feature heavy subjects, including alcoholism, drug abuse, and torture... so far. Now adding: depression, cheating, heartbreak, underage, implied prostitution. 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: Don't ask me why this song made me think of this, man. I really don't know.

Song: Ghosts That We Knew by Mumford and Sons

But the ghosts that we knew
Will flicker from you
And we'll live a long life

It always ended up this way. Their best - and worst - memories, most of their stories - they all began with a drink and a misplaced intention. And somehow, they always started with her seeking him out. Mostly because they both damn well knew he would never go to her - too damn prideful for a man who'd been through what he'd been through. If he were to seek her out, then the moon would be blue and pigs would be drifting through the sky.

Tonight was different from no other. She'd come over to cry about Peeta wanting her to move on, to have children and a married life and to attempt be happy. She'd come to him for advice - to ask the wrong person how to be happy when everyone she loved was either dead or gone. It always amused him how she came to him, of all people, when she had problems. He'd done his mentoring duties, but when it came to life lessons, he was no good. So, instead of sitting her down like a good man would do, instead of talking to her and being her mentor, he gave her a bottle half-full of gin and said bottoms up, because he didn't want to speak of Peeta.

It's around two in the morning when her tongue is loose enough that she can speak of her sister without being reduced to a bawling mess - and that's a good thing too. One time she wasn't quite wasted enough and Peeta had to come retrieve her. She didn't visit Haymitch for a month afterwards. She's staring at her bottle, trying to decipher how the gin turned into rum, when she looks up at him and asks:

"When your brother died, how long did it take for you to... y'know... forget?" The question shocks him, seeing as it was an unspoken rule to not speak of his dead when they were together. They would talk about Prim and Boggs and all those she'd loved, but when it came to Finnick and... his family, it was completely off limits and she knew that. No matter how long it'd been, the wounds would all be too raw. He'd let them fester for years, treating them with only alcohol and misdirected anger. To bring them up - to even dare to ask a question like that... well, Katniss definitely knew better.

"Twenty-five years, sweetheart," he says, pushing the bitterness away from his throat and swallowing it back to the pit in his stomach that it'd come from. "Well, no. An hour and a couple bottles of Ripper's mash and I would be set." His voice cracks on the end and he clears his throat, not wanting to cry in front of her. It was meant to be a joke, but it cut way too deep for it to be taken lightly. And if she notices, she doesn't say anything.

Katniss nods before replying, "I don't have that long. I mean... I don't... Peeta," she finishes helplessly. He nods, understanding her easily. Who wouldn't? She doesn't have twenty-five years to mourn her sister, and everyone else that died at her hand. Peeta wouldn't wait that long for her, and they both knew it. The boy was sweet, but even he had his own limits. And becoming an alcoholic was definitely out of question - Peeta would only hound her and take her away from 'Haymitch the Bad Influence'. No matter what all Haymitch had done, Peeta still detested his alcoholism. If Haymitch got her hooked on the stuffs, he would never live to tell the tale.

"Well then sweetheart," he says with a light shrug. "you better buckle down and push her away. Pretend she never existed. Can't mourn something you never grew attached to."

"It's not that easy, Haymitch!" she snaps, and he raises an eyebrow. She slumps back down in the couch. "I don't want to pretend she never lived. She's my sister." Her voice is limp and small, something he's never heard from her before. It actually hurts to hear her sound this way - so broken and ripped apart from the inside out. Haymitch wants to hug her and kiss her forehead and tell her it'll all be okay. But instead he constructs his sarcastic, assholish armor and pretends that she's just another girl that he's met.

"Was, Katniss," he replies. "Was your sister. She's dead now. And damn, I think she wouldn't want you to sit here moping over her. It's been what, five... six years? Go on, be happy with the boy. She would want it for you, sweetheart." She stares at him as if he's grown a second head and he tips his glass at her, grinning sardonically.

So give me hope
In the darkness
That I will see the light