Warning: These one-shots feature heavy subjects, including alcoholism, drug abuse, and torture... so far. Now adding: depression, cheating, heartbreak, underage, implied prostitution, suicidal thoughts, someone having acid thrown on them, smut, implied rape/non-con. 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:

Song: Break Me by Allison Grey

Oh you had me from the start,
with one look you cut right through my heart
I know you don't realize
Because I'm good and I know how to hide

She fell in love with him sometime between the Quell reaping and the moment where she barged into his house demanding he sacrifice himself for Peeta. The truth was, she didn't know how it happened. One moment she sees him as this man who had managed to save her and her good friends life, and the next moment she's looking at him like he'd given the galaxy to her and answered all of the world's question. One could say he snuck up on her, but the truth was, he jumped out at her and she didn't even realize it until it was too late.

Katniss saw a lot of him, during those six months between the Quell and the announcement. She saw things in him that she didn't even know existed. Love, hope, faith, and even vulnerability. Maybe that's how she fell for him. Instead of seeing his tough, drunken exterior, she saw the man behind the amber liquid for the first time and she fell in love with it.

For instance, the first time he showed that he could be afraid. Katniss saw this terrified look in his eyes when Peeta dumped his liquors, this look of feral fear that she'd only ever seen in other tributes and animals right as the life faded from their bodies. She'd never seen someone so afraid in her entire life - not even little Rue, as she was dying. He hid it with anger, in typical Haymitch fashion, but she knew he was hurt and he was horrified. And for some reason, that ignited a small spark of hatred inside of her for Peeta.

Well, after that, Katniss paid closer attention to him. She didn't know what it was, but she had this longing to see more of that emotion on his face. To see more of the man that he barely showed her. And once she was watching, she began to see it all. She began to see Haymitch Abernathy, sixteen-year-old boy who still has a future and a life ahead of him, and not Haymitch Abernathy, forty-two-year-old man who's had his heart shattered and his soul crushed.

Katniss noticed that when he was rewatching the Games of his friends and the tributes he'd lost, she would be able to watch the lines in his face deepen and he seemed to age right in front of her. It was haunting, watching this man who'd she'd grown to see with so man bristly spots quickly become so vulnerable and weakened by the mere sight of his tributes - even when they weren't being slaughtered. She listened at night too, after he watched those Games. Sometimes she'd be too exhausted to move back to her own house so she'd crawl onto his couch with some blankets and listen to him. Haymitch cried a lot at nights, the memories awakening and he didn't have the alcohol to push him away. She knew he tried to muffle them - for her sake or for his dignity's, she didn't know - but she still heard them when he screamed hateful words into his pillow and cursed Peeta up and down. She heard him when he chanted the ninety-nine names of those that had been killed - either under his watch or due to him - and her heart broke.

But she didn't know why.

Of course, Katniss saw a different side of him when he was exercising. When he was kept busy with something - wood carving, their exercise regime, throwing knives at hand-made targets, anything - she saw that he was younger - exuberant. Katniss even watched him closely and noticed that for the first two months of their training, he was awful in everything they tried. Climbing, running, knife-throwing, hunting. Everything. But as more and more months wore on, he began to become a career. And no, not the teenage Careers that still sometimes fumbled in the arena and only wanted the glory of it all. He came a true, blood thirsty Career who yearned for the feel of blood on his palms and flesh between his teeth. Katniss saw his Victor then, and it terrified her. This mellow, drunken, slob that she'd come to love was a slob no more - he was a trained killing machine. On one occasion, she even witnessed Gale and Peeta watching him closely.

Gale had over-protectively warned her to watch her back if Haymitch went in with her. They all knew what he was implying then, without him even having to say it. Haymitch could turn at this point, and if he does, you'll be the first threat for him to eliminate.

But of course, he wasn't all scary. He still did his job as a mentor and taught them - even Gale, who occasionally checked into their conversations out of mild curiosity - the things he knew about survival. He taught her and Peeta the proper way to use throwing knives - "If you throw with your elbow, you'll fuck up your arm. Pop something, the way you're throwing. Throw with your wrist." - and he also taught them how to land from high falls without breaking any bones. He especially taught them where to stab with a knife to disable limbs, how to hit vital muscles and nerves that would permanently immobilize or incapacitate their opponent.

Whenever they'd wall back to the Village and he'd tease Peeta, Katniss would pause and reflect on that old mentor. She'd recall that at one point, he'd been a young, strong Victor. She would remember that he had once been in the arena, and he'd been clever and worthy enough to escape. And she'd grin in giddiness because she could see the blood thirst of a Victor in his eyes as the days wore on. She could see the potential chance that District 12 was posing.

And she could see him.

Cause when it comes to you
You may be surprised
That I am fragile, and I am weak
And if you wanted, you could break me