I woke up the next morning disoriented. I was awoken not by a distant scream, but a very close one... My own. Haymitch had kept his promise. We hadn't heard a sound from him that night. Tonight I was the terror of the town. I look across the room expecting to be sleeping in the same small room as Prim and my mother until I realize I'm in my new house in Victor Village and I have my own bedroom. Since I can't look across the room for confirmation, I can only hope that my yells weren't as loud as Haymitch's.
Over a quiet breakfast of oats, I try to gauge whether or not Prim and my mother had heard me. They both have on the now somewhat routine expressionless masks on though, so it's hard to tell. But maybe, I think, this means they heard me. I begin to feel a sinking feeling in my chest. If it's not Haymitch keeping them in terror, it's me. I can't let them live this way. So later in the morning I'm braiding Prim's hair, trying to work up the courage to ask her about hearing me last night, when I hear something in the distance. It's a low groaning, and I try to ignore it for Prim's sake, but she notices when my hands still in the middle of the plait.
"Katniss, you saw him yesterday," she whispers. I didn't know she'd even noticed my being gone, thought she was asleep.
"Yeah," I answer, surprised.
"What's hurting him so bad?"
I put on my reassuring voice, the one that I save for Prim alone, and answer, "They're just nightmares, Prim. Just like what I have. Except his are especially bad."
She nods, staying silent for a few minutes until, "do you dream about the Games?"
I'm done with her braids now, and I drop my hands, not wanting to have this conversation with my baby sister. Of course I dream about the Games. About all the horrible, horrible things I've seen and done. The things I think I'm beginning to lose my humanity for. And Haymitch not only has his own Games, but every other year between then and now, seeing children that he is responsible for die in the Capitol's arena. It's sick. It's not something I want Prim to ever understand.
"Yeah, I do dream about them," I finally say.
That's when a scream rips through the air. Haymitch. My head whips around to the window, which incidentally faces across the Village towards his house. Prim looks too, this time not cringing when he lets out the yell, but looking with a measured gaze, melancholic, maybe.
She turns to look at me.
"You should go over there again."
"What?" I sputter. Now she's taken me off guard.
"You kept him quiet a whole night. Maybe he just needs somebody to talk to about them."
I want to scoff but hold myself back for Prim's sake. Haymitch needing somebody to talk to? Yeah right. Like he'd let me ask him questions about his terrors.
I get this picture of myself dressed up as Caesar Flickerman, his voice coming out of me as I sit across from Haymitch on his dilapidated couch and ask, "So, Haymitch, how do you feel when you relive the death of your District Partner over and over in ever more horrible ways every night? And for the last 24 years, wow!" and he answers, "go fuck yourself, Flickerman."
That's literally the only way that would go over.
But maybe Prim's got a point; she knows from experience that I always did better with someone around to halt my nightmares.
So I kiss Prim on the head and say, "right as always, little duck," before pushing myself off the bed and out the door, to follow the screams to Haymitch's.
The daylight has just broken across our yards as I take the steps two by two up to my mentor's house. I let myself in again and prepare for another battle with his knife, but when I look into the kitchen, he's not there. Another howl shoots through the house and I realize it's coming from upstairs, a place I've never gone in Haymitch's. Regardless, I follow the noise to a bedroom; inside I see a wolfish form thrashing between the sheets, skin slicked with a sheen of perspiration. I circle the bed once, quickly, to see if he's still nursing that knife, but it looks like it's elsewhere today. I dart a hand beneath his pillow as he's faced the other way and find exactly what I'm looking for: the knife. I stab it into the door frame far from the bed and set about untangling a still sleeping, still thrashing Haymitch from his sheets. He rolls away from me and I have to climb onto the bed, kneel over him to get anything done, when he stops his gibberish whispering and prepares to let out another moan. So I clap my hand over his mouth and try to keep him quiet.
"You broke your promise," I grit out vaguely. But he bites down on my damn hand and so I give out a yelp, my other hand flying to his stubbled jaw to free myself when – he lets go. Lets out this huge breath like he's been holding it for centuries. And he sleepily turns his head so my hand is trapped between his prickly face and the sheets. I tense up at this, confused, but Haymich is still sleeping. And he's shaking. My thumb works its way across the stubble before I try to pry my hand loose, looking down at this man so ruined by the Capitol, by their Games. Thoughts about loneliness begin to creep into my consciousness then, until they're all I can think about. How, when I was alone at times like these, Peeta would come into my bed and hold me tight to stop my quivering, to protect me from the nightmares. Haymitch shouldn't be alone right now. So I crawl beneath the newly liberated sheets, slowly lowering myself to the opposite side of the bed. I didn't feel the need to impose, just wanted him to be able to sense that an extra body was there. There for him. I simply curled up and prayed for a dreamless sleep to take me.
I awoke that evening to a loud snoring. Disoriented, I pried my eyes open just a slit to see the waning daylight coming in through an unfamiliar window, unfamiliar bedding beneath me. The weight of an arm around me. Decidedly not Peeta's. I knew it had to be Haymitch, but I turned my head just to confirm what seemed the impossible. But it was his arm slung across me, and as pictures from last night flooded my groggy mind, I found I was strangely okay with it. He was fast asleep now, not a shake visible in his form. I smiled weakly before dozing off again. Snoring was a welcome relief from the screaming.
When I woke up a few hours later, I was alone in the bed. So I crawled out, pressing a hand to my forehead and wiping away the stray hairs, wanting to contemplate the situation. But there was nothing to contemplate. We were just two haunted human beings trying to deal with our memories, our baggage that came to visit every night. We each needed someone to quiet the screams. It had to be each other.
I tread down the stairs and into the kitchen. Haymitch is at the counter, bracing himself against the thing and staring down into a suspiciously Capitol-esque tumbler glass filled with water. Daring it with his eyes to turn to wine, no doubt.
Whether he hears my footsteps or just senses my presence I can't tell, but he looks up as I lean into the open doorframe.
I watch him as his eyes glance over me, declining to hold my gaze. I'm a little put off. But not really. Haymitch is always direct with me, but I can't blame him for wanting to ignore this. Too touchy-feely.
I'm waiting for him to say something and he knows it, but he wastes time pushing himself off the counter, grabbing up the glass and taking a long drink before saying,
"You're insane, you know that sweetheart?"
His voice is gravelly. I just watch him. He's leaning back against the counter now, trying to ignore my existence.
"It was nothing," I say.
He snorts. Nods his head, letting it bob up and down as he takes another drink.
"Haymitch. You can't keep screaming like that and – " And what? Was I actually about to tell Haymitch I was beginning to worry about him? That's not how we work.
"Get out." He says abruptly. "You can't tell me what I can and can't do."
He's already turned and walking away from me, but I reach out and yank his shoulder towards me as I say, "If anything you do has a hand in traumatizing my sister, yes, I do have a right to tell you what you can't do."
He's facing me, and I can feel him shaking underneath my grip and I realize I'm still digging my fingers into his shoulder when he laughs derisively and spews, "You and protecting that little girl. It's always so very touching when you get like this, sweetheart."
I narrow my eyes.
"You know what your problem is, Haymitch? You don't have a Prim. You have nothing that ties you down to this world, nothing that lets you admit your own humanity. When I used to have nightmares, or memories at night, or whatever the hell you want to call these, I had Prim, even Peeta to hold me. To be there. You needed someone to be with you, to guard against all the demons at night, because they get you when you're at your weakest, and damned if they don't know it's you right now."
He's glaring at me.
"Rousing declamation." He rolls into the bathroom and slams the door shut. I hear the deadbolt slide shut.
"And you didn't keep your promise!" I shout before stomping off.
So I head home, knowing he's okay for now, awake, but I'm vaguely wondering if sniping some of my mom's rubbing alcohol would help him at all.
I try to shrug off all thoughts of Haymitch as I push open the door to my house. My mother is a the sink doing dishes, even though we have a dishwasher, and tells me Prim's upstairs taking her before-bed bath. I kick off my boots and sink into the rocking chair facing the fire. Now that I'd slept all day, what was I going to do now? The only thing I could think of was going back to Haymitch's to drink his alcohol, but now that his poison didn't exist, there was nothing left to do. So I sat staring into the fire for a long time, past when any normal person would be in bed, until I can't sit any longer. And since I can't think of anywhere else to go, I walk back to Haymitch's.
When I let myself in this time, I find him in the living room on that ruined couch of his. He doesn't even turn his head to greet me, but instead lets out a hostile, "I thought I told you to get out."
"I did," I say.
His shoulders jump up slightly, as if he's scoffing at me. "That meant stay out, in case you didn't get the memo."
"I got it," I answer matter-of-factly. "I just couldn't sleep."
"Yeah, wonder why that is." But he doesn't object as I curl into the armchair in the corner of the room. The television on the wall is on, flickering brightly colored images into the dark and silent room. I turn my face to it, but don't really see anything as it flickers away, the light filling up the gaps our lack of speech make.
As dawn slowly threatens the horizon, I begin to stir in my chair. Haymitch's eyes flick over to me as I stand, kicking the wrinkles out of my pants.
"I'm going to the woods," I say, and when I come back with two squirrels and a handful of nuts and berries, he doesn't protest to my cooking – dinner? breakfast? – for him and myself. He tosses his cleared plate in the sink before shuffling off into his bedroom. I consider washing the plates, but can't seem to find the energy. Instead, I let myself nestle into the couch, ready to sleep again for lack of anything better to do.
AN: There you have it, an actual Chapter 2! And 3 is in the works ;) Still unsure of how long this fic will be, but we'll take it as it comes. Thoughts?