3.
"Here comes the housewife." Chaff mocked as Haymitch entered the kitchen with an empty basket to collect the clean laundry. He glared at his friend who had been busy passing Katniss the color pencils she requested. The kid was sitting on her knees on a chair and was drawing something he couldn't quite make out – might have been a house, might have been a rocket, she wasn't exactly an artist.
"Shut up." he grumbled on his way to the basement.
"Mrs Sae says we can't say that." Katniss commented. "Jo got in trouble yesterday."
Haymitch rolled his eyes and continued on his way, leaving the door open so he could still follow the conversation. Who knew having a kid was such hard work? Not only did he have to feed her, he needed to make sure she had clean clothes – something she went through at an alarming rate – he also needed to keep the house at least partially clean... Tidy was something they would never achieve. The living-room was in total disarray and so was the rest of the house but he couldn't leave a kid to live in a pigsty and so he had to pick up after her, do the dishes, use the vacuum cleaner, mop the floor... How did people do that and have real jobs at the same time? He was a lazy person. It was hell.
"Mrs Sae's your teacher, right?" Chaff asked as Haymitch struggled with the light that never quite wanted to switch on in the cellar. It always took three tries to work. "Is she pretty?"
"No." Katniss answered frankly. "She's ancient like a dinosaur. Jo calls her Greasy Sae."
"That's not very nice." his friend pointed out.
"Jo's not very nice." the girl replied.
"And is she coming to this party of yours?" Chaff snorted before raising his voice. "You're really going to take care of five kids on your own, Haymitch? 'Cause that's a recipe for disaster if you ask me!"
"I didn't ask you!" he shouted back, opening the dryer.
"Peeta's Auntie will be here." Katniss offered and Haymitch wished she hadn't.
"Peeta's Auntie?" Chaff repeated with some interest. "Is she a dinosaur too?"
"She's pretty." the girl declared. "And she can braid hair."
Chaff's laughter boomed out. "Is she married?"
He was about to tell his friend to shut up again – Mrs Sae's opinion on those words be damned – when he caught sight of the clothes he had been mechanically dropping in the plastic basket. "Fucking Christ!"
There was a second of silence in the kitchen and then Katniss' voice. "What does fucking mean, Uncle Chaff? Haymitch says it a lot."
Chaff wisely ignored that. "Everything's okay down there?"
Haymitch came back up to the kitchen with his basket of clothes and dropped it dejectedly on the table. Chaff started laughing so hard he grabbed his sides but Katniss simply looked horrified.
"It's pink!" she shrieked, snatching one of her shirts. "I hate pink!"
"Yeah, well, I hate pink too." he grumbled, grabbing one of his own long sleeve cotton shirts with some distaste. "And it shrunk."
"That means you're going shopping." Chaff taunted. "What could be more fun on a Saturday afternoon?"
Haymitch was very tempted to shove his too small pink undershirt in his friend's mouth. Chaff was having entirely too much fun with the whole Katniss situation, showing up every two days and playing with her to the point she would be too excited to go to bed at a reasonable hour – not that Haymitch was truly keeping to a regular schedule anyway – and mocking him to no end.
It turned out Katniss was just as eager to go clothes shopping as he was but there was simply nothing for it. Most of their clothes had been in that washing machine – because he couldn't bother to do the laundry regularly. She dragged her feet all the way there, pushing her hair out of her eyes every two steps and glaring at him when he failed for the third time to fix the ponytail that kept getting loose.
There was a shop in town with different sections for kids, men and women and even though he had never been before, he ended up in front of it, not feeling up to drive half an hour to the next big town with a mall – the Seam's mall had been in construction for years and nobody was counting on it anymore. Capitol Couture, the huge neon sign over the door was disclaiming, blinking pink and gold in turn. Katniss made a face when she saw it and he couldn't help making one either.
He pushed the door and was immediately assaulted by the sound of too loud pop music inviting him to shake it out. Katniss looked up at him with an unimpressed gaze, as if to say "I told you it was a bad idea".
The store was huge by Seam's standards. There was a set of spiral metal stairs that led to the kids section if the signs could be believed. The ground floor was neatly divided between men and women wear. There were racks everywhere with a lot of colors. Two of the walls were painted a rich blue, the other two were a light green, the floor was yellow... It was a bit overwhelming to look at.
"Welcome, welcome!" a shrill voice greeted them and it was just his luck because the woman who appeared from behind a rack of clothes was no other than Effie Trinket. She fitted right in with the decor: electric blue dress, matching heels and a lot of gold jewelry. Her commercial smile immediately broke into a real one when she spotted them. "Oh, what a delightful surprise!"
Katniss' face brightened when she saw the woman – which Haymitch found odd until the kid rushed to her, getting her hair tie free and handing it to her with a desperate expression. "Can you braid? Please."
When Katniss used a please, you knew she was at the end of her rope.
Effie seemed slightly taken aback by the request but recovered soon enough and signaled her to turn around with open amusement. Katniss actually breathed out a sigh of relief when her hair was firmly secured away from her eyes.
"So, did you come all the way here for a braid, sweetie?" Effie asked Katniss, her blue eyes darting from the kid to Haymitch. "I could teach your uncle, you know."
"We had a laundry accident." Haymitch said before Katniss could take her up on that offer.
"Everything turned pink." the girl added not so helpfully. "I hate pink."
"I see." she grinned. " Well, you have come to the right place. What exactly do you need?"
"To go home." Katniss mumbled.
Haymitch nudged her.
Effie bit her bottom lip.
"Hey, Effie, did you..." a man called, walking through a door that Haymitch supposed led to the back of the store. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know we had customers."
Apparently, Effie wasn't the only one with an out of the box fashion sense. The guy looked like a rocker, complete with golden eyeliner and diamond earring.
Effie waved the man's apology off. "It's no matter, they are friends. Haymitch, Katniss, I would like you to meet my associate Cinna. And, Cinna, this is the little girl Peeta told you about yesterday and her uncle Haymitch Abernathy."
Haymitch shook the man's hand. "Ah, the infamous Haymitch. I heard quite a lot about you."
Haymitch frowned, confused.
"You absolutely did not." Effie hissed. "Where is Portia? Shouldn't she be back?"
"She will be sorry she missed this, I can tell you." Cinna grinned, looking Haymitch up and down in a way that made him uncomfortable. "I must say I approve."
"Alright." she cut her friend off, clapping her hands once to get everyone's attention. "How can we help you today?"
Deciding it was best to ignore the awkward and weird way Cinna was wriggling his eyebrows at Effie, Haymitch cleared his throat. "Clothes for Katniss and some shirts for me."
"No pink, no dress, no skirts." Katniss specified. "Except if it's like Merida's."
"I think we can do that." Cinna agreed seriously, outstretching his hand. "How about we go see what we can find upstairs and leave Effie to take care of your uncle?"
He didn't immediately protest because Katniss was usually vocal in her distaste of strangers but she took him aback by slipping her hand in Cinna's and shrugging. "Okay."
He watched his niece hop up the stairs next to the stranger with a mix of dread and worry.
"She is safe." Effie said softly, placing a hand on his arm. "I would trust Cinna with my life."
He licked his lips nervously and forced himself to tear his eyes away from the stairs. "I guess I'm a bit..." He let his voice trail off, not sure how to even explain the abysmal amount of anxiety he felt for his loved ones' safety.
"Overprotective?" she finished for him. "I noticed. It is not a bad thing when children are concerned."
She guided him to the men's part of the store. He was a little afraid when he realized just how many eccentric shirts were there but he let her select some pieces on their way all the same, figuring he could simply tell her no at the last moment.
"Where's your godson?" he asked after a few minutes of silence.
"At home." she hummed. "I dropped him off this morning. His brother is visiting, his wife is expecting. Peeta is very excited about becoming an uncle."
Haymitch lifted his eyebrows. "Must be some age gap between them."
She nodded but her face remained blank and evasive. "His oldest brother is twenty-six. Then we have Rye who is twenty and Sal who just turned eighteen and left home last summer."
"Peeta wasn't exactly planned, was he?" he snorted before he could help himself.
"Well, I will leave you to try those on." she declared, shoving the heap of clothes she had collected at him and pointing him in the direction of the dressing rooms. He clutched the shirts against his chest with one arm and reached out to touch her wrist before she could storm away.
"Sorry, sweetheart." he offered honestly.
She gradually relaxed. "It's alright, I was nosy first I supposed. No, he wasn't exactly planned."
That was all she was willing to say on the subject and that was just as well. He was surprised to find the things she had selected actually suited his tastes. Nothing outlandish, it could even had been called plain if it weren't for the obvious quality of the fabrics. She had chosen everything in a range of white, blue, grey and the occasional green, which was what he usually chose for himself. He rejected some but kept the main part of it.
She was leaning against the wall, a smug smile on her lips when he stepped out. "Are you impressed yet?"
He smirked, unable to stop himself. "Are you trying to impress me, Princess?"
"Perhaps." she admitted.
He opened his mouth, eager to keep the banter going, but he was stopped by the stomping of little feet on the metal stairs and an enthusiastic four years old running to him in a red dress. A dress. In which she didn't seem to have been forced.
"Look, look, look!" she called out to them before turning on herself. The dress puffed and twirled around her leg and the fabric caught the light in a shimmering way. "It looks like flames!"
"It does." Effie laughed in agreement. "And it suits you very well."
"It's a dress." Haymitch pointed out. "Are you sure you want a dress?"
She stopped twirling on herself long enough to scowl at him. "It looks like flames." she repeated before twirling again, craning her neck to watch herself in the mirror.
"She selected quite a few things." Cinna declared, coming back downstairs with his arms full. "If you'd like to check or..."
"It's fine." he decided. She was so difficult on a day to day basis, he figured whatever she had chosen must have been alright. And he couldn't see her making shopping outings a regular thing so getting a lot of clothes in one go was probably for the best.
"I will ring everything." Cinna offered, relieving him of his own purchases.
"Can we call Uncle Chaff? I want him to come look at my dress." Katniss asked.
"Chaff was already here earlier, sweetheart." He rolled his eyes. "You have to stop calling him or he will move in for good."
Katniss sulked, her joy for her fire dress rapidly giving to her annoyance at being told no.
"Is Chaff your brother?" Effie asked tentatively.
"Uncle Chaff is Uncle Haymitch's special friend." Katniss explained before he could say anything and he was left to watch, helpless, as a look of understanding and mortification washed over Effie's face.
"Oh... Oh, I see." she stuttered, sounding a little disappointed.
"Best friend. She means best friend." Haymitch corrected quickly. "He's not a special friend. I don't have a special friend. Wouldn't have a male special friend either 'cause... You know. You're my kind of special friend. I mean not you you but... Women. Not that you wouldn't be my kind of special friend 'cause you're..." He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm gonna stop talking now."
Katniss and Effie were both watching him as if he was a complete idiot – which he might be given what had just sprouted out of his mouth – his saving grace was that there was some fondness in Effie's eyes.
"He's your special friend 'cause you were soldiers together." Katniss countered slowly, as if he was really brain damaged and he could almost hear the doh at the end. "He says so all the time."
"Oh, you were in the army?" Effie asked. "How wonderful."
"Not so much." he snapped, before looking down. "Not many fond memories there, sweetheart. Time to go, Katniss."
The girl didn't seem disturbed by his sudden sharp tone, she sauntered to the counter where Cinna was ringing everything. Effie grabbed his arm before he could join her.
"We seem to have a gift for offending each other." she observed.
He shook his head. "I'm not offended I just don't like thinking about it. Nothing to do with you."
A bunch of customers came in and her eyes immediately darted to them.
"I have to..." she started apologizing but he waved it off.
"Go." he shrugged.
"I will see you on Monday." she declared before rushing to her new clients.
He paid Cinna who was nice enough to give him a discount but, even so, he felt as if his credit card had just exploded when he put it back in his wallet and he struggled with the numerous bags. Katniss was still twirling in her dress, fascinated with the shimmering red fabric.
"Here." Cinna said, scribbling something at the back of the recipe ticket before dropping it in one of the bags. "Call her and don't break her heart."
"What?" he frowned.
"Effie's number." the man clarified.
He didn't know what to make of that so he nodded and left with Katniss on his trail.
"See you, Girl On Fire!" Cinna waved goodbye at her.
He pushed all memory of her number at the back of his head. The Effie situation was something he didn't want to linger on. He was attracted to her, that was obvious – and why wouldn't he? she was gorgeous – but he simply didn't date. For the last two decades, he only had a string of one night stands and no serious relationships at all. And now he had Katniss to think about. And even if the kid was alright with him dating her new best friend's aunt he wouldn't know how to go about it. He didn't do romance. He didn't do dates.
Had she asked Cinna to slip him her number or was it an initiative the man had taken? Would Cinna have told her he had given Haymitch her number? Was she expecting him to call?
What in hell was he supposed to do?
What do you think? Is he going to call? Stay tune for the answer to that riveting question and the long awaited playdate! Let me know your thoughts!
