20.
The air was charged with electricity, the sky was a cloudy grey and the faintest rumbling of thunder could be heard over Prim's joyful rendition of the latest – and probably last – Disney song. Effie and the girl were busy bringing the last of their supplies from the cars to the second floor of the Capitol company building. They had been staying there for a week already and it was becoming clearer and clearer than it would stretch into a longer stay than they had first planned, to Coin's obvious displeasure.
Peeta's leg was slowly healing but there were other problems to take into account. The most urgent was the lack of gas. Haymitch, Finnick and Gale had taken to raid surrounding farms everyday but so far, they had barely scraped up enough for a few miles : there were too many cars and too many of them. It was a losing battle according to Haymitch. Effie glanced at the road in concern and was a second too late in catching the bag Prim was handing her. The subject of her worry wasn't hard to guess.
"I'm sure they will be back soon." the girl offered, before going back to her singing.
Effie couldn't glimpse the slightest hint of a car in the horizon. She hoped they would be back before the storm hit, it looked like it would be a bad one. She was distracted from those thoughts by Johanna who started an off-key rendition of Prim's song with distorted lyrics. She swung zombie corpses on the growing pile to the disgusted singing of "fuck it all". Johanna hated doing the clean-up.
"Language." Effie snapped over her shoulder.
The song morphed into a "Fuck it all, fuck it all, Trinket can shut her mouth" that left Katniss – who was helping Johanna dragging another corpse – in stitches.
The zombies were the second problem. In their seven days stay at the Capitol, they had seen three large groups of zombies pass by the building, followed by mutts. It looked as if more would follow. Annie had a theory according to which they were migrating like geese to warmer countries, Katniss and Gale thought they had drained their food stock and were looking for more meat. Effie had no opinion whatsoever, she was just happy that the building was so well protected. Some zombies and the occasional mutt always wandered inside but zombies remained stuck in the lobby and were easily put down, unable to manage the stairs, as for mutts, they did manage the stairs but either they triggered the traps on the first floor or they got killed by whoever was on watch.
Effie had designed the watch duty schedule herself, it was her pride. She had managed to devise it in a way that everyone could get a full night of sleep every two days. She had also implanted a schedule for daily chores. When she had showed them to the group, the only one enthusiastic had been Coin who had almost smiled at her despite the fact that Effie defied her dress-code on a daily basis. The President was still insisting on black or grey clothes. Effie's only response to everyone who reminded her was a disdainful snort.
"Trinket, you got matches?" Johanna asked, looking at the heap of dead zombies.
She rummaged in one of the bags Prim had unloaded and threw the little box to her. She hurried inside before Johanna and Katniss could start the unpleasant process of burning the corpses. Doing that without any fuel wasn't an easy task, nor a pretty one – Katniss had ended up with some singed hair, the last time, earning herself the nickname of "girl on fire" from Haymitch, Finnick and Johanna. Effie hadn't seen the joke and still failed to see how it was funny.
Plutarch met them on the stairs and helped them haul the bags up to the second floor where they had made camp. It wasn't as good as the farm, Effie mused, but it wasn't that bad considering. There were a multitude of little offices and most of them had been claimed as private rooms. Privacy was a welcomed luxury after so many weeks on the road.
What had been the break room had become the common room and that was where Effie and Prim headed. They checked on Peeta on their way. He was lying on his sleeping bag, the lump tucked out of sight, and was busy sketching on a notepad. He accepted the offer to join them but refused their help in getting up although Prim made sure he was using the clutches Finnick had brought back from one of the farms in the right way. He was dealing with his injury a lot better than Effie would have if it had been her.
They made small talk for a while in the break room but soon enough everyone was focused on their own task. Peeta had gone back to sketching, Prim was reading a book she had found in one of the offices, and Effie was reviewing her own notes. On Coin's demands, she had made an inventory of the food and water stocked in the building – there was enough to feed them all for a month or two if they were careful – however she hadn't stopped there and had taken to note down everything that could be of use. Plutarch had been the one inventorying the guns and ammos the soldiers had been hoarding up but Effie had made her own calculations and had insisted upon reviewing his numbers. A good thing, as Haymitch had told her later, since the rebels had been trying to snatch a few guns and ammos without anyone's noticing. No one had particularly believed Plutarch's assurance that he had "made a mistake". There were other things of interest in the offices and among the supplies left behind by the staff, albeit nothing that could help them survive an apocalypse : books, make-up, condoms, hair ties – to every girl's relief… A hundred of little things that could make life easier.
When the storm finally broke out and the rain started to pour, she asked Prim to go tell Johanna and Katniss to put whatever containers they could find outside. They needed as much clean water as they could get. It wasn't an immediate concern, they had enough bottles of water to last a while, but they were low on washing water and Effie insisted on everyone maintaining a high level of personal hygiene – not only because they were all living in close quarters but because they couldn't afford anyone getting sick due to filthiness; and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was "a big sissy " as Johanna had implied.
She spent the following hour trying to find a way to best divide their blanket supplies. Some were sharing a room, others were alone but some also had sleeping bags when other had air mattresses – Haymitch and Finnick had found a couple of those a few days ago and had claimed their bounties for themselves, usually Effie would have complained about the unfairness of that but since she had gained a bed in the process, she had held her tongue. Nevertheless, now the problem was to decide who needed more blankets. They already had one each but there were still five left… It was all a conundrum to decide who needed them more. She was so focused on her notepad, she didn't even react when Prim started giggling.
"Wearing red… You're such a little rebel, sweetheart."
She startled and looked up, surprised to see Haymitch leaning against the doorframe. A relieved smile blossomed on her lips, she looked him from head to toes but apart from the fact that he was dripping wet, he seemed to be in one piece. He must have been there for a few minutes because a puddle of water had gathered around his feet.
"I'm surprised Coin didn't tear it from you yet." Haymitch snorted. "She's in a foul mood."
When wasn't she? "She can try." Effie offered, closing her notepad and patting her well-loved new cardigan. She had sneaked it behind the President's back during the last raid. It was a slow process but she was starting to rebuild her wardrobe. She would never forgive the rebels for what had happened to her former stolen clothes. Black and grey weren't an acceptable color scheme. "Although it is cashmere so I might have to murder her."
Peeta and Prim both laughed and she smiled at them.
"What if I were to tear it off you?" It was so innocently asked it took a few seconds to realize what he had said. Peeta and Prim choked on their laughter and Effie flushed crimson. Haymitch seemed very amused by it all, his eyes were twinkling with mischief.
"You won't if you value your life." she snapped, eying him more carefully. She stood up and walked closer, suspicion making alarms ring in her head. "Are you drunk?" He could have found alcohol somewhere, he had an inner detector for liquor.
"Unfortunately no." he sighed. "Quite horny, though."
"Haymitch!" she shrieked, absolutely appalled by his behavior. Both teenagers grunted in disgust and scrambled out of the room as fast as Peeta's clutches could carry him. "This is really improper." she chided him as soon as the others were out. It didn't discourage him from advancing steadily towards her even when she stepped back, hands held out to keep him at a respectable distance. "You're dripping wet!"
"And?" he asked. Her back was against the wall and her hands were spread on his chest. It was all she could do to keep him far enough from her that he wouldn't ruin her cashmere cardigan.
"And I am not." she hissed. She still responded to his kiss and almost forgot to protect her clothes from his damp body. It was like a switch, she mused, each time he kissed her, her brain shut down.
"Maybe we should do something about that." he mumbled against her lips and it took her a few seconds longer than it usually would to push him away.
"Must you always be so crass?" She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "First that kind of innuendo in front of the children and now this."
"Saying I'm horny isn't innuendo, it's a fact." he corrected her with a smirk. "You drip…"
She placed a hand on his mouth before he could finish his explanation. "Stop this. We're not having sex." His eyes were sparkling and he clearly mistook her statement for a challenge. His tongue poked her palm and she snatched her hand away. "Haymitch."
He rolled his eyes but stepped back. "It was worth a shot." he mumbled under his breath.
She pretended she didn't hear anything. "You should go and change before you catch your death. It's freezing in here." She was lamenting the loss of the farm and, above all, of the fireplace. Effie wasn't made for cold. She always spent the winter in Los Angeles or Miami. Effie loved to live in perpetual summer.
"Come with me." he requested. "I have something for you."
"A gift?" She lifted her eyebrows in surprise.
"If you want to call it that…" he shrugged, obviously feeling embarrassed.
It was cute.
"What is it?" she asked, overly curious. It had been some time since she had been given a gift.
"You will see when you're in our room." he smirked.
"How convenient." she deadpanned. Still, she followed him. "Did you find anything?"
"People." he replied. "An old woman who called herself Graesy Sae and her granddaughter. They lived in an old farm not too far, nice enough. They said we won't find gas anywhere around here but there's another town about four hours away north. We will try our luck there."
"Four hours away?" She didn't like the sound of that. "It's too far. Anything could happen."
"Anything could happen anywhere." he sighed. He opened the door to their room for her and went for the bag he had obviously thrown in at random earlier. They had pushed the desk against the wall but even like that it was crammed : the air mattress took almost all the space despite the fact that it wasn't that big to begin with, their bags were piled up on the desk with their weapons. "Here. We hit a store on our way back."
She had been so busy mentally thinking about how to reorganize the space that she hadn't realized he had gotten something out of the now empty bag. He was holding a heavy woolen coat, it was a light grey with patches of bright pink and apple green here and there. She almost squealed in delight when she snatched it away from him. She tried it on immediately, it was a bit large for her but it was otherwise perfect. She twirled on herself, laughing in pure glee. "It's so pretty!"
"I figured you would like it, it was the ugliest one." he mocked her. He shed his jacket and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. His undershirt wasn't wet so he kept it. His shoes and pants followed the jacket and the coat. Before long, the narrow space left between the bed and the closed door was cluttered with damp clothes he clearly intended to leave there. That was a problem that should have been addressed quickly, she decided, she had been picking up after him since they had started sharing the room.
"You should put that to dry." she said pointedly.
"Later." It was so dismissive…
"I am not going to do it for you, Haymitch." she warned him. "I am not your maid and if you are unable to keep some order in this room then you can find one all for yourself."
"Are you mad now?" he smirked. The room was so small he only had to reach up to slip the coat from her shoulder. "I brought you ridiculous clothes. You should say thank you."
"Haymitch." She tried to sound stern, she really tried.
His mouth brushed her throat just in that spot, she could feel drops of water from his damp hair rolling on her own skin. "Yeah?" He chuckled at her sudden intake of breath. "Something wrong, Princess?"
He was just teasing for now: ghosts of touches on her side under her shirt, soft kisses on her neck… He would retreat if she asked him to. Yet her hand found the back of his head and urged him closer. They kissed with more teeth than tongues and she didn't try to resist when her cashmere cardigan joined the coat on the floor, rapidly followed by her top.
"Make it quick." she ordered. "I don't have much time. It's my turn to cook tonight."
It owed her a mocking laugh against her shoulder. "Then we will go extra slow and save everyone from poisoning, Princess."
She pushed him but he wouldn't move. It was probably for the best anyway, she didn't really want him to step back. She did a quick job of the last remaining clothes he had still on but he didn't seem in any hurry to undress her completely, seemingly happy to kiss and tease.
They knew each other's body quite well by now. They knew what the other loved best and what they didn't like. They knew how to make it last or, on the contrary, how to reach their peak in a matter of minutes. It was the perfect moment in a relationship where it was still so new you couldn't keep your hands off each other but old enough that the first awkward stumblings were truly behind you.
If Haymitch said he wanted to make it slow, he could.
"You are rather horny." she observed when she took matter into her own hands – so to speak. "You mentioned a granddaughter… I'm guessing she was adult. Was she pretty?"
She didn't even try to cover the jealousy in her voice with fake cheerfulness and she made sure to bite his neck so hard he hissed. She suck the skin at the junction of his shoulder and neck, worrying it between her teeth until she was sure it would leave a mark.
"Gale seems to think so." he replied, finally peeling her top. "'Can't really say, I was too busy thinking about you."
"Smooth." she giggled when his fingertips tickled her side. "A lie too, almost certainly, but smooth."
"I never lie, sweetheart." he objected, pushing her gently to the air mattress. The thing rumbled and made so much noise she was sure everyone near their room must have heard it. "Stop thinking." The corner of his mouth was upturned in a smirk. He kissed his way from her throat down to her belt and took his sweet time removing her boots and jeans, she tried to do it herself but he wouldn't let her.
"What are you planning?" she asked, already frustrated when he continued kissing her body but nowhere she wanted to be kissed.
The smirk only increased. "Making you beg."
"That is not going to happen." she huffed. She still had her pride, she told herself, even when she grabbed his arm and pulled him so his body would cover hers. "Now, enough teasing."
"So bossy…" he chuckled. He kissed her and she couldn't help but gasp against his mouth when he finally gave her what she wanted, so slowly it was almost a torture. Their natural instinct was for rough and brief intercourses but he was clearly making an effort to pace himself and she let him, arching more than once under him from her building pleasure.
Taking their time had become a luxury since they had left the farm. They were always in a rush, there never was any real privacy or safety… They had been aching for each other for weeks before they finally got a room to themselves with four walls hiding them from indiscreet eyes.
"Haymitch…" It was a sigh or a warning, she wasn't sure. Her orgasm washed over her in a familiar and welcomed wave of ecstasy. She was a ragdoll by the time she climbed down from her high and she let him switch position and do what he wanted with her. He mumbled something in her neck when he came but she was too far gone to figure out what it was.
She snuggled up against him as they tried to get their breathing back under control. Cold bit at her sweaty skin and she wriggled until she could grab the covers that had somehow ended up in a heap at the foot of the mattress. Haymitch's warm body and the two blankets weren't enough barrier against the cold though, even when he wrapped his arms around her. His still damp hair wasn't helping matters.
"You're worse than an ice cube." he complained, leaving the nest she had spent at least five minutes building. She whimpered in distress when her naked skin got exposed to the freezing temperature again.
"Can't we just cuddle for a minute?" she sighed. "I highly dislike it when you leave right after we had sex." She didn't like the way it made her feel, like she was nothing but convenient. She was always hesitant to brush that kind of subject with him, he never reacted well to any attempt at talking about feelings but they had been together for… She thought it was months now but she wasn't sure. She had tried to keep count of the days in the very beginning but they had blurred and fused together at some point. How much time had passed since she had met Haymitch? Three months? Four? Perhaps it was closer to five or six. Long enough, in any case, for her to speak plainly.
He paused in his rummaging of the bags to glance down at her over his shoulder.
"I don't do cuddles, sweetheart." He made a face at the very idea. "Don't go and tell people I'm a cuddler."
"No chance of that." she snapped and then threw the blanket over her head in a somehow childish display. She hoped it would be warmer – and it would have been if he hadn't sent it flying on the side. "Haymitch! You are such a…" The rest of her rant was cut by a handful of clothes dropped on her stomach. Woolen socks, a thick flannel shirt and boxers.
"I'm not going near your shit." He nodded to her perfectly organized bags. "I like my head on my shoulders and not chewed off." Perhaps she had been a tad… excessive the last time he had tried to go through her clothes.
"Thank you." she said, oddly touched. She didn't lose any time before slipping everything on – after having checked it was clean. Not only was it warmer this way but it also was… comforting to be wearing his clothes. They had never done that before.
He was slower in getting dressed and even sloppier. He barely bothered to put a shirt over his boxers and he left it open, she didn't complain she rather liked the sight of his chest. There wasn't much muscles but killing zombies almost every day kept him nicely in shape although he was in obvious need of being fed. They all were. Effie's body wasn't as prim as it had been before the apocalypse either, she was painfully aware of it.
He sat back down next to her, careful not to flop on the mattress like he had done the first time – it had only resulted in more hours spent in blowing the thing up again until they were blue in the face. Effie hated the air mattress, it made all kind of noise each time they moved and it wasn't really comfortable and yet it was still better than the hard cold ground. He had started toweling his hair with the undershirt he had picked up from the ground. He was doing such a poor job of it, she kneeled behind him and took the shirt from his hand. She did her best but it was still wet when he got bored and grabbed her around the waist. For someone who didn't like cuddles, he certainly liked lying in bed with her. She suspected that if they hadn't been running for their life in a zombies infected world, Haymitch would have been the lazy kind.
"You are still picking up your clothes and putting them to dry." she told him, snuggling against him once more. He grabbed the blankets to cover her but didn't bother getting underneath. He claimed the cold didn't bother him because he was used to it. He lived in the north once upon a time.
He hummed but didn't explicitly agree and she simply knew he would never do it.
Her hand roamed on his chest at random before settling on his side, over the largest scar. Her thumb ran over it by habit, wondering how it came to be in the first place. It must have been a nasty wound. It was a milky white so it must have been pretty old but it was far from faded, it was still swollen as if the skin had been torn and then hastily patched together in the first place. What sort of things left that kind of scar?
"Axe." he spat and she startled, wondering if she had asked her question aloud. "Jo isn't the only one fond of them."
She lifted her head to look at him but he was staring at the wall. The storm was still raging outside and almost no light passed the small window by the desk, she couldn't quite see his face in the darkness. His chest was rising and falling more quickly than before and she found herself at a loss for what to do. He didn't talk about his past very often but, at the same time, she knew that if she pressed him for information, she would only scare him away.
"How old were you?" It seemed like innocent enough a question. She pressed a kiss on his shoulder to let him know she didn't mean to pry.
His fingers tangled in her hair like they always did. He loved to play with her hair for some reason. "Seventeen."
She opened her mouth and closed it again before she could say something that would spoil the moment. She could remember the year she was seventeen. She had been going to castings for two years already, her life had been full of boyfriends, parties and studying for school. She had never even been close to an axe at that point…
"Were you already…" She didn't quite know what she wanted to ask. Had he already been working for the CIA? Had he always been working for the CIA or…
"That's how I was recruited." he cut her off.
There was a warning in his voice not to press the subject so she let it drop. She placed her hand over the scar – it was so long it didn't even cover it entirely – and kissed his shoulder again. "I love you." He didn't flinch anymore when she said it, sometimes he even relaxed. It wasn't one of those times. He didn't flinch but he didn't exactly relax either.
"If you knew half the things I've done, you wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole." he snorted. His hand left her hair to cup her cheek, his thumb retraced the shape of her mouth.
She kissed it and then she dropped her eyes. "I've slept with people in exchange for jobs." It was expected, all the more so in the beginning. That was how the business worked. It didn't mean she was proud of it. It was secretly her biggest shame. She had tried to succeed by herself at first but after a while she had simply given up. There was nothing she wouldn't have done for fame by that point and her body had seemed like a feeble price to pay. "I was barely more than an escort. See, you're not the only one who did despicable things."
"You're cute, sweetheart, but that's nothing." he sneered.
"I beg to differ." she mumbled, placing her head on his shoulder. The thought of some of those men was enough to make her shudder.
"I watched kids die." It was blunt, harsh and full of hatred. "I watched and I didn't save one."
She didn't dare move or even breathe. His body was so tense under hers she was sure he would bolt. "Didn't or couldn't?"
"Does it make a difference?" he snapped. "I watched them die all because Snow ordered so. There was a slaughter and nobody ever noticed because you were too busy distracting them with your Miss Patriot act."
She felt as if she had just being slapped. She turned on her other side, far from his body's warmth and curled up on herself. "How many times do I have to apologize for accepting a job more than ten years before I even met you?"
She expected him to leave the room because that was what he would have done before they left the farm, before he was forced into sobriety. The lack of alcohol made him short-tempered and snappish with everyone, her more than anyone else, but he always seemed to regret it afterwards, he always made sure she knew he didn't quite mean it. It was never an apology - Haymitch very rarely apologized - but it was something.
The hand he placed on her hip was hesitant but when she didn't push him away he pressed his chest against her back, holding her close until he was spooning her.
"It's not your fault." he said. She didn't know if he was talking about the fact that she used to be the government's face or the sudden shift of his mood. "I don't like talking about that."
"There is no point looking back at the past anyway." she sighed, giving up on her idea to remain angry when he kissed her neck tentatively. "Carp Diem…"
"Pretty sure, it's Carpe." he mumbled against her hair.
"Whatever fish you please." She rolled her eyes. "We should enjoy the present instant and, right now, I am cold which means I am not enjoying anything. Do something about it." He hauled her on his chest, moving the blankets around until they were both under them and she was pressed against his warm skin. "Better."
"So glad you approve, Princess." he deadpanned.
She buried her face in his neck, wondering what kind of spell she was under. She was utterly mad for that man. She had never felt quite like that before. Losing him, she knew, would devastate her.
"Do you really think a four hours away raid is a good idea?" she asked.
"I don't think we have much of a choice." he shrugged. "We'll talk about it with the others at dinner."
She was about to suggest he abstain from the raid or let her go with him when she gasped in sudden horror and scrambled up. "Dinner!" She forgot everything about the cold and his grabby hands. "We will be completely off-schedule now! Oh, everything is your fault…"
She grabbed her jean and tucked his borrowed shirt in without a second thought. It certainly wouldn't be pretty but she couldn't waste any more time getting ready when everyone was counting on her to cook dinner. He watched her zip her boots and twist her hair in a hasty ponytail with an amused smirk.
"What is it?" she snapped.
"You're not wearing a bra." he pointed out.
She looked down but his shirt was baggy enough on her. She frowned. "Can you tell?"
"No, but I know." He looked so smug she couldn't help but lift an eyebrow.
"Well, I hope it doesn't distract you all evening." And with that, she stepped out and closed the door on him.
Fortunately for her, Annie had already started dinner even though it wasn't her turn. It was good. As good as tasteless canned vegetable that they already had sampled three times that week could be. The friendly conversation didn't really make up for it and Effie had to hide her irritation when the next raid was decided on and she wasn't allowed to go. Johanna imposed herself, claiming she was going crazy doing nothing but babysitting all day, Haymitch and Finnick would both go, that was a given, and Katniss said she didn't mind as long as Gale, Peeta and Effie stayed behind to watch Prim. Neither Coin nor her soldier friend lingered after they had finished their plate, Plutarch stayed. He was making an effort to get to know them, Effie would grant him that.
"I miss tiramisu." Gale said, out of the blue, when the conversation stalled to a halt.
The breaking room felt crammed with all of them but Effie liked it best like that. All of them were there, all of them accounted for.
"Hot showers." Plutarch added wistfully.
"My cat." Prim sighed.
"Nothing could kill that thing, Prim." Gale snorted. "I'm sure Buttercup is just fine."
"Probably feasting on zombie flesh as we speak." Katniss nodded. Prim smiled but it was small so Effie reached out to squeeze her hand.
"I miss lazy week-ends in bed." Annie offered.
"Oh, yeah…" Finnick wriggled his eyebrows, placing an arm around her shoulders. "Those were the best." Annie rolled her eyes but she melted into his side. "I miss the beach… What about you, Jo?"
Johanna scowled. "Not being surrounded by idiots?"
"I would drink to that if I had any booze." Haymitch grunted. "I do miss booze."
"Everybody knows you miss booze, Haymitch." Peeta chuckled. "You tell us at least three times a day."
"Well, what do you miss most, boy?" he shot back and Effie held out her breath.
"Having two legs was pretty sweet." Peeta replied. It could have put a damp on the general mood but he was so obviously attempting at levity that most of them laughed with him. Not Effie though.
"Yeah, but then you wouldn't have gotten the girl…" Haymitch pointed out to most of the teenagers' embarrassment.
What was going on between Peeta and Katniss was very unclear to Effie. She had walked on suspicious hugs more than once but she had never caught them kissing or anything of the kind. Her probing of Prim hadn't told her anything she didn't already know. Gale, on the other hand, was getting more and more sullen by the day.
"He didn't get the girl." Katniss grumbled. "It's a stupid expression anyway."
"Question is… Are you worth a leg?" Johanna mused.
"I'm on watch duty." Gale muttered. He stood up and stormed out before anyone could say anything.
Effie was about to follow him to try and smoother ruffled feathers but Haymitch grabbed her wrist before she could do anything. He shook his head no.
"What do you miss, Effie?" Finnick asked, smoothly changing the topic.
All eyes were on her and she was at a loss. What she missed most, she thought, was the feeling of being safe. Oh, they were all quite safe in the Capitol for now but it wouldn't last. In that world, safety was a fleeting thing. And feeble. So, so very feeble…
"Glamorous dresses." She laughed instead of telling the truth. "Haute-couture. Designers clothes…" Everybody laughed with her, agreeing that it wasn't very surprising. Haymitch and Peeta were the only ones who looked at her with something akin to understanding.
"You're sure far from glamorous tonight." Johanna taunted, eyeing the flannel shirt she was still wearing with amusement. "Aren't you a bit old to borrow your boyfriend's clothes?"
Effie didn't know what to protest first : the fact that she was old or that Haymitch was her boyfriend. She wasn't that much older than Johanna but she was certainly too old for the term "boyfriend" – not to mention the fact that their relationship had never been labeled.
"She's rocking my clothes." Haymitch retorted. "It's much better than what she usually wears. No pink, no trimming… She doesn't look like a Christmas tree for once."
She glared daggers at him.
"You weren't wearing that earlier, were you?" Katniss pointed out with a frown before she could tell Haymitch he was very welcome to use one of the empty offices for the night.
Of all the times the girl could have chosen to become observant…
"True." Johanna's eyes were shining with the urge to go for the kill. She sneered. "Was it a good fucking session?"
Peeta and Prim exchanged an amused glance, Katniss made a face, Plutarch looked like he didn't quite know what he was doing there, Annie was lost in her own world and Finnick's grin was wolfish.
"Johanna, it saddens me to say your behavior is beyond help." Effie stated disapprovingly. "You are more than rude, it is truly appalling. I will thank you to keep your nose out of my private life, where it doesn't belong."
There was a small silence.
"To be fair, it's not very private when we can hear you screaming two corridors away." Finnick coughed in his hand.
Effie flushed crimson. She knew she was sometimes quite… vocal but she was trying to keep it quiet.
"Oh, like you were being very quiet the night before yesterday…" Haymitch snorted before taking an unbearable high-pitched voice. "Annie… Annie…"
Annie, fortunately for her, was still spacing out. Effie wished she could do the same.
"Haymitch, you do not have any gift for imitation." Effie hissed. "And this conversation is neither proper nor suitable for every ear. Shall I remind you all that there is a twelve years old with us?"
"Twelve years old or not, between the four of you I bet she knows everything there is to know about sex." Johanna snorted. "Including the fact that Haymitch sounds like a fucking walrus when he…"
"Not for my sister's ears!" Katniss shouted, grabbing Prim's arm and dragging her out of the room kicking and screaming.
Effie could only approve but even then… "Haymitch does not sound like a walrus and you snore so loudly it could wake the dead. Literally. "
Johanna rolled her eyes. "That's the best you can come up with, Trinket?"
"You do snore." Peeta interrupted. "I'm tempted to move to another room."
"Well, don't get one too close to either of them because I'm regretting my choice every night." Plutarch offered good-naturedly, nodding to Finnick and Annie and then Haymitch and Effie. The man winced. "And I'm afraid Miss Mason is right. You do sound like a dying walrus."
"Call me Miss Mason again and I will hurt you." Johanna warned.
Effie opened and closed her mouth, not understanding why Haymitch wasn't even trying to defend himself. He simply shrugged and waved her concern away. "They're jealous, sweetheart. Leave them be. In fact…" He got up and outstretched a hand to help her up. "Let's call it a night."
"Next raid, I'm getting ear-plugs." Johanna vowed.
Effie exited the room with her head high, holding on to Haymitch's hand and to the tatters of her dignity. They had developed a routine for bedtime and they stuck to it after Effie had forced him to finally pick up his clothes – it led to a shouting match but she won once she took off his borrowed shirt and he got distracted by the sight of her breasts.
They ended up snuggling in bed again, facing the same problem they had faced every night that week : how to keep her warm? She finally settled for half-lying on his chest, wrapped tightly in his arms and the blankets, with so many layers of clothes she couldn't be bothered to count them. Haymitch always complained that it was stifling by the end of the night but given that he would have been content to sleep in his clothes and a single blanket, Effie had elected to ignore him.
She was dozing off to his distracted petting of her hair when he spoke. Her head was cushioned on his chest and it sounded like a low rumble at first.
"Do I really sound like a walrus when I come?"
She faked sleep.