Requested by wigsandwhiskey: I love your hayffie stories and I love between lives as well! Im glad I can finally come up with a prompt: pls could you write Haymitch's first year as a mentor and he's 17 and overwhelmed and Mags and Chaff comfort him after he loses the tributes?

Occupation: Mentor

(17 years old)

Haymitch was alone when he walked into the Viewing Centre. It was strange to be here, to be behind the scenes of the Games. He was careful to avoid anyone as he slipped into Twelve's viewing booth, a large space curtained off from the main area. There was a long plush sofa and a table in the centre with screens and phones set on it. There was also a large television on the wall and an empty table to the side of the room where Amara had left him a plate of sandwiches.

He settled down on the red sofa, elbows on his knees. Outside, he could hear other mentors and escorts trickling in and talking to each other.

The curtain parted to reveal his escort.

"Oh, good, you're here. I was wondering where you've been and I didn't fancy sending out a search party to look for you."

He mumbled something unintelligible under his breath, wishing she would go away.

"What was that?"

"I said, am I supposed to turn these things on," he gestured at the multiple screens, "or is it automatic?"

"It's in the guide book, Haymitch," Amara huffed impatiently.

That was probably true except he wouldn't know. He hadn't read it. At the end of his Victory Tour, they had given him a manual. He had stared at the book in his hands and scoffed at the sight of it. The Peacekeepers did not find it amusing at all.

The Capitol took such pleasure in the killing of children that they had devised a step by step guide on the proper way to send the tributes to their death. It was disgusting and he refused to touch the manual on principle alone. Afterwards, he spent the time between that Tour and this Games trying to come to terms with his family's and his girl's demise to bother about the manual.

"I don't know why I expect you to read it because clearly, you simply can't be bothered with such triviality," she nagged.

"Are you going to help me or not? 'Cause if you ain't gonna help, you can get out," he snapped, losing patience with her.

Amara pushed the electronic tablet she often carry around into his hand and sat next to him, pushing the buttons on his table seemingly at random. The screen lighted up and came to life.

"There," she sneered as if he should have known that all along.

He ignored her completely and pulled the table close to him, staring at the screen. He was just in time to see the tributes in their tube rising on to their platforms.

For the second time that day, the curtain was pulled back.

"Go make yourself useful someplace else, Amara," Chaff waved her off and at the familiar voice, Haymitch looked up to see Amara turned her nose at Chaff and marched out of the room. "Haymitch!"

Haymitch smiled; glad to see a friendly face.

"Chaff," he nodded.

"You okay?" Chaff asked, taking a seat next to him. His voice dropped to a low whisper. "I heard – I'm sorry about your family and your girl."

He shrugged.

"But you showed them, Haymitch. You showed them real good and now they're 'fraid of you. I'd say that's a -"

"I'd rather have my family back, Chaff," Haymitch interrupted, not looking at his friend. It was still a sore topic for him and sensing that Haymitch had no desire to talk about it at all, Chaff dropped it even if he was worried for his friend.

Chaff had his own screen which he relocated into Twelve's viewing booth and set it up on the table next to Haymitch who only watched him but said nothing.

"This one will split the screen," Chaff showed him without Haymitch having to ask. "That way, you can see both your tributes at the same time. This one shows their vitals – it's important, you'll see soon enough."

"And what 'bout this?"

"That'll give you an aerial view of the arena," another person answered. He walked towards Haymitch's table, zoomed out on the screen to show Haymitch what he meant. "Beetee Latier, I met you at District Three during your Tour. Mornin', Chaff. Mornin', Haymitch."

"I remember," Haymitch nodded. "Have a seat – three's a party, right?"

Soon, the usually empty booth in District Twelve – in the previous years, loan mentors had a habit of sitting with their own district mentors for some reason with the exception of Mags last year – was crowded with several other mentors from different districts.

Haymitch knew them from Chaff and Mags. Seeder was there because Chaff was there with him and Wiress joined them because Beetee had made himself comfortable in Twelve's booth. Mags had returned to mentor the District Four tributes. She didn't have to since Four had another mentor on board but somehow, Haymitch had a feeling that she wanted to keep an eye on him, to make sure he was okay. It was his first year back after all, though he suspected there was a deeper reason.

"Are you okay, my boy?"

"Fine," he lied.

Mags had been the first person he called when his family was killed. He had been hysterical and would have lost his mind if it wasn't for her. Haymitch had kept repeating over and over that "the Capitol did this" and at his wits end, Aspen Everdeen asked if he wanted to call his mentor. Travelling between districts was prohibited but Mags had contacts in the Capitol. She had pulled the "I was his mentor" card and she was there in Twelve, helping him bury his mother and his brother.

If she knew he was lying, she said nothing.

"Did we form an alliance?" Amara asked, startled at the sight of several mentors sitting together with Haymitch. "If we did you have to fill up the forms, Haymitch. Didn't I tell you?"

"No," Haymitch grumbled. "Twelve's got no alliance. They're just showing me the ropes."

"If you had read the manual I sent you after your Tour, you'd be fine," Amara couldn't help but jabbed him with this. She disappeared once again to sit with the escort from District Two.

"Don't worry, in a few years, when she's old, they'll replace with a new escort," Chaff chuckled when he saw Haymitch rolled his eyes at Amara. "Maybe you'll get a hot one, eh, and we'll get to see some action."

"That's highly inappropriate," Beetee told Chaff. "He's only seventeen, Chaff, don't drag him into your debauchery ways."

"Exactly, Beetee," Chaff nodded. "He's seventeen. He's old enough."

Within minutes after the Games started, both of District Three tributes were amongst those slain in the bloodbath. With a long defeated sigh, Beetee left to make a call to the family.

All talks were left aside as each mentor focused on their own tributes. Haymitch's eyes were fixed on the screen, watching Anna, Twelve's female tribute, stood frozen on the platform. The boy had done as he asked and was running away from the cornucopia.

"Why isn't she moving?" he muttered in distress. "She's a target! Move, Anna. You can't - "

The girl died on the platform, her throat speared with an arrow. Haymitch gave a strangled noise of surprise, his head snapping up to look at Chaff and Mags. On his table, the girl's screen went dark

"You still have another," Mags reminded him.

She was right. He couldn't let this distract him. There was still one other he could help. Haymitch pushed the surprise, the fear and the revulsion to the back of his mind as he frantically searched for Noah on the screen. He found him running through the arena pursued by a Career from District Two.

"Run," Haymitch growled. "Run faster."

It was hopeless. The tribute from Two raised his sword and slashed Noah's back before turning around towards the Cornucopia, leaving Noah to bleed out to death. Haymitch gripped the screen, staring and refusing to blink as he watched Noah gasping for breath.

Chaff looked at him. He already knew what Haymitch was not yet willing to accept.

Noah died. His eyes were wide open and staring at the camera, his face frozen in terror.

"Well," Amara poked her head through the curtains to address Haymitch, "this is a very short year for Twelve, again. I must say, Haymitch, that was an easy first day on the job for you. I don't think you need me around anymore, do you?"

When Haymitch said nothing, she went on, "I'm going to meet Jovian for lunch now. You remember my boyfriend, Jovian, don't you?"

"I – Yeah, no, you can go," Haymitch told her. He just wanted her to leave and to stop talking to or to pepper him with questions he had no interest in answering.

"Don't forget to do the paper works," Amara reminded him. "Always so tedious when you lose tributes."

You, the word jumped out at him. Amara took no part in this. He had lost the tributes. It was him. It was his fault.

"Haymitch," Chaff nudged him. "I need you to remember one thing – the mentors are the escorts' bosses. You run this ship, you understand? You don't let her off the hook like that."

I run this ship, he thought quietly, which meant their death is because of me.

"Is it … Is it difficult… mentoring?" his voice came out hoarse. "Every year… I –"

"You'll get used to it," Chaff exhaled a breath, running a hand down his face.

"What do you tell their parents? What do I tell their parents?"

"The truth," Mags said, clutching his hand tightly in hers, "that you tried and it wasn't enough."

"I know them," he whispered. "I used to … I went to school with them. They're younger but there's only one school… He's… Noah liked to play tricks on the girls in the district. He'll howl like a wolf and scare them shitless, and he sounded just like a wolf. I used to tell him - "

"Stop," Chaff frowned. "Stop. You can't think like that. It'll mess you up more than it already has."

"You just have to keep moving, Haymitch," Mags told him "It's not going to get easier."

"I don't think I can do this."

Mags nodded sympathetically. "You're the best chance they got – think of it that way."

He stared at his hands, prolonging the hour until he needed to get on the phone to tell his friends' parents that their child was dead.

"It'll get easier if I don't know them," he said suddenly, surprising Mags and Chaff with the fierceness in his voice.

He made sure he never interacted with any child in District Twelve from then on. He stopped seeing them as his friends or Lief's friends, or someone he knew from home. Eventually as the years passed, he stopped seeing children as children at all. He saw them all as someone the Capitol could take and kill at any moment. They were all potential tributes to him and he didn't want to know them before their time in the arena.