Author's note: TRIGGER WARNING for mentions of suicide and life's general awfulness à la young mentor Haymitch. So, yeah. This lil' chapter is hella depressing.
Chapter 41
Piece by piece
June wouldn't look at him – not once – as she tied balloons to a nearby tree. Floating ones of every color, just outside the cream colored party tent. The helium canister stood by her feet. A big cylinder thing, gray as stormy seas. If anything it looked like the bombs that a Capitol hovercraft might drop.
Course, he knew better than to blurt that out.
The party tent was anchored at every corner, accompanied by more of June's floating balloons. Tethered to the ground and tied up with ribbons. The sidewalls had all been removed, leaving the waterproof ceiling above, just in case of rain.
The garden table was set up with the plump coffee pot and matching china. Pretty glasses with soft yellow napkins. Frog green plastic plates and sippy cups for the birthday kids along with a stack of gifts.
Sitting in a bucket of ice was a bottle of (obviously) alcohol-free apple cider and over by June's apple tree: Effie's picnic blanket spread out in the shade – just in case it didn't rain.
"You did it wonderful out here", he told the blonde woman's back. "Sincerely."
Nothing. Not even a sour: "I didn't do it for you." If Annabel's patience was wearing thin, he was one drunken stupor away from making June an enemy.
Not that he wasn't used to it. Making enemies.
Her silence. Her body language. He knew it all too well. Used to get it all the time back home. Not so much anymore. Post-rebellion.
"Because you helped put an end to Snow. An end to the Games", Effie said but that wasn't it. He hadn't redeemed himself. The supposed thawing of District 12 toward him was all due to the depressing fact that almost no one survived the fire bombings.
But in the glory days – the hateful glances, the cold shoulders, even confrontations was all part of his everyday life. Took only a few seasons.
For about a second after his Quell, him actually winning breathed a sense of hope into the district. Not only because of Parcel Day - those monthly food packages sent in the first year. It was the fact that Twelve finally, finally had a mentor now. A mentor clever enough to win one of the hardest Games in history. Surely it would make a difference? Surely!
Course, it didn't take him long to prove them wrong and all that hope and optimism turned cold and bitter as a winter storm. It wasn't just that they resented him for not doing enough. He was also their living breathing reminder of the Games. Past and future.
And as the dead children under his care accumulated he spent less and less time outside the house, unable to look at the young faces of towners and Seam kids alike, wondering which one was next.
That and their loved ones. Families, friends, sweethearts of the kids he failed to bring home. They shouldn't have to endure his presence more than absolutely necessary. Not if he could help it.
Like the funerals. Few things on this Earth could compete with his hatred for the reaping but those god awful double funerals were definitely up there.
As the mentor, he was expected to attend. And he did, the first couple of years.
Dandruff wasn't present of course. You didn't escort dead children back. It was just him and a handful of mourners, carefully selected. All presided over by an armada of peacekeepers, armed to the teeth.
The Iron Maiden and later old Cray held a speech over the small-sized coffins but it was never really about the dead, or the living. More like … sitting round the table and now let's all give thanks to our lord and savior president Snow.
You'd think there'd be flowers. White, perfume-reeking roses, reminding you of who ran this show. But of course not. Snow wouldn't waste a single bloom on something as unimportant as a dead tribute. Not even the local wild rose that Katniss might encounter out in the woods.
The last funeral he ever went to was before she and Peeta were born. Effie must have still been a child.
Dandruff reaped a couple of Seam kids that year, just like she did most seasons. 15 year old Laurel and Douglas – just twelve. None of them made it past the bloodbath.
Their families weren't to go near the coffins to say a final goodbye or put down a daisy. They were just an audience. A class of school children and like the dutiful crowd they kept their expected distance while the Head Peacekeeper ran their pathetic charade.
Lauren's parents, her brothers and sisters all sobbed together. Silent ones so as not attract the attention of those rifles. Douglas's mother seemed in chock. Her eyes stared at nothing, bone dry while her husband - face sunken, a head shorter than her - cried for the both of them.
Haymitch kept his distance at the scene, like he always did. Out of respect for the families. Their pain. But his eyes had flitted to Douglas's father at one point and right in that moment Tucker looked at him.
The coal miner knew the mentor would be there. Or maybe not. The funerals were never aired. Not unless there was a special year, like the Quells. Either way he looked stunned, staggered. Like coming out of a dream.
And then, rage took its place. There was no other word for it. And he left his wife's side. Elbowed himself right through the crowd. Haymitch knew what was coming. Could have deflected it. Easily. After his time in the arena he had reflexes like a wild rabbit. But he didn't and Tucker struck him to the ground. His body had barely hit the dirt before the man was all over him.
Hand clenched into a fist he punched his face, over and over. Busted his lip up, his nose, his eyebrow – all the time hollering the same thing.
"Murderer! You murderer! Child-murderer!"
Tucker never got to finish the job. Later that same day, only hours after they buried their son, wails could be heard from the coal miner's house. Peacekeepers arrived to learn the cause of the racket and found Tucker in the bedroom covered in blood, holding his dead wife's body.
The realization that her only child was gone must have finally hit her. She'd cut her wrists open with her husband's shaving knife.
The peacekeepers wanted to retrieve the body but Tucker, mad with grief, wouldn't let them anywhere near Eliza. Teeth bared he fought their every attempt until they shot him.
Square in the chest.
That night, Haymitch got himself drunk for the first time. The Hob was closed but he found his way into the Seam, guided by whatever moonlight he could make out through his one good eye. Knocked on Ripper's door. Asked for a bottle of white liquor.
The one-armed woman hesitated, reluctant to sell to someone still so young. But her gaze travelled across his bashed, beat up face. His eye swollen shut. The gashes, the crusts of blood, the red and purple bruises.
Finally she nodded.
The liquor burned just as much as he remembered – from that one time with the butcher's. A beverage so vile no one with any sense left, or choice, would drink it willingly. But he powered it down.
Every drop.
Sip by sip, mouthful by mouthful – even when he gagged on it, even though he knew he'd puke himself into another nosebleed in just a matter of hours.
He did it anyway. To rid himself off their faces. Their voices. If just for a little while.
Laurel, dead. Douglas, dead. Eliza bleeding out in her husband's arms. Tucker with a hole in his chest.
Murderer! You murderer! Child-murderer!
That was the last time he ever went to a funeral. They could put him in chains, throw him in a cell, flog him or just shoot him on sight like they did Tucker. He didn't care.
And as time wore on, he spent less and less of it outside the Victor's Village. He reckoned there's where he'd do the least harm. He actively pushed people away, alienated himself from the rest of the community.
Stopped spending any real time with Sae and Hazelle and all the rest. Was rude and hurtful on purpose to keep people at a distance. Like Tessa when she arrived at his door step, wanting to treat his face with her soothing herbs and salves.
He shut her out. Shut them all out.
So they'd be safe.
He drew a deep soundless sigh. Stared at the tiny lady bug crawling up a purple ribbon.
He meant what he told June. And he wanted the twins to have all this. And yet ... the whole thing felt increasingly unreal. Presents, balloons, birthday cake.
Why did he get to be here celebrating his kids growing up when so many good, decent, innocent people were all just bones in the ground?
It wasn't fair and he didn't deserve it.
Any of it.
