Archive of Our Own

51

He’s seventeen years old. He has no business mentoring anyone, let alone two kids who are going to die almost immediately. But he’s the only living victor, and if he doesn’t at least try to act like he’s doing something, the Capitol will make an example out of him. Not that there’s much more they can do to him short of putting a bullet in his skull and making it look like an accident, but they’ll find a way. He’s a teenager, but he’s known this for a very long time.

The District Twelve escort is the same as last year, and the near decade and a half before that. Probably offended someone higher up; usually, the turnover for this district is high. People pay their dues until they can land a more desirable location, because no one wants to be here longer than absolutely necessary. The idiotic things Capitol citizens lose sleep over. Anyway, she seems to have learned from last year, and mostly leaves Haymitch to his devices until the actual mentoring portion comes into play.

His tributes this year are both thirteen years old – skinny, wide-eyed things who won’t let each other out of sight. They’re gone in the first eighteen hours, one in the bloodbath and the other in an encounter with the boy from Five. It’s mercifully quick, but that doesn’t stop him from getting blackout drunk and staying that way on the two-day train ride back to Twelve. He faces the grieving parents, tries his best to put some warmth into his words, and then escapes back to his too-big, too-empty house in the Victor’s Village and tries to forget. In six months, he’ll have to be presentable again for the godforsaken victory tour for the girl from Two, but that’s a long time away yet.

Maysilee’s mom comes by to see him sometimes, and he doesn’t know how to turn her away without being an asshole, so he just doesn’t, and they sit on his front step in relative silence because he refuses to let her see what a mess he’s made of the house. She doesn’t ask how he’s doing, which he appreciates, and brings him bread or soup because she’s convinced he’s not eating properly. He’s not, but he’d die before admitting it to her. She’s just lost a daughter; there’s no reason she should be worried about him. He at least still has his life, if not his family.

He thinks about giving her some of the money because he doesn’t know what else to do with it and she probably needs it far more than he does, but he figures it’d offend her.

“Don’t let them break you,” she says one evening before she leaves, and once she’s gone, he drinks until the world goes black because can’t she see they already have?

***

55

He’s twenty-one years old, and he might actually have a winner on his hands this time. His female tribute is a tiny little thing – had to be dragged away from her family at the Reaping – but the boy’s got promise. Stronger than a lot of the boys from Twelve, with broad shoulders and big hands, and he’s a charmer when the cameras are on him. Getting him sponsors is a walk in the park; if you look hard enough, there’s always some rich old fool willing to bet on the kid from the outer districts.

In the end, none of it matters because the boy faces off with two Careers and loses, knife to the chest and neck snapped for good measure. Haymitch hurls a half-empty glass of whiskey at the viewing screen, shrugs off the affronted sound Twelve’s escort makes from beside him. He’s still not sure what her name is, but she’s done better these Games than he has, which is saying something considering his tribute made it to the final ten, and he’ll be surprised if she’s not replaced next year by someone younger and greener. They’re all so endlessly excited about forging a career in this thing, in sanctioned murder. It’s sickening.

He still goes to the parents, after, but year after year of this has made facing them increasingly harder, and this time around he only manages a few words of sympathy. They blame him, he knows this. It’s not like he could have done anything, but he’s still a mentor. He’s still got a responsibility to these kids.

The haze of the liquor is quickly wearing off, and he wraps up the conversations and heads off to the Hob, trying not to look as desperate as he feels. Something in the back of his mind is constantly considering all the reasons he shouldn’t be going through the stuff like water, but the way he sees it, if he drinks himself to death, he won’t have to watch group after group of teenagers kill each other. He’s never believed in a higher power, but sometimes, right before blacking out, he prays he won’t wake up in the morning.

***

62

His tributes are among the first five dead, two minutes after the Games start. Seven die in the bloodbath this year, and his are gone so quick they barely had time to step off their marks. He doesn’t remember any of what comes next, just waking up on his living room floor the day after returning from the Capitol. His body aches and his shirt is drenched through with sweat and all he can think is how angry he is that he has to go through more of this. One Games was more than enough; he shouldn’t have to keep being reminded of it.

He does consider it, more times than he’d care to admit. Considers what would happen if he put a bullet in his own skull, let himself waste away from starvation. It’s a tempting prospect, but he never acts on it. He doesn’t like the idea of letting them win. Besides, he’s not entirely sure what happens if a district doesn’t have at least one mentor, and there’s something about the thought of leaving countless kids to the mercy of the Capitol before the Games even start. They need someone who at least knows what they’ve grown up in. He’s past the point of caring, so to speak, but the kids need someone in their corner and he’s the only option.

Not the best option. Hell, a terrible option. But the only one.

***

63

Twelve’s getting a new escort this year. They’ve gone through a few new escorts since he’s been a mentor, but most of them don’t stick in his memory and all moved on from Twelve in a few years. They’re the district no one wants, and the Capitol people are always visibly thrilled to leave.

At first glance, the newest recruit catches his attention about as much as her predecessors did. Expensive, hideous clothes, brightly coloured makeup, hair that’s almost definitely fake. Heeled shoes higher than any sane person would wear. She looks vaguely familiar; he thinks he may have seen her assisting one of their former stylists a few years ago. Either she doesn’t recognize him or she pretends not to. Regardless, she doesn’t seem to think much of him, has to try hard not to wrinkle her nose when she holds out a hand in greeting and he stares at her in confusion for a few seconds too long. In his defence, Capitol people tend to think of District-born as lower than them; most of them only give him the time of day when he’s turned on the Victor charm. When they’re on his home soil, they usually pretend he doesn’t exist. The whole thing isn’t helped by the fact that he’s nowhere near sober, never is on reaping day. Still, she looks at him like she’s regretting every choice that led her here.

They told him her name, but he’s already forgotten it. Something that sounds like a clatter. All that money and wealth and the Capitol still can’t come up with names that actually sound like names.

Later, he watches silent tears smudge her makeup when their female tribute gets taken out by a kid three times her size, hears someone murmur her name in quiet comfort. Effie. He doesn’t forget it after that. He’s watched countless escorts mourn their tributes, but it always comes off as just another performance, like they’re trying to gain sympathy. She’s crying because she’s genuinely sad.

She still despises him, and he’s not all that fond of her either, so they continue to exist in each other’s orbits with as little real contact as possible, but he doesn’t forget that night.

***

65

Something is forming between him and Effie. Not quite friendship, but he’s not sure what else to call it. They’re still driving each other completely insane, but he makes a half-hearted joke one night at supper before the liquor’s fully clouded his mind and she laughs at it. A real laugh, one that, judging by the look on her face, she hadn’t expected. Later that week, she comments on how the colour of his shirt complements his hair, and he’s so taken aback that she’s already walking off down the hall by the time he realizes she was being nice.

Not many people are nice to him these days.

This year, she’s networking with sponsors nearly as much as he is, and Haymitch has to tamp down his surprise when he sees her talking up their tributes at the social events he’s forced to attend. In his experience, escorts come to these things to take advantage of the lavish food and entertainment; they’re under no obligation to secure sponsors for their district’s tributes. Once again, he’s shocked by her.

He catches himself flirting with her in the private observation room a couple of days later, just drunk enough to be charming, and she flirts right back, fingertips brushing over his chest and everything. Their tributes haven’t been caught on camera in a few hours, likely hiding in the rocky caverns populating this year’s arena. It’s just the two of them up; the stylists tapped out a couple of hours ago. Something about beauty sleep.

“You don’t have to make nice with the sponsors, you know,” he tells her.

She waves a hand. “Of course I do,” she says airily. “Winning reflects well on the whole team. And, if you must know, I’m very persuasive.”

Of that, he has no doubt. “Still. The escorts, they don’t really do that.”

“Well, someone has to.” Her eyes are hard, jaw set, and he realizes she’s upset. It throws him for six a little bit; here he’d thought they were playing nice. “I mean, I’ve given up hoping for an effort to be made on your part, and our tributes are already at a disadvantage.”

He’d known she felt something for their kids, but he hadn’t thought it went this deep, to the point where she’s telling him how to do his own job. “I thought this was just all a game to you,” he snaps. “That’s the whole point of this thing, to give you people something to gawk at every year.”

“You people?” She’s livid now, hands curled into tight fists in her lap.

“Yeah, you people.” He’s on his feet, suddenly struck with the need to get as far away from her as possible. “You’re the ones who set this whole thing up, even though I know you know it’s wrong to make kids kill each other for sport, and you watch and cheer when you make money off them!” He needs another drink. Several, actually. “Don’t pretend you actually give a damn about any of them. I know you think my district is a goddamn embarrassment and that you can’t wait to get promoted out of it. Do your job and let me do mine.”

She’s still fuming when he turns away and stalks towards the doors, but he catches the fuck you she yells at his back.

He was stupid for thinking they were getting somewhere.

***

66

The first time he sees Effie after the last games, the glance she gives him hardly deserves the name. He’s spent the last six months not thinking about her, but his traitorous mind likes to turn to her once the liquor has set in, which, at this point, is more common than not. It’s infuriating; they’re not anything to each other aside from unwilling allies, but his subconscious seems to have other ideas.

He doesn’t get much chance to think about it once the Games actually get underway; Twelve has new stylists this year and they’re demanding as all hell, not to mention the amount of coaching their tributes need this year. The girl isn’t too bad, aside from the fact that she’s too scared to string more than a few words together before she goes silent, but the boy is just angry.

In this world, anger is dangerous, and this kid makes no secret of just how furious he is with his situation. When Effie drops him off after etiquette training, she’s visibly rattled, which is highly unlike her, so Haymitch throws back a finger of bourbon and prepares himself for the worst.

Half an hour in, he’s ready to jump off the balcony, force field be damned. “Kid, I get that you’re mad, but you cannot tell Caesar Flickerman to go fuck himself on live television.”

“Why not?” is the sullen reply. “I’m gonna die anyway. It’s not like they can do anything worse to me.”

Christ, this shit gets harder every year. He can’t flat-out say they’ll kill your family the second you say it, so he needs another way around this. “You wanna stay alive in there? You’re gonna need sponsors. And you know how you get sponsors? By getting in that interview and making them like you. No one’s going to want to give you anything if you don’t at least try to be likeable.”

The kid slumps in his chair, suddenly looking all of his fifteen years. “You know I’m not going to win this thing. No one from Twelve ever does.”

I did. Haymitch doesn’t voice it; the current situation will not be helped by what is already common knowledge to everyone in Twelve. Instead, he says, “Are you going to let me tell you what to do in the interview or are we going to keep this pity party going?”

Dinner that night is tense. Effie and the stylists try to make conversation, but their attempts fall flat, and after a while everything dissolves into clinking forks and wine glasses set down too hard to be accidental. For his part, Haymitch is well on his way to being pleasantly drunk, but he does not miss the frustrated glances Effie keeps throwing his way like she’s expecting him to diffuse the situation. She should know by now that he has never once willingly diffused a situation. Either way, there’s isn’t much he can say that’s going to make this better. Interviews are tomorrow night, and nothing he can do will erase the fact that his kids are going into this at a significant disadvantage, one that no amount of coaching will fix.

In the end, both their tributes pull it together in the interviews. For all of Caesar Flickerman’s faults – and there are many – he does his best to make each person look good, and tonight is no exception. Even so, the last interview of the night is like waiting for a bomb to go off, and Haymitch’s deep sigh of relief is drowned out by the thunderous applause when the show ends.

After congratulating their tributes and wishing them luck, he and Effie head back up to their respective rooms. He can feel her eyes on him as they walk, and he tosses out a quiet “We pulled it off, then,” just to break the silence. If she’s going to stare at him the entire time, they might as well talk so everything is less weird.

She takes a while to answer. “I see you got through to him.”

“Didn’t really have another choice.” Did she actually think he wouldn’t have done anything? He’s not incompetent; he knows full well what will happen if a tribute publicly speaks their mind. “He’s just a kid. I wasn’t gonna let him do something stupid.”

“I’m glad.”

It comes out too contemptuous for his liking, and he stops dead in the middle of the hall. “We pulled them through. Were you hoping for something better?” She opens her mouth, ready to retaliate, and he cuts her off impatiently. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I know how it all works. And there’s only so much I can do because my tributes are still from the middle of nowhere at the end of the day. This is as far as I can get them.”

Effie stares at him, apparently stunned to silence. He scoffs and continues down the hall, slamming his bedroom door shut. One goddamn minute of peace, that’s all he wants these days, and he can’t even get that.

The next morning, the thought occurs that he’s never made her speechless before.

***

67

This year’s Games are the most uninteresting that Haymitch can remember. Everything passes by like it’s been programmed to; nothing notable from the Reaping, uninspired costumes at the opening ceremonies, laid-back interviews. Nothing worth paying more attention to than necessary.

In fairness, it probably seems like this because he’s plastered basically the entire time. He prefers it this way; the less he remembers, the better. There’s also the whole Effie ignoring him thing, so there’s significantly less yammering in his ear this time around.

(He’d die before admitting that he kind of misses it.)

One of their tributes makes it to the top ten, but doesn’t live long enough for it to be any kind of factor in sponsorship negotiations. There’s no real rule that says Haymitch has to keep participating once he doesn’t have anyone left in the fight, but it’s still considered good form to continue mingling. And, of course, he has to watch the show until the bitter end. That’s an obligation not easily shed.

He's in the observation room, alone, a glass of whiskey held loosely in one hand, when she comes in. They acknowledge each other with a nod, and she settles on the couch next to him with ample space left between them. Tension is building on the screen – there are only five tributes left, which means there are no holds barred by the Gamemakers – so it’s easy for the two of them to ignore each other.

At least, it’s easy until the girl from Four gets her throat slashed, her attacker speared in the chest by the boy from Six less than five seconds later. It’s bloody and terrible, and yet Haymitch is still surprised when he feels Effie grab his hand.

She doesn’t let go until the next commercial break, and when she does, she’s looking everywhere but at him. “It’s fine,” he mutters before she can say anything. “It’s not pretty. Don’t get all weird about it. Have a drink, it helps.”

Her words, when they finally come, are stilted, like she’s choosing them very carefully. “I didn’t mean to do that. You’ve made it very clear you don’t want anything to do with me, and I apologize for crossing a line.”

When exactly had he said that? “I think you got that one mixed up, sweetheart. I’m not the one not talking.” Her eyebrow twitches in a way that he’s learning to recognize, so he changes tack. “Why are you even doing this? You clearly don’t have the stomach for it. I know everyone has to watch every year, but why put yourself so close to it?”

She flicks a hand at him, anxious. “You can’t say things like that.” Her eyes dart around the room like she’s worried they’re being watched.

He laughs, tossing the rest of his drink back. It burns. “Don’t pretend you care about what happens to me.” Hell, he doesn’t even care about what happens to him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I care.”

“Really?” He feels way too sober, suddenly. Can alcohol stop working after you’ve had too much of it? “You’ve got a real funny way of showing it.”

“Yes, because you’re so easy to talk to.” She scoffs, a little flustered. “I know how this all works. I don’t want any of us to get hurt, is that so hard to believe?”

It is, a little. “Your entire job is moving kids through the steps before they get ripped apart on camera and you want me to believe you care about our safety?”

“I’m trying to keep myself alive, same as you,” she hisses. “And honestly, I’m doing a better job than you are.”

He laughs, and it comes out mean. “I know for a fact you have no idea what keeping yourself alive is like.” Somehow, they’ve moved closer together, enough that he can smell her perfume. “You’ve spent your whole life here.”

“Well.” She lifts her chin. “It looks like you don’t know very much about me at all.”

Behind them, the screen glows, casting strange shadows over her face. This is familiar territory, conversations coming to a screeching standstill because neither of them is willing to yield. It’s been years of this now, nearly half a decade, and they keep going around in the same tired circle.

He kisses her. It’s the first impulsive thing he’s done in a very long time, and he feels the weight of it in the way her breath hitches. His brain catches up with him a few seconds later and he starts to pull away, but she winds her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, holding him in place, and he abandons the thought.

When they finally break apart, her eyes are wide. “What was that?”

A mistake. “Fighting doesn’t seem to get us anywhere, so…” He gestures vaguely. “Thought I’d try something different.”

“And that was what you chose to go with?”

“I didn’t hear you complaining.”

She straightens her jacket, pats anxiously at her hair. “This can’t happen again.”

“Probably a good idea.”

Except, it happens two nights later, the two of them pressed together in a dark corner of the hallway. “Do you wanna move somewhere a bit more private?” he breathes, trying to keep it together and failing miserably. He hasn’t been this close to someone in literal decades. They’re about ten steps away from her bedroom door; if they’re going to go any further with this, it shouldn’t happen in the hallway where anyone could walk by and see them.

She stills, and he moves to back away. He may want this, despite his better judgement, but not if she’s unsure. He’s not that much of an asshole. “Does that mean you want to keep going?”

He almost tosses out a sarcastic obviously, but he’s learning that she doesn’t always respond well to it, especially when it’s him, so he says, “Do you want to?”

She nods, and it’s all over from there.

Nothing happens that night beyond kissing like desperate teenagers on the couch in her room, her knees on either side of his hips, but it sets a buzz in his blood that’s reminiscent of alcohol.

When they’re around other people, they pretend like nothing’s changed. It’s more for her benefit than his; she’s got far more to lose, much more of a reputation to keep up. She never outright says it, but he knows she can’t afford to be seen with him like this.

Seeing as how this isn’t anything yet, he doesn’t mind. The less scrutiny, the better.

***

69

“Is this why you’re always drunk?” Effie asks in the train after this year’s Reaping. Their tributes are a brother and sister pair, and their mother had let out a blood-curdling cry when the boy was chosen, their father white as paper. If Haymitch hadn’t been numbed out by that point in the ceremony, he might have considered doing something that would land him in prison.

“Well, it’s not because of the taste,” he deadpans. He doesn’t like talking about this in so many words; no one’s ever come out and asked him why he’s picked this particular poison, and there’s always the chance they’re being watched. He’s got to keep off the Capitol’s radar.

Effie levels an exasperated look on him, clearly not willing to accept that as an answer, and he shrugs. “It’s not the only reason, but it’s probably up there.” This is not the environment for sobriety. Hell, most of the other victors are on morphling or something similar, but getting any type of real drug in Twelve is almost impossible, and the white liquor he buys from Ripper at the Hob works just as well for a fraction of the price. At almost forty, he’s set in his ways, unlikely to change.

He scrubs both hands through his hair, forces himself to stand up. “We should probably go make sure those kids know what they’re getting into.”

Effie kisses his cheek lightly – never his mouth, not when he’s been drinking like this – and throws a cursory glance around them to check for hidden cameras. He’s used to this by now, and doesn’t have any complicated feelings about it. It’s better for everyone involved that this stays a secret, and he’s more than happy to comply. Besides, he kind of likes the stolen moments behind closed doors and throwing sarcastic quips at each other in public. Being a victor puts him more in the spotlight than he’s ever wanted to be, and it feels good to have something that the cameras can’t catch. “It’ll be okay,” she murmurs, some of her on-camera pep creeping back into her voice.

It's not, of course, because in their world it never is, but they try anyway. Effie cries in the safe dark of her bedroom when their girl takes a spear to the neck, and Haymitch holds her until she falls asleep, trying to feel something and coming up empty. He’s tired of this, tired of the horrible, monotonous circle he has to go through every miserable year.

He's jolted out of the dark thoughts when Effie stirs next to him, and before he knows it she’s on top of him, fine blonde hair cascading down in a curtain around them. She’s only recently started letting him see her without her wigs, and he likes her natural hair much better.

Her lips move along his jaw, down his neck, and he’s alert in a second. They’ve only done this a few times, but he’s learning to read her. “C’mere,” he whispers, sliding his hands under her silky nightshirt. It’s unhurried when she finally sinks down onto him, but there’s enough of a frantic edge to it that he has to kiss her quiet when she comes.

“How have you done this for so long?” she asks when they’ve settled back together, her head pillowed on his chest. She’s still trembling a little, and he can’t tell if it’s from the sex or the day’s events.

He sighs. “It’s not like I get a choice.”

There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say after that, and she falls asleep a few minutes later, leaving him with nothing to do but get back to his thoughts, none of them good.

***

74

Twelve has a volunteer this year, something Haymitch is pretty sure hasn’t happened in the history of Panem. Sure, the other, more well-off districts have volunteers by the dozen; One, Two, and Four have fucking training centres for that exact purpose. But there’s never once been one for Twelve, and that piques his curiosity, despite his better judgement.

That curiosity is dampened the first time he meets the volunteer. Katniss Everdeen is surly and disrespectful and, underneath it all, terrified out of her mind. She reminds him of his teenage self, and he doesn’t like it.

Her counterpart, Peeta Mellark, is just as scared, but much worse at hiding it and much more willing to cooperate. Him, they can find an angle for. So far, the only thing Katniss has going for her is volunteering for her sister at the Reaping, and it’s unfortunately one of the many things she’s tight-lipped about.

Haymitch isn’t expecting her to trust him. He’s seen her around Twelve, sneaking over the fence to hunt, selling illegal meat to Peacekeepers, haggling at the Hob. It’s likely she doesn’t trust anyone. She’s put herself in enough of a precarious situation just trying to stay alive. But all that aside, she’s not going to get anywhere if she doesn’t let him help her. The entire Capitol is buzzing about her volunteering, and it could help her in the arena if she’d allow it.

“She’s impossible,” Effie laments one night, fingertips pressing at her temples. “I truly don’t know what I’m going to do with her. Can you believe she’s never learned to wear stilettos?”

He rolls his eyes, unable to help it. “She’s from Twelve. There are about five people there who’ve ever owned more than one pair of shoes at a time.”

“Fine,” she sighs, waving a hand. “But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s unwilling to learn! She’ll have to wear them for the interview, and I just know she’s going to fall flat on her face before she even gets to Caesar, and then we’ll all look like fools.”

“So talk to Cinna and have him put her in different shoes. The dress will cover them anyway. No one’s going to notice.”

“It’s the principle.”

He reaches for her wrists, pulling her hands down and away from her face. She lets him, a soft glint in her eyes, and for a second, he forgets what he was going to say. It’s been happening a lot lately, and he’s not sure he likes what it means. “She’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t freeze when the questions actually start coming. I went through a hundred different angles with her and none of them worked.”

“She’s beyond help.”

“Peeta’s not bad, though,” Haymitch muses. He thinks back to the interview training from this afternoon, what the boy had decided his approach should be. He’s unsure if he should mention it to Effie or not; the more people on the team who are genuinely surprised, the better. Fuck it. “He’s in love with her. That’s his angle.”

“Oh!” She laughs, breathless in her relief. “That’s wonderful! Did he come up with it?”

He’ll keep the truth to himself. “Joint effort.”

By some dumb luck, the interviews go smoothly. Caesar manages to pull Katniss out of her shell, and the crowd is completely silent when she talks about how she told her little sister she’d try to win for her. But it’s Peeta’s revelation that really cinches the whole thing; the audience goes wild and Haymitch can already see potential sponsors trying to make eye contact with him. Finally, Twelve is noteworthy for something good.

The feeling doesn’t last long, because he walks into the backstage area just in time to watch Katniss throw Peeta against the wall. “He made me look weak!” she snarls as Haymitch hauls her off him, and he wants to shake her.

“He helped you,” he snaps back. “The crowd lost their minds in there. We gave them something to root for, and that means they’re more likely to help you when you’re in the arena.” He tries to rein it in; they’re still sort of in public, and while a mentor chastising their tribute is not uncommon, it’s not something he’s ever been known for, or wanted to be. That said, no tribute of his has been quite this much of a headache. “We’ll talk about it later, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. He said it on camera."

The look she shoots Peeta could kill, but mercifully, she doesn’t say anything else before stalking after Cinna. Haymitch turns to Peeta, who’s rubbing at the back of his head with a grimace. “You gonna be all right?”

“Yeah.” Peeta shrugs, cheeks a little flushed. “I don’t know why I thought she’d react differently. She’s got someone back home, I think.”

“Well, here, she doesn’t.” Haymitch makes sure to look him dead in the eye, drive the point as clear as he can. “It’s all about the show,” he says quietly.

It’s real for Peeta, that much is plainly obvious, but as long as the Capitol buys it, it doesn’t matter what’s real or not. As long as they’re in the arena, this is the angle they need to sell.

And sell it they do. Once the Games officially start, the sponsors are practically lining up for the star-crossed lovers from District Twelve. Haymitch is used to getting passed over in the betting pools, and this year is such a contrast from the previous ones it’s like whiplash. For the first time in decades, he’s cautiously hopeful that he might have a victor on his hands this year.

As the first couple of days unfold, however, things are more delicate than he’d like. Peeta’s decided to team up with the Careers, which doesn’t really seem like a smart move, and Katniss is spending most of her time strapped against a high tree branch. Because she’s alone, and therefore somewhat free of outside influence, Haymitch directs the sponsor’s gifts to her, hoping she’ll get the messages behind them. If the kids Peeta’s with see that he’s getting outside help, they might decide to rid themselves of him, and it’s too much of a risk. He needs to stay alive as long as possible, and as long as he’s trusted in the group, he’s as safe as he can get.

When the rule change comes, no one is expecting it. Granted, there are so rarely changes to the infallible rules of the Games, but when Claudius Templesmith announces that there can be two winners if both are from the same district, the Capitol goes wild. Money keeps coming in from sponsors, and Haymitch knows he could persuade someone to give enough for some proper medicine for the nasty cut on Peeta’s leg, but they’re not selling the love story enough. He sends them soup and sleep syrup and tries his best to word the attached notes in ways they’ll understand. Give them a good show. You’re madly in love, act like it. Thankfully, Katniss seems to get it, and she puts in a valiant effort. Peeta, due to being delirious with infection and genuinely in love, gets a pass.

He doesn’t sleep for two days straight, watching the camera feed like a hawk and ignoring Effie’s increasingly impatient suggestions that he take a break and go to bed. “You won’t be any use to anyone when you fall asleep standing up,” she insists.

He can sleep when this is over, but he doesn’t know how to say it without hurting her feelings, so he doesn’t say anything at all. She sighs and sits down next to him, waiting and watching, and at some point, her hand finds its way into his. It’s after midnight, so there’s no one else around, no one to catch them in the act. “They’ve made it this far,” she murmurs.

“They’ve still got four to beat.”

The final showdown takes place on top of the Cornucopia, and it’s bloody and awful, enough that Effie runs out of the room, unable to handle it. Once the boy from Two has been mauled to death, Katniss and Peeta get all of three minutes to process and try to staunch the bleeding from his leg before the announcement comes through that the rules have been revoked.

“Someone get Effie,” Haymitch hisses to whoever’s sitting beside him – someone on the prep team, he thinks. Attachments aside, she’ll be furious if she misses this.

On-screen, Katniss reaches into her pocket, pulling out a handful of berries. She and Peeta have a hushed argument, his face contorted with pain and bewilderment, but she spills a few into his cupped hands. They hold them up, so the cameras get a good angle, and Haymitch realizes what they’re going to do a few seconds before a frantic voice screams, “Stop!”

For the first time in twenty-five years, District Twelve has not one, but two victors.

Haymitch doesn’t hear it directly from the president, of course, but he knows that Snow’s furious. Pulling out those poison berries was a gamble, and it seems to have had the opposite of the desired effect. Katniss is still lashing out at anyone who tries to get near her, and Peeta’s being fitted for a prosthetic leg, and it’s never going to be a good time to bring this up, but it has to be done.

He catches Katniss right before the recap interview, and his heart sinks at how young she looks. Cinna’s put her in a simple yellow dress and flat shoes, and she actually looks sixteen. She’s just a kid.

“Hug for luck?” he tries, and she squints at him with suspicion, but steps into his arms willingly enough. Finally, a bit of trust. “You’re in big trouble,” he whispers into her ear, feeling her go stiff against him. “Snow thinks it was rebellion. You need to get in there and sell it, okay? You weren’t thinking straight because you couldn’t imagine a life without Peeta. Understand?”

She’s trembling. “Yes.”

The interview is perfect. Effie is in tears, and there’s even a glimmer of something in Cinna’s eyes, but all Haymitch can think about is how close they came, all the ways that things can still go wrong. They’ll have to play this part for the rest of their lives. At only sixteen, that’s far too much to ask of them.

What seems like the entire district is waiting at the platform when the train pulls up, and Katniss freezes when she sees them, overwhelmed. Peeta, beside her, is just as still, and Haymitch has to urge them forward. “You’ve got fans,” he says quietly, and it’s enough to pull a startled laugh out of Peeta.

Then they’re off, returned to their overjoyed families, and Effie’s gone too, back on the train to the Capitol, and Haymitch is alone. He’s exhausted, suddenly, the weight of the last few weeks crashing down on him like a load of bricks, and he doesn’t even swing by the Hob before heading home and collapsing. They have about six months until the Victory Tour starts, which should give him enough time to figure out how to make sure they all stick to the act.

In the months leading up to the tour, as far as he knows, none of them talk to each other. He sees Katniss in the Hob from time to time, trading meat and coins, and Peeta drops by his house with fresh bread once a week or so, but words are never exchanged. If he hadn’t ripped his phone out of the wall years ago, he might have expected Effie to call, but they don’t see each other between Games. It’s one of the many unspoken rules of this thing between them.

Nothing really changes for him, despite having finally brought victory to Twelve. He’s gained enough of a reputation as an unpredictable loner that most steer clear out of sheer self-preservation. It works well enough for him. He’s not the type to handle community well.

***

75

The morning of the Victory Tour is a rude awakening, both due to the cold water thrown unceremoniously over his head and the realization that Katniss and Peeta are nowhere near in love enough to fool the cameras. Since the day started, they’ve said maybe ten words to each other, and not a one speaks of the love that allegedly compelled them to attempt a double suicide six months ago. Effie’s frantic stress is balanced out by Cinna’s constant calm and Portia’s encouragement, and the four of them manage to get their star-crossed lovers in front of the cameras for a two-minute live interview with Caesar before boarding the train.

Effie rattles off the schedule the second the train starts moving, listing out each day’s events and responsibilities, despite Katniss looking like she wants to throw herself into the snowy countryside whizzing by them. Peeta tries to look interested, but he’s doing a shit job, and the tension finally breaks when Katniss snaps, “No one cares, Effie.”

She jolts to her feet and practically runs at the door, and after a minute of stunned silence, Peeta stands. “I’ll…” he starts, trailing off and making his way after her.

Once the door closes behind him, Effie tosses her papers on the coffee table and throws up her hands, moving to the bar cart and pulling out a delicate stemmed glass. “She couldn’t give me ten minutes?” she says to the bucket of ice, aggrieved. “Doesn’t she know the schedule is the only thing keeping us on track? Twelve districts in twelve days isn’t easy.”

“She’ll come around.” Haymitch joins her and tops off his glass. “She didn’t want to do it last time either and she pulled it off. We’ll get Cinna to talk to her; she listens to him, at least.”

“It’s about respect.” She sighs. “She’s a Victor now, she needs to understand that this is how things are.”

Haymitch refrains from mentioning how hard the transition had been for him. At seventeen, with six months’ worth of nightmares and grief under his belt, he’d been a full-blown alcoholic. Katniss doesn’t seem to be headed that way quite yet, and he hopes she doesn’t ever. “Just give her a minute before we get into the theatrics, okay? She knows what’s at stake. She’ll be fine.”

He wants to rescind his statement later that evening, the train stopped for fuel, when Katniss comes to him with genuine fear in her eyes. “It’s nice out,” is all she says, but he clocks the way her voice shakes, gaze darting around the car like she’s looking for cameras, and although he’s not anywhere close to drunk yet, he lurches towards the door like he is. She follows quickly, mumbling a vague, exasperated apology to the man standing guard. She’s a quick study when she wants to be, he’ll give her that.

“All right, what is it?” he asks as soon as they’re a safe distance away, and she takes a breath, closing her eyes. “Come on, out with it.”

“Snow came to see me,” she says, all in a rush like she’s scared of it. “He didn’t believe that Peeta and I were in love. He said the districts saw it as rebellion, what we did with the berries.”

This is worse than he’d thought. “Did he say anything about uprisings? Any of the districts fighting back?”

She shakes her head. “No, but he seemed to think there would be if we don’t convince them.” She’s gone white, fingers twisting together in front of her, breathing quick and shallow. “He wants us to convince them. I don’t know how to convince them.”

“You’ll just have to do what we talked about before. Stick to the story. You weren’t thinking when you pulled out those berries because you couldn’t imagine a life without Peeta.” He wishes he was drunk. They’re coming up on a Quarter Quell, and this on top of it is far too much to deal with. “Have you told Peeta yet?”

“No, and I’m not going to.” She runs her hands over her face. “It’s different for him, he… he’s not acting. If I told him, it might mess him up.”

It’s a bad idea, but Haymitch doesn’t tell her that. There’s a chance she already knows it’s bad. “You think you can fake it for the districts?”

She’s still for a long time. “He said I had to convince him, too. He didn’t believe us.”

“Then you convince him.” He studies her, taking in the set of her jaw, the hopeless slump of her shoulders. “You think you can do that?”

“I don’t have a choice, right?” She laughs, bitter. “I don’t convince him, and he kills me, or Prim, or Gale, or my mom. He made that pretty clear.”

“He won’t kill you.” Katniss whips around to stare at him, wide-eyed, and he continues, “You’re a victor now, which means you’re far too important to kill off. The Capitol would riot, never mind the districts. But you know what’s at stake if you put a foot out of line.”

She nods slowly, looking up at the sky like she’ll find answers there. “Do you think we can do this?”

Honestly, he has no idea. But he trusts them, and he trusts his own ability to talk his way out of tight situations, however misguided that trust might be. “I think you know what you have to do.”

District Eleven is a disaster. Katniss lets Peeta do most of the talking, save for the end where she talks about the district’s tributes and how they had helped her. It’s fine up until then, when Peeta ends the speech by promising a month’s worth of winnings to the tributes’ families indefinitely, and hell breaks loose. Peacekeepers swarm the place, and Haymitch hauls the kids back through the doors right before a gun goes off. He vaguely remembers the layout of this place – he hasn’t been here in over twenty years – but he finally finds a room on the second floor that looks like it rarely gets used.

“Did they kill him?” Katniss is asking, over and over, terrified and gasping with it. “Did they kill him because of us?”

Peeta’s gone white, one hand braced against the wall. “What was that? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” It’s only half-true, but it’s all Haymitch can pull out; he has an inkling, but he’s not going to tell Peeta about Snow before Katniss does. He owes her that.

Thankfully, she seems to have decided on her own that keeping it to herself is, in fact, a bad idea. “Snow came to see me,” she says, hushed. “He didn’t believe our love story. We have to convince him on the tour.”

“Are you serious?” Haymitch has never heard Peeta’s voice do this, furious and stretched thin. “Were you ever going to tell me? Or did someone have to die to make it happen?”

“I’m sorry!” Katniss is nearly hyperventilating, hands grasping blindly at Peeta’s wrists. “I didn’t know what to do or how to tell you, but he’s going to kill our families if we don’t make him believe it.”

Peeta scoffs, incredulous. “And you didn’t think I should know? I just went out there and offered them that money!” He shakes his head. “We’re not doing this anymore, that thing you two do where you keep me out of the loop. I need to know what’s going on too.”

“Okay,” Katniss says, soft and placating despite the edge of hysteria behind her words. “We won’t again, okay? You’ll know.” She turns to Haymitch, eyes wild and pleading. “You have to get us through this tour. Once it’s over, we’ll be fine. Please, just help us get through this.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” It comes out harsh, and she flinches, but he keeps going. It’s always been best to be as direct as possible with her. “You two are going to be in the public eye for the rest of your lives. You’re mentors now. That means that every single year, they’re going to drag you out and keep the love story going.”

She looks crushed. “What?”

“He’s right.” Peeta rakes a hand through his hair, resigned. “They’re probably not going to let us fade into the background.”

There’s silence for a few minutes, broken by Peeta’s quiet, “So, what now?”

“All right.” Haymitch claps his hands together, a move so falsely positive that he gets annoyed looks from both of them. “This is what’s gonna happen. We’re all gonna start telling each other things, and you two are going to go through all the districts and pretend everything’s fine. You’re deliriously in love with each other. When you’re on stage, you’re going to read the cards Effie gives you, and you’re going to be grateful, and you’re going to give them the best show they’ve ever seen. Understood?”

They both nod wordlessly. “Good. Let’s get out of here.”

He and Effie debrief on the train that night, secreted away in her room with a bottle of something. He’s not sure what it is, other than expensive and too sweet, but it’s doing the job regardless, so he can’t complain. “They’re going to have to get married,” she says quietly, head on his shoulder, hands wrapped around his arm. “Do you think they’ll at least be allowed to wait until they’re eighteen?”

“I don’t know.” He takes another long pull from the bottle. “With how things are going, Snow might not even have a chance to make them. It could be a pretty good shot at convincing him if they do it on their own.”

“So soon?” She sounds shocked, almost hurt. “They’re just kids.”

“And right now, they’re his biggest problem.” He sighs. “They’re smart; sooner or later they’ll figure out they have to be a step ahead of him. It’s not like we can put the idea in their heads anyway.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I know. But we don’t have a choice.”

She falls asleep against his chest, breathing soft and even, but he can’t follow her. He’s in over his head with all this, and there’s no way he’ll be able to protect her – protect any of them – if anything goes sideways. Snow’s got eyes and ears in every corner of the Capitol; if he wants to make an example out of them, he will.

In the end, Katniss throws the idea out as what is clearly a half-hearted attempt to break the tension, but Peeta takes her seriously, and after a day or two, he comes to Haymitch with a quiet, “I talked to her mom.”

“…Okay.” It’s happening way sooner than Haymitch wants, but he meant what he’d said to Effie; they’re good kids, and smart ones. They know what’s at stake. “How did she take it?”

Peeta sighs, eyes darting up to the wall just behind Haymitch’s head. “All right, I think. She says we’re too young, but she seems to know more than she’s letting on. She knows we have to.”

He’s not the first one to fall in unrequited love, but this is not a normal situation. “Think of it this way,” Haymitch tells him, hoping to pull the kid out of the dark gloom he’s been walking around with the last few days. “You won’t have to pay for your wedding. My advice? Take the Capitol for all they’re worth.”

It doesn’t work. “I don’t care about all that. I want to do the toasting. That’s all.”

The Capitol will insist on sparing no expense, but it’s a redundant point to voice. Peeta’s well aware of what’s expected of him. “You can still do it, you know. No one’s gonna stop you.”

“I know.” Peeta rakes a hand through his hair, pensive. “I just… I wish I knew what was real. That’s all.”

As expected, the proposal, aired live, sends the entire Capitol into an uproar of delight. It’s all the media channels can talk about – what the dress will look like, who will be there, when it’ll happen.

“He didn’t believe us,” Katniss whispers to him the morning after the final party.

His heart drops. “You’re sure?”

She nods miserably. “I don’t know what else we can do."

“Just keep up the act.” His mind is racing, solutions piling on top of each other like playing cards he can’t make sense of yet. “He might come around yet.”

To the world, Katniss and Peeta are the epitome of young love, but back in Twelve, away from the cameras, hardly anything has changed. They’re spending the odd afternoon together, keeping up enough proximity that the district doesn’t get suspicious, but everything’s moving fairly slowly.

He misses Effie. They’ve been doing this long enough that he can admit it to himself. He doesn’t typically miss her quite like this, but the last few months have been hell, and it was easier when she was around. If his house was even remotely up to her standards, he’d consider inviting her to stay for a night or two, but neither option is likely to happen in his lifetime. He doesn’t clean, and she doesn’t leave the Capitol unless obligated. Sometimes, he calls her from Peeta’s house when the kid is next door, an arrangement no one acknowledges. Neither of them has the desire to talk about feelings with each other.

They can’t talk about anything important over the phone, because there’s always the chance of being listened in on, but it’s nice to hear her voice. Mostly, they talk about what the next Games might look like, with Twelve finally having more than one mentor. “You might get a bit of a break,” she jokes. “What will you do with shared responsibility?”

“That break will only last until Katniss realizes she’s going to have to train another person in interview etiquette.”

“She might turn out to like it.” They both laugh at that; there’s little chance that Katniss will like anything related to mentoring someone she grew up with. “How are they doing?” she asks after a long pause, quiet like she knows they’re skirting around dicey territory.

“Good enough.” It’s as close to the truth as he’s willing to get over the phone. “They’re working on this book of edible plants. Peeta’s doing the drawings.”

“Well, that sounds very useful.” There’s another pause, this one more charged than the last. “I miss seeing you,” she finally says, whispering it like it’s a secret, a confession.

They’ve never said anything like this to each other, never admitted this was more than two people working together who happen to sleep together on occasion. The tour changed that, and he’s not sure what to do with it. “You too,” he answers, feeling hopelessly inadequate. “Couple more months, huh? We can do that.”

“We can.” A sigh comes down the line, and he wishes he were there to feel it rather than just hearing it. “So,” she says, the pep back in her voice like the flip of a switch, “Quarter Quell this year. What do you think the theme will be?”

He knows she’s only asking because they’ve run out of safe things to say, but he truly does not want to think about the next Games. Almost twenty-five years ago, he was called up on that stage, thrown in the arena to fight for his life like a dog. This will be the second Quell he will be intimately involved in. “We could come up with a hundred ideas and they’d still surprise us.”

When the announcement is made, after the mess with Gale Hawthorne and the new Peacekeepers being funnelled in, he nearly goes blind with rage. It’s only after he’s hurled his half-empty glass at the broadcast screen that he makes the decision to get blind drunk, which means he has to stand up, so he does so with great difficulty.

Talk around the Hob is that the new Peacekeepers are threatening to shut them down, so he bought as much white liquor as Ripper would sell to him last week. He opens a full bottle, not bothering with a glass. The way his night’s going, a glass would only slow him down.

Twenty minutes in, Peeta barges in without knocking. “We have to save her.”

Haymitch has to focus very hard on his face; there seem to be two of him. “She’s going in either way.”

“I know that!” Peeta snaps. “But you need to get her out. I don’t care what happens to me, but she’s got people who need her. You can’t let her die in there.”

“You know they might call my name, right? Not much I can do inside the arena.”

“Then I’ll volunteer.” Peeta’s eyes are wild, but steady. Always steady. “We’re getting her out. Promise me.”

“I’ll get her out.”

“Thank you.” Peeta stands to go, then pauses. “You okay?”

In response, Haymitch holds up the bottle he’s only taken a few swallows from. “What do you think?”

“Yeah.” With that, he’s gone.

Haymitch only gets about an hour of peace after that before someone’s banging on his front door, and he staggers to his feet to find Katniss on the other side, cheeks red from the cold, tears in her eyes. “Finally figured it out, huh?” He lets her in, sinks back onto the couch while she stands frozen, uncertain. “What is it you’re here for, exactly? Because Peeta was here already begging me to save you.”

She’s silent for a long time, sizing things up. Finally, she says, “I’m here to drink.”

He hands her the bottle. “Okay.”

She takes two or three good pulls, gasping and wincing after each one. He almost cautions her, but she’s clearly not in the mood to be told no, and he’s not going to fight that fight tonight. “How do you drink this stuff?” she manages.

“Practice.” He leans forward. “I know you didn’t come here just to get drunk.”

She nods, taking another sip. “We’re saving him this time. I don’t care what he asked you to do, we’re getting him out. Do not choose me over him this time.”

“They might draw my name,” he points out, trying not to act like he’s already had this conversation tonight. “I won’t be able to make any decisions if I’m in there with you.”

He regrets saying it immediately, because her eyes go even wider. “You could volunteer for him. You could keep him out of there.”

He sighs. “You do realize that if I get drawn, there’s no way I can stop him volunteering. And you know he will, because he’s got that irritating self-sacrificing streak.” Her face has gone pale, realization and clarity slowly dawning. “Look,” he says, a little softer, “I’ll do what I can. But it’s not gonna be much. They pull out every single stop for these things.”

“Thank you.” She’s crying again, fingers trembling on the neck of the bottle. “I mean it.”

He holds out a hand. “Give that back before you throw up.”

After that night, Peeta starts taking the whole thing more seriously than anyone expected him to. He’s got workout regimens and meal plans, determined that they’re going to go into these Games like Careers. Katniss grumbles, but goes along willingly enough. Haymitch just wishes he was dead. The years have not been kind to his body, and the runs Peeta has them going on leave him winded quicker than he wants to think about. That said, they often have him so exhausted at the end of the day that he sleeps without dreaming for the most part. The announcement of the Quell has put him in danger of getting sent back to the arena, something he’d always been assured would never happen. Being a Victor had meant relative safety. He wonders if the rules were suddenly changed, if Katniss and Peeta’s failure to prove their undying love to Snow had resulted in the switch.

Effie arrives on the train the day before the Reaping, and this time he’s actually able to invite her over to his house. After the Hob fully shut down, leaving Katniss’s not-boyfriend Gale no place to trade, she convinced Haymitch to hire Gale’s mom as a housekeeper of sorts, and although he’d initially resisted, he’s started to appreciate having a clean house that he had nothing to do with. Besides, it softens the worried look that’s permanently etched into Katniss’s face, so there’s that, too.

(He's still trying to reconcile with this care he has for his tributes. No one else has lasted long enough for him to get attached, not that he’s ever wanted that, but these two haven’t even tried and yet he cares. He doesn’t like it – it feels too dangerous.)

“You didn’t have to clean for me,” Effie remarks when she steps through the front door, cutting her eyes over at him. “I’ve known you long enough to keep my expectations low.”

“Wasn’t me,” he shoots back, closing and locking the door behind her. “I pay someone to do that now.”

“It’s so good to hear you’re contributing to society in more ways than keeping liquor production on its feet,” she teases. “You have a spare room?”

“If you want.” He puts a hand on her wrist, testing the waters. He hasn’t been this damn nervous around her in years, but then again, she’s never been to his house. This is uncharted territory for both of them. “Or we could share?”

The sparkle in her eyes tells him he made the right move. “You let your housekeeper clean things up in there?”

He had, for this very reason. “I did.”

There’s very little talking after that, his world narrowing down to the two of them. He’s not drunk, just a bit loose, and all he can sense is her hair spilling down around them when she straddles him, her soft, cool hands on his shoulders, the muffled cry she lets out when she comes. He flips her onto her back as she’s catching her breath, intent on getting her off at least once more before he loses it himself. She drives her hands into his hair, slim legs curling around his waist, and he thinks this might be the closest thing he’ll ever get to peace.

She doesn’t let him pull out, tugging him closer when he tries. “It’s okay,” she says against his ear, breathless, and he spills into her with a deep groan, mouth glancing off her cheek in his daze. They’ve never done it like this before, and he wonders absently if something’s changed, but he files it away to ask her about later, when they’ve come back to themselves a bit.

In the end, they fall asleep before he remembers to ask her, and by the time it reoccurs to him the next morning, it doesn’t feel like the right time. She had no qualms, and that’s going to have to be good enough for him.

He likes waking up next to her, though. They haven’t had the opportunity yet; there’s always been the possibility that someone will see him leaving her room the next morning. Opening his eyes in the morning and finding her warm and rumpled next to him, pale blue light from the window spilling over her face, makes him forget – just for a second – what they’ll be walking into in a few hours.

“Do you want to talk to the kids before they leave?” she asks once they’re up and dressed, rummaging for coffee in his kitchen cabinets. It’s still unfairly early, but she likes to get to the square with a few hours to spare to make sure everything is running as it should. Over a decade of this and she still doesn’t trust anyone but herself.

He shakes his head, pressing his fingers into his eyes. He wonders if he’ll be able to get an hour or two more of sleep before leaving. “I think I’m one of the last people they want to see this morning. We should let them be.”

“Are you sure?” Even under her layers of makeup, the lines of worry in her face are visible. “Two Games in a row can’t be easy for them.”

It’s been twenty-five years for him, and he still doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it. “They’ve got each other. I’m sure they’ll be all right.”

He has to rethink that statement later when Peeta volunteers for him. The barely-there break in Effie’s voice when she calls his name, and the horrified, defeated look in Katniss’s eyes are nothing compared to the genuine grief Haymitch feels at Peeta’s immediate declaration. The words are barely out of Effie’s mouth before he steps forward.

They’re marched away immediately after. Katniss and Peeta disappear nearly as soon as they board the train, and Effie runs off to discuss the schedule with whoever will listen, leaving Haymitch alone with his thoughts and no less than five bottles of amber-coloured liquor. Since there’s nothing else he needs to do immediately, he sinks into an overstuffed chair and knocks back a healthy gulp of something. The Capitol stuff isn’t as strong as what he buys, but it goes down a lot smoother, and he’s pleasantly drunk in no time. It doesn’t make him completely forget about what they’re going into, but it lessens the panic a little.

He has no idea how he’s going to get both kids out this time.

When they finally get to the Capitol, the very air feels tense. He’d chalk it up to anticipation, but there’s something sinister there too, something uncomfortable. Whatever it is, it’s not good.

That night, he gets a letter from Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Head Gamemaker. All it says is The Mockingjay will live, but it’s more than enough to tell him what the goal is. He knows about the riots in the districts; it would have been foolish to assume that there wasn’t a bigger game being orchestrated here.

Still, he does not like it. It’ll mean breaking all his promises to Katniss, and when she finds out – when, not if, because she will – she may just try to kill him herself. He’d deserve it.

He’s never had to mentor tributes fighting against his friends, and the reality sets in when he sees the full list from the districts. Chaff from Eleven, Blight from Seven. Knowing what he knows from Plutarch, they’re not going to make it back home, and it stings.

The night of the opening ceremonies, he’s pulled aside by Plutarch, who’s smiling at him like they’re old friends. They exchange the smallest of small talk, at the end of which Plutarch murmurs, “All you need to do is keep her alive. Understand?” He leaves with another smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and Haymitch tamps down the urge to chase him down and shake more information out of him. He knows no more than when he opened Plutarch’s letter.

It's all he needs, really, those few words. He understands what he needs to do, what his part in all this will be. But he is not trusted, that much is clear. Maybe, once this is all over, he’ll allow himself the time to be offended by the fact.

He doesn’t tell Effie. He will when things calm down a little, if they do, but she’s running herself ragged trying to pretend she’s not devastated by the entire Quell, and this would only add to it. Last night, she had sat him and the kids down and handed out little gold tokens to demonstrate that they were a team, and her voice had shaken so much that even Katniss – averse to all forms of touch – had reached for her hand. He’d held Effie close for a very long time that night, hidden away in her too-big room in the penthouse.

As things continue to move forward and the Games start properly, he comes to further realize just how little Plutarch trusts him. Any attempt at getting more information, no matter how subtle, is turned away. Haymitch perhaps gives up a little too easily, but despite the lack of facts in his possession, he’s aware of how risky this all is. Everyone’s lives are at stake if they’re found out. This is only a part of something much, much bigger.

So, he watches. He waits. He keeps the sponsors coming, looks on as Peeta dies and is revived in the space of about three minutes. He drinks himself to sleep every night and wakes up screaming an hour later. He stops spending the nights in Effie’s room to lessen the stress that seems to have compounded in her; the idea of someone worrying about him is almost sickening, and if he can direct it towards the kids, the ones who actually need it, all the better.

He watches Chaff and Seeder die and flings every dish in his room at the wall when he’s alone.

They’re all playing a losing game. Their only shred of hope is that Plutarch’s plan goes like it should.

It doesn’t, in the end. Capitol planes make off with Peeta and Johanna Mason, and Haymitch can only look Finnick Odair in the eyes for half a second before the sheer pain there makes him nauseous. “Katniss is going to kill you,” is all Finnick says, voice raw.

She’s still unconscious, so Haymitch has a bit of time to figure out how he’s going to break it to her, although he knows there’s nothing he can do to soften the blow.

He’s right, because the second she wakes up, she’s trying to stab him with a syringe. Always keeping him on his toes, that’s for goddamn-fucking-sure.

The medic team gets her sedated again, and despite his frustration, regret surges up in his chest as he looks at her. She trusted him and he failed to deliver. There’s not really much separating her and every other tribute he’s mentored; it’s only a small comfort that she’s still managed to keep her life. He’s not sure how much credit he can reasonably take for that, especially with Peeta’s capture factored into the mix.

Katniss is carted off by doctors in white uniforms the moment they get to District Thirteen, as is Finnick. Haymitch gets a cursory look, but he’s clearly not their priority.

After an hour or so passes and he hasn’t seen Effie, he starts to panic a little. She’d known about the evacuation; he had gone to her room himself and told her to pack whatever she absolutely couldn’t live without, and she had done it. She’d been right behind him, until she wasn’t, and Plutarch’s vague reassurances had done nothing to ease his sharp fear. If they’ve taken her because he forgot to look back, he’ll never forgive himself.

Another thing to be forever unatoned for.

Slowly, the end of the day comes around, bringing no signs of Effie, and the panic buzzing under his skin becomes unbearable. He heads for the medical wing after learning Thirteen doesn’t keep alcohol for consumption, figuring the doctors might have something, but all he gets are glances wavering somewhere between pitying and disgusted.

Nothing, then. He doesn’t want to think about how this will play out. He’d tried once, decades ago, to give it up, and had only lasted a day and a half before the shaking and fear became too much.

He doesn’t sleep that night. With the morning, though, comes Plutarch, shadowed by a thin figure in a gray jumpsuit, and Haymitch has to focus his blurred vision to see that it’s Effie, face bare, hair twisted up into a patterned scarf. The reality hits when his mind catches up with him, and it’s all he can do to wave Plutarch away and wait for the door to close before he reaches for her.

She’s tense, hands trembling where they grip the back of his shirt. “I thought they’d taken you,” he says into the crook of her neck.

“I’m still not convinced this isn’t a kind of prison,” she retorts, but it comes out weak and shaky, and she holds on tighter. “Are you… are you all right? Is Katniss all right? I heard about Peeta.” A sob leaves her then, wrenching. “She must be just devastated.”

“I haven’t seen much of her.”

It ends up being a constant refrain as the days go on. Everyone seems to assume he just knows where Katniss is, but every time he thinks he’s got her pinned down, she’s slipped off again to some dark corner or closet. Haymitch gets it, truly, but planning a revolution when the face of said revolution is nowhere to be found gets trickier with every day that passes. Plutarch is increasingly frustrated every time Haymitch sees him – which, in his opinion, is a little too often – and Thirteen’s president seems virtually unimpressed.

She’s unimpressed as a general rule, so he has to believe this isn’t just about the Mockingjay.

The first time he’s the one to track Katniss down, it’s fifteen days into their stay in Thirteen, and she’s fallen asleep tucked into the corner of a supply closet on the medical level. She blinks at him when he opens the door, bleary and furious with it, and he eases himself down to sit next to her, back against the door frame. “You’ve gotta quit this,” he tells her, but there’s no real fire in it. He can’t bring himself to be angry with her, not after everything she’s going through because of him.

She glares at him. “They all think I’m going to be the person to make this all go away, or they think I’m crazy. I’m tired of people looking at me.”

“I know, but that’s how this works.” He sighs. “There’s not really another way out of this.”

“Why not?” she snaps. “You’re the adults, why can’t you figure something else out? No one’s going to listen to me anyway.”

He drums his fingers on the cool floor, waiting until she’s looking at him again. “I think you’re needed more than you think you are. And if that’s true, you might be able to set some terms. You understand?”

She’s quiet for a while, sullen. “Like… like Peeta?” she says slowly.

He nods. “Like Peeta. And Prim, and your mom, and whoever else you want to keep safe.”

She must take it to Plutarch, because the next time Haymitch sees him, the man is displeased in the vague, roundabout way that most Capitol citizens are. “I assume this was your doing,” is all he says, and Haymitch crosses his arms.

“She needs to know what it is you’re asking of her. I think it’s more than fair she gets to ask some things from you in return.”

Plutarch sighs, world-weary. It’s grating. “Even that damn cat?”

A laugh bursts out of him, unexpected. “You surprised? It’s her sister’s cat, of course she put that in there.”

“Coin’s not happy,” Plutarch warns. “Katniss needs to be careful.”

“Is Coin ever happy?” Haymitch retorts, perhaps unwisely. Not for the first time, he reminds himself that a good chunk of his survival is reliant on the president’s goodwill. “The Mockingjay is the best hope the rebellion’s got, and she knows it.” He takes a step closer, noticing the way Plutarch stiffens when he does. “It might do you all good to remember that she’s seventeen and lost almost everything because you failed to do your jobs properly. She has every right to be angry.”

“The situation was beyond our control,” Plutarch starts, but then he trails off, brows pinched. “We’ve all been affected,” he says slowly.

This time, Haymitch keeps his mouth shut. It’s likely they will never see eye to eye, on this or anything else.

A group breaks into the Capitol one night to get Peeta and Johanna, Katniss’s friend Gale chief among them. Katniss doesn’t find out about it until the plane has already left, and she reacts about as well as can be expected, which is extremely badly. She breaks down in a corner of the meeting room, hands stretched out. What or who she’s reaching for, Haymitch isn’t sure, but he goes to her anyway and she presses herself under his chin, shaking like a leaf. Over her head, he locks eyes with Plutarch, who looks pale and shocked like he’s the one who just had the floor drop out from under him.

Sometime later, in the small hours of that night, Haymitch sits with Prim and her mother beside Katniss’s bed, watching someone fit a brace around her neck. Peeta had attacked her, out of his mind with fear, and gotten his hands on her throat before anyone had been able to haul him back.

He could have killed her. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that this was exactly what Snow had been hoping for.

After that, things move slowly. Katniss recovers, while Peeta’s rehabilitation is nearly at a standstill. Coin grows more and more impatient, and reports of casualties and devastation come in from the districts every day. Haymitch is not an optimistic man, never has been, and he’s starting to think this whole thing will become another cautionary tale for the next generations. See what happens when you defy the Capitol.

Even Effie, usually the lone source of pep and enthusiasm, is dejected. “I always heard about the rebellion,” she says softly one night, cross-legged at the head of her standard-issue cot. “I never thought I’d see it again.”

Haymitch rubs his hands over his face. The withdrawal symptoms are still making themselves known, and the need for a drink simmers under his skin like an animal trying to claw its way out of a trap. “We’re not getting out of this.”

“Don’t say that.” There’s a pleading look in her eyes, and he hates it, but he doesn’t have it in him to try and play at confidence.

“Look around,” he retorts, far harsher than he wants to. Something stabs at his chest when he sees the hurt flicker over her face. She schools her expression quickly, but he still sees the crack. It doesn’t stop him from going on. “Do you see this ending any other way than badly? Coin’s only hope is laid up in a hospital bed with a bruised neck and no voice. Our soldiers keep dying. There’s no way out of this that ends well for us.”

“I’m not going to apologize for having a bit of hope,” she snaps back, eyes flashing. “You may be all right with all of us dying in this war, but some of us want to live.”

“What kind of life do you think we’ll have after this?” He sits up straighter, lifting his feet from where they’ve been resting at the foot of her bed. “You think the Games were bad? Snow’ll triple it. Death would be better than whatever he’ll think up to punish us.”

A tear slips down her cheek, and the sight hits him like a blow to the chest. “Can you just let me pretend?” she whispers, voice cracking. “I have literally nothing else down here. Just let me have this one thing.”

Sometimes, even after all these years, he forgets that she’s had a very different life than him. That while he grew up fighting and scraping by, she wanted for nothing. He doesn’t know how to answer her, so he just nods.

She hasn’t let him spend the night since they got to Thirteen, but he waits until she’s fully asleep before he leaves. He knows she’s been having nightmares, but he hasn’t been asked to stay with her, so he doesn’t. She’s had nearly everything ripped away from her in a matter of minutes; this, she should have her choice in. If she wants him to stay, she’ll ask.

Really, he’s not sure where they stand anymore.

***

After

“I’m going back to Twelve.” Katniss, at his door a few days after everything ends, bag over her shoulder and jacket zipped all the way up to her chin. “Effie thinks I should ask you if you want to come with me, so.”

Really, it’s his only option. Where else in Panem is he going to go?

Effie sees them off – she’s staying, although she’s unsure as to how long – and when she and Katniss break apart, Katniss has tears in her eyes that she swipes away angrily the second Effie turns her back.

“Take care of her,” Effie whispers, arms around his neck. “Don’t let her hurt herself.” She pauses, pulling back and smoothing out the collar of his shirt. “Take care of yourself too.”

The first couple of weeks, he doesn’t. He does try to check on Katniss from time to time, but she usually just ignores him until he gives up and leaves. He does find the occasional squirrel or rabbit, skinned and cleaned, on his back porch, so she’s clearly not doing all that bad.

He, on the other hand, is worse off than even he expected. Everything from the first night back in Twelve is a haze, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t eat for at least three full days. Presumably, he does, because he keeps waking up to dishes in the sink that he didn’t put there. Either he’s fully lost his mind or Katniss is once again surprising him.

Peeta shows up a few weeks or months into this new normal. Haymitch doesn’t see much of him, but Peeta brings him bread and tries to make conversation, so it’s still more than he’s seen of Katniss since they got back. From what Haymitch can pick up, Peeta’s moved back into his old house, and he and Katniss don’t spend time together.

The three of them, existing around each other. It’s unsettlingly familiar.

Peeta knocks on his door one night, two loaves of bread and a pot of stew in his hands. “Just thought you should know,” he says conversationally, setting the food on the kitchen counter and reaching for a knife, “Effie called this morning. Said she’s thinking of coming down here.”

He’s surprised. “She say why?”

Peeta shoots him a sidelong glance. “Because she wants to see us?” He looks back at the bread, arranging thick slices on a plate. “I told her she could stay in my spare room.”

“Okay.”

Still, though he’s rarely known Peeta to be dishonest, he’s surprised when Effie knocks on his door a week later. She looks better than she did the last time he saw her; makeup in place, steadier hands, patterned clothes.

For a moment, he just stands there, staring at her. “You came,” he says, finally, dumbly.

She rolls her eyes. “I told Peeta I was. You didn’t believe me?”

“Not really.” He doesn’t want to let her in; the house is a disaster, and so is he. The shirt he’s in hasn’t been replaced for at least a week. “Didn’t make sense, you coming back here.”

“The kids are here,” she says, like it answers everything, and he doesn’t argue. There’s not really anything else to say.

The four of them eat together that night in Peeta’s kitchen, and it’s tense and strained, like none of them know how to talk to each other anymore. They don’t, so this shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise. Peeta tries valiantly, and he and Effie carry most of the conversation. Katniss stares at her plate and says as little as possible, but Haymitch notices that she makes an effort with Effie, which is kind of nice. Effie would never admit it, but she’s clearly nervous.

“I don’t know how long I’ll stay,” she says later, on Peeta’s back porch. He and Katniss are inside, clearing the kitchen like they’ve been doing it together for months, which comes as yet another surprise to Haymitch, because he’d assumed they still weren’t talking.

“No?” He turns back to Effie, watches the setting sun turn her hair gold. She’s still not back to the wigs yet, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it. “Peeta would let you stay forever if you wanted, you know.”

“I know.” She meets his eyes properly. “That’s not my point.”

“What is it, then?” He glances through the kitchen window again, at the soft, real smile on Katniss’s face. A rare sight, these days. “She doesn’t hate you, if that’s what’s bothering you. That’s just her.”

Effie sighs. “I missed you.” It hangs between them for a few beats, so tangible he can almost see it. “All of you,” she continues. “And I wanted to see how you were doing.”

There’s something mean clawing to burst out of him, but he tamps it down. His own bitterness with his situation has nothing to do with her. “We’re surviving,” is what he settles on. “For now.”

She nods, biting her lip. “Aren’t we all?”

Her hand, when she puts it over his, is cold. For a long time, they don’t say anything else, just watch the orange glow of the sunset. Since getting back, he’s been blissfully numb, but he doesn’t mind this, their fingers curled together. It’s not a clean slate, not by a long shot, but it’s not nothing.

Quiet laughter filters through the half-open window. Maybe some things are worth staying alive for.