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He watches the water swirl down the drain, the soap bubbles disappearing into the black abyss. His mind is loudly throwing memories at him of his games; the murder, the screams, the cannons…
“Haymitch.”
He looks up to see Lenore Dove's gray eyes looking at him from the bathroom door. She looks annoyed. He sees the phantom of the girl he left at the Reaping twenty years ago, but once he came back from his historic win…once he saw the smoldering ashes of his childhood home; the two kids they were that Reaping morning were gone. Ashes on the wind.
Twenty years of Reapings. Forty tributes who were brought home in caskets. Eighty eyes that haunt him every night.
“Haymitch!”
Her annoyance is now anger as Haymitch focuses back on her. The wrinkles around her eyes are deep, and her lips always seem to be in a frown. She looks like she had lived a thousand lives, but what did she know about struggle? Haymitch curses at that; no one in Twelve had an easy life.
“Yea…” Haymitch turns off the shower, plunging the bathroom into silence, “yea.”
“The bitch is downstairs.” Effie. She had been Twelve’s escort for the last six years, and they both hated it at first. She believed she was deserving of a higher district. He believed she needed to walk off the penthouse balcony. However, over the six years, the two of them had come to an understanding. An agreement after he sobbed on her lap during a drunken stupor in her third year.
“She isn’t that bad.” He pulls back the shower curtain, but Lenore throws a towel at him. The fabric is too scratchy, but he wraps himself in it without a word.
“That’s because you want to fuck her.” Haymitch barely sees her graying brown hair whip around as she leaves the small room.
She wasn’t wrong.
Effie was beautiful, all the escorts were. That’s why they were hired. They were the face of the Games prior to the Tributes being reaped. Did she look ridiculous? Yes. Most assuredly. All the bright colors, feathers, and ruffles. Luxury goods on every inch of her skin. She was everything he hated, but after that night three years ago, something shifted.
Maybe it was just his unhappy marriage.
Haymitch looked in the mirror, his wet hair falling in his eyes and he didn’t feel like he was only thirty-six. He looked like his father that day he left for the bar and never came back because he drunkenly fell down the coal mine shaft.
“Good riddance.”
His gray eyes look back at him in judgment, but he’s got to get ready. It was Reaping Day.
His hands trembled as he tried to do up his buttons and ties. He hated today. He wishes he had some alcohol, but Lenore had broken all of his bottles when she found them last month. She didn’t understand. She would never understand.
“Haymitch?” Effie’s soft voice drifts through the crack in the door, and Haymitch feels his heart skip when she pokes her head in. She’s wearing a sunny yellow dress with pearls and ruffles, her make-up and hair look lighter and all-in-all, she looks softer.
“I’m not—” He gestures to his half-buttoned shirt, but Effie just smiles and takes steps forward, her heels filling the quiet space.
“Let me help.” She doesn’t wait for his approval, and she finishes the task he couldn’t complete. Her white satin gloves rest on his chest, and it’s almost like she can’t bear to not be touching him. At least, that’s the hopeful thought that drifts in Haymitch’s mind, “Are you going to be okay?”
“I wish I had a drink, but Lenore found my stash last month and lost her mind.”
“Well,” Effie reaches into her bag and pulls out a small flask, “it’s not much but I hope it will help.”
“Thanks, Princess.” He shoots down all the liquor without a second thought, and it burns so good. Haymitch doesn’t notice when Effie loops the tie around his neck.
“I know it’s hard…”
“You really don’t.” There is a bite in his words that causes Effie to shrink back from him, but he holds onto her hand with a mournful look. “Sorry. It’s just…”
“At least, you don’t have anyone that can go in. You ended the cycle for you, at least.” Effie is trying to be comforting, but she doesn’t know. She knows more than Lenore, but she doesn’t understand either.
“Not without Lenore trying.”
Haymitch never wanted children. Life in District Twelve is too hard, too broken to bring a child into it. It’s selfish.
“But Haymitch, we have the means to give our child the best life.”
Lenore's logic fell on deaf ears though. At twelve, they would be lining up with every other child to be reaped.
“Ready?” He looks into Effie’s blue eyes, ones that always seemed to be sparkling with happiness, and he notices how he’s dressed now.
“Apparently.” The mirror reflects a younger-looking man now. Effie’s effect he guesses. She takes hold of his hand and pulls him out of the room, and his cheeks flush like a teenage boy going on his first date.
Tanner and Polly.
Haymitch looks at his two new charges, both underfed Seam kids without a chance in the world.
“So!” Effie hands him a drink, and he accepts it with a smirk. She gets it. “Do you two have questions? Anything you want to ask your mentor? Any strategy you want to run by us?”
Her sing-songy voice caused his skin to crawl today. Sometimes hope wasn’t what these kids needed. Sometimes it was just about making them comfortable before they sent them to slaughter.
“Stay alive.” That’s all he says before getting up, grabbing a bottle, and stalking out of the car, leaving behind two scared kids and a flabbergasted Effie.
“Haymitch.” Effie hisses at him when she finds him lying in the observation car. He is watching the sky flit away above him, the half-drunk bottle sits by him, but he doesn’t care.
“Effie.”
“How could you—”
“Will it ever end?” His interruption causes her to snap her mouth shut, “Those two kids don’t have a chance. They’re both fourteen, and they don’t have a life ahead of them anymore. When does it end?”
“They could still—”
“Don’t be naive, Effie. I know it’s the Capitol’s whole propaganda, but don’t. Not today. Not with what we are sending those kids to.”
She doesn’t say anything, but she does move the bottle to a higher, safer location.
“I know.” Effie lays down next to him, taking his hand into hers, and they both watch the sky move above them. He doesn’t know how long they stay there, but her hand provides more comfort in that time than twenty years with Lenore.
“Effie.” Gray meets blue, and Haymitch feels like a drowning man. His mind goes blank as he gravitates towards her.
The kiss is gentle.
There are no fireworks.
It doesn’t take his breath away.
It’s peace.
It’s hope.
It’s quiet.
“Haymitch.” Her soft lips move against his as she tries to pull away, but Haymitch doesn’t let her get far and she doesn’t stop herself from falling back into him.
Her blonde wig hangs around them like a soft halo when they both put some distance between them.
When did she get on top of him?
Their foreheads press together as they try to catch their breath.
“We can’t.” Haymitch grips the soft fabric on her hips in an attempt to keep her near him, but she untangles herself from his gravity.
“I know.” They return to their position. Side by side, hand in hand, watching the sky above them.
In another lifetime with no Lenore and no Games. Maybe they could be Haymitch and Effie.