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Haymitch opens his eyes and immediately wishes he hadn’t. His head is pounding, and his mouth is drier than Eleven during a drought. He swipes blindly for the bottle ever-present on his nightstand, and props himself up on his elbows long enough to take a swig. The bottle clunks against the wood as he collapses back into the mattress, wanting nothing more than to sink back into the dark.
Hey, Hay. Happy birthday.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Haymitch says aloud, forcing his eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. Louella is looking down at him. He doesn’t acknowledge her birthday wish, as if that will make it a different day. He knows he sounds crazy, but lucky for him, there’s no one around to care. He sure as shit doesn’t. Maybe years ago, but Hattie taught him well, and that white liquor has been doing its job since he got back. “How you?”
She laughs mirthlessly. I’m pretty shit, Hay.
“Yeah, me too.” He sighs. “I miss you, sweetheart.”
I know.
Louella flops down next to him on the bed. He scoots to make room for her, and they stare at the ceiling together. He goes to comb his fingers through her hair and his hand comes away sticky and red.
“Fuck, Louella, you’re getting blood on my bed!” he exclaims, brushing his hand through the stain. She sits up, pressing her fingers to the back of her skull and examining them.
Huh. Guess I am. Sorry, Haymitch. She probes the back of her head with her fingers, where her skull cracked open on the pavement. The sound makes him sick. He leans over the edge of the bed and retches, but nothing comes up but burning bile. He swears he feels Louella’s hand on his back.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he rasps. “I’m so sorry. Fuck.”
She doesn’t say anything. He turns, and she’s gone.
He forces himself out of the bed, staggers down the stairs into the kitchen. Lou Lou and Maysilee are there, waiting for him. Sometimes Wyatt’s there, too, but he must be somewhere else today. Haymitch is sure he’ll see him at some point. He never gets through a day without seeing them.
Haymitch stumbles on the last step, catching himself on the edge of the table. “Good morning, Miss Donner,” he slurs. Maysilee, sitting in the chair next to him, gives him a disapproving look. He shoots her a sloppy grin. “C’mon, Sis, cut me some slack, would you? You’re not around to mind my manners.”
She doesn’t say anything. She never does. It’s been twenty-four years, and what he hates the most is that he can’t remember her voice. He hates her for that.
Hot tears prick at the back of his eyes, so he turns his attention to Lou Lou. “Hey there, Lou Lou.”
Lou Lou stares at him, one hand scratching at her bad ear. Her eyes are wide and bloodshot. You’re murdering us. You’re murdering us.
He sighs. “Don’t remind me. I know, trust me, I know.”
Today is the reaping, and he has to be there. He always has to be there. He’s the only Victor.
He wishes he wasn’t. More often than not, when he’s lying awake at night staring up at his ghosts, his thoughts drift to that final moment in the arena. He wishes he hadn’t pulled that stunt with the force field. He wishes he had just given up and let Silka kill him. If he had, Ma and Sid and Lenore Dove would still be around, and maybe, just maybe, one of these past forty-six kids would’ve made it. If he wasn’t their only option, maybe they would’ve had a shot.
He sees how these kids’ faces drop when they see him up on that stage and realize oh, he’s our only chance. He sees it, and the voice in the back of his mind that sounds remarkably like his sister is constantly screaming at him to get up, and dry out, and help these goddamn kids. Forty-six children sent to their deaths, all of them entirely his fault.
He wishes he could. The one time he tried, genuinely tried, to sober up for the Games, it ended with him curled up into a ball on the floor of the train with his ghosts screaming at him from all directions. He doesn’t try anymore.
This year, though. This year he knows both of Burdock’s girls are going to be in that bowl. He makes a silent promise to Burdock, and to himself, that if either of those girls are picked, he’ll get them home.
Before he knows it, he’s good and drunk and it’s time for him to stand on the stage and make a fool of himself while Effie Trinket cheerfully sends two kids to their deaths. God, Effie. He can’t even begin to describe Effie. She’s…definitely something.
He makes sure he has a flask before leaving the house. He really isn’t in the mood to be attacked by his ghosts today.
Haymitch blinks and he’s standing on the stage in front of the whole of District Twelve. He’s pretty sure he walked there, but honestly, he could’ve done anything and he just didn’t remember. Maysilee trails silently behind him the entire time, standing at his shoulder and glaring at the crowd. He swears he can hear her making cutting comments about their outfits under her breath. It almost makes him smile.
The edges of his vision are fuzzy. Nothing new, but he’s trying to focus and it’s pissing him off that he can’t. That seems to be his neutral state, pissed-off. He can’t help it, he laughs out loud, cutting through the heavy silence. Effie turns and gives him a nasty glare, her hand halfway in the reaping bowl. Whoops. He didn’t realize they’d started. He opens his mouth to apologize, but Maysilee clamps it shut, digging her nails into his cheek. Thank you, Miss Donner.
The reaping continues, and Haymitch stares off into space. Occasionally, he crashes back into lucidity and scans the crowd for Wyatt. He doesn’t see his oddsmaker, but he’d be surprised if he didn’t make an appearance later.
“Primrose Everdeen,” Effie warbles. The words actually penetrate Haymitch’s saturated brain, and oh, that’s Burdock’s little girl. He finds her in the crowd, twin blond braids hanging down her back. Christ, she looks like Asterid. It’s uncanny. Her blond hair reminds him of the Donner twins, golden heads pressed together when Maysilee’s name got plucked out of that bowl.
“I volunteer!” her sister shouts, pushing in front of Primrose. He can’t remember her name for the life of him, but he’ll be damned if she isn’t the spitting image of Burdock. He’s trying to remember her name when it finally hits him. A volunteer. They haven’t had one of those in…maybe ever.
The girl marches onto the stage, holding her head high. Effie pats her shoulder, smiling insanely. “And what’s your name, dear?”
“Katniss Everdeen,” she replies. Katniss. That’s right. Like the plant.
“Well, I bet my buttons that was your sister!” Effie exclaims. How on Earth is she so happy? It has to be fake. There’s absolutely no way that she lives in the same world as the rest of them and is that goddamn happy all the time. She continues, drowning out his internal monologue. Rude. “Don’t want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come, everybody, let’s give a round of applause to our newest tribute!”
The crowd is silent. Good for them. Don’t let them think this is okay. Don’t let them think we condone this.
He isn’t sure who starts it, but someone in the crowd presses their fingers to their lips and holds up the three-fingered salute. It ripples out from them until virtually everyone in the crowd is saluting Katniss.
Haymitch likes her, he decides, and not just because she’s Burdock’s kid. He reminds her of himself, and that realization pulls him up short, because oh, no, he has to warn her. He has to tell her that himself is a terrible, terrible thing to be.
He decides, on the spur of the moment, that he’s going to do just that. He staggers across the stage, barely managing to reach her and throw an arm around her shoulders to keep himself upright. He opens his mouth to tell her, but his brain disconnects and he loses the words. Shit.
His cloud of apathy is suddenly cut by a bout of unexplainable rage. He wants to hit something. He wants to tear down the Capitol brick by brick, with his bare hands. Maysilee is egging him on. She doesn’t say anything, but he can tell. He lets go of Katniss and somehow makes it to the front of the stage, where he looks directly into the camera, imagining that he’s addressing President Snow himself. “Remember who the enemy is,” he shouts, his anger steadying him. “Remember. You’re murdering us! You are murdering us! You tried, but I fucking made it, didn’t I?”
As he spits out his words, he feels every one of his ghosts at his back, egging him on. He sees Effie’s shocked face in the corner of his vision, the same shade of white as the uniforms of the Peacekeepers approaching him. They tase him, he thinks, but he barely feels it. They have to grab him by the arms and drag him away, and even then, he’s struggling, kicking and spitting the whole time. All his ghosts are making a ruckus, shouting at him to continue. His sister, his sweetheart, his oddsmaker, his girl, all clamoring for him to continue.
He couldn’t save them, but fuck if he’s not going to make the Capitol bleed for it.