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Finnick has never been happy.
It’s an open secret. Nobody has ever assumed he enjoyed his life. It was only assumed he was clever enough not to make it known that he wanted nothing more than to take a spear to the abdomen and eviscerate each and every one of his organs one by one, solely to make a point. It’s not like nobody has seen him from the inside out, anyways.
But having a suicidal victor is a big faux pas, and Finnick knows better.
Besides, it’s not that bad anymore. Finnick is eighteen now. Barely, but still legal. And he knows he’s pretty, even if it means nothing to him, but he’s perceptive enough to know how to take advantage of that fact. And he knows some interesting things. Whether or not he’ll ever have the chance to use that knowledge is irrelevant. People spill a surprising amount of babble when they’re being dominated.
Or not.
Worst case scenario, Finnick’s next customer prefers to take charge, or do whatever the hell they feel like doing. It’s not like Finnick has a say in the matter anyways. He’ll shut his mouth and allow the customer to do whatever he wants, because in the end, Finnick is a mere product being purchased.
It sometimes makes him wonder whether it was worth winning those games. Whether capitulation would’ve been a better plan.
But the pain is bearable.
It will fade, eventually.
The customer arrives late - the knock on the door comes at 10:03pm. The thought feels bitter on Finnick’s mind. More anticipation. More time to think, which seems to be a disadvantage nowadays.
The man at the door seems familiar. Not in a particularly nice way, of course. He reeks of liquor, and cigarettes, and that repulsive strawberry scented washing powder that everybody and their mother uses to wash their clothes in the Capitol. And on glancing up, Finnick realises —
“Haymitch?”
“Wow, kid. You know my name. Impressive work.”
Haymitch squints at him like Finnick is a trick of the light. His eyes drag over Finnick’s face, lingering for a beat too long. Not appraising, not like the others, but like he’s counting bruises that aren’t there yet. Then he snorts.
“Don’t look so thrilled,” Haymitch says, already shoving past him into the room. “I’m not the fun kind of late.”
Finnick closes the door automatically. The lock clicks. He hates how much that sound still means.
“I didn’t know you were–” Finnick stops himself. A filthy, lying, hypocritical bastard, he almost says. The words stick, sour and familiar. “You’re my client?”
Haymitch waves a hand without turning around. “Client. Customer. Temporary pain in your ass. Pick your poison.”
He drops into one of the armchairs like his bones are made of loose gravel, elbows digging into gilded upholstery that probably costs more than Finnick’s house back home. He looks out of place in the way only someone who knows exactly how rotten the Capitol is can be; so why the fuck is he here, Finnick wonders.
He stands there, waiting. That’s the rule. You wait until you’re told what shape to take.
Haymitch notices. Of course he does.
“Sit,” he says, jerking his chin at the bed. “Christ, kid, you look like a trained mutt.”
Finnick stiffens at that, heat crawling up his neck. But he sits anyway, perching on the edge like he’s about to be inspected. Like always.
Haymitch watches him for a second longer than necessary. Then he sighs, long and tired, and reaches into his coat.
He doesn’t pull out money.
He pulls out a bottle.
“Housekeeping’s already paid off,” Haymitch says. “The door stays shut. No interruptions. Anyone asks, you’re busy being ruined by an old drunk.”
Finnick blinks. Once. Twice.
“That’s… it?”
Haymitch twists the cap off with his teeth. “That’s it.”
The bottle is passed over like an offering. Finnick takes it without thinking, fingers brushing Haymitch’s knuckles. The contact is brief, but it’s enough to make Finnick’s stomach twist—not with fear, but confusion.
There’s no expectation in Haymitch’s face. No hunger. Just something grim and set, like he’s bracing for impact.
Finnick drinks. Too much. The burn tears its way down his throat and he welcomes it because it’s simple. Because it doesn’t ask anything of him.
Haymitch grins, sharp and ugly. “Attaboy. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Haymitch wedges a chair under the door handle like it’s second nature. Like he’s used to causing chaos. He probably is. Finnick vaguely remembers the fact that apart from the Games period, Haymitch is never here. Not like he is. Probably better keeping him hidden away in the depths of district 12, knowing what Finnick has heard about him.
“If anyone knocks,” Haymitch says, “you’re asleep and I’m naked. Works every time.”
“How do you know that?” Finnick responds drily. He’s getting curious now. It’s unusual for him. He regrets talking back as soon as the words leave his mouth, like a subconscious aversion to speaking. He's not like this out of the room. Not afraid to speak up or flirt or brandish himself like a peacock. But it's different in here. He's not in control of anything.
Finnick keeps expecting a hand on his wrist, his neck, his mouth. None comes. He breathes a barely audible sigh of relief.
If this is a test, Finnick thinks, he’s already failed worse ones.
Haymitch notices the subtle flinch.
“You don’t have to get me off, kid. I’m just here to have a drink.”
Finnick twists the bottle in his hands, watching the liquid slosh lazily against the glass. The burn from the first sip still lingers, sharp and honest, and he lets it anchor him for a moment, even as the strangeness of the room presses in.
The door is locked, the chair wedged firmly under the handle, and Haymitch sits across from him, elbows on his knees, bottle dangling loosely from one hand. No hands on his wrist, no predatory expectation hovering anywhere. Finnick can hardly believe it. He doesn’t trust it. But he’s forced to acknowledge it anyway: for the first time in a long time, someone is here purely on his side.
He shifts against the headboard, feeling the carpet stick to his socks. “So…” he starts, voice low, a little tight. “This is it? No lectures, no instructions, no… anything?” His fingers tap the glass nervously.
Haymitch shrugs, a faint grin tugging at his mouth. “Pretty much. You get the room. I get to make sure you don’t get… hurt tonight. That’s all there is to it.”
Finnick blinks at him, mouth slightly parted. It’s the kind of calm that makes him nervous, not relieved. He shifts again, letting the bottle rest lightly against his knee, and lets out a short, dry laugh. “Guess I’m still the entertainment tonight, huh?”
Finnick laughs sardonically, almost like it’ll save him the awkwardness of the confession – too sharp, too fast – and Haymitch’s smile drops like a switch flipped wrong.
“That’s not funny,” Haymitch says.
Finnick blinks, still half-smiling. “You said—”
“I know what I said.” Haymitch leans forward, elbows on his knees, bottle dangling loose in one hand. “Doesn’t mean you get to laugh like it’s a joke.”
Something in Finnick bristles. He’s drunk enough to feel it before he can stop it. “You’re the one who keeps joking.”
“Yeah,” Haymitch snaps. “Don’t read into it,” he says, voice wrecked. “I say stupid things all the time.”
Finnick’s mouth opens, then closes. He stares at the carpet instead, tracing a dark stain someone else will have to explain. The Capitol has it's many dirty secrets outside of the forced prostitution industry.
“You paid,” he says finally. “So if you don’t like how I react, that’s your request to make.”
The air goes tight. Haymitch stares at him like he’s misheard.
“I didn’t pay for that,” Haymitch says, voice low and flat. “I didn’t pay for you to act obsequious. Don’t confuse me with the rest of them.”
Finnick’s head snaps up. “Then what did you pay for?”
Finnick wonders how much this night cost. He decides not to ask.
Haymitch doesn’t answer right away. He scrubs a hand over his face, drags in a breath that smells like smoke and rotgut.
“Time,” he says finally. “Space. A night where nobody gets their hands on you just because they can.”
Finnick laughs again, but it comes out wrong this time. “You can’t buy that.”
Haymitch’s eyes are sharp now. Sober-sharp, somehow. “Watch me.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. If I wanted you naked, this room would look very different.”
Finnick realizes, slowly, that Haymitch isn’t waiting for anything from him.
The absence of expectation feels louder than any demand.
They sit there, glaring at each other like it matters who wins. Eventually Haymitch looks away first, grumbling, and Finnick hates the flicker of relief that follows.
The irritation burns itself out the way it always does: unevenly, leaving behind a raw quiet that feels worse than shouting. Finnick stares at the bottle between his hands, watching the liquid slosh like it’s considering escape. “It’s not just tonight,” he says, and he hates how small it sounds, how careful. He doesn’t look at Haymitch when he keeps talking.
“They tell me when. They tell me who. Sometimes they don’t even bother pretending it’s optional.”
His fingers tighten until his knuckles ache.
“I smile. I listen. I let them think they’re important. I let them think they own something.”
A breath. Shaky, annoyed at itself.
“And I’m supposed to be grateful, because it’s easier if you’re good at it.”
He finally looks up then, eyes sharp with something like defiance, like he’s daring Haymitch to flinch. “So yeah,” Finnick says. “Laughing’s kind of the best I’ve got.”
Haymitch doesn’t interrupt him. That alone feels deliberate. When Finnick finishes, Haymitch tips his bottle back, takes a concerningly long swig, then sets it down hard enough to thud.
“Yeah,” he says. Not gentle. Not surprised. “I figured.”
Haymitch doesn’t pretend not to understand. That might be the worst part.
“...What’d Snow do to you? Can’t imagine it’s any better than my state, hearing what your Games were like.”
“He killed my girl. Should’ve expected it, honestly. Nobody really wins the Games.”
“Oh.”
He looks at Finnick then, really looks, eyes bloodshot and sharp all at once.
“You don’t owe them gratitude for surviving what they designed to break you,” he says. “And don’t let anyone tell you being good at it means you chose it.”
Haymitch scrubs a hand over his mouth, like he’s biting back something louder. “You do what you have to do,” he says finally. “That doesn’t make it less wrong. It just means you’re still breathing.”
He stands, grabs the chair wedged under the door, and shoves it back in place with a grunt. “For tonight,” he adds, not looking back, “you don’t have to be good at anything.”
Finnick notes, distantly, that Haymitch hasn’t looked at his body again. Not even once. It’s unsettling in a way he doesn’t have a word for.
“You’re bad at this,” Finnick says eventually, words loose enough to escape.
Haymitch barks a laugh. “Good. I was worried I was doing it right.”
Finnick laughs before he can stop himself. The sound surprises him more than Haymitch.
“That’s the spirit,” Haymitch mumbles, swirling his bottle in his hand.
The first thing to go is a lamp. It’s an accident. Finnick swears it is. He leans back in his chair ever so slightly, rubbing his temple with the palm of his hands as if to stave off a headache, and knocks the large floral light straight off the side table, where it shatters onto the ground, the light flickering momentarily before completely shutting off.
Haymitch laughs so hard he nearly drops his bottle.
“Good one, kid,” he cackles. Let ‘em know we had an active night.
“You always pay for terrible company?” Finnick asks.
“Only the kind that keeps breathing,” Haymitch says.
Finnick snorts. Haymitch calls him kid again, and Finnick doesn’t correct him. It feels safer than pretty.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
By the end of the night, the room is completely and utterly fucked, to say the least.
Finnick staggers through the wreckage, though not entirely unsteady – drunk enough for the world to tilt, but sober enough to notice. The carpet is wet and sticky, mottled with spilled liquor and bits of things he can’t identify, and every step crunches sharply under his feet.
He notices the highball tumbler near the desk, shattered, jagged edges catching the lamplight like something dangerous that refuses to hide. A pillow lies split open on the floor, feathers drifting lazily into the air, clinging to his hair and sleeves like reluctant snow.
Chairs are scattered in improbable arrangements – one is tipped against the wall, another sits atop the ottoman at an angle that makes no sense except that someone decided it looked funny. Haymitch leans against one of them, swaying slightly, bottle in hand, but Finnick doesn’t think about correcting him.
Finnick has seen men pretend to be drunk before. Haymitch isn’t pretending.
He watches the man like he’s part of the room now, as constant and inevitable as the mess surrounding them. The curtains are torn halfway down, one knotted inexplicably, and Finnick can’t stop noticing how the sunlight sneaks through the gaps, sharp lines across a floor that look like ripples of the lakes back in district 4.
There’s a smell in the room that Finnick can’t name—sour, sweet, smoky, bitter all at once – and for a moment it makes him dizzy. He leans against the bedpost, eyes scanning for anything that might have moved while he wasn’t paying attention. Everything is exactly where it shouldn’t be. And yet, every surface, every tipped chair, every cracked lampshade carries the same unspoken rule: nobody can come in. Not tonight. Haymitch is here, and he’s watching, and that’s enough.
Finnick feels the room in the way he hasn’t allowed himself to feel a place in years. Unsafe things are scattered all around him, but this time the danger isn’t the room, or the glass, or the knocked-over furniture. The danger is gone. Or maybe it’s just waiting somewhere else. He doesn’t care.
Haymitch looks worse than him, which feels like a small mercy.
Finnick gestures at the ruined room. “We’re going to get fined.”
Haymitch beams. “Good. Congratulations, kid. You’ve officially had more fun than they intended.”
“You’re bad at this mentor thing.”
“I’m excellent at it. You’re just alive. You ever celebrated anything, kid?” Haymitch slurs, grabbing onto the curtain post for stability. It immediately falls onto the ground, adding to the mess, and Finnick snorts.
“No. Apart from my Games. That doesn’t really count. What is there to celebrate?”
“Lets have a toast,” Haymitch raises his bottle. “To terrible decisions made for decent reasons.”
Finnick will survive a lot of nights like this, but this is the one he’ll remember. Not because it hurt, but because it didn’t.