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The broken glass glints in the light, catching the sun in a way that’s almost beautiful. The amber of the bottle makes for an awfully pretty colour, a thousand broken bits of glass all glowing on the floor of his kitchen. A thousand little mirrors where he’s forced to look himself in the eyes, to stare at his own face. He looks exactly like his Ma.
Haymitch crouches down to examine the glass, picking up the biggest piece. It’s about half the bottle, a sharp, jagged edge on one side. The other side is more dull—still sharp, but not nearly as pointed and harsh as the other. He sees himself in the glass, sees the hollowed look in his eyes and his face. He looks disgusting; he hasn’t shaved in a year, there are ugly, dark bags under his eyes, deep lines carving into his face. The kind that you’re meant to get after fifty years of living, give or take the matter of your work. The kind of lines you get from surviving fifty years of Panem, and yet those lines are etched onto his skin and the age of twenty-six. He supposes he’s seen enough in ten years to last a whole lifetime.
It happens slowly.
The thoughts hadn’t been loud before, but in the next few seconds, they start whispering fervently, those whispers building upon themselves until they’re practically screams, echoing through his mind. A hundred ghosts howl at him, dozens of voices perfectly audible and recognisable despite being layered on top of each other. Haymitch doesn’t flinch or waver, only continuing to stare at the piece of glass that suddenly glints red. The noise around him is terribly loud, echoing through his head in a way that’s so piercing it makes his ears ring.
It’s somewhat of a blessing—the ringing gets so loud that it drowns out the screaming. Haymitch tightens his fingers around the glass, curling them up over it hard enough that the jagged edge cuts into his palm. Not hard enough to slice his skin open, but hard enough to prick at it. The pain doesn’t make the ringing go away, but it allows for him to have some kind of clarity over where his mind is going. Whispers and commands of what to do next manage to get past the harsh shrieking in his ears, though the words are soft, almost gentle. Tantalising offers that float along the wind through his window, brushing up against his face.
The words are all muddled, barely cohesive, but he understands them nonetheless. Haymitch can taste them in his mouth, can taste blood pooling onto his tongue with each moment that ticks by. The ghosts who love to haunt him are notably absent from his field of view, leaving him wholly alone for once. Their voices slowly blur together within his mind, turning into a hodgepodge of them all, leaving the voice that he does hear to be entirely unrecognisable and distant. It isn’t his own, but it’s almost something close to it.
Haymitch hisses out a sharp breath when the glass in his hand cuts deeper. He transfers it to his other hand, staring at the blood that glints off of it, dripping down to the kitchen floor. He opens his first hand, staring at the thin line that’s cut through the middle of his palm. Not deep enough to scar, not deep enough to do any kind of real harm, but just deep enough to make him bleed. He clenches his hand into a fist, watching as the blood drips from his skin, blending in with the broken bits of glass.
He stands up after that. Haymitch takes a solid three steps into his living room, pausing there for a moment as he feels the ache, the sting. It pulsates through his hand and into his head, a sudden sort of fire burning up in his entire body. It almost makes him dizzy with how hot and bright it is, his head heavier than it had been just a few moments ago. Haymitch keeps walking, pushing into the hallway that leads to his room. He staggers through the open doorway, standing solidly in the middle of his room, almost feeling sort of lost.
This mansion is familiar; it’s one of the few places he allows himself to go. Here, the Hob when he runs low on white liquor, the Covey graveyard once a year. Still, Haymitch can’t help but feel distant from himself. His movements are sluggish, each part of his body feeling heavier than they usually do. The pain from the cut in his palm is hardly anything to pay attention to, the sting quickly fading out—almost as if it were never there. One look at the blood that trickles down his arm is enough to set the record straight, but Haymitch still doesn’t feel the pain that should be there. No harsh sting, no ache, nothing.
He tilts his head to the side and raises the glass to his neck. Haymitch holds the jagged bit to the side of his throat, swallowing to feel it there. He doesn’t press it firmly against his skin, opting to just hold it there as the ringing in his ears dies out. He stares straight ahead at his bed, though his eyes are mostly distant and unfocused. Haymitch suddenly finds it hard to concentrate on much of anything, his vision blurry and scratched out at the edges, dark bits scattered across his room.
He presses the glass against his skin. The world around him goes silent. Haymitch listens as the buzzing fades out, leaving him in total silence—not leaving him deaf, just in quietness. Faintly, he can hear the curtain brushing up against the kitchen wall from outside of his room. The outside is quieter, but he can almost make out leaves rustling, picking up with the wind. It’s a nice day. Spring. Sometime in early April. Nothing noteworthy. The Reaping isn’t for another few months—District 12 isn’t solemn or sober like it usually is in the upcoming weeks prior to the Games. It’s a nice day.
Haymitch tilts his head to the side, this time into the glass. It bites against his throat, though he doesn’t press hard enough to cut into his skin. He closes his eyes for a moment, only a few seconds, and leans further into the glass.
He could. Nothing is stopping him.
The thoughts run wildly in his head, piling up desperately on top of each other, weaving throughout his mind. He could. He should. In a handful of months, a full decade will have passed since his Games, since the second Quarter Quell. Ten years. Ten years, and nothing has gotten better. Revolutions are not planned in a month or a year or even five of them, and ten years is hardly much of anything. But when is it enough? When do revolutions become more than just whispers between Districts, quiet promises made to dead people who died years upon years ago? At what point does it mean something?
Haymitch’s sacrifice—all of them—have meant nothing. Nothing has changed. How many people have gone through the same thing that he has? Beetee’s attempt at sabotaging the Capitol resulted in nothing other than Ampert’s terrible death, which had been part of Haymitch’s punishment as well. His thirty-one ghosts, his Ma, Sid, Lenore Dove. They all died ten years ago, and nothing has changed. Nothing has come out of their deaths, save for a new headstone in the Covey graveyard and a handful of additions to long-standing plots out in the cemetery. When do things change?
Haymitch feels his breath hitch as he digs the glass further into his skin, sharp enough now to draw blood, to start stinging. Plutarch spoke about the possibility of a revolt never happening in either of their lifetimes. Ten years have gone by, and it seems truer and truer with every day that adds to the wait. What’s the point in waiting? Haymitch has already thrown his life away. He’s done everything asked of him and has received nothing in return. He has done everything. He has done everything.
And yet still, ten years have gone by. A decade. A full decade of nothingness, of painful waiting, of terrible, horrible memories and reminders and failed promises. Not a damn thing he has done has been worth it. If he could do it all over again, he would. In a heartbeat, he would change all of it. He’d make sure that Maysilee was the one to win. He’d back off and stay to the sidelines. He’d get himself killed, and it would be better for everyone. Three people in Twelve would still be alive if he had been the one to die. Ampert’s death could have been more graceful, less terrifying.
Haymitch opens his eyes, clutching the broken bit of glass tightly in his hand. He can’t be here to watch it happen. He won’t. The revolution can carry out without him, he’s sure of it. But he isn’t going to wait for it.
Haymitch hisses out a choked gasp, blinking rapidly at the way Maysilee’s hands suddenly wrap around his throat, her eyes burning brightly, hatred and anger staring up at him. He gasps, desperately trying to draw in air as he takes a few steps back, dropping the piece of glass to place his hands over her wrists. He manages to yank himself free of her, doubling over and sputtering, coughing and wheezing until he feels like he can breathe again. His heart hammers furiously in his chest, panic settling in the back of his mouth, on the tip of his tongue.
“What—” Haymitch can barely get the word out before he’s coughing again, his hands trembling as he clutches at his chest. He doubles over, falling down to his knees as his legs give out from under him. He shudders, gasping and heaving as tremors rack through his body, never giving him more than a second to catch his breath before all the air seems to get knocked out of his lungs again.
Haymitch collapses, one palm—his uninjured one—pressed flatly against the floor to give him some sort of stability. His other arm is tucked neatly against his chest underneath of him, and Haymitch bows his head. The coughing and choking have subsided, but the gasping, the desperate attempts to get oxygen into his lungs, have only gotten worse. His heart continues to race, pounding so loudly in his chest that it’s all he can feel, all he can hear. Blood rushes through his ears, making him dizzy and light-headed to the point that his vision darkens on the sides, and he’s almost convinced that he’s about to pass out. Haymitch blindly reaches around to pat at his throat with his injured hand, though he can’t tell if the blood on his fingers—that he can barely see through his blurred vision—is fresh or not.
He gasps again, managing to turn himself around to face the half-broken mirror propped against his wall. Haymitch can hardly see himself, but he’s able to make out a cut against his neck, blood dripping down onto his shirt. It isn’t deep—the cut on his palm is arguably worse from what he can tell—but it’s enough. Haymitch cups his hand over the wound, a thousand thoughts racing through his head, making him wince. The noise and light and blood is painful, and every thought that runs through his mind only makes his head throb. Haymitch squeezes his eyes shut, willing it all to stop.
And it does.
Haymitch finds his breaths slowly evening out, though he’s still choking out harsh gasps, trying to get more air into his body. He can feel tears burning down his cheeks, pooling at the corners of his eyes even though he doesn’t remember when he started to cry. His chest burns and aches, but the frantic, terrified beating of his heart seems to have slowed down just enough that he can think without being completely interrupted by the noise. Haymitch curls his fingers into the flesh of his neck, rapidly blinking as he pulls his hand away. It’s completely stained with blood.
He shakes and trembles as he pushes himself off the ground, his entire body screaming, howling. It's not just the ghosts in his head this time.
Haymitch manages to get himself to sit up, dragging himself to the very base of his bed. He throws his head back, twisting it to the side.
Maysilee stares back at him, a thousand emotions burning in her eyes. Are you fucking kidding me? She demands, voice harsh and loud in his head. Haymitch winces, but it doesn’t seem to dissuade her from lowering her voice. If anything, Maysilee only grows louder when she asks, What the fuck is wrong with you?
Haymitch can hardly make himself speak, let alone come up with the words to answer her question. He just raises his bloodied hand, holding up one finger as he tries to catch his breath.
“I,” Haymitch starts, his voice raspy and painful, his throat bobbing as he swallows. “I don’t know.”
He doesn’t. Jethro Callow killed himself after his son died. Maybe the thought of seeing his dead body was too much to handle. Maybe it was the guilt. The sudden knowledge of knowing what every family he had ever bet on must have felt after their children were returned in caskets. Jethro Callow didn’t wait in ending his own life.
Ten years later, Haymitch is late to the party. If he was going to kill himself, why not the first night he was alone in the mansion? Or the first night he finally managed to dissuade Burdock and Asterid? Why wait? Nothing has changed—he is still bitterly haunted by his ghosts, by the ghosts of all those he has killed, intentionally or not. Haymitch supposes he’s been sworn to life, both by Lenore Dove and Effie, but what does it matter? He’s made promises he could have never even begun to try and keep, and those promises will never come to fruition, not in his lifetime, he’s sure of it. Is he simply doomed to sit and wait? To live out another fifty years until his liver fails? He’ll die before Snow does, Haymitch is almost positive about that.
Today was a nice day. Still is—his room doesn’t have any open windows, but he can still hear the rustling curtains from out in the kitchen. Light manages to pool through the one window in his bedroom, sunbeams stretching forwards across his floor until they reach his legs, little spots of warmth on his skin. District 12 almost always smells of dirt and ash and soot, but there’s an almost-sweet smell drifting in through his house.
Nothing had happened. Haymitch had just dropped a bottle and looked at the glass a little too hard.
Haymitch doesn’t flinch when he feels Maysilee slap him across the face, her fingers digging sharply into the flesh of his cheek and jaw. She forces him to look up at her, and he does—the rage burning in her eyes hasn’t gone away; if anything, it’s only doubled. There’s a million other emotions across her face, and he can’t place all of them. Hurt, anger, hatred, sadness.
You’re the most useless Victor alive.
“I know.”
You fucking— Maysilee’s voice cuts off in his head, and Haymitch watches as she stomps around the room, her hands drawn tightly into fists, hanging at her sides. You don’t even care if I die.
Haymitch stares blankly at her, his mind slowly starting to catch up to the rest of him. His thoughts are still somewhat sluggish.
“What?” He asks, squinting at her as the curtains move back a little more, allowing for a sudden burst of light to hit him right in the face. “You’re already dead.”
Not here! Maysilee shouts, whirling around to face him, her chest heaving even despite the fact that she’s not real, despite the fact that she’s a ghost, despite the fact that she doesn't speak or breathe or make a sound. Not here I’m not. You were going to kill the both of us. Fucking—all of us.
Haymitch furrows his brow, staring down at his hands—bloodied and red. “Other people remember you. You’ve got a whole family. You know that. You’re a twin. You think Merrilee could ever forget you? Or your Pa?”
It doesn’t matter, Maysilee says, harshly. You’re the only one who talks to me.
“You’re not real,” Haymitch mutters, though the words feel almost like acid in his mouth. “You can’t be. They don’t talk to you because you don’t exist. You’re dead.”
And yet here I fucking am, Maysilee announces, her eyes sharper than ever. Here I am, and you’re trying to kill me. First time wasn’t enough for you?
Haymitch squeezes his eyes shut, his hands trembling. The words are sharp, harsh, bitter. They should make him angry. Any other day, he would snap back at her, scream at her until they both couldn’t do it anymore. But Haymitch just hangs his head, his shoulders shaking as he replays Maysilee’s death in his head. No one knows what they went through in that Arena together. No one knows that their alliance hadn’t just been for survival—there was more. He loved her. She went from someone he could hardly stand to his sister in a matter of days. It’s the kind of bond hardly anyone gets to experience.
He looks over to his side when he feels Maysilee collapse next to him, her shoulder brushing against his. He doesn’t say anything, and neither does she. Seems like she knows she went too far.
Haymitch looks at her for another second before he turns his head, shutting his eyes again. She looks almost the same age as him—twenty-six. Louella and Lou Lou haven’t aged. Most of his ghosts haven’t. Maysilee doesn’t always look as old as him; more often than not, she’s frozen in time at sixteen. Same age he was when he died for the first time, too.
Haymitch can’t stop himself from crying. He’s silent as he does, his head bowed, his lip quivering as he bites back any involuntary noises. It’s not particularly difficult to keep himself silent—all that gives him away is how his body shakes. Haymitch breathes out when Maysilee rests her head against his; it’s a clear enough sign of forgiveness. How many times have they played out this song and dance? Usually his hands aren’t covered in his own blood, but Haymitch has found himself hollowed out and hardly a person while sprawled out on his floor, and Maysilee has always been the one to sit there and make him face it.
They don’t speak for a while longer, and Haymitch knows it’s ridiculous to think of them as both reflecting. Maysilee isn’t real. This ghost of hers belongs to him. Maysilee Donner died ten years ago, and she has not spoken to him since that terrible day in the Arena when he watched her die. The apparition sitting next to him doesn’t belong to her. It’s all his.
All of his ghosts are his. The people they once were have been dead and buried for a decade. They aren’t real, and they never have been. If Haymitch had been granted a look into his future prior to his Reaping, he’d probably be the most stunned about this. The swarm of ghosts he’s created to keep himself somewhat sane. Though, Haymitch decides, his ghosts are likely anything but a sign of sanity. He equally supposes that maybe it just doesn’t matter—they’re the only reasons he’s still bothering to stick around. Maybe it’s a good enough trade-off.
So he decides that they’re both thinking. Neither one of them have ever been good at figuring things out, not when it comes to this. Not when it comes to them. More often than not, they’ll yell at each other until Haymitch can’t make a noise. Maysilee is the only ghost of his who still manages to make him angry, who can still get under his skin without even trying.
She feels painfully real.
Haymitch opens his eyes, staring firmly at the ground between his legs. He shifts a little, laying his hand flat on the floor between him and Maysilee, palm up. Her hand finds his own, slipping into it. It should hurt; it’s his bad hand, the one with the cut deep in his palm. The fact that it doesn’t only serves to make Haymitch want to cry more.
“I’m sorry,” Haymitch eventually says, tapping his other hand against the floor, fingers repeatedly bouncing off of the wood. “I don’t know what happened.”
It’s the truth—nothing spurred him on.
It’s a nice day today. Early April. Nice breeze, nice smell, nice everything. It’s the kind of day where he’d have gone off into the meadow to be with Lenore Dove, if fate had been anything other than cruel to him. Arguably, he could have considered it to be a good day prior to breaking that bottle. He was still drunk, but he wasn’t drunk enough to the point of throwing up, or being less than a person. He was just buzzed enough that the horrific memories of his Games were pushed to the back corners of his mind.
He supposes he must be some flavour of opportunistic.
You should be sorry, Maysilee says, but there’s hardly any bite in her tone. Haymitch can practically see her thrusting out the half-eaten box of sardines, refusing to look him in the eye. Refusing to admit that she had stopped being angry at him by the second fish.
“I know,” Haymitch agrees, wiping away his tears with the back of his wrist. He leans his head against Maysilee’s, heaving a sigh when she lets him and doesn’t move away. “I meant it, what I said. You still have other people to remember you.”
Doesn’t matter. You’re the only person who knows parts of me, Maysilee tells him, her voice low in his head. No one else saw any of it. The train to the Capitol with Drusilla, all the tokens, what actually happened in the Arena, Maysilee continues, and Haymitch can hear her tapping her fingers against her thigh. You die, those parts of me die, too. You’d basically be killing me again.
Haymitch squeezes his eyes shut for a few moments, though he eventually makes himself nod. “Guess so,” he quietly agrees. “I don’t know what happened,” he ventures, glancing over to the broken bit of glass that has his blood splattered all over it. He averts his gaze, settling on scooting back a bit so he can look at Maysilee.
Maysilee looks back at him, giving him a half-hearted shrug after a beat of silence passes between them. I don’t know, either, Maysilee tells him back, which Haymitch supposes he should have expected. No matter how real Maysilee looks, he knows she’s not. How could she know what he doesn’t?
“Do I just...” Haymitch trails off, making a motion to the shattered glass on his floor. “I didn’t do it,” he says, simply. “So what now?”
What do you think? Maysilee asks, arching a clearly unimpressed eyebrow at him. She stands first, stretching her arms above her head as she places her boot directly over the glass, somewhat obscuring it from his sight. Get up. Sitting here isn’t going to make you feel better.
“Nothing ever does,” Haymitch helpfully reminds her, which makes Maysilee roll her eyes at him. She stretches out her hand a second later, and Haymitch takes it, allowing her ghost to drag him up to his feet. He wobbles there for a few seconds, a rushing, whooshing sound in his head. It takes a minute for it to quiet down, but Haymitch eventually feels less like he’s about to topple over.
He watches as Maysilee takes a few steps back, revealing the glass once again. He shuffles over to it, picking the piece up, tucking it neatly into his good hand—careful not to let it cut him. Haymitch makes his way out of his room, his head throbbing as he manages to get out into his kitchen, tossing the broken piece of glass into his half-full trash can. It hits the bottom with a clink! , and Haymitch wonders just how many full bottles are in there.
He ignores that line of thought, glancing over to where he had broken the bottle a few hours ago. Hours? Haymitch blinks, peering out of his open window. Can’t have been a few hours ago, he decides—the sun has barely shifted position, and it’s still brighter than ever out. It just feels like a million lifetimes ago. Haymitch can hardly fathom that. His actions were recent, incredibly recent, but they barely feel real. Haymitch was standing here maybe thirty minutes ago, maybe an hour, max.
He could have been dead by now.
If something went different, he’d be bleeding out in his room.
It’s a strange thought that awakens an even stranger feeling deep inside of his stomach. Haymitch wouldn’t be standing here ever again. The sun warms his skin, and he can taste honeysuckle from outside, being blown in by the breeze. He’d be dead in his room, blood pouring from a self-inflicted wound to his throat. And it would have happened maybe ten, twenty minutes ago. His body would still be warm.
Haymitch shakes his head, dragging himself out of those thoughts the best he can manage. He stalks towards his kitchen sink, turning on the faucet using his good hand. Maysilee appears on the counter next to him, her hands resting on either side of her.
We’re going to the meadow after this, Maysilee decides, her voice far more light, significantly less accusatory than it had been only a few minutes ago. After you pick up the mess.
“Can I do that?” Haymitch asks, wincing as the water hits the cut in his palm. It stings and itches, but he scrubs at it nonetheless, washing away the blood.
Pick up the glass? Maysilee asks back, sounding unimpressed. Pretty sure you can manage that one.
“You know what I meant,” Haymitch mutters, trying to get the blood out from under his nails. He raises his hand to his neck, dabbing at the wound there. He winces as he does, careful to try and not irritate it more than he already has to.
Maysilee hums, seemingly deciding to work with him rather than harass him. You’ll be fine.
It’s all she says, but she sounds unbelievably sure about it. So Haymitch nods, scrubbing away at the wound on his neck. He’ll have to wrap it at some point. Probably right after he cleans it out, he decides.
Haymitch moves towards that goal next, turning off his sink before he stalks out of his kitchen and into his bathroom. The mansion came stocked with a million things—most of which Haymitch has never bothered to even take a look at, let alone actually use. The mirror opens up into a shelf, and Haymitch grabs anything that catches his eye, mostly gauze and some cotton padding that seems like it’d be helpful. He sets it all out onto the bathroom sink, closing the mirror so he can get a look at the wound.
He ends up staring at himself instead for a long moment, his eyes tracing the lines around his mouth, the bags under his eyes, the dark circles there. His hair is plastered to his forehead, only really safe from being matted due to how short he’s decided to keep it. Haymitch almost gets lost staring at his reflection, but Maysilee appearing behind him is enough to shake him out of it. He breathes out as he twists his head to the side, wrapping gauze around the entire length of his neck and throat. It doesn’t take very long for him to get the wound covered, and as soon as the angry red cut against his throat disappears behind the gauze, he feels infinitely more real than he had.
Haymitch makes quick work of his hand next, though it takes longer to do than his neck—wrapping up a wound one-handed is admittedly more difficult than he expected to be. He’s sure it doesn’t help that he’s drunk enough to be buzzed, black spots still darting along his vision. Can’t be from blood loss, he reasons. He didn’t lose enough blood to be affected by it.
Might be from whatever happened to him after Maysilee appeared, after he made the shallow cut against his throat. He had felt trapped inside of his body, almost animalistic. Haymitch sighs, flexing his wounded hand a few times, testing the elasticity of the gauze. He’s still able to move his hand well enough.
Haymitch reopens the mirror, shoving everything back into the shelf. He shuts it again, finally making his way back out to his kitchen for hopefully the last time today. He pauses for a moment as he stares at the pile of broken glass, that terrible, strange feeling moving up from his stomach to settle in his chest. Haymitch’s gaze is drawn away when he catches a glimpse of movement, spotting Maysilee sitting in the open window, her legs folded over each other. She gives him a bored, expectant look, motioning to the pile.
It’s not going to bite you, Maysilee helpfully informs him. And I’m the one who’s always right, you know that. You’ve only ever been misinformed.
Haymitch snorts, crouching down to his knees to pick up the broken bits of glass. “Porcupine-baby-bears,” he starts, sweeping the shards into his open, good hand, “were insane. I’m sorry you got quilled, but I also got quilled. It was a good idea. It would have been,” Haymitch corrects himself.
I guess your second idea was better, Maysilee offers up, sounding entirely displeased, as if it’s a begrudging admission. You rarely have good ones, she says, and Haymitch catches her gaze fliting down to the pile. Case in point.
“Wasn’t much of an idea,” he muses, sweeping up the last of the glass into his hand. He stands back up, dumping out the pile into the trash can. “It sort of just happened. Like I said,” Haymitch continues, turning back around to face her again. “I don’t know how it happened. Or why,” he adds on, hitting his good hand against his thigh as he thinks. “I wasn’t thinking about it. Stuff just got loud.”
You live alone, Maysilee pointedly tells him.
“And yet,” Haymitch deadpans back, giving her an unimpressed look. “You’re sitting in my window, Maysilee.”
Maysilee arches an eyebrow. So?
“Whatever,” Haymitch mutters, rolling his eyes. “Are you coming?” He asks as he wanders out to his front door, crouching for just a moment to grab his boots and lace them up. He’s trekked all of District 12 in significantly less, but he’s already slipping them onto his feet.
Obviously. That’s what I said, Maysilee pointedly tells him. Haymitch looks up to roll his eyes at her, watching as she easily strides over to rest up against the wall beside his door. Can you hurry?
Haymitch scoffs, unable to help himself from grinning. He ducks his head, decidedly lacing up his boots as slowly as he can manage. “You could leave at any time, Ms. Donner. You’re dead. You love telling me that.”
The dead can still have expectations, Maysilee informs him, sounding like she’s rolling her eyes, which Haymitch is sure that she is. So hurry up.
Haymitch rolls his eyes again, but he does. He finishes lacing up his boots, opening the front door immediately after.
The trek to the meadow is easy, a completely familiar path. Haymitch considers heading to the Covey graveyard, which is where he usually spends his time whenever he leaves his mansion—other than to buy white liquor—but it almost feels insulting to plant himself in a graveyard after managing to survive being forcibly dumped into one. So Haymitch settles on following the path into the meadow, figuring that it’ll be just as empty as it always is. The only person who spends any time there is Burdock, but it’s early enough in the day that he’ll still be at the mines.
Maysilee decidedly walks with him, which Haymitch is admittedly surprised by. She usually disappears and reappears whenever he moves locations, never bothering to stick around very much. Her preferred method of movement is to just fade out and then pop back up.
This has to be part of the reason he has such a difficult time getting rid of his ghosts, Haymitch decides. Maysilee, in life, had always known when she went too far. She hardly apologised—she’d rather make it up by doing something somewhat kind; for her, at least. Silently handing him the sardine tin and then forcing it into his hands, silently rebuilding and repairing tokens for every Newcomer. Her biting, scathing insults would settle into the air, and then she’d offer up a long sigh and some sort of apology she weaved out of silk and makeshift glue.
She’s painfully real. Haymitch can’t find it in himself to care that she’s not.
He practically collapses in the meadow as soon as he reaches the field, laying flat on his back. Haymitch stares up at the sky, watching the clouds drift past. It’s been raining non-stop for the past week. Seems like today is the first day the sun’s decided to come out for more than a minute.
“Maysilee,” Haymitch says, closing his eyes. He knows she’s there.
Maysilee hums, giving him the response he already knew was going to come.
Haymitch is quiet for a moment, breathing in the fresh air around him. It’s almost enough to get him to ignore the stinging, dull pain in his neck and hand. “I still don’t want to...” he trails off, waving a hand. “Do this.”
Be alive? Maysilee asks, ever the way with words.
“Yeah,” Haymitch agrees, equally just as skilled with speech as she is.
Well, Maysilee starts, sounding unimpressed. Do you still want to kill yourself?
Haymitch snorts. “Yeah.”
Are you going to?
This time, he pauses, opening his eyes to look up at the sky again. “No,” Haymitch decides after a beat. “Not tonight.”
Tomorrow, then, Maysilee snorts. I’ll ask again, I guess.
Haymitch smiles, resting his hands behind his head. “Guess so.”
He lays out in the meadow until it gets dark, and stays for even longer than that. Haymitch hardly sleeps, but he does manage to drift out for long enough that, by the time he opens his eyes again, the sun has started to rise once more. Another day, another sunrise he hasn’t managed to stop.
It’s a pretty sunrise, though. Golden with streaks of pink and purple, faint orange glowing on the horizon. It isn’t the Reaping, so maybe it’s fine to admire. Haymitch lays there in the grass, half-propped up so he can look at the sky, and he almost feels like he’s back in the Arena. Everything is far too still and quiet, and there were no cannons during the night, no anthem letting him know which one of his allies had died. Still, it almost feels familiar.
Haymitch looks over to where Maysilee had been sitting, finding that she’s still there. She doesn’t look at him and doesn’t say anything, so he does the same, opting to look back at the sky. Mockingjays call out from the trees further off into the forest, chattering away beautiful half-songs they must have picked up somewhat recently. Maybe Burdock came through a few hours ago.
Haymitch closes his eyes, feeling the wind on his face. That twisting, awful feeling in his stomach is still there—twelve hours ago, maybe more than that, and he’d be dead. He wouldn’t be out here. It makes him sick, though not sick enough to push out the thought of wanting to be entirely. Haymitch doesn’t want to be alive, but the notion of being dead makes him nauseous.
“Is that how you feel?” Haymitch asks, breaking the silence between him and Maysilee. He looks over at her, watching as Maysilee gives him a shrug, waving her hand.
Not really, she tells him, not looking over at him, still staring up at the sky. I didn’t have time to feel sick about it. I didn’t get to back out.
“Were you scared?” He asks, thinking that he had been. Haymitch realises that he had been terrified when he held the glass to his throat.
Maysilee considers for a moment. No. I was just angry. Upset, I guess.
Haymitch hums, looking at the sunrise again. “I was scared.”
Maysilee hums back. Are you scared now?
“No,” Haymitch tells her, honestly. He doesn’t know what he feels, but he knows that he isn’t scared. He doesn’t feel the same as he had when he was fully intent on killing himself. “No, I’m not.”
Good enough, Maysilee decides. Better than nothing.
Haymitch smiles, closing his eyes. He’ll go back to his mansion in another hour or so. Maybe sooner—he doesn’t care about the stares he’ll get, but he still prefers to avoid District 12 as a whole. Makes it easier like that.
The sun is warm against his face, and Haymitch feels almost comfortable, almost alive, in the meadow. He supposes it doesn’t matter all that much, considering how yesterday has been a nice enough day, and it still didn’t stop him from trying, but something feels different about today. Not different enough to mean something big, just different enough that he’s sure he’ll live until tomorrow. He doesn’t know about past that, but he supposes he’ll find out.
For now, Haymitch lays in the meadow with the ghost of his dead sister out there with him. It’s not good, but it’s not bad, and if he pretends just well enough, he can almost convince himself that they’re back in the Arena and Maysilee is alive. Another not-good-not-terrible thought, but it’s all he really has, and so Haymitch doesn’t mind.
It’s enough to make him decide to not kill himself, at least for today, and so he hangs onto it. Maybe there’ll be a different, nicer thought in his head—one that doesn’t put him back into the Arena. But for now, he doesn’t have that, and so he imagines their days and nights together when things weren’t easier, but different.
Maybe that’s all he needs. Something to be different.
He’ll figure that out when he leaves the meadow.
Here, Haymitch continues to lay in the grass, continues to feel the sun on his skin. It’s not good, but it’s not bad.
It’s about as good as it gets, and Haymitch can almost find it in himself to be thankful for it. He likes how warm the sun is. Kind of nice to keep on feeling it, he decides. He doesn’t want to be alive, but this is manageable.
He lays in the sun, and thinks that maybe he’ll wait another year. See what happens then. Maybe then he’ll decide on if he’ll be scared or angry or something else.
Until then, though, Haymitch supposes he’ll just have to stay in the sun. Might make him remember how to keep those promises.