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The losses in his life already had taught Haymitch that any sense of contentment or happiness was likely just a fleeting illusion. Life for him was a “take one step forward and get kicked five steps back” kind of game. Win the Games, end up with a murdered family; bring home two victors in an unprecedented move, end up in the arena again where most of his friends had died; save those two kids and start a rebellion, end up captured and tortured.
So that was that. They were heading for the Capitol in two days. While he didn’t have any particular wish to go off and die so long as there was some way he could be of use after the battle, particularly to Cinna and Effie, he knew that wasn’t necessarily up to him. It would pretty much suit the trend of things for him to end up dead in the Capitol given that the last few weeks had been the closest to happiness he’d had in a long damn time.
As long as it wasn’t Johanna, he thought. Dying was fine but he couldn’t bear watching her die. But that begged the question of exactly why, and he shied away from examining it too closely. He knew what he was, and how little he had to offer anyone, even if they weren’t on the edge of battle. He took these last few weeks together for what they’d been worth: a desire to not be alone with someone who knew their frailties and wouldn’t abuse that, and desire to offer comfort to someone in the same situation. It was just a different level of friendship, one that included sex; that was all. She’d had it with Finnick, he’d had it with Chantilly. No need to act like a teenage idiot and get feelings all mixed up in it.
But you weren’t like this with Tilly, he thought, weaving the tape in between his fingers once again for their daily hand-to-hand combat class. He didn’t know if it was how much worse off he was now than when he was seventeen that made him fucking well need this like he did. He knew Johanna had gotten burned when it came to Finnick. He just hoped she had the good sense to not fall for him after that. But he knew she was fierce and full-bore in pretty much everything she did, so only the fact that he knew he wasn’t much in the way of a dashing romantic figure reassured him. So long as she wasn’t hurt by this. For him, it was a little too late.
Maybe he was stupider than he’d been at seventeen, enough to have not taken the lesson to heart: not to get emotionally involved when there was no future in it. Maybe he ought to blame Katniss and Peeta for forcing that door open again even a little bit and making him damn well feel things again, enough so that one smartmouthed, gutsy Seven victor had wedged her way in far deeper than she had all the years he’d known her.
It wasn’t having something with her that hurt. It was imagining the day it would end. What they would have was a few weeks in Thirteen, brought together in the intensity of these frenzied final days. If they both survived she’d go back to Seven and he’d go back to Twelve. He didn’t much belong anywhere else even if Katniss and Peeta would be fine, they had each other now and they wouldn’t need him.
He’d get through. But he knew better than to hope the memories would fade. All these years later he could still remember the scent of soap in Briar’s hair, that scar on her right elbow from the falling on the playground at school. For Johanna, he wouldn’t forget the way those brown eyes looked half-closed and dreamy with pleasure. He wouldn’t forget the soft warmth of her body against his, relaxed and trusting as she slept with his arms around her.
“Wake up,” Johanna’s voice stole into his reverie. He glanced up to see her standing there, her own hands taped. “We’d better get going before Shagreen,” she nodded towards the trainer watching Peeta and Finnick sparring, “chews your ass.”
“Got stuck with the old man today during pair-offs, huh?” he said, finishing the tape and tearing the roll off, sticking the edge down. “Poor little you.”
She gave a snort of amusement, turning towards the training mats as he got up from the bench and followed her. “Aw, been staying up too late that you need naptime?”
“I’m fine,” he said brusquely, almost too harsh, but with her lightly alluding to how they’d been spending their nights, he didn’t want to go back to where he’d just been mentally, dwelling on future pain with her standing right in front of him. Something flickered across her features but then it was gone.
As they went through the sparring exercises, the familiarity he had now with her body and how she moved, the way they instinctively adjusted to each other’s movements and moved together, permeated the whole thing. It wasn’t just in bed. He felt utterly aware and alive from the nearness of her now everywhere from the cafeteria to this training gym, and he knew just how screwed he was.
He wouldn’t forget how it had felt to not be alone for a few short weeks, fierce and fine. He also knew he would wish he could.
That night, back in their room, he was trying to fight the feeling of a losing battle, knowing they had two more nights and that was all. Apparently Coriolanus Snow was fallible in the end, but time and circumstances were enemies nobody could overcome in the end. If only…but never mind that. No point howling about the inevitable.
He firmly clamped down on the word “love”, even in his mind, because that would be unbearable. But at least he’d felt more and been happier than he’d been since he was a kid. So he told her softly, “Thanks. These last few weeks, it’s been…” He searched for the right word. He had told the other victors, before the Quell, it had been an honor. That was true for Johanna still, but it wasn’t nearly enough. He couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound trite or stilted or inadequate. To have had her be there for him in the darkest hours, and to take him even as broken as he was, it had been more than he’d ever hoped for, far more than he deserved. It had meant everything.
How the hell he’d be able to let her walk away, he didn’t know. Well, actually, he did. Liquor was always the treatment for when the pain was unsupportable. It never made it go away, but it dulled it enough that maybe he’d once again reach that place of not feeling and not caring. For just a moment he could almost taste it, after all these months without. At least the availability of booze meant there would be one good point to leaving Thirteen, even if it meant the end of the two of them, and he knew the taste of white lightning would be nothing against the feel of her hand in his right now. But like he’d found out as a younger man, a good liquor haze wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but it was what he could have in order to deal with what he couldn’t.
For a moment he was afraid that even with that, he’d said too much because her eyes softened just for a moment, a look of something vulnerable on her own face. He’d never thought someone would look at him that way again, as if there was actually something worthwhile in him, that they were grateful he was there. “Yeah,” she said simply. “It has.” Then her smirk came back. “We’ve only got a couple hours before Lights Out,” she flourished her purple schedule tattoo, “so are we talking, or are we fucking?” Relieved that she understood what he couldn’t frame with words, that like in so many things there had been no need, he leaned in to kiss her. If they had two more nights and that would have to last him the rest of his life, he intended to make the most of them.