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"Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger."
- William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
It’s the fifth day of carnage. Twelve’s tributes died almost as soon as they’d stepped off the platform, but with only five tributes remaining, the Gamemakers are gearing up toward the closing ceremonies, so Haymitch is expected to sit up straight and look presentable at the viewing parties with the rest of the mentors, escorts, and sponsors. It’s only good sportsmanship, after all, Effie reminded him as she helped him get ready.
But he doesn’t give a shit about sportsmanship. This is the fourth year of costumes, parades, smiling and nodding, and going to parties where he has to shake people’s hands and kiss their asses and pretend to laugh at their disgusting jokes and listen to their wretched stories. It’s the first time in four days that he isn’t blackout drunk, instead skirting the edge of tipsiness, maintaining just enough of a buzz to keep away the throbbing headache and nausea of going without. He jumps every time a cannon fires and feels on the verge of tears every time he hears someone scream, but he’s here, at least, his hands clasped in his lap to keep them from shaking.
Effie is beside him, occasionally laying a hand on his arm or whispering a gentle, “You’re okay,” or “I’m right here with you,” every time he flinches or closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in through his nose, out through his mouth. He’s so grateful for her. Grateful she’s here, even with her tone-deaf sympathy and the way she speaks to him like he was a child (though, at eight years her junior, perhaps to her he is a child, even now, at twenty years old).
He must look like a joke, he thought. A shell-shocked, sickly waste of space. A shitty, washed-up Victor from a shitty District where nobody ever wins. Except him, of course, but even then, not really. He has money, sure; he has a fancy house and every material thing he could ever want; but what he doesn’t have is what mattered the most to him: his family, his girl, his friends. All he has is Effie, and they aren’t even really friends. They see each other one week out of the year for this horror show and have no way to communicate with one another any other time of year even if they wanted to.
Still, he’s grateful to have her here with him on nights like this, when it all becomes too much, even if he knows for her own good, he can’t show her any kind of preferential treatment or give any sign that he thinks of her as more than his district’s escort.
On the screen, he watches as a young boy, barely twelve years old, slips into a hole in a tree to hide from the two Career girls on his trail. He reminds Haymitch of Ampert with his brown skin and large, calculating eyes. Because of that, he’s been trying hard not to watch this kid, fearing the moment when something might happen to him. Now, though, he can’t take his eyes off the boy, who shivers in fear inside the hollowed-out tree.
Just when Haymitch thinks the boy is safe—the Careers have passed him and are on their way to another part of the forest—a sinkhole opens up out of nowhere and swallows everything up. The boy in the tree, and every tree for a thousand yards. And the two Career girls. There’s just enough time to hear them scream before they’re gone.
Three cannons sound back to back to back.
Haymitch lets out a sob that sounds, thankfully, almost like a sneeze, before doubling over, spilling his drink on the bright green carpet underfoot.
“Bless you!” Effie says, and thinking quick, pulls a handkerchief out of her sleeve to cover his face with. “Oh, dear me, let’s go get you cleaned up.”
He tries to swat her away, wants to let the weakness in his knees take over, wants to feel them give way under his weight and feel the press of the floor against his body, but Effie is stronger than she looks. She hoists him to his feet and wraps her arm around his back, rushing him out of the room before the sounds he’s making become more recognizable as sobs than the preface of another sneeze.
A door opens and shuts, and suddenly, he’s in the dark.
“Haymitch,” Effie hisses. “Shh, shh, shh…”
She pulls him to her chest and wraps her arms around his shoulders as he sobs violently against her. He forces himself to be quiet, though he knows from the press of fabric and the human smell of the place, a sickening mix of perfume and body odor, he must be in a coat closet and must also therefore be unmonitored for once.
“You’re okay,” she whispers, stroking his hair. “Darling boy, you’re okay. Shh, shh, shh…”
He’s holding onto fistfuls of her dress and must be wrinkling it terribly, but she says nothing about it, and only continues her attempt at soothing him.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” she asks.
“I’m so sorry. They have to know I’m sorry. Effie, I can’t keep doing this. I’m sorry. I need them to know.”
“Who?”
He doesn’t reply. How could he tell her the names of every single person when he barely knew them all himself? Anyway, there’s no way for her to tell them. That isn’t what this is about. He is immeasurably guilty, and on top of that, he’s angry. Angry at himself, angry at the Capitol. Angry at the man who forced him to have this conversation alone with the last fucking person he has left, a person who, for all he knows about her, he should hate, but also, for all he knows about her, he respects deeply and also greatly appreciates. He wishes none of this had happened. He wishes it hadn’t come to this. This moment here, even, alone in a closet with her because that was the only place no one would see her showing him an ounce of kindness in a moment when he definitely doesn’t deserve it.
Before he knows what he’s doing, his lips find hers. He kisses her roughly, and she kisses him back, the salty taste of his tears on both their tongues as he pushes her up against the wall and slips a leg between hers. She whimpers softly, and for the briefest of moments, he worries that perhaps he’s scaring her, that she doesn’t want this. He’s surprised by his own actions as she was. This is all primal, unconscious; he had barely registered this feeling rising up in him, this want. His cock had grown hard without his permission, which, at his age, isn’t uncommon, he knows, but it is uncommon that he wouldn’t be aware it was happening until he was halfway to acting on his body’s desires. He has to get this under control.
Drawing away, he looks down at her for some sign of apprehension, but before he can get one, she places both her hands on either side of his face and pulls him back down into another kiss, then reaches down to hike her skirt up to allow for slightly more direct contact, now with only her panties and his pants leg between his thigh and her pussy.
He presses his hips forward, grinding against her hip. Hooking a hand behind her knee, he draws her leg up around him. It’s been so long since he’s felt this kind of pleasure, so long since his fumbles with Lenore Dove in the meadow, and his adrenaline is at its peak. He feels lucky that their current position doesn’t allow for the kind of skin-to-skin contact or friction he’d prefer or he probably would have already come.
He breaks the kiss, unable to keep up any longer with that, but her lips follow his, kissing them desperately and haphazardly before she buries her face in his neck, her hands grasping fistfuls of his hair, his jacket. She’s panting and making soft noises under her breath, urging him on with the occasional, “Please,” or the murmuring of his name. Her hips roll against his, grinding her cunt against his thigh, and he can feel how wet she is, dampness seeping through their clothes and making his pants stick to his leg.
“I want you,” she whimpers. “Please. I want you inside me.”
“No,” he says. Not here. Not now. Not like this. It’s all wrong. None of this should be happening, but he can’t seem to stop it now that it is. He wants to fuck her, to make love to her, even, but this is as far as he can let himself take this. He needs some kind of barrier between them, afraid of what might happen if there isn’t one.
“Please, Haymitch,” she continues pleading, kissing his lips again.
Her hands slide down his torso toward the button on the front of his pants, and he stops them, grabbing her by the wrists. “No,” he says, pausing to look into her eyes, and God, if that isn’t the worst mistake he’s ever made. He almost gives in right there, seeing the look she’s giving him, so full of helpless need, just like how he feels. He lets go of her hands and kisses her again, slow and languid, and he rolls his hips once more. “I want you, too,” he admits. “But we can’t.”
“Touch me, then,” she says. “I need something more than this.”
She takes his hand in hers and guides it between her legs, under her panties, and he gasps at how wet she is. His fingers slide between her lips easily. He dips one inside her, then two, pumping them in and out experimentally. He’s only touched Lenore Dove like this, doesn’t know if it’s the same for every woman, if Effie will like the same things, if what he did with his girl will work on someone older and likely more experienced. But she moans all the same, grinding against his hand as he continues on.
“Here,” she murmurs, placing her hand over his to show him what to do, and before long, she’s biting her lip to keep from making any sound.
He kisses her neck, and she shudders, letting out a shaky breath. Her walls are practically throbbing around his fingers, and she keeps getting wetter. She presses the heel of his hand against her clit and grinds down on him more purposefully. He watches as she clings to him, her body writhing between his and the wall he still has her pressed against, her hips working to get herself off with his hand, and finally she does, coming hard, her mouth falling open and a soft, throaty moan falling from her lips.
“Yes,” she pants. “Ohh.” After a moment, she lets go of his hand and taps his wrist, letting him know she’s done and he can stop. Her face flushed, barely evident in the low light coming in from around the door, she laughs softly. “Well, then. Your turn.”
He expects her to unfasten his trousers and slip a hand inside them and under his boxers, so he’s surprised when she turns them around and drops to her knees in front of him.
“Effie, you—” he starts to argue, but is cut off by sudden warmth and wetness of her mouth on the head of his cock. He collapses against the wall, digging his heels into the floor to keep from slipping. “Oh, shit.”
He’s never felt anything like this. Lenore Dove never did this, and he never even thought about asking her to. He knew it was something people did, but he’d only ever heard about it in shameful contexts. People in need of food or money or protection, bartering with the only thing they had left. The abstract idea of it thrown around as a schoolyard insult between young men. This was the first time he’d considered it could be done willingly, without hope for anything in return but the knowledge that you’d made someone feel good, and fuck, did this feel amazing.
His head falls back against the wall and he grits his teeth, groaning low in his throat as waves of pleasure wash over him, coming in increasing frequency. He’s going to come soon. He can feel it.
“Effie,” he murmurs, and she hums softly around him, almost making his knees buckle. “Oh, my God.”
He has to fight to keep from moving his hips, from fucking her mouth. He doesn’t want to hurt her or frighten her, but he’s been on the edge for so long, and holding himself back from acting on every instinctual urge is getting harder. He wishes he could take her to bed, wishes he could tell her how he really feels, wishes he didn’t have to hide that he really does like her. On top of that, he feels guilty, too—guilty about wanting her like this on top of liking her, when he shouldn’t do either; guilty about wanting her when Lenore Dove is underground; guilty about letting her do this, guilty about enjoying it, guilty for what his body wants to do to her in this position.
And it’s in the midst of all those feelings, that strange mix of want and guilt, that he finally comes, his hands clawing for purchase at the wall behind him and finding none. Effie draws back, coughing a little, then clearing her throat, and he can’t bear to look at her, but he forces himself to, and of course she’s beautiful, even with her lipstick smudged and her face all red with watery eyes. She smiles up at him, and he lets himself fall then, sliding down into a seated position in front of her, his bare ass finding the cold marble floor and his pants still at his knees.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“For what?”
“I…” He shakes his head. For everything.
“No,” she replies, laying a hand on his knee. “No. Don’t you ever be sorry. Not for anything.”
She rises, straightening her skirt, and she reaches out a hand to help him up. He takes it without a second thought.