Chapter Text
The 73rd Hunger Games were here, the tributes had been reaped, and the train had begun its annual route through the districts to the Capitol. The cycle repeats just the same each year. Effie Trinket arrives, and all of those eligible for the games stand corralled between the ropes. The escort picks a girl and a boy. They shake hands. They’re escorted away. And now, they sit on the train, gorging themselves on delights they couldn’t even picture before today. But Effie wasn’t worried about them. There was nothing she could do for them now, other than provide them with as much positivity and comfort as possible for the next two weeks or so. Their fates were set.
So, the escort ignored the churning in her gut and averted her eyes from the poor tributes stuffing their faces with their bare hands. It’s for the greater good. She told herself, but that got harder to believe each time she said it. Effie knew she couldn’t worry about them now. It was a waste of time.
She had someone else to worry about.
Someone who hadn’t been seen since he ran into the wall of the District 12 Justice Building about an hour ago.
“Enjoy, children.” She stated with an overwhelming amount of peppiness that she pulled from God knows where and then took her leave to her personal car.
And when she opened the door... There it was. Glistening as the sunlight peered through the window and spotlighted it, an expensive bottle of whiskey from a very popular Capitol brewery was poking out of her bag. She would never have bought a bottle like this for herself. Never. It would take her ages and ages to drink the entire bottle alone. It would simply end up as a decoration on her shelf, a dust collector. A waste. This was a present. Something for someone she knew wouldn’t let it be forgotten and tossed aside until after it was used. She cradled it carefully, tucking it securely in the crevice between her arm and the curve of her waist, protecting it as one would a small child. If it shattered into a million tiny pieces, Effie just might too. She then lifted herself with a deep breath, pushing her shoulders back and straightening her spine, as if her corset wasn’t already doing that enough. It wasn’t particularly making breathing easier either. She could barely bend over to take off her own shoes in this thing. She made an extra effort to seem confident, despite how unsure she felt about her next few steps out of her train car.
Careful, quiet, and unsteady. That’s how Effie Trinket made her way down the hall of passenger cars before finally stopping in front of the very last room on the left. Not a sound came from inside. What waited for her on the other side of that door? Snoring? Broken glass and blood? Maybe a warm and welcoming body? Perhaps a smile, though that was unlikely, but not impossible. She knew she’d never know if she didn’t enter, and someone had to make sure he wasn’t completely blacked out for their arrival. So, she curled her pale hand into a gentle fist, knuckles hitting the plane separating her from the man on the other side.
Knock Knock Knock
There was no reply, just the sound of sheets rustling. At least that was a sign of life.
She knew better than to expect him to come to the door. That was far too much of an effort, and if he wasn’t going to exert himself for the tributes, he definitely wasn’t going to for her.
Effie let out her breath and pursed her lips tightly together, preparing to smile, and reached for the handle, pushing it open. “Happy birthday-” She cringed as the words fell off her tongue. She greeted him that way every year; it was a force of habit. Days like this were supposed to be for celebration. “-Haymitch. It’s good to see your face.” It was the truth; it was a wonder the man wasn’t dead. Each year at the reaping, she always found herself a little surprised to see him onstage rather than off in a grave. Perhaps not even, rather just dead out on his lawn. Of course, it was always a nice surprise.
“Out.” That was all he said, throwing his forearm over his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was the sun coming from the window behind her, or Effie herself, that was too bright for him to handle right now. But he knew he didn’t want to deal with it. Today was miserable enough on its own; he didn’t need Effie’s overly enthusiastic energy souring the dreadful day even more.
“I come bearing gifts.” She mentioned, taking the bottle by the neck out of its spot between her arm and waist, letting it sway side to side tantalizingly. Haymitch lifted his arm up ever so slightly, opening one eye to see what she was holding. Capitol whiskey? Now that was something he could get behind, even if it meant enduring a little one-on-one with her.
The gesture was enough to make him sit up, propped up against a pillow. “I guess I’ve got time.” Effie chuckled at his reply, gently shutting the door behind her as she stepped into his bedroom car and placed the bottle down. “Oh goodness. I forgot the glasses.” She shook her head and excused herself from the room, while Haymitch picked up the bottle, nodding at it approvingly, though he would’ve drank anything. Whether expensive or cheap, it all made the memories go away, and that was all that really mattered. Effie made a quick pit stop in the bar car to pick up two glasses, which she carried between two of her bony and bejeweled fingers. The cold glass clanked against the metal of her many rings as she stepped back into the victor's quarters, staring down at her feet.
“There we go…” She began to speak as she lifted her head, the sight before her not shocking in the slightest. The man was coughing after taking a large sip from the bottle itself.
“I should’ve seen that coming.” She shook her head, choosing to find the humor in the moment, placing the glasses down where the bottle had previously been sitting, stealing the bottle from his hand momentarily to pour herself a respectable amount of the mahogany colored liquid, holding it back out towards him. He was quick to take it back, having been reluctant to let it leave his hand in the first place.
The silence between them was oddly bearable. Perhaps just casual. Not like they had much in common to talk about anyway. So it wasn’t awkward, in fact, it was rather comfortable.
Until it wasn’t.
Not for any reason in particular.
It just…wasn’t.
Effie had sat down on the empty side of his bed, her legs tucked underneath her; the dress she was wearing didn’t allow for many other positions. She wanted to say so many things, but she buried her words with whiskey and let the discomfort settle in her stomach. Haymitch eventually took the time to fully look her over. She looked good. Great even. Not incredibly gorgeous. Not horrific. Just good with a hint of greatness, and different. She always looked different. Year after year, she just…looked a little different. Her face ever changing from the one he would never forget. “A positive attitude!” That was what she said to him in the moment her face became forever ingrained into his mind. Some things, even drinking, can’t help you forget, not fully, and this was just one of those things.
But as the years went on, he struggled to remember what her face actually looked like. It came to him in flashes. Bits and pieces. Like most of his other memories from that year. Similar to everything else from that Hunger Games, her appearance had been altered beyond recognition. He did remember thinking, ”If she isn’t beautiful, I don’t want to know what the rest of the world is considered.” during the year of the 54th games, the year she decided to start getting “maintenance.”
He knew a thing or two about beautiful girls. He himself had once had the privilege of loving the most beautiful girl to ever grace this hellish planet.
Effie Trinket was a close second place. A little too close for his liking.
“No wonder you forgot the glasses. All that plastic’s blocking up your brain.” It was the first thing he could think to say. It was a somewhat cruel statement, sure. But these two seemed to communicate best in words that were less than kind. Being kind just hurts too much.
Effie gasped with a bit of offense, straightening up as she finished her glass, setting it beside her with a dramatic huff. “I’ll have you know, I’ve had nothing done since you last saw me.” The escort held her head up high. Her statement made Haymitch curious; she sure looked different, though his memories were quite askew.
“Then why do I feel like I’m seeing a different woman than last year?” He inquired, deciding to indulge in her rather than the tense and sterile quiet they had been embracing moments earlier.
“Well, I have been contouring differently.” She gestured to her face, careful not to touch her flesh and mess up her masterpiece. Effie always talked with her hands. Always. The louder or more worked up she was, the bigger the gesture. She’d hit him on the nose quite a few times when letting out some excited, shrill shrieks. It was something about her that he’d picked up on when they first met, and while it seemed Effie was always changing…that didn’t. Some things really don’t change. Ever.
There will never be a day when Effie Trinket doesn’t speak with her hands.
“Right, right. I forget how much makeup you wear. To hide your aging. ” He took a direct jab at her. He wanted to fight or at least get something out of her, keep the conversation going one way or another. She was the only constant in his life; he wasn’t ready to let her leave. Just five more minutes of back and forth. Something to fulfill him for just a little while.
Every year.
For the past twenty-three years.
He would see her for a little over two weeks.
She’d show up wrapped in silk and gold, tied like a birthday present. And he knew he could always count on her to get all up in a tizzy if he brought up her age. Every single time, without fail. Every time. And he felt a need to cling to that familiarity. It was all he really had. So he’d upset her, and watch her cheeks puff out and lips slam tightly together, the same way they had for the past 23 years. And like clockwork, Effie’s cheeks puffed out slightly, and she opened her mouth to say something back, but ended up with her lips shut tightly together.
“I’ve lost track of how many decades you’ve been around.” Effie felt pained as he even brought up the mere idea of her age. Growing older, and especially looking older, was quite frowned upon. She had enough people look down on her name. She didn’t need to give them another reason to frown at her.
“That’s the idea.” She remarked simply, stealing the bottle from him and refilling her glass again. Between the two of them, the bottle of liquid was being drained much quicker than Effie had originally thought it would. “Pushing fifty, yeah?”
“SH!” She hushed the drunk quickly and loudly. He cracked half a smile as she nearly popped him in the mouth. She was so animated, far more entertaining than anything he saw daily. Her unyielding vitality would be admirable if it didn’t drive him absolutely mad.
Effie felt a vein push out of her forehead as he dared to say the f-word. Fifty. A shiver crawled up her spine, making her neck twitch. The entire idea of it felt disgusting. It was bad enough that he spoke such a thing into existence, but to say it so loudly? The children could hear him!
“Thirty-nine.” She said quietly. A blatant lie. A lie that caused Haymitch to laugh. A real laugh, straight from his chest. He just turned thirty-eight today. He knew Effie was a little older than he was. He didn’t know what was funnier. The fact that she was so quick to lie, as if she did it often, or the fact that she was trying to pass for pushing forty. It was nice to laugh like that. There was truly no one else in the world who made him laugh anymore. No one, nothing. Nothing but Effie and her dramatic antics.
“I’m not that drunk.” He reminded her. She thought he’d believe that? As-fucking-if. He continued to push. What else did he have to do? “Forty…six? Seven? Eight?”
Effie stopped giving him the satisfaction of a response; instead, she moved as much as she could to be directed away from him. Being forty-three was already painful enough. Did he have to age her so much?! She audibly gagged as the numbers got higher.
Eventually, she let that conversation die on its own, and to Haymitch’s disappointment, the familiar bickering and bantering between him and Effie Trinket vanished. So they drank in silence. She from a glass, he from the bottle.
After what felt like an eternity, the silence finally began to feel more like a bridge and less like a valley dividing them. But as soon as the silence dared to feel pleasant, Effie cut through it with a heavy, melodramatic sigh. That sigh was followed by another one, which was a bit longer. She would stretch her arms out wide every time these breaths left her lips, flailing her left hand right in front of his face. Was he that blind?! She was shoving it right between his eyes!
Haymitch was busy trying to ignore her. She was the one who stopped their conversation in the first place, and now she expected him to give her the time of day? Effie dropped her jewel-covered hand on his abdomen, basically forcing him to acknowledge her by touching him. And when that didn’t work, she did it again.
“Huuuuuuuuhhhh…”
“Haaaaaaaauuuuuuggghhhhhhh.”
She whined again. For the life of him, Haymitch couldn’t figure out what she wanted from him. For such a usually well-spoken woman, she was acting like she didn't know anything more than her ABC's. That was until he remembered the last time they were this drunk and this lonely. Last year. And the year before that. And before that.
For about the past ten years, since he was about twenty-eight or so, he couldn't quite remember, it had been so long, he and Effie had been about thirty-two, the victor and the escort had a little love sexual affair going. Nothing particularly special. Scandalous? Sure. Confusing? Definitely. Special? God no. Not in a million years, would Haymitch ever have special again. You get special once.
It had started as a hateful event. Perhaps not even hateful, but there was no proper way to explain it. There was so much frustration, so much anger and pain, and truly rage went into that first time. It was the kind of thing you only do once; you didn’t even mean for it to happen the first time. It had just been so long. It had been a late night, after midnight. There had been some drinking, some rude conversation that neither of them could remember now, having been so plastered that first evening.
But as the decade continued, it eventually just became nice to have a warm body. A body you could trust and confide in without the commitment. A body to lie with and talk to, among other activities. And as guilty as it made him feel, each and every time, he returned. Finding heaven in her bedroom. After all the shit he'd done? With good intentions or not, that was the closest to pearly gates he'd ever get to see. Maybe he just wanted something or someone to hold, physically. Maybe he kept doing it for the same reason he would taunt her about her aging each year, to feel the familiarity of it all. Or maybe it was a whole other thing; he wasn’t sure. He tried not to think about it too much, if at all. But what he was sure of was that you can’t hold a ghost. No matter how hard you try. Haymitch had learned that very quickly.
So instead, he would hold onto Effie, and in turn, Effie wouldn’t force him to let go. Because you can't be held by pride and a career.
He stared at her hand lying on his stomach, and the sight made him roll his eyes. “You want something?” Wasn’t it a little early for all that? The victor picked up her hand, holding it by her wrist. A ring on each finge-what.
What.
He shook his head, convinced he was seeing something wrong, and dropped her hand back between their bodies. “Oh no, it’s nothing,” Effie said, her tone breathy. Like she was keeping something hidden inside of her chest. He wanted to believe her, say thanks for the whiskey, and tell her to get out. If they weren’t going to talk, they weren’t going to fuck, and they sure as hell weren’t going to do anything else, she had no reason to be here. He’d rather drink and be alone. At least the loneliness would be familiar.
But the escort had other plans. One more sigh, she threw her hands up in the air, letting the left hand fall right over his chest this time, making him jerk a little bit, the cold metal of her rings hitting him where his buttons had come undone. The cold of her rings somehow stung. He went to throw her hand off one more time, this time taking a better look at her shiny jewels. Effie had always worn a lot of jewelry, at least one, if not more than one, ring on nine out of her ten fingers. The only one ever left bare was her left ring finger.
As long as she’d known him, she’d never expressed much interest in getting married. She claimed to be a “Career Woman”. Far more focused on climbing higher in society, out of the grave her family had dug for her all those years ago, than marrying. Effie had put in far too much effort to change people’s minds about the Trinkets to just escape with a silly name change and a husband. It just wasn’t Effie. Never.
Some things never change. Especially when it came to the escort.
She always repeated words when she was excited.
She always paced when she was nervous.
She always corrected people on the shades of different colors.
And she was always going to be single.
So, when he picked up her hand again, and saw a shiny gold ring with a precious gemstone in the center, sitting on her left ring finger, he blinked. And blinked again.
“Get dressed drunk this morning? Fucked up your jewelry.” He commented, not being able to fathom any other reason she would have a ring on that finger. The idea didn't even truly pass through his mind. He blocked it out utterly and completely. Effie watched him take the ring off her ring finger and move it to another one. One where he thought it belonged. Anywhere but her left ring finger. Effie began wondering if he was actually that dense, or perhaps just delusional. Despite what he said, maybe he was that drunk. She brought her hand back to her chest, gently pulled the ring off her middle finger, and put the ring back where it had been to begin with, turning so she could look directly at him.
“Haymitch.”
He stared. Right at that ring. Right through it. He didn’t want to see it. Maybe if he looked at it long enough, it would disappear. Everything else he came into contact with did.
“You’re engaged?” He asked. He didn’t believe it to be true. He wasn't sure what it was keeping his tone so steady, what was keeping him from rolling off the side of this bed, hitting his head on the bedside table, and forgetting this even happened at all.
And Effie only smiled, her head nodding slowly. She had started to think he may never notice. She tried to decipher the look on his face, but it was just unreadable. It was like there was an invisible wall between them now, hiding him away from her gaze. She wasn't sure if it was her place to knock that wall down, so she simply waited on the other side of it.
Haymitch thought Effie being forever single was set in stone. And perhaps it had once been, but something eroded at her, and the woman he thought he knew was engaged. To be married. Haymitch took a hefty sip of the aged liquor, nearly submerging himself in it.
Things were changing, and the familiarity was fading. Effie Trinket was engaged.
.