Chapter Text
Haymitch didn’t push Effie into her compartment but it was as close to that as it got.
Saying he was eager for some quiet alone time was a nice understatement. It felt like he hadn’t been able to take a breath since he had been released from the hospital because Katniss had finally agreed to play the Mockingjay part. Eight had been a real disaster on a certain numbers of fronts but it had, at least, proved to Coin that Katniss could be the figurehead they needed.
Still, he had spent hours sitting in the girl’s hospital room, waiting for her to wake-up, rehearsing his little speech about earpieces and… He had been worried – worried sick, really – when he hadn’t been able to reach her from the hovercraft, when it had become clear she had gone rogue like he really should have anticipated she would…
But he didn’t want to think about that right then. He locked the sliding door behind him, grateful that Effie still hadn’t been assigned a roommate because there was no way he would share a compartment with Plutarch for months on end. His stuff was over there but he already knew he wouldn’t be going back that night – or likely in the next few days. Sleeping with someone close implied a level of trust he didn’t feel for the Head Gamemaker. He might have managed sharing with Beetee or Finnick but Plutarch was out of the question and he didn’t even understand who had thought the arrangement would work.
Or maybe it was Plutarch’s very cunning plan to make sure he would get a room to himself. After all, Effie had been there for weeks and most people got a roommate in a matter of hours.
Of course, most people weren’t an escort that a lot of Thirteen citizens and refugees would gladly smother in her sleep either…
Those considerations flew out of his mind when she turned to face him with a small pout, probably not very happy about being shoved in her own room. He didn’t leave her time to start bitching, he kissed her, hard and messy. Her fingers immediately buried in his hair, tugging to tilt his head more to the right… She deepened the kiss but his shaky hands were already working on the awful jumpsuit uniform…
Oh, how she had bitched when he had told her she couldn’t wear her customized uniform anymore… It pissed Coin off and they didn’t need that on top of everything else. She wouldn’t be safe if…
He kissed her harder, trying to stop his wandering thoughts from straying to topics better left unexplored for now. There were too many things that could go wrong and he really needed…
What he really needed was a drink but, since that wouldn’t be happening any time soon, he needed the next best thing and that was… Well, that had always been her, hadn’t it?
“Wait, wait…” She drew back, a little out of breath, when he finally managed to get the jumpsuit open and off her shoulders.
“Don’t wanna wait…” he mumbled against her neck, licking the length of her throat and coaxing a moan out of her. That made him smirk against her skin. How responsive she always was… “Need you now.”
He had been steering her toward the sleeping area but he changed his mind. He didn’t want to waste time climbing on those terrible bunk beds, so he pinned her against the closest wall and nudged her jumpsuit past her waist…
“Haymitch…” she called, breathless and so aroused…
“I’ve got you, princess.” He nipped on that spot under her ear as her clothes fell to her ankles… There was still a tank top, a bra and panties in the way but he could work around that. His fingers slipped in her plain grey panties and he started stroking her while his free hand worked on his belt…
“Fuck…” she whispered, tossing her head back, eyes closed.
He would have liked it better if she had taken off the headscarf but that was the one thing she had refused to part with and, since she had agreed to wear the proper uniform, he had relented on that front. He didn’t think anyone would really mind. Some refugees wore scarves in their hair to tie them back too, after all, and nobody was punished for it. It should be alright. She should be…
“That’s the plan, sweetheart.” he mocked, pulling himself out of his pants, forcing the worries out of his mind. He was only half-hard but it shouldn’t take long to remedy that. She was always very good at…
But she didn’t wrap her fingers around his length. She grabbed his wrist instead, pulling his hand out of her panties…
“No, wait…” she insisted, her blue eyes clouded with desire but her face serious. “We cannot have sex.”
He chuckled, a bit disbelieving. “Promise you we can. If experience serves right, we’re also very good at it.”
She pursed her lips in annoyance and gently but firmly pushed on his chest so he would take a step back – which he did but with a frown.
“Effie…” He wasn’t begging, that wasn’t it, but… Well… It was close to that. He could admit it. He really wanted her.
She shook her head and hugged herself. “Haymitch, there is something…”
“Look, you’re pissed Plutarch kidnapped you with fake Peacekeepers, I get that.” he cut her off. “But that wasn’t my plan. I just wanted you here cause… It’s safer for you and I couldn’t…”
“We already had that fight.” she interrupted with a small concerned frown. “Don’t you remember?”
He was still holding himself and it was starting to feel a little ridiculous so he fixed his boxers, not bothering to zip up his pants again. Either they would resolve this and the pants would be off or he would strip down to use one of the bunk beds to sleep anyway – though he hoped she wouldn’t be pissed enough to forbid him from sleeping with her in the most innocent sense of the term, sex strike or not.
Had they already had that particular fight, though? His memory of the past few weeks were blurry at best.
“When I was in rehab?” he hesitated.
Her face took a hard edge, pure hatred burning in her eyes. “Do not call it that. It was not rehab, it was a cell and if I had had my way I would have had all those doctors dismissed. Perhaps even killed.”
She hadn’t really been a fan of Thirteen’s version of rehab, he had gotten that loud and clear. The whole experience had been very unpleasant and had driven the point home that he would never ever go through that again. Withdrawals had been terrible but the worst, by far, had been being strapped down to a bed naked without even a sheet to cover himself – for his own protection as well as others, or so they said. The hallucinations, the very real pain… It had been terrible but not as terrible as the helplessness of it all, not as terrible as the humiliation.
He vaguely remembered sobbing for hours, begging her to finish him, begging for mercy…
She was the only visitor he had been allowed – he didn’t know how she had pulled that out, Plutarch probably.
He knew she had been there though. Wiping his sweaty brow, holding his bound hand, giving him sponge baths and snapping at nurses who tried to take over… Yeah, she had done a lot of things that he only vaguely remembered and preferred to pretend he didn’t because it was humiliating. And yet he was grateful because if anyone had to touch him when he was incapacitated, hers were the only hands he wanted on him.
“I’m fine.” he promised, reaching for her shoulder.
She recoiled again. “No, you are not. Your heart stopped.”
“But they brought me back.” he pointed out. “And I’m good as new now.” If you didn’t count the tremors, the hot flashes and the recurrent headaches, that was. “Come on, sweetheart…” But she didn’t look convinced. She looked a bit terrified he would drop dead in the middle of sex. “Fine. Let’s forget fast and rough, yeah? How about we get in bed and just… have fun?”
He could do vanilla too. Fuck, he could do sweet and tender if that was what she wanted as long as he got to bury himself in her and pretend the rest of the world hadn’t gone to shit.
She made a face. “It is not just that…”
“You’re pissed about Peeta too. I know.” he sighed. “You think I’m not? I’m…”
“I am not angry with you because Peeta has been captured.” she cut him off, watching him as if he was stupid. “You love that boy as much as I do. Of course, you did your best to get him back. And we will rescue him. You promised me. We had this conversation too, Haymitch”
Had he? Those weeks were really blurry.
But…
“Yeah.” he said. “Yeah, we will.” This time, when he reached for her cheek, she leaned into his palm instead of fleeing the contact. “What are you pissed about, then? What’s it gonna take to get you off the sex strike, this time?”
Last time, during the Tour, it had taken some serious groveling. He had held out for two days before caving. He was addicted to her, that was the thing. He wanted her. Always. And, for all his denials, she knew it a little too well.
“I do not do sex strikes, how utterly ridiculous.” she huffed, playing with a button of his shirt. “And it is not that. It has nothing to do with you, it is just…” She sighed. “They took away my birth control pills when they ripped off my beautiful nails…” She lifted her hands to mournfully stare at her shortened, slightly blackened nails. He hadn’t been happy about how she had been treated when she had first arrived. Ripping off the fake nails, the wig and the jewelry and interrogating her for hours had been over the top. She hadn’t been supposed to be a prisoner. And it hadn’t helped warming her up to the District. “I am not on the pill anymore and there isn’t any condom to be found in this place. Contraception is outlawed, if you can believe that. How barbaric.”
“Oh.” He dropped his hand from her face, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, slightly uncomfortable with the erection constrained in his boxers.
It made sense, he guessed. Thirteen had high fertility problems, they had years when they saw more deaths than births. It wasn’t surprising that laws had been put in place to ensure the population would grow and not be curbed.
It made sense but it still felt a bit… Yeah, maybe she had the right idea with barbaric.
Even in Twelve it didn’t go that far. Contraceptive methods were difficult to find and expensive but they did exist and were available to anyone who could pay for them…
“Quite.” She let out another sigh but glanced down at the budge in his pants, licking her lips. “Although there are still things we can do…”
He really loved the idea of those things – hell, he loved the things – but…
“We’re gonna be stuck here for months.” His voice sounded whinny to his own ears. “We can’t do oral for months.”
“There is always anal, I suppose…” she offered and she managed to hide the small expression of displeasure quickly enough that he could have pretended not to have seen it.
She was game for everything and anything, always, but there were things she didn’t like. Things he didn’t even want to try to be honest. Anal had never interested him.
He wanted…
Well, he wanted her sweet warmth clenching around him, not…
“Could pull out…” he suggested, tugging on the knot of the scarf. When she didn’t protest, he tugged harder and tossed the fabric on the table once it came loose. He shouldn’t have done that, really, because the sight of her reddish blond hair tumbling down… Well, it was a turn on.
“That is not a reliable contraceptive method, Haymitch.” she warned.
“Yeah, I know…” And he would never have suggested it with anyone else but…” What are the chances anyway? I mean… You’re…”
He winced.
That subject wasn’t one she was usually willing to visit.
“I am not entirely barren.” she replied, as casually as she could make herself sound – which was not a lot. “It would be difficult without medical assistance and it would likely not stick, but that does not mean I cannot get pregnant. Just that… It is unlikely an actual baby would see the light of day.” She turned her head away, swallowing hard. “And, before you ask, no, it is not because the end result would likely be another miscarriage that I am willing to…”
He filed the another under topics to revisit another time because it was certainly the first he heard of that but now wasn’t the time. She was already getting upset, no need to add to that.
“I’m probably shooting blank.” he offered when she let her sentence trail off. “I mean, all the alcohol abuse… Now the withdrawals on top of it… The meds they have me on…”
He had known he should just have gotten that vasectomy years ago when Chaff had done his…
“You are probably sterile. I am unlikely to get pregnant. And if you pull you we will surely be fine.” she summed up, meeting his eyes again. “That is still a lot of hypothetical. The question is… Are we willing to chance the odds, Haymitch? Because if anything happens… If you run for the hills and leave me alone to deal with the mess…”
“Would never do that.” he scoffed. And then winced because it was probably exactly what he would do if she ever got pregnant, accidentally or not. “Okay, fine. You know what? I’m not even in the mood anymore so let’s just… Let’s go to bed.” He shook his head. “We’ve been having sex ten years, we’re used to not doing it for months at a time… We can hold off for a few months, yeah?”
“We can use our hands and mouths.” she reminded him, sounding a bit unsure. “My breasts. Your thighs. There are plenty of ways to get off without penetration.”
“Right.” He nodded, coiling a hand at the back of her neck and pulling her in to peck her lips. “We’ll be fine, sweetheart.”
He tried to sound more confident than he really was.
Because the two of them? He had long figured they were worse than horny teenagers. Never had any woman made him lose his common sense like she did.
The problem – and the next few weeks illustrated that clearly – was, they never seemed to be able to stop themselves from touching each other when they were alone in a closed space – never mind a bed. The new intimacy that sharing an compartment brought was spicing things up too and…
There were plenty of ways to get off that didn’t involve penetration and they revisited several of them for the following two weeks – they revisited them at lengths .
By the third week, the war had left them ragged at the seams and Haymitch was desperate to find the sweet relief that getting inside her always brought.
Later, he claimed he slipped.
She must have been as desperate as he was for the incomparable feeling of him being buried deep inside her because, once the accident was over with, they went over the odds again and again, reassuring themselves they were worth the gamble, that her medical history alone and the alcohol abuse his body had gone through gave them some leeway… They convinced themselves they were fine because they just couldn’t deal with everything without the relief they found within each other, that they could safely do it again even. They convinced themselves nothing would happen, that the risks were so few they were inexistent…
But when had the odds ever been in their favor?