THG fic: "Spin Control" [7/21]
Title: Spin Control
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Where’s My Victor? If you’re looking for the Peeta/Kat bits but don’t want to bother with the whole story, I’d recommend starting at around Chapter 17, where that gets going for real, though they do make their share of appearances before that too. Gale’s appearances will be scattered through the fic more evenly. Gale and Peeta both are scheduled to make their first appearance in Chapter 6. Kat, probably Chapter 11. Chaff will be featured prominently as well.
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6
Chapter 7: Haymitch Abernathy Returns
Haymitch returned to District Twelve in late August - eight weeks after his breakdown - when humid summer sun was still burning into people’s necks and tanning even the palest miners’ faces. Reporters had come on the train alongside him, conducting their exclusive interviews on the way, but other teams set down by hovercraft and assembled their equipment before he arrived. They filmed Finnick and the district council waiting on the platform, searching the district for Haymitch’s friends and family to interview and coming up with nothing much.
Cherry had breezed in with her team and put Finnick in a real shirt with a normal neckline, creating a more adult, reputable version of him whom you wouldn’t just fuck, but also trust to handle your sponsorship money. Collar chafing his throat, he’d listened to Mrs. Mellark informing a reporter that the Games parachuteers used her recipe to send Twelve tributes bread and of course, she knew Haymitch, because Haymitch, like everybody with any taste, bought her bread day in and out. All of the district couldn’t wait to get their victor back, she assured the camera twitchily, all of them so grateful that the Capitol had taken care of him like this. Peeta, Dane and Hue Mellark were all looking like they didn’t know how they’d ever dare go back to school and work.
Barely anybody Haymitch’s age was in evidence in this district where everybody had gone to school together. Carefully blank olive-skinned faces told Finnick a story of unspoken agreements between Seam and victor: We act like we’ve never known you. You act like you’ve never known us. You don’t actually belong. Nobody will die.
Finnick first laid eyes on Haymitch stepping off the train with Effie and his stylist, a changed man, painfully healthy and sober - an image so wrong that Finnick had an urge to interrupt those reporters and ask them if they didn’t see. It was just another sick twist of Capitol media again, a world where even the sobriety of an addict could be turned into something ugly, because it only existed to please the crowds. Sobriety was good. Forcing it on somebody for entertainment was a sickening joke.
The Twelve stylist had taken more care with Haymitch than Finnick had ever seen. If he was paler than a man should be in summer, make-up was covering it up. He’d lost more weight, and what remained of his proud beer belly had been smartly smoothed out by his clothes. But Finnick still thought that he looked nothing like the starved district populations, nothing like a Capitol citizen with discount liposuctions. He still, defiantly, looked unique.
The crowd cleared and cameras flashed when Haymitch sauntered up to Finnick. Finnick strangely felt like a soldier welcoming a comrade to another battle, subconsciously pulling himself up.
They shook hands in a casual way.
“Welcome home,” Finnick said, loud enough for it to carry, because this was for the cameras. “Sorry I didn’t get one crowned for you this year.” Implying, well that improvised first try was just bound to go wrong, we all knew that, but wait for next year. Implying, soon enough I will. We’ll be building something new. Just stay tuned.
If the skin around Haymitch’s eyes looked tight from exhaustion, if his smile seemed a little too jovial to not make Finnick flinch on the inside, the cameras wouldn’t zoom in closely enough for them to catch it. “There’s always another year,” Haymitch’s strong voice boomed across the crowd. “You took excellent care of them.”
One detail that a camera would never know to capture: the Knapsweeds and the Donallies somewhere in the town square crowd, demanding that excellent care should have meant bringing Raif or Bee home. Both clearly hadn’t refused to accept Finnick’s condolences only because they hadn’t dared shutting the door in the fancy collaborator’s face.
“Haymitch! Haymitch!” one of the reporters shouted from the crowd. “Are you looking forward to living next to your new neighbor?”
Haymitch slyly looked Finnick over. “Sure gonna be a prettier view than before,” he rumbled, and everybody laughed.
They walked towards the town square together, trailed by the reporters, and the Haymitch Finnick knew would have patted his back, dragged him physically along, just because he could. Haymitch had always been strangely unafraid to touch other victors. But this public Haymitch looped his fingers into his belt on the way, good-natured air about himself while keeping his distance for the cameras.
Or maybe rehab had just changed him. They were walking close enough that Finnick should have smelled the alcohol that had always clung to Haymitch, the strangely clean-smelling and very wasted Haymitch. He’d never even a single time seen Haymitch sober before. He might as well have not known this man at all.
It wasn’t the cameras pointed at them from all around that made Finnick’s skin crawl then.
Mom. Dad. Keanu, Perri, Coral, Uncle Lauro, Uncle Jaime, he recited like a litany in his head.
***
An open-air stage had been erected in front of the Justice Building. Finnick supposed they should feel honored that Claudius Templesmith had come all the way from the Capitol to host the interview. The notorious Flickerman, he knew for a fact, vacationed at the beach of Four’s tourist quarters this time of year, abusing his privileges by renting a victor on their home turf to sweeten his nights. A victor who wouldn’t be Finnick.
Cringing to himself, he wondered if Caramel Doll had been resurrected as a whore to pinch-hit. Caramel had been allowed to retire when Finnick entered the market. They had the same hair.
Cue Claudius Templesmith, who was pudgy and jovial underneath his star-shaped, sunny yellow Mohawk and who’d never bought a victor for himself, though sometimes sprung for one for his two nieces. Templesmith had none of Flickerman’s exuberance and little of his flair; but the producers always sent him if they meant to play it safe, his pacing and control impeccable. Finnick couldn’t but wonder if Snow had sent Templesmith to prevent Finnick from running the show, and it filled him with a grim sense of satisfaction to know he’d scared that man. He’d never again be that victor Snow could trust to perform.
It was unflappable Templesmith who had conducted all the interviews with Johanna at her most uncontrollable, though Finnick had always suspected that was also partly because she made Flickerman wet his pants.
“So Haymitch,” Templesmith said, folding his hands over his belly and blinking into the sun behind them, setting the stage for easily digestible breakfast television. “Let me start by saying that you look astonishingly good. We’re all glad to see you at your best again. What does it feel like to finally be home?”
“Oh, you know,” Haymitch shrugged it off, harrumphing vaguely. “Thanks, I guess. And good. It feels good. The Capitol’s golden, but who’d like staying at a hospital?” He smirked weakly. “No place like home and all that.”
He was fading after the long morning of interviews, making Finnick wonder in concern what they had done to him in that place, during those eight weeks under lock and key. Detoxing, whatever that was like. Therapy with doctors who didn’t believe that the Games could fuck you up and who thought you self-involved for saying otherwise. Finnick knew that rehab was a wonderful idea in theory, another privilege the districts were denied. But that was for people who wanted to be there. Forced sobriety, he uneasily thought, was just torture, like the Games.
He tried not to look at Haymitch’s hand, resting on the arm of his chair currently.
Not trembling from withdrawal symptoms anymore.
“Yes,” Templesmith said easily, obviously sensing that Haymitch wasn’t willing, or just too exhausted to lead on without strong cues. “But there are dangers to returning to the familiar surroundings of home, too, we’ve been told by your attending physicians.”
“About picking up old habits,” Haymitch agreed. “Yeah. But I’m… I mean, it’s not gonna be easy, I know that,” he corrected himself. “It’s gonna be really hard. When I’m here, I’m still used to the way things used to be, the old routines. The ones that made me drink.” Nobody in the Capitol would ever know how much dignity it cost you to say something like that while a camera was pointed at your face for a close-up, capturing how you were paling or whether you’d cry. “I’ve been warned about that. We talked about it a lot, my therapists and me. I know that danger. But I’ll be checking back in with my doctor by phone all the time. I’ve decided to be optimistic about it, you know? I’m grateful that I’m getting this opportunity for a new start. And all the support from everybody.”
“Ah yes. About that. My team was a little shocked when we arrived here, I have to tell you. It’s been impossible to find the people close to you, waiting for you to return.” Templesmith frowned at Haymitch. “You haven’t been holing up in your house and drinking all year, now have you?” He winked. “Nobody to tuck you in during lonely nights, hm?”
Huffing a chuckle, Haymitch waved it off. “We’re a camera shy bunch here in Twelve,” he said and Finnick saw how he waited until Templesmith’s lips twitched, checking back with the host if he still was on track. “But it’s a part of the problem,” he continued. “Honestly, I’m the solitary type by nature. It’s sometimes… it can be hard to reconnect with your district once you’ve gotten used to the Capitol lifestyle.”
Another slice of your soul sold off, almost palpably widening that chasm between Haymitch and the people on the square. Finnick didn’t look, but he listened for them, and he couldn’t even make out a cough. It was easy to imagine what they were thinking behind their carefully blank expressions.
Templesmith smiled. “How do you plan on helping Haymitch acclimatize, Finnick?”
“Well, we don’t know each other that well yet, actually,” Finnick replied promptly. “I respect Haymitch a lot, obviously. We worked side by side as mentors last year and now that I’ve experienced the strain of mentoring alone, I’m all the more impressed by his work. But I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” He addressed Haymitch at that, who produced a reciprocating hum and nodded. “We’re going to be working together closely, of course, plotting future Games. And we’ll be neighbors in the Victors’ Village.” He smiled, making it sound as if he was talking of night clubs and the promise of a lay. “I’ll make sure he gets out a little more. Twelve is such a beautiful district. A lot of places to go.”
If you want to be stabbed in the back.
Templesmith looked pleased at the answer. “I know there are many people in District Twelve who would be honored to spend time with you, Haymitch,” he said. “And a little tolerance for the less educated people in your district is not asking too much. My team tells me that everybody is delighted to finally have you back safe and sound.”
This was the point where a Capitol audience would have exploded into spontaneous affirmative applause, cheering and whistling and waving their banners, banners they spent days painting at their fan club meetings, a popular hobby. In the lead-up coverage last night, Finnick had even seen a couple of those, sporting portraits of a younger Haymitch, sometimes Finnick next to him and captions of, Remember that the odds are ever in your favor! and, Haymitch & Finnick - District Twelve for victory! Some had Swagger, Haymitch, Finnick but the Swagger scratched out and the Finnick added above it by hand.
But Finnick had been here long enough to not at all be surprised when here in front of the Twelve audience, they were greeted by silence as thick as a shroud. Next to him, Haymitch didn’t even seem to be listening for a reaction.
Somewhere, somebody coughed wetly from black lung disease.
Templesmith moved on to the next topic.
They wouldn’t have staged this open-air if the district’s reactions mattered to this broadcast, obviously.
***
The Templesmith interview was followed by a press conference for the private channels and less prominent publishers such as Capitol Whispers and Where’s My Victor? They asked questions ranging from what diet had the rehab center put Haymitch on (“Uhm, you’d have to ask them that. Lot of greens?”), and was Finnick planning on seeing Marcus Honarius again or had it only been a season fling (“I’d have to wait and see if he’d even still want me next year, now would I?” which was so hysterically true that it threatened to make him cry right there). After that, the cameras followed them to Victors’ Village. They filmed what Finnick had done with his new house, comparing it to his old cottage on Victors’ Rock. Haymitch’s house was still in terrible shape even now that Effie had told the gardener to get his lawn in order for the camera, and have the broken benches on his porch replaced, but the reporters just blithely talked about what Capitol designers could learn from these cozy and quaint “district style” choices. In the end, it was just one last photographer shooting pictures of the empty houses at the Village for an art exhibit that would apparently be called “Panemara: Expectance of Bliss,” and then his hovercraft left, too.
After making his goodbyes to Effie, who was still talking media monitoring at Haymitch, Finnick went to his house and holed up in his bedroom, where he sat down on the bed and stared at his trident mounted on the wall across, waiting for the other man to show up. He’d chosen this room to sleep because the oak outside would allow him to climb down to the ground floor if he heard somebody intrude, and he told himself it wasn’t any weirder than keeping his trident around, nothing wrong with one less little thing nagging at him. There were plenty victors crazier than that.
It was quiet now that everybody had left, faint song of birds returning to the Village through the open window, the rushing of a mountain full of trees from way beyond the fence. Afternoon sun fell all across the floor, the polished golden alloy of the trident reflecting it in all the places where blood should be dripping off the prongs and the shaft. Although Finnick didn’t doubt for a second that this room had been bugged, it felt for the first time like the media truly had left.
Haymitch was back. The first act of the story had finally played out. And Finnick was living in Twelve, as far away from home as it got.
It wasn’t long before Haymitch showed up. Downstairs, the kitchen door fell shut just loudly enough for him to hear, and heavy footsteps echoed through the house. They grew louder up the stairs, passing by the open doors of the other rooms and faltering before this one. After a pause, there was a surprisingly soft knock and a moment of nothing, until Finnick said, “Come in.”
In the corner of his eye, the door opened to reveal Haymitch, who paused and had an almost hesitant look around. Remembering disdainful eyes on the streets and the ruins of a house across the lawn, Finnick wondered how long it had been since Haymitch had entered anybody’s bedroom, especially by free will. Then again, he couldn’t remember when anybody had last entered his own bedroom on Victors’ Rock without any discomfort, so he guessed that evened that out.
So the Games had made him crazy, he thought, suddenly incapable of pulling his eyes away from the imaginary blood of his weapon. So be it. In his seven years in the Capitol, he’d seen Brutus compulsively obsessed with victory as if each new victor made up for the tributes he’d killed; Six’s Ralda had committed suicide just last year with the same poison she’d used to discard of her arena opponents, and there’d been his district’s Annie, more honest than most of them, losing it then and there during her Games.
“You might as well take a seat,” Finnick said without turning his eyes away from it.
“Nice decoration piece,” Haymitch quipped and now Finnick did look up, found that Haymitch had slumped into an arm chair in a corner of the room.
Idly reaching for a piece of rope lying discarded on a shelf, the other victor started to wrap it around his fingers in preparation of a knot.
“I’ll tell my interior designer you said so.”
“He wouldn’t go by the name of Snow, because that’s mine, too,” Haymitch deadpanned. Then without looking up, as if prepared for chitchat, “Only one knot we really have a use for here in Twelve.”
Finnick squeezed his eyes shut for a second and rubbed his neck, trying to chase that dissociative feeling away and focusing firmly on the here and now. Haymitch was back in his view, crooking his head and working and reworking his knot that he apparently didn’t quite remember how to do, none of a Four native’s finesse who’d have learned that in Games school. There was no Games school Haymitch could have learned anything at. And there were so many things that needed to be said, before they ate Finnick up.
“So I guess ‘sorry’ doesn’t even start to cover it,” he said more lightly than he felt.
Haymitch looked up from his work. “Huh?”
Finnick chuckled without humor in reply. He hated apologizing, not because he felt like he shouldn’t have to - sometimes he felt like he should have to all day - but because he’d rather not think of all his flaws when he could avoid it. Some weren’t just a matter of lonely nights and dreams, though. Some were broadcast on Flickerman’s show.
“Sorry I didn’t get Bee or Raif home, for one,” he said, starting with the easiest. “They were good kids. They deserved to get a chance. I did everything I could - they might as well have gotten lucky, you saw that arena - but, they just didn’t.”
“And you’ll understand soon enough that that’s just how it works for District Twelve,” Haymitch replied, conversationally. He pointed his half-finished work at Finnick. “I’ll give you points for Capitol levels of delusion, though. You seriously think all we ever needed to do well in the Games was a pretty face with better connections?”
Of course he grimaced apologetically the second the words had left his mouth, because they both of them knew that getting too drunk to stand upright didn’t qualify as doing well enough, and Finnick’s pretty face and better connections meant he had to beg for more while movie stars fucked him without lube and politicians came on his face.
There was something dangerous about Haymitch when sober, dangerous and sharp, as if the booze had blunted his edges and now they were back, with force, whether he wanted them to be or not.
“Go on,” he goaded Finnick. “I’m curious to hear how this mess is your fault.”
Finnick stared at Haymitch’s hands, curling and uncurling around the rope, but the words suddenly wouldn’t form.
“Your district really doesn’t like me,” he heard himself say instead. “They look at me as if… I don’t know… as if I’ll steal something from them on top of taking their children to die in the Games, or something like that.”
“Can’t get sponsorship from each and every fan club,” Haymitch said, citing a proverb Five’s James had made up. “First and last victor who hit it off with the district, counting substitutes, was Swagger. Told them little lies about how he’d bring plenty tributes home, and there’s a reason he made it no ten years before we found him hanging from a tree. It’s better to stay on your own. It’s safer.”
You can’t lose anybody close to you if there is nobody close to you in the first place. He didn’t say that, but Finnick had seen the Abernathy execution and he suddenly wondered if Haymitch ever had, and he didn’t need to know Haymitch more intimately to hear the unspoken words. But he’d seen District Twelve, too. He thought he’d already gotten a better look at District Twelve than any outsider had since Lyra. He wondered if she’d told Haymitch when he moved into the Village to stick to himself, like she must have when he went into a forty-eight tributes arena with a plan to go it alone.
It hadn’t turned out safer for Haymitch in the end, though. It had almost left him dead at the foot of his stairs, and the only reason he’d been found had been because of Reaping Day.
When it became clear to Haymitch that Finnick didn’t know what to say, the older victor sighed a little to himself and refocused on the rope, loosening it and starting again, now with more certainty about how to fashion the knot, as if it had taken him some time to recall. “So Snow and I had a little talk during my health-related stay at beautiful White Feathers Rehab Center.” Automatically, Finnick looked up, something recoiling in his guts. “Came to reassure himself that I’d be fine, I’m sure.” Haymitch smirked. “Negotiated the terms of releasing me into the wild again.”
“Oh?” Finnick said, mouth dry.
“Yeah,” Haymitch said, and there was an almost visible stutter right then, when his casualness dripped out of him, like water spurts. Staring at the rope for a moment, he threw the finished work back on the shelf without showing it off. Again, he sighed, and this time it was the most exhausted, emptied sound that Finnick had ever heard him make. He moved to rest his elbows on his thighs, rubbing his hands together. Then he looked up at Finnick.
“He’s gonna start killing your family if I don’t stay dry for good.” He said it off-handedly, as if there was nothing that could be done about it anyway, so why bother with emotions anymore.
Finnick resisted an urge to squeeze his eyes shut again in an attempt to keep it all out, just, keep it as far away from him as he could. He resisted an urge to look at his trident, too, sink into that sight and let it soothe him because it wouldn’t, not now. It would just make him cry, remind him of all the things he didn’t have the power to change.
“I know.”
Haymitch nodded, as if he’d guessed. “So that’s where I’m sorry,” he said.
Can you do it? He wished it made any sense to ask or even beg. He wouldn’t have hesitated to beg, on his knees, if he had thought it would make any kind of difference. You have to do it. You have to stay sober. You don’t know them but I love them and I can’t lose them, not now, not like this, not because of this.
Victors rarely ever killed themselves, they wouldn’t have made it through the arena intact without too strong a survival instinct - Ralda and Swagger were the rare exception to that rule. But Finnick thought, if he failed and lost his family like this, he wouldn’t know what to do.
He knew Haymitch well enough to know for sure he would try. He’d try with all he still had left. But that kind of pressure didn’t make it easier, it made it worse, and even normal addicts often didn’t manage to stick to the plan. Haymitch hadn’t even agreed to withdrawal by his own free will. Capitol knew what arena flashbacks or bouts of paranoia or compulsions would resurface now that the liquor couldn’t wash them away anymore, and Finnick knew for a fact that Haymitch had been sold off for a while on top of that after the Quell. He didn’t need his… dreams, his inclinations to know how that fucked you up.
The silence stretched and Haymitch said, a strange kind of strain in his voice, “If it helps, I’ll be trying to protect them like I would my own family,” and Finnick laughed, a harsh, short, bitter sound. He laughed like he’d have vomited.
Haymitch sounded like he was having a hard time finding his voice, flinching at the sound. “It’s… Listen, kid, it’s my fault obviously. I didn’t think this would… I wasn’t thinking anymore at all, I guess. Too much liquor for that. I should’ve been, considering I was around for how they made Lyra Ingram mentor here. They wouldn’t have let me get away with the drinking forever, what with me being the only one left here. President always made it clear that I hold a special place in his heart, too. I’m just real sorry it’s you. Not even sure how that happened, I mean, they shouldn’t have sent someone this popular and you’d never pissed on anybody’s porch…”
Finnick raised his head to zone in on him, so abruptly it made his eyes water.
“They didn’t send me here,” he interrupted Haymitch. “I volunteered.”
“What?” Haymitch stopped in his tracks. The way he looked at Finnick, it was clear he hadn’t even considered that, as if Finnick had said something outrageous like the sky being green or the Games all having been a drug-induced hallucination. And why should he have considered it? Finnick hadn’t considered that Haymitch might not know, either. Haymitch had probably only ever seen highlight clips of that talk show. And even if they’d let him watch a complete recap, he must have thought it was a little off but still scripted, because everything they did was always scripted, because none of them ever volunteered, baring one or two especially crazy Two and One Careers.
It had never even occurred to Finnick that Haymitch might not know.
He breathed a little, desperate laugh. What a way to get it out. “I volunteered,” he repeated. “I actually volunteered. So, you see. I made this happen. President Snow would never have sent me on his own, but I made it happen in Flickerman’s show so that he couldn’t refuse.”
He couldn’t help but wonder if Snow was listening to this conversation in the office of his mansion right now, laughing at them both.
And despite all that, Finnick still couldn’t help that little selfish power rush of remembering how good it had felt to make them do something that Snow was so powerless about. He’d pushed a piece of reality into existence, just like when twenty-three tributes had died and he’d gone back home.
With a murder weapon to mount on his wall.
It seemed that Haymitch’s mouth was suddenly too dry for proper words - hah, Finnick thought, near hysterical at the idea of it, too dry - because he opened his mouth, closed it again, hesitated. Regrouped. “And why, if I may ask,” he eventually said, very composed, “would you do something as stupid as that?”
“Because I couldn’t stand looking them in the eye anymore,” Finnick said, with the same words he’d used so long ago when he’d whispered that secret at Haymitch behind that club, except now it didn’t feel like there was any shame in it; now that it was done, he could admit to it aloud. “I couldn’t stand that they were looking at me like I’m a killer and a slut and Capitol.”
Not when two out of the three were so true, and he hadn’t been sure about the third for a while.
Haymitch just looked at him for a second like he thought Finnick had lost his mind.
Then he visibly deflated, rubbing his eyes in a gesture that just looked too tired, too tired to come up with anything productive. “Aw kid.”
“So this is my fault.” Finnick heard himself say it very firmly. Suddenly, it was possible to get it out. “I forced Snow’s hand and he punished me for that. If you should ever slip, and drink again, on camera or off, my mom or… or, any Odair dies. You didn’t have anybody left to protect and now you have me.”
“There’s always someone to protect,” Haymitch tried to wave it off but then he chuckled, as if despite himself, just this little silly, unhinged noise.
He made me touch myself in his office. Suddenly, Finnick really wanted to say that, wanted to hear those words aloud. He wanted it to stop consuming him. Normally he wanted all these things as far away from him as he could, whenever he could, but now he felt like it could spill over, like he needed this one most recent thing that had happened to spill over, so hard it threatened to make him shake. He said to show him what I had to offer. He wanted to show me that he’s still in control. I couldn’t get an erection, I’m only twenty-one and I still couldn’t get an erection, and he was looking at me. And I couldn’t, no matter how I touched myself so I had to close my eyes and… I had to picture how…
A tiny helpless sound threatened to escape his throat and he ran his hands through his hair - still stiff from Capitol hairspray - clutching at his head and forcing the shakes down, lowering his head. Forcing the images away, just redirecting his mind, every time they reappeared, until they greyed out.
He wouldn’t fall apart. Not now that he’d already made it this far. Not again.
When he took a breath and forced the worst of the tension away, possibly minutes later, he found Haymitch watching him calmly, something that wasn’t exactly concern in his eyes.
“Something I should do when that happens?” he asked mildly.
Finnick shook his head.
“Good,” Haymitch said. “Because it doesn’t look like I’ll be at liberty of offering you any white liquor for it from now on.”
“I’ve been wondering why you call it that,” Finnick said, just to hear himself talk about something else. “It isn’t white. It’s clear. I meant to ask the boy who sells the turkey, but I didn’t think he’d even like it if I asked for his name.”
“You’re buying turkey from the Hawthorne kid?” Haymitch would probably have sounded amused, if all about him hadn’t appeared too exhausted and spent. “Way to make the most important contacts right away. Sure hope you’ve met Ripper, too. She sells the booze. Probably bleeding you dry with his prices, the boy is.” And after a moment, “Pretty sure his name is Gale.”
“He sold me some goosling for you. It’s in your freezer. I had to throw out the other food, it’d gone bad. I hope it’s okay that I went into your kitchen.” Mess that it had been. He’d thrown out some things that had been rotting away on plates, too, forgotten on the counter, on the kitchen table. He wasn’t a neat freak, but that kitchen had been a little too much even for his taste.
“Thanks,” Haymitch said. “Whatever. Better you than those camera teams.” Then, he said, “And about the house.” And cleared his voice.
Finnick looked up when he didn’t continue, but now it was Haymitch who was looking away, jaw working.
“Spill,” he said. “A little late for false pride now, don’t you think?”
“I’m surprised, Mr. Odair,” he could almost hear President Snow. “I would have thought that is the only kind of pride a victor of the Hunger Games has left.”
But thinking of Snow was just threatening to make him shake right now, so he firmly trained his eyes on Haymitch.
Haymitch, who sighed as if to say, I don’t even care anymore.
“I need you to go over and throw out what’s left of the liquor before I go in,” he said. “Get rid of the stuff that smells of alcohol, too, I guess. I’ll tell you where you have to look for everything. You should probably write it down. Not a good idea to risk missing anything small.”
It was surprising, Finnick thought, how they kept finding little pieces of dignity that they could even still slice off. Surely you had to run out of them eventually, but maybe that was where that liquor came in. Maybe that was what Finnick was heading for, too.
“Sure,” he said.
“Good boy,” Haymitch said.
Later that night before he went to bed, Finnick paused at the chair the other man had been sitting on and picked up the rope, studying the knot Haymitch had taken so much care to fashion - the only kind of knot they ever had any use for here in Twelve, he’d said.
Looking it over, he snorted.
Of course, Haymitch would have made a noose.
on to chapter 8
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Where’s My Victor? If you’re looking for the Peeta/Kat bits but don’t want to bother with the whole story, I’d recommend starting at around Chapter 17, where that gets going for real, though they do make their share of appearances before that too. Gale’s appearances will be scattered through the fic more evenly. Gale and Peeta both are scheduled to make their first appearance in Chapter 6. Kat, probably Chapter 11. Chaff will be featured prominently as well.
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6
Chapter 7: Haymitch Abernathy Returns
Haymitch returned to District Twelve in late August - eight weeks after his breakdown - when humid summer sun was still burning into people’s necks and tanning even the palest miners’ faces. Reporters had come on the train alongside him, conducting their exclusive interviews on the way, but other teams set down by hovercraft and assembled their equipment before he arrived. They filmed Finnick and the district council waiting on the platform, searching the district for Haymitch’s friends and family to interview and coming up with nothing much.
Cherry had breezed in with her team and put Finnick in a real shirt with a normal neckline, creating a more adult, reputable version of him whom you wouldn’t just fuck, but also trust to handle your sponsorship money. Collar chafing his throat, he’d listened to Mrs. Mellark informing a reporter that the Games parachuteers used her recipe to send Twelve tributes bread and of course, she knew Haymitch, because Haymitch, like everybody with any taste, bought her bread day in and out. All of the district couldn’t wait to get their victor back, she assured the camera twitchily, all of them so grateful that the Capitol had taken care of him like this. Peeta, Dane and Hue Mellark were all looking like they didn’t know how they’d ever dare go back to school and work.
Barely anybody Haymitch’s age was in evidence in this district where everybody had gone to school together. Carefully blank olive-skinned faces told Finnick a story of unspoken agreements between Seam and victor: We act like we’ve never known you. You act like you’ve never known us. You don’t actually belong. Nobody will die.
Finnick first laid eyes on Haymitch stepping off the train with Effie and his stylist, a changed man, painfully healthy and sober - an image so wrong that Finnick had an urge to interrupt those reporters and ask them if they didn’t see. It was just another sick twist of Capitol media again, a world where even the sobriety of an addict could be turned into something ugly, because it only existed to please the crowds. Sobriety was good. Forcing it on somebody for entertainment was a sickening joke.
The Twelve stylist had taken more care with Haymitch than Finnick had ever seen. If he was paler than a man should be in summer, make-up was covering it up. He’d lost more weight, and what remained of his proud beer belly had been smartly smoothed out by his clothes. But Finnick still thought that he looked nothing like the starved district populations, nothing like a Capitol citizen with discount liposuctions. He still, defiantly, looked unique.
The crowd cleared and cameras flashed when Haymitch sauntered up to Finnick. Finnick strangely felt like a soldier welcoming a comrade to another battle, subconsciously pulling himself up.
They shook hands in a casual way.
“Welcome home,” Finnick said, loud enough for it to carry, because this was for the cameras. “Sorry I didn’t get one crowned for you this year.” Implying, well that improvised first try was just bound to go wrong, we all knew that, but wait for next year. Implying, soon enough I will. We’ll be building something new. Just stay tuned.
If the skin around Haymitch’s eyes looked tight from exhaustion, if his smile seemed a little too jovial to not make Finnick flinch on the inside, the cameras wouldn’t zoom in closely enough for them to catch it. “There’s always another year,” Haymitch’s strong voice boomed across the crowd. “You took excellent care of them.”
One detail that a camera would never know to capture: the Knapsweeds and the Donallies somewhere in the town square crowd, demanding that excellent care should have meant bringing Raif or Bee home. Both clearly hadn’t refused to accept Finnick’s condolences only because they hadn’t dared shutting the door in the fancy collaborator’s face.
“Haymitch! Haymitch!” one of the reporters shouted from the crowd. “Are you looking forward to living next to your new neighbor?”
Haymitch slyly looked Finnick over. “Sure gonna be a prettier view than before,” he rumbled, and everybody laughed.
They walked towards the town square together, trailed by the reporters, and the Haymitch Finnick knew would have patted his back, dragged him physically along, just because he could. Haymitch had always been strangely unafraid to touch other victors. But this public Haymitch looped his fingers into his belt on the way, good-natured air about himself while keeping his distance for the cameras.
Or maybe rehab had just changed him. They were walking close enough that Finnick should have smelled the alcohol that had always clung to Haymitch, the strangely clean-smelling and very wasted Haymitch. He’d never even a single time seen Haymitch sober before. He might as well have not known this man at all.
It wasn’t the cameras pointed at them from all around that made Finnick’s skin crawl then.
Mom. Dad. Keanu, Perri, Coral, Uncle Lauro, Uncle Jaime, he recited like a litany in his head.
***
An open-air stage had been erected in front of the Justice Building. Finnick supposed they should feel honored that Claudius Templesmith had come all the way from the Capitol to host the interview. The notorious Flickerman, he knew for a fact, vacationed at the beach of Four’s tourist quarters this time of year, abusing his privileges by renting a victor on their home turf to sweeten his nights. A victor who wouldn’t be Finnick.
Cringing to himself, he wondered if Caramel Doll had been resurrected as a whore to pinch-hit. Caramel had been allowed to retire when Finnick entered the market. They had the same hair.
Cue Claudius Templesmith, who was pudgy and jovial underneath his star-shaped, sunny yellow Mohawk and who’d never bought a victor for himself, though sometimes sprung for one for his two nieces. Templesmith had none of Flickerman’s exuberance and little of his flair; but the producers always sent him if they meant to play it safe, his pacing and control impeccable. Finnick couldn’t but wonder if Snow had sent Templesmith to prevent Finnick from running the show, and it filled him with a grim sense of satisfaction to know he’d scared that man. He’d never again be that victor Snow could trust to perform.
It was unflappable Templesmith who had conducted all the interviews with Johanna at her most uncontrollable, though Finnick had always suspected that was also partly because she made Flickerman wet his pants.
“So Haymitch,” Templesmith said, folding his hands over his belly and blinking into the sun behind them, setting the stage for easily digestible breakfast television. “Let me start by saying that you look astonishingly good. We’re all glad to see you at your best again. What does it feel like to finally be home?”
“Oh, you know,” Haymitch shrugged it off, harrumphing vaguely. “Thanks, I guess. And good. It feels good. The Capitol’s golden, but who’d like staying at a hospital?” He smirked weakly. “No place like home and all that.”
He was fading after the long morning of interviews, making Finnick wonder in concern what they had done to him in that place, during those eight weeks under lock and key. Detoxing, whatever that was like. Therapy with doctors who didn’t believe that the Games could fuck you up and who thought you self-involved for saying otherwise. Finnick knew that rehab was a wonderful idea in theory, another privilege the districts were denied. But that was for people who wanted to be there. Forced sobriety, he uneasily thought, was just torture, like the Games.
He tried not to look at Haymitch’s hand, resting on the arm of his chair currently.
Not trembling from withdrawal symptoms anymore.
“Yes,” Templesmith said easily, obviously sensing that Haymitch wasn’t willing, or just too exhausted to lead on without strong cues. “But there are dangers to returning to the familiar surroundings of home, too, we’ve been told by your attending physicians.”
“About picking up old habits,” Haymitch agreed. “Yeah. But I’m… I mean, it’s not gonna be easy, I know that,” he corrected himself. “It’s gonna be really hard. When I’m here, I’m still used to the way things used to be, the old routines. The ones that made me drink.” Nobody in the Capitol would ever know how much dignity it cost you to say something like that while a camera was pointed at your face for a close-up, capturing how you were paling or whether you’d cry. “I’ve been warned about that. We talked about it a lot, my therapists and me. I know that danger. But I’ll be checking back in with my doctor by phone all the time. I’ve decided to be optimistic about it, you know? I’m grateful that I’m getting this opportunity for a new start. And all the support from everybody.”
“Ah yes. About that. My team was a little shocked when we arrived here, I have to tell you. It’s been impossible to find the people close to you, waiting for you to return.” Templesmith frowned at Haymitch. “You haven’t been holing up in your house and drinking all year, now have you?” He winked. “Nobody to tuck you in during lonely nights, hm?”
Huffing a chuckle, Haymitch waved it off. “We’re a camera shy bunch here in Twelve,” he said and Finnick saw how he waited until Templesmith’s lips twitched, checking back with the host if he still was on track. “But it’s a part of the problem,” he continued. “Honestly, I’m the solitary type by nature. It’s sometimes… it can be hard to reconnect with your district once you’ve gotten used to the Capitol lifestyle.”
Another slice of your soul sold off, almost palpably widening that chasm between Haymitch and the people on the square. Finnick didn’t look, but he listened for them, and he couldn’t even make out a cough. It was easy to imagine what they were thinking behind their carefully blank expressions.
Templesmith smiled. “How do you plan on helping Haymitch acclimatize, Finnick?”
“Well, we don’t know each other that well yet, actually,” Finnick replied promptly. “I respect Haymitch a lot, obviously. We worked side by side as mentors last year and now that I’ve experienced the strain of mentoring alone, I’m all the more impressed by his work. But I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” He addressed Haymitch at that, who produced a reciprocating hum and nodded. “We’re going to be working together closely, of course, plotting future Games. And we’ll be neighbors in the Victors’ Village.” He smiled, making it sound as if he was talking of night clubs and the promise of a lay. “I’ll make sure he gets out a little more. Twelve is such a beautiful district. A lot of places to go.”
If you want to be stabbed in the back.
Templesmith looked pleased at the answer. “I know there are many people in District Twelve who would be honored to spend time with you, Haymitch,” he said. “And a little tolerance for the less educated people in your district is not asking too much. My team tells me that everybody is delighted to finally have you back safe and sound.”
This was the point where a Capitol audience would have exploded into spontaneous affirmative applause, cheering and whistling and waving their banners, banners they spent days painting at their fan club meetings, a popular hobby. In the lead-up coverage last night, Finnick had even seen a couple of those, sporting portraits of a younger Haymitch, sometimes Finnick next to him and captions of, Remember that the odds are ever in your favor! and, Haymitch & Finnick - District Twelve for victory! Some had Swagger, Haymitch, Finnick but the Swagger scratched out and the Finnick added above it by hand.
But Finnick had been here long enough to not at all be surprised when here in front of the Twelve audience, they were greeted by silence as thick as a shroud. Next to him, Haymitch didn’t even seem to be listening for a reaction.
Somewhere, somebody coughed wetly from black lung disease.
Templesmith moved on to the next topic.
They wouldn’t have staged this open-air if the district’s reactions mattered to this broadcast, obviously.
***
The Templesmith interview was followed by a press conference for the private channels and less prominent publishers such as Capitol Whispers and Where’s My Victor? They asked questions ranging from what diet had the rehab center put Haymitch on (“Uhm, you’d have to ask them that. Lot of greens?”), and was Finnick planning on seeing Marcus Honarius again or had it only been a season fling (“I’d have to wait and see if he’d even still want me next year, now would I?” which was so hysterically true that it threatened to make him cry right there). After that, the cameras followed them to Victors’ Village. They filmed what Finnick had done with his new house, comparing it to his old cottage on Victors’ Rock. Haymitch’s house was still in terrible shape even now that Effie had told the gardener to get his lawn in order for the camera, and have the broken benches on his porch replaced, but the reporters just blithely talked about what Capitol designers could learn from these cozy and quaint “district style” choices. In the end, it was just one last photographer shooting pictures of the empty houses at the Village for an art exhibit that would apparently be called “Panemara: Expectance of Bliss,” and then his hovercraft left, too.
After making his goodbyes to Effie, who was still talking media monitoring at Haymitch, Finnick went to his house and holed up in his bedroom, where he sat down on the bed and stared at his trident mounted on the wall across, waiting for the other man to show up. He’d chosen this room to sleep because the oak outside would allow him to climb down to the ground floor if he heard somebody intrude, and he told himself it wasn’t any weirder than keeping his trident around, nothing wrong with one less little thing nagging at him. There were plenty victors crazier than that.
It was quiet now that everybody had left, faint song of birds returning to the Village through the open window, the rushing of a mountain full of trees from way beyond the fence. Afternoon sun fell all across the floor, the polished golden alloy of the trident reflecting it in all the places where blood should be dripping off the prongs and the shaft. Although Finnick didn’t doubt for a second that this room had been bugged, it felt for the first time like the media truly had left.
Haymitch was back. The first act of the story had finally played out. And Finnick was living in Twelve, as far away from home as it got.
It wasn’t long before Haymitch showed up. Downstairs, the kitchen door fell shut just loudly enough for him to hear, and heavy footsteps echoed through the house. They grew louder up the stairs, passing by the open doors of the other rooms and faltering before this one. After a pause, there was a surprisingly soft knock and a moment of nothing, until Finnick said, “Come in.”
In the corner of his eye, the door opened to reveal Haymitch, who paused and had an almost hesitant look around. Remembering disdainful eyes on the streets and the ruins of a house across the lawn, Finnick wondered how long it had been since Haymitch had entered anybody’s bedroom, especially by free will. Then again, he couldn’t remember when anybody had last entered his own bedroom on Victors’ Rock without any discomfort, so he guessed that evened that out.
So the Games had made him crazy, he thought, suddenly incapable of pulling his eyes away from the imaginary blood of his weapon. So be it. In his seven years in the Capitol, he’d seen Brutus compulsively obsessed with victory as if each new victor made up for the tributes he’d killed; Six’s Ralda had committed suicide just last year with the same poison she’d used to discard of her arena opponents, and there’d been his district’s Annie, more honest than most of them, losing it then and there during her Games.
“You might as well take a seat,” Finnick said without turning his eyes away from it.
“Nice decoration piece,” Haymitch quipped and now Finnick did look up, found that Haymitch had slumped into an arm chair in a corner of the room.
Idly reaching for a piece of rope lying discarded on a shelf, the other victor started to wrap it around his fingers in preparation of a knot.
“I’ll tell my interior designer you said so.”
“He wouldn’t go by the name of Snow, because that’s mine, too,” Haymitch deadpanned. Then without looking up, as if prepared for chitchat, “Only one knot we really have a use for here in Twelve.”
Finnick squeezed his eyes shut for a second and rubbed his neck, trying to chase that dissociative feeling away and focusing firmly on the here and now. Haymitch was back in his view, crooking his head and working and reworking his knot that he apparently didn’t quite remember how to do, none of a Four native’s finesse who’d have learned that in Games school. There was no Games school Haymitch could have learned anything at. And there were so many things that needed to be said, before they ate Finnick up.
“So I guess ‘sorry’ doesn’t even start to cover it,” he said more lightly than he felt.
Haymitch looked up from his work. “Huh?”
Finnick chuckled without humor in reply. He hated apologizing, not because he felt like he shouldn’t have to - sometimes he felt like he should have to all day - but because he’d rather not think of all his flaws when he could avoid it. Some weren’t just a matter of lonely nights and dreams, though. Some were broadcast on Flickerman’s show.
“Sorry I didn’t get Bee or Raif home, for one,” he said, starting with the easiest. “They were good kids. They deserved to get a chance. I did everything I could - they might as well have gotten lucky, you saw that arena - but, they just didn’t.”
“And you’ll understand soon enough that that’s just how it works for District Twelve,” Haymitch replied, conversationally. He pointed his half-finished work at Finnick. “I’ll give you points for Capitol levels of delusion, though. You seriously think all we ever needed to do well in the Games was a pretty face with better connections?”
Of course he grimaced apologetically the second the words had left his mouth, because they both of them knew that getting too drunk to stand upright didn’t qualify as doing well enough, and Finnick’s pretty face and better connections meant he had to beg for more while movie stars fucked him without lube and politicians came on his face.
There was something dangerous about Haymitch when sober, dangerous and sharp, as if the booze had blunted his edges and now they were back, with force, whether he wanted them to be or not.
“Go on,” he goaded Finnick. “I’m curious to hear how this mess is your fault.”
Finnick stared at Haymitch’s hands, curling and uncurling around the rope, but the words suddenly wouldn’t form.
“Your district really doesn’t like me,” he heard himself say instead. “They look at me as if… I don’t know… as if I’ll steal something from them on top of taking their children to die in the Games, or something like that.”
“Can’t get sponsorship from each and every fan club,” Haymitch said, citing a proverb Five’s James had made up. “First and last victor who hit it off with the district, counting substitutes, was Swagger. Told them little lies about how he’d bring plenty tributes home, and there’s a reason he made it no ten years before we found him hanging from a tree. It’s better to stay on your own. It’s safer.”
You can’t lose anybody close to you if there is nobody close to you in the first place. He didn’t say that, but Finnick had seen the Abernathy execution and he suddenly wondered if Haymitch ever had, and he didn’t need to know Haymitch more intimately to hear the unspoken words. But he’d seen District Twelve, too. He thought he’d already gotten a better look at District Twelve than any outsider had since Lyra. He wondered if she’d told Haymitch when he moved into the Village to stick to himself, like she must have when he went into a forty-eight tributes arena with a plan to go it alone.
It hadn’t turned out safer for Haymitch in the end, though. It had almost left him dead at the foot of his stairs, and the only reason he’d been found had been because of Reaping Day.
When it became clear to Haymitch that Finnick didn’t know what to say, the older victor sighed a little to himself and refocused on the rope, loosening it and starting again, now with more certainty about how to fashion the knot, as if it had taken him some time to recall. “So Snow and I had a little talk during my health-related stay at beautiful White Feathers Rehab Center.” Automatically, Finnick looked up, something recoiling in his guts. “Came to reassure himself that I’d be fine, I’m sure.” Haymitch smirked. “Negotiated the terms of releasing me into the wild again.”
“Oh?” Finnick said, mouth dry.
“Yeah,” Haymitch said, and there was an almost visible stutter right then, when his casualness dripped out of him, like water spurts. Staring at the rope for a moment, he threw the finished work back on the shelf without showing it off. Again, he sighed, and this time it was the most exhausted, emptied sound that Finnick had ever heard him make. He moved to rest his elbows on his thighs, rubbing his hands together. Then he looked up at Finnick.
“He’s gonna start killing your family if I don’t stay dry for good.” He said it off-handedly, as if there was nothing that could be done about it anyway, so why bother with emotions anymore.
Finnick resisted an urge to squeeze his eyes shut again in an attempt to keep it all out, just, keep it as far away from him as he could. He resisted an urge to look at his trident, too, sink into that sight and let it soothe him because it wouldn’t, not now. It would just make him cry, remind him of all the things he didn’t have the power to change.
“I know.”
Haymitch nodded, as if he’d guessed. “So that’s where I’m sorry,” he said.
Can you do it? He wished it made any sense to ask or even beg. He wouldn’t have hesitated to beg, on his knees, if he had thought it would make any kind of difference. You have to do it. You have to stay sober. You don’t know them but I love them and I can’t lose them, not now, not like this, not because of this.
Victors rarely ever killed themselves, they wouldn’t have made it through the arena intact without too strong a survival instinct - Ralda and Swagger were the rare exception to that rule. But Finnick thought, if he failed and lost his family like this, he wouldn’t know what to do.
He knew Haymitch well enough to know for sure he would try. He’d try with all he still had left. But that kind of pressure didn’t make it easier, it made it worse, and even normal addicts often didn’t manage to stick to the plan. Haymitch hadn’t even agreed to withdrawal by his own free will. Capitol knew what arena flashbacks or bouts of paranoia or compulsions would resurface now that the liquor couldn’t wash them away anymore, and Finnick knew for a fact that Haymitch had been sold off for a while on top of that after the Quell. He didn’t need his… dreams, his inclinations to know how that fucked you up.
The silence stretched and Haymitch said, a strange kind of strain in his voice, “If it helps, I’ll be trying to protect them like I would my own family,” and Finnick laughed, a harsh, short, bitter sound. He laughed like he’d have vomited.
Haymitch sounded like he was having a hard time finding his voice, flinching at the sound. “It’s… Listen, kid, it’s my fault obviously. I didn’t think this would… I wasn’t thinking anymore at all, I guess. Too much liquor for that. I should’ve been, considering I was around for how they made Lyra Ingram mentor here. They wouldn’t have let me get away with the drinking forever, what with me being the only one left here. President always made it clear that I hold a special place in his heart, too. I’m just real sorry it’s you. Not even sure how that happened, I mean, they shouldn’t have sent someone this popular and you’d never pissed on anybody’s porch…”
Finnick raised his head to zone in on him, so abruptly it made his eyes water.
“They didn’t send me here,” he interrupted Haymitch. “I volunteered.”
“What?” Haymitch stopped in his tracks. The way he looked at Finnick, it was clear he hadn’t even considered that, as if Finnick had said something outrageous like the sky being green or the Games all having been a drug-induced hallucination. And why should he have considered it? Finnick hadn’t considered that Haymitch might not know, either. Haymitch had probably only ever seen highlight clips of that talk show. And even if they’d let him watch a complete recap, he must have thought it was a little off but still scripted, because everything they did was always scripted, because none of them ever volunteered, baring one or two especially crazy Two and One Careers.
It had never even occurred to Finnick that Haymitch might not know.
He breathed a little, desperate laugh. What a way to get it out. “I volunteered,” he repeated. “I actually volunteered. So, you see. I made this happen. President Snow would never have sent me on his own, but I made it happen in Flickerman’s show so that he couldn’t refuse.”
He couldn’t help but wonder if Snow was listening to this conversation in the office of his mansion right now, laughing at them both.
And despite all that, Finnick still couldn’t help that little selfish power rush of remembering how good it had felt to make them do something that Snow was so powerless about. He’d pushed a piece of reality into existence, just like when twenty-three tributes had died and he’d gone back home.
With a murder weapon to mount on his wall.
It seemed that Haymitch’s mouth was suddenly too dry for proper words - hah, Finnick thought, near hysterical at the idea of it, too dry - because he opened his mouth, closed it again, hesitated. Regrouped. “And why, if I may ask,” he eventually said, very composed, “would you do something as stupid as that?”
“Because I couldn’t stand looking them in the eye anymore,” Finnick said, with the same words he’d used so long ago when he’d whispered that secret at Haymitch behind that club, except now it didn’t feel like there was any shame in it; now that it was done, he could admit to it aloud. “I couldn’t stand that they were looking at me like I’m a killer and a slut and Capitol.”
Not when two out of the three were so true, and he hadn’t been sure about the third for a while.
Haymitch just looked at him for a second like he thought Finnick had lost his mind.
Then he visibly deflated, rubbing his eyes in a gesture that just looked too tired, too tired to come up with anything productive. “Aw kid.”
“So this is my fault.” Finnick heard himself say it very firmly. Suddenly, it was possible to get it out. “I forced Snow’s hand and he punished me for that. If you should ever slip, and drink again, on camera or off, my mom or… or, any Odair dies. You didn’t have anybody left to protect and now you have me.”
“There’s always someone to protect,” Haymitch tried to wave it off but then he chuckled, as if despite himself, just this little silly, unhinged noise.
He made me touch myself in his office. Suddenly, Finnick really wanted to say that, wanted to hear those words aloud. He wanted it to stop consuming him. Normally he wanted all these things as far away from him as he could, whenever he could, but now he felt like it could spill over, like he needed this one most recent thing that had happened to spill over, so hard it threatened to make him shake. He said to show him what I had to offer. He wanted to show me that he’s still in control. I couldn’t get an erection, I’m only twenty-one and I still couldn’t get an erection, and he was looking at me. And I couldn’t, no matter how I touched myself so I had to close my eyes and… I had to picture how…
A tiny helpless sound threatened to escape his throat and he ran his hands through his hair - still stiff from Capitol hairspray - clutching at his head and forcing the shakes down, lowering his head. Forcing the images away, just redirecting his mind, every time they reappeared, until they greyed out.
He wouldn’t fall apart. Not now that he’d already made it this far. Not again.
When he took a breath and forced the worst of the tension away, possibly minutes later, he found Haymitch watching him calmly, something that wasn’t exactly concern in his eyes.
“Something I should do when that happens?” he asked mildly.
Finnick shook his head.
“Good,” Haymitch said. “Because it doesn’t look like I’ll be at liberty of offering you any white liquor for it from now on.”
“I’ve been wondering why you call it that,” Finnick said, just to hear himself talk about something else. “It isn’t white. It’s clear. I meant to ask the boy who sells the turkey, but I didn’t think he’d even like it if I asked for his name.”
“You’re buying turkey from the Hawthorne kid?” Haymitch would probably have sounded amused, if all about him hadn’t appeared too exhausted and spent. “Way to make the most important contacts right away. Sure hope you’ve met Ripper, too. She sells the booze. Probably bleeding you dry with his prices, the boy is.” And after a moment, “Pretty sure his name is Gale.”
“He sold me some goosling for you. It’s in your freezer. I had to throw out the other food, it’d gone bad. I hope it’s okay that I went into your kitchen.” Mess that it had been. He’d thrown out some things that had been rotting away on plates, too, forgotten on the counter, on the kitchen table. He wasn’t a neat freak, but that kitchen had been a little too much even for his taste.
“Thanks,” Haymitch said. “Whatever. Better you than those camera teams.” Then, he said, “And about the house.” And cleared his voice.
Finnick looked up when he didn’t continue, but now it was Haymitch who was looking away, jaw working.
“Spill,” he said. “A little late for false pride now, don’t you think?”
“I’m surprised, Mr. Odair,” he could almost hear President Snow. “I would have thought that is the only kind of pride a victor of the Hunger Games has left.”
But thinking of Snow was just threatening to make him shake right now, so he firmly trained his eyes on Haymitch.
Haymitch, who sighed as if to say, I don’t even care anymore.
“I need you to go over and throw out what’s left of the liquor before I go in,” he said. “Get rid of the stuff that smells of alcohol, too, I guess. I’ll tell you where you have to look for everything. You should probably write it down. Not a good idea to risk missing anything small.”
It was surprising, Finnick thought, how they kept finding little pieces of dignity that they could even still slice off. Surely you had to run out of them eventually, but maybe that was where that liquor came in. Maybe that was what Finnick was heading for, too.
“Sure,” he said.
“Good boy,” Haymitch said.
Later that night before he went to bed, Finnick paused at the chair the other man had been sitting on and picked up the rope, studying the knot Haymitch had taken so much care to fashion - the only kind of knot they ever had any use for here in Twelve, he’d said.
Looking it over, he snorted.
Of course, Haymitch would have made a noose.
on to chapter 8