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maysileeewrites · 20 days ago

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bittersweet symphony || chapter 3

Haymitch Abernathy x f!reader || series masterlist

Summary: Being back in District Twelve isn't at all the silver lining you'd imagined it to be ... [read chapter two here]

w.c.: 4.8k || t.w.: mentions of grief & death, reader and Haymitch are doing their best to deal with things, angst!!, another very angsty look at Haymitch's thoughts (oh, the self-sabotage), mentions of survivor's guilt

AN: I'm so sorry that it took me like forever to get this chapter out, but Uni's so incredibly stressful rn. This chapter is very much a transitional chapter - I found myself constantly rewriting chunks of it, but in the end I decided to include all of the messy emotional stuff reader and Haymitch are going through. The plot will pick up within the next chapter though, we're nearing the first major turning point of the story ...

The morning after the festivities thrown for your return to District Twelve, you stay in bed for as long as possible.

Not because you’re tired - though you feel such an all-encompassing numbness that the whole night spent tossing and turning doesn’t seem to have settled deep down in your bones just yet - but because you can’t stand the thought of actually getting up and facing the day.

Because getting up would mean having to go down the grand marble staircase of the new grand and cold house your family now lives in, and having to face your family at the grand mahogany table in the kitchen for breakfast.

You can picture it all on your head: your brothers, Will and Felix, bickering over who gets the larger slice of bread, and your dad watching them with a knowing, tired smile on his face. He’d be the first one to notice you approaching, looking up at you and asking you how you’ve slept and whether you want tea from some herbs growing in the meadow behind the house or some fresh milk from the goat for breakfast. You’d answer tea, as you always do, grinning, as you’d ruffle through Will’s hair, ignoring his cries of protest.

But all that is a thing of the past now, isn’t it?

Your family won’t need to rely on the goat producing milk anymore and you won’t have to harvest the wild, overgrown meadow behind your ramshackle house for some mint or chamomile leaves to make tea. Your dad won’t look worn down with exhaustion from his shift down at the mines from yesterday, and he won’t be in a hurry to leave for work, ruffling through Will’s and Felix’ hair before leaving. Because due to your new status as a victor of the Hunger Games, you’re rich now. Or at least richer than everyone else in District Twelve, excluding Haymitch.

You’re rich now, and your family won’t have to worry about money anymore, but somehow the thought doesn’t fill you with as much happiness as it probably should. Instead, the only thing you feel is this numbness, this bone-deep, aching exhaustion.

You’re a victor now.

And even though it’s only been a bit over a month since you’ve left District Twelve for the Hunger Games, you can already feel the person you used to be back then starting to slip away from you. Who you were back then, that kind and caring, innocent person is slipping through your fingers one sleepless night, one nightmare about all the other dead tributes at a time.

You’re not who you were when you left, but still you feel an immense, desperate urge to shield your family from that darkness inside you. You don’t want your Dad to see the tired sadness in your eyes, you don’t want your little brothers to hear you wake up screaming in the middle of the night-

Suddenly, there’s a knock at your door. It’s short and impatient, so you immediately rule out your dad. When the door opens, before you even get the chance to answer, you hastily sit up, trying to appear as though you didn’t just spent the better part of the last several hours in bed, wearily watching the sun rise on the horizon.

„See, I told Dad that you’re already up!“, Will says, not even bothering with a good morning. But that’s your loud, frantic little brother for you.

You cross your arms in front of your chest. Somehow, with Will standing there in the doorway looking at you with an irritated sense of exasperation that feels all too familiar, the grin stealing its way onto your lips feels natural, and not at all forced.

„I could’ve still been sleeping!“, you say, shaking your head. „And good morning to you too, Will.“

Will just roles his eyes. „Yes, but it’s well after ten in the morning - if I were someone else, I’d have yanked away your sheets first.“

You roll your eyes at the way he emphasized the ‚someone else‘. Will’s always been a heavy sleeper, so whenever he didn’t wake up in time for school - which happened much more often than he’d care to admit -, it was up to you to see to it that he and Felix would still leave the house on time. Over the years, you’d tried a lot of different methods of getting Will to wake up, aggressively opening the old, threadbare curtains to let the bright sunlight in and turning the volume of your family’s old, crackly radio up to its highest capacity among them. But over time you’d worked out that while everything else might fail, yanking away his bed sheets would have him sit up in bed like nothing else.

You can feel a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips, but then your warm and comforting childhood memories are overshadowed by something else.

Will said that it’s already well after ten in the morning - you can’t remember ever sleeping that long. Or rather, staying in bed that long. Somehow, being faced with the time of day, actually getting up out of bed feels even more impossible now.

„ - hey, you alright?“, Will asks you. Though he’s sat down at the edge of your bed, he sounds as if he’s far away from you.

He says your name again, clear concern for you now etched onto his features.

You blink, forcing a smile onto your face. „Sure, I’m just - it’s been a lot with the festivities and all …“, you say, your voice trailing off, as your mind inevitably takes you back to last night. Seeing Will dance together with Ellerie Foster. The look of hurt and confusion on Ellerie’s face when you just left her standing there like that with no explanation. And Haymitch, his taunting words and the mocking tone in which he delivered them a stark contrast to the profoundly sad expression in his bright grey eyes.

Will nods, refocusing your attention back on the current moment. „I - I can’t even begin to imagine how you must be feeling … what you’ve gone through …“, he says, his voice uncharacteristically serious, void of the bravado he typically displays so well. „I mean, seeing it - watching you and Kai, s-seeing it all …“

„Will“, you say, your voice breaking and suddenly it takes everything in you not to break down into tears right then and there. But this is Will, your sweet, fourteen year-old little brother. And while you might not be able to shield him from everything bad in this world - these last few weeks have very much proven that -, this isn’t his burden to bear. It’s bad enough knowing that he and Felix and your dad watched your moments in the Games on television. But you don’t want either of your little brothers finding you plagued by nightmares in the middle of the night. That’s not their burden, not their pain to bear.

„W-what I’m t-trying to say, I guess - is - if you ever need to talk to to someone …“, Will offers, his eyes finding yours. „I mean - I know I’m only your stupid little brother“, he adds, in a very exaggerated imitation of your voice, causing you to smile faintly. „But I just - I want you to know that we’re all here for you. You’re not alone.“

Tears threaten to blur your vision and you feel your throat closing up. Fearing that any attempt at speaking right now would only end up in miserable croaks, you just lean forward and hug Will tightly to you.

For once, he doesn’t protest the display of sisterly affection, hugging you back just as tightly.

Your heart aches. When did Will, your annoyingly over-confident little brother become so wise? When did he grow up so much?

„Thank you“, you say, forcing the words out. „I love you all so much.“

That, at least is the truth. But as you hug Will to yourself, you make a promise to yourself: Will might be right in saying that you’re not alone, but you absolutely do not want to to drag him and Felix into everything that’s happened to you in the Games and in the Capitol.

These memories are not their burden to bear, not their pain to deal with.

Time passes.

The oppressive, sweltering heat of August gives way to a September that’s just as unbearably hot and dry, though up in your grand new mansion in the Victor’s Village it’s decidedly more bearable than it was all the other years down in the Seam.

You still visit the Seam regularly, though.

A few days after your return to District Twelve, you set off to the little crooked house Kai’s family lives in. The smell of bean and ham hock soup still seems to permeate the air - or at least it feels that way to you, almost making you turn around and head back home right then and there.

But you persist. If nothing else, you owe this to Kai - you’ve always watched out for each other, and this is no different than that.

At first, Kai’s mother seems just as happy as ever to see you, but soon enough, the conversation feels unbearably heavy and uncomfortable, especially once Ellerie gets home from school.

For a moment, you and Ellerie just stand there, staring at each other.

„I- I’m really sorry“, you say, your voice sounding strained and on the verge of breaking, „I - I know that it could never truly make up for anything, but I wanted to you to know that I want to share my winnings with you. I - Kai and I we - we talked about it, before the Games, agreeing that should either of us survive the Games, we’d share the money with the other’s family-“

„That’s a wonderful idea“, Kai’s mother interrupts you gently, „you two were always looking out for each other.“

You want to say something, anything, but you find yourself unable to speak.

But then Ellerie says your name, her dark grey eyes, so very much like Kai’s, finding yours. „Thank you.“

That’s all she says, but the heavy weight and the quiet sincerity behind her words tell you much more than all the words in the world ever could.

You nod, holding her gaze. „Anything.“

After that, it’s almost harder visiting the Seam, especially for Kai’s funeral at the beginning of September. Even the weather has shifted from District Twelve’s typical insufferable summer heat to the first inklings of an autumn breeze.

The funeral is a much bigger affair than you’d expected - it feels like almost everyone from the Seam is here. Which of course only makes sense, with the way Kai seemed to know almost everyone. Truly, you’d never realized just how lucky you were that he always chose to spend most of his time with you.

Your family’s there as well, Felix crying quietly into your father’s side and Will squeezing your hand almost knowingly, before you walk forward to where Ellerie and Kai’s mother are standing. They’d asked you beforehand whether you’d wanted to say something at the funeral and you’d agreed, somewhat hesitantly. Not because you don’t want to honor Kai’s memory, but because it’s hard enough trying to deal with your grief on your own.

It’s one thing to wake up with Kai’s name echoing through your mind, your eyes burning with unshed tears after yet another nightmare in the middle of the night - alone and in your bedroom. It’s another thing entirely to be standing in front of his small grave, looking at all the people surrounding you.

So many people came.

So many lives that Kai’s soul touched, somehow.

And for a moment, you can almost feel him standing next to you, grinning at your thoughts. Come on, he’d say, amusement in his bright grey eyes, don’t exaggerate.

You steel your shoulders, the vision of Kai standing next to you, squeezing your hand encouragingly, giving you the strength to go on.

„Kai was my best friend“, you start to say, your voice carrying out over the small meadow. „But he was so much more than that. He was Iris’ son and Ellerie’s annoying, overly protective older brother.“ At that, you hear Ellerie chuckling faintly.

„His life was cut far too short by the Games, yet he touched a lot of other lives. Back in the Arena, he didn’t only try to protect me, his District partner. It was his idea to protect Flora and Dalton, Finn and Sarah, and Cassie and Lucas, too. He knew that, in the end, only one of us could win the Games, and yet he still wanted to protect them all.“

You pause, needing a moment to collect your thoughts, to collect yourself. To fight off brutal memories from your time in the Arena. No matter how much time passes, it never seems to get any easier shaking off all your darkest, most disturbing memories.

When you look back up, your eyes meet an all too-familiar pair of bright grey ones.

Haymitch.

It can’t be, you think, almost expecting Haymitch to not stand there, far off to the side in between two massive oak trees, when you blink. But he’s still standing there, still staring at you, with an indecipherable, dark and heavy expression in his gaze, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his hands for once void of a liquor bottle.

He holds your gaze, one of his eyebrows cocked as if to say go on.

You breathe in deeply, squaring your shoulders, feeling out for that vision of Kai standing next to you again. Because even though you’re wondering what on earth Haymitch is doing here and what he’s been up to during the weeks you’ve been back in District Twelve - even though you’re practically neighbors now, you haven’t seen him once since the evening of your return, which is probably for the best -, this moment doesn’t belong to Haymitch.

It’s Kai’s, through and through.

„But that was Kai for you“, you say, picking your speech up again. „Always looking out for others. Always caring. Always offering a helping hand …“

After you finish, there’s a moment of silence. It stretches on, yet not uncomfortably so, until Iris steps forward, squeezing your hand.

„Thank you.“

You nod. „Of course.“

You attempt a smile, but Iris seems to see right through you, because she hugs you to her chest, right as your tears start to fall. And for a moment, you allow yourself to be held and comforted by Iris.

But then you square your shoulders again, stepping back. Still, you’re grateful when Ellerie reaches for your hand.

When you look around the meadow again, the spot between the two massive oak tress is empty once again.

During the next few months, that’s all you ever see of Haymitch: small glimpses, all of them over so quickly that they all make you question whether or not you didn’t just imagine them in the first place.

He mostly seems to keep to himself, secluded in his grand mansion just down the end of the road of the Victor’s Village. More often than you’d like, you catch yourself thinking about him and about how he’s doing. He must be incredibly lonely, cooped up in that big house all by himself, for days on end. How does he deal with it, with the loneliness and the memories and the nightmares?

Does he still wake up screaming every night as well?

Is he still being plagued by nightmares of his time in the Arena?

Or is that where all that white liquor you keep seeing getting delivered to his house gets into place? Is that his way of trying to cope with everything - just trying to drown all his sorrows in alcohol?

Some days - those are usually your better days, the ones you spend surrounded by your friends and family, keeping your mind as preoccupied and focused on good, happier thoughts as much as possible - you just feel incredibly sad for Haymitch, your heart breaking for the lonely man living just a few houses down the road.

How does he survive it, always isolating himself like that?, you catch yourself thinking on an evening in early October.

It’s a Saturday evening and after being talked down by Will and Felix for the better part of the last hour, your dad has agreed to let Iris and Ellerie stay the night at your place. You’re in the middle of a game of cards with your loved ones, surrounded by warmth and laughter, yet you can’t help but look out the window at the dark and empty street outside. A faint autumn breeze swirls a few colored leaves in the air, but that’s the only movement you can see outside.

Everything else, including Haymitch’s house down the road seems empty and deserted.

Lifeless.

On other days though, you start to think that Haymitch might be onto something, always having a bottle of mind-numbing liquor at the ready.

Those are your bad days, the ones where you already start the day in a dark, empty place, your mind full of images of Kai’s lifeless body, of Flora torn apart by mutts.

Those are days where you can hardly talk yourself into getting out of bed, where you feel as if you’ll never escape the Arena, as if you’ll always exist in this prison of your own mind, your friends and family always impossibly out of reach.

Those days, you mostly keep to yourself.

Some days, you end up wandering aimlessly through District Twelve, first haunting the empty streets of the Victor’s Village, then the town square and finally moving on to your old neighborhood in the Seam.

Other days, you spend all day-long sitting perched on your windowsill, watching summer storms crackling through the air, autumn leaves swirling in the distance, the first fall of snow settling on the pavement outside.

Sitting there, perched on your windowsill, a cup of tea long gone cold clutched in your hand, you think that maybe that’s the way it’ll always be, that you’ll be always be condemned to be nothing more than an outsider, always observing, never belonging.

Some days, you can be surrounded by laughter and your brothers’ arguing echoing through the air, and still feel incredibly lonely and separate from everyone else. Those are the days where you strangely feel closer than ever to Haymitch, even though you haven’t spoken to each other in months.

How relieving it must be, you think, leaning your head against the cold windowpane, to be able to turn your mind off completely.

Before he knows it, nearly four months have passed, and it’s almost time to pack up his things once again and board the train to start her Victory tour.

The letter - written and sent to him by none other than one insufferable Effie Trinket herself - containing their schedules for the tour, is lying in the exact same spot he dropped it, after opening it two weeks ago.

Usually, he only receives a letter from Effie Trinket once a year - every year during the middle of June, without a doubt, there will be a letter in Effie Trinket’s elegant scrawl waiting for him, stamped from the Capitol, informing him of his never-changing schedule for the Reaping.

This year had been no different, and after opening the letter, his eyes skimming over the note on beige parchment - this year, decorated with some delicate flowers - Effie had attached to his schedule, he’d dropped the letter right on top of the stack on his writing desk.

Over the years, he’s kept all the letters containing his schedules and the personal notes from Effie. He’s not quite sure why, though.

The first year after his own Hunger Games, he was this close to just feeding the sheets of paper to the fire he’d got started in his fireplace just for that purpose, but something made him stop. He took a step back, crumpling the letter in his hand and dropping the crumpled pieces of paper on his writing desk, before reaching for his half empty bottle of white liquor instead.

To this day, he’s still not quite sure why he kept that letter, and every single one after that.

It’s not like Effie Trinket is a close confidant of his. Truly, he’d not even consider her a friend. Though maybe that doesn’t say much, because nowadays, there’s no one he’d consider a friend, except for-

No.

He shakes his head, taking another swig of his bottle, trying to force his thoughts back to the problem at hand.

Easier said than done.

Even as he tries to focus his thoughts on Effie’s one-sided correspondence, her face still keeps coming up in his mind.

The way she’d looked at Kai Foster’s funeral, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. He remembers thinking that, for a moment, she’d seemed so frail, and lost. Almost as if a simple blast of air might knock her off her feet altogether. But then she’d squared her shoulders, stepping forward. Chin held high, her face so sad and heartbroken, yet in her eyes there was an angry, almost defiant spark. It was that exact same spark he’d seen in her that first day on the train, the same spark that initially drew him to-

Haymitch hastily gets up then, almost knocking over his bottle of liquor in the process.

Air, he thinks, grabbing his bottle and throwing a woolen coat over his pajamas, he just needs some fresh air, and then he’ll be able to get his head on straight again. Or, well, as straight as can be in his particular case.

He stumbles out of the door of his house, some Capitol news show still on the television, the fireplace crackling.

The cold, chilly November night air hits him immediately and he breathes in greedy lungfuls of fresh air.

That’s better, he thinks, allowing himself one big swig of liquor from his bottle. Much better.

He just needs to make it through that dreadful Victory tour, and then he can go on doing his best ignoring her day in and day out. Ignoring her, even though they’re practically neighbors now, and some nights, he sits huddled on the front porch of his house, listening to the laughter coming from her house.

His grip on the bottle tightens, as he blindly and aimlessly stumbles through the dark, deserted street.

Forget. Ignore.

Forget.

Don’t even think about it.

Forget, he thinks, taking another sip from his bottle, the white liquor burning his tongue.

Forget and ignore, then move on.

It’s what he’s always forced himself to do since returning an unlucky victor to Twelve, it’s what he’s always had to force himself to do. Because it was either that or cause his loved ones even more pain than just the pain that comes from him ignoring them or hurling liquor bottles at their girlfriend’s face.

Haymitch cringes at the memory of that moment, at the shocked and pained expression in Asterid’s bright blue eyes, and at the rage, mixed with dispair displayed on Burdock’s face. And though that’s usually just one of the too many memories he tries not to dwell on, stuffing them right back down into the deepest, darkest pits of his twisted mind, right now he holds on to the pain of that moment.

He has to. Has to remind himself that that’s the reason he doesn’t let people get close anymore, why he’s continuously shutting them out, even though Effie Trinket keeps sending him her stupid letters, and every few months, there’s a new basket of freshly dried herbs sitting on his doorstep, courtesy of none other than Asterid Everdeen. His best friend’s wife - well, former best friend would probably be a much more accurate description - and he didn’t even attend their wedding. Didn’t get to witness Burdock excitedly telling him about how he’s going to be a father. Instead, he found out through whispers on the Hob.

Because that’s his life now, that has been his life ever since becoming a victor, and that has to continue to be his life forevermore. He’s never going to be more than an unlucky, bitter and cynical outsider, looking in.

He can’t be.

He can’t.

Because no matter how desperate and lonely he might start to feel, in the end it won’t be worth it. No amount of warm, happy hours could ever be worth it, knowing that in the end, her blood will be on his hands, too.

And so, he has to continue to stay away from her, to ignore her and-

A body colliding with his, the force of it all knocking the liquor bottle from his hand, which flies to the ground, shattering into a dozen pieces, breaks the train of his thoughts.

Haymitch doesn’t need to look up to know that it’s her, because of course it is.

He can talk all he wants about needing to stay away from her in order to protect her, in the end he’s still the same unlucky bastard he was eleven years ago that fate keeps trying to knock down. Lenore Dove wouldn’t like that line of thinking, he suddenly finds himself thinking, wouldn’t like how he’s convinced that in the end, his doom will be inevitable.

She would probably agree, he thinks, his eyes meeting hers.

There’s something wild and desperate about her, he thinks, taking her in. Her wide open eyes are shimmering with unshed tears and her cheeks are flushed. She’s wearing nothing but a set of pajamas and soft slippers and she’s crossed her arms in front of her chest, shivering.

„Haymitch?“, she says, her voice colored with disbelief.

He smirks. „In the flesh, Princess.“

She rolls her eyes, then shakes her head. „I - but - what- what … you-what are you doing here?“

He forces himself to shrug, to keep his distance, to not let his thoughts wander. „I could ask you the same thing.“

That seems to deflate her, but only for a short moment. „It’s the middle of the night-“

„It is“, he agrees, nodding, „and you should be getting your beauty sleep, seeing as tomorrow’s another big, big, big day!“

She shakes her head, her gaze landing on the pieces of his liquor bottle lying on the ground. „You-you shouldn’t be - you have to be up in just a few hours!“

Haymitch laughs mirthlessly. Instead of answering her, he shrugs off his coat, stepping towards her and ignoring her protest, when he proceeds to wrap the coat around her.

„No, Haymitch- I don’t need that-“

„It’s cold“, he interrupts her.

She huffs a breath, shaking her head at him and raising her eyebrows in an exasperated are you serious? expression.

„Yes it is, which is why you shouldn’t-“

„Just take the damn coat, Princess“, he interrupts her. „I could do without all the teeth chattering and shivering.“

Haymitch expects another retort then, instead her expression almost seems to soften.

Then, he remembers as well, that moment of them together on the roof in the Capitol, him handing her his sweater, and saying those exact same words to her.

He shakes his head. How can it be that they haven’t spoken a word to each other in almost fours months, and yet it feels like no time at all has passed?

Dangerous, he thinks, biting down hard on his lower lip. Letting his thoughts stray in that direction is dangerous, and will do him no good at all.

„Haymitch“, she says then, breaking the silence between them.

Haymitch’s heart aches upon hearing how small and lost her voice sounds. How uncertain.

And it’s all his fault, all of it.

Oh, how he wishes that the last four months hadn’t happened, that she’d never been reaped as tribute, that their paths had never crossed.

„Haymitch, I-“, she says, then stops.

Their eyes meet. Hers are shimmering with unshed tears, and full of so many emotions. Dread and terror for what lays ahead of them in form of the Victory tour. Fury and resentment, clearly aimed at him. And something else, something painstakingly familiar to Haymitch, this bittersweet regret-

She clears her throat then, shaking her head, and Haymitch can see it, can see the shift in her, can feel the moment she closes off again.

„I - you … you-you should get some rest, you know …“, she says, trailing off uncertainly.

Haymitch nods, grinning bitterly. „You too, Princess. Wouldn’t want to ruin the big day …“

She nods, a faint, half-hearted smile on her lips. „I - good night then, Haymitch.“

He forces himself to nod, to take a step back. There’s so much more that he wants, no needs to say to her. But he can’t - he needs to keep reminding himself of that. He can’t. He closed that window nearly four months ago, and for good reason at that.

In the end, all he says is: „Good night, Princess.“

And even though a small, desperate part of him wants to stay, wants to say everything that’s on his mind, he forces himself to turn around and walk away instead.

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