#BUZZ WAS ALWAYS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE PROSPECT OF A TOY BEING CONTROLLED AGAINST THEIR WILL

[mintytrifecta]

What if I exploded huh. What then.

[ellanainthetardis]

I live for angst my friend, I live for angst. Tell me what you think please!

[FF] or [aO3]

Chapter 4 : Caught In The Blaze

He wasn’t really good at waiting, all the more so when he was waiting for the fucking sword dangling over his head to finally sever his head from his body.

He had been pretty sure that whatever Snow had cooked up, it wouldn’t happen in the next week or so. He had been certain it was coming though.

Against his best intentions, however, he had let himself be swept in a sort of routine.

Effie called every two days and, every time he didn’t fail to answer the phone, she relaxed a little more. He didn’t ask or try to figure it out but he guessed she had decided that he wasn’t in danger any longer, that whatever he had done to be so certain of his imminent punishment hadn’t been that bad after all. Her cheerfulness wasn’t as forced anymore, the banter was less about subtly reminding the Capitol that he was still a Quell Victor who would be missed came the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games, and she seemed genuinely excited by the prospect of organizing a wedding – listening to her, you couldn’t tell she knew the kids weren’t actually rooting for that wedding, he couldn’t decide if it was on purpose or if she was just letting her characteristic enthusiasm sway her. More often than not, he let her talk her full while he drank, only snapping at her when she became really unbearable.  

Katniss convinced him to hire Hazelle as a housekeeper and his house was in such a state that he didn’t fight her on it. Finding himself forced to reconnect with an old friend from his childhood - who was now constantly underfoot - was a bit weird and he wasn’t entirely alright with it. Hazelle looked at him and searched for the boy he used to be instead of the man he now was. It made him uncomfortable on a good day and made him feel strangely guilty on the bad ones. Living in a clean house was too nice for him not to overcome his misgivings though. As much as he resented the intrusion on his privacy, he also appreciated having fresh laundry and not to have to hold his breath every time he came home.

Still, it contributed to luring him into a false sense of security.

The girl respected his need for loneliness more than the boy did. If anything, that already developed tendency of theirs to invade his home at any hour of the day only increased now that they were back. Katniss came around to sulk or, it seemed, to aggravate him at any given opportunity and the boy was always there to give him disapproving and slightly pitying looks when he woke up from a particularly bad binge.

It was a bit of a paradox how grateful he was for the kids’ presence when they grated on his very last nerve on a daily basis.

He let himself be swayed in a routine and, after three weeks, he began to believe that maybe he and Cinna had been too quick to believe themselves dead men walking. Maybe Heavensbee hadn’t sold them out. Maybe Snow hadn’t figured out just how involved they had been. Maybe having crushed a possible rebellion in the bud was enough for the Capitol and punishing them would be redundant. Maybe…

Haymitch had never been one for hope but either Effie had rubbed off on him after all those years or having teenagers in his life was doing a number on him.

He walked straight into the trap.

He had warned Cinna whatever form their punishment would take – and he had been certain it would be lethal – it wouldn’t come at once, that they shouldn’t fall for it. And yet…

He became less attentive when he went out, less wary of what was lurking in the shadows, less cautious around the less reputable parts of the District… Accidents happened fast. It had only taken a spark to burn his house down to the ground with his family in it when he was a teenager and he should have remembered that. The smart thing to do would have been to make it difficult for them: stay home, triple check what he ate and drank, lock the doors and windows at night…

Instead, he found himself following the boy’s advices about getting some fresh air. He walked around town and inevitably ended up at the Hob where he bought some soup from Sae – something that was life threatening in itself – and inevitably ended up making conversation with Cray. The Head Peacekeeper didn’t treat him any different than usual, he was friendly and just as willing to close his eyes as usual. If the man had gotten instructions about him, he was a better actor than Haymitch gave him credit for.

It was funny how you only realized how much you loved being alive once you were certain you wouldn’t be much longer.

He couldn’t bear wasting around in his house anymore. He needed to go out, to walk, to talk to people, to breathe…

After three weeks, he felt as if he had just escaped a shipwreck.

He was alive and unapologetically happy about it.  

He had survived. Again. And it was… a good feeling for once.

At least, it was until the phone rang at three in the morning.

He wasn’t asleep.

He rarely slept at night, the dark did nothing for him. He had been staring at the blurring lines of a book, trying to decide why he couldn’t see straight. Exhaustion had been a strong contestant - although he was sure the alcohol in his system wasn’t a stranger to the phenomenon - but he had been wondering if his sight was still as good as it used to be lately. He had trouble focusing on small prints, particularly at night. He had been toying with the idea of mentioning it to his escort. She would fuss but she would also get him an appointment with an eye doctor. If he needed glasses…

The phone startled him out of his tired musing and he frowned, automatically glancing at the old clock on the mantlepiece. Time zones were a pain but he quickly estimated it was around midnight in the city – late enough, in any case, that nobody would call except in case of emergency.

He placed the bottle of liquor on the coffee table and propped the book on the old couch’s frayed armrest. The fire wasn’t roaring as strongly as he would have liked and the floor was cold under his sock-clad feet. He was more buzzed than he had thought too. He was steady enough on his feet but his senses felt dimmed.

It occurred to him that it might be a ploy, a way to lure him into his kitchen in the middle of the night, vulnerable and helpless… His hand reached for the knife he kept at his belt just as he reached the other room but nobody jumped out of the shadows to attack him. He flicked the switch… The neon crackled for a couple of seconds before flooding the room with a painfully pale light.

He kept a tight grip on the handle of his knife as he reached for the phone with his free hand, leaning his back against the wall just to be sure nobody would attack him from behind.

It’s not paranoia if they’ve tossed you in an arena once, he told himself.

“Yeah.” he mumbled.

“Haymitch.”

Effie broke down before she even finished uttering his name. Heavy ugly sobs that left her panting in the phone and made his stomach churn with dread.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Effie, what’s going on?” Horrible scenarios were flashing in his mind. She was the one who was being attacked. She was the one they would hurt because that had always been Snow’s way, hadn’t it? Hurt the people he… “Stop crying and fucking talk to me!”

He shouted loud enough that his voice echoed, bouncing back on his kitchen walls as if to better mock him. He needlessly adjusted his grip on his knife, ready for a fight that was taking place miles away from him, on the other side of the country.

His chest was clenching with his every heartbeat. He tried to focus but all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, the terrifying thought that he would be forced to listen as she was being murdered, that he would have to bear witness to yet another loss and be expected to go on because…

There were no noises of fighting on the other end of the line though, just her heartbroken sobs.

It took him several minutes to realize she wasn’t in danger, at least not an immediate one, just terribly upset and, when that finally sunk in, his legs gave in. The rush of adrenaline had been so strong that now that it was gone… He slid down the wall and sat on the cold tiles, wavering between getting very angry at her for scaring him like that or trying to figure out what had happened to get her in that state.

Effie was always in control of herself, it was her greatest asset. For her to lose it like that…

“Sweetheart…”  he said slowly. “Sweetheart, I need to know… You’re not hurt, yeah? You’re alright?”

Her breathing was loud, as if she was hunched over the phone – or more likely curled up on her couch with the phone under her ear – and it took her a long time to collect herself long enough to answer.

“I’m… I’m burned but… I’m… I’m alright.” she stammered.

“Burned.” he repeated. His heart immediately started racing again. “What do you mean burned?”

He almost cracked a joke about her smoking and how he had told her more than once that her cigarettes would kill her. It remained stuck in his throat.

“I… It was horrible… So horrible…” She choked on the words and Haymitch could only listen as she started hiccupping from all the crying. “I… I cannot stop seeing…”

“Effie, focus.” he rebuked, as gently as he could given his own frazzled state of mind. “Are you hurt?”

“No… No…” she denied. “It is… Nothing… It is nothing… Just my palm but… They gave me a balm and instructions… I… I will be fine. I will…” He could barely make sense of what she was saying. She was crying so hard, it was difficult to understand. “I shouldn’t have tried to go in. That’s what the firemen said but… The screams… Haymitch, the screams…”

She gagged and before he could say anything he heard the unmistakable sounds of retching. The phone had clearly been discarded but he could still hear her failed attempts at collecting herself. She was hyperventilating from what he could tell, out of breath from the crying and she had apparently made herself sick. He closed his eyes, wishing he had the necessary energy to reach for one of the bottles that lined the counter. Somehow, he felt he would need liquor to get through that conversation.

It was several long minutes before he heard her pick up the phone again.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Home.” she whispered. She didn’t seem to be sobbing anymore but her teeth were audibly shattering. “I… The Peacekeepers brought me home after…”

Her voice trailed off and he didn’t try to pry the information out of her. Not yet.

Peacekeepers. He didn’t like that she had been in contact with Peacekeepers right after getting hurt. It didn’t sound as if they had been the threat though. Not this time.

“You’re alone?” he insisted.

“Yes.” Something clicked and he figured it was her earring, she must have been nodding. “I’m not… I don’t feel well…”

“You’re in shock.” he told her. The crying, the puking, the chattering teeth… “Do you have a blanket nearby? Something warm?” Again with the clicking noises that meant she was nodding but nothing else. He resolved himself to having to spell out everything. “Get it, sweetheart. Get warm.” He waited, analyzing the sounds. When it became silent again, he let out a long sigh. “Do you feel better?”

“No.” she answered at once, her voice breaking again. “They’re dead. Haymitch, they’re…”

“Who’s dead?” he cut her off.

It was a stupid question. However he needed to ask it. For clarity’s sake.

But he already knew.

Stupid him for falling in that trap.

Stupid him for believing, just for one second, that Snow could be fucking merciful.

Stupid him for…

The gurgle at the other end of the line was unintelligible. She was sobbing again. Her crying sounded like the painful kind, the sort that was like a punch in the chest with each sob…

“What happened?” he pressed.

“We… We were at their workshop because…” she stuttered. “Head Gamemaker Heavensbee wanted to see the… the designs for Katniss’ possible wedding dresses and…”

“Heavensbee.” he repeated flatly.

“Yes. He was… he was adamant about it taking place tonight.” Her earring clanged against the phone again. “He wanted to organize some sort of photoshoot before the Quell’s announcement… He wanted to see what…” She took a deep breath. “Portia and I had plans to go to a party after and…” She sobbed again but she made an obvious effort to keep her voice steady enough that he would understand. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know… Everything was fine and then…” Her sentence trailed off. “The Head Gamemaker asked me to come outside with him, he wanted  to talk to me while he waited for his car. The… I… They are asking me to step down. After the Quell. I… I am too old. They want…”

They wanted someone he hadn’t influenced. The kids would mentor and they would get the standard new dumb escort who couldn’t tell her head out of her ass. A brand new team for Twelve.

Not that it was the main point in all this, he thought, feeling strangely detached.

He already knew what was coming.

Not in details maybe but he had a pretty good idea of the general picture.

“I… I wasn’t… I wasn’t happy about that request.” she continued. “I was trying to negotiate… To… I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“It’s fine, sweetheart.” he said mechanically.

“No, it’s not fine!” she snapped. “Nothing is fine!” She sounded angry all of a sudden, her voice was shaking with something else than sorrow. “It caught fire. The building. Right behind us, it…” She burst out laughing. A sharp bitter thing of a laugh that didn’t suit her at all. “If Heavensbee hadn’t been, in essence, firing me I would still have been inside. I would…”

“Effie.” he breathed out. It was raw, her name on his lips, rawer than it had ever been.

“I tried to go back, to… to help!  But the door was locked and it wouldn’t open.” she whispered tiredly. “That is how I burned my hand. Then… I don’t really remember. I heard… Their screams, Haymitch… God…” She wasn’t crying anymore, she seemed to be too exhausted for that. “I don’t remember. I think… The screams… I wanted to save them and… Head Gamemaker Heavensbee dragged me away before it really got bad. The blast… It blew out the windows and… There were no more screams. I knew… I knew.”

He wasn’t sure if he ought to thank Plutarch or not. He doubted the Head Gamemaker would have stick out his neck for her so… They probably hadn’t wanted her dead. The locked door, the fire…

Why was it always fire? Why…

He had never confessed that to anyone but dying burned alive… It was one of his greatest fears. Ever since he had come back to a charred house and fresh graves in the cemetery… He had been having nightmares about that for years.

And to think Cinna and Portia…

His fingers were wrapped so tight around the knife that they were starting to cramp. He forced himself to open his fist, to drop the weapon, so he could rub his eyes.

“There was nothing I could do.” she insisted. “I tried. I tried.”

“I know, sweetheart.” he sighed. “That’s not on you. Got nothing to do with you at all.”

“But they are dead.” she countered, her voice breaking a little on the last word. “Cinna and Portia are… They said it was one of Cinna’s prototypes, you know, that he was playing around with fire for Katniss again and…”

“And he got burned.” he snorted without any humor at all.

“Caught in the blaze.” she corrected. “That is how Heavensbee put it. Cinna got caught in the girl on fire’s blaze.”

And Portia too.

His gaze fell on the bottles again and he gave up on resisting temptation. He slowly hauled himself back to his feet and stumbled to the counter, stretching the phone’s cord as far as it would go so he could grab one. He took a large gulp.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked. “Just your hand?”

“Yes, I told you.” she replied impatiently. “Do you understand what I am saying? Cinna and Portia are… They burned alive.”

“Yeah, I got the drift.” he scowled, swallowing more liquor, hoping to wash out the bad taste in his mouth.

“How can you be so calm!” she screeched. It was so high-pitched that he winced. “They are dead. Dead! Do you understand? They are dead! They are…”

“Dead.” he finished for her. His voice was flat.  “What do you want me to do? You want me to cry? To shout? Dead people are nothing new to me, Princess.”

It was harsh and he suspected he might have been in shock too.

It was one thing to expect one’s friend to die and another to have it happen like that. Like…

Caught in the girl on fire’s blaze.

Is that how he would go too? Did Snow know just how badly he hated fire? Or was it just about a sadistic form of poetry? He was the one who had cracked the match after all. Cinna had made Katniss the girl on fire but it was him who had stroked the embers until they caught. It was him who…

“I want you to fix it. I want them not to be dead.” she retorted petulantly, sounding so much like a child���

“Can you call someone over?” he deflected. “You shouldn’t be alone right now, sweetheart.”

She had never been confronted to that shit first hand. Losing tribute after tribute through a screen was one thing. To actually witness friends dying…

She was strong but he wasn’t sure she was that strong.

“Can’t you come?” she whispered in a shy pleading little voice that wasn’t like her. She was never shy, never hesitant to utter her demands. “Surely, I can get you a travel permit given the circumstances. There will be funerals and it would be improper for you and the children not to attend. Surely… Oh god, there will be funerals…”

And at the mention of the children…

He would need to tell the kids.

He would need to…

He brought the bottle to his mouth again.

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea right now.” he said. He needed to keep the kids away from the city. It would be much more complicated to protect them there.

“But…” she argued. “Haymitch, I…”

“Look, here’s what you’re gonna do.” he cut her off before she could say something stupid and reckless like the fact she needed him. “You’re gonna take a sleeping pill. One, you hear me? Not more. Just one.”

“I told you I stopped taking sleeping pills years ago.” she grumbled.

“Yeah, and you’re gonna toss the bottle you keep just in case in the trash first thing tomorrow.” he told her. “’Cause the last thing we need is for you to slip back into old bad habits. One tonight, then no more.”

He almost expected her to argue or lie about it – he knew she was keeping sleeping pills despite how close she had become to growing addicted to them a few years back, she just had better self-control than he had with liquor – but she simply drew out a long sigh.  

“I can still hear the screams.” she whispered. “I can’t… It won’t stop.”

“Get a shower then some sleep.” he insisted. “It’s gonna be… clearer in the morning.”

Not better. Certainly not better. But clearer, yeah.

“No.” she refused quickly. “I don’t want… Will you stay on the phone with me? Until I fall asleep.”

He hesitated. That was flirting with a line he wasn’t sure it was clever to toy with right now.

“Go get a shower.” He stalled for time. “You’ll be glad for that in the morning. Go get a shower and then… If you feel you need to call back…”

He was unsure but she wasn’t.

“Alright.” she sniffed. “I will call back in a few. Do not… Do not go anywhere.”

“I’ve got nowhere to go, sweetheart.” he sighed.

He let her hang up first and then he collapsed on a chair and stared at the bottle full of transparent liquid in his hand. He wasn’t really sure what was going through his mind.

One moment the bottle was right there, the next it crashed against the wall and shattered, projecting glass and liquor everywhere.

He grabbed his head in his hands and bowed over the table, not quite certain what he should do with himself now.

Suddenly, the sword over his head was dangling lower, so low that he could feel its tip.

He was screwed.

So, so screwed.