ℳ𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡, ┈┈┈ ‧˚₊‧. beau‘s angel 🪽
CATALYST,
summary, 𝒯rapped by the same monster in different cages, you feed him the truth when the world feeds him lies, and he gives you a reason to keep breathing through the smoke.
haymitch abernathy x fem!snow!reader, no mention of lenore dove, forbidden romance, slow burn, graphic descriptions, death, hurt-comfort, hope despite everything, angst, gore, allusions to trade, psychological trauma, grief, political propaganda, loss, substance abuse, oppression; five acts
act i.
50 a.t.t
the silk of my ivory gown whispers against my skin, a pristine, blinding white that equals the marble floors of the presidential mansion. i stand behind the heavy glass of the balcony doors, watching the capitol elite swarm the avenue below like moths driven by a blind devotion, rushing toward the flame, begging to be consumed by the very thing that blinds them.
my grandfather stands beside me, resting his hands lightly on the mahogany balustrade. he looks out over his empire with a practiced serenity of a man who believes he has sculpted the world into his own image.
"look at them, my darling," he murmurs, his voice a smooth, gravelly grumble, "they revel in the spectacle, they need it. and you shall inherit all of this, every cheering throat, every trembling knee."
i force a courteous, though hollow smile to my lips, dipping my chin in the exact gesture of dutiful adoration he expects. yes, grandfather, i think behind my teeth, a venomous echo answering his vanity. my eyes deviate back to the chariot parade, spotting the incoming charcoal tribute chariot from district twelve, the coal miners.
i will inherit it, then i will burn it to the ground.
deep in the press of the roaring crowd, the tributes of twelve strain to stand tall against the rain of flying garbage and the venom of drunken taunts. a man lunges forward, aiming the crooked tip of a cane at maysilee donner, only to crash mouth-first onto the cobblestones and leave a bloody tooth behind in the dust. nearby, a half-bare woman sways above the chaos, mocking the district cart with brazen, unsparing gestures.
the capitol cheered for the slaughter, but my heart fractured quietly as the faces of the children hurried by in their chariots. i committed every single one of them to memory, refusing to let the capitol swallow their identities whole. my empathy bled for all forty-eight, whose lives were being stolen for a sadistic political game.
my thoughts were interrupted as chaos erupts.
a firework tears into the night with a guttural scream, bursting into a blinding shock of blue light directly before the district twelve team. terror strikes the horses then they rear and plunge sideways, hooves scraping wildly as they fight the pull of gravity. my palms slam flat against the cold balustrade, heart hammering violently against my ribs as the blonde tribute, haymitch abernathy, is swept off his feet. he crashes to his knees, fingers clinging desperately to the railing while the team dissolves into a frantic, blinding blur of panic.
the chariot veers wildly, shearing past district eleven’s rig before slamming into the churn of district ten’s heavy ironwork. terror anchors my chest as the next chariot sweeps in ruthlessly. louella mccoy, the youngest tribute of her group, is catapulted into the air, suspended for a breathless second before shattering against the unforgiving pavement.
below, the haze of dust settles just enough to reveal haymitch, falling to his knees in the dirt beside her lifeless form. he tries to rouse her, but it's useless.
her skull is cracked open, dark crimson pooling into the dust beneath her tangled braids. air locks in my throat and a veil of tears blurs my vision, drowning me in the raw brutality of the scene below. four peacekeepers surge into the fray to scrub away the horror, frantic to crate her frail, shattered frame and ship it back to her district before the capitol‘s incompetence can stain the air. yet haymitch, bloody and enraged, dares the unthinkable.
he gathers louella into his arms, carrying her broken weight through the dust to the foot of the presidential balcony. a lone tear trails down my cheek, hand pressed hard over the ache in my chest as i observe him. there, he lays her down directly before my grandfather’s sight; cruelty he can no longer pretend not to see.
then, the blonde stares up with indignant eyes.
they lock onto mine for a fraction of a second, turquoise fogged with grief, before shifting to grandfather. and then terrifyingly, haymitch abernathy gestures to the president of panem, raising his hands to deliver a slow, deliberate, mocking applause that echoes like thunder across the ambience.
nausea coils in my throat, heavy and suffocating under the weight of the carnage. yet even as my stomach churns, my chest thunders a surge of reverence. such reckless, unyielding courage, i realize with my pulse roaring like a tempest in my ears.
he is staring straight into the eyes of death, refusing to bow.
grandfather’s nescience falters for a fleeting second before he turns away, dismissing the boy with an ignorant wave of his hand.
act ii.
i remain in the shadows in the cool dusk of the stables, watching the quiet exchange between ampert and haymitch. a gentle relief washes through me, grateful that ampert heeded his father’s counsel to seek out allies, most of all, the golden-haired boy. i had harbored a hunch that they would get along, and watching that silent bond take root breathes a rare moment of peace back into my chest.
the swelling tide of rebellion and its shadow system remained a secret to almost everyone, buried in silence until every detail reached flawlessness. yet the hunger games offered a rare chance to forge a grander army and gather those willing to partake in the revolution to dismantle this cruel carnage. we already had a constellation of victors aligned with our cause: beetee latier, mags flanagan, wiress, alongside plutarch heavensbeee, and the capitol traitors, my aunt fulvia cardew and myself.
as ampert scampers off toward his own district tributes, i can’t help but step out from the deeper gloom of the corridor, letting the light wash over my face as i approach the golden-haired tribute.
his head jerks up, gaze searching the shadows for the iron grip of peacekeepers. instead, he finds me, the girl from the golden cage of the presidential box. "you," haymitch rasps out venomously, his voice rough.
„don’t be alarmed." i interrupt quietly as i close the distance between us.
haymitch fixed his eyes on me, cataloging every detail sharply; the gleaming capitol silks, the flawless waves of my hair, and beneath it all, the raw, bleeding grief etched into my eyes, „you were on the balcony," he murmured, "with him."
"i was," i whisper in shame. crouching down with the silk fabric gliding gracefully on the floor, i bring myself to his eye level, „i offer you my deepest condolences.“
he lets out a harsh, humorless breath, resting his forehead against his knees, "what does misery look like to eyes that have only known the glow of comfort?"
an aching sting blooms in my chest, though not from the sharp edge of his words, but from the heavy understanding that my sorrow will never weigh as much as theirs. even beneath the crushing weight of everything i have lost, i am haunted by the bitter truth of my own privilege.
i didn’t bother correcting him.
"what you did out there today,“ i pause, hesitating, „standing over louella mccoy, refusing to let any of them ignore you. it took more courage than this entire city has possessed in a century."
haymitch glides both palms down his face to presumably mask the quivering of his lips at the memory. his throat swallows back a devastating sob, „she is just a kid."
"she deserved better," i declare with a trembling voice, and the absolute sincerity in my tone makes his head snap back up, „you all do.“
for a long moment, neither of us speak as we just share a prolonged glance at one another. merely a doomed boy from the districts and a girl trapped in the circus of cruelty, mourning a little girl they both wished they could have saved.
"what do i do." haymitch questions with an angered sniff.
i stretch my manicured fingers toward his hand, faintly tracing the worn, calloused ridge of his knuckles. he stays still, letting the weight of his hand settle against mine, anchored in the quiet space between us, where his scent of sweat and smoke softly entangles with the rich floral draft of my tuberose perfume. in the silent wreckage of that moment, everything soft is stripped away to leave only the raw, unvarnished truth.
"survive," i whisper, the word slipping past my lips like a solemn vow. "for louella. don’t lay yourself in the grave they dug for you, don’t give them that."
haymitch stares down at the fragile bridge where our skin meets, his jaw locked so hard a muscle pulses beneath the surface. for a flutter of a heartbeat, the cynical armor he wears to keep the world out cracks wide open, exposing the bruised and terrified sixteen-year-old boy buried underneath.
my chest tightens with a grief so sharp it steals the air from my lungs. i lean slightly closer to his figure, my thumb brushing a stray tear from his dust-stained cheek before i pull my hand away, folding it back into the pristine folds of my skirt.
rhythmic boots echo down the corridor, signaling the peacekeepers return.
haymitch pulls his knees back up to his chest, hardening his features into a mask of stone as the guards march into view. and i rise silently, smoothing the ivory fabric of my gown, vanishing back into the circus lights of the capitol shadows, sparing the blond-haired boy one last glance.
act iii.
while grandfather remains cloistered with the head gamemakers, architecting fresh atrocities to unleash upon the valley, i move among the capitol’s gluttonous elite, weaving through a sea of parasites who thrive on blood.
the grand salon becomes my battlefield.
anchored against marble pillars, my fingers trace crystal flutes while i wear the coy, amused smile of a socialite. a seamless mask designed to manipulate those inhumane creatures surrounding me.
"utterly pathetic this district twelve boy," a young patron scoffs, adjusting his velvet lapel as we watch the screen. haymitch is currently clambering up the slick, treacherous shale of the central mountain, his clothes torn and bruises etched across his cheekbone, „one would think he'd have the decency to die quietly like the rest of them."
i tilt my head, offering a faint giggle that draws the appreciative gaze of half the men in the circle.
"quietly?" i murmur, my eyes widening with theatrical amusement. "how is that for entertainment? a dog that whimpers is forgetful, though one that bares its teeth,“ i pause, appalled by my own words, „that makes for a spectacle."
the men chuckle, entirely seduced by the venom in my voice. within hours, the narrative ripples through the high-society parlors like wildfire. the boredom that usually plagues the middle stretch of the games vanishes, replaced by a morbid, cash-bleeding fascination with the defiant boy from the coal mines. sponsors swing their fortunes, and across the board, green lights blink on the gamemaker supply terminals, routing clean water and basic medical kits toward haymitch's coordinates.
on the glowing screen, the arena's gears grind on.
i watch in agonizing helplessness as the environment slowly breaks him, mind and flesh alike. a suffocating malice poisons the ambiance, turning a simple drink of water into a desperate gamble, and every inhale of the floral scented air threatens to intoxicate him.
suddenly the cameras switch angles, capturing a dense patch of the emerald woods where a swarm of pink birds with long, needle-sharp beaks descend. my hands fly to my mouth, nails pressing hard against my lips to stifle the cry threatening to tear past them.
maysilee donner is trapped as the vicious, needle-nosed muttations spear through her flesh, blending horrifying crimson and pink. haymitch bursts through the brush, screaming, though too late and too powerless to stop the slaughter. he tries to reach her, tries to pull her back, but the flock tears her away before his eyes.
blinding tears trace the contours of my cheeks as i watch him collapse into the crimson dirt, curling inward as the realization of his isolation settles over him. in the valley of death, he is alone.
get up, i whisper, my breath fracturing against the knot of grief in my throat. haymitch, please. get up.
he remains motionless for an eternity, a shattered boy in a world forged to grind him to dust. then, agonizingly, his fingers twitch against the dark soil. haymitch forces himself upward, past the point of tears. a hollow, deadened stillness settles behind his eyes.
the exact armor he needs to endure the brutal, final stretch of the slaughter.
i can’t bring myself to sleep with worry as the poison paradise is bleeding out its remaining players.
haymitch looks like a surviving ghost of himself. the poison in the air has settled deep into his chest, erupting in a dark, hacking cough he desperately muffles in the bend of his arm. yet, he keeps moving and endures, his eyes turned devastatingly hollow by the loss of maysilee.
the elite bite at my suggestions every time, their bloated egos convinced they are the masterminds of the betting rings, entirely unaware that their sponsors are the driving force to the survival of most undervalued tribute in that arena.
i observe haymitch receive his supply package where he crouched beneath a dense canopy of burning ferns as a blinding cascade of ash surrounded him.
on another livestream a tribute, silka sharp, a career from district one, bursts through the choking dust, weapon raised and face twisted in a feral snarl.
haymitch‘s hands, raw and blistered, tear open the supply drop, where he finds the tub of burn ointment. i see his thumb brush over the cream-colored paper that rests hidden beneath it. relief washes over me at the subtle hitch in his breath, the way his shoulders drop an inch from their defensive hunch the moment my tuberose scent reaches his senses.
you’re still standing. don’t give up now, keep moving, h.
he presses the note against his forehead for a fraction of a second, a fleeting, desperate anchor in a world trying to rip him apart. then, with a ruthless motion, he swallows the paper, letting the evidence dissolve away into his stomach before anyone else can see.
beside me on the settee, mags reaches out her weathered hand and tenderly pats my knee. she doesn't look away from the monitor, her voice a gravelly rasp, „he’s a stubborn one, honey. takes after the ones who don't know how to stay down."
i search her words for comfort, but as the glowing flickers hope is all i have left to cling to.
then the final battle of the second quarter quell commences.
heat, ash, and blinding light bleed together in a sickening blur. sound buckles and drowns, the force field’s thunderous crack hitting my ears like a submerged explosion. i barely register as air starves in my lungs, my surroundings overwhelming all my senses.
through the haze of spiraling, i could only faintly register a violent flash of blue electricity, silka‘s collapsing outline, and haymitch convulsing as his hands clawed at his disemboweled abdomen.
then the harmonious chime of the victory anthem rings out across the speakers, a sickeningly cheerful melody.
act iv.
the air in the family garden hangs heavy with the scent of damp earth and rotting blossoms, a quiet sanctuary where the ghosts of my bloodline rest beneath manicured lawns. i sit on the cold marmor bench, weeping in synchronized harmony with the violent downpour beyond the glass of the conservatory.
this was my sole sanctuary to weep freely, the only place where the venom of my grief and resentment could spill out without betraying my inner turmoil. to anyone looking in, i was merely a young girl entombed in her solitude, grieving a dead lineage. a bloodline extinguished by president snow. my grandfather, coriolanus snow.
my bitter tears trail for my grandmother, livia cardew. a truly brilliant woman, loved with every beat of my heart, the force that shaped my mother, aurelia, my aunt, fulvia, and myself. she instilled in us unwavering values my grandfather slaughtered anyone for daring to possess; empathy, solidarity and being kind despite all the circumstances, even if it costs everything. and in the end, it did cost her life, a price paid in full.
my fingernails scrape desperately into the cold stone while furious tears streak my face for my mother and father. two more casualties of a cruel fate.
the unfairness of it all rested in the very palms pledged to protect us. family. though, to him blood was nothing more than currency and family was just as transactional as his business affairs. once our purpose for his opportunism was fulfilled, we were reduced to less than strangers.
we are writing this because you are old enough to carry the truth, and truth is the only weapon,
i despise coriolanus with every fiber of my existence, it is an agonizing, suffocating weight that presses down on my chest from the moment i wake.
he will never tell you the truth.
when i look at him, the grief hits me in violent, choking waves, a relentless mourning for the parents he stole away from me, and for the mother and father whose lives were reduced to floral arrangements.
he doesn't love you, sweet dove. not like we love you.
a familiar ache twists in my chest every time i enter the conservatory, knowing that beneath those crimson petals lies my grandmother livia, brutally discarded the moment her purpose withered. he turned her corpse to fertilizer for his vanity, echoing the quiet death of her purpose the day she bore him children.
knowing he slaughtered my parents, his own daughter, when she uncovered his web of lies and deceit.
the rage inside me is a blazing, blinding fire, burning desperately, as i hunger to rip away his untouchable armor and make him feel even a fraction of the heartbreak he has inflicted on the entirety of panem.
it ends with you, my dove.
and that oath i will fulfill.
i anchor myself with a steadying breath as i close my eyes until my lingering thoughts drift to the blonde-haired boy.
for days, i have been tortured by the inability to see him or check on him, knowing only that he was locked away in the sterile medical wards, being sewn back together from the inside out after the horrors of the arena.
how is he? is this tormenting pain more than a sixteen-year-old can bear?
the heavy crunch of gravel and the sound of my name interrupts my spiraling thoughts. when i glance up, i find my trusted peacekeeper friends, cabe varro and brutus atwood, stepping through the dense ivy archway in their sterile white uniforms.
"we need to hurry," cabe murmurs, his voice low and urgent as he scans the perimeter, „your grandfather is away with his acquaintances for the next couple of hours."
"and the surveillance feeds at the twelve tribute residence have just been temporarily blinded by beetee," brutus adds, offering a rare, reassuring nod. "if you’re going to see him before the victory ceremony, it has to be now. we have a maximum of two hours."
without hesitation, i slip through the shadowed corridors of the mansion, my heart hammering frantically against my ribs in anticipation. i press on until i cross the threshold into the quiet, desolate apartment where the district tributes once stayed.
the air inside is stagnantly heavy with the phantom weight of children who will never go home again. haymitch sits alone in the gloom, his body a map of angry, puckered scars and unhealed trauma. he lifts his head, his turquoise eyes stripped hollow by a grief too immense for any heart to contain, still reeling from the brutal carnage he survived and the horror of the revelations that followed.
„what are you doing here?“ haymitch's voice rasps cautiously, aware of the cameras surveilling his every move.
i cross the distance between us before my mind can intervene, the soft taps of my flats echoing in the quiet.
i care nothing for the fragile boundaries between us, or the fact that we have not looked each other in the eye since our last conversation. the phantom image of him in the arena shatters the last of my reserve. when i reach him, i wrap my arms around his neck, desperate to prove that he is real, that his chest is rising, that he truly survived the nightmare.
my touch is agonizingly gentle, shaping my embrace so it never presses against his mended flesh or strains the raw wounds beneath his skin. nestling my face into his shoulder, a selfish, trembling wave of relief washes over me as i cling to him as tightly as he clings to whatever sanity he has left, needing his warmth to drown out the terror of those gruesome days spent watching him bleed from afar.
„i’m glad you’re okay, haymitch.“
he pulls back just enough to look down at me, and i tilt my chin up to meet his gaze. in the exhausted depths of his eyes, there is a mutual relief that our efforts, mine to help him as much as i can and his to survive, were successful in a twisted way.
but his turquoise irises pulled my mother and grandmother’s guidance back to the surface, pumping in my head like a pulse. be kind despite all the circumstances, even if it costs everything. looking into his eyes, i realized how true that was.
„i wanted to warn you,“ i clear my throat while i placed myself beside him on the sofa. my fingers curl against the fabric of the cushion, the lingering warmth of his embrace still humming faintly in the air between us. „what comes next is worse than your guilt, haymitch. coriolanus, uh, my grandfather does not tolerate defiance, especially from someone from twelve.“
haymitch goes entirely rigid beside me. the faint color in his face drains away and his bruised hands tighten instinctively into fists, the movement pulling slightly at the stitched flesh across his abdomen, but he doesn't flinch. he just stares at me, his mesmerizing eyes hardening with a dangerous realization.
"what are you saying?"
"i’m saying the victory tour isn't a celebration," i whisper back, the bitter weight of my family's legacy pressing down on my shoulders, „it's an extension of the arena. it’s designed to break whatever spirit you have left and remind you that your life belongs to the capitol now. you can’t let them, can’t let him."
haymitch’s gaze is fixed on nothing, his jaw set so fiercely that his teeth grind together. the silence prolongs, thick with the suffocating memories of the children who were murdered in the arena. maysilee, wyatt, ampert, louella — lou lou. i see the raw, jagged edges of his grief tearing him apart from the inside out, the horrifying awareness that the nightmare isn't over just because he holds a crown.
i reach out gently and place a small token on the charcoal cushion between us. it gleams faintly in the dimness, the golden of the bangle my aunt fulvia handed to me before she escaped to district thirteen.
"i don't want you to feel like you're trapped in another cage, haymitch," i say softly, keeping my gaze steady on his profile even as my fingers tangle nervously in my lap. „i‘m not here to use you, nor am i like him. you need time to breathe, to mourn your friends, to process every piece of this nightmare they put you through. take whatever time you need."
the blonde glances down, his brow furrowing pensively.
the stagnant air of the room seems to grow even heavier, thick with the lingering, medicinal scent of antiseptic and the sharp, coppery ghost of old blood that he can’t seem to wash from his skin. for a long while, the only sound is the frantic, uneven rhythm of his breath and the anxious rustle of my friends patrolling the shadows behind us.
"act incompetent," i murmur, observing the slow burn of comprehension dawn in his eyes, „don’t show them your strength for resistance, be useless once the shock wears off. give them nothing to use against you, and give the capitol no reason to suspect you have an ounce of fight left. this is bigger than you’d imagine."
haymitch swallows hard, the muscle in his throat working as his eyes move from the bangle back to mine.
"if you ever decide you're ready to fight back, only then, wear this," i tell him, tapping the cool metal of the bracelet with a faint, mournful smile. "then i’ll know. brutus and cabe, as well as your and my avoxes, will guard you. you can rely on them, and on me but i beg you to take your time. grief has no expiration, and i wouldn’t dare rush you."
he is motionless at first. then, with fingers that tremor ever so slightly, he reaches out in an agonizingly slow gesture to lift the flame-patterned bangle, curling his fist around it. the soft drag of his calloused skin against mine sends a jolt of fierce warmth straight through the hollowness that separates us.
„time‘s up.“
act v.
the tragic news of the fire had hit the capitol whispers long before the official records caught up. haymitch abernathy’s home reduced to cinders, his mother and brother burned alive in an orchestrated execution designed as president snow‘s warped homecoming gift.
when he eventually returned to his district, locked behind a heavy perimeter and forced to subsist on meticulously rationed scraps, the devastation threatened to swallow him whole. a dark despair that took hold in the dead of night.
the shadows stretched long and distorted across the hallway of his mansion, such oppressing darkness wafting in the air that it instinctively brought stinging tears to my eyes.
i gently push his bedroom door open and upon entering, my eyes lock onto the dark bottle clutched tightly in his hand. the amber glass ricochet under the faint moonlight filtering through the window. sleep syrup. one of many vials accumulating across the hardwood floor, unspoken evidence of a desperate attempt to flee a reality he cannot bear to face awake.
„put it down, haymitch!“
my voice fractures into a hysterical cadence of pure despair, completely foreign to me.
the golden-haired boy freezes, his eyes clenching tight as he buries the bottle against his ribs like an addict clinging to survival, "go away," he rasped, his voice rough and defensive, the exhaustion pouring heavily into his words, „leave me alone."
i lunge across the room in an unmeasured burst of violent momentum. my palm strikes his grip with blinding force and the bottle falls with a heavy thud, spilling its poison-colored contents across the floor.
"trying to kill yourself! 'that it?“ bile rises hot in my throat and i have to fight the desperate urge to retch at the sheer thought of it. „you survive the arena, survive coriolanus — you made it this far. is this how you surrender?"
"you wouldn’t know the first thing!" he roars suddenly, the volume trembling as he stumbles backward, slamming his shoulder against the rough timber wall. haymitch‘s chest heaved while inconsolable sobs and choking noises interrupt his speech, turning into deep wails and gasping stutters. „he will never let me die! they’re dead — i have nothing to live for anymore, i have no one, who,“ he hiccups, „cares — so let me be the dead boy breathing!“
my distress evaporated in an instant, ceased beneath a grief so heavy it felt physical. i stopped inches from him, stepping right through his defenses and into his warmth, blind to the volatile glint in his bloodshot eyes. i reached up and tangled my fingers around his wrist and pulled his hand down to expose his face to mine.
„i care.“ i whisper, my voice cracking on the words. my eyes welled up, completely surrendering every line of defense i had left between us, „you have me and i care about you. i need you, selfishly, i need you. it hurts to see you like this, truly, you deserve better and i‘m sorry.“ i stare into his mesmerizing, miserable eyes, „but punishing yourself will not bring them back, so live for them.“
haymitch stares down at me, his violent intake of breath mingling the sting of mint with the soft, lingering scent of my perfume. the impenetrable wall he’d built to protect his shattered heart gave way entirely under the significance of my confession.
he closed his eyes, a defeated wail tearing from his throat as the last of his fight drained away. wordlessly, he collapsed forward and buried his face in my abdomen, his arms locking around my taille as if i were the only solid thing remaining in a crumbling world. in return, i cradle him closer while caressing his hair as he shook against me.
"promise, hay," i murmured against his skin, my lips lingering a kiss at his temple as if to press the words directly into him. "promise me you‘ll reach for me instead."
his grip tightened until it ached, yet i endured it, knowing his internal agony cut far deeper. in the somber darkness, an unspoken binding vow sealed itself between us.
„i promise.“
from that night on, the golden flame-patterned bangle remained clamped to his wrist like a permanent mark, catching the light during our covert meetings.
the burden of haymitch's survival did not rest on my shoulders alone. stung by the bitter reality of what my grandfather had ripped from our lives, i transformed my remorse into action, constructing a secret lifeline to connect haymitch to the few people who still mattered to him.
burdock everdeen and asterid march, who had stood at his side in that ash-choked yard on the day his family was buried, needed to know he hadn't given up. whenever cabe and brutus cut the surveillance feeds and cleared the perimeter, i guided asterid and burdock through the shadows to haymitch's doorstep.
asterid would bring small jars of homemade chamomile or herbal remedies, checking the puckered scar tissue of his gut wound, while burdock offered a grounding presence.
i moved between their two worlds, running low-voiced updates back and forth to prove that the twitching, incapable wreck haymitch performed for the capitol was just a facade for the survivor underneath.
plus, by sharing that treason, an unbreakable bond was born between all of us.
the weeks merged into a grueling rhythm of deception. to the capitol, haymitch became the ultimate disappointment. a twitchy, stumbling fool who could barely hold a glass steady, let alone pose a threat to president snow's immaculate order.
they laughed at him on the mandated broadcasts, sneered at his slurred speech, and wrote him off as another victor broken by the gravity of his own victory, exactly as we intended.
yet, no one could sustain that kind of performance without breaking.
tonight the silence in his bedroom was charged, disrupted only by the soft rustle of my gown and the ragged sound of his breathing. the bravado he wore for the cameras vanished as soon as he slumped against his headboard, hands trembling of pure exhaustion.
i leaned into him gently, resting my weight against his side while my hand reached to trace the constellation of moles dotting his face, "you did great, hay. i’m proud of you."
he leaned sideways and pressed his forehead against the top of my head, breathing me in fondly. his bruised hand slid down to my thigh, thumb brushing back and forth rhythmically.
"what sick pleasure does he get from this?" haymitch questions, hands resting on my taille, "how do you survive living with him?"
the question burned my mind, tearing open old scars of my own. i pulled back slightly, looking deep into his beautiful eyes that gazed back at me. how is it even fair for someone to look like that? in that solacing moment i decided to give him the truth of my own bondage.
"my parents," my lip trembles hesitantly. i hadn’t dared mention them since their funeral and those pitiful, empty condolences that forced me to express gratitude for hollow empathy. "three years ago, they traveled to the districts. they liked buying things personally crafted from the locals. it was supposed to be just my father on that trip, like usually, but my mother went with him.“ i swallow my hurt, forced to relive the constant, imagined horror of their deaths.
„snow wanted to send a message to keep her malleable, so they ambushed them at the market on district four. gunned them down under the guise of a casualty. my aunt told me the truth months later after she found a letter addressed to me, by my mother. she knew."
haymitch turns his entire body towards me, groaning as he did so, and for a heartbeat, the air shifts from the sharp tension of being forbidden accomplices into something unexpectedly intimate. then his thumb traces delicate strokes over my lips while his free hand slides around my hips and pulls me right against his chest.
"i‘m sorry, dove." he leans his forehead against mine. i close my eyes let the solace of his words, that nickname, comfort me. spoken by the one person who truly understood my loss.
haymitch closed in until the air between us vanished entirely, his presence so suffocatingly close that i couldn't tell where my breath ended and his began. gently, he tilted his face to mine and brushed a doting kiss right against the bridge of my nose.
"i don't know where i‘d be if it weren’t for you," haymitch admits, "in a golden cage. or dead."
"you‘d still be fighting," i trace his moles until i reach the constellation on his neck, feeling his pulse beneath my fingertips. "you’re too ambitious to give up, hay."
"maybe," he breathed, a ghost of a genuine smile touching his rosy lips.
my fingers slide to a rest on the broad expanse of his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath my palms. "it’s true," i profess with an unflinching certainty, „you’re the catalyst for this rebellion… and soon fire will catch. and i swear it on my life, coriolanus snow will burn.“
until then, in the quiet shelter of the shadows, we only have each other. two rebels carved out of grief, holding tight to a fragile tomorrow, bound by a dangerous promise that when fire finally catches, we will be the ones standing in the ashes.
