haymitch abernathy | no peace
words: 1.7k warnings: 18+, hurt/comfort, public punishment (inspired by gale's whipping in catching fire), mentions of alcohol and drugs, pain, pain, pain, blood, injury, just a lot of whump description: Disobeying the Peacekeepers comes with punishment. Haymitch is the one to protect you, sitting at your bedside and helping you through the agony.
You kneel because it’s all you can do, just as all the residents of the Seam can do is watch it happen. Beside you, the little girl who you’d leapt in front of just a moment ago sniffles and cries for her mother. You think you know her as the daughter of one of the coal miners, but you don’t see either of her parents anywhere now. Likely, they’re at home, waiting for her to bring that stolen wedge of cheese before they starve. Now, it lies on the floor at the Peacekeeper’s feet, dirtied by the sooty ground and laid to waste.
“She’s just a girl,” you say again — plead. You’re met with a blow across your face, one that knocks you to the ground. Though it steals your breath, you only grunt, determined not to show weakness. It’s what they thrive on, but you are not weak. Not for this.
The crowd gasps in shock, but nobody steps in. Nobody can, not without twice as terrible a punishment.
When you rise onto your elbows, the Peacekeeper grabs your chin, teeth bared. “Well, I sure hope she was worth the twelve lashes you’re about to get. Let’s see how heroic you feel with your back in tatters, shall we?”
He drags you over to the whipping post, your knees scraping against the cobbles, heart pounding in your ears. The girl is crying, but you glimpse a neighbour pulling her away. Good. His focus is on you, and that means she’ll get to go home today — without food, but safe. Perhaps one of the onlookers will take pity, find something to fill her belly. God knows she looks like she needs it, joints jutting out of grimy, freckled skin. You know that hunger; the type that aches in every bone, burns right through your insides. Her tiny frame wouldn’t survive the lashes, but you will, so you let the Peacekeeper rip off your shirt and bare your back to him when he asks, another of them approaching to tie you up with rope that immediately chafes your wrists.
“Please,” the little girl is shouting, but she’s far away.
You grit your teeth when you hear the whip crack against the floor. Focus on the rows of feet surrounding you, as though counting the holes in the miners’ boots might be enough of a distraction and you won't feel it.
Except it isn't and you do. The whip tears over your spine and you can’t keep from letting out a scream this time, entire body shuddering as though it can’t quite settle into this new pain. The Peacekeeper counts with every lash: one, two, three. By the fifth, you can’t hold yourself up, slumped against the pole as hot blood trickles down your skin and gathers at the waistband of your trousers. The shoes blur and tilt with the rest of the world, and you wonder how you’ll work tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day. You hope the girl isn’t looking. You wish nobody was looking.
Before the seventh, a new voice chimes in, footsteps scuffing against the stone behind you. You don’t need to see him: his voice is enough for you to recognise who is trying to rescue you.
Haymitch.
“All right, all right, don’t you think you’ve proved your point?” he’s saying with that usual hint of a slur, because you can’t remember the last time he wasn’t drunk. It’s the only reason you’re friends. He buys your liquor, enough that you started watering it down a while back both because you don’t want to enable his addiction and because it gives him reason to come back more often, even if it’s to yell at you about the quality of your booze.
“The sentence for attacking a Peacekeeper is twelve lashes. Step aside, or join her,” the Peacekeeper warns.
Attacking a Peacekeeper. You barely touched him, only pushing him back before he could hit the girl.
“Leave it, Haymitch,” you manage to force out. You taste blood and realise you’ve bitten through your tongue, but it’s impossible to feel it with your back on fire. “Let the man finish. No Peacekeepers, no peace, right?”
Your sarcasm is rewarded with another whip, right across both shoulder blades.
Seven.
“Stop it!” Haymitch orders. There’s something rich and husky in his voice. Desperation. There you were thinking he didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. You'd be surprise if you could muster the energy. “You wanna punish someone, punish me. How about we see what happens when one of the Hunger Games victors gets all bloodied up in the street, huh?”
Silence. Likely, the Peacekeeper realising who he is. District 12's only victor. You squeeze your eyes closed, dreading that Haymitch might actually take the lashings for you. The only thing you could bear less than this.
“Victors aren’t exempt from the rules,” the Peacekeeper decides, but his voice is no longer as stiff and certain as before. “And Seam scum like her certainly aren’t.”
“Maybe not, but what would everyone think, seeing Panem’s hero at the hands of a Peacekeeper? You sure that’s an image Snow would want associated with his precious Games?”
A scoff. “I don’t care about Panem’s heroes. You have nothing to do with this, so step aside.”
“She’s my wife!” Haymitch claims, causing another wave of shock to rattle through the crowd. And through you, because like hell you are. But he’s lying to save you, and you don’t know why. “I won’t let you do this to her. So whip me, or let us both go. What’ll it be?”
The moments that follow are excruciating, and you can do nothing but pant as the cool air hits your ruined skin. Finally, a Peacekeeper comes before you to cut through your bindings. You’re about to fall back onto the stone when two arms wrap around you, your soft whimpers landing in their chest.
“All right, sweetheart. I gotcha now.” He picks you up, then whispers an outpouring of sorries when his arms scrape against your wounds, drawing another agonised keen from you. The sky is cloudy and grey above you, and it’s all you can do to stare at the clouds as he walks with you, each step jolting another rush of pain through your body.
“Gonna getcha all cleaned up,” Haymitch soothes. And then he’s shouting for someone, for Asterid, and the sky is replaced by the wooden beams of an old house.
Immediately, orders are shouted: clear the table, get the morphling, lots of gauze. You’re set down on something hard and clutch at Haymitch’s shirt desperately. His face swims over you, blue eyes glassy yet alert. More alert than they’ve ever been before.
“Can you roll off your back for me, sweetheart? That’s it.” His hands are at your sides, anchoring you as you try to take the weight off your injuries. Everything is slippery with your blood and you can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t anything, because it hurts. You must say as much, because his hand smoothes over your hair. “I know. I know. Gonna get you something for it, okay?”
“It’s going to be worse, just for a moment. We need to clean your wounds,” a kind voice, Asterid, warns, and then it is. You imagine fire all around you, and somewhere distant, hear your own screams. Haymitch’s hand stays in yours as he holds your convulsing body down.
“Can’t you get the damn morphling first?” Annoyance bubbles in Haymitch’s tone.
“I can’t find it!” a younger, more flustered voice says, the sounds of riffling breaking through the cotton wool in your ears. Must be Asterid's daughter, Prim. She's barely younger than the girl outside; she shouldn't have to see the mess the whip has made.
And then you must pass out, because suddenly, you’re rising from fog, body heavy and pain dulled, and Haymitch is in a chair by your side. Your blood is on his shirt, you notice, and his hand is still holding yours on the table, thumb smoothing over your knuckles in a way that is both gentle and rough.
“Hey. There y’are. Welcome back.”
Moving makes you hurt again, and he shushes you when you cry out. “Stay put for now, okay? Wounds are still open.”
“Where are we?” Your voice is almost as hoarse and slurred as his.
“Asterid’s house. She’s getting you all cleaned up.”
“Did… did they stop? Did the girl get away?”
He brushes the hair off your forehead. “She did. Made sure she got some food in her belly, too. Jesus, what were you thinking, getting in between a fight with a Peacekeeper like that?”
“Wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Never damn well is.”
“She was just a girl, Haymitch.” Anger rises to the surface, breaking through layers and layers of pain and sedation.
Haymitch sighs. Leans his elbows on the table so his face is inches from yours. You wonder why it brings you comfort to smell his alcohol-laced breath, to feel it across your skin, to have his crooked nose graze yours. So gentle compared to the whip and yet it still leaves you shuddering.
And yet his words are serrated as ever. “I know. But if you could find some sense of self-preservation, that’d be great.”
You shake your head, lids growing heavy again. You’re still conscious enough to point out, “You didn’t seem to have much of any, either, jumping in front of me like that. Calling me your wife. How long ‘fore they realise that’s a lie?”
His brows knit together, fingers drawing absent circles into your arms. “Shut up and get some sleep.”
Somehow, you find it in you to smirk. “‘Cos I’m right?”
“‘Cos the morphling’ll wear off soon, and it’s gonna hurt like hell.” Then, he softens. "And because you're a little right."
And you dread it, that first part. You can already feel the flames charring the edges of your consciousness, trying to take over again. Chin dipping back onto the table, you squeeze Haymitch’s hand tighter. He’s all you have here. No family to come sit with you, no friends who’ll take care of you the way he has. He's stupid for it, for putting himself in the crossfire, but it means something. Right now, you don’t know what, but you’ll figure it out. Maybe. If he’ll let you.
“You gonna leave?” You sound so small, and it leaves you regretting asking at all. This isn't you. You get by on banter and jabs, not... this. Not vulnerability. The scars might heal, but you won't be able to take back the things you've given to him today. Shreds of yourself you didn't know existed.
He shakes his hand; strokes your hair again. “Gonna be right here when you wake up, sweetheart. Not going anywhere.”
With the morphling humming through your veins and his gentle, soothing touch taking your mind away from the pain, you drift back into a restless, uncomfortable in-between.
One where he is here, and for that alone, the agony is almost worth it.
