THG fic: "Spin Control" [11/22]
Title: Spin Control
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Where’s My Victor? If you’re looking for the Peeta/Kat bits but don’t want to bother with the whole story, I’d recommend starting at around Chapter 17, where that gets going for real, though they do make their share of appearances before that too. Gale’s appearances will be scattered through the fic more evenly. Gale and Peeta both make their first appearance in Chapter 6. Kat, Chapter 11. Chaff is featured prominently as well.
“Spin Control” on LJ: Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10
Chapter 11: The Unbelievable True Backstory of Lyra Ingram
Dear Mags,
I hope this letter finds you and your family well. I know it should have gotten pretty warm already in Four at this time of year. Please remember that you have sons and daughters who can do the heavy lifting for you and Dana. Like her, I worry when you keep working in your garden in that weather.
I saw the interview you gave during the Victory Tour. Those were some sharp remarks you made about the districts that haven’t been blessed with many victories. It’s going to help our district marketing here and I know that’s why you said it. Thank you for that. Also, loved your hair.
Living in District Twelve is very different from what you and I are used to. The Games culture is different. It makes me remember what you told me about how it was in Four when you were young, in the days before the fence was moved. People don’t believe they could start faring better at the Games and aren’t likely to listen if Haymitch and I should try to tell them otherwise. They’re anxious to please the Capitol but can’t imagine a way of making that possible.
Haymitch says to give you his regards. Bunita probably told you how well he’s doing with sobriety, and it’s true. It’s a long road to go, obviously, but I think you’re right when you say that it’s people’s own responsibility to make the best of their situations. I think we’re doing that here, both of us. I didn’t use to be that optimistic, but currently I’m feeling pretty good about things. I get to spend a lot of time with Haymitch, which is nice.
Mags, I know you were worried about me the last time we met. You probably still are. I remember the conversation we had after I volunteered to move here. I wouldn’t have admitted it to you then, but you probably had a good point.
Please don’t be worried anymore. I’m fine. I promise. I’m sorry I’m not more like you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t make a life for myself in Four the same way you did. Still I’m doing what I need to be doing. All this might not be an ideal solution, but it’s mine. I needed it to be mine. I need to be here.
Enclosed, I’m sending you letters to Coral, Mom and Uncle Jaime, as I know that mail delivery outside of the Victors’ Rock can be shaky. Please have Hanny or one of your other children bring them over. Tell Uncle Lauro thank you for the rope. I made the best use of it, I think.
I miss talking to you. I can’t wait to see you again during the upcoming Games.
All the best,
Finnick
P.S.: I assume you used the opportunity to get rid of that fishing net in your living room finally, huh?
***
“Okay,” Finnick announced while Haymitch’s kitchen door fell shut behind him. “I give up. Why does everybody in your district think that I’m a pedophile?”
Haymitch barely looked up from the pot he’d been stirring. “Oh, that would be because Lyra Ingram slept with a tribute at the 52nd Games.”
Finnick stopped dead in his tracks, eyebrows shooting up.
He had just returned from a visit to town to buy some candles and other household supplies, and he was just fed up with all of it for once, mothers giving him looks of alarm and dragging their children away from him, as fast as they could, as if he could infect them with a disease.
It hadn’t even occurred to him that it could actually have anything to do with sex, that he wasn’t just making a little, grim, cynical jab at his own Capitol activities.
“What?” he said, for lack of better options.
He could have probably gotten this answer a lot sooner, if he’d ever thought to ask.
Haymitch smirked at the pot, as if all of it was a fun little story to tell during cooking, almost nothing grim about it at all.
“Why do you think they sent her back home? Just to show me the finger?” he said off-handedly. “I’m not that important to Snow. No,” he added with good humor. “She got that job done all by herself. Don’t ask me what in the world she was thinking. Probably wasn’t thinking at all.”
“Please tell me that tribute was past puberty,” Finnick managed, feeling slightly sick about his joke. But the other man waved it off with his wooden spoon, looking just a little ridiculous at the stove. It was a relief still, Finnick faintly thought, to see him taking charge of something as ordinary as a meal.
“Oh, he was old enough, he was… I think he’d just turned eighteen, actually. My age anyway,” Haymitch said. “She… now she was thirty-four and a mother on top of it. No idea if they’d been doing it with each other before his Games already. I walked in on them on the train. Tried to tell her she’s crazy, of course…” He stopped at that, very suddenly, regrouping before he continued in a strained voice that quickly grew careless again. “Tried to tell her a lot of things. But never mind Raymand and I had gone to school together, I was just a stupid kid to her. She wouldn’t listen to me. Wouldn’t even switch tributes with me.
“Anyway,” he continued. “He slipped in his interview. Flickerman asked him if he had a girl waiting for him, he turned and looked at her. All of Panem saw. I came home, everybody thought she’d fucked me too.
“She never came home,” he added, like an afterthought, and it was weird - he either called her she or by her full name, Lyra Ingram, as if it was a means to keep it impersonal. “Snow sent her straight back to her district.”
“And forced her daughter to volunteer during the next Games as punishment,” Finnick finished, his head swimming from all those juicy bits, the ever new mess of Games backstory.
Haymitch nodded. “Trish,” he said, more quietly. “That was her name. Yeah. Never made it out of the bloodbath. Media loved the story about her wanting to be like her ma, but she was sixteen and she wasn’t a fighter. She never would have qualified to volunteer normally. The other Careers had her for breakfast.”
Finnick watched the other man for a moment, analyzing the contents of the pot in front of him with the intent of a scientist, his posture all relaxed and aloof, as if he might as well start humming. It reminded him of the younger Haymitch the news channels had shown during last year’s coverage, ever so casual, ever so arrogant in that provocative way, as if nothing in the world could touch him. The television didn’t care about truth or lies, but that Haymitch had always been a lie. Everything had touched him.
Everything had touched him so much that he’d had to drink it away.
There was something strange in Haymitch’s tone when he talked about Lyra, who had come to District Twelve and tried to give it new hope, twenty-six years before Finnick. Who’d crushed that hope, most likely unintentionally, because they weren’t the legends the media wanted them to be - they were just people. They made dumb mistakes.
Sleeping with a tribute sounded like a particularly dumb mistake.
“Were you in love with her?” he eventually asked quietly. Maybe not love. Maybe a crush. Maybe that was all the same if you were eighteen, and people only touched you anymore if they’d bought you for sex.
“Tried to tell her a lot of things.”
Oh Haymitch, he thought with feeling.
Haymitch snorted. “She’d saved my life,” he said shortly. “What do you think?”
So as far as District Twelve was concerned, sleeping around was just what victors did, Finnick thought, sickened when he remembered his own news coverage, his affairs. Maybe Swagger hadn’t, Swagger with his lucky default victory, but Lyra had and they’d seen Haymitch do it for a while. And maybe it was supposed to have been Lyra the Career who’d first corrupted Haymitch, but clearly all victors were sluts one way or the other. Finnick, Career that he was, had definitely done it, the biggest slut of all. No surprise they’d greeted him with so much open disdain.
Who knew what those victors would do to your children once they brought them to the Capitol, out of your sight. It was just that there was nothing anybody could do about it, another facet of the Capitol’s punishment.
Then he looked at Haymitch, and it occurred to him that Haymitch had lost Lyra in two ways, because she’d preferred to sleep with another boy, a doomed, less damaged boy who hadn’t been sullied by the Games yet the way he had been, and because the President had taken her away from him after that, leaving him behind alone.
The people Haymitch loved just kept getting lost along the way.
Yet he’d just told Finnick the truth of the matter, for no reason but the fact that Finnick had asked. Because Finnick had needed to know.
Good thing that he wasn’t planning on going anywhere.
There were so many different positive things he felt about that man.
“What are we having?” he asked, stepping up close enough to smell a faint whiff of soap emanating from Haymitch’s direction before the steam from the pot waved it away. “Smells interesting.”
Haymitch hummed appreciatively. “It’s Sae’s recipe,” he said. “I grew up with it. I’d advise we call it beef stew and leave it at that.”
***
The last of the snow had long since melted in March, already heralding an early warm summer. The grey clouds covering the sky were a first this week. Gale Hawthorne, who had grown another inch, was huddled in a warm coat splattered with mud when he came walking into the backyard. The game bag wasn’t carried by him but by a girl his age, hair tamed by a long braid.
“That’s Katniss,” Gale said. “She’s the one who shoots them in the eye.”
There was the faintest challenge in his words; it was the first time Finnick had heard him use that many of them at once when he wasn’t talking money. Also interesting was the sharp look the girl gave her hunting partner now. There were things you just didn’t say aloud, except if you’d made a decision to trust somebody no matter what the district said.
Finnick brushed the dirt off his palms before he offered her a hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Those are impressive shots on a moving target.”
Katniss eyed his hand, taking it firmly but briefly, her eyes flickering across his face and taking in his beauty, followed by what was probably a resolution to never feel attracted to it. Considering she had to be about fifteen, Finnick couldn’t but think of Lyra and shudder at that whole train of thought.
“There wouldn’t be a lot of the squirrel left to sell if you hit them anywhere else,” she said in a guarded voice as if to convey, No thanks.
Gale looked from one of them to the other. “Kat’s dad died in the same cave-in mine did,” he said, unexpectedly, in that low, deceptively mature tone his voice had settled into through the winter. “She’s taking care of her kid sister now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How old is your sister?”
“Turning eleven.” Kat’s eyes blazed at that, warning him off.
You can’t have her ever.
I’d gladly take you and your bow over any child any day, Finnick thought, quirking his lips at her and making sure she read it on his face. There’d been a time when he wouldn’t have known how to talk to anybody, not even a fifteen-year-old, without flirting with them. But resolving to not care what this district thought of him had proven strangely liberating. Living with Haymitch had; the other victor rarely could be bothered to care about what people thought.
“You know,” he addressed Kat. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a bow, and I get bored. I’d make it worth your time if you would teach me. I’d pay in coins, or teach you how to use a spear in exchange.”
Kat’s face grew even blanker. “A spear isn’t a good hunting weapon,” she countered, raising her chin. “It’s only good for killing people.”
Fair enough, Finnick supposed, refraining from pointing out how that skill could still come in quite handy for someone mid-Reaping age, and turning towards Gale. “What have you got for us today?”
Game had been sparse this winter, but it seemed like the goosling had come back from the hills and it was the time of year when deer started venturing close to the fence. Gale offered him two bass he’d caught, which Finnick declined; he’d bullied Haymitch into the adventure of going winter fishing with him, when he’d never used a rod before outside of arena training, where Mags herself had taught him how to make a hook. It had been strangely calming to get Gale to confirm that he and his partner fished at a different lake, far away from theirs.
He wasn’t surprised when Kat started tagging along after that when Gale came to sell, and sometimes, when Gale was busy, she came on her own. Finnick couldn’t help but feel like he had passed some kind of district test that only natives understood.
***
“So I’ve been thinking,” Finnick said. “It’s just another couple of months until the Games. I want to try putting our tributes on a diet.”
Haymitch had been sitting in Finnick’s living room, putting a lot of focus and grumbling into mending a sock, and Finnick had plopped down on the armchair across from the couch, sprawling out and waiting for Haymitch to look up at him.
He did him the favor, eyebrows raised.
“This I have to hear,” he said and squarely placed the sock on the table.
Finnick got more comfortable. “Well, I think it’s a very good idea,” he said. “Most years’ tributes are starving. Even the merchie kids tend to be a little malnourished. So they hop the train and load up on Capitol food all week, right? But they can’t handle the sugar and the fat, they’ve never eaten that kind of food before, and they end up fighting it out in the bathroom when they should be focusing on training. Then, when they’ve barely gotten a grip on that, they enter the arena where they starve again and eat raw meat and plant roots. Now in Four, it’s easier, we just feed them fish because they’re used to fish and it’s easy to digest. And the other Careers pump theirs with proteins and steroids even before the Games, anyway.”
“You ain’t gonna transform two starving kids into Careers by changing their diet,” Haymitch pointed out, looking dubious and like he was barely stopping himself from laughing at Finnick, not in a positive way.
“No,” Finnick agreed, undeterred. “But it’ll help them acclimatize to the arena and it’ll make it easier for them to focus on winning. Now, I don’t know what they should be eating, either. But we can get a Games consult through Effie and have them figure out how to best feed them up through the week without…”
“I don’t think so,” Haymitch interrupted him, suddenly sounding resolute in a deceptively calm and too even way. Then he reached for his sock again, humming something to himself while he tried to pick up the needle again with clumsy fingers.
Finnick frowned. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from Haymitch exactly, but at worst, it would have been the other man humoring him for a while, then giving Finnick a detailed explanation of how he’d had a bad idea. But he’d just brushed it off, when it wouldn’t even have been that big a change. The whole reaction filled Finnick with a bit of alarm, having to suddenly consider the notion that maybe this was how Haymitch, who wasn’t a Career, dealt with mentoring on principle.
“You could at least hear me out,” he said, holding a tight rein on his voice.
Haymitch was eyeing his sock. “You’re talking of two starving kids who haven’t had a decent meal in their lives, and who’re about to die. I’m not gonna take away their last meals that they’ll ever get.”
If they’ve never had a full meal in their lives, they won’t know the difference anyway, Finnick edgily thought but knew better than to point out.
“I’m not suggesting we take food away from them, Haymitch. I’m talking about making sure they’re served healthy things they can digest well, instead of whatever people will be puking up in the vomitorium that season. They just eat what’s in front of them, they need us to make those decisions for them.”
“A potato peel diet or whatever ain’t gonna save their lives.”
“Funny.” Finnick rolled his eyes at him. “You want everything to stay the way it is? The way it is, Twelve isn’t standing enough of a chance at anything but a completely coincidental victory. I know you don’t need me to tell you that. We’ve got to start with the little things we can change right away, right? The big things, we can handle those later. I mean, the food probably isn’t going to make a world of difference, but it’ll keep improving their odds in small ways like that and they might just start averaging Final Eight. I think we can agree that that’s a good first step?”
“Newsflash, Odair,” Haymitch said with a harsh edge, looking up at him sharply. “It doesn’t matter how you place on the Games position table if you’re dead. Only ones who care about that are those freak geeks from Cornucopia Magazine, your must-read for Games marketers and sponsors.”
Finnick was already shaking his head decisively before the last words had left Haymitch’s mouth. “No, you just can’t think like that. There isn’t a magic trick to get from the worst district stats to a victory…”
“Actually, statistically speaking, Eleven’s currently the worst,” Haymitch said, probably just to show he had his numbers down like a good little mentor. He continued with a deadpan fake Games commentator voice. “They’ve got three victors to Twelve’s two, but they’ve been struggling to achieve victory again five years longer. Some Games experts have argued that that makes them even more pathetic.”
Finnick gave him an annoyed look. “Come on, don’t be like that. It’s not like I’m proposing transforming Twelve into a Career competitor. But you know how it works. All districts were bad off at first. But once there are more victors, there’s more food and that eventually means stronger tributes. Next, you get fans and sponsor attention.
“It’s not that hard to make Final Eight, because nobody else angles for that, everybody angles for victory in this all-or-nothing kind of way, like when they send their kids into the bloodbath. So we start getting them into Final Eight and maybe one will even make it further, but even if they don’t, with better stats to show for, we’ll have an easier time getting a sponsor once we get a real contender. And it would give the tributes more hope. You weren’t there last year, but Bee and Raif were just convinced that Twelve never wins anyway, and you can’t change things with that attitude.”
“So what now, you want us to start lying to them on top of changing the food?” There was a dangerous kind of amusement in Haymitch’s voice, taut like a bow aimed for a shot.
“No!” Finnick exclaimed in exasperation. “I want to actually change their odds.”
“You’ve got no idea what you’re even talking about,” Haymitch said. Abruptly, he pushed the sock away, getting up and rubbing his face as if, Finnick noticed with alarm, he was trying to stop his hand from shaking.
Automatically he started standing up as well, but paused when Haymitch jerkily moved to the window, crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest and staring into the night, perfectly still.
Not entirely sure what was going on and what to make of it, Finnick settled on leaning against the armrest of his chair so that he could glance at Haymitch in profile. But the other man’s face was expressionless, betraying nothing.
He knew that mentoring for so many years had badly damaged Haymitch, more so maybe than the whoring and the Games. Finnick was reasonably sure that mentoring had been the major reason for why Haymitch had started to drink. But he still hadn’t expected the other man to cut him off like this, with so much vigor.
Haymitch was clenching his jaw, eyes trained at something unseen outside and obviously fighting to keep the conversation going while still holding onto a semblance of composure.
“Almost every year,” he ground out, like it cost him. “Almost every year, Odair, whenever I’ve got tributes who’ll actually listen to me - Capitol knows that’s getting rare - every time, I have to tell them to run into the bloodbath. And no. It’s not because I need them to just get it over with. Not that I’ve ever done that,” he added snidely, self-depreciatingly under his breath. “It’s because this isn’t fucking Four, they’re so damn frail every time and they’ve got no idea how to survive in there, and they’re from Twelve, so not a single sponsor’s gonna listen. There ain’t a chance they’ll make it for a day without supplies. So I tell them to get the supplies. If they don’t, yeah, at least it’s over faster for everyone involved. If they do, great, I’ll have something to work with for a change.”
Finnick took a breath to clear his head, still thinking that maybe if he just made his point, Haymitch would listen. At least, he was talking to him now, so they could get to the bottom of this. He wet his lips, casting for arguments.
“It doesn’t have to stay like this though, does it?” he asked, knowing full well that he still was the apprentice, and Haymitch was the veteran; he didn’t know that he made sense. “I mean, things are changing if we want it or not. The Capitol is expecting a story from the two of us, what with you being sober and me being here. They want to give us their attention right now, we’re never getting that chance again. We can work with that attention, we can give them a story that’ll keep them interested, if we show progress. At least we won’t feel so damn helpless about it if we try to change it,” he added bitterly, because even he had gotten a strong taste of that helplessness already. And across the room, Haymitch just hardened his face more. “We have to stop them from thinking of Twelve tributes as interchangeable. We can make them love those kids because they’re from Twelve, because they’re recognizable.” He knew he was sounding like Mags now, what she had done for Four but he didn’t care. He’d gladly sound like Mags any day. “Sure we have to start small, but we have to start. And we’ve got years.” Decades, even. They had a whole life, whether they wanted to or not and that was exactly what Mags, on a cheeky day, would choose to call a business opportunity.
In a hesitant voice, he added, carefully, “I don’t understand what exactly this is about” because no, Haymitch wasn’t clamping down about this because he was married to some sort of dieting philosophy. Between the two of them, Finnick was the one obsessing over what to eat and how it influenced his physical appearance - Haymitch just ate.
At the window, Haymitch remained frozen. The glass of the window was mirroring his face for Finnick to see from the front, freshly shaven and tight in a disquieting, tense way and beyond that, plain unhappy. Like he could feel the weight of the world, and like it was crushing him underneath.
“You think I don’t know how to draw it out, you’re wrong,” Haymitch eventually muttered. “That’s not an issue. Sure I could send them away from the Cornucopia. So they’d starve instead, or die by mutt instead of Career. Use up a sponsor to keep them going another day, yes, but I ain’t got a lot of those left. And then I can’t use them anymore when it matters.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Odair. It can’t be changed. It’s better my way. It’s quicker. No need to play around with what they eat.”
“So you’ve got it all figured out, is that it? I mean, I know I’m pretty new at this. But I still know that that isn’t what the sponsors are seeing when you do it like that, and I know that you could come up with better plans, way better plans than I’ve got right now. All the sponsors see is tributes running to the Cornucopia although they should know better, then call it bad mentoring. Then when one of them makes it anyway, they call it good luck. We need to start making them believe that we know what we’re doing, then improve the stats and impress them with that. Half of the Final Eight every year are random loners who’ve just been hiding out, and then some of those win.”
“I don’t give a fuck what they think of me,” Haymitch snarled, punching the windowsill hard enough that it rattled and fully turning away.
Catching a glimpse at his distraught reflection, Finnick desperately tried to understand if maybe this was something to do with Lyra, something she had said or tried or done, then discarded that notion out of hand. This wasn’t about Lyra, this was about Haymitch, about the two of them maybe, about something that was happening now.
“Talk to me?” he helplessly begged.
Lowering his head and cooling himself off by sheer force of will, Haymitch’s face was working now, like he was trying to get something out but not knowing the words.
“Damn, I need a drink,” he muttered and Finnick couldn’t help it, the announcement alone sent a cold shiver down his spine. Haymitch took another shallow breath. “You want to know what’s going on, I need a fucking drink when I’m supposed to make up any plans to save them, Odair.”
And Finnick realized, all of a sudden, that Haymitch had to have spent all his time since rehab just not thinking about the next Games. He’d been drinking to be able to sleep and they’d dealt with that, Haymitch could handle insomnia. But being drunk had meant not having to think about the Games, too, it had meant not having to face how many times he’d tried but all his ideas just hadn’t ever been enough.
Seeing Haymitch, who usually closed off so easily, struggling with his composure just because he’d been asked to discuss this, Finnick felt a terrible pang when he understood that this was to Haymitch like his clients were to Finnick. He could never do it right. It left him hating himself, knowing he did everything wrong and he was just breaking everything further apart with everything he did. Nothing could ever make it right.
Finnick found himself swallowing compulsively, casting in his mind for the right thing to say when he knew there was nothing that could ever be done. They’d have to end the Hunger Games to make this stop.
“I think,” he said and caught himself, starting anew with a stronger voice that didn’t break, after all. “I think you don’t need any alcohol to deal with this. You’ve just been doing it on your own for too long. Shit, even the Capitol realized that, right? Nobody can do it on their own. I don’t think there’s anything you could have done better.
“But you’ve got me now, and we can do it together, alright? You don’t need to drink for that.” He felt shaken, knowing he didn’t know well enough what he was doing. There was one victor, Dune from District Nine who’d been tortured during her Games and even hearing the word set her off. He wasn’t even sure if it would be like that for an addict, if even saying the words would shake Haymitch. “And we don’t have to talk about it now. We can talk about it some other time, or I can do it alone and you can stay away from all of the mentoring as much as you can, if that’s what it takes. You don’t have to do anything.”
That wasn’t what he’d ever planned. He’d always thought he’d be doing the mentoring with Haymitch. Finnick didn’t know if he could even do that, fully take over mentoring both tributes while Haymitch stood back and just made appearances for the camera, whether he wouldn’t just end up like Haymitch if he tried keeping that up. But he realized he still had to offer that now, because he needed Haymitch to be stable and sober more than he needed his help. If for no other reason, it was his responsibility because it was his family who’d have to pay the price if Haymitch wasn’t.
If he was suddenly thinking that he also couldn’t bear losing Haymitch to despair again, this wasn’t the time.
But that proposition wasn’t what Haymitch reacted to, anyway, clutching the windowsill and staring into the night with wide eyes. He didn’t even comment on it.
He said, as if it cost him, “You want to make things harder for all of the tributes so that a chosen few can profit from it later.”
That put Finnick to a full stop, hesitating for a beat before he answered. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do.”
After another moment, he added, “Are you sure…”
“Save it for somebody else.”
Haymitch had cut him off, his reflection stiffening its jaw.
“There’s nothing you can change,” he informed Finnick. “Maybe they’ll make Final Eight more often, doesn’t mean they won’t suffer and die in the end.”
“Things are different now,” Finnick disagreed. “We can’t know that if we don’t try.”
“They’re not ours to play with, Odair.”
“No,” Finnick agreed, soft and determined. “They’re ours to bring home.”
Haymitch took a breath at that, deep and shaky, just filling his lungs and releasing it again unsteadily.
A long moment of silence passed, just them and the sticky air of the living room, the last cackles in the fireplace that they hadn’t bothered rekindling when it ran out of coal earlier in the evening.
“Okay,” Haymitch said, in a voice that wasn’t quite his own. “Okay, let’s try the food thing for a stretch, let’s start with that.”
Knowing that Haymitch was trying so hard to do it properly, for the tributes and the district and not for Finnick, Finnick stopped himself from saying thank you in reply.
“Okay,” he said as well.
It went unspoken that they’d be discussing the other propositions, too, and maybe Haymitch would agree with them and maybe he wouldn’t, but he would try not brushing them off instinctually when he thought he couldn’t handle them. He’d be throwing in his considerable smarts and expertise, as much as he could make himself without falling apart. The objective would be starting to bring more of them home.
It’s true. I couldn’t bear losing him, Finnick thought. It had nothing to do with his family, and it scared him a little, how strongly he was feeling it and how different it had already become from his need to protect Coral or Perri.
“Want to stay here tonight?” he asked, thinking of both the alcohol that Haymitch had professed to missing right now and the insomnia that sometimes started to return. He still, sometimes, spent nights at Haymitch’s, guarding his sleep; they avoided talking about that, acting like there was nothing to it.
Breathing so deeply that the sound rang through the room, Haymitch eventually nodded.
“I’ll fetch you a sleeping pill then,” Finnick said and turned to go, but when he had another look around, he noticed that Haymitch had been using the window himself to follow Finnick’s reflection with his eyes, seeming unable to pull them away even now that Finnick had noticed.
There was a pause. Haymitch was very still, just looking at his face in the window, unreadable to Finnick.
“What?” Finnick said.
Haymitch shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
on to chapter 12
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Where’s My Victor? If you’re looking for the Peeta/Kat bits but don’t want to bother with the whole story, I’d recommend starting at around Chapter 17, where that gets going for real, though they do make their share of appearances before that too. Gale’s appearances will be scattered through the fic more evenly. Gale and Peeta both make their first appearance in Chapter 6. Kat, Chapter 11. Chaff is featured prominently as well.
“Spin Control” on LJ: Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10
Chapter 11: The Unbelievable True Backstory of Lyra Ingram
Dear Mags,
I hope this letter finds you and your family well. I know it should have gotten pretty warm already in Four at this time of year. Please remember that you have sons and daughters who can do the heavy lifting for you and Dana. Like her, I worry when you keep working in your garden in that weather.
I saw the interview you gave during the Victory Tour. Those were some sharp remarks you made about the districts that haven’t been blessed with many victories. It’s going to help our district marketing here and I know that’s why you said it. Thank you for that. Also, loved your hair.
Living in District Twelve is very different from what you and I are used to. The Games culture is different. It makes me remember what you told me about how it was in Four when you were young, in the days before the fence was moved. People don’t believe they could start faring better at the Games and aren’t likely to listen if Haymitch and I should try to tell them otherwise. They’re anxious to please the Capitol but can’t imagine a way of making that possible.
Haymitch says to give you his regards. Bunita probably told you how well he’s doing with sobriety, and it’s true. It’s a long road to go, obviously, but I think you’re right when you say that it’s people’s own responsibility to make the best of their situations. I think we’re doing that here, both of us. I didn’t use to be that optimistic, but currently I’m feeling pretty good about things. I get to spend a lot of time with Haymitch, which is nice.
Mags, I know you were worried about me the last time we met. You probably still are. I remember the conversation we had after I volunteered to move here. I wouldn’t have admitted it to you then, but you probably had a good point.
Please don’t be worried anymore. I’m fine. I promise. I’m sorry I’m not more like you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t make a life for myself in Four the same way you did. Still I’m doing what I need to be doing. All this might not be an ideal solution, but it’s mine. I needed it to be mine. I need to be here.
Enclosed, I’m sending you letters to Coral, Mom and Uncle Jaime, as I know that mail delivery outside of the Victors’ Rock can be shaky. Please have Hanny or one of your other children bring them over. Tell Uncle Lauro thank you for the rope. I made the best use of it, I think.
I miss talking to you. I can’t wait to see you again during the upcoming Games.
All the best,
Finnick
P.S.: I assume you used the opportunity to get rid of that fishing net in your living room finally, huh?
***
“Okay,” Finnick announced while Haymitch’s kitchen door fell shut behind him. “I give up. Why does everybody in your district think that I’m a pedophile?”
Haymitch barely looked up from the pot he’d been stirring. “Oh, that would be because Lyra Ingram slept with a tribute at the 52nd Games.”
Finnick stopped dead in his tracks, eyebrows shooting up.
He had just returned from a visit to town to buy some candles and other household supplies, and he was just fed up with all of it for once, mothers giving him looks of alarm and dragging their children away from him, as fast as they could, as if he could infect them with a disease.
It hadn’t even occurred to him that it could actually have anything to do with sex, that he wasn’t just making a little, grim, cynical jab at his own Capitol activities.
“What?” he said, for lack of better options.
He could have probably gotten this answer a lot sooner, if he’d ever thought to ask.
Haymitch smirked at the pot, as if all of it was a fun little story to tell during cooking, almost nothing grim about it at all.
“Why do you think they sent her back home? Just to show me the finger?” he said off-handedly. “I’m not that important to Snow. No,” he added with good humor. “She got that job done all by herself. Don’t ask me what in the world she was thinking. Probably wasn’t thinking at all.”
“Please tell me that tribute was past puberty,” Finnick managed, feeling slightly sick about his joke. But the other man waved it off with his wooden spoon, looking just a little ridiculous at the stove. It was a relief still, Finnick faintly thought, to see him taking charge of something as ordinary as a meal.
“Oh, he was old enough, he was… I think he’d just turned eighteen, actually. My age anyway,” Haymitch said. “She… now she was thirty-four and a mother on top of it. No idea if they’d been doing it with each other before his Games already. I walked in on them on the train. Tried to tell her she’s crazy, of course…” He stopped at that, very suddenly, regrouping before he continued in a strained voice that quickly grew careless again. “Tried to tell her a lot of things. But never mind Raymand and I had gone to school together, I was just a stupid kid to her. She wouldn’t listen to me. Wouldn’t even switch tributes with me.
“Anyway,” he continued. “He slipped in his interview. Flickerman asked him if he had a girl waiting for him, he turned and looked at her. All of Panem saw. I came home, everybody thought she’d fucked me too.
“She never came home,” he added, like an afterthought, and it was weird - he either called her she or by her full name, Lyra Ingram, as if it was a means to keep it impersonal. “Snow sent her straight back to her district.”
“And forced her daughter to volunteer during the next Games as punishment,” Finnick finished, his head swimming from all those juicy bits, the ever new mess of Games backstory.
Haymitch nodded. “Trish,” he said, more quietly. “That was her name. Yeah. Never made it out of the bloodbath. Media loved the story about her wanting to be like her ma, but she was sixteen and she wasn’t a fighter. She never would have qualified to volunteer normally. The other Careers had her for breakfast.”
Finnick watched the other man for a moment, analyzing the contents of the pot in front of him with the intent of a scientist, his posture all relaxed and aloof, as if he might as well start humming. It reminded him of the younger Haymitch the news channels had shown during last year’s coverage, ever so casual, ever so arrogant in that provocative way, as if nothing in the world could touch him. The television didn’t care about truth or lies, but that Haymitch had always been a lie. Everything had touched him.
Everything had touched him so much that he’d had to drink it away.
There was something strange in Haymitch’s tone when he talked about Lyra, who had come to District Twelve and tried to give it new hope, twenty-six years before Finnick. Who’d crushed that hope, most likely unintentionally, because they weren’t the legends the media wanted them to be - they were just people. They made dumb mistakes.
Sleeping with a tribute sounded like a particularly dumb mistake.
“Were you in love with her?” he eventually asked quietly. Maybe not love. Maybe a crush. Maybe that was all the same if you were eighteen, and people only touched you anymore if they’d bought you for sex.
“Tried to tell her a lot of things.”
Oh Haymitch, he thought with feeling.
Haymitch snorted. “She’d saved my life,” he said shortly. “What do you think?”
So as far as District Twelve was concerned, sleeping around was just what victors did, Finnick thought, sickened when he remembered his own news coverage, his affairs. Maybe Swagger hadn’t, Swagger with his lucky default victory, but Lyra had and they’d seen Haymitch do it for a while. And maybe it was supposed to have been Lyra the Career who’d first corrupted Haymitch, but clearly all victors were sluts one way or the other. Finnick, Career that he was, had definitely done it, the biggest slut of all. No surprise they’d greeted him with so much open disdain.
Who knew what those victors would do to your children once they brought them to the Capitol, out of your sight. It was just that there was nothing anybody could do about it, another facet of the Capitol’s punishment.
Then he looked at Haymitch, and it occurred to him that Haymitch had lost Lyra in two ways, because she’d preferred to sleep with another boy, a doomed, less damaged boy who hadn’t been sullied by the Games yet the way he had been, and because the President had taken her away from him after that, leaving him behind alone.
The people Haymitch loved just kept getting lost along the way.
Yet he’d just told Finnick the truth of the matter, for no reason but the fact that Finnick had asked. Because Finnick had needed to know.
Good thing that he wasn’t planning on going anywhere.
There were so many different positive things he felt about that man.
“What are we having?” he asked, stepping up close enough to smell a faint whiff of soap emanating from Haymitch’s direction before the steam from the pot waved it away. “Smells interesting.”
Haymitch hummed appreciatively. “It’s Sae’s recipe,” he said. “I grew up with it. I’d advise we call it beef stew and leave it at that.”
***
The last of the snow had long since melted in March, already heralding an early warm summer. The grey clouds covering the sky were a first this week. Gale Hawthorne, who had grown another inch, was huddled in a warm coat splattered with mud when he came walking into the backyard. The game bag wasn’t carried by him but by a girl his age, hair tamed by a long braid.
“That’s Katniss,” Gale said. “She’s the one who shoots them in the eye.”
There was the faintest challenge in his words; it was the first time Finnick had heard him use that many of them at once when he wasn’t talking money. Also interesting was the sharp look the girl gave her hunting partner now. There were things you just didn’t say aloud, except if you’d made a decision to trust somebody no matter what the district said.
Finnick brushed the dirt off his palms before he offered her a hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Those are impressive shots on a moving target.”
Katniss eyed his hand, taking it firmly but briefly, her eyes flickering across his face and taking in his beauty, followed by what was probably a resolution to never feel attracted to it. Considering she had to be about fifteen, Finnick couldn’t but think of Lyra and shudder at that whole train of thought.
“There wouldn’t be a lot of the squirrel left to sell if you hit them anywhere else,” she said in a guarded voice as if to convey, No thanks.
Gale looked from one of them to the other. “Kat’s dad died in the same cave-in mine did,” he said, unexpectedly, in that low, deceptively mature tone his voice had settled into through the winter. “She’s taking care of her kid sister now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How old is your sister?”
“Turning eleven.” Kat’s eyes blazed at that, warning him off.
You can’t have her ever.
I’d gladly take you and your bow over any child any day, Finnick thought, quirking his lips at her and making sure she read it on his face. There’d been a time when he wouldn’t have known how to talk to anybody, not even a fifteen-year-old, without flirting with them. But resolving to not care what this district thought of him had proven strangely liberating. Living with Haymitch had; the other victor rarely could be bothered to care about what people thought.
“You know,” he addressed Kat. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a bow, and I get bored. I’d make it worth your time if you would teach me. I’d pay in coins, or teach you how to use a spear in exchange.”
Kat’s face grew even blanker. “A spear isn’t a good hunting weapon,” she countered, raising her chin. “It’s only good for killing people.”
Fair enough, Finnick supposed, refraining from pointing out how that skill could still come in quite handy for someone mid-Reaping age, and turning towards Gale. “What have you got for us today?”
Game had been sparse this winter, but it seemed like the goosling had come back from the hills and it was the time of year when deer started venturing close to the fence. Gale offered him two bass he’d caught, which Finnick declined; he’d bullied Haymitch into the adventure of going winter fishing with him, when he’d never used a rod before outside of arena training, where Mags herself had taught him how to make a hook. It had been strangely calming to get Gale to confirm that he and his partner fished at a different lake, far away from theirs.
He wasn’t surprised when Kat started tagging along after that when Gale came to sell, and sometimes, when Gale was busy, she came on her own. Finnick couldn’t help but feel like he had passed some kind of district test that only natives understood.
***
“So I’ve been thinking,” Finnick said. “It’s just another couple of months until the Games. I want to try putting our tributes on a diet.”
Haymitch had been sitting in Finnick’s living room, putting a lot of focus and grumbling into mending a sock, and Finnick had plopped down on the armchair across from the couch, sprawling out and waiting for Haymitch to look up at him.
He did him the favor, eyebrows raised.
“This I have to hear,” he said and squarely placed the sock on the table.
Finnick got more comfortable. “Well, I think it’s a very good idea,” he said. “Most years’ tributes are starving. Even the merchie kids tend to be a little malnourished. So they hop the train and load up on Capitol food all week, right? But they can’t handle the sugar and the fat, they’ve never eaten that kind of food before, and they end up fighting it out in the bathroom when they should be focusing on training. Then, when they’ve barely gotten a grip on that, they enter the arena where they starve again and eat raw meat and plant roots. Now in Four, it’s easier, we just feed them fish because they’re used to fish and it’s easy to digest. And the other Careers pump theirs with proteins and steroids even before the Games, anyway.”
“You ain’t gonna transform two starving kids into Careers by changing their diet,” Haymitch pointed out, looking dubious and like he was barely stopping himself from laughing at Finnick, not in a positive way.
“No,” Finnick agreed, undeterred. “But it’ll help them acclimatize to the arena and it’ll make it easier for them to focus on winning. Now, I don’t know what they should be eating, either. But we can get a Games consult through Effie and have them figure out how to best feed them up through the week without…”
“I don’t think so,” Haymitch interrupted him, suddenly sounding resolute in a deceptively calm and too even way. Then he reached for his sock again, humming something to himself while he tried to pick up the needle again with clumsy fingers.
Finnick frowned. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from Haymitch exactly, but at worst, it would have been the other man humoring him for a while, then giving Finnick a detailed explanation of how he’d had a bad idea. But he’d just brushed it off, when it wouldn’t even have been that big a change. The whole reaction filled Finnick with a bit of alarm, having to suddenly consider the notion that maybe this was how Haymitch, who wasn’t a Career, dealt with mentoring on principle.
“You could at least hear me out,” he said, holding a tight rein on his voice.
Haymitch was eyeing his sock. “You’re talking of two starving kids who haven’t had a decent meal in their lives, and who’re about to die. I’m not gonna take away their last meals that they’ll ever get.”
If they’ve never had a full meal in their lives, they won’t know the difference anyway, Finnick edgily thought but knew better than to point out.
“I’m not suggesting we take food away from them, Haymitch. I’m talking about making sure they’re served healthy things they can digest well, instead of whatever people will be puking up in the vomitorium that season. They just eat what’s in front of them, they need us to make those decisions for them.”
“A potato peel diet or whatever ain’t gonna save their lives.”
“Funny.” Finnick rolled his eyes at him. “You want everything to stay the way it is? The way it is, Twelve isn’t standing enough of a chance at anything but a completely coincidental victory. I know you don’t need me to tell you that. We’ve got to start with the little things we can change right away, right? The big things, we can handle those later. I mean, the food probably isn’t going to make a world of difference, but it’ll keep improving their odds in small ways like that and they might just start averaging Final Eight. I think we can agree that that’s a good first step?”
“Newsflash, Odair,” Haymitch said with a harsh edge, looking up at him sharply. “It doesn’t matter how you place on the Games position table if you’re dead. Only ones who care about that are those freak geeks from Cornucopia Magazine, your must-read for Games marketers and sponsors.”
Finnick was already shaking his head decisively before the last words had left Haymitch’s mouth. “No, you just can’t think like that. There isn’t a magic trick to get from the worst district stats to a victory…”
“Actually, statistically speaking, Eleven’s currently the worst,” Haymitch said, probably just to show he had his numbers down like a good little mentor. He continued with a deadpan fake Games commentator voice. “They’ve got three victors to Twelve’s two, but they’ve been struggling to achieve victory again five years longer. Some Games experts have argued that that makes them even more pathetic.”
Finnick gave him an annoyed look. “Come on, don’t be like that. It’s not like I’m proposing transforming Twelve into a Career competitor. But you know how it works. All districts were bad off at first. But once there are more victors, there’s more food and that eventually means stronger tributes. Next, you get fans and sponsor attention.
“It’s not that hard to make Final Eight, because nobody else angles for that, everybody angles for victory in this all-or-nothing kind of way, like when they send their kids into the bloodbath. So we start getting them into Final Eight and maybe one will even make it further, but even if they don’t, with better stats to show for, we’ll have an easier time getting a sponsor once we get a real contender. And it would give the tributes more hope. You weren’t there last year, but Bee and Raif were just convinced that Twelve never wins anyway, and you can’t change things with that attitude.”
“So what now, you want us to start lying to them on top of changing the food?” There was a dangerous kind of amusement in Haymitch’s voice, taut like a bow aimed for a shot.
“No!” Finnick exclaimed in exasperation. “I want to actually change their odds.”
“You’ve got no idea what you’re even talking about,” Haymitch said. Abruptly, he pushed the sock away, getting up and rubbing his face as if, Finnick noticed with alarm, he was trying to stop his hand from shaking.
Automatically he started standing up as well, but paused when Haymitch jerkily moved to the window, crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest and staring into the night, perfectly still.
Not entirely sure what was going on and what to make of it, Finnick settled on leaning against the armrest of his chair so that he could glance at Haymitch in profile. But the other man’s face was expressionless, betraying nothing.
He knew that mentoring for so many years had badly damaged Haymitch, more so maybe than the whoring and the Games. Finnick was reasonably sure that mentoring had been the major reason for why Haymitch had started to drink. But he still hadn’t expected the other man to cut him off like this, with so much vigor.
Haymitch was clenching his jaw, eyes trained at something unseen outside and obviously fighting to keep the conversation going while still holding onto a semblance of composure.
“Almost every year,” he ground out, like it cost him. “Almost every year, Odair, whenever I’ve got tributes who’ll actually listen to me - Capitol knows that’s getting rare - every time, I have to tell them to run into the bloodbath. And no. It’s not because I need them to just get it over with. Not that I’ve ever done that,” he added snidely, self-depreciatingly under his breath. “It’s because this isn’t fucking Four, they’re so damn frail every time and they’ve got no idea how to survive in there, and they’re from Twelve, so not a single sponsor’s gonna listen. There ain’t a chance they’ll make it for a day without supplies. So I tell them to get the supplies. If they don’t, yeah, at least it’s over faster for everyone involved. If they do, great, I’ll have something to work with for a change.”
Finnick took a breath to clear his head, still thinking that maybe if he just made his point, Haymitch would listen. At least, he was talking to him now, so they could get to the bottom of this. He wet his lips, casting for arguments.
“It doesn’t have to stay like this though, does it?” he asked, knowing full well that he still was the apprentice, and Haymitch was the veteran; he didn’t know that he made sense. “I mean, things are changing if we want it or not. The Capitol is expecting a story from the two of us, what with you being sober and me being here. They want to give us their attention right now, we’re never getting that chance again. We can work with that attention, we can give them a story that’ll keep them interested, if we show progress. At least we won’t feel so damn helpless about it if we try to change it,” he added bitterly, because even he had gotten a strong taste of that helplessness already. And across the room, Haymitch just hardened his face more. “We have to stop them from thinking of Twelve tributes as interchangeable. We can make them love those kids because they’re from Twelve, because they’re recognizable.” He knew he was sounding like Mags now, what she had done for Four but he didn’t care. He’d gladly sound like Mags any day. “Sure we have to start small, but we have to start. And we’ve got years.” Decades, even. They had a whole life, whether they wanted to or not and that was exactly what Mags, on a cheeky day, would choose to call a business opportunity.
In a hesitant voice, he added, carefully, “I don’t understand what exactly this is about” because no, Haymitch wasn’t clamping down about this because he was married to some sort of dieting philosophy. Between the two of them, Finnick was the one obsessing over what to eat and how it influenced his physical appearance - Haymitch just ate.
At the window, Haymitch remained frozen. The glass of the window was mirroring his face for Finnick to see from the front, freshly shaven and tight in a disquieting, tense way and beyond that, plain unhappy. Like he could feel the weight of the world, and like it was crushing him underneath.
“You think I don’t know how to draw it out, you’re wrong,” Haymitch eventually muttered. “That’s not an issue. Sure I could send them away from the Cornucopia. So they’d starve instead, or die by mutt instead of Career. Use up a sponsor to keep them going another day, yes, but I ain’t got a lot of those left. And then I can’t use them anymore when it matters.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Odair. It can’t be changed. It’s better my way. It’s quicker. No need to play around with what they eat.”
“So you’ve got it all figured out, is that it? I mean, I know I’m pretty new at this. But I still know that that isn’t what the sponsors are seeing when you do it like that, and I know that you could come up with better plans, way better plans than I’ve got right now. All the sponsors see is tributes running to the Cornucopia although they should know better, then call it bad mentoring. Then when one of them makes it anyway, they call it good luck. We need to start making them believe that we know what we’re doing, then improve the stats and impress them with that. Half of the Final Eight every year are random loners who’ve just been hiding out, and then some of those win.”
“I don’t give a fuck what they think of me,” Haymitch snarled, punching the windowsill hard enough that it rattled and fully turning away.
Catching a glimpse at his distraught reflection, Finnick desperately tried to understand if maybe this was something to do with Lyra, something she had said or tried or done, then discarded that notion out of hand. This wasn’t about Lyra, this was about Haymitch, about the two of them maybe, about something that was happening now.
“Talk to me?” he helplessly begged.
Lowering his head and cooling himself off by sheer force of will, Haymitch’s face was working now, like he was trying to get something out but not knowing the words.
“Damn, I need a drink,” he muttered and Finnick couldn’t help it, the announcement alone sent a cold shiver down his spine. Haymitch took another shallow breath. “You want to know what’s going on, I need a fucking drink when I’m supposed to make up any plans to save them, Odair.”
And Finnick realized, all of a sudden, that Haymitch had to have spent all his time since rehab just not thinking about the next Games. He’d been drinking to be able to sleep and they’d dealt with that, Haymitch could handle insomnia. But being drunk had meant not having to think about the Games, too, it had meant not having to face how many times he’d tried but all his ideas just hadn’t ever been enough.
Seeing Haymitch, who usually closed off so easily, struggling with his composure just because he’d been asked to discuss this, Finnick felt a terrible pang when he understood that this was to Haymitch like his clients were to Finnick. He could never do it right. It left him hating himself, knowing he did everything wrong and he was just breaking everything further apart with everything he did. Nothing could ever make it right.
Finnick found himself swallowing compulsively, casting in his mind for the right thing to say when he knew there was nothing that could ever be done. They’d have to end the Hunger Games to make this stop.
“I think,” he said and caught himself, starting anew with a stronger voice that didn’t break, after all. “I think you don’t need any alcohol to deal with this. You’ve just been doing it on your own for too long. Shit, even the Capitol realized that, right? Nobody can do it on their own. I don’t think there’s anything you could have done better.
“But you’ve got me now, and we can do it together, alright? You don’t need to drink for that.” He felt shaken, knowing he didn’t know well enough what he was doing. There was one victor, Dune from District Nine who’d been tortured during her Games and even hearing the word set her off. He wasn’t even sure if it would be like that for an addict, if even saying the words would shake Haymitch. “And we don’t have to talk about it now. We can talk about it some other time, or I can do it alone and you can stay away from all of the mentoring as much as you can, if that’s what it takes. You don’t have to do anything.”
That wasn’t what he’d ever planned. He’d always thought he’d be doing the mentoring with Haymitch. Finnick didn’t know if he could even do that, fully take over mentoring both tributes while Haymitch stood back and just made appearances for the camera, whether he wouldn’t just end up like Haymitch if he tried keeping that up. But he realized he still had to offer that now, because he needed Haymitch to be stable and sober more than he needed his help. If for no other reason, it was his responsibility because it was his family who’d have to pay the price if Haymitch wasn’t.
If he was suddenly thinking that he also couldn’t bear losing Haymitch to despair again, this wasn’t the time.
But that proposition wasn’t what Haymitch reacted to, anyway, clutching the windowsill and staring into the night with wide eyes. He didn’t even comment on it.
He said, as if it cost him, “You want to make things harder for all of the tributes so that a chosen few can profit from it later.”
That put Finnick to a full stop, hesitating for a beat before he answered. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do.”
After another moment, he added, “Are you sure…”
“Save it for somebody else.”
Haymitch had cut him off, his reflection stiffening its jaw.
“There’s nothing you can change,” he informed Finnick. “Maybe they’ll make Final Eight more often, doesn’t mean they won’t suffer and die in the end.”
“Things are different now,” Finnick disagreed. “We can’t know that if we don’t try.”
“They’re not ours to play with, Odair.”
“No,” Finnick agreed, soft and determined. “They’re ours to bring home.”
Haymitch took a breath at that, deep and shaky, just filling his lungs and releasing it again unsteadily.
A long moment of silence passed, just them and the sticky air of the living room, the last cackles in the fireplace that they hadn’t bothered rekindling when it ran out of coal earlier in the evening.
“Okay,” Haymitch said, in a voice that wasn’t quite his own. “Okay, let’s try the food thing for a stretch, let’s start with that.”
Knowing that Haymitch was trying so hard to do it properly, for the tributes and the district and not for Finnick, Finnick stopped himself from saying thank you in reply.
“Okay,” he said as well.
It went unspoken that they’d be discussing the other propositions, too, and maybe Haymitch would agree with them and maybe he wouldn’t, but he would try not brushing them off instinctually when he thought he couldn’t handle them. He’d be throwing in his considerable smarts and expertise, as much as he could make himself without falling apart. The objective would be starting to bring more of them home.
It’s true. I couldn’t bear losing him, Finnick thought. It had nothing to do with his family, and it scared him a little, how strongly he was feeling it and how different it had already become from his need to protect Coral or Perri.
“Want to stay here tonight?” he asked, thinking of both the alcohol that Haymitch had professed to missing right now and the insomnia that sometimes started to return. He still, sometimes, spent nights at Haymitch’s, guarding his sleep; they avoided talking about that, acting like there was nothing to it.
Breathing so deeply that the sound rang through the room, Haymitch eventually nodded.
“I’ll fetch you a sleeping pill then,” Finnick said and turned to go, but when he had another look around, he noticed that Haymitch had been using the window himself to follow Finnick’s reflection with his eyes, seeming unable to pull them away even now that Finnick had noticed.
There was a pause. Haymitch was very still, just looking at his face in the window, unreadable to Finnick.
“What?” Finnick said.
Haymitch shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
on to chapter 12